Universalizing equality made freedom-as-non-domination seem unrealistic

Evidence

For thinkers like Paley and Bentham it would have been axiomatic that all human beings are equal, even if in practice they did not draw the full implications of this equality. ‘Everybody to count for one, nobody for more than one’, in the slogan ascribed to Bentham by John Stuart Mill (1969: 257). Given such an assumption of equality, any ideal for government would have to present itself as a universal ideal, not just as an ideal for an elite citizenry. And the ideal of universal nondomination, the ideal of securing a non-dominated status for every adult, might well have seemed a fantasy to thinkers who took for granted the subordinate status of women and employees. — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 263

Categorization

• QUESTION: A provocative inversion: the very principle of universal equality is what drove theorists away from a richer conception of liberty, because they could not imagine it applying to women and servants.
• XREF: connects to: Freedom and equality form a fundamental, unresolved antinomy — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 2567; True equality among people is impossible due to inescapable uniqueness — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 187; The abstract ideal of human equality secretly serves totalitarian homogenization — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from…, 117 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Freedom and equality form a fundamental, unresolved antinomy #expands (0.85) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 2567
• Freedom and equality are mutually contradictory demands, not harmonious ideals #expands (0.85) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 2573
• The abstract ideal of human equality secretly serves totalitarian homogenization #corroborates (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 117
• True equality among people is impossible due to inescapable uniqueness #corroborates (0.75) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 187
• Totalitarian rule replaces external coercion with domination from within each person #complicates (0.75)
• Individual uniqueness as a value denies equality rather than grounds it #corroborates (0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 690
• Decentralized pursuit of non-domination breeds accumulating petty despotisms, not freedom #complicates (0.70) — Philip Pettit, Republicanism, 456