NO END TO EQUALITY

John White argues that 'egalitarianism, in education as elsewhere, is a will-o'-the-wisp'.(1) He claims that recent defences of egalitariani sm, among which he kindly includes my own along with those of Thomas N agel and Kai Nielsen, have failed to answer the basic question of why a more equal society should be regarded as valuable. I shall try to sh ow that the positive philosophical commitments contained in his argume nt may point the way to an answer.