Egalitarian justice and interpersonal comparison

This paper surveys the strengths and weaknesses of three widely-discussed e galitarian standards of interpersonal comparison: welfare, resource, and ca pability. We argue that welfare egalitarianism is beset by numerous serious problems, and should be rejected. Capability and resourcist standards conf orm with egalitarian convictions more closely, but each faces distinctive p roblems. We itemise a set of desiderata which a fully adequate account of i nterpersonal comparison would satisfy. We conclude that the choice between capability and resourcist standards turns on the relative importance of suc h an account being able to accommodate reasonable pluralism and identify in equality in a publicly verifiable manner.