What Should Egalitarians Believe?

This article is concerned to eliminate a number of possible confusions in egalitarian thought. I begin by showing that the most plausible forms of egalitarianism do not fit straightforwardly on either side of the distinction between Telic and Deontic egalitarianism. I go on to argue that the question of the scope of egalitarian distributive principles cannot be answered in the abstract, but instead depends on giving a prior account of the different ways in which distributive inequality can be bad. I then discuss some misconceptions about the "Levelling Down Objection," and about the relationship between egalitarianism and prioritarianism. In doing so, my aim is to present a more plausible account of what egalitarians should believe.