According to the Dictionary of Social Sciences, the concept of human equality if one of the hallmarks of the Enlightenment "social thought and the focus of a long tradition of debate and struggle over competing visions of government and social justice" (Calhoun 2002). The concept of equality is central to Western society and reflects the secularization of the Christian notion of "equality before God - as well as a challenge to the Christian belief in the inevitability of worldly inequality" (Calhoun 2002). Early social theorists such as Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and John Locke, acknowledged the inequality of natural gifts, however they believe in the equality of indivi

The three distinct meanings of equality that inform most debates over social justice and provide many of the dividing lines of Western political life are: equality before the law, equality of opportunity, and equality of results or condition (Calhoun 2002). Equality before the law refers to the idea that an individual's identity, status, and origins are irrelevant in matters of justice and public life: "the law treats individuals abstractly, whether as plaintiffs seeking redress or as defendants accused of criminal behavior" (Calhoun 2002). Equality of opportunity refers to the idea that all economic participants have the same chance to occupy various positions in society: "in principle, position is accorded by talent and effort rather than by inherited social status or wealth" (Calhoun 2002). Equality of results refers to the equal distribution of goods within society: "long the ideal, if not the practice, of communist societies" (Calhoun 2002). The first two are usually viewed as basic to democracy and liberal economies, however there is more disagreement over the role of the third (Calhoun 2002).

duals within the institutions of civil and political society (Calhoun 2002). The idea of the state being responsible for maintaining equality is a concept that has a history of struggle in Western political history over just exactly what that role entails (Calhoun 2002). Examples include the ongoing efforts to eliminate the various corporate divisions of society "(the ranked 'estates' of feudalism, slavery, the special status of the church, the subordinate status of women)," and debates over the difference between, and desirability of, "equality of opportunity a

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