This book defends an original and pluralist theory of when and why discrimination wrongs people. Starting from actual legal cases in which claimants have alleged wrongful discrimination by other people or by the state, Sophia Moreau argues that we can best understand these people's complaints by thinking of them as complaints about different ways in which they have not been treated as equals in their societies - in particular, through unfair subordination, through the violation of their right to a particular deliberative freedom, or through the denial to them of access to a basic good, that is, a good that this person must have access to if they are to be, and to be seen as, an equal in their society.

The book devotes a chapter to each of these wrongs, exploring in detail what unfair subordination consists of; what deliberative freedoms are, and when each of us has a right to them; and what it means to deny someone access to a basic good. The author explains why these wrongs are each distinctive, but are each a different way of failing to treat some people as the equals of others. Finally the author argues that both the state and we as individuals have a duty to treat others as equals, in these three specific senses.

Sophia Moreau is Assistant Professor of Law and Philosophy at the University of Toronto. Her current research focuses on equality rights in the public and private sectors. She has written on the role of comparator groups in equality rights analysis (Journal of Law and Equality); on the relevance of philosophical analysis to constitutional argument (Traversing Disciplinary Difference); on practical reasoning and character (Ethics); and on a number of issues in normative ethics (Ethics and Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society). Prior to joining the University of Toronto, she clerked for Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin at the Supreme Court of Canada (2002–2003).

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