Toward a Pragmatist Feminist Egalitarianism: Redescribing the Vertical-Horizontal Debate From a Feminist Perspective

In this response to David Rondel's Pragmatist Egalitarianism, I suggest that the disagreement between vertical egalitarians and horizontal egalitarians has deeper roots than Rondel acknowledges. Using feminist egalitarianism as my example, I suggest that this is because Rondel fails to note that horizontal egalitarians do not merely offer an alternative account of the sites of and remedies for inequality than do vertical egalitarians; they also see vertical egalitarianism itself as contributing to inequality. Yet I also contend that, even though the two sides of the vertical-horizontal debate are more divided than Rondel lets on, a pragmatist egalitarianism, because of its emphasis on problem-solving, is still able to circumvent this debate.