A human figure with two arms on the right shoulder and hip and two legs on the left shoulder and hip would strike us as rather off-putting, not because it was asymmetrical (it would not be), but because its symmetry violated another to which our eye has become accustomed. Similarly, the preference for one order over another, one rule over another, one equality over another does not in any obvious manner spring from the depths of human nature, even if the preference for order over disorder may be plausibly held to do so. The choice of a particular order, symmetry, rule or equality over its alternatives needs either habit, custom, or the force of substantive argument to explain it; if it is the former, political theory gets swallowed up in history (which might be a well-deserved fate) and if it is the latter, we will be back to square one, making derivative cases for a liberty-securing, a utility-maximizing or a justice-dispensing equality rather than proving the claim that equality for its own sake is intrinsically desirable.
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