But to give equality a fair shake, I think we need scenarios where equality is a serious option. How about you, your child and one other child without an accompanying parent are pushed together by circumstance (school outing, stuck in public transport during a blizzard, whatever). You have a loaf of bread, just enough to feed the three of you, but will still all be left hungry. How do you share it out?
You and your child eat the bread as a starter, then you kill and eat the other child as a main course, of course.

Point taken. This scenario is helpful, in that it shows that equality in some cases seems to be quite a deep seated instinct (I'm assuming that we all felt we would share the bread evenly, with a nod to those who would give the bread to the children alone, which is really only saying that you would share it equally and on the basis of need.)

And yet I confess I don't feel the same way about , say, access to education. Of course in the abstract I agree that everyone should have equal access to the best education. (Although even here I depart from equality in thinking that the best education should go to those most able to benefit from it, which im my view, perhaps perversely, means dividing the best teachers between the most intelligent and those with learning difficulties. But that is maybe not a complete departure from equality any miore than giving more of the bread to the children than the adults would have been.)

But in the real world I don't feel all that much compunction about manoeuvering to get my children the best education I can. There are some things I would not do (ie lie), but I don't, for example, object to private education on the grounds that it is unequal. I do object to it on the grounds of social division but that is not quite the same thing.

I can't help feeling at some point there must be an inconsistency, given that my view on equality changes between the bread scenario and the education scenario.