  Just about any moral principles might require moves toward equality of some sort across persons in some actual, likely, or conceivable circumstances. Utilitarianism says that one ought always to do whatever would maximize aggregate welfare. In some circumstances doing that would require working especially hard to boost the welfare of the disadvantaged, and so to bring about a state of affairs that is closer to equality of welfare than would otherwise have come about. Sometimes in order to maximize aggregate welfare one would need to transfer income or wealth from rich to poor, and thus bring about a closer approximation to the state of affairs in which all persons have the same income or wealth or both. A Lockean natural rights view holds that one is always bound by a strict moral duty to respect everyone's natural rights, come what may. It might be that in some circumstances doing what brings about greater equality of some sort across persons would be a good means to bringing it about that one respects the natural rights of other people that morality says one ought to respect. In other situations increasing equality might be a byproduct of the course of action that one is morally obliged to take, according to Lockean morality, in order to respect people's natural rights.