The author takes the positions expressed in two recent books on moral philosophy and relates them to two vital education issues--busing and finance. The equality position begins with an image of a set of benefits held by a central authority and asks the question: How shall these benefits be distributed? The inequality position begins with an image of a set of individuals each having produced certain goods and then asks the question: Who has the rights to these goods? The equality position assumes that a central authority has rights of control over all goods and resources, while the inequality position assumes individuals with rights of control over individually generated goods and resources. In the case of both busing and finance, the speaker sees a third option. In the case of busing, the alternative is to allow students to transfer to any school so long as the receiving school has a lower percentage of the transferring student's race than the one he leaves. In finance, each district should be able to set its own tax rate and receive an amount of income from that rate equal to any other district in the state with the same rate. (Author/IRT)