Are we truly all equal? Should we all be truly equal? What would this look like if we were all to be truly equal? Why is it that we are not equal right now? Is it because of external or internal factors or an amalgamation of both?
Hi everyone, and welcome back to our Ethics / Moral Philosophy saga. I wanted to continue on with this one before moving on to the Aesthetics branch of Philosophy as there are a couple more things I think would be worth discussing for your research.
I came across the first article linked below, 'Are We Morally Equal by Nature', a few weeks ago and thought Equality would be a great topic to discuss for our first issue back. It's something that could come up in a GAMSAT set of prompts and a topic that feeds into lots of other discussions about philosophy and politics.
Egalitarianism is the political doctrine that states all people should be treated as equals and have the same rights. It builds on the concept of social equality for all individuals regardless of sex, gender, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation etc. and proponents of this school of thought seem to believe this reflects the natural state of humanity.
Egalitarianism comes from the French égal (equal), and was a key ideal during the rise of liberalism in the Age of Enlightenment. It might have been more appropriate to include this topic in our Enlightenment saga, but I thought today we could look at equality through a moral lens instead.
Moral Equality might be defined as an expression of the equality of intrinsic moral value, that is that every single person's life counts equally, independent of one's achievements. The U.S. Declaration of Independence states that "all men are created equal", but not all societies nor individuals believe that all people are born equal. In fact, a 2015 poll showed that more than 20% of Americans disagreed with this assertion, including infamous ex-President Donald Trump.
Benedict de Spinoza was one of the most outspoken seventeenth-century philosophers who believed that humans and animals are born unequal on the basis that we are born with a different amount of power and 'natural right'. Because a farmer has more power than a horse, they have the right to use it as transport (a rather problematic train of thought, if you ask me). For Spinoza, members of a democracy are unequally free, because we are unequal in understanding and right. Those who are fortunate and enjoy favourable circumstances will be able to become more rational and more free and those who are less fortunate will struggle to be, so rationality can change with circumstance. As strange as these assertions are, equality still played a role in Spinoza's idea of democracy. Although there is no natural equality for him, equal civil right is based on social contract – everyone, regardless of their power or rationality, agrees to transfer their individual right to collective ownership so we can all take an equal piece of the power pie in return – to ensure political and legal equality. In a democracy then, each citizen is treated equally, even if they aren't morally equal by nature.
Other thinkers are more convinced that we are all 'deeply equal' – even those who acquire additional, justified worth through their actions are no better than anyone else. Locke and Cicero argued that it's our ability to reason that makes us equal, Kant cited our moral sense, Jeremy Bentham said it's our ability to suffer, others say it's our capacity to love.
Like I initially asked, do you think we're equal? And if so, why? What makes us equal? What makes us unequal?
Whatever your answer, equality is a very important idea. It will determine whether we think discrimination and bigotry are wrong. It might even influence what type of government we think is therefore most suitable. To me, it's interesting that democratic countries with grave inequalities have had some of the most stable forms of government we've ever seen. Does this then mean that we are in fact inclined to be unequal?
