Oh, hi there, Internet. What I have for you today is a paper that I just wrote on the misunderstanding of human equality. Enjoy:
The Limits of Human Equality
The United States’ Declaration of
Independence states that it is self-evident that “all men are created equal”
(Jefferson 83), but nobody knows exactly how they are equal. Equality is an
idea that is widely misunderstood and misused, especially when it is applied to
social and political ideology. Equality, simply put, means sameness between
things or groups. In a mathematical equation, one side of the equation is the
same as the other. Two equally measured glasses of water have the same amount
of water in each. Any two people are equal in that they have bodies that work
in the same basic ways. One of the great ethical debates of all time concerns
how equality applies to humans beyond the obvious physical similarities that
they all share. The philosophical ideas dealing with human equality beyond
physical sameness are complex and controversial because all people cannot agree
on the limits of the intangible aspects of equality.
The major misunderstanding of human
equality is that it exists in a clearly defined set of ways beyond shared physical
human qualities. All people breathe, eat, sleep, and have bodies. They are
equal in those ways but all people may or may not have the same rights,
abilities, dignity, or deservedness any particular treatment. These and other
aspects of human equality beyond obvious physical similarities are invisible,
intangible, and debatable. These factors are the ones that are determined by
ideologies and philosophies, which vary from society to society and from person
to person. A universal set of abstract human similarities is nonexistent if
there is no definite, universal, authoritative, and foundational guide.
Individuals must therefore base their own personal definitions of equality’s
limits upon the ideologies they like and agree with. This is an unfortunate
reality in a relativistic world.
Because of the many viewpoints on
nonphysical human equality, the subject is debated often. The area of this
topic that seems to be most often discussed is the idea that rights are the
primary abstract factor of equality. People disagree widely regarding what
rights all people are equally entitled to, though. Some believe that a
law-abiding person has a right to live while a murderous criminal deserves to
die. Others consider the two of them as equally possessing a right to life and
to mercy. Others consider a fetus equal to a grown person in its rights as a
human being. The disagreement about abstract equality mostly concerns human rights,
but rights are determined by governments and other authorities based on their own
judgment of what is true and just. People cannot even collectively agree on
what or who rights come from. Human rights are therefore not a reliable
component of a universally acceptable definition of human equality.
In a significant practical misuse of
the term, equality is also defined by individuals and groups in ways that
benefit their own motives. In a largely relativistic society like America,
people use the idea of equality as a tool chiefly to advance their agendas. For
example, some declare homosexual couples and heterosexual couples equal in the
way they ought to be viewed and treated. Others declare men and women equal in
physical and intellectual abilities[1]
(feminist.org). These groups confidently utilize the idea of equality to help
persuade doubters that their ideas are right and true. Many people believe that
all people are equally entitled to the same rights, as expressed in the United
States’ Declaration of Independence and its Constitution. The founding fathers
used the idea of human equality to inspire the American people, instill a sense
of unity, and “to set up a maxim for free society” (Lincoln).
These ideas are fragile, though, because
intelligent, informed people can disagree with them. No person in his right
mind would argue that two glasses with the same amount of liquid in each are
not equal. Neither would that person argue that two plus two does not equal
four. He might, however, argue against the idea that homosexual love and
heterosexual love are equal. He may even take the position that all people do
not share the same rights, that a person does not have a right to life if he is
a murderous criminal, or that he does not have a right to keep and bear a
firearm as the United States Constitution says he does (“Constitution” 21).
These are the thoughts of many intelligent men who may or may not be philosophically
or morally misguided.
It seems, then, that without a universal
set of moral and philosophical guidelines, there can be no definition of
abstract human equality’s limits even among wise and intelligent people. It
also seems that if all ideologies are acceptable and if a person is free to
pick and choose his favorite based on his personal taste, then none of them are
true or valid because none is greater than the other. Therefore, under such
circumstances, there is no true non-physical equality among humans. There is
only physical and obvious similarity.
This does not mean that there is no
true definition of equality, because there is such a thing as truth. This is
made clear by the reality that certain things are indisputable – for example,
the fact that two plus two equals four. Unfortunately, though, ideologies and
philosophies are not as easily defined as true or false. There are some ideas
that all people will never collectively recognize as right, and this reality is
the natural source of all debate – a human activity that exists because of man’s
natural inclination towards conflict. Because abstract human equality is an
idea that is wide open for personal opinion, its limits cannot be solidly
determined in a world full of people holding varying worldviews. Until one
ideology is universally accepted as the singular and absolute truth, equality
can only be defined by the obvious physical similarities that all human beings
share.
Works Cited
Miss, Angela M., ed. The Belmont Abbey College Reader.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Print.
“Mission
and Principles.” Feminist Majority
Foundation. Feminist Majority Foundation, 2013. Web. 22 Oct. 2013
United
States. Cong. Senate. Constitution of the
United States. Hearings 111th Cong., 1st sess. Washington: Joint Committee
on Printing. 29 July 2009. Print.
[1] Remarkably,
the same group often expresses these two ideas. The mission statement of the
“Feminist Majority Foundation” includes support for homosexual, bisexual, and
transsexual individuals.
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