What does it mean to say ‘all people are equal?’Does all the people of the world have the right to live in the house where Rahim lives, or does the richest man in the world have the same right to live in that house? Does this mean that everyone is equal in everything (=)?
।। Foysal।।
If one day you wake up and hear, scientists have discovered a pill that can make a person equal in every aspect to all the people who are in a higher position than him. It must be a feeling of joy for everyone, but that is not the case literally, because maybe the most unequal distribution in the world will be with that pill. Everyone wants someone below him to be deprived of that pill, in another hand everyone will want to take this pill and become equal to the superiors. This discussion shows how important equality is in society and how impossible it is to achieve.
If we want, can we make society equal to 2 + 2 = 4? So, if we can’t, what kind of equality are we talking about? How much equality do we expect? And how effective is that? Here is a brief discussion of the following:
Talking about equality, basically to prevent inequality, inequality is an element that is mixed in the blood of the world. The dimensions and history of inequality are very long. For example, another new world could have been easily arranged with the same number of people who have lost their lives in the world just because of racial inequality, or let’s say if we look at gender inequality, we can see that it is spreading even in this era of modernity! And we know so many stories of discrimination on the basis of religion, which is why many now think that religion is based on discrimination. Apart from this, the inequality between the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, is already well accepted by the society. The type of inequality is not the topic of today’s discussion, today’s discussion is about equality. If a person is simply asked “Do you support discrimination?” The straightforward answer would be “NO”, but it seems that many of those who do not say so are discriminating against themselves or supporting discrimination in some way. There are two possible reasons for this.
A) He doesn’t really know what behaviour is discriminatory or what the idea of equality is.
B) He is deliberately doing this immoral thing.
This discussion might also raise a question, what is the basis of this work to be immoral? This question carries a lot of importance in the theoretical discussion.
The moral basis of equality: All people are equal; everyone has the right to do / get it / take it or you can’t do that with one black / poor / woman. Such sentences are seen against our various inequalities. There are various philosophical answers to this question as to why these discriminations cannot be made. We can also discuss many types of philosophical answers. To me, the discussion of 3 world famous theorists seems to be the most relevant here.
The first is Emanuel Kant, who states in his second principle of categorical imperative, “No man can be used as a medium, every man is the end goal.”Through this sentence he has drawn a kind of equality among all people. If one does not want to be used as a medium for another person, he does not have the right to use another person as his medium. This principle is supported by one of his other principles, which is that “moral principle will be universal.”
The second, John Rolls, in his book The Theory of Justice, talks about the specialty of human being, where it is said that there is a quality called “moral personality” in human beings, a quality that is present in virtually everyone. By this he tries to argue that discrimination cannot be done because of rotational quality or that it is immoral to discriminate.
A common and logical critique of Roll’s discussion is whether it is justified to discriminate against children, lunatics, or those who do not have such a moral personality. Again, there is a lot of talk about discrimination against non-human beings, and Kant and Rolls’ views do not apply to discrimination against non-human beings. The moral basis of their equality applies only to mankind.
The third person most relevant in this regard is Peter Singer. This twenty-first-century philosopher, speaking of the principle of coexistence of interests, according to him; An interest is an interest, be it the interest of any human being or the interest of any animal other than human beings. His claim is that, “everyone wants to protect their own interests, whether poor or whatever, even animals have many kinds of interests”. Since everyone wants to protect their own interests, no one should underestimate the interests of others. In this way he tried to establish the logical basis of equality.
Now back to the old question, what does it mean to say ‘all people are equal?’Does all the people of the world have the right to live in the house where Rahim lives, or does the richest man in the world have the same right to live in that house? Does this mean that everyone is equal in everything (=)? My answer is NO, because first of all, there are variations or inequalities in the world due to various differences including human qualifications or geographical location, there is no way to make all the people or everything in this world mathematically equal like 2 + 2 = 4. Second, it is not just to be such an equal world, it is a very natural law that if one works harder and proves to be more qualified, he will somehow outperform others. But yes, whether it is ‘moral personality’ or ‘equal consideration of interests’, people should be given equal consideration and enjoy equal rights in some basic places because of this. And sometimes even unequal treatment can be used to achieve equality. In this context, John Rolls’ principle of justice can be considered, his principle can be divided into two ways;
A) Principle of equal freedom: Every person in the society will enjoy equal freedom like other people. This means that no one can be discriminated against in giving basic liberty. For example, if one has two children, one cannot be paid more than the other for studying. Or one of the two graduates cannot be barred from applying for a job.
B) The difference principle: Social and economic resources can be distributed unequally only if it provides benefits to all people. In such a society, if a population is left behind, it is an obstacle to the progress of all societies, so that by providing additional benefits to those people (unequal distribution), overall equality can be sought. Or if a worthy person is given a chance without giving a chance to incompetent people in any of the responsibilities, that worthy person will be able to do good deeds for the society. As can be illustrated by an example, two children of the same person do not have the opportunity to be discriminated against by their parents in their childhood, school expenses or nutrition. Now after having equal opportunity to get education, one is an agriculturist and the other is a farmer; now it is up to the agriculturist to give the responsibility of the ministry of agriculture. There is no equal distribution between farmers and agriculturists. Because, by doing so, the qualification/hard work of the agriculturists is neglected and the agriculturist will actually ensure more benefits for all the other farmers.
On the other hand, Peter Singer’s “principle of equal consideration of interests” also speaks of equal treatment, which makes the economy more interested in equal distribution, like the “declining marginal utility policy”. Suppose two people are injured here, one seriously and the other slightly. There are two pills left here. A serious person will survive if he gets two pills and the slightly injured person will get completely healthy if he gets one pill. If we consider the interests here, the level of interest of the two is different. So here the two pills cannot be divided equally. Considering the interests of the serious person’s life, he has to give both pills.
Although Rolls and Peter discuss the moral basis of equality, no one argues that equality means equality in all things. In the case of behaviour, unequal distribution of behaviour is acceptable in the opinion of both, but the objective should be to move towards equality. But one thing we must keep in mind here is that even if inequality in behaviour is sometimes acceptable, there can never be any discrimination in the treatment of someone as a human being and in the case of his basic liberty. In order to establish equality, we must first know the nature of inequality and also have a clear idea about the nature of equality. (Theoreticians are in a dilemma regarding the equality of human beings and non-human beings, and their equal consideration is not mentioned here.)
The writer, a student of Jahangirnagar University, is Founder & Chairman, School of Thought.
