Philosophy House

[Loneshot]

Whether this merely becomes my thread of double, triple, or quadruple home-run posts, this will be a topic of ideas, perspectives...a place to share your philosophy, or perhaps some of your favorite ideas from the minds of others. Whether its Socrates....

“Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.”

or Gorgeous George

"Win if you can, lose if you must, but always cheat."

or perhaps even from the great mind of oneself:

If God were really our father, he wouldn't allow us to create any new people until we learned how to treat the ones we have already.

Yes, many ideas here to be shared...

http://www.musingsofahousewife.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/pancakes.jpg

[Dresta]

'"Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal" - that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, "never make the unequal equal".'

'That every will must consider every other will its equal - would be a principle hostile to life, an agent to the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path of nothingness.'

Just generally despise the way the concept of equality is thrown around by people just because it sounds nice, but when they've left the logical conclusions of their emotional arguments completely unexamined. Equality as a concept can only mean all human primates being exactly the same in every way. Equality is an unobtainable utopianism, even if you are aiming for only one type of equality. You can either aim for equality before the law, or wealth equality: you cannot even hope to have both, just as you cannot remove inequalities of appearance or intelligence, or even work-ethic. The childish desire to have both is why we currently are not even close to having either.

[miller-time]

Just generally despise the way the concept of equality is thrown around by people just because it sounds nice, but when they've left the logical conclusions of their emotional arguments completely unexamined. Equality as a concept can only mean all human primates being exactly the same in every way. Equality is an unobtainable utopianism, even if you are aiming for only one type of equality. You can either aim for equality before the law, or wealth equality: you cannot even hope to have both, just as you cannot remove inequalities of appearance or intelligence, or even work-ethic. The childish desire to have both is why we currently are not even close to having either.

The point isn't to say everyone is equal. It is to say that everyone should have equal opportunity. No matter your gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, economic background etc. you should have the right to be treated equally in respect to your rights and opportunities.

[Dresta]

The point isn't to say everyone is equal. It is to say that everyone should have equal opportunity. No matter your gender, race, sexual orientation, disability, economic background etc. you should have the right to be treated equally in respect to your rights and opportunities.
To have equal opportunity would imply the necessity of everyone being the same, because there are far more natural differences among human beings than the ones you list, and they all lie outside the control of the person in which they manifest.

For some reason you think it is less fair for someone to be discriminated against based on their gender or race, than based on their cognitive intelligence, attractiveness, personality or work-ethic? Could you explain why? The individual is no more responsible for these than they are for the colour of their skin or the absence of a y chromosome. All of them are human beings with hopes and dreams they will never fulfill, so what gives you the right to say one is better than the other?

It is true that some qualities are beneficial to society, so we see them as virtuous. But that would only exclude racial differences as an unjustified prejudice; men would still be more valuable in the work-force than women due to child bearing and rearing, and the fit would still be more valuable than the disabled - so discrimination against them is perfectly justified on societal grounds.

I agree that we should aim towards giving everyone a chance to succeed, but equality of opportunity is a pointless utopianism, and one that nullifies all that it means to be a human being.

[miller-time]

To have equal opportunity would imply the necessity of everyone being the same, because there are far more natural differences among human beings than the ones you list, and they all lie outside the control of the person in which they manifest.

Equal opportunity is a social construct not a biological or psychological one. We can give flies and chimps the same rights if we choose. Even though they cannot equally exercise their rights they can still be afforded them. What this does is allow them (if ever possible) to take advantage of them without discrimination. Now obviously that is a hyperbolic example and by necessity we do allow some discriminatory behavior to occur.

We accept that intelligence is a trait that should be promoted in jobs that require complex mental tasks, we accept that different personality types are suited to different roles, we accept that strong work ethic is a desirable trait for an employee to have. All of these things are chosen for in respect to a job that demands them. However we don't use those traits when deciding who can use a water fountain or enter a cinema. And we don't select for traits that have nothing to do with the job (say using gender or race to select a new accountant). Attractiveness is a contentious issue - on one hand we should (and hopefully do) afford both ugly and attractive people the same opportunity to work on a job that has nothing to do with attractiveness, however some jobs do require attractiveness and that is where the issue lies.

[kNIOKAS]

'"Equality to the equal; inequality to the unequal" - that would be true justice speaking: and its corollary, "never make the unequal equal".'

'That every will must consider every other will its equal - would be a principle hostile to life, an agent to the dissolution and destruction of man, an attempt to assassinate the future of man, a sign of weariness, a secret path of nothingness.'

Just generally despise the way the concept of equality is thrown around by people just because it sounds nice, but when they've left the logical conclusions of their emotional arguments completely unexamined. Equality as a concept can only mean all human primates being exactly the same in every way. Equality is an unobtainable utopianism, even if you are aiming for only one type of equality. You can either aim for equality before the law, or wealth equality: you cannot even hope to have both, just as you cannot remove inequalities of appearance or intelligence, or even work-ethic. The childish desire to have both is why we currently are not even close to having either.
Well this is a great paradox for democracy. How do you fix stupid and non stupid people having the same single vote?


I was in a elementary class when somebody came to teach kids about how everbody is equal. Back in a class a troublemaker started applying this quick - why I should I listen to you when we're both equal - saying to the teacher. She had to throw away the equaliness out of the window and say that teacher is not equal to the kids. It was a tricky moment.


However, you can have the equality in law and then through class warfare try balance the wealth inequality. It's not that utopian (however, to balance - not to totally equalize).


How about slavery? Aristotel argues that some people are to be slaves, because they don't want to be making decisions for themselves. It's a good argument.

Are we slaves?

[Dresta]

Equal opportunity is a social construct not a biological or psychological one. We can give flies and chimps the same rights if we choose. Even though they cannot equally exercise their rights they can still be afforded them. What this does is allow them (if ever possible) to take advantage of them without discrimination. Now obviously that is a hyperbolic example and by necessity we do allow some discriminatory behavior to occur.

We accept that intelligence is a trait that should be promoted in jobs that require complex mental tasks, we accept that different personality types are suited to different roles, we accept that strong work ethic is a desirable trait for an employee to have. All of these things are chosen for in respect to a job that demands them. However we don't use those traits when deciding who can use a water fountain or enter a cinema. And we don't select for traits that have nothing to do with the job (say using gender or race to select a new accountant). Attractiveness is a contentious issue - on one hand we should (and hopefully do) afford both ugly and attractive people the same opportunity to work on a job that has nothing to do with attractiveness, however some jobs do require attractiveness and that is where the issue lies.What you're talking about isn't really equality of opportunity: it is far closer to equality before the law, which is the only type of equality that has even a hope of being achieved. Even with complete equality of conditions, there would still be a significant inequality of opportunity, and even equality of conditions is impossible to achieve without the dissolution of the family, and some kind of communal ownership of children as in Plato's ideal state. Gender has a lot to do with job effectiveness when there is always a decent chance for a woman to prioritize other concerns, such as carrying and raising children/ a child. Why if you had 2 equal candidates for a job would you hire the one that could get pregnant and require maternity leave?

My problem is that in the effort to reach this unattainable goal of equalizing everyone, equality before the law is either forgotten or reneged to make things 'fairer' or more 'equal' (the question that lies here is, what is fair? who decides what is fair? and why is 'positive' discrimination not unfair on the individual who is inevitably discriminated against? - the whole system becomes completely arbitrary and decided by individual persons and their concept of fair). If some kind of systematic and objective way of defining fairness could be achieved then maybe it would be different, but no one has yet provided a framework for this as far as i know (at least not a valid one or one that doesn't end in the complete nullification of human beings as individuals).


Well this is a great paradox for democracy. How do you fix stupid and non stupid people having the same single vote?


I was in a elementary class when somebody came to teach kids about how everbody is equal. Back in a class a troublemaker started applying this quick - why I should I listen to you when we're both equal - saying to the teacher. She had to throw away the equaliness out of the window and say that teacher is not equal to the kids. It was a tricky moment.


However, you can have the equality in law and then through class warfare try balance the wealth inequality. It's not that utopian (however, to balance - not to totally equalize).


How about slavery? Aristotel argues that some people are to be slaves, because they don't want to be making decisions for themselves. It's a good argument.

Are we slaves?I think Aristotle was wrong because all human beings should be treated as ends in themselves, rather than simply a means to an end. But he is right in that most people don't really want freedom, because they are scared by the personal responsibility it brings and its precarious and risky nature. Freedom always means there will be a lack of security, and people love security, safety and tranquility (just look at the popular image given to heaven).

I know Mill said that representative government could only work effectively if certain safeguards were taken against the caprices of majority opinion: first, that those who do not contribute do not vote, and second, that those who are better educated get an extra vote (though i'm not sure how this would work considering how poor as a society we are at determining who is well educated and who isn't). The problem is that democracy promotes the fallacy that everyone's opinion is of equal value, regardless of how well informed they are; this is why nearly everyone has opinions relating to politics, no matter how little they actually know about it.