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What is the meaning of statement, all human beings are equal?

Philosophy Asked on October 25, 2021

I learn this statement, ‘all human beings are equal’ in school, and I feel I understand it somehow. But when I look at society, the statement is not quite true.

For example, people are paid differently for the work they do. The president is paid more than the person who works in the street. Even though they work for the same hours, and their effort might be the same for the work they do, the president is paid more. Most people agree that there is a difference in value in their labor and pays them according to their value. People are not treated the same in terms of labor.

And more, the country hires guards to protect the president while the street guys are in the constant threat of death. The life of the president is much more important than the street guy and I somehow can connect with this view. If the president dies, the lives of many more people would be in danger than the street guy’s death does. So it’s reasonable to think that the life of the president is more important.

Also, I don’t want to treat the criminal as a human being who killed my family or neighbors. If someone cheated my whole fortune away and put my family’s happiness in danger, I would not treat him as the person with the same value as my neighbor.

I find many examples that human beings are not equal. But I still feel somehow that the statement, human beings are equal makes sense. Because human beings are equal, we may go to Africa and do the charity for the poor family. Because their lives are important also.

I got this conflict in my mind, and I couldn’t reconcile the different views quite well. How can I solve this conflict and make this knowledge more organized? What is the difference between two different views?

2 Answers

It means legally and morally no person by nature is entitled to anything more or less than another person.

So any reason why one person is treated different from another must be artificial and human-made.

Of those suicidal reasons there are many, so each person is generally treated differently than others.

The egalitarian principle affirms the opposite of previous beliefs that some people are entitled by nature to more than others. E.g. kings and nobility being appointed by gods to rule others, or white people being entitled to being preferred to non-whites, or men being more valuable than women.

This affirmation is not strongly consistent, as an example a typical morality is "women and children first" in emergencies, which is not commonly justified morally and not viable in law. Also laws of inheritance would still grant ownership of valuables based on biological descent in the absence of a will, which can be seen as a violation of the principle of equality. Another huge problem is abortion and the question if when this principle starts to apply.

But the existence of social difference in itself does not violate the principle, it does not require each human on this planet to own exactly on car, exactly one room in exactly one house and exactly the same salary and the same food every day.

You could read up on the different forms of egalitarianism, maybe start on Wikipedia (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egalitarianism):

Some specifically focused egalitarian concerns include communism, legal egalitarianism, luck egalitarianism, political egalitarianism, gender egalitarianism, racial equality, equality of outcome and Christian egalitarianism.

Answered by tkruse on October 25, 2021

In terms of law, I would say it means all people should expect the same consequences for acting the same way, if the circumstances are equal.

For example:

Somebody who kills somebody, should generally get the same penalty than every other person killing somebody.

But killing somebody in self-defence is surely not the same like killing somebody without a reason.

Now you can say: Somebody killing somebody in self-defence should expect the same consequences than every other person killing somebody in self-defence.

So you can find any number of graduations of circumstances. If all circumstances of two cases would be the same, both suspects should get the same penalty, no matter who they are.

Answered by Lukas on October 25, 2021

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