We hold these truths to be ... self-evident?
July 19, 2010 9:44 AM Subscribe
Philosophy+PoliticalScienceFilter: What are the philosophical foundations of egalitarianism?
By 'philosophical foundations' I mean, ideally, logical arguments. By 'egalitarianism,' I mean the idea that all people are, or should be treated as, equals.
For example: I already know of utilitarian arguments for political equality, but where are the arguments explaining why utilitarians count each person's happiness equally?
The same goes for more 'absolute' ideals of equality: I know some people believe that deep down, people really are equal (since they are essentially souls of an identical kind, for example). But what I don't know is why, exactly, they believe this.
I realize such arguments might be writ long and buried deep in lengthy treatises, but feel free to recommend anything of the sort. I've got some reading time on my hands, and I consider this important to my future political discussions. :)
Thanks in advance!
By 'philosophical foundations' I mean, ideally, logical arguments. By 'egalitarianism,' I mean the idea that all people are, or should be treated as, equals.
For example: I already know of utilitarian arguments for political equality, but where are the arguments explaining why utilitarians count each person's happiness equally?
The same goes for more 'absolute' ideals of equality: I know some people believe that deep down, people really are equal (since they are essentially souls of an identical kind, for example). But what I don't know is why, exactly, they believe this.
I realize such arguments might be writ long and buried deep in lengthy treatises, but feel free to recommend anything of the sort. I've got some reading time on my hands, and I consider this important to my future political discussions. :)
Thanks in advance!
Rawls discusses this idea in A Theory of Justice which culminates in the idea of the veil of ignorance. Essentially, we are not born into circumstances of our own choosing and, as such, do not have equal opportunities to achieve maximum happiness. So, the logical/ideal solution would be to design a society in which one has no idea what one's station in life will be (i.e., it is equally likely that you will be a pauper on the streets of Mumbai as it is that you will be the Sultan of Brunei). The only logical solution in this case is to design institutions that are equally fair to everyone and give everyone an equal chance to succeed. This does not, however, mean that everyone should have the same outcome (egalitarianism of outcome rather than opportunity, you might call it).
posted by proj at 10:04 AM on July 19, 2010
posted by proj at 10:04 AM on July 19, 2010
Response by poster: I've read the Groundwork, and I got the idea that people are all rightly treated as ends, not means, precluding slavery and whatnot. But I failed to understand (or remember) why Kant believed that everyone was autonomous and capable of free rational action in the same way and measure. Did I miss something, and should I read it again, or should I go elsewhere in Kant's works?
posted by edguardo at 10:07 AM on July 19, 2010
posted by edguardo at 10:07 AM on July 19, 2010
Response by poster: Essentially, we are not born into circumstances of our own choosing and, as such, do not have equal opportunities to achieve maximum happiness. So, the logical/ideal solution would be to design a society in which one has no idea what one's station in life will be
Rawls has ostensibly been on my reading list for a while. :) But is that really the thrust of his argument? We discover ourselves in circumstances we did not choose, therefore we ought to make a society where people end up in equal situations, more or less?
Does he explain why it's important to have equal opportunities for maximum happiness? I mean, from your explanation, he seems to be proceeding from precisely the conclusion that I want to understand the foundations of.
posted by edguardo at 10:11 AM on July 19, 2010
Rawls has ostensibly been on my reading list for a while. :) But is that really the thrust of his argument? We discover ourselves in circumstances we did not choose, therefore we ought to make a society where people end up in equal situations, more or less?
Does he explain why it's important to have equal opportunities for maximum happiness? I mean, from your explanation, he seems to be proceeding from precisely the conclusion that I want to understand the foundations of.
posted by edguardo at 10:11 AM on July 19, 2010
I think you need to turn this on its head, because the burden of proof is on the other side - what are the arguments for not starting from the position that all people should be treated as equals? What do you think are the relevant criteria for not initially giving equal consideration to everyone, and in which spheres do they apply? (Discounting simple egocentricity, of course, because my reasons for thinking I am uniquely wonderful are seldom good reasons for you to hold me in similarly high esteem).
posted by nja at 10:15 AM on July 19, 2010
posted by nja at 10:15 AM on July 19, 2010
It's been a while since I read it and I'm not a philosophy student, so I may have distorted his argument slightly. He doesn't argue that we should build a new one, he argues that if we were to run history all over again, that would be the most just way to go about doing it.
Good point about proceeding from the conclusion you are trying to explain, though. I don't remember how he motivates his argument.
posted by proj at 10:15 AM on July 19, 2010
Good point about proceeding from the conclusion you are trying to explain, though. I don't remember how he motivates his argument.
posted by proj at 10:15 AM on July 19, 2010
Along with nja's comment, I'd say that since everybody is different, you'd have to come up with a good reason to privilege one form of difference over another. In that way I'd say that egalitarianism is what's left after you figure out that the inequalities are based on BS.
posted by rhizome at 10:27 AM on July 19, 2010
posted by rhizome at 10:27 AM on July 19, 2010
This is less of a philosophical problem and more of an empirical one substantiated by studies showing that many problems of our day are sourced to inequality.
posted by SollosQ at 10:28 AM on July 19, 2010
posted by SollosQ at 10:28 AM on July 19, 2010
My understanding is that Rawls doesn't say that it's important to have equal opportunities for human happiness ("happiness" having the usual meaning in political philosophy, which is more like "success in life"). He says that society should be ordered in such a way that the happiness of the worst-off is maximised, and that this is the way we would agree to order society if we planned it from scratch without knowing where we would fit into it. Like most social contract theorists, he doesn't want us to think that this is what we did do, or that we should do it in future, but that it is a useful way of thinking about economic and political legitimacy.
posted by nja at 10:30 AM on July 19, 2010
posted by nja at 10:30 AM on July 19, 2010
From my limited knowledge of Rawls, the veil of ignorance is more a tool or thought experiment to judge if a society is just based on stripping away the accidental properties of the observer/judge (IE, a KKK member may think a white-supremacist society is "just" but he is biased because he himself is white. But strip that away, hopefully he would not still think that).
"Does he explain why it's important to have equal opportunities for maximum happiness? I mean, from your explanation, he seems to be proceeding from precisely the conclusion that I want to understand the foundations of."
VoE It is not a description of a true state of affiars, or suggestion that we should drug politicians to make them forget who they are before we allow them to craft laws (though that would be cool...) it doesn't on face proscribe ANY particular normative vale to egalitarianism or non-egalitarianism. But the idea is that once stripped of knowledge all of our accidental qualities that we have no control over we will have the ability to construct a society without bias that we would feel rationally comfortable in CHOOSING TO ENTER as any member(in the fantasy where we have that choice).
Put another way, if life were a lottery and you didn't know if you would be Black/White/Left-handed/Right-handed/Male/Female/Tall/Short/Smart/Strong/Skinny/Fat/Sick/Healthy... would you still buy a ticket and take your chances? Or would you view the lottery as rigged (only the white/healthy/rich/left-handed/tall/skinny people have a shot)
posted by DetonatedManiac at 10:38 AM on July 19, 2010
"Does he explain why it's important to have equal opportunities for maximum happiness? I mean, from your explanation, he seems to be proceeding from precisely the conclusion that I want to understand the foundations of."
VoE It is not a description of a true state of affiars, or suggestion that we should drug politicians to make them forget who they are before we allow them to craft laws (though that would be cool...) it doesn't on face proscribe ANY particular normative vale to egalitarianism or non-egalitarianism. But the idea is that once stripped of knowledge all of our accidental qualities that we have no control over we will have the ability to construct a society without bias that we would feel rationally comfortable in CHOOSING TO ENTER as any member(in the fantasy where we have that choice).
Put another way, if life were a lottery and you didn't know if you would be Black/White/Left-handed/Right-handed/Male/Female/Tall/Short/Smart/Strong/Skinny/Fat/Sick/Healthy... would you still buy a ticket and take your chances? Or would you view the lottery as rigged (only the white/healthy/rich/left-handed/tall/skinny people have a shot)
posted by DetonatedManiac at 10:38 AM on July 19, 2010
Or more succinctly, what nja just said :)
posted by DetonatedManiac at 10:39 AM on July 19, 2010
posted by DetonatedManiac at 10:39 AM on July 19, 2010
Best answer: Two things to recognize here:
1) For most of history, pretty much everyone has believed that people shouldn't be treated equally. Egalitarianism is, in the broad scheme of things, historically recent.
But 2), this goes back way earlier than Kant. Come on, people, The asker is citing the Declaration of Independence, which pre-dates Kant by decades and Rawls by over a century. Was this the full-blown sort of absolute egalitarianism that we assume in the twenty-first century? No, not really, but in comparison to the prevailing assumption that all men were not created equal, i.e. some people are inherently better than, or at least different from, others, it's a huge step in that direction.
Jefferson didn't pull that out of thin air either. He got a lot of it from Locke, who in turn got it from the broader liberal tradition, which seems to have really gotten organized in the middle of the seventeenth century with the English Civil War, the first time there was any concerted and successful resistance against arbitrary sovereign power.
So nja is wrong: egalitarianism is not any kind of intellectual default position unless you want to engage in what is, historically speaking, an exercise in egregiously begging the question. It's something which must be argued for and defended if you're interested in the history of philosophy, as the asker seems to be.
I'd actually start with selections of Hobbes' Leviathan--a modern philosophy text will probably have a lot of the important bits--and follow it up with sections of Locke's Two Treatises on Government.
Hobbes provides necessary background for Locke by showing the sorts of arguments Locke was reacting to. Specifically, Hobbes saw the same problems with seventeenth-century English government but came up with an absolutist system, perhaps the last time any major intellectual figure has seriously suggested such a solution. Locke comes along just a few years later and formalizes, for the first time, what has become the dominant intellectual tradition in the developed world. It's important to remember that this is a radical departure from what people have believed for most of history.
posted by valkyryn at 10:47 AM on July 19, 2010 [8 favorites]
1) For most of history, pretty much everyone has believed that people shouldn't be treated equally. Egalitarianism is, in the broad scheme of things, historically recent.
But 2), this goes back way earlier than Kant. Come on, people, The asker is citing the Declaration of Independence, which pre-dates Kant by decades and Rawls by over a century. Was this the full-blown sort of absolute egalitarianism that we assume in the twenty-first century? No, not really, but in comparison to the prevailing assumption that all men were not created equal, i.e. some people are inherently better than, or at least different from, others, it's a huge step in that direction.
Jefferson didn't pull that out of thin air either. He got a lot of it from Locke, who in turn got it from the broader liberal tradition, which seems to have really gotten organized in the middle of the seventeenth century with the English Civil War, the first time there was any concerted and successful resistance against arbitrary sovereign power.
So nja is wrong: egalitarianism is not any kind of intellectual default position unless you want to engage in what is, historically speaking, an exercise in egregiously begging the question. It's something which must be argued for and defended if you're interested in the history of philosophy, as the asker seems to be.
I'd actually start with selections of Hobbes' Leviathan--a modern philosophy text will probably have a lot of the important bits--and follow it up with sections of Locke's Two Treatises on Government.
Hobbes provides necessary background for Locke by showing the sorts of arguments Locke was reacting to. Specifically, Hobbes saw the same problems with seventeenth-century English government but came up with an absolutist system, perhaps the last time any major intellectual figure has seriously suggested such a solution. Locke comes along just a few years later and formalizes, for the first time, what has become the dominant intellectual tradition in the developed world. It's important to remember that this is a radical departure from what people have believed for most of history.
posted by valkyryn at 10:47 AM on July 19, 2010 [8 favorites]
"I mean, ideally, logical arguments. By 'egalitarianism,' I mean the idea that all people are, or should be treated as, equals."
Also, this is your problem.
I defy you to give me a logical argument why I should treat you as an equal to me. I think you are worthless (not really-this is just a hypothetical) :), describe to me why your conscious appreciation of things is in any way equal to mine. I don't think you feel pain as deeply as I do, logically explain to me why that is not the case. I don't think you posses the same values as I do, in fact, I only know that I am human and therefore valuable because I have directly accessed and touched the ineffable ME... I don't think you have an ineffable "you" that has any value.
Now.... logically change my mind.
the OP asked what the philosophical foundations of egalitarianism are... Not what the historical foundations of egalitarianism are in the enlightenment political/philosophical traditions. If you ask me what keeps the Parthenon up, I'll answer in Newtonian Physics terms, even though the Greeks would say... I don't know the will of Zeuse?
The foundation of what the OP is asking is in the empathy one person has for another... that is something that is eons old but we still have trouble expressing no matter which era's tongue we use. But intellectual enlightenment babble is certain to get you nowhere when it comes to real depth of consciousness.
posted by DetonatedManiac at 10:57 AM on July 19, 2010
Also, this is your problem.
I defy you to give me a logical argument why I should treat you as an equal to me. I think you are worthless (not really-this is just a hypothetical) :), describe to me why your conscious appreciation of things is in any way equal to mine. I don't think you feel pain as deeply as I do, logically explain to me why that is not the case. I don't think you posses the same values as I do, in fact, I only know that I am human and therefore valuable because I have directly accessed and touched the ineffable ME... I don't think you have an ineffable "you" that has any value.
Now.... logically change my mind.
the OP asked what the philosophical foundations of egalitarianism are... Not what the historical foundations of egalitarianism are in the enlightenment political/philosophical traditions. If you ask me what keeps the Parthenon up, I'll answer in Newtonian Physics terms, even though the Greeks would say... I don't know the will of Zeuse?
The foundation of what the OP is asking is in the empathy one person has for another... that is something that is eons old but we still have trouble expressing no matter which era's tongue we use. But intellectual enlightenment babble is certain to get you nowhere when it comes to real depth of consciousness.
posted by DetonatedManiac at 10:57 AM on July 19, 2010
Best answer: It sounds like you're asking for the arguments for considering human beings as ontologically equal? What you will find is "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." - Gal 3:28. In other words, axiomatic assertions that depend on belief in Christian metaphysics. That's why modern philosophy ends up with "Of course we don't believe that people are metaphysically equal, but here are the practical benefits of acting as if we believe:..." Which might be seen as presupposing egalitarianism to begin with, since the benefits of acting as if we believe only appear as benefits because we do believe.
posted by AlsoMike at 10:59 AM on July 19, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by AlsoMike at 10:59 AM on July 19, 2010 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: nja: I think you need to turn this on its head, because the burden of proof is on the other side - what are the arguments for not starting from the position that all people should be treated as equals?
Well, Aristotle would say... let me find it:
Since then some men are slaves by nature, and others are freemen, it is clear that where slavery is advantageous to any one, then it is just to make him a slave. (Politics Bk. I Ch. 5)
The Politics is in a lot of ways a fairly lengthy argument in favor of inequality.
posted by edguardo at 11:06 AM on July 19, 2010
Well, Aristotle would say... let me find it:
Since then some men are slaves by nature, and others are freemen, it is clear that where slavery is advantageous to any one, then it is just to make him a slave. (Politics Bk. I Ch. 5)
The Politics is in a lot of ways a fairly lengthy argument in favor of inequality.
posted by edguardo at 11:06 AM on July 19, 2010
I think you need to more precisely formulate what you mean by "egalitarianism" before you start asking for arguments for it. (Arguments for what exactly?)
For example, a quick skim reveals at least 3 different claims that you are mushing together:
1) Everyone should have "equal opportunities for maximum happiness"
2) "we ought to make a society where people end up in equal situations, more or less"
3) Everyone is, or should be, as close to the same as possible ("I know some people believe that deep down, people really are equal (since they are essentially souls of an identical kind, for example")
But those are quite different. And they are different from the famous utilitarian thought that "each to count for one and none for more than one" -- i.e., that everyone's interests are weighed equally. (That quote is usually attributed to Bentham, though I'm not 100% sure he said exactly that.)
I agree that you should read Kant, Rawls, and the utilitarians. David Velleman has some helpful expository pieces on Kantian ethics.
Or perhaps you're actually asking about some version of Marxism or something???
At any rate, quite generally, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is hands down the best web resource for philosophical matters (it's written, edited, and read by professional philosophers.) Also, Philosophy Talk is a radio broadcast for a non-academic audience.
posted by kestrel251 at 11:07 AM on July 19, 2010
For example, a quick skim reveals at least 3 different claims that you are mushing together:
1) Everyone should have "equal opportunities for maximum happiness"
2) "we ought to make a society where people end up in equal situations, more or less"
3) Everyone is, or should be, as close to the same as possible ("I know some people believe that deep down, people really are equal (since they are essentially souls of an identical kind, for example")
But those are quite different. And they are different from the famous utilitarian thought that "each to count for one and none for more than one" -- i.e., that everyone's interests are weighed equally. (That quote is usually attributed to Bentham, though I'm not 100% sure he said exactly that.)
I agree that you should read Kant, Rawls, and the utilitarians. David Velleman has some helpful expository pieces on Kantian ethics.
Or perhaps you're actually asking about some version of Marxism or something???
At any rate, quite generally, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is hands down the best web resource for philosophical matters (it's written, edited, and read by professional philosophers.) Also, Philosophy Talk is a radio broadcast for a non-academic audience.
posted by kestrel251 at 11:07 AM on July 19, 2010
Response by poster: I think you need to more precisely formulate what you mean by "egalitarianism" before you start asking for arguments for it. (Arguments for what exactly?)
"By 'egalitarianism,' I mean the idea that all people are, or should be treated as, equals."
Those are two distinct positions, I realize. I'm interested in both.
posted by edguardo at 11:12 AM on July 19, 2010
"By 'egalitarianism,' I mean the idea that all people are, or should be treated as, equals."
Those are two distinct positions, I realize. I'm interested in both.
posted by edguardo at 11:12 AM on July 19, 2010
Response by poster: I'm not actually asking about the claims you listed, which are political in nature, since they say something about how society ought to be.
I'm asking specifically about the initial belief that inspires people to political positions like those listed.
posted by edguardo at 11:13 AM on July 19, 2010
I'm asking specifically about the initial belief that inspires people to political positions like those listed.
posted by edguardo at 11:13 AM on July 19, 2010
Response by poster: I defy you to give me a logical argument why I should treat you as an equal to me. I think you are worthless (not really-this is just a hypothetical) :), describe to me why your conscious appreciation of things is in any way equal to mine. I don't think you feel pain as deeply as I do, logically explain to me why that is not the case. I don't think you posses the same values as I do, in fact, I only know that I am human and therefore valuable because I have directly accessed and touched the ineffable ME... I don't think you have an ineffable "you" that has any value.
1. I can imagine myself without a body, but not without a mind.
2. Therefore, I am most truly a mind, not a body.
3. If you are the same kind of thing that I am (i.e. a human being), this will hold true for you as well. (argument by analogy)
4. Human beings have certain innate natural rights, which are the same for all persons (minds).
5. We are both essentially minds (3).
6. We have the same rights. (4)
7. You would be remiss in your duties, or in violation of my rights, to treat me differently than you would yourself. (5,6)
... It might be a crappy argument, but it's an argument, and it's logical.
posted by edguardo at 11:21 AM on July 19, 2010
1. I can imagine myself without a body, but not without a mind.
2. Therefore, I am most truly a mind, not a body.
3. If you are the same kind of thing that I am (i.e. a human being), this will hold true for you as well. (argument by analogy)
4. Human beings have certain innate natural rights, which are the same for all persons (minds).
5. We are both essentially minds (3).
6. We have the same rights. (4)
7. You would be remiss in your duties, or in violation of my rights, to treat me differently than you would yourself. (5,6)
... It might be a crappy argument, but it's an argument, and it's logical.
posted by edguardo at 11:21 AM on July 19, 2010
But I failed to understand (or remember) why Kant believed that everyone was autonomous and capable of free rational action in the same way and measure. Did I miss something, and should I read it again, or should I go elsewhere in Kant's works?
Kant believed that people who possess the capacity for reason are moral agents. Their mere existence as rational beings makes them moral agents. They can choose to set their actions by reason (i.e. the categorical imperative) or passion. Importantly, he does not say that every human being is a moral agent. The severely mentally disabled, for example, probably would not be; or perhaps they would. That's a legitimate question in Kantian ethics. Neither does Kant claim that people must act rationally in order to be agents; rather, he requires only that they be capable or such action. Why does he believe that we are capable of such action? We experience ourselves as free, and freedom just is this capacity.
That's horribly simplified because, honestly, your question is too large for AskMe. There are too many issues and too many philosophical traditions bound up with each other to answer it clearly. It is simply not true, as nja suggests, that egalitarianism somehow gets the presumption of being correct. In practice, it often gets that presumption in Western society, but that has nothing to do with its correctness. Nor is it true, as SollosQ claims, that this is not a philosophical problem. It is. Most people don't bother to think about it philosophically, but that doesn't mean it's not a philosophical problem.
posted by smorange at 11:34 AM on July 19, 2010 [1 favorite]
Kant believed that people who possess the capacity for reason are moral agents. Their mere existence as rational beings makes them moral agents. They can choose to set their actions by reason (i.e. the categorical imperative) or passion. Importantly, he does not say that every human being is a moral agent. The severely mentally disabled, for example, probably would not be; or perhaps they would. That's a legitimate question in Kantian ethics. Neither does Kant claim that people must act rationally in order to be agents; rather, he requires only that they be capable or such action. Why does he believe that we are capable of such action? We experience ourselves as free, and freedom just is this capacity.
That's horribly simplified because, honestly, your question is too large for AskMe. There are too many issues and too many philosophical traditions bound up with each other to answer it clearly. It is simply not true, as nja suggests, that egalitarianism somehow gets the presumption of being correct. In practice, it often gets that presumption in Western society, but that has nothing to do with its correctness. Nor is it true, as SollosQ claims, that this is not a philosophical problem. It is. Most people don't bother to think about it philosophically, but that doesn't mean it's not a philosophical problem.
posted by smorange at 11:34 AM on July 19, 2010 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Just to add a bit to valkryrn's answer (and also AlsoMike): Hobbes was reacting to arguments made by Independents and Presbyterians during the British Civil Wars. During this period of instability, radical thought had flourished among members of the New Model Army, and among sects such the Levellers (they wanted to "level" society, you see...) and the Diggers (aka "True Levellers"), who were (famously?) led by Gerrard Winstanley, whose writings enunciate a militant egalitarianism, based on Christian teachings. Winstanley continued long tradition of radical Protestantism, going back to Thomas Muntzer, whose teachings during the German Peasant's War were admired by Friederich Engels and others who have sometimes tended to deemphasize the religious aspects of the "Radical Reformation."
I'm not sure whether any of this background really answers your question, but it might at least underscore how much of Western thinking about Egalitarianism has been conditioned by religion and social history.
posted by washburn at 11:37 AM on July 19, 2010
I'm not sure whether any of this background really answers your question, but it might at least underscore how much of Western thinking about Egalitarianism has been conditioned by religion and social history.
posted by washburn at 11:37 AM on July 19, 2010
Looking up the thread a bit, I see a lot of misunderstanding of Rawls. Rawls does not say that the happiness of the worst off ought to be maximized. Happiness isn't something that concerns him greatly in Theory of Justice. Instead, he focuses on various political and economic goods. It is these that he wants to share maximally with the worst off.
Furthermore, the ultimate ground for the veil of ignorance changes throughout his work. In and around the time he wrote Theory, he seems to hold a stronger metaphysical view of human beings. He was criticized for this by many people. Communitarians complained about his view of individuals as atomistic rational choosers, while feminists complained that he abstracted away important gender differences. In Political Liberalism and later essays, he backs off of this, and defends a much more modest ground for the veil of ignorance. His philosophy, as with many great philosophers--and Rawls is great, whether you agree with him or not--is complicated.
posted by smorange at 11:56 AM on July 19, 2010
Furthermore, the ultimate ground for the veil of ignorance changes throughout his work. In and around the time he wrote Theory, he seems to hold a stronger metaphysical view of human beings. He was criticized for this by many people. Communitarians complained about his view of individuals as atomistic rational choosers, while feminists complained that he abstracted away important gender differences. In Political Liberalism and later essays, he backs off of this, and defends a much more modest ground for the veil of ignorance. His philosophy, as with many great philosophers--and Rawls is great, whether you agree with him or not--is complicated.
posted by smorange at 11:56 AM on July 19, 2010
Best answer: But is that really the thrust of his [Rawls'] argument?
Not really, but I don't think it is what you're looking for anyway. The original position is a thought experiment within the social contract school of political philosophy. It is a way of showing whether and how state action can be considered just when not all citizens agree with all of a state's rules at all times. It's not irrelevant, and Rawls is worth reading for his own sake (I recommend his essays, "Justice as Fairness" and "Public Reason Revisited" as good places to start), but it seems to be that you're more concerned with a prior question about whether we should give equal weight to other people's concerns in the first place.
I know some people believe that deep down, people really are equal (since they are essentially souls of an identical kind, for example). But what I don't know is why, exactly, they believe this.
Different people believe this for different reasons. Camus derives moral significance from consciousness itself in the Myth of Sisyphus, claiming (roughly) that we recognize Sisyphus' toil as absurd only because he is aware, and his very awareness allows him to scorn even the gods and achieve happiness. Camus follows this theme In The Rebel, arguing that such acts of rebellion invoke claims about human nature and so must be universal. i.e., the slave argues that it is wrong to treat him this way because he is a human with certain qualities (particularly consciousness) and so is not merely fighting for an end to this particular arrangement, but all similar arrangements. This rebellion is an affirmation of solidarity with all conscious beings, such that it seeks to liberate even the slave-master, leading to Camus' claim, "I rebel, therefore we are." Reading suggestions: Myth of Sisyphus and the first half of The Rebel.
But compare that with Kant, who argues that the faculty of reason establishes universal moral laws, such that it is sufficient to establish the inherent contradictions of certain actions that are generally taken to be immoral. For example, I cannot say that it is right or reasonable for me to break promises when convenient because I cannot simultaneously (1) will such an act while also (2) willing the world that would exist if people, as if acting from a law of human nature, broke promises when convenient -- since of course, everyone would know not to accept promises in the first place. (1) simply isn't possible under the conditions at (2). But the universalizing step in (2) seems to be justified only to the extent that reason itself (and the moral law) is universal since (2) seems only to establish that the proposal in (1) cannot be universal. Reading Suggestions: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
It's worth noting here that, however egalitarian Kant was with regard to reason, he argues elsewhere that women and anyone who wasn't white have inferior faculties of reason, and he assigns them less political and moral status according to this belief. (So no, Kant didn't actually believe that everyone was equal, and so didn't argue for this). C. Wright Mills argues that the arguments for egalitarianism that appear in Enlightenment era political and moral philosophy select various criteria for "being equal" that are used to argue for the equality of white males with other white males, while simultaneously being employed to argue that colonized people in Africa, India, and the Americas, are not really equal. Kant's reason is one example of this. Locke's arguments about mixing labor with property, coupled with arguments about how Native Americans don't really mix their labor with property is another. He has a separate criticism of modern theorists like Rawls, but it is somewhat afield here. Reading Suggestions: The Racial Contract.
Finally, there are some philosophers who are expressly opposed to egalitarianism. Nietzsche is one of the most famous of these in the modern era. I understand he covers egalitarianism with some depth in Thus Spake Zarathustra, but I've not read it myself. There's no shortage of indictments against in the rest of his writing, though. "Beyond Good and Evil" and "Twilight of the Idols" are accessible, as Nietzsche goes, and will give you a flavor. Roughly, I take Nietzsche to be arguing that only human greatness can be the justification for anything (since everything else, being neither human nor great, has relevance for humans) but that only a very few men--specifically men--can be great, and the rest of the population's existence is justified by those men's existence and flourishing.
And as for the utilitarians...they don't argue that one person's happiness is equal to another person's, but that happiness (or pleasure, or utility) is the only good and equal to itself. So, taking a utile to be the standard measure of one unit of happiness, if I derive 7 utiles of happiness from "your" toy while you derive a paltry 5, all else being equal, the right thing to do is for me to acquire the toy. A lot goes on in the "all else being equal" assumption, and it is the source of disagreement among utilitarians, but again is a bit far afield.
posted by Marty Marx at 12:05 PM on July 19, 2010
Not really, but I don't think it is what you're looking for anyway. The original position is a thought experiment within the social contract school of political philosophy. It is a way of showing whether and how state action can be considered just when not all citizens agree with all of a state's rules at all times. It's not irrelevant, and Rawls is worth reading for his own sake (I recommend his essays, "Justice as Fairness" and "Public Reason Revisited" as good places to start), but it seems to be that you're more concerned with a prior question about whether we should give equal weight to other people's concerns in the first place.
I know some people believe that deep down, people really are equal (since they are essentially souls of an identical kind, for example). But what I don't know is why, exactly, they believe this.
Different people believe this for different reasons. Camus derives moral significance from consciousness itself in the Myth of Sisyphus, claiming (roughly) that we recognize Sisyphus' toil as absurd only because he is aware, and his very awareness allows him to scorn even the gods and achieve happiness. Camus follows this theme In The Rebel, arguing that such acts of rebellion invoke claims about human nature and so must be universal. i.e., the slave argues that it is wrong to treat him this way because he is a human with certain qualities (particularly consciousness) and so is not merely fighting for an end to this particular arrangement, but all similar arrangements. This rebellion is an affirmation of solidarity with all conscious beings, such that it seeks to liberate even the slave-master, leading to Camus' claim, "I rebel, therefore we are." Reading suggestions: Myth of Sisyphus and the first half of The Rebel.
But compare that with Kant, who argues that the faculty of reason establishes universal moral laws, such that it is sufficient to establish the inherent contradictions of certain actions that are generally taken to be immoral. For example, I cannot say that it is right or reasonable for me to break promises when convenient because I cannot simultaneously (1) will such an act while also (2) willing the world that would exist if people, as if acting from a law of human nature, broke promises when convenient -- since of course, everyone would know not to accept promises in the first place. (1) simply isn't possible under the conditions at (2). But the universalizing step in (2) seems to be justified only to the extent that reason itself (and the moral law) is universal since (2) seems only to establish that the proposal in (1) cannot be universal. Reading Suggestions: Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
It's worth noting here that, however egalitarian Kant was with regard to reason, he argues elsewhere that women and anyone who wasn't white have inferior faculties of reason, and he assigns them less political and moral status according to this belief. (So no, Kant didn't actually believe that everyone was equal, and so didn't argue for this). C. Wright Mills argues that the arguments for egalitarianism that appear in Enlightenment era political and moral philosophy select various criteria for "being equal" that are used to argue for the equality of white males with other white males, while simultaneously being employed to argue that colonized people in Africa, India, and the Americas, are not really equal. Kant's reason is one example of this. Locke's arguments about mixing labor with property, coupled with arguments about how Native Americans don't really mix their labor with property is another. He has a separate criticism of modern theorists like Rawls, but it is somewhat afield here. Reading Suggestions: The Racial Contract.
Finally, there are some philosophers who are expressly opposed to egalitarianism. Nietzsche is one of the most famous of these in the modern era. I understand he covers egalitarianism with some depth in Thus Spake Zarathustra, but I've not read it myself. There's no shortage of indictments against in the rest of his writing, though. "Beyond Good and Evil" and "Twilight of the Idols" are accessible, as Nietzsche goes, and will give you a flavor. Roughly, I take Nietzsche to be arguing that only human greatness can be the justification for anything (since everything else, being neither human nor great, has relevance for humans) but that only a very few men--specifically men--can be great, and the rest of the population's existence is justified by those men's existence and flourishing.
And as for the utilitarians...they don't argue that one person's happiness is equal to another person's, but that happiness (or pleasure, or utility) is the only good and equal to itself. So, taking a utile to be the standard measure of one unit of happiness, if I derive 7 utiles of happiness from "your" toy while you derive a paltry 5, all else being equal, the right thing to do is for me to acquire the toy. A lot goes on in the "all else being equal" assumption, and it is the source of disagreement among utilitarians, but again is a bit far afield.
posted by Marty Marx at 12:05 PM on July 19, 2010
To get a decent answer to this question you'll need to broaden your definitions of "egalitarian" and "philosophical foundation".
On egalitarianism: utilitarians, for example, consider preferences (or desires), not people, to be the basic units of morality. Because of that, they generally believe in an egalitarianism of preferences--that is, a preference is a preference, and nobody's preference is better or worse based on the person who's holding it. It's not exactly saying that all people are equal; in fact, it's kind of saying the opposite. But it's asserting that people as people are ethically indistinguishable from one another, and Singer, the most prominent utilitarian, uses it to derive typically left-wing social democratic policies, which you can read about in his book Practical Ethics.
On philosophical foundations: the fact is that, starting around 500 years ago, there has been a big cacophony of arguments for various kinds of egalitarianism. You say you are looking for "the initial belief that inspires people". If you're looking for the basic argument underlying them all, you probably won't find it, because they are usually incompatible with one another and are supposed to be critiques of each other as inadequate justifications for egalitarianism, which is more of a desired goal than a result of disinterested inquiry. You may be interested in Marxist accounts of the development of liberalism, which generally deal with the claim that capitalism requires people to believe in some kind of egalitarianism in order for widespread money-exchange to work, as well as equality before the law to support contract formation. You'll struggle to find decent accounts of this in mainstream political philosophy; the sources, including SEP, really struggle with interpreting Marx and the people he influenced.
Rawls is one of the most important people to ever write on the subject, but his work is so recent it can't credibly be called any kind of "foundation".
posted by stammer at 12:11 PM on July 19, 2010
On egalitarianism: utilitarians, for example, consider preferences (or desires), not people, to be the basic units of morality. Because of that, they generally believe in an egalitarianism of preferences--that is, a preference is a preference, and nobody's preference is better or worse based on the person who's holding it. It's not exactly saying that all people are equal; in fact, it's kind of saying the opposite. But it's asserting that people as people are ethically indistinguishable from one another, and Singer, the most prominent utilitarian, uses it to derive typically left-wing social democratic policies, which you can read about in his book Practical Ethics.
On philosophical foundations: the fact is that, starting around 500 years ago, there has been a big cacophony of arguments for various kinds of egalitarianism. You say you are looking for "the initial belief that inspires people". If you're looking for the basic argument underlying them all, you probably won't find it, because they are usually incompatible with one another and are supposed to be critiques of each other as inadequate justifications for egalitarianism, which is more of a desired goal than a result of disinterested inquiry. You may be interested in Marxist accounts of the development of liberalism, which generally deal with the claim that capitalism requires people to believe in some kind of egalitarianism in order for widespread money-exchange to work, as well as equality before the law to support contract formation. You'll struggle to find decent accounts of this in mainstream political philosophy; the sources, including SEP, really struggle with interpreting Marx and the people he influenced.
Rawls is one of the most important people to ever write on the subject, but his work is so recent it can't credibly be called any kind of "foundation".
posted by stammer at 12:11 PM on July 19, 2010
The ideas behind the Declaration of Independence are different than those of your statement "that all people are, or should be treated as equal." Your version of egalitarianism is a basic restatement of the Golden Rule and has been a fundamental part of political philosophy since at least the Code of Hummurabi in1780 BCE. Basic human empathy, the fact that it is painful to see another person in pain, is what I see as the fundamental principle although others believe it to be based on fear, if you don't treat people well, they will treat you badly. The Declaration of Independence states that people are created equal but not that they stay that way or must always be treated as equals.
posted by calumet43 at 12:13 PM on July 19, 2010
posted by calumet43 at 12:13 PM on July 19, 2010
I, sadly, don't have a lot of time to answer this, but to get the heart of Jefferson's political theory, you have to start with the Scottish Enlightenment, of which he was a student. In that vein, you want to look into Thomas Reid, David Hume, Adam Smith, Lord Kames, Adam Ferguson and Francis Hutcheson. I'll also note that, oddly, there's no real evidence that Jefferson ever read Locke's Treatises on Government, or that they had any sway in the colonies (although his scientific work was a lot better received). If I remember correctly (and I wish I had time to investigate this), the Treatises were not even in his library (which was one of the most complete libraries in the New World at the time).
However, it is interesting to note that the Declaration of Independence is one of the first documents to declare that "all men are created equal," even if that only meant white guys that owned property at the time.
posted by General Malaise at 12:15 PM on July 19, 2010
However, it is interesting to note that the Declaration of Independence is one of the first documents to declare that "all men are created equal," even if that only meant white guys that owned property at the time.
posted by General Malaise at 12:15 PM on July 19, 2010
Your version of egalitarianism is a basic restatement of the Golden Rule and has been a fundamental part of political philosophy since at least the Code of Hummurabi in1780 BCE.
Yeah, see, no. That's an Enlightenment-type revisionist reading of history which we've no reason to believe contemporary figures would have agreed with or even understood.
The ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians believed that their monarchs/emperors were manifestations of and/or children of the gods. They ruled because they were not only better, but even different sorts of beings altogether. The "golden rule" was a sort of handy pragmatic feature, but most societies in most of human history didn't believe that it was based on anything deeply true about the metaphysics of humanity. Rich people were ethically superior to poor people, freemen were better than slaves, men were better than women, etc.
posted by valkyryn at 12:20 PM on July 19, 2010
Yeah, see, no. That's an Enlightenment-type revisionist reading of history which we've no reason to believe contemporary figures would have agreed with or even understood.
The ancient Mesopotamians and Egyptians believed that their monarchs/emperors were manifestations of and/or children of the gods. They ruled because they were not only better, but even different sorts of beings altogether. The "golden rule" was a sort of handy pragmatic feature, but most societies in most of human history didn't believe that it was based on anything deeply true about the metaphysics of humanity. Rich people were ethically superior to poor people, freemen were better than slaves, men were better than women, etc.
posted by valkyryn at 12:20 PM on July 19, 2010
Your version of egalitarianism is a basic restatement of the Golden Rule and has been a fundamental part of political philosophy since at least the Code of Hummurabi in1780 BCE.
That's an error, based on an equivocation of what was meant then by "everyone" and what is meant now by the poster by "everyone."
posted by smorange at 12:21 PM on July 19, 2010
That's an error, based on an equivocation of what was meant then by "everyone" and what is meant now by the poster by "everyone."
posted by smorange at 12:21 PM on July 19, 2010
Historically I believe it's the Christian Church in Europe and the Colonies.
posted by Mertonian at 12:46 PM on July 19, 2010
posted by Mertonian at 12:46 PM on July 19, 2010
The Epicureans and their precursors such as Democritus were all big on egalitarianism and equality among men, to the point of arguing for wealth redistribution in some cases. The major exceptions being women and slaves, but their arguments minus those exceptions are perfectly seaworthy.
posted by TwelveTwo at 9:54 AM on July 20, 2010
posted by TwelveTwo at 9:54 AM on July 20, 2010
Oh, and hey! "As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome has left us." - Thomas Jefferson to Wiliam Short.
posted by TwelveTwo at 10:03 AM on July 20, 2010
posted by TwelveTwo at 10:03 AM on July 20, 2010
where are the arguments explaining why utilitarians count each person's happiness equally?
Utilitarians don't start by assuming the intrinsic equality of persons. They start by claiming that happiness is the one good thing, and maximizing happiness is the right thing to do. In principle, we can tally up the happiness in the world wherever it is: in you, in me, etc. And no matter how it's distributed, it's equally good stuff, just as the coin in my pocket would still equally add to the total number of coins in the world if it was in your pocket. Thus, it turns out that "all persons' happiness matters equally" in the sense that everybody's money spends equally. To adapt Tom Regan's cup analogy, if people are all different shapes and sizes of cups, utilitarianism doesn't so much declare "all different shapes and sizes of cups are equal", but rather declares "the stuff we put in these cups [happiness/welfare/the satisfaction of preferences] is the same intrinsically valuable stuff no matter which cup it lands in." The individual identity of the cup is irrelevant to the utilitarian theory of the good. So you might say that the equality of all persons is something utilitarianism arrives at negatively, i.e. by arguing that all persons are equally unimportant qua persons.
Some, like Rawls, have thought this disregard for the boundaries of personhood--seeing people as receptacles for happiness--is anathema. Others, like Derek Parfit, have found utilitarianism attractive precisely because it breaks down the boundaries between persons. (And of course there are lots of utilitarians who don't bite the bullet Parfit does and would protest at my characterization above, trying to accommodate broadly Rawlsian intuitions in at least a consequentialist framework--cf. Wayne Sumner, The Moral Foundation of Rights.)
posted by Beardman at 12:47 PM on July 20, 2010
Utilitarians don't start by assuming the intrinsic equality of persons. They start by claiming that happiness is the one good thing, and maximizing happiness is the right thing to do. In principle, we can tally up the happiness in the world wherever it is: in you, in me, etc. And no matter how it's distributed, it's equally good stuff, just as the coin in my pocket would still equally add to the total number of coins in the world if it was in your pocket. Thus, it turns out that "all persons' happiness matters equally" in the sense that everybody's money spends equally. To adapt Tom Regan's cup analogy, if people are all different shapes and sizes of cups, utilitarianism doesn't so much declare "all different shapes and sizes of cups are equal", but rather declares "the stuff we put in these cups [happiness/welfare/the satisfaction of preferences] is the same intrinsically valuable stuff no matter which cup it lands in." The individual identity of the cup is irrelevant to the utilitarian theory of the good. So you might say that the equality of all persons is something utilitarianism arrives at negatively, i.e. by arguing that all persons are equally unimportant qua persons.
Some, like Rawls, have thought this disregard for the boundaries of personhood--seeing people as receptacles for happiness--is anathema. Others, like Derek Parfit, have found utilitarianism attractive precisely because it breaks down the boundaries between persons. (And of course there are lots of utilitarians who don't bite the bullet Parfit does and would protest at my characterization above, trying to accommodate broadly Rawlsian intuitions in at least a consequentialist framework--cf. Wayne Sumner, The Moral Foundation of Rights.)
posted by Beardman at 12:47 PM on July 20, 2010
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