Contemporary political discourse is
abundantly supplied with uses and abuses of the term ‘equality.’ Individuals
generously spread the word around like a fine garnish on a main course – or
bitter herb, depending on your seat at the table. If marriage rights are on the
table for discussion, prepare for a lavish helping of equality rhetoric. If
voting rights are on the debate menu, again prepare for more equality talk. At
times, the word is garnished so deep, that one never gets fed the meat and
potatoes of the argument.
For all our
contemporary reliance on this single term, one would expect that we know what
it means. But do we? Is it possible that the term is almost meaningless
filler—like garnish—spread around for presentation? Peter Western, professor of
law, persuasively argues that the term ‘equality’ is garnish—or, again, bitter
herb, perspective. I diverge from Western, but only slightly. But before I get
to my views, I think it important to show how nearly empty ‘equality’ is of
conceptual content.
Western
notes that ‘equality’ is oft defined as “[people] that are alike should be
treated alike, while [people] that are unlike should be treated unalike in
proportion to their unalikeness.”[1] The primary consideration, then,
becomes determining precisely what it means for two person two be alike. It
might mean “alike in every respect.”[2]
But “the only things that are completely alike in every respect are immaterial
symbols and forms[.]” No two persons, not even identical twins, are alike in
every respect.
Alternatively, “people who are
alike” may mean “alike in some respects.” Id. This proposal, Western notes,
won’t work either. Under the previous definition, every person is excluded,
since no two people are exactly alike. Id. Under this definition, “every person
and thing” are included “because all people and things are alike in some
respect[.]” Id. For example, my desk and I both take up space. A woman and a
fox both have eyes. Pick any two objects or people and you can find something
they have in common. So, under this definition “one is left with the morally
absurd proposition that “all people and things should be treated alike.”[3]
Finally, Western proposes that
“people who are alike” could refer to “people who are morally alike in a certain respect.”[4]
The problem, however, is that “categories of morally alike objects do not exist
in nature; moral alikeness is established only when people define categories.”[5]
Thus, “[t]o say that people are morally alike is therefore to articulate a
moral standard of treatment . . . by reference to which they are, and thus are
to be treated, alike.”[6]
This moral standard fixes both how people are alike and how they are to be
treated owing to the fact that they are alike. In a nutshell this definition requires
“that people for whom a certain treatment is prescribed by a standard should be
given the treatment prescribed by the standard.”[7]
Thus, ‘equality’ is not an empty concept, for Western, it is a mere tautology.[8]
In other words, the concept is not empty, but it is wholly uninformative. We
should treat people who are morally alike—as determined by a moral standard—the
treatment that the moral standard prescribes for people morally alike.
Several scholars, less than
enchanted about Western’s argument, have provided intriguing responses.[9]
One scholar argues that Western’s analysis of ‘equality’ provides too narrow a
construction of the term. A broader understanding of ‘equality,’ or so the
argument goes, “. . . evokes a particular range of moral
considerations and a particular set of complex arguments, and it does that, not
by virtue of its meaning, but because every political theorist is familiar with
a tradition of argumentation in and around certain texts and doctrines and
knows that colleagues can be alerted to the possible relevance of that
tradition by using that simple word.”[10]
While this
argument clarifies the meaning of ‘equality’ in the ivory tower of the
university, it provides no clarification of what the term means when uttered in
the streets. When an average citizen utters ‘equality,’ are they ‘evoking a
particular range of moral considerations and a particular set of complex
arguments . . . [since] they are familiar with a tradition of argumentation in
and around certain texts and doctrines and knows that [others] can be alerted
to the possible relevance of that tradition by using that simple word”? I
highly doubt it. The average citizen is familiar with certain historical
conflicts for equality: slavery, civil rights, women’s rights, etc. Further,
the average citizen’s awareness of these events is cursory and simplistic.
There is no detailed information of texts and arguments from the era. Instead,
our average citizen is familiar with who the oppressors were, what they were
denying the oppressed, and with the outcome: the oppressors are now on the
“wrong side of history.”
Such broad
generalizations and oversimplifications of history—while partially correct in spirit—lead
to moral outrage and emotive fanaticism. When our average citizen, unread in
law and history, utters ‘equality,’ he invokes an image or mood from history.
This simplistic image or mood galvanizes emotional outbursts spurred on by the
citizen’s historical sense of rightness. He begins seeing himself as the
oppressed or liberator of the oppressed. He sees those who hold different views
as the oppressors on the wrong side of history. Before long, our citizen is
taken away into an emotional fugue state, saying things no reasonable person
would say to another.
The problem with ‘equality’ is that
users and abusers of the term are free to fill whatever imagery or content they
want into it. Even worse, key political players are able to manipulate individuals by filling imagery and emotive content into the term. As for me, then, I don’t see ‘equality’ as a nice garnish or a
bitter herb, but as a hallucinogen. Those who eat too much of it are
intoxicated with an inappropriate sense of self-righteousness. Their public
manners fade and they have no reservations, shouting abuses at the opposing
side. The more they shout, the more they become intoxicated. And as they become
more intoxicated, their sense of self-righteousness is heightened. With such individuals,
it is strangely that which goes into the body and that which comes out that
defiles them; it is, after all, the same thing in this case. My recommendation
is to use the term ‘equality’ thoughtfully. Familiarize yourself with the origins
of the word, its development through concrete historical events, and the
complex legal, moral, and philosophical arguments surrounding its use.[11] And, if you can't use the term without emotional outbursts and feelings of resentment or hatred, better for all involved if you eliminate it altogether from your debate diet.
[9] See
e.g., Kent Greenawalt, How Empty Is the Idea of Equality?, 83 Colum. L.
Rev. 1167 (1983); and Anthony D’Amato, Is Equality a Totally Empty Idea?,
81 Mich. L. Rev. 600 (1983).
[11] Again, the term may possess little content. Yet, following Jeremy Waldron's lead, historical awareness of the term at least provides context for its appropriate use, minimizing inappropriate abuses.
No comments:
Post a Comment