Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Sushan]

@Sushan
Perhaps, it is best not to worry too much about ' no further motivation' if people were treated equally because the point of achieving equality may be remote. Also, the entire concept of equality is ambiguous because it could mean that people are treated identically and. It would probably be a very hazy area if it meant that everyone was treated as though they were identical, with no regard to the spectrum of differences. It may be that understanding of equality may need to allow for the spectrum of physical and other differences in order to assure underlying principles of fair treatment for all, and respecting each person for their individual attributes and unique qualities. The points where this understanding of 'equality' is achieved may be rare moments and many may challenge that particular picture of equality meaning it may be more of an ethical ideal. In reality, life consists of so much unfairness, based on competitiveness and inequalities..

Yes, in reality humans are competitive, and they have been so throughout the history. Howevermuch we try to say that we are above all the other animals, we too go along with the 'law of the wild'; the strong one always wins (or the smarter one always wins when it comes to humans). So there are rich and powerful people, and poor and weak people. But all these are humans and all of them have same basic needs. But the inherent competitive mentality of humans restrict them from achieving or maintaining any equality. Most of the people love to be superior to others in some way. So the ones who already have something do not want others to get the same, while the ones who have nothing would love to switch places with those who have.

[Sushan]

This topic is about the December 2021 Philosophy Book of the Month, A Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir by Dr.Ghoulem Berrah




                    - Mao Zedong -


Dr. Ghoulem Berrah believed that above thinking, the attitude of being a servant leader, of chairman Mao brought China to where it stands today among the economically powerful nations.

Poverty is an issue that the world should somehow get rid of, and there is no argument about that. When everyone have their basic needs, everyone will be equal.

But as far as I believe the differences and the problems have led people to thrive more, research more, to experiment more, and ultimately to make the world a better place. People try to be skilled and earn to overcome poverty. But if equality is guaranteed, I feel like there will be no further motivation to grow more and achieve more.

What are your opinions about this concept?

Most would not use your red statement as their understanding of "equal".

I agree with a minimum level of clean air, water and food, shelter, clothing, education, security and healthcare to be available to everyone, regardless. But I also agree that the natural competitiveness in the human psyche should have an outlet and this outlet should be linked to a differential reward system. This will lead to unequal outcomes and wealth, which I am totally OK with.

Or put another way, I believe opportunity should be equal but outcomes should not be regulated.

Equality can have different meanings. Having similar rights, similar acceptance, similar opportunities, and many more can be taken as equal. And it is in human nature to expect more when we already have something.

And yes, many say that opportunities should be the same. But all humans are not same. Some are strong while some are intelligent. So the opportunities should be appropriate and relevant according to the abilities that they possess. If some superior power decide to give equal opportunities to all human beings, some will be satisfied when some are not.

Very true. Folks with unequally advantageous positions are commonly hostile to equal opportunities.

Those who have are not willing to share with those who don't have. It is often seen how poor people are fighting for socialism and equal rights. But amusing results are seen when these poor become rich one day. They tend to forget all those socialistic thoughts and shamelessly they deprive the less privileged from having any comforts. Human nature is quite interesting, yet difficult to fathom.

[Sushan]

This topic is about the December 2021 Philosophy Book of the Month, A Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir by Dr.Ghoulem Berrah

I dream of the day when I can give a bowl of rice to each citizen of China before they go to sleep.

                    - Mao Zedong -


Dr. Ghoulem Berrah believed that above thinking, the attitude of being a servant leader, of chairman Mao brought China to where it stands today among the economically powerful nations.

Poverty is an issue that the world should somehow get rid of, and there is no argument about that. When everyone have their basic needs, everyone will be equal.

But as far as I believe the differences and the problems have led people to thrive more, research more, to experiment more, and ultimately to make the world a better place. People try to be skilled and earn to overcome poverty. But if equality is guaranteed, I feel like there will be no further motivation to grow more and achieve more.

What are your opinions about this concept?

Humans consume all manner of resources that ultimately originate from our planet (plus incoming energy, in the form of radiation, from the Sun). The reservoir of resources is finite, and it isn't just humans who need to partake of it to survive. So not everyone can have as much as they want. There isn't enough for that. The 'pie' is of finite and limited size.

In this sense, 'equality' is something of a necessity. So should all humans be equal? Yes, in the sense I have just described.

Resources are finite, I agree. But the question is "are they adequate for everyone?". Seemingly it is not so. Population is rising each day, but the amount of resources go in the opposite direction. So if the resources have to be divided equally, day by day the amount that each person gets will be reduced, which is not acceptable. Will anyone just stay calm and quite when his/her comforts are taken away? If a company announce that they have to reduce the salary of the employs because they employed some more, will the workers just accept it and stay calm?

[Sushan]

Most would not use your red statement as their understanding of "equal".

I agree with a minimum level of clean air, water and food, shelter, clothing, education, security and healthcare to be available to everyone, regardless. But I also agree that the natural competitiveness in the human psyche should have an outlet and this outlet should be linked to a differential reward system. This will lead to unequal outcomes and wealth, which I am totally OK with.

Or put another way, I believe opportunity should be equal but outcomes should not be regulated.

Well said. Sushan's 'equal' is narrowly defined as equal in asset and income level, as Chairman Mao's is in the subsistence in a bowl of race. If such is the context, I would agree that everyone should be equal, when equal means no poverty, period.

Opportunity should be equal. Outcome can never be regulated. That different outcome may arise from different ability is a given. It is a fallacy to state that better opportunity should be given to a better person.

Chairman Mao saw equality as no poverty. So he thought to provide everyone with a bowl of rice. If we apply the equal opportunity concept to this, everyone will be given equal amounts of seeds, which is enough for a bowl of rice, and the way they utilize it will give them different results. One can straight away cook it and eat. One can think about the future and decide to plant them. So he will get more when the harvest comes. After eating his bowl of rice, the first person will still remain poor while the second person is quite rich. Ultimately the unregulated outcome made one person poor and the other one rich. Seemingly humans are not meant to be equal at all.

[Sushan]

This topic is about the December 2021 Philosophy Book of the Month, A Dream For Peace: An Ambassador Memoir by Dr.Ghoulem Berrah

I dream of the day when I can give a bowl of rice to each citizen of China before they go to sleep.

                    - Mao Zedong -


Dr. Ghoulem Berrah believed that above thinking, the attitude of being a servant leader, of chairman Mao brought China to where it stands today among the economically powerful nations.

Then Dr. Berrah is blind. What brought China to its current economic prowess was its abandonment of Marxist nonsense and Maoist tyranny and embrace of the elements of a free market.

Mao's concepts were good, though there were many issues and people faced hardhships when they were practically applied. But I am not fully agreeing with the concept of open economy. A country has to produce what they can, and only import what they cannot produce but necessary. Usually it is more profitable to import raw materials, make the product, and either export or utilize them within the country. I do not think China fully opened their country to a free market. They still keep a good control over the imported goods. Otherwise many will just import things since it is relatively easy, but it will ultimately downgrade the economy, which has not happened in China.

[Sushan]

Opportunity should be equal. Outcome can never be regulated. That different outcome may arise from different ability is a given. It is a fallacy to state that better opportunity should be given to a better person.

Opportunities are not "given" by anyone to anyone. They appear automatically, as a result of the natural assets one possesses, and the skills, talents, experience, imagination, and ambition one demonstrates. An employer may give you a job, but it was your demonstrated talents, experience, and motivations that created the opportunity.

Since the example of 'job oopportunity' is taken into discussion, I am not certain if job opportunities are naturally occurred. When someone works for a large goal the requirement of fulfilling small jobs arise. When these cannot be done alone the person becomes an employer and hire people. So the opportunity is created by someone. But when the employees are chosen that will depend on the qualities that you mentioned. But if the 'big goal person' decided to do all the tasks by himself, there won't be any job opportunities.

[Sushan]

Opportunity should be equal. Outcome can never be regulated. That different outcome may arise from different ability is a given. It is a fallacy to state that better opportunity should be given to a better person.

Opportunities are not "given" by anyone to anyone. They appear automatically, as a result of the natural assets one possesses, and the skills, talents, experience, imagination, and ambition one demonstrates. An employer may give you a job, but it was your demonstrated talents, experience, and motivations that created the opportunity.

Opportunities are rarely given, but they are commonly taken away or limited.

You seem to be unfamiliar with the common practice of giving jobs to inferior family members. As well as "red lining" in the real estate market.

I agree. Those who are born in rich families which own big businesses are guaranteed jobs at their birth. They may trained accordingly throughout their lives, but whether they acquire the necessary skills or not they will get the job. But the poor ones with no connections to powerful men will just stay jobless despite having a lot of skills. So, yes, opportunities are not equally divided.

[GE Morton]

Mao's concepts were good, though there were many issues and people faced hardhships when they were practically applied.

Hardships? Yes, such as those suffered by the 76,000,000 murdered by his regime.

https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

But I am not fully agreeing with the concept of open economy. A country has to produce what they can, and only import what they cannot produce but necessary.

Well, first, "countries" don't produce anything. People within the country do, and whether they import something or not depends only on the price. If a foreign producer produces X cheaper than domestic producers, the buyer will choose the import. Similarly, they will sell their products wherever they can get the best price.

[quoteI do not think China fully opened their country to a free market. They still keep a good control over the imported goods. Otherwise many will just import things since it is relatively easy, but it will ultimately downgrade the economy, which has not happened in China.
[/quote]

Oh, China certainly is not a free economy. But it has repudiated the Marxist dogma of state ownership of "the means of production" and allowed private entrepreneurs to flourish and make a profit. And while it imposes a number of restrictions and controls on business, the regulatory and tax burdens there are less costly than in the US.

[GE Morton]

But when the employees are chosen that will depend on the qualities that you mentioned. But if the 'big goal person' decided to do all the tasks by himself, there won't be any job opportunities.

Of course there will, because doing it all oneself is inefficient, and your "big goal person" would quickly be out-competed by larger firms taking advantage of economies of scale.

[LuckyR]

Opportunities are rarely given, but they are commonly taken away or limited.

You seem to be unfamiliar with the common practice of giving jobs to inferior family members. As well as "red lining" in the real estate market.

Oh, I agree. But removing those impediments will get you nowhere close to equalizing opportunity. Since the factors I mentioned cannot be equalized, the opportunities which ensue from them can't either.

You are correct because you are addressing reality (true equality/fairness in opportunity cannot exist), whereas most are addressing the desirable goal that opportunity should be equal.

By the same token, let's see if you would apply the same "so what?" attitude on discrimination when it comes to "reverse discrimination".

[Pattern-chaser]

Resources are finite, I agree. But the question is "are they adequate for everyone?". Seemingly it is not so. Population is rising each day, but the amount of resources go in the opposite direction. So if the resources have to be divided equally, day by day the amount that each person gets will be reduced, which is not acceptable.

Oh, dear me. Whatever shall we do? Reality is "unacceptable".

Will anyone just stay calm and quite when his/her comforts are taken away? If a company announce that they have to reduce the salary of the employs because they employed some more, will the workers just accept it and stay calm?

Well, they have so far. When the billionaire wage-slave owners need another ocean-going yacht, they just sack their workers, and re-hire them at a lower wage. It seems to work, if empirical observation is, er, "acceptable"? Let's remember that (much) less than 100 individuals 'own' and control more than half of all the wealth that exists. It's certainly not "equality", in the words of the topic title, but it is reality.

So where do we go from here?

[Sculptor1]

Discussions on this topic always decend into the same confusion.
Those that say yes are talking about equality under the law, equality of opportunity, equality across gender and ethnicity for consideration for jobs and wages.
Those that detract, rather predictably insist that we are no born equal in that we vary in size, capacity, strength, gender, race, and a whole host of other ways. And so equality is impossible.
I submit that the detractors argument is hopeless and empty. headed.

The yea sayers to the proposition often miss the changing of the goal posts, and fail to call out the nay sayers objections.

"We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal". Do the nay sayers think that the people that signed that statement were idiots? That they had not noticed that people are different?
I submit that the highest aims and motives to provide all persons with an equal chance at life were formulated on the day of the signing, and that this initial aim, a basis to the creation of an entire nation has never seriously been implimented.

And those that harp on about America's greatness are those most likely to line up to reject that statement.
The richest country in the world is the one whose disparity of wealth and privalege; whose inequality of opportunity, is most marked.

[GE Morton]

You are correct because you are addressing reality (true equality/fairness in opportunity cannot exist), whereas most are addressing the desirable goal that opportunity should be equal.

Are you suggesting that equalizing the "reality" factors which create opportunities is a desirable goal? That seems to be implied by your claim there. How would you go about that? By, say, suppressing Alflie's talent for mathematics, so that the opportunities it affords him do not exceed those available to Bruno, who is innumerate? If that is not possible or defensible, is such a goal viable?

For many advocates, "equality of opportunity" is a rhetorical stand-in for material equality (equality of results), with the former term chosen just because the advocate thinks it more politically acceptable, or because he believes the former will guarantee the latter. The first reason is demagoguery, the second naive. And you can be sure that if "opportunities" (meaning absence of discrimination) were somehow equalized, yet substantial differences in outcomes persisted, those advocates would not be satisfied.

The rationale for setting material equality as a goal in the first place has never been clearly articulated. As Nozick once observed, "While there is no shortage of presumptions in favor of [material] equality, there is a surprising dearth of arguments supporting that presumption."

By the same token, let's see if you would apply the same "so what?" attitude on discrimination when it comes to "reverse discrimination".

There is a big difference between those, in that discrimination (of the sort at issue here) is largely exhibited privately, while "reverse discrimination" is a practice of government. Governments (in the US) are are barred from discriminating by the 14th Amendment. Private citizens are not.

As for my "so what" attitude, that characterization is gratuitous. I think discrimination based on sex, race, etc., is not only mean-spirited, but stupid, especially in economic arenas. But if people are presumed to have equal status as moral agents, then they must be left free to be as mean-spirited as they wish, and to do whatever stupid things they wish, as long as they violate no one else's rights --- real rights, not legislated, fiat "rights." They are not slaves, and others are not their masters. No one has any (real) right to enter into a relationship, of any sort, with someone who does not wish to enter into it, regardless of the reason for the latter's reluctance.

[GE Morton]

Those that detract, rather predictably insist that we are no born equal in that we vary in size, capacity, strength, gender, race, and a whole host of other ways. And so equality is impossible.

I submit that the detractors argument is hopeless and empty. headed.

But is it false? You don't refute it with pejoratives and name-calling.

"We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal". Do the nay sayers think that the people that signed that statement were idiots? That they had not noticed that people are different?
I submit that the highest aims and motives to provide all persons with an equal chance at life were formulated on the day of the signing, and that this initial aim, a basis to the creation of an entire nation has never seriously been implimented.

Well, your "submission" there is quite mistaken. Jefferson's statement had nothing whatever to do with "providing all persons with an equal chance at life," in the sense of equal opportunities to prosper. Jefferson, and every other classical liberal philosopher of that era, were far too smart to have entertained such an absurd notion. The statement merely means that all persons have equal status as moral agents, and equally entitled to live their lives as they choose; i.e., to pursue happiness as they conceive it, without interference from other people. He amplified upon that in his First Inaugural Address:

" . . . with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens -- a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."

https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jefinau1.asp

Which shall restrain men from injuring one another. NOT to "provide everyone with equal chances at life."

[LuckyR]

You are correct because you are addressing reality (true equality/fairness in opportunity cannot exist), whereas most are addressing the desirable goal that opportunity should be equal.

Are you suggesting that equalizing the "reality" factors which create opportunities is a desirable goal? That seems to be implied by your claim there. How would you go about that? By, say, suppressing Alflie's talent for mathematics, so that the opportunities it affords him do not exceed those available to Bruno, who is innumerate? If that is not possible or defensible, is such a goal viable?

For many advocates, "equality of opportunity" is a rhetorical stand-in for material equality (equality of results), with the former term chosen just because the advocate thinks it more politically acceptable, or because he believes the former will guarantee the latter. The first reason is demagoguery, the second naive. And you can be sure that if "opportunities" (meaning absence of discrimination) were somehow equalized, yet substantial differences in outcomes persisted, those advocates would not be satisfied.

The rationale for setting material equality as a goal in the first place has never been clearly articulated. As Nozick once observed, "While there is no shortage of presumptions in favor of [material] equality, there is a surprising dearth of arguments supporting that presumption."

By the same token, let's see if you would apply the same "so what?" attitude on discrimination when it comes to "reverse discrimination".

There is a big difference between those, in that discrimination (of the sort at issue here) is largely exhibited privately, while "reverse discrimination" is a practice of government. Governments (in the US) are are barred from discriminating by the 14th Amendment. Private citizens are not.

As for my "so what" attitude, that characterization is gratuitous. I think discrimination based on sex, race, etc., is not only mean-spirited, but stupid, especially in economic arenas. But if people are presumed to have equal status as moral agents, then they must be left free to be as mean-spirited as they wish, and to do whatever stupid things they wish, as long as they violate no one else's rights --- real rights, not legislated, fiat "rights." They are not slaves, and others are not their masters. No one has any (real) right to enter into a relationship, of any sort, with someone who does not wish to enter into it, regardless of the reason for the latter's reluctance.

If Alfie is good at math and Bruno is innumerate, I (and I believe everyone else) is fine with Alfie being much more likely to be hired as an accountant. I just want both kids to have solid math instruction in school. If Bruno flunks out, that's on him, not the system. Similarly, if Alfie is black and goes to a crappy inner city school and doesn't get any math instruction such that his awesome talent is wasted, that is a problem that the system needs to correct.

No suprise you're searching (with marginal to no success, btw) to find a "big difference" between discrimination and reverse discrimination (the majority of universities who attempted to practice it were private). Let me point out the "big difference" for you: the majority benefits from discrimination and minorities benefit from reverse discrimination.

After all the government doesn't practice anything, it's individuals who work in government, right? Just like the individuals who practice discrimination.