Essay On Philosophy For Labour And Human Rights: Understanding Social Equality And Justice.

Different Approaches to Achieving Equality

Discuss about the Philosophy for Labour and Human Rights.

There are many schools of philosophical thought that have come up with different and distinctive kinds of equality. A society as well cannot do well without guidelines on equality. There are concepts of justice like egalitarian concept which tries to view equality as a basic and important goal of justice. Justice can be achieved in the community only if equality is considered. Equality can then be understood as a social or a political concept that views the members of the society with fairness which results justice. However, there has been many concepts and accounts that has been conflicting each other about the kind of fairness that the society should embrace so as to establish a just society. When the society weigh between the moral equality, equality of responsibility, opportunities for welfare, simple equality among other kinds, there is hardly an equilibrium of consensus on which to build a just society on. There is a concept of identifying the notions, “equality of what? equality among who? and the value of equity, that has always been conflicted about. The comparison between which items where equality will be applied will presume a tertium comparationis (Weber, 2014, p.151).

Social equality is based on the ontological equality which supposes that all people have the same status in some levels. The levels include opportunities civil equality, and general freedom of an individual. For a society to achieve justice, it has to be based on the social equality. Social justice gives the standard of equal opportunities for all society members. This implies that every person in that social setup is entitled to equal chances for acquiring wealth, express his/her opinion. Conley (2014) describes the concept of equality in relation to opportunities when he uses the word “monopoly.” He describes the society using this word because monopoly in all fields including economics and business, the rule of equality in grasping the opportunity that is available. Social equality guarantees this choice. The step to grab the opportunities rests on each individual in the society. The civil laws are provided to all members of the society equality. Indeed, there is no member of the society who is taken to be special for the case of the law. Violation of the social constructed laws or the political laws, requires for such person to face the consequence just like any other. This is fairness.

Importance of Social Equality and Justice

In social equality, Lesley & Jacobs (2017) talks of Egalitarian justice that can be achieved when everybody is given equal opportunity in the society. This calls for the idea that people should be treated the same in some respect, they should be treated as equals and it also affirmed that all human being are the same in worth and moral status. This means that just as the day and night is 24 hours for all humans, egalitarians consider equality to be of the same caliber. There is all reason that we should seek social equality. Every person would like to live in a just society but there are many differences that robs us justice. One of these factors that leads to an unjust society is unfairness, selfishness and injustice. Considering the principles of egalitarian justice, we can come to an agreement that a just society can be created through justice.

One of the ways to social equality is through appreciation of each other. When people consider others to be as important like them, they will be able to appreciate the concept of equality. Another thing is that, being civically equal, members of society are able to solve their issues with justice. Consider the case of a person who is poor and another one is rich. Though each of them had equal opportunity to grow rich, there is some factors which can limit growth of some society members and resulting to class stratification. When a case of such characters is presented to court, these people should be handled the same. The case for the poor should be listened just as it would be for the rich. It gives a reason as to why we should be concerned about social equality.

Social equality is also guided by the formality principles of equality. It proposes that formal rules should not prohibit people from a certain level to achieve. For instance, our society demands that one has to work to earn a dairy living. However, there are some cases of joblessness and employers have to conduct thorough interviews for the applicants of specific job positions. Formally, the opportunities will be given to everybody to apply but the employer may not choose a white, and leave the rest of the races or, if it is in a black land, the employer may choose a black and leave the rest. Though the requirements of the employer may vary, there are some factors that society should consider appropriate and others inappropriate. The case I have presented may not ignite some sought of discrimination and injustice but if the whole organization will be felt for a single race in all its branches, we can conclude that that society does not have some formal equality principle. The case may not be forwarded to the court of law but the society need to consider social equality which will in turn bear formality in opportunities for equality (Ferreira and Peragine, 2015, p.96).

Challenges and Limitations of Achieving Social Equality

Aristotle is among the proposers of this formality principle in social equality. He identifies two categories of which would accelerate social equality; numerical and proportional. Numerical category doesn’t seem to hold relevance to the current society because it calls for indistinguishable and identical treatment of each member of the society in terms of giving them uniform quantities. Proportional equality category is however so much important in the society. The reason is because it talks of treating people fairly in relation to their due. When people in the community are just given their share without discrimination, it must not be equal to everyone but in relation to what someone deserves, or according to one’s due. The society will be able to achieve justice and fairness that members will receive just as they deserve.

Equality is taken to be a good idea but it involves a great change. According to Egalitarianism approach, there is always some objection that striving for equality matters for its own sake, independently of whether it hinders or promotes the attainment of other values. Others ask if really inequality is objectionable because when we consider the gaps between the poor and the rich in contrast to the very poor and relatively poor is morally considerable.

These two objections have a base that can be used to ascertain them as claims. Inequality doesn’t matter for its own sake but in contrast, it matters for the people in the society. It stands not for its approval as a school of philosophical thought but as a social and political principle that can be embraced to check justice in the society. However, to some extent we can say that equality for justice has limits. For instance, when we consider the people who have a lot of wealth and others do not have, we cannot just take it and give to the poor because there is still the equality of opportunities of which many of the poor people neglect. Do you think that the society can have hard working people if things were just shared equally? Certainly not. This leads us to a situation whereby equality becomes a social responsibility and part of civil justice and executed by the society members for seeking a just society.

However, it has always been challenging to meet the social equality. Though it is imperative to work for unity, it is inversely achievable because of social, economic, political and cultural factors. Social equality is dependent upon other types of equality. For instance, for formality in enjoying social equity, there is an assumption that all people are created the same. Social equality presupposes that all human kind are the same and therefore, they deserve equal treatment. The counterargument to this is that, though people are the same in creation, they have different abilities and more so, power. When people are of this kind, it becomes so hard for social equality to prevail. Economic power for example, will make some people in the society to be felt than the other. They are perceived different as the common people because, they have a voice in the society. Examples of these people are the politicians or the ruling class. They tend to look special and unique. Is it really possible for these people to be handled the same as the common citizen? Certainly not. 

Social equality is then criticized by the Marxist ideologies that, when individuals seeks for equality, the poor have an advantage as they have little or nothing to lose and share. For instance, the policies for equal ownership of property in the society where individuals are not allowed to possess a certain amount of possession, like land, is unfair to the investors. The capitalists are for the same idea against social equality to some extent, especially when it comes to economic reasons. However, the benefits of upholding social equality carry more weight as the ultimate need of the society is an environment where people can co-exist, live and grow in all spheres of life.

All in all, we should be concerned with the social and equality which will lead the society towards equality of opportunity, equality of condition and also civil equality. A just society is where the citizens will be able to check on their levels of equality and be concerned with all positive social principles that will guarantee social justice. However, without concern of equality, the society will have failed in valuing the lives of some individual society members. Again expression of equality is to be taken with a lot of care. The reason is because adapting some principles of inequality such as responsibility approach, simple equality, welfare advantage and libertarianism may have a negative impact to the justice in the society. The fact is that the poor would like to enjoy equality through sharing the products but not through cooperation in working for that product. The “have nots” will therefore, perceive inequality and equality through a contemptuous attitude to jeopardize the “haves.” In any way, justice will not prevail if it is not an individual social responsibility to being just with oneself first and then, to the others.

References

Conley, T., 2015. Recent research on inequality. Ecodate, 29(4), p.2.

Ferreira, F.H. and Peragine, V., 2015. Equality of opportunity: Theory and evidence.

Foster, L. and Jacobs, L.A., 2017. Introduction: Labour and Human Rights.

Pfeffer, F.T., Schoeni, R.F., Wolff, E.N., Fisher, J., Johnson, D., Latner, J.P., Smeeding, T., Thompson, J., Devlin-Foltz, S., Henriques, A. and Sabelhaus, J., 2016. Wealth inequality: Economic and social dimensions. Russell Sage Journal of the Social Sciences, 6 (2).

Weber, R., 2014. Comparative philosophy and the tertium: Comparing what with what, and in what respect?. Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy, 13(2), p.151.