There is no good reason to treat people as equals because they are manifestly unequal Discuss (ePub)

Essay from the year 2002 in the subject Philosophy - Miscellaneous, grade: 1,7 (A-), University of Southampton (Department of Philosophy), course: Philosophical Theory, language: English, abstract: Humanity went through centuries of slavery, Nazism, neglecting of women rights and
discrimination of disabled. All those issues, now regarded as unquestionably wrong in the
Western Hemisphere, were often based on arguments of manifested differences between
people. Even though people are still as different in characteristics, endowment and lifestyle as
they ever have been, the attitude of many societies towards those topics drastically changed
over the last centuries. There must be some significant reasons to regard humans now as
fundamentally equal although they are dissimilar in so many ways. The question is still a
fascinating one: Is it therefore justified to treat all people equally and is that a goal worth
achieving? It is legitimate to consider people equal in certain areas whilst unequal in others. I
will argue that there are good reasons to treat people equally as they are equal in some
respects and treat them unequally because they are unequal in others but also to treat
people equally although they are unequal. However for this purpose my essay will be
organized in three sections. In the first passage I will defend equality of rights, equality before
the law and equality in politics, backed up by the principle of Equality of Respect or
Universal Humanity. Starting of with equality of resources in the second part, I will also
examine equality of happiness and welfare. In the third paragraph the debate over equality of
opportunity and equality of a basic living standard marks the end of my discussion. [...]