Why are Individuals Equal(?)

[Analyzer]

Do you not pay taxes for services rendered by the state.

I am forced

There is no fallacy in the expropriator being the protector as well.

If an entity such as the State claims to protect property rights of individuals by expropriation(taxation, eminent domain) they are going against what they are claiming to do(protect property).

It is the "social contract." You have agreed to give up some of your "individual" rights, for this state, and in return you receive benefits.

Why cant all contracts be social contracts? Can only governments be capable of that?

 

[Analyzer]

And this statement presupposes that "you" and "your own body" are two different things.

Maybe.

 

[TimeAsylums]

I am forced

Forced?

If you do not pay, yes the IRS will come after you, and you *may* go to jail, however paying taxes to this state is avoidable...by leaving**. **Or perhaps by owning an extremely large piece of land in which the government has very little domain and does not provide you with any services.

I see no use of "force."

If an entity such as the State claims to protect property rights of individuals by expropriation(taxation, eminent domain) they are going against what they are claiming to do(protect property).

are you saying the method (protecting via expropriation) is contradictory?

I *think* you are having issues of utility vs ideal

Why cant all contracts be social contracts? Can only governments be capable of that?

Who said they couldn't?


Also, please answer this post ->

So...did you mean "property rights are inherit(ed)," or "property rights are inherent"?

 

[Analyzer]

Forced?

If you do not pay, yes the IRS will come after you, and you *may* go to jail, however paying taxes to this state is avoidable...by leaving.
I see no use of "force."

If I do not want to be forced to pay taxes, then I am ultimately forced to leave. Taxation is force, it is theft.

are you saying the method (protecting via expropriation) is contradictory?

Yes and that is what the State does.

Who said they couldn't?

Go try to in the private sector, see how it turns out.

Also, please answer this post ->

Not sure what I meant but property rights specifically individual "ownership" is self-evident; a priori true. Denying this would result in a contradiction.

 

[SpaceYeti]

If I want to not to be forced to pay taxes then I am ultimately forced to leave. Taxation is force, it is theft.

If you don't pay rent, your landlord can evict you, even if you lived there your whole life. Or if you think he's charging too much. Basically, this isn't your house. Live by the owners rules or leave.

 

[Analyzer]

If you don't pay rent, your landlord can evict you, even if you lived there your whole life. Or if you think he's charging too much. Basically, this isn't your house. Live by the owners rules or leave.

Whose house is it?

 

[EyeSeeCold]

I like the argument between TimeAsylums(existentialism, determinism vs free will) and Analyzer(libertarianism, voluntaryism vs state legitimacy) both brought up good points, initially at least.

It's already been mentioned that the parameters for "equality" must be defined and by defining them you render equality subjective and thus there is no one true answer to this thread. So only the descriptive or historical approach can be taken which looks like it's being disregarded by TimeAsylums.

I see that you're organizing the responses but why? It all boils down to "I support equality in some way" or survival of the fittest / egoism / master morality.

 

[TimeAsylums]

TimeAsylums(existentialism, determinism vs free will)

only the descriptive or historical approach can be taken which looks like it's being disregarded by TimeAsylums.

you have mistaken Do not mistake my use of the socratic method as my own personal views

...I gave the "historical approach" in post #40

"equality" is a brand new idea in modern times, there was no "equality" before the past 200 years (Is there even now?). Nepotism, ethnocentrism has dominated since...forever.

I see that you're organizing the responses but why? It all boils down to "I support equality in some way" or survival of the fittest / egoism / master morality.

Absolutely...there is no point in discussing it then. <-sarcasm

 

[Analyzer]

you have mistaken my use of the socratic method as my own personal views

ENTPs.... I am quite familiar with their approach

 

[nanook]

as if anyone didn't know, that rights are not objectively real, until they are granted in a body of law or common sense culture.

you will NATURALLY assume property of your body and of things needed to sustain your body, your body also involves intelligence, so you also assume property of things you need to do intelligence, like your science laboratory, it's no place for a rave party, you built it, you want to lock it up. you find electronics in a trash can, want to take it apart, your mother takes it away, it's a bad day.

none of these assumed properties area a god given right, everyone, short of pre-school kids, knows this, but reason dictates, that (implementation of) a right must be assumed necessary (for bodies of law), if people are supposed to get along and get anywhere.

(additionally we could have a duty to share property, under specific circumstances)

it's the same with equality of sentience, everyone knows that it's an originally meaningless fact and everyone knows it's being mentioned, because we want to assign meaning to it.

my own sentience does have organic meaning to me, the sentience of loved one does too, through immediate empathy, but i only assign meaning to anyones else's sentience out of a reasonable choice.

reason is organic too, but it's not quite as original, as we are just in the process of growing it in our brains. likewise an equality of objective traits can only be recognized through abstract thinking, which is organic but a new feature and we mention it, because we want to propagate abstract thinking, as our culture depends on it.

some people just want to prove subjective superiority to their own thought forms, it'S Ti going narcissistic or solipsistic, there is no interest in creating a way of thinking that sustains a culture of language or a society of peace.

oh y'all so ZEN, motherfuckers. but derealisation isn't awakening. de-construction is not even needed for spiritual liberation, people without Ti wake up at all times.

okay, honestly, some people forget and take time to remember, that things like rights don't exist objectively outside of culture and are suddenly realizing, as if for the first time, that participating in this cultural mind inside of your own brain is a choice of sorts.

not because kids are unable to go into other parts of their brain, but because they just don't think of it as a conscious choice, when they switch from part to part.

but it's not really a choice, because unless you can go full blown sociopath by abusing culture without giving back, you can not survive and get happy without participating constructively in this part of your brain. you have to be all of yourself and you are society.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

you have mistaken Do not mistake my use of the socratic method as my own personal views

...I gave the "historical approach" in post #40

I didn't,I just pointed out the position you were taking versus Analyzer's, his was economic/political while yours was philosophical.


Okay so it's only a recent thing that humans are equal, why? Because globalization*, you can't just do things to other humans without other humans watching you and judging you, whereby you can effect negative consequences upon yourself(not just "you" as an individual but also as a country). You already identified that as being under a "cooperative" reason, so I'm unsure where you're trying to go from here.


As for the U.S., Thomas Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence criticized the practice of slavery:

[King George III] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce:[11] and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.​

http://jeffersonpapers.princeton.ed...nal-rough-draught”-declaration-independence-0

The draft was revised and presented the way it was because ignorance took over in some of the politicians and they consensually resigned to only think of themselves(land-owning, wealthy, white etc). "All men are created equal" comes from an inadvertent (and also intentional) cultural prejudice in favor of certain privileged men, even if those men truly believed in liberal ideals.


If you want my personal opinion I don't believe humans are innately equal, but I do support ethical socialism and the technological breakthroughs needed to achieve it.

 

[Analyzer]

Rothbard on the fiction of the State:

The State is almost universally considered an institution of social service. Some theorists venerate the State as the apotheosis of society; others regard it as an amiable, though often inefficient, organization for achieving social ends; but almost all regard it as a necessary means for achieving the goals of mankind, a means to be ranged against the "private sector" and often winning in this competition of resources. With the rise of democracy, the identification of the State with society has been redoubled, until it is common to hear sentiments expressed which violate virtually every tenet of reason and common sense such as, "we are the government." The useful collective term "we" has enabled an ideological camouflage to be thrown over the reality of political life. If "we are the government," then anything a government does to an individual is not only just and untyrannical but also "voluntary" on the part of the individual concerned. If the government has incurred a huge public debt which must be paid by taxing one group for the benefit of another, this reality of burden is obscured by saying that "we owe it to ourselves"; if the government conscripts a man, or throws him into jail for dissident opinion, then he is "doing it to himself" and, therefore, nothing untoward has occurred. Under this reasoning, any Jews murdered by the Nazi government were not murdered; instead, they must have "committed suicide," since they were the government (which was democratically chosen), and, therefore, anything the government did to them was voluntary on their part. One would not think it necessary to belabor this point, and yet the overwhelming bulk of the people hold this fallacy to a greater or lesser degree.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Whose house is it?

The government's.

 

[Latte]

Meh, just that the concept of the invidivual extends beyond that which you brought up, and the same with equality.

@Latte: Having shit one already knows illustrated is tiring rather than clever.

We're a forum! We are more than you and TA :3

If he recruited you to illustrate that the concept of equality as it commonly is regarded is a fallacious one that serves a social function when held as true, but doesn't have any basis in reality, then good! Pat yourself on the back for being instrumental in the elucidation process.

Imagine if he had just tried to do it all by himself. It would probably just have been a shit thread with people offending him and being offended by him. It really was the wise course of action to go socratic if one sees those two as the options and sees more or less how the thread turned out to be close to the result he wanted. Thus clever (in relative terms, but when is it never not D:~).

If you ever want to blow off some steam, come to the chatbox. I find it's good to, uhm. People become more cordial after a whale. No forced hugging though. Sometimes forced stabs with knives on the backs of dolphins.

Exactly so you are engaging in argumentation. What is the point of discourse if you are not trying to assert a statement? To just say things for no reason, or to just project sounds or type commands in a keyboard? Argumentation ethics presupposes you have control over your own body.

Motivation and justification. One is necessary for action, the other is not. Imagine motivation ---> action with no justification process, no justification system, no justification check, and you will know.

If there is no left, there is no right.
Example:
If there is no inherent right for me to retain things I might regard as my property if I sported a capitalist objectivity morality, it doesn't follow that there is an inherent right for people to take it away from my vicinity or use it, and there isn't necessarily any inherent right for people not to get shot in the face if they try to take it, by me. Maybe I want it. Do I deserve it? Irrelevant. Do they deserve it? Irrelevant. Do they prefer me to de facto retain it? Relevant to their actions. Do I prefer me or them to have it? Relevant to my actions.
Justification can be a part of the process of determining preference and the process in-between want and action, but it is not a necessity.

Spoiler

as if anyone didn't know, that rights are not objectively real, until they are granted in a body of law or common sense culture.

you will NATURALLY assume property of your body and of things needed to sustain your body, your body also involves intelligence, so you also assume property of things you need to do intelligence, like your science laboratory, it's no place for a rave party, you built it, you want to lock it up. you find electronics in a trash can, want to take it apart, your mother takes it away, it's a bad day.

none of these assumed properties area a god given right, everyone, short of pre-school kids, knows this, but reason dictates, that (implementation of) a right must be assumed necessary (for bodies of law), if people are supposed to get along and get anywhere.

(additionally we could have a duty to share property, under specific circumstances)

it's the same with equality of sentience, everyone knows that it's an originally meaningless fact and everyone knows it's being mentioned, because we want to assign meaning to it.

my own sentience does have organic meaning to me, the sentience of loved one does too, through immediate empathy, but i only assign meaning to anyones else's sentience out of a reasonable choice.

reason is organic too, but it's not quite as original, as we are just in the process of growing it in our brains. likewise an equality of objective traits can only be recognized through abstract thinking, which is organic but a new feature and we mention it, because we want to propagate abstract thinking, as our culture depends on it.

some people just want to prove subjective superiority to their own thought forms, it'S Ti going narcissistic or solipsistic, there is no interest in creating a way of thinking that sustains a culture of language or a society of peace.

oh y'all so ZEN, motherfuckers. but derealisation isn't awakening. de-construction is not even needed for spiritual liberation, people without Ti wake up at all times.

okay, honestly, some people forget and take time to remember, that things like rights don't exist objectively outside of culture and are suddenly realizing, as if for the first time, that participating in this cultural mind inside of your own brain is a choice of sorts.

snip

Hmm, I think you are too optimistic in regards to most people actually being aware of the nature of ethics and morality to the point that they grasp that there is no objective "should"... even if one ignores the religious segments of societies.

I can't currently find a way to argue against the assertion without statistics though, so I guess we'll have to leave it at seeing the majority as having different likelihood of having gone beyond how they have language-wise been programmed to think like (objective ethics and morality, there being an actual "should"), at least where I live and in the English speaking world the language is one that largely assumes objective morality in some form.

"...and we are heading towards these, I think."

What makes you think this?

Good question. When I read it I had to ask myself and became increasingly unsure.

Spoiler

One thing I see in favor of this is the secularization of societies and thus legislation without objective grounds, leading to people increasingly having a-religious but still having an idea of a "should". This "should" in a secular society is increasingly eroded by (pseudo) moral relativism. At its current stage, at least here and the way I mostly see it used, moral relativism mostly doesn't serve to undermine moral objectivity and people tend to use it to "make all moralities valid" or "none are more valid than others". It is often used as a justification in objective morality systems, commonly in sentences like "we don't have the right" (implying a right is needed for action) or "we can't judge based on our morality for them". That's why I prefaced it with pseudo, because as it exists in most minds because while it reduces the status of one morality system as true over others it adds an additional layer of objective morality and a justification process about issues pertaining to morality, and thus doesn't truly undermine objective/justification morality. It's mostly just metamorality morality talk.

But! It's a step on the way, I suspect. Because people increasingly see its inherent bullshittery in today's multicultural societies, globalized world... when they are confronted with concrete examples that they internally feel are "bad/wrong". All they need to do is to in some form consider "is my idea of the preferred code of conduct better than their preferred code of conduct?" and the answer to the individual is yes, because their preference is the definition of what internally to them is the best. The ideal. Without objective morality, the idea of something feeling bad/wrong will yield way to the idea of feeling "against my preference", if the predictions below manifest themselves.

Before secularization, this experience of seeing other's preferences for how things are to be and knowing/feeling that it deviates from something in oneself in an unpleasant manner, would be used to build confidence about adhering to one's own objective morality/ethics and using its axioms as justification tools... but that's not as easy as before lest one turn to religious moral objectivity, as contemporary (pseudo) moral relativity is very effective at exposing secular morality as ultimately just stemming from preference. This especially in conjunction with the rise of the explicit popularity of logical thought among intellegentsia in secular and especially increasingly atheistic science idolizing societies, with the sense that knowing from within about objective reality being irrelevant, this being extended to apply to things such as right/wrong and not just used in arguments against faith.

At this point, semi-intellectuals and intellectuals won't turn to religious moral objectivity, and having considered concrete scenarios where they want things to be the way they want them to be because... they just do... they can't step down from considering their own preference as preferable to themselves over other people's preference, so moral relativity in its current "you must show understanding and acceptance" metamorality morality stage dies.

From this, there is only one way to collectively intellectually go, and that is towards the dissolution of the concept of right and wrong and the dissolution of the concept of should as something inherent, and from this, in communication with others, the opinion and culture forming masses and thus the general masses will over time realize that it all boils down to individual preference and that true justification was never really possible to begin with, and that it is also not a necessary part of the process of motivation --> action.

Over time, language changes will reflect this shift and kids will not be automatically trained to think in terms of morality and ethics anymore. In regards to parenting, the norm might become to convince kids that it is their own preference that they behave as the parent wants them to behave in specific instances. For example, convincing a child it feels better and has more wellbeing when it affects social dynamics in school in a way that is conducive to the wellbeing of all of the students and also the teachers. I already see instances of such being significantly more normal among parents than a decade ago where I live. It sort of becomes the "the technique that's left" (among non-punishment ones), once right and wrong are concepts a parent doesn't feel are good to use.

Not sure how convincing what I just wrote now is because I'm not entirely convinced it will necessarily happen, but this is a way I can see it being possible it happens, at least. It does assume some societal changes continuing to occur in the directions they have before.

 

[redbaron]

Haven't read the thread, but anyway.

Equal with respect to individuals doesn't refer to any sort of physical, observational or empirical equality. It refers to a metaphysical ideal of equality, based on social, cultural or moral values by its very nature. It's the idea that regardless of any observable trait that one might possess - the person is still entitled to the same privileges and treatment as anyone else.

Approaching the concept of equality from an observable or measurable standpoint is like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

So to answer the question of why individuals are equal?

Observably they aren't.

Ideally they are.

They're considered equal under the acceptance of particular axioms that make them so.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Well admittedly it is pretty cool to see how people come forth with the same points and viewpoints having arrived at them individually :O

 

[Analyzer]

The government's.

Who makes up this government? Government(and their workers) are funded by private persons. Your comparing a private system - Land lords and renters, with citizens and the State. One is done voluntarily, other is done through coercion.

 

[Polaris]

The whole concept of owning a piece of earth is ridiculous. I'm somewhat astounded when I'm told I cannot walk on someone's property that spans hundreds, thousands of acres. What right do they have to tell me where I should be walking? I lived in a country area where there was beautiful nature surrounding me, but I was forced to walk on busy roads because all the natural landscape is private property. In my native home country, people own land, but the general public has free access to walk anywhere they like as long as they keep 150 metres away from the proprietor's residence. You can even set up camp, if you wish.

As for other property rights I agree - but the concept of being able to be the sole proprietor of large areas of land seems excessive.

The state should have sovereignty over land, and lease to landholders for a lifetime or whatever, and instead receive tax relief as compensation.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

@Analyzer

Equality is not natural.

Agreed.

And nature isn't always good, it just is. Humans have historically constructed tools and structures that work against (and with) nature to increase quality of life and productivity.

I see ethical socialism as another one of these tools to build a society in which individuals can receive increased quality of life and personal productivity, if they so choose.

They are equal in the sense that each individual has rights or control of his own proper body/life. Egalitarianism or social equality on the other hand is not compatible with this notion. An example is affirmative action. Why do certain races/ethnicity get advantages or privileges over others?

Affirmative action is obviously an attempt to correct inequality, problematic as it may be, and it would be willfully ignorant to see it otherwise. Yes it can indeed be negatively discriminatory, but not only is affirmative action not a core tenet of egalitarianism, even more it violates it.

With that in mind, how is social equality not compatible with self-sovereignty? Social equality under democratic voluntaryism would seek the equal opportunity and equal circumstances for individuals if they so choose, the non-aggression principle is preserved and people retain their self-sovereignty. No one has to be forced to do anything or prohibited from anything as long as the initial contract is agreed to.

 

[Ex-User (5841)]

Equality is not natural.

Accepted.

However that does not answer the question

Why are individuals equal, Analyzer? Are they?

Yes and no. Equality tends to alternate across levels of organization.

For OP: Because.

 

[BD36005]

What right do they have to tell me where I should be walking?

I'm guessing that right would be ownership. Is it ridiculous? Yea when taken to an inordinate degree ; you can only own as much as you can "maintain". Maintain could mean many different things , for example defend/protect ,store ,conceal ,utilize, and etc depending on the object of ownership. So if these different types of maintenance can be fulfilled ,then yea they do have a right(ownership) to tell you not to walk on it otherwise they wouldn't be able to stop you if you didn't or be able to stop you from even doing so in the first place.

 

[Polaris]

I'm guessing that right would be ownership. Is it ridiculous? Yea when taken to an inordinate degree ; you can only own as much as you can "maintain". Maintain could mean many different things , for example defend/protect ,store ,conceal ,utilize, and etc depending on the object of ownership. So if these different types of maintenance can be fulfilled ,then yea they do have a right(ownership) to tell you not to walk on it otherwise they wouldn't be able to stop you if you didn't or be able to stop you from even doing so in the first place.

Yes, you are right; they have the right to tell me to stay away from property for the reasons you listed. If that wasn't implied in my post, I'm sorry for not expressing that more concisely.

My point had more to do with land ownership (land used for agricultural/forestry purposes). I'm talking about vast areas of significant natural beauty or places of interest that are closed off to the general public. There are quite a few areas like these in the country where I currently live. The idea of private possession seems to be taken almost to the point of paranoia. As someone coming from a country where this is not the case, I feel greatly restricted. I have to get in the car and drive nearly two hours to get to a national park where I'm able to enjoy some solitude without being chased by some farmer in a pickup-truck and his dogs.

In my native country, there are vast areas of natural wilderness where some fall within private property. But you are not treated as a criminal if you hike or camp here, the government introduced a legislation that gives the general public free access to private property as long as they keep a certain distance from private residences. Local land owners have no issue with this as they are equally connected to the land and understand their role as custodians rather than proprietors, and are thus generous in their sharing of these resources.

Because of this, the population in this country have interesting double lives; they work hard during the week in the city, but on the weekends and in their free-time, there's a mass-exodus to the mountains where people spend their free-time hiking, skiing and camping. It has promoted a healthy lifestyle for the general population as a result.

That's probably enough derailing for today.

 

[Spirit]

All people Equal = All people have an Opportunity

As long as there has been competition it has never been equal. But at different points in history, individuals were not given the "Opportunity to compete". Now we have societies that allow all people to have the opportunity to be successful in various areas of society if they have the skills and desire.

 

[Latte]

If a person had the skill and desire to organize revolt and assume power in a principality...

If a person had the skill and desire to obtain a high position within a theocracy... Or even overthrow it and create a new society... Or maybe get a job as a civil servant in Confucian China.

There are differences, both qualitative and quantitative, depending on the frameworks of where one lives. Culture, economy, technology, individual circumstance always serves to limit the usefulness of various kinds of skill when it comes to what opportunity they can yield for someone.
With the right skill, one could have great opportunity in the past or in less rich societies as well, though the parameters for what "the right skill" was, are of course more restrictive.


Social mobility is in some ways higher in the richer of the current day semi-capitalist societies with a social safety net than in monarchies of some centuries ago with their nobility class, yet social mobility and meritocracy cannot come close to reaching its potential apex within the framework of capitalism in libertarian or current forms. There are things such as full inheritance rights, close to absolute private property rights (apart from taxation) and flaws with the most prevalent forms of representative democracy due to the nature of people and societal power relations within capitalism that serve to heavily to limit social mobility through various mechanisms (legislation, media (privately owned, private interests), de facto local sector monopolies via ownership of infrastructure & land, legal corruption (revolving door being among them), lobbying, marketing, education, family etc).

I'm trying to illustrate that there are still very important and impactful ways in which the opportunity to compete on a meritocratic basis is system-implicationally limited, even though it is not explicitly and overtly limited to the degree that it is in a hereditary class system.

You're probably aware of all of this and this post may be characterized as Ti-wankery(TM) that's tangential from a single absolutist uttering that shouldn't be interpreted as such in the context, but I'll click "Post Quick Reply" anyway : (

 

[Red myst]

I don't think individuals are equal. I think equality is only in reference to having equal rights and a level playing field. And I don't think that is entirely possible. It is an ideal, not a reality. Life is not "fair". But it is possible to make it either better or worse for your self.

 

[Black Rose]

All individuals are equal in that they share the same attribute of individuality and subjective existence.

 

[SpaceYeti]

Who makes up this government? Government(and their workers) are funded by private persons. Your comparing a private system - Land lords and renters, with citizens and the State. One is done voluntarily, other is done through coercion.

Just as much as renting. As I said, you can leave. Leaving your rented home is inconvenient, so is leaving the country. Being a bum sucks, so does living on a raft in international waters.

 

[Analyzer]

Just as much as renting. As I said, you can leave. Leaving your rented home is inconvenient, so is leaving the country. Being a bum sucks, so does living on a raft in international waters.

http://www.seasteading.org/

 

[TimeAsylums]

http://www.seasteading.org/

https://www.mars-one.com

 

[Analyzer]

https://www.mars-one.com

I wonder if this seems more realistic.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

https://www.mars-one.com

I wonder if this seems more realistic.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1tw2fy/i_am_bas_lansdorp_cofounder_of_marsone_mankinds/

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/uta10/iama_founder_of_mars_one_settling_humans_on_mars/

http://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/1vuk8l/reconsidering_mars_one/

 

[StevenM]

After questioning it a little bit about "Is everyone equal?" , I came up with my own opinion.

I think that the answer to the question is simply, no. My answer is in regard to deserving equal respect and rights. This new thing about people getting on board of equality, is going in a good direction, because we are learning what does not discount somebody's rights and respect. For instance, somebody's sexual orientation does not discount that person's rights and respect. Or a person's cultural background does not discount a person's rights or respect. A person's annual income does not discount rights or respect.

When I say we are not 'equal' in rights and respect, it is based on something else. It might come from my 'feeling' functions, but there are just some people, in my opinion, who do not deserve equal rights. If you have ever come across a sadistic, narcissistic sociopath, and experienced their lovely personality, you'd probably agree.

There are people who make mistakes, and people who are misguided for sure. I believe that most of us are deserving of many second chances. Most of us deserve a lot of patience in shaping ourselves into a better person. However, there is people who are wrong, right down to their very core. Becoming a person who can strive to live harmonious in society, is futile for these people. Mainly sadists, sociopaths, psychopaths; they don't deserve equal rights.

Otherwise, if comparing 2 people, as in their inherit value, it is all relevant to what they're being compared for. Comparing two people is a lot like saying "This apple is much better at being red, than that orange". Really, it's just an apple, and that is an orange. We all gain unique attributes as we live and age, some people do it slowly, and some people more quickly than others. We are all just living and learning and dealing with life.

So are all people equal? I would say not. Yet, we are finding out that our value is not based on gender, race, income, etc. I would say our value is based on how much we can contribute to living harmoniously within a community.

 

[The Void]

Do I change myself and as I myself change, my chemistry change?
Or do chemistry change, changes the I?
Or both?
Or neither?

How about we would do about the violent socio-psychopath the same we do with the violent non-socio-psychopath?

 

[StevenM]

@the void
I believe "both". However, I think you are trying to ask "can sociopaths/psychopaths be changed into a non-sociopath?" Not at their very core. Their main drive is purely soul destruction for self-gratification. I never believed such a person existed until I really got to know one very well.

 

[RaBind]

Individuals aren't equal, they're different. Although that's something that can be skewed to imply "equality", if you keep in mind that there isn't any objective judge to do the comparing. Well an objective judge that doesn't take a passive role anyway. Because there is a judge called reality, but most people don't seem to like it, since it leads to survival of the fittest, eugenics and other shit like that which makes people feel uncomfortable.

 

[TBerg]

We presume everyone is equal so as to guard against any unfair practices that do not account for the intelligence and the affective needs of everyone involved in the social transaction. After you discover the person for who they really are in their totality, then we have the actual data on which to judge their suitability for a social position, tacit, formal, or otherwise. The idea of equal rights comes into play as a bare minimum standard of social conduct so that no one is ever assumed to have no rights at all. To say that someone does not have a minimal set of rights means that there is no hope for anything to be gained from that person's will and foreordains them to total servitude and lack of dignity. Northern capacity for industrial output was enhanced because employers treated their employees as capable of certain minimal faculties that allow them to form contractual arrangements without selling their entire spirit away. When people feel that their will is expressed instead of suppressed in a slavish manner, the quantity and quality of productive output increases. We can see how societies that do not squelch individual creativity are enhanced in both substance and spirit. The enshrinement of equal basic rights makes sure that no spirit is ever discounted forever, and it makes sure dominant members of society do not become mean and petty people in the process.

 

[BigApplePi]

Why are Individuals Equal(?)** This question assumes we are all equal. We are not but because we are all alive and see life in others which is an adequate intuitive complexity to imagine a commonality, we assume they are like us and fear we will not be treated equally ourselves*.

This fear of not being treated equally causes us to hypothesize this belief. Those who believe themselves superior will not have this belief. Those who believe themselves inferior gain a promotion.
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*Are you equal to the task of shortening this sentence?
**Why are some more equal than others? ~Orwell