Judeo-Christian thought, classical liberals, and modern egalitarianism.

AuthorHill, Peter J.
PositionEssay

Classical liberals bring much to the debate on modern egalitarianism, in particular their understanding of the overriding importance of moral agency and universal human dignity. Many classical liberals ground their understanding of human equality in natural-rights theory, whereas others reach similar conclusions about equality through consequentialist arguments, such as rule utilitarianism. (1) Whatever the basis for the concept of equal human dignity, it is important to understand that this understanding of the person is, in a historical context, a recent event.

For most of the recorded history of humankind, both mores and legal structures sanctioned differences in people. Not all humans were seen as moral agents capable of self directedness. Slavery was almost universally sanctioned. Legal distinctions based on ethnicity, race, gender, and social class were justified as inevitable and appropriate. This essay traces out the evolution of belief from fundamental human inequality to universal equality.

The roots of human inequality lie deep in human history. Although a strong advocate of the virtuous life, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.E.) believed that such virtue could be achieved only by certain members of society, certainly not by slaves and women: "There are species in which a distinction is already marked, immediately at birth, between those of its members who are being ruled and those who are intended to rule.... Again, the relation of the male to the female is naturally that of the superior to the inferior--of the ruling to the ruled. It is thus clear that, just as some are by nature free, so others are by nature slaves" (1946, 1254a-55a).

Aristotle was not unique in his sanctioning of slavery. In early history, there were almost no defenders of human dignity outside of the Jewish world, (2) and in fact slavery was so common that articulating a reason for slavery was not even considered important. According to Thomas Sowell, "Aristotle had attempted to justify slavery, but many other Western and non-Western philosophers alike took it so much for granted that they felt no need to explain or justify it at all" (2005,127). Other social differentiations based on ethnicity, gender, race, or social background likewise required no moral justification but were accepted as facts of life.

So if human equality and the rule of law have not been generally accepted until recently, what has caused this dramatic change in our basic anthropology? As in biological evolution, survival of the fittest has been a strong influence in cultural evolution. Nevertheless, belief structures can have a dramatic impact on the course of cultural evolution. (3) The economist Dani Rodrik argues, "Much human behavior is driven by abstract ideals, sacred values, or conceptions of loyalty that cannot be reduced to human ends" (2014, 191).

Two prominent thinkers, intellectual historian Larry Siedentop (2014) and French philosopher Luc Ferry (2011), argue that it took a metaphysical concept, seeing individuals as created in the image of God, to overcome the almost universal belief that people are fundamentally unequal. Despite its origins in early Jewish history and then in Christian anthropology, the concept of human equality took a long period of time to work its way into philosophical and political thinking before finally becoming fully ingrained in modern thought. Today almost everyone starts the discussion about egalitarianism with the assumption that all people should be free moral agents and that equality before the law is one of the most basic ways of expressing and defending that moral equality.

Luc Ferry argues that Christianity represented a dramatically different worldview than Greek philosophy because it contested the Greek aristocratic idea of differential human endowments and hence potentialities. "In direct contradiction [to Greek philosophy], Christianity was to introduce the notion that humanity was fundamentally identical, that men were equal in dignity--an unprecedented idea at that time and one to which our world owes its entire democratic inheritance. But this notion of equality did not come from nowhere" (2011, 72). "But with Christianity," Ferry explains, the idea of a common humanity acquired a new strength. Based on the equal dignity of all human beings, it was to take on an ethical aspect. As soon as free will becomes the foundation of moral action and virtue is located not in natural, "unequal gifts," but in the use to which they are put, then it goes without saying that all men are of equal merit. Humanity would never again be able to divide itself (philosophically) according to a natural and aristocratic hierarchy of beings: between superior and inferior, gifted and less gifted, masters and slaves. From then on, according to Christians, we are all "brothers" on the same level as creatures of God and endowed with the same capacity to choose whether to act well or badly. Rich or poor, intelligent or simple: it no longer holds any importance. And this idea of equality leads to a primarily ethical conception of humanity. The Greek concept of barbarians--synonymous with a "stranger" (anyone not Greek)--soon disappeared to be replaced by the conviction that humanity is ONE. To conclude we could say that Christianity is the first universalis ethos; universalism meaning the doctrine or belief in universal salvation. (2011, 76-77, capitalization and italics in the original)

Although Ferry recognizes the historical influence of Christianity on philosophical thought, he is an atheist and hence does not spend much time discussing the actual theological doctrines that produced this radical departure from conventional thought. In reality, it was Judaism that provided the original foundation for dignity for all because of the concept of the imago Dei, a concept that is also crucial to Christian theology and anthropology. If all humans are bearers of the image of the omniscient, omnipotent God of the universe, then social and political equality are logical necessities of that concept.

If Jewish and...

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