Philosophy Now Forum

Equality and Diversity
Equality and Diversity are amongst the most randomly employed ethical values. Used to suit whatever political bias a person has. This arises from their use in isolation as if ethics is not holistic but an assemblage of discrete pieces. Or rather it is a symptom of anarchism with a world and society merely an aggregate of individuals doing their own thing.
Equality can be employed as a universal or global value. But on a local or particular level it becomes absurd. A job that is suited only to women is not suited to men, and equality in that case relates to the qualifications of women who apply. The women are treated ‘equally’ as such, but are not equal in qualification. People may be accorded the right to move and settle anywhere in the world, as they decide, but that denotes global anarchism. If regions or countries are already over-populated then random movement is destructive and people can only have the altruist right to live where they are. With all possible aid if they are in need.
It is similar with diversity which completely fails if we live in an open world. Anarchism is the route to eventual conformity and suppression of racial and other diversity. If we wish to have altruistic diversity then it can only be achieved on a localised basis. There is nothing essentially ‘nice’ about altruism in the short term. The third type of society or state which is despotic may indeed have some diversity but only in inherited rank [much as in feudal society] and equality on a similar basis.
Equality is a value that relates to both anarchism and altruism. Diversity relates to both altruism and the despotic state or society.
‘Love’ as in the English language, is not altruism, which is an ethical value which controls how we employ ‘love’.

Equality and Diversity

The more we look at the political meaning, or the living interests involved, the less the issues hang in mere intelligibility. It's clear, for example, that equality means something concrete, is a demand for something do be done, in the 18th century. The principle of equal rights under the law can only be richly understood in the context of the transformation of the non-liberal to the liberal societies. So, then the issue becomes one of getting a detailed knowledge of history and literature. History to get a selection of the issues broadly held to be important, literature to see the attitude of people towards their lives and other people. The trajectory of the leading concept of Equality, which we all participate in whether we know it or not, only comes clear when the knowledge of history becomes richer. Or, becomes as clear as is that knowledge. Of course, Hegel and Herder and others are exemplars, much held at arms length these days, of this mode of grasping political-moral being according to a process.

Taking the ideas in the sheer abstract, to be sure, is to slip into the barren ground of mere intelligibility, away from the real interests of living people. Ergo, this analysis only becomes worthy when it goes into details and shows the difficulties from life in the light of the speculative.