What is the importance of the right of equality?

Question

What is the importance of the right of equality?

Answer 1

Equality is "unalienable" because it is derived from the sovereignty of your empirical individualism.

"Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..."

http://www.friesian.com/ellis.htm

As one of the "governed" in the phrase "consent of the governed," it stands to reason that you cannot consent to hand over some of your individual sovereignty to the "common sovereignty" [Locke; Hobbes; et. al.] if you don't have it to hand over.

Therefore, you must have it; therefore it must be real; therefore it must be unalienable.

Answer 2

I read a beautiful metaphor about equality recently, and it will stay in my heart forever.  It went a little something like this....

We need to realize that we are all born with a beautiful, life size diamond inside of us.  It is a beautiful flawless diamond. The only problem is that it is very dirty and covered in tar.   The only way to clean it is as we start to work on our soul to make us a better person, and to better understand our world and the people we communicate with.   And the more we do this, the more facets that are cleaned and those will sparkle in the dimmest of lights.   And so, the diamond inside of us makes us all equal, but the amount of time and energy spent to polish will differ.  Thus, the more effort spent will result in the most gorgeous sparkling diamond which represents your beautiful soul as a person.

Thanks for reading!

Answer 3

It depends - how much do you value liberty? Because liberty and equality are quite often at odds with each other.

Should the Great be suppressed in order to spare the Weak? Is that not an injustice? Modern political philosophy prizes equality over liberty, but Ancient political philosophy prized greatness and glory over equality.

Answer 4

Do you really need to ask that question?

Look at it this way, would you like to be treated like a second class citizen?  Less of a person?   Have lower wages just because you don't look like the other person?

Equality is important!

Equal treatment, equal pay,  equal laws that apply to everyone

etc

Answer 5

I'm not sure you have the right of equality. I mean, if 99.9% of the population feels one way, you shouldn't hold things up. That's not fair. You are allowed liberty and freedom but not equality.