Although, some people already think of equality in terms of justice, but if we go back to the definition of the two, a distinct feeling about each of them may make you wonder whether we should fight for Justice or Equality. I’ll give my opinion on this topic while being eager to see your personal opinions in the comments.
So what is equality ?
I will speak according to the root of the word, which is ‘equal’ or ‘equivalent’. For example, you should give equal love to your children. This is very close to having two mathematical expressions, and saying if they do the same thing or not. Rotating 180° clockwise is the same as rotating 180° counter-clockwise. If you allow men to be surgeons, you should also allow women to be so. That’s basically it, that’s equality. It’s a very simple concept if I take it to it’s true meaning and not rely on what people think it is. More examples of equality would be : Giving the same amount of money to both your siblings when you die, allow every student to participate, etc… And we will see later on that equality is the basis of justice.
And what is Justice ?
Justice is to me the act of rational balancing and fair ruling among people, and can be generally determined by the dominant agreement of rational thinking and emotional basing on whether something feels/seems fair or not. A lot of things are predefined with fairness, such as no stealing, ease for the one in hardship, etc … The reason why justice is really hard to define is it’s varying degrees among nations, but an easy way to think of it is by going with the terms fair and fairness.
Justice is based on a deeper level of equality. If you say the criminal and the normal citizen should be treated equally it will feel odd. Instead, you’d rather say the criminal and the normal citizen should both be treated fairly you would definitely agree. The old meaning of ‘equal’ and the unchanged meaning of ‘fair’ are still installed in our brains, thus it’s easy to distinguish what should be done.
To make it simple, equality exists in fairness, but in a deeper level. The criminal stole money, and so he had advantage on others by doing so. To make him equal with others again, he should remain in prison for a determined amount of time. That is fairness, it’s deep leveled equality, and justice is just maintaining fairness among people. You need to be just in regard of handicapped people and give them more rights than normal citizens, and not make them totally equal in rights and duties as non-handicapped people! Women should have special rights concerning what she is different from men, such as the right to leave work whenever her period may interrupt her. That is why It would of been nice if people said “gender justice” rather than “gender equality” because considering everyone equal only ruins the taste of having diverse rules.
This was the short comment from me for today, I hope you learnt something from it and I hope to see comments about this, It would be interesting to know what others think about this. So that was justice vs equality, something people don’t talk about much.
indepthed 