Equality vs Freedom

INTRODUCTION

Charles Fried notes that ‘‘it would be absurd to insist that if a man could, at no risk or cost to himself, save one of two persons in equal peril, and one of those in peril was, say, his wife, he must treat both equally, perhaps by Skipping a coin’’

Impartiality is widely viewed as reflecting a commitment to equality. Equality in itself means, the condition of being equal, particularly with regard to the status, privileges, or opportunities despite biological differences of caste, color, race, or gender.

However, we do not always treat people equally in our daily lives, nor do we feel ethically obligated to do so. On the other hand, we frequently feel ethically justified in choosing our friends and family over strangers. A duty to treat everyone equally—to not exhibit favoritism toward my friends or family—would, in fact, be positively perverse in some instances. 

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

― Charlotte Brontë (Jane Eyre)

Freedom is the capability or freedom to do, say, or think as one pleases.

It is the condition of leading life and of doing things that are evaluated to be good for us, to fulfill desires that are judged to be worth having in the first place. This view slowly leads to the idea that freedom is identical to self-realization. The detailed elaboration of different conceptions of freedom is one task of political theory.

Freedom is often talked about in social and political philosophy, and ethics and its importance both on an individual as well as in society for the smooth running of the society.

Both equality and freedom are basic human rights and are very much required for the development of humans and society. 

This essay tries to explain equality and freedom as two individual yet connected concepts.

EQUALITY

Modern "equality" ideas and initiatives in the west frequently concentrate on concerns of political and cultural inequality rather than disparities in the distribution of goods. Ethnic minorities, the disabled, the elderly, gays and lesbians, religious minorities, and other groups are now more frequently perceived as "unequal" than the poor. The development of dedication to pursuing and theorizing equality in a way that respects and embraces differences results from this evolving understanding of equality.

Therefore, modern "equality" ideas and initiatives in the west frequently concentrate on concerns of political and cultural inequality rather than disparities in the distribution of goods. 

Others, who share the concern about group inequalities, claim that despite the narrow focus on cultural inequities and acknowledgment, the division between recognition and redistribution—or between the political and the economic—has nonetheless been superfluous. Even while some now see this argument as wrong, it has nevertheless motivated theorists to develop theories of equality that make an effort to reconcile differences by addressing economic, cultural, and political issues.

Thomas Nagel notes: ‘‘the requirement of impartiality can take various forms, but it usually involves treating or counting everyone equally in some respect—according to them all the same rights, or counting their good or their welfare or some aspect of it the same in determining what would be a desirable result or a permissible course of action’’

And in a similar vein, Brian Barry urges that the whole idea of justice as impartiality ‘‘rests upon a fundamental commitment to the equality of all human beings. The kind of equality that is appealed to by the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and by the American Declaration of Independence’’

Bernard Williams has insisted that ‘‘somewhere one reaches the necessity that such things as deep attachments to other persons will express themselves in the world in ways which cannot at the same time embody the impartial view and that they also run the risk of offending against it’’

One of the most influential theorists of the politics of recognition is Charles Taylor, who explains that treating people equally will entail distributive concerns but treating them as equals need not because this entails recognizing what is different and distinctive about them. Treating people as equals will require giving due acknowledgment to each person’s identity, and this entails recognition of what is peculiar to each. Accordingly, recognizing the unique identity of everyone requires not an identical set of rights for all, but the public acknowledgment of the particular worth of each. The argument that each individual’s unique identity ought to be recognized in order to grant that person dignity frequently slips into a correlative—but distinct—claim that group identities require recognition. These two claims are linked by the assumption that the expression of one’s unique identity will take the form of group identity—that groups portray an authentic expression of one’s individuality.

Cultural recognition is therefore introduced onto the egalitarian agenda,eclipsing the primary status previously given to issues of redistribution. In this way the shift in concern from economic to cultural inequalities is accompanied by a shift in focus from sameness to diVerence. Equality now appears to require a respect for diVerence rather than a search for similarities. It also tends to focus on the importance of equality between groups rather than between individuals, incorporating analyses of the systems and structures that constitute and perpetuate the inequalities under consideration in the worst place. FREEDOM

Get rid of something in order to be free of it or from it. It must be something you adversely judge that you want to get rid of. Such things that you want to get rid of are typically referred to as restrictions in the literature on freedom. Therefore, to be free means to be unrestricted. But what kind of restrictions are these? Our perceptions of freedom will undoubtedly be influenced by how we see these limitations. Are these restrictions only physical in nature? Consider freedom as the poster child for freedom. In chains is a man. He is free once the chains are removed.

A sentient entity has the ability to exert its will while they are free. People bend their thoughts and efforts toward achieving a goal when they have a specific outcome in mind. Their independence is the ability to work for their objective. A person who has an infallible understanding of what is good and an equally unerring understanding of how to achieve it would be the epitome of freedom since they would not encounter any obstacles in their pursuit of it. A supreme God or a Buddha might encounter this ideal state of freedom. While exterior limitations on freedom include both physical and cultural barriers to its achievement, personal, and internal limitations on freedom mostly emerge as ignorance of what is good or of the ways to attain it.

For example, since there are legal as well as physical restrictions, it's possible that a person that was imprisoned after being accused of stealing, committed theft even though it is against the law to do so, but he was physically free to do so. 

Consequently, the man was imprisoned due to the fact that it is unlawful to take something that is, by law, the property of another person. To be free means to be liberated from both physical and legal restraints, but here his freedom is constrained by morality and law. Hence, we can also conclude that the idea of ‘absolute freedom’; freedom restricted by no means is hard to be implemented in a real and working society. Entailing someone’s absolute freedom would hinder someone else’s basic freedom.

A COMPARATIVE SHORT ESSAY ON EQUALITY AND FREEDOM

Individual acts of influence or power provide a specific definition of both freedom and equality within a group. The form of freedom that is discussed is "freedom from" influence rather than "freedom to do" what one desires. It is demonstrated that total freedom entails equality at the ideal conceptual level. Given the reasonableness of the definitions, this demonstrates how deceptive and misleading political "folk rhetorics," which frequently pit freedom and equality against one another, are. The concepts of "greater freedom" and "more equality," both quantified, are introduced and demonstrated to be distinct from one another.

For example, impartiality encompasses people going about their daily lives. If we consider impartiality to be largely a need of moral and legal principles, the criteria of impartiality will be considerably different from what they would be. Similar to the last point, if we determine the commitment to equality through a simple utilitarian calculation, we can get a different practical conclusion than if we appeal to what people can or could reasonably agree on.

As an illustration, utilitarianism is an impartialist philosophy. Classical utilitarians believe that the proper approach to treat everyone equally is to count each individual as one and no one else as more than one. However, utilitarianism, especially in this plain version, may compel some people to make significant sacrifices in order to increase overall welfare. If it's necessary to maximize welfare, it can call for a minority to live in servitude. This thinking led John Rawls to provide a different understanding of impartiality, one that focuses on agreement rather than the maximum utility. However, this seems to some to be the wrong kind of argument against slavery.

Rawls writes: ‘‘while there may be some excuse for slavery in special circumstances, it is never an excuse for it that it is sufficiently advantageous to the slaveholder to outweigh the disadvantages to the slave and to society. . . . since slavery does not accord with principles which they [the slaveholder and the slave] could mutually acknowledge, they may each be supposed to agree that it is unjust’’.

For freedom, we can say we have equal freedoms when all of us are able to participate in government or all are able to enjoy our property securely In the past, slavery was protected by law and the law took the side of the slave owners again the slave's legitimate strivings for freedom. But, it can also be argued that the slave owner with his status and resources hold a slave, despite the slave's disagreement, according to their freedom. 

The disenfranchisement of women was enshrined in the law and enforced by the police and the courts, and so were the laws against working people organizing themselves to working conditions. 

Equal freedoms exist only when the laws apply equally to all and when they allow the same range of activities to all persons. All are equally free when laws protect everyone's right to political participation and protect everyone's right to own property, to speak their mind, and to fashion good lives for themselves as long as they allow equality.

On the contrary, individual acts of influence or power provide a specific definition of both freedom and equality within a group. The form of freedom that is discussed is "freedom from" influence rather than "freedom to do" what one desires. It is demonstrated that total freedom entails equality at the ideal conceptual level. Given the reasonableness of the definitions, this demonstrates how deceptive and misleading political "folk rhetorics," which frequently pit freedom and equality against one another, are. The concepts of "greater freedom" and "more equality," both quantified, are introduced and demonstrated to be distinct from one another. Discussion is had over how these conceptual exercises relate to comparing political regimes.

As historians Will and Ariel Durant testify in The Lessons of History, “freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.”

Raphael writes, “the legal requirement to give up a proportion of one's income to the State means that one is not free to do as one likes with the money.”

There are two basic ways in which the quest for equality has been portrayed as being in opposition to personal freedom. First, it is claimed to alter the relationship between the person and the state. The state must get involved in people's lives in order to achieve equality, both to address current disadvantages and to stop new inequities from forming. According to liberal theorists, there is a province of human action and interactions in small groups where the state has no business, and any entrance into this territory constitutes an infringement on personal freedom. Second, egalitarianism entails some type of redistribution, the taking away of one person's advantages in order to address the shortcomings of another.

Freedom and equality have often been portrayed as opposing principles. Freedom is frequently portrayed as either positive or negative, but in everyday usage, it can have both meanings, thus the difference doesn't adequately explain how people's perceptions of freedom and poverty relate to one another. A different way of expressing the idea contrasts societal freedom with individual freedom by emphasizing the autonomous nature of the individual.

Disadvantage must be eliminated for there to be equality. The idea of freedom is one of redistribution, suggesting that some people's freedom must be limited in order to increase the freedom of others. Even if the concept of individual freedom is constrictive, it can be somewhat reconciled with the concepts of equality of opportunity, equality of treatment, and even equality of outcome. The scope of redistribution is expanded by the social idea of freedom to include all types of social disadvantage. This calls for a high level of equality and establishes the parameters of that goal, which is justifiable insofar as it fosters freedom.

CONCLUSION

A shift in emphasis from sameness to difference goes hand in hand with the worry moving from economic to cultural and political inequities. In current policy and theoretical discussions, appreciation for diversity rather than a look for commonalities appears to be necessary for equality.

Recent assessments of the effectiveness of political systems place a greater emphasis on several facets or dimensions that are reflected in words like liberty, equality, solidarity, human rights, and welfare. The issue with such a multifaceted approach to the quality of political systems is that the various elements have not been extensively investigated and compared with one another. There is no reliable information on how the various factors work together to determine a political system's quality. While the impact of each individual factor, ceteris paribus, is relatively obvious, issues arise when two or more of them are changed at once. Freedom and solidarity, as well as freedom and equality, are frequently discussed in "folk" political rhetorics as rivals or even incompatible.

However, this might not always be the case, they can work together, by setting up boundaries for freedom and perceiving equality in newer ways.

Freedom is not, therefore, in conflict with equality. Certain egalitarian assumptions are part of its normative base, and it actively requires a degree of redistribution.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. The Oxford Handbook of POLITICAL THEORY
   (Edited by JOHN S. DRYZEK BONNIE HONIG and ANNE PHILLIPS)

2. Oxford India paperbacks, Collected essays Rajeev Bhargava - What is Political Theory and Why do We Need It, Oxford University Press (2013)