Friday, October 24, 2014
As we discussed in class today, we have almost this moral obligation to treat everyone equally. I however, find that very hard to accomplish because every person is different. Not only is everyone different, but you have a different relationship with each individual person. I think it is hard to treat everyone the same, but that doesn't mean we can treat people badly. I think we have to recognize that everyone has human dignity and needs to be treated with respect. You can treat all people with respect even if you don't treat them the same.
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I think you are right. Just because we do not treat everyone the same does not mean we have to treat them badly. So in a way, we do not treat people equally, which is expected given we know some better than others and have different opinions about people. I do not believe that it is immoral to treat people differently as long as we abide by those rules of respect and a simple form of pleasant kindness. For example, you might give your best friend a hug if you saw him/her on campus, but you would probably not do the same for one of your professors. In the professor situation you might smile and give a pleasant "hello". This is not treating the two exactly equally, but it is showing them both the respect people should show others. I think that as long as you are nice to the people around you and not mean, then you are acting morally.
ReplyDeleteI agree, it is hard to treat people the same. As Amanda was saying in class, we have different relationships with different people. We can’t treat anyone the same because our interactions with everyone are unique in their own way. It is impossible to treat everyone truly equally, meaning that none of us are truly moral. However, I do think that all people should be treated with respect, like everyone else has been saying. I don’t think this is true in today’s society. There are still so many problems and hatred about racism and sexism. Gay people can’t get married in every state. There is still so much animosity and ignorance in the world and I think we have a long way to go towards morality, even beyond our personal relationships and friendships.
ReplyDeleteI agree that we all have to treat people with respect, it is just part of being a good person. However, I think that we treat strangers differently than our friends. We may hold the door for a stranger because it is considered polite, and on the other hand we tease and make fun of our friends. It may seem as thought we are treating the stranger better than our friend, but it is just because we know them on a personal level and know what they are capable of handling. You are still acting morally because that is just part of the friendship you have with that person, and you are still acting politely toward the stranger. To go off of what Hannah is saying above, we clearly do not treat everyone with respect and act morally. One would think that people would have the decency to respect other people's decisions in life and have the morals to treat others with the same respect they would want in return.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Amanda. Treating everyone the same is difficult but one can treat everyone with respect. As we discussed in class, people are biased in relation to relationships. Obviously in any situation, a person will choose friend over a stranger. The question that comes up is how one would act in a situation that involves just strangers. This can be seen in the movie "The Dark Knight". There is a scene in the movie in which Batman must choose between saving a boat of good moral people and children or saving a boat full of criminals. Now due to this being a movie, both boats are saved but what if only one could be saved. I would think that most people would choose to save the boat of good people rather than the criminals. This shows that even though both groups are strangers, one can not treat the groups the same way.
ReplyDeleteI know it is difficult to treat everyone the same, and almost impossible to treat everyone the same, but I think there is a baseline of respect we try to have towards total strangers. However, there are generalities and stereotypes that we can place on people, just by looking at them (ie leather jacket and guitar, business suit and briefcase) that can affect our treatment of them. However ideally it would be to treat everyone the same, be it gender equality or equal citizenship (like Hannah mentioned), there are still innate responses you have towards other people. I wonder if these responses have any chance of being unlearned, or if we as humans are destined to make judgments of other people, simply for the sake of our own safety?
ReplyDeleteAs everyone has stated, I agree with Amanda’s view. I do think there is a certain level of respect we owe all human beings, just given the fact that they are humans who live in the same greater community as us. Not only is it hard to treat everyone equally all the time because we have different relationships with people, but we also encounter people in different ways. Not only that, but we have different perspectives in situations that are similar. We cannot have the same perspective or outlook because our past experiences have influenced us. To say that we would have to treat a situation now the same way we treated it in previous years means that we did not grow or learn from it. So in a way if you are treating everyone equally in the similar situations or situations summarily, excluding the basic level of respect that is required, then you are implying that you have not grown or learned anything really over the course of your life. The only thing that would be consistent in all those situations and encounters is yourself, you would be the common link. If you would want the same outcome then you would need some sort of constant, I think, and in which case that constant would become you. It would have to be since you were the common link in all the situations. Thus I do not think it is really realistic to say that you can and should treat everyone equally above the baseline level of respect. Not to mention that our brain naturally already has a bias. You cannot eliminate any and all bias because we unconsciously have bias’ that have been formed. It is just how our brain works.
ReplyDeleteTo go back to the drowning example that was brought up in class. I don’t fully agree with the statement that if you feel guilt from saving your mother and not the other person that means you are not treating them equally. In that specific example between saving your mother or a stranger it can be hard to see, but what if you had to choose between two strangers? If you could only save one, then I think you would feel guilty no matter which one you chose. Simply because of the fact that you are always going to wish you could save the other as well. It may not be the same amount of guilt as if you didn’t save your mother, but I think you would still feel guilty.
I'd be interested in seeing what exactly constitutes someone who is more worth saving versus someone who is an acceptable loss. In the case we have been discussing where we would have to pick one person or the other... what other factors come into play other than just how long you've known them or how close you are?
ReplyDeleteI think this dynamic gets even more complicated when you have two equally good and bad people. For example, your mother is close to you by default because she has given you birth and probably raised you for a majority of your life, however... what if she is a raging alcoholic and doesn't contribute to society or treat your dad fairly? And on the other hand, you have an acquaintance who you know to actively contribute to society with a job, volunteers every week at a nursing home, and aspires to become a doctor without borders... What then?
I think this example drives the point home that now there are other factors to consider than simply your relationship with the person. I think we also judge people's worth on how much they can give back to the world and how productive their lives will be. If you chose your mother in the case I presented, you would essentially be continuing a life that is going nowhere, even though it may be more emotionally comfortable for you to choose. On the other hand, if you chose the stranger you would clearly be picking a member of the youth with many years of productivity to come and someone who is actively engaged in bettering society / humanity as a whole.
All together, this thought agrees with the fact we do not treat everyone equally... but the idea of WHY people are different and WHAT makes us favor one over the other as far as favorable treatment needs expanding.