Note Taking and Note Making

Unit title: Note Taking and Note Making

Introduction

Throughout human history, equality as an ideal has evoked powerful emotions. It has fueled revolutions and social movements, and people have died and have killed for it. In addition, it has been the subject of formal analysis that has sought to analyze, compare, and measure inequalities in goods, liberties, and opportunities (Kolm, 2004). This entry examines the concept of equality, beginning with the two fundamental questions: “why equality?” and “equality of what?” The second issue concerns the varied domains in which equality may be sought. This distinguishes the various social ethical conceptions, but it seems a priori that such a moral question can be answered only if the former question is: why equality in the first place (Kolm, 1996)? There turns out to be various types of reasons for equality, and in particular the trivial equality as generality or universality, the basic equality as logic or rationality, and the socially essential equality as the absence of subjection and domination (hence as this freedom). The discussion of equality from rationality introduces an analysis in terms of rule equality (Dworkin, 2001).

Discussion

The concept of equality is an important concern for political science, and the entry considers the relationship between democracy and political equality. For philosophers, the concept of impartiality has been a central one, and the entry discusses its elaboration through the theory of the original position. The work of social scientists on the measurement and comparison of inequality is also noted. Finally, equality in social relations can be seen as grounded in reciprocity—the fundamental tendency of human beings to treat and relate to others as they treat and relate to you (Thomson, 2008).

Equality and Modernity: Formal and Real Equalities

The equalities considered here are results of choices by society, often by institutions but sometimes by individuals. In almost all societies there are peer groups with some values of equality between their members, and, often, equalities of certain types with larger extensions. However, we are also particularly interested in equality in the ethics of modernity. The logical analysis of equality will apply to all cases. The ethics of modernity is characterized by the acceptance or demand, by large majorities of populations, of certain equalities for large populations, universally for some equalities (Kolm, 2004). These ideal values are, first, moral basic worth, classical basic rights, and some sort of democracy. Respect, and basic rights ...