The Issue of Equality and Justice - Essay Example

No other topic has been discussed by both academicians and laymen more than the term ‘equality’. Equality is a word that has numerous interpretations and applications by many people depending on their understanding of this term. The main question is “what is equality?” this question is not simple to answer. It might have a single answer, many answers, or no answer at all. Many people attach the meaning of equality to treating people the same. Equality by its best meaning refers to a perception that plays at a higher psychological level in people concerning being on the same level but does not mean treating people the same way.

One account of egalitarian justice proponents argues that equality is concerned with ensuring that society receives equal shares of resources (Kaufman, 1). Analyzing this argument provides a contra view. For example; a person with a large body is not treated equally when given the same amount of food as a person with a much smaller body. This is because people will vary in transforming the foods into their well-being. Equality cannot, therefore, mean giving the same portions of resources to two unequal people, because that would be discriminating against one of them depending on the ability to transform the resources.

Felipe and Lustig (33) argue that there is a need to invest more in the education of unskilled laborers by giving them unskilled workers higher wages that would make them invest in education thus reducing the un equality in education that results in inequality in income. This might not lead to equality in that those with skilled labor would still earn the same or more as the unskilled people who seek education to bridge the gap. At the end of the day, skilled workers will have higher education and be more skilled, which will translate to more earnings.

This can therefore not lead to equality, but the gap between the two persists. Ruxton (163) explains that inequality in gender between men and women results in poverty in society and other factors. Therefore, according to Ruxton, gender equality can be prevented by making rural women more financially independent. This would imply that two people of opposite genders having the same level of wealth are equal. The problem with this argument as Ruxton (164) further elaborates is that the difference between the genders is mostly cultivated at the cultural level and no amount of wealth can delete these gender stereotypes.

Therefore, this would not result in equality, since it is a superiority complex for one gender to claim more rights than the other