Description And Equality: The Definition Of Equality

"The principle of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat humans,” (Singer, 397) is a way to view the goal of happiness for any given society. To discuss what the principle of equality means there are two terms to define: description and prescription, which are the two words that contrast each other and raise the discussion. Description is a representation, or process of describing: a person, object, or event that is either spoken or written and this is what society bases equality among humans. In reality equality should be based on the prescription, which is the establishment of a claim based on the long or indefinite period of uninterrupted use

The first section strides for the equality of opportunity and full citizenship for black people, but their obstacle or the “description” of equality is the racist laws, discrimination in housing, education, etc. The description of black people is that because of the color of their skin they are inferior, therefore they are given unfair housing, education, and treated poorly. This was seen as equality in the oppressors eyes (white people) and was allegedly fair. On the other hand, Martin Luther King Jr. said in his infamous speech “I Have a Dream” (1963) that people “will no be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character,” (Political Ideologies, p. 236). The prescription seen in this quote is the “content of their character,” which is looking past the description of a black person and looking in-depth of the soul of a human

In the first section the goal for women was to achieve equal opportunity, but legal and institutional discrimination obstructed this goal. To stop the described equality that women are inferior due to biological differences, they created the liberal ideology of feminism. Feminism is not anti-men because that will defeat purpose of the prescribed equality for humans to treat each other equally. Patriarchy, “sexism,” was the description stated that, “men are intellectually and morally superior to women,” (p. 240) which in turn gave men the alleged right to control women’s lives. This ideology outlines an untrue physical description of women, and avoids their strengths or in-depth character that truly shows their way of being. The prescribed establishment that some women can out do men and some men can out do women simply because they are human, is overlooked in this gender inequality; when in fact is should enforce equal treatment of both