What ethical theory would state that all people should be treated equally.?

Question

I am writing a paper and am looking for an ethical theory that would support the idea that we cannot place a value on individual lives. More specifically that we should not choose who to save based on their age. Utilitarianism, for example, may say that a 30 yr old is more worth saving than a 90 yr old, and this is what I would like to counter.

Thanks for answering but I am looking for an actual ethical theory which prescribes this. In other words, I would like to cite "a way of thinking" (e.g. deontology or utilitarianism) rather than simply a moral principle.

Answer 1

Egalitarianism
"First published Fri 16 Aug, 2002
Egalitarianism is a trend of thought in political philosophy. An egalitarian favors equality of some sort: People should get the same, or be treated the same, or be treated as equals, in some respect. Egalitarian doctrines tend to express the idea that all human persons are equal in fundamental worth or moral status. So far as the Western European and Anglo-American philosophical tradition is concerned, one significant source of this thought is the Christian notion that God loves all human souls equally. Egalitarianism is a protean doctrine, because there are several different types of equality, or ways in which people might be treated the same, that might be thought desirable. In modern democratic societies, the term "egalitarian" is often used to refer to a position that favors, for any of a wide array of reasons, a greater degree of equality of income and wealth across persons than currently exists."
see: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egalitarianism/

Also "Equality" is one of the 102 or so *Great Ideas discussed tn The Great Books Program developed by Mortimer Adler, the philosopher.

see another entry from the SEP entitled:

"Equality

This article is concerned with social and political equality. In its prescriptive usage, ‘equality’ is a loaded and ‘highly contested’ concept. On account of its normally positive connotation, it has a rhetorical power rendering it suitable as a political slogan (Westen 1990). At least since the French Revolution, equality has served as one of the leading ideals of the body politic; in this respect, it is at present probably the most controversial of the great social ideals. There is controversy concerning the precise notion of equality, the relation of justice and equality (the principles of equality), the material requirements and measure of the ideal of equality (equality of what?), the extension of equality (equality among whom?), and its status within a comprehensive (liberal) theory of justice (the value of equality). Each of these five issues will be discussed by turn in the present article.

1. Defining the Concept
2. Principles of Equality and Justice
2.1 Formal Equality
2.2 Proportional Equality
2.3 Moral Equality
2.4 Presumption of Equality
3. Conceptions of Distributive Equality: Equality of What?
3.1 Simple Equality and Objections to Equality in General
3.2 Libertarianism
3.3 Utilitarianism
3.4 Equality of Welfare
3.5 Equality of Resources
3.6 Equality and Responsibility
3.7 Equality of Opportunity for Welfare or Advantage
3.8 Capabilities Approaches
4. Equality Among Whom?
5. The Value of Equality: Why Equality?
5.1 Kinds of egalitarianism
5.2 Equality vs. Priority or Sufficiency
Bibliography
Other Internet Resources
Related Entries"
see: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/

As indicated above in the last cut-and-paste quote several ethical theories are listed as incorporating *equality as one of the main moral values or ethical principles.

Answer 2

Try Marxian ethics.

Answer 3

Carl Sagan From, The Demon-Haunted World-
" All of us cherish our beleifs. They are, to a degree, self-defining. When someone comes along who challenges our belief system as insufficinetlly well-based -- or who, like Soctrates, merely asks embarrasing questions that we haven't thought of, or demonstrates that we've swept key underlying assumptions under the rug -- it becomes much more than a search for knowledge. It feels like a personal assault.






David Loy- From "The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory."
"When I discovered that I am you - that I am the trace of your traces - the ethical problem of how to relate to you is transformed. Lose of self-preoccupation entails the ability to responed to others without an ulteior motive that needs to gain something, material or symbolic, from that encounter. Of course, the danger of abuse remains, when my nondual experience is not deep enough to root out those dualistic tendenceies that incline me to manipulate others. As there is sense of self, therefore, there will be a need to inculcate moralilty, just as infants need training wheels on their bicycles. In Buddhism, however ethical principles approximate the way of relating to others that nondual experience reveals; as in Christiainty, I should love neighbor as myself- in this case because the neighbor is myself. This makes ethical responsibility for Buddhism not the means to salvation but natural to the expression of genuine enlightenment. It is what might be called the "nonomoral morallity" of the Bodhisttva, who having nothing to gain or lose, because he or she has no self to do the gaining or losing - is devoted to the welfare of others.
The Bodhisattva knows that no one is fully saved until everyone is safe. When I am the universe, I help others to help them selfs.
The career Bodisattva is helping others, not because one ought to, for traditionally the bodhisttva is not bound by dogma or morality, but because on is the situation and through oneself that situations draws forth a responses to meet its needs.



Albert Einstein-
"Strange is our situation here upon Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to define a purpose. From the stand point of daily life, there is one thing we do know: that we are here for the sake of others...above all, for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the coutntless unkown souls with whose fate we are connected by a simple bond of sympathy. Many time a day we realize how much of our own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of other human beings, and now earnestly we must exert ourselves in order to give in return as much as we have recieved and still are receiving.

Answer 4

try the opposite...what ethical theory states that someone has more value than the next person!

Answer 5

LOOK IN THE BIBLE IT'S CALLED THE GOLDEN RULE AND IT STATES; DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE THEM DO UNTO YOU.THIS MEANS YOU SHOULD TREAT OTHERS EVEN COMPLETE STRANGERS AS IF YOUR TREATMENT OF THEM WILL BE REFLECTED IN THE TREATMENT YOU RECEIVE FROM ANYONE WHO HAS THE CAPABILITY TO MAKE A JUDGMENT AS TO HOW YOU WILL PROSPER AND ADVANCE IN THE WORLD. TRY IT, IT WORKS.

Answer 6

the constitutional system. in other words, a democracy.

Answer 7

MYTHOLOGY!!!!!