(In)equality of human beings : eternal - premodern, modern and postmodern - or outdated legal idea?

english

2015

volume 70, issue 3/4

Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica
(Obvezni izvod spletne publikacije)

This paper focuses on the idea of legal equality of human beings, and raises the following questions: Have the two Peters, Peter Westen and Peter Unger, been right when talking respectively of the empty idea of equality and empty ideas in general while criticizing analytic philosophy? Is the idea of legal equality of human beings empty, i.e. outdated? Can the idea of justice exist without the idea of equality? When did the equality of human beings arise as a legal idea? Was it in Ancient Greece? Which sophists argued for it? How did Aristotle understand it? What did the stoics think? Then, what was afterwards the perspective of Christianity and of all its different teachings (i.e. churches) on this idea, as well as on the legal practices radically denying it in modern times? Who was the liber homo from Magna Carta Libertatum, and how did liber homo become homo? And how did in modern times man transform into a human being who can be both male and female? Or, conversely, how did in modern times women, the coloured, the poor, the illiterate, the heterodox and foreigners become human beings? What are the legal problems of the modern era that, before even being resolved, have been further enlarged and complicated by the postmodern equality issues (e.g. positive discrimination, the new, wider concept of legal subjectivity, legal protection of minorities, changed view on human homosexuality)?

23.03.2017