Evaluate the view that secular approaches to equality are successful
This essay will evaluate whether secular approaches to equality are successful by using key
theorists and criticisms, as well as contrasting these approaches to religious approaches.
Equality is a topic in applied ethics (contrasting normative ethics and meta-ethics) meaning
ethical topics are practically applied to real-life concerns. There are two forms of equality:
descriptive uses (equality in a factual sense) and prescriptive uses (equal in a moral sense).
This essay will be focusing on the prescriptive use of equality. Equality in applied ethics
looks at prescriptive use. Concepts of equality can be found as far back as Aristotle, as he
describes equality as ‘treating like cases as like’, therefore when two people share a
normatively relevant characteristic, they must be treated the same in regards to this
characteristic. The law has changed over time to promote equality. For example, The Equal
Pay Act 1970 stated that men and women must be paid the same for the same amount of
work, as well as The Equality Act 2010 stated that factors such as sex or race cannot be
used as normatively relevant characteristics.
One of the most influential secular approaches to equality is through Jeremy Bentham’s
utilitarianism. Bentham was an 18th century philosopher who was ahead of his time, as he
called for the abolition of slavery, death penalty, equal rights for women and much more. His
Act Utilitarianism proposed the Greatest Happiness Principle (creating the greatest amount
of happiness for the greatest number). Bentham argued that the only normatively relevant
characteristic was the ability to feel pleasure or pain. He explains that everyone counts as
one and everyone’s happiness is considered equally important. Characteristics such as race
or gender (which are typically used to discriminate) are not normatively relevant as the pain
and pleasure of these different groups of people are considered equal. Therefore, this is a
strength of the secular approach as everyone who can experience pleasure and pain is
treated equally. Hence, utilitarianism offers a successful secular approach.
However, since Bentham uses his normative ethical theory of Act Utilitarianism to apply to
the topic of equality, it can still suffer from the same criticisms of the theory, such as the
tyranny of the majority. This explains how discrimination against particular groups is allowed
as long as the majority benefit from it. An example may include gaining cheap goods as a
result of slavery. Since utilitarians count everyone as one, if the amount of people who
benefit from discrimination, is more than the number of people discriminated against,
utilitarians would have to justify this discrimination, therefore justifying inequality. However,
John Stuart Mill proposes Rule Utilitarianism which solves the criticisms of Act Utilitarianism
and applies it to the topic of equality. In Mill’s work ‘On Liberty’, he argued that a utilitarian
government would be the best way to spread equality. It involved everyone having the liberty
to pursue their happiness, creating the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest
number. The only time the utilitarian government intervenes is when a person uses their
liberty to harm others. This is known as Mill’s Harm Principle. Hence, this improves
Bentham’s Act Utilitarianism as it no longer suffers from the tyranny of majority criticism.
Despite Mill’s attempt to resolve Act Utilitarianism’s criticisms, Mill is criticised as a racist and
apologist for colonialism as he argues that this utilitarian government would only work for
western societies. For non-western societies, Mill argues that despotism (dictatorship) is a
legitimate form of government. However, defenders of Rule Utilitarianism argue that this
criticism is not essential to utilitarianism as rule utilitarianism does not revolve around
eurocentric ideas. Nevertheless, both Act and Rule utilitarianism are relativistic so cannot
guarantee equality if the action creates the greatest amount of happiness. Therefore, this
secular approach to equality may not be successful as both different forms of utilitarianism
are criticised for justifying some sort of inequality.
