It is very difficult for all when you treat one person differently than you treat another. This happens frequently in the world of social ethics. Remember that our first ethical statement as a developing human being is most often “it’s not fair”. This statement is often made when a very young person feels that they are being treated differently from others. A sense of the importance of justice is one of the two pillars that hold up Ethics. The other is the pillar of love.
Therefore, justice demands to be taken seriously. It is also a key ingredient to make us feel uncomfortable when we are accused of treating others differently. Adolescents have very strong feelings about fair and equitable treatment in their moral development. A sense of justice is important to hold society together.
A phrase that has worked well for me over the years is “what you do for one, you have to do for all”. I have spent enough time in between two people who feel that injustice has been done to them such as when EA was perceived as treating a student or parent differently from others. For that matter, it is also true of how faculty, administrators, and alumni/ae will feel anger if injustice is perceived with the phrase, “Well, you didn’t do that when______ did the same thing.
Nationally this is at the heart of much of social ethical debate. The suburban Philadelphia counties feel that they are not getting their fair share of the vaccine as other counties in the state. The mayor of Detroit initially refused the J and J vaccine because he didn’t feel it was as effective as other vaccines. Black people across the nation feel that they are not treated in a just way in interactions with police as well as getting access to the vaccine. Most recently Meghan Markle indicated that she was treated differently as a person of color from someone who was white. The Telegraph Online Web News Report provided a rebuttal to Harry and Meghan’s complaint with facts and not opinion. The report indicated that Meghan and Harry weren’t being fair.
Today Senator Lindsey Graham said that the Covid-19 Relief Bill was giving funds to black farmers which was a form of reparations and wasn’t fair to white farmers who would get nothing. House Majority Whip, James Clyburn, responded with anger that “Lindsey should know better. He should go to church and get back in touch with Christianity.”
The bottom line for all of the above accusations is “you are treating me differently”. You name it such as college admissions policies, the argument remains the same. This is a huge ethical dilemma because people are not hearing “what you do for one, you must do for all.” That phrase is tied to ethical precedent. Such and such situations were handled in way X and now they are being handled in way Y. How can that be? Times may change the reasoning, but that is not often the case. Any action creating justice with our “justice phrase” should stand the “test of time”.
How can this be corrected? It needs to be engaged at the micro level and the macro level all at the same time. Recall the post earlier that I wrote about a way to stop sexual attack was to make asking for permission in normal everyday life. This could spill over in terms of future behavior with sexual interactions. We have lost that important manner and tend to ask “for forgiveness before we ask for permission”.
Every time that you are accused of favoritism or that you should treat people in a just manner, recall quickly that phrase, “what you do for one you should do for all” as an important ingredient of creating relationships that are “just” at the personal, national, and global levels. If that phrase does not hold up in describing a situation, work hard to introduce justice and being fair at every level, personal as well as cultural. That is the way we make justice happen. Always has been that way. Always will be that way!
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