The Moral Relativity of Liberty and Justice For All

Moral Relativity In Perspective

I was looking at this image, which is in a previous post :

Something Here Just Ain't Quite Right...

…And I thought about something that President Barack Obama said in his inauguration speech , in January 2009: “…a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served in a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”

I also thought about the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States , which we used to recite in school, facing the flag, with our right hand held over our heart:

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for ALL.”

I have purposely capitalized the word “ALL”, for I seem to experience a kind of cognitive dissonance when I hold these two thoughts in my mind at the same time.

It’s interesting that not too terribly long ago, a person who might not be served in a local restaurant because of their race might then recite the Pledge of Allegiance in school, which ends with the words “liberty and justice for all”.

I would like to think that the moral ideals of our society exist to give us a fair perspective of the rights of all its members, with “liberty and justice for ALL” meaning what it says; but am sometimes perplexed to see how this is actually carried out in the “real world”.

Sometimes I can’t help but feel that the squares of the “chessboard” of the guiding principles of our society are sometimes unequally spaced, or are just arranged in different relative perspectives for the different member groups of our society. The lines that are drawn by the laws tend to bend and stretch in differing proportions and dimensions, often depending on the race or other characteristics of the citizens that occupy it.

So, just as Einstein’s theory of relativity bends space and time in relative perspective and context, so perhaps a moral relativity bends the principles of justice and equality in a relative social context and perspective…

Moral Relativity In Perspective