This was a dificult one... Savater says that ethics is interested in how to live a good human life, amongst human beings. This is not very complicated, as we human beings use symbols to communicate among each other. Thought, actually, could be difficult as people from different backgrounds and cultures interpret symbols in different ways... Despite our differences, however, we are all part of the human race and that makes us all humans.
We have the right to be treated as humans, that is in a respectful way, taking into account how they would like to be treated and reflecting that in their behaviour...
But at the beginning I said that this one was difficult. This is so beacuse I experienced other "human beings" 's evil... I had my bag stolen last weekend, with many things inside that were valuable to me, and that is not referring to the money inside... Savater says "not for acting badly they stop being human beings"... but don't they?? I felt so disappointed of people that day that it is difficult not to think that people stop being people when they act against other people's freedom and good intentions.... Very difficult...
We all have the right to be treated as humans... We need to put ourselves in other people's place to try to imagine what others expect from us... In spite of everything, I still have faith in people.. there's always someone putting himself in someone else's place... Like the man who found some of my belongings and phoned to return them....
1 comment:
First of all, terribly sorry about your stolen bag, L@u! Glad you didn't hurt in the event (you didn't, did you?). I can understand your feelings immediately after the incident quite well, I guess, I think I felt much the same way when I suffered a similar experience! :-(
Now, you write: "We have the right to be treated as humans, that is in a respectful way, taking into account how they would like to be treated and reflecting that in their behaviour..."
The problem, IMHO, is that we can never be certain of how others would like to be treated (sometimes, not even how we would like to be treated!), and that's even more difficult to make sure our behaviour is perceived to be interpreting that by others... And concepts such as "respect" have been defined in so many conflicting ways (some day I'll blog about my favourite definition...)...
Human beings are not "angels", and perhaps we educators tend to forget the evil part more often than we should. Many people would agree with you that certain actions take away the wrongdoer's right to be treated as human beings... I do not, but the question here is "where would you draw the line"?
Fondly,
Gladys
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