Should women be treated as human beings? And if so, why?
I think that they should be, because they are human beings, as we define human beings. This is empirically verifiable. Besides, I have a daughter, and if she isn't human, what does that make me?
That is simply what I think. I also think, for a number of practical reasons, that it's a better opinion than the one opposing it.
If you're really back to the core belief, there's nothing to examine. It doesn't come from anywhere.
If you can examine it, you haven't gone back far enough. You need to look at the assumptions by which you're examining it.
There is no assumption that cannot be questioned. That doesn't mean you change them, it means that you question them. I know exactly where my core beliefs came from. I know they are not unique to me. I know they are not absolute truths, but rules developed by people and passed on to me. Some I retain. Some I have decided to change.
Every belief you hold, every belief anybody holds, has a source. They didn't spring out of nowhere. Our attribution of that source has a great deal to do with our attitudes toward other people's beliefs. Attribution of core belief to absolute, external, sources is a very dangerous thing, IMO, because it leads automatically to the assumption that your belief is inherently superior to those of others. |
