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If We Won’t See ‘Equivalence’, How Do We Get to Shared Liberation?
Our liberations won’t look the same, but they’re inseparable
In philosophy and logic, we learn of the fallacy called the “false equivalence.” It’s the wrong assumption that, because two things appear to share a trait, they may be considered identical. When you hear phrases like “A is no different than B,” or “A is just the same as B,” it’s a tipoff that the equivalence may be false. Of course, A and B may share a handful of similarities. The fallacy lies in going further to make the unjustified assumption that A and B share other similarities.
False equivalences can be factual, like “if you can speak, you can write,” or “the best defensive players are the best offensive players,” or “caring for a cat is basically the same as caring for a dog.” These may be disproven by finding the real facts.
It’s harder to disprove a false equivalence that’s in the ethical sphere, like “terminating a fetus is just like euthanizing an elderly person.” The very problem of ethics is deciding which facts are ethically relevant. No two deaths are exactly alike, but some deaths have important similarities, and which similarities should we care about?
