The directive to "treat as a friend who treats you as a friend, treat your master as an enemy" is based upon an implicit assumption that someone who treats you as a friend must treat you as an equal, not as a slave or servant. If someone treats you as if they are your master, they are not your friend, since being treated as an equal is of the essence of friendship. This quoted passage, then, conveys the advice that friends should be treated as friends and that enemies should be treated as enemies. This represents a particular understanding of justice—one definition of which is treating people as they deserve to be treated—and a particular understanding of friendship, which to the extent that it is grounded in unjust master-slave relationships, is not really friendship at all.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
The statement "Development policy needs to be about poor people, not just poor countries," carries a lot of baggage. Let's dis...
-
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
As if Hamlet were not obsessed enough with death, his uncovering of the skull of Yorick, the court jester from his youth, really sets him of...
-
De Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman was enormously influential. We can see its influences on early English feminist Mary Woll...
-
James is very unhappy on a number of occasions throughout the story, but he's especially unhappy with his life situation as the story be...
-
One of the plot lines in Pride and Prejudice is Mrs. Bennet’s plan to marry off her daughters, preferably to rich men. Throughout the novel...
-
"Mistaken Identity" is an amusing anecdote recounted by the famous author Mark Twain about an experience he once had while traveli...
No comments:
Post a Comment