Tuesday Morning Philosophy

Voltaire was the pseudonym of Francois-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), one of the most widely read and remembered of the French Enlightenment thinkers. His most famous work was probably the picaresque novel Candide but here's a snippet of what he wrote on "equality" in the Philosophical Dictionary:

"All men have the right in the bottom of their hearts
to think themselves entirely equal to other men. It
does not follow from this that the cardinal's cook should
order his master to prepare him his dinner, but the
cook can say: 'I am a man like my master; like him I
was born crying; like me he will die with the same pangs
and the same ceremonies. Both of us perform the same
animal functions. If the Turks take possession of Rome,
and if then I am cardinal and my master cook, I shall
take him into my service.' This discourse is reasonable
and just, but while waiting for the Great Turk to take
possession of Rome, the cook must do his duty, or
else all human society is disordered."