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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5985558" data-attributes="member: 42582">That's pretty contentious. Just thinking about the Decleration of Independence, it states that everyone is creaeted equal, with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (We can put the theological and gendered aspects of the Declaration to one side, for the present.)If that claim is true (and the framers state it to be "self-evident"), then everyone is special, and probably in more than one respect. First, everyone is distinct from the rest of the world - the world of "mere objects", if you like - in enjoying these rights and privileges. Second, because people are free and equal, they are in some sense "self-creators", and therefore each person is a special product of his/her own exercise of agency.Now no one is obliged to accept the claims made in the Declaration, and forum rules preclude me from arguing for or against them. My point is only that the Declaration (and the broader philosphical theory within which it is located) provides a fairly straightforward foundation for denying that "if everyone is special, no one is". Because the basis of the specialness of persons isn't their difference from others in enjoying rights, but rather their particular character as self-creators on the basis of their enjoyment of and exercise of agency.</blockquote>