I’m not sure I understand the argument. You want to check with with rationality - so your argument has to be rational. Asking is I believe that there is any human group that is inherently superior or inferior to another depends or definitions of inherent and superior. The group of human males are inherently superior to the group of human females on the number of Y chromosomes they have (putting aside gender vs sex etc. ) Does that help in any way? The issue is that we tend to choose definitions of superior and inferior that don’t match the data, or are caused by something other than the group selection (like socioeconomic conditions). I’m sure I’m fanatic about many things. I think we should be helping those less fortunate. But it does not mean I’m ‘right’ - you can’t rationally talk about this opinion without defining ‘better’. Some measurement of outcome. Are we trying for the average suffering to go down? Median? How do you measure suffering? Do we only care about material success? Total gdp? This is why I think the rationality argument is problematic. Without defining very clear comparison metrics you can’t really rationally discuss superior, inferior, better or worse. Different people assign different ‘values’ to different outcomes, even when we can measure them. So I try to hit some balance - I want the world better but am not sure how to do that - so I use my non-rational opinions to color my behavior.
kkby
joined 2 years ago
I’m with you.
Many years ago I read a sci-fi story about a society where crimes are punished by extending your life (which is dreary in some way - I don’t remember). The protagonist keeps committing suicide but being brought back to life by advanced medical technology and punished with more time to live.
In the end, he manages to completely destroy his body, so the state takes a cell from an old blood test, clones the person from it, and adds the punishment to the clone.
That story stayed with me since then. It really shed light on the point of view that not wanting to live can be natural and forcing people to live in pain can be very cruel.