Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

Do all people have value? From a purely objective, one-dimensional perspective, the answer is categorically no. Most other life on earth has no sentimentality towards its weaker members. The world would be easier to navigate with less pressure on a society that rids itself of its undesirables: execution, incarceration, banishment, and emigration fueled by ostracization. Certainly when someone is no longer productive, a meritocracy has no use for them, there is no rational argument against euthanasia, so what is the value that all people have?

Something fundamental must explain why a society is founded on the premise that all people have value regardless of their cost. Ignoring mystical sources, the instinct must be evolutionary, perhaps a way to maintain the wisdom of the old & enfeebled. The biological mechanism to get the able-bodied to exhaust their own productivity for consumption by the needy, is altruism, specifically the dopamine bath altruism brings. Masochism also gives dopamine satisfaction from what seems like an exploitative situation. In other circumstances, different biological drives dominate; for example, the need to reduce anxiety is why putting someone in jail for the duration of their lives is chosen over execution. Certainly, from a liberty perspective, it's up to you whether you have value.