The Moral Failing of Assigning Human Value
By: Tony Brito
Tags: Race Relations, Science, Racism, Equality, Race

The Moral Failing of Assigning Human Value

The concept of race is the place where the psychological, cultural and ultimately biological dimensions of dehumanization all converge — David Livingstone Smith, Less Than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave And Exterminate Others

Phrenology head from The Household Physician, 1905

We’re used to hearing the stereotypical descriptions of races and how each race has some unique skills or abilities that set them apart. One of these is intelligence. If people are asked if they can rank races in order of intelligence, most will start to name them. Would you begin to do the same? To begin to rank races in order of intelligence is to accept the false assumption that each race is biologically distinct and that each race has a unique, inborn genetic limit for said intelligence. Let’s wipe away this false assumption and also discuss why it’s so important to do so.

The Settled Science

Elsewhere I talked about the debunked race science that has for decades attempted to justify the racial superiority of certain groups over others in terms of intelligence and morality. In The Mismeasure of Man Stephen Jay Gould tries to explain how this pseudoscientific hogwash gains popularity from time to time(p.28):

The reasons for recurrence area sociopolitical, and not far to seek: resurgences of biological determinism correlate with episodes of political retrenchment, particularly with campaigns for reduced government spending on social programs, or at times of fear among ruling elites, when disadvantaged groups sow serious social unrest or even threaten to usurp power. What argument against social change could be more chillingly effective than the claim that established orders, with some groups on top and others at the bottom, exist as an accurate reflection of the innate and unchangeable intellectual capacities of people so ranked?

In other words, what everyone is told is to know their place in society. Not because it’s been artificially constructed as such, but because we already know that this is where everyone naturally belongs. Nothing could be further from the truth. And every time these ideas reemerge they prey on those that are unfamiliar with the science. Compound this to what they then observe in how society is structured and they come away with the belief that this explains what they have only superficially examined about the current social and racial hierarchy. This becomes extremely dangerous because it leads them to view others as lesser humans or even to dehumanize them.

The Ruling Ideas That Guide Our Life

There’s a couple of key points that need to be expanded upon to understand how far along the path we are in the direction of dehumanizing others. We may be further along than we think. That’s why it’s crucial to understand that to believe we’re immune to viewing others as lesser is a huge mistake.

We live in a society in which breeds competition amongst all human beings. We’re pit against each other every single day of our lives. Told that in order to survive you may have to step all over others. This implies that others will be left behind no matter what. No one wants the short end of the stick. So what do we tend to do? Find weaknesses we can exploit in order to use to our advantage. That involves scrutinizing others in every respect possible. To the point that we begin to accept that some groups or races seem to have a certain advantage over others based on the outcomes we observe. Then we rationalize the same ideas I discussed above regarding race science. All of these ideas that have been tossed at us day in and day out form part of our web of organized thinking to try and get by and succeed in life, or at the very least try and survive.

Take a few steps back to realize what type of relationship this creates with your fellow human beings. You’re now primed to think of others in a highly transactional manner. What benefits can this person give ME? Is this person worth MY time? What advantages can this other person deliver for ME? What can I get out of this? You end up attaching value and worth to a person if there is something that can be extracted from them that you can attain and be seen as a net gain. And it is only after that calculation has been made that you may possibly reciprocate in kind. Now, part of all of these calculations usually involves some type of racial component. And if you already assign a lesser value to others because you’ve accepted some false ideas of what science says about certain races then you’re much more comfortable with taking advantage of them. Exploitation becomes easier. If you’re trying to get ahead somehow and there are some people that are in the way of your triumph, but you also have certain tools at your disposal then what’s to stop you from going further and utilizing them?

We must, at every turn, examine what underlying biases we have for our behavior, our actions, and our thoughts when it comes to the value we give other human beings. As an example let’s elaborate on what I mentioned at the beginning about ranking races based on intelligence. When confronted with a question like that, to attempt to give it an answer is already a red flag. Almost always when someone tries to give an answer for that question it comes from a place of being uninformed. The idea that’s generally accepted by most is that our so-called intellectual capacity will be limited by our race. That there may be SOME exceptions but that once your race is known that you’ll fall within a given range of intelligence.

Let’s play around with this idea for a second. Let’s say, for argument's sake, that these concepts are real. That there are definitely biological differences for each race and that each race has an average intelligence different than the others. You could say that on its face this information would be harmless. That, what would be the harm in knowing these scientific data points? And here is where we can integrate what was mentioned in the previous paragraph. Combining these ideas along with having to struggle every day for survival or viewing others as competition we need to step over will inevitably lead to regarding others as tools to be utilized to maximize our own happiness or material conditions. It is difficult to fight against these tendencies whenever the idea of racial intellectual capacity and a struggle for survival are merged. If you happen to believe that we do find those racial differences in intellectual capacity but you still find it repulsive to categorize humans that way then you’re in good shape. But this is probably an exception.

Armed with the knowledge of the fact that there aren’t clearly defined racial categories or a racial basis for intelligence usually isn’t enough on its own. David Livingstone Smith, in his book Less Than Human, covers a lot of ground on the many layers that are involved in how we see people as less than human. He writes about how we conceive of human beings as natural kinds. For us, a natural kind has a certain something about them internally (essence) which makes them who they are and is unchangeable. Much to grapple with internally to overcome. That is why our focus has to be too broad a moral point of view that no matter what “scientific” findings there maybe we refuse to assign human worth based on what someone can provide us or provide society as a whole (the notion of being a burden on society). Do you view your grandmother as a burden on you or society because she provides no income or does any chores around the house? I would hope not. You love her for her just being your grandmother. You require no net benefit from her. This is the point of view we must-have for all human beings. Unshakeable compassion that doesn’t force us to give groups of people less value or worth based on race or any perceived material gain to us.