Tuesday, July 05, 2016

Translating the DofI Into Biology

Returning to Harari's  Sapiens, he compares the legal code of Hammurabi and the US Declaration of Independence.  One bit of the discussion is translating the opening of the declaration into biological reality.  So "all men are created equal" becomes "all men are evolved with differences".  That allows him to undermine equality, to declare it simply as one of his "imaginary realities", with no objective existence.

It's a cute trick, and thought-provoking, but it's not the only way to look at it.  One could say "all men are members of the same evolutionary species".  Seems to me that would allow one to reestablish an objective basis for an equality, even if it's not exactly the equality we're used to and like.

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