I think these appeals to humanism often fail to see the rational realities that underlie the moral questions. Morals and culture are just a simplification of pr

I think these appeals to humanism often fail to see the rational realities that underlie the moral questions. Morals and culture are just a simplification of principles which make a society competitive. The scope of possibilities is massive even within our own observation: totalitarianism, constitutionalism, fundamentalism, nationalism, anarchy. Competition among and enforcement within these societies has been, by far, the greatest modern historical risk for premature death. This article seems to be proposing a society where everybody is guaranteed a good life. Sounds great, but the bigger question is whether such a society is competitive against ones where individuals are driven to contribute through fear of failure. My guess is that, yes, it could be, but only under conditions where pro-social motivations are greater than the fear motive they replace. We know that this exists in our natural tribal state, but small homogeneous tribes were not competitive against massive hierarchical use of force. The brilliance of capitalism is that it provides an indirect fear/greed motive that requires little organization, mostly enforcement of property rights and taxation. It was writing, e.g. the domesday book, that enabled this, and the result gradually proved superior to feudal slavery. We have great technology today, maybe even a crisis of overproduction, or misallocation to negative social goods. Unfortunately, redistributive welfare has a definite social cost, and, ignoring the personal benefits, a terrible track record for motivating pro-social contribution, in some societies. In others it seems to do better. The moral heuristic that people should be taken care of at others’ expense, is only rationally valid within certain social organizations and cultural norms. An objection to this may be that the moral reasoning is superior by nature, and I believe this is massively flawed, simply because the cost of non-competitive morality, is death by social competition, which cannot be avoided. I do believe, maybe blindly, that there are conditions in which universal guarantees of a ‘good life’ increase a society’s competitiveness, but I do not certainly know what those conditions are, so without that, this moral pleading seems hopeful at best.