Sapolsky — “In 1911, the poet Morris Rosenfeld wrote the…”

Source: Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will — Robert M. Sapolsky

Book page: sapolsky-determined-part-1

From: Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will — Quotes

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In 1911, the poet Morris Rosenfeld wrote the song “Where I Rest,” at a time when it was the immigrant Italians, Irish, Poles, and Jews who were exploited in the worst jobs, worked to death or burned to death in sweatshops. The only possible moral conclusion is that you are no more entitled to have your needs and desires met than is any other human. That there is no human who is less worthy than you to have their well-being considered.[*] You may think otherwise, because you can’t conceive of the threads of causality beneath the surface that made you you, because you have the luxury of deciding that effort and self-discipline aren’t made of biology, because you have surrounded yourself with people who think the same.