Considering Superiority/Inferiority

Good afternoon everyone,

I am very sorry for my earlier post. I have been thinking very much since I posted earlier and have been rather upset about the example that I used at the end, as I feel this did not portray what I wished. What I wished to portray is the following.

Suppose we have two individuals. One, named Grak was born with sharp claws. The other, named Hak was born with stubby fingers. Let us assume Grak and Hak have a can of baked beans and there is an infinite supply of beans in the can. Therefore, Grak is superior at opening tins of baked beans. However, let us consider their actual selves. Grak did not choose to be superior in this way. It is only by chance that Grak is superior in this situation, and so I believe it would be unfair to say that Grak deserves to eat all of the baked beans and Hak must starve and die.

Let us see matters through the perspective of Grak. It is not necessary that Hak must die in order for Grak to survive and be happy. Thus surely it is best that Grak shares his baked beans and allows Hak to live.

Perhaps we may now expand this to all life. By "this", I means the decision that can be made by a consciousness whether to end the life of another consciousness if they have the power to do so. As I have explained, I believe that the individual with the power is there often by chance.

Let us assume that Ted is the individual with the power, and John is the one Ted is deciding to kill.
Also, let us assume they are almost identical, except for the position. So they have the same needs to survive and the same feelings and the same capacity to suffer. Thus, I believe there is no need at all for either Ted to kill John unless it is absolutely necessary for Ted to survive. However, I believe it exactly the same for John as well. I believe perhaps the problem is that there is no rule here and either poor John or poor Ted must end their lives in order for the other to survive. Really, it is their choice to decide.

I believe this is an awful situation to consider, but one that I believe must be considered because in many cases an individual dies when it is not necessary for any other individual to survive. In the situation above, both individuals are equally matched in terms of power in the situation. However, I witness executions most days in which the power is unequally divided and the death is unnecessary. Namely, between a human and a fly for instance.

End

^^ I do hope you had fun reading. In case you missed, I typed an entry earlier today also titled "Considering the Self Part 3".

I wish you well.

Thomas