Morality's Cost - Part 2

Continuing on a theme, another example of our enhanced morality can be seen in the area of Equal Rights.

While some feminist brute might argue that men and women are equal, I'm confident most men can take her. Believe it or not, men and women differ and the most obvious of our differences can be seen in physical strength. Men are stronger than women, case closed.

But feminists shouldn't despair in their crusade for equality, because today, physical strength doesn't really matter. Unless you are an Army Ranger stud, most people work in a cubicle like me. They sit and type and live the sedentary life millions of years of evolution has prepared them for. Actually, evolution probably had other plans, but today's reality is that brains matter considerably more than brawn. In the intelligence department, women are more than up to the challenge.

We take equal rights for granted, but how and why they came about so rapidly should not be overlooked. The reason is simple economics (and self interest which is human nature's driving force). An employer's self interest dictates that he hire the best person for a job. As the qualifications for a job shift from manual labor to intellectual labor, the economic disparity between men and women narrow. In effect, men and women are more equal.

The point to remember is that at no point did any lightbulbs go off and society spontaneously declared, "Let there be equality!" For thousands of years society was perfectly content with inequality. It wasn't until men and women were actually equal from an economic perspective that society changed its tune. It was only when being immoral imposed a cost on society (i.e. the intellectual labor of women was undervalued) that we ceased our immorality.

Let's be thankful, that in the area of economics men and women are essentially equal, but never forget that it is our self interest and not some unfailing sense of right and wrong that shapes our morality.