I was listening to a series of lectures recently - Redefining Reality from the Great Courses Company. The overall subject is how science has influenced philosophy throughout history. It's been interesting, but this section jumped out of the speaker at me. This quote is taken from the course notes: "How do we determine what constitutes human success, and who makes that determination? It is, in the end, a political question, and political questions are sometimes resolved by rational means, but they are always a function of power . Natural selection develops in accordance with changing environmental stresses, while artificial selection such as animal husbandry, proceeds according to the whims of those in power. Eugenics (animal husbandry applied to people) will inevitably give those with power the ability to define what counts as human flourishing, and this will always resemble those who already have the power. " (italics mine) The powerful determining human worth...