Humans

On the Relativity of Ethics, Evolution, and Behavior

by Albert Prins

The Paradox of Equality

A Philosophical Reflection

This chapter touches upon a tension that runs throughout the entire book: can one embrace moral relativism while still maintaining that justice is preferable to injustice? Rather than attempting to resolve this tension, the chapter deliberately leaves it open, suggesting that this may be the most intellectually honest position a reflective person can take.

The dream of equality

Key idea:
Equality is a powerful ideal, but it may also be the source of a profound paradox.

There is hardly an ideal that occupies humanity as deeply as equality. From the French Revolution to modern social movements, everywhere the call for fairness, justice, and equal opportunity resounds. People experience inequality as an injustice, as something that must be corrected. And yet a question arises: what if that very inequality is the engine that sets everything in motion? What if the dream of complete equality, should it ever become reality, would mean the end of everything we strive for?

This reflection is not about justifying injustice or exploitation. It is about something subtler and more paradoxical: the idea that inequality is not merely a problem to be solved, but the primordial source of all human energy, motivation, and life itself.

Nietzsche and the Power of Jealousy

The Bible regards jealousy as a sin. "You shall not covet," declares the Tenth Commandment. Jealousy is commonly viewed as a destructive emotion that undermines relationships and consumes people from within. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, however, saw such emotions quite differently.

Nietzsche did not regard envy, jealousy, and resentment simply as moral failings that should be suppressed. Instead, he saw them as phenomena that reveal something fundamental about human nature. When a person envies someone else, they implicitly acknowledge that the other person possesses something they themselves consider valuable. Jealousy therefore points to a gap between who we are and who we would like to become.

Nietzsche referred to the embittered form of this response as ressentiment: the condition in which a person transforms their inability to attain a certain ideal into hostility toward those who embody it. Rather than striving to improve themselves, they seek to pull others down. Ressentiment does not lead to growth but to bitterness. Nietzsche regarded it as a powerful psychological force underlying many moral systems that arise from weakness.

Yet the same confrontation with difference can produce a very different outcome. A successful neighbor, a brilliant scientist, an exceptional athlete, or a gifted artist may initially evoke feelings that resemble jealousy, but these emotions can ultimately develop into admiration and ambition. In such cases, the difference is not denied but embraced as a challenge.

From this perspective, jealousy has a dual nature. It can imprison people in bitterness, but it can also serve as a signal pointing toward opportunities for personal development. In a sense, the emotion says: There is something I admire—something that I, too, might be capable of achieving.

Nietzsche would probably not have argued that inequality should be eliminated. On the contrary, he regarded differences in strength, talent, character, and creative ability as an inevitable part of the human condition. According to him, it is precisely these differences that set people in motion. It is not the absence of inequality, but the confrontation with it, that can inspire self-overcoming, personal growth, and creativity.

In this sense, inequality assumes a paradoxical role. Although differences between people can create tension, they also constitute one of the most important sources of human development. Without recognizing that others possess knowledge, skills, or achievements that we have not yet attained, much of our motivation to learn, to work, and to improve ourselves would disappear. It is often our awareness of these differences that drives us forward.

The Lesson of nature: energy flows from inequality to equality

Nature shows no mercy for abstract ideals; it operates according to relentless laws. One of those laws states that energy always flows from a state of inequality toward equality. Nowhere is this principle more easily illustrated than by the image of two connected rain barrels.

Imagine two rain barrels standing side by side, connected by a hose. One barrel is full, filled to the brim with rainwater. The other is empty. The moment the connection is made, the water begins to flow—from full to empty, from high to low, from more to less. There is movement, there is energy, there is activity. And all that motion owes its existence to one thing: the inequality between the two barrels.

Now imagine that both barrels are filled to exactly the same level. Nothing flows. Nothing happens. The stillness is complete. Equality—perfect, absolute equality—means the end of every current, every exchange, and every form of activity. Thermodynamicists describe this as the state of maximum entropy: everything has become evenly distributed, everything is equal, and for that very reason no energy remains to accomplish anything.

We encounter the same principle throughout nature. Wind arises because air pressure is higher in one place than another; inequality drives the storm. Rivers flow because one point lies higher than another; inequality carries the water to the sea. Electric current exists because there is a voltage difference between two points; inequality lights our homes. Even life itself, in its most fundamental biological form, depends on chemical gradients and energy differentials.

Nature constantly moves toward equilibrium, toward equality, but it requires the initial inequality to make that journey. The striving is meaningful; the arrival is death.

Inequality Alone Is Not Enough

Key Question: Are differences by themselves sufficient to make development and progress possible?

In the previous section, we saw that virtually all movement in nature arises from a difference: a difference in height, pressure, temperature, or electrical potential. Without such differences, nature would come to a standstill. There would be no wind, no flowing rivers, and no electric current.

But that is not the whole story.

A potential difference alone is not sufficient to produce motion. There must also be a means by which that potential can actually be converted into activity.

Consider once again the example of the two rain barrels.

When one barrel is completely full and the other is empty, there is a clear difference in water level and pressure. Yet not a single drop of water will flow as long as the valve connecting the two barrels remains closed. The system possesses potential, but that potential remains completely locked away.

Only when the valve is opened can the water begin to flow, converting stored potential energy into motion.

The same principle appears throughout nature.

A rock resting on top of a wall possesses gravitational potential energy. Yet nothing happens as long as the wall continues to support it. Only when that support is removed is the potential energy converted into kinetic energy, causing the rock to fall.

A battery stores electrical energy. But without a closed electrical circuit, that energy remains stored and no electric current flows.

A seed contains all the genetic information needed to grow into a tree. Yet it will never germinate without water, nutrients, oxygen, and sunlight. The potential exists, but the necessary conditions are absent.

Again and again, we encounter the same fundamental principle:

Differences alone are not sufficient for development; the conditions that allow those differences to be realized must also be present.

This principle appears to extend beyond physical systems.

Human development also seems to depend on two essential conditions.

First, people differ from one another. No two individuals are born with exactly the same combination of talents, intelligence, creativity, temperament, interests, and physical abilities. This diversity is one of humanity's greatest strengths.

But these differences alone are not enough.

There must also be an environment in which people are free to develop their unique abilities.

When a society forces everyone into the same profession, the same beliefs, or the same way of life, much of its human potential remains unrealized. Not because the abilities are absent, but because the conditions necessary for their development are missing.

Freedom therefore acquires a meaning that extends beyond a moral ideal.

Freedom is one of the essential conditions that allows differences to be transformed into creativity, innovation, and social progress.

A society that provides room for different talents, ideas, and initiatives greatly increases its ability to solve both present and future challenges.

This does not imply that unlimited freedom is always desirable. As we have seen earlier, complex systems function best when freedom is balanced by responsibility and cooperation. Even a river does not flow in every direction; it follows the paths made available by the landscape.

The goal, therefore, is not unlimited freedom but sufficient freedom for diversity to develop and flourish.

We can summarize this general principle as follows:

Development requires two conditions:

  1. Differences or potential must exist.
  2. The conditions must exist that allow those differences to be realized.

This principle can be recognized at virtually every level of reality.

Perhaps this is one of the most profound lessons nature has to offer.

Differences are the source of change.
But only when a system provides the conditions that allow those differences to be expressed can genuine development take place.

Differences are the source of change.

But only when a system provides the conditions that allow those differences to be expressed can genuine development take place.

Short-Circuiting or Harnessing Potential

Yet not every way in which a difference disappears is equally valuable.

Imagine the two rain barrels once again. There are two ways to connect the full barrel with the empty one.

The first method is a wide, direct pipe: the water rushes from the full barrel into the empty one all at once. The difference disappears, movement has occurred, but nothing has been accomplished. The energy is simply dissipated as friction and sound. No useful work has been performed.

The second method uses the same two barrels and the same difference, but now the water is first directed through a waterwheel before it reaches the empty barrel. Here too, the difference ultimately disappears. But along the way the flowing water drives something: the wheel turns, electricity is generated, and something new is created.

Both processes end at the same point: the water levels become equal. The difference itself is not what determines whether the process was valuable. What matters is whether the potential was harnessed to produce something, or whether it simply dissipated without accomplishing anything.

The same distinction appears to apply to the way societies deal with inequality.

When wealth is merely transferred without a corresponding process of effort, learning, building, or entrepreneurship, the difference disappears, but nothing new has been created. The potential has effectively been short-circuited.

When that same transfer is instead used to create new potential—for example, through education that enables someone to become the equivalent of a waterwheel, through tools that allow someone to build, or through opportunities that enable someone to start a business— then the difference has not merely been eliminated; it has been put to productive use. A turbine has been installed instead of creating a short circuit.

The essential question, therefore, is not whether a difference disappears, but how it disappears. Striving for equality through work, learning, and productive effort transforms potential into useful work. Simply eliminating the difference, without such a process, allows the potential to dissipate without creating anything in return— neither for the individual nor for society as a whole.

Perhaps this is the most profound lesson that nature teaches us: the essence lies neither in the existence of a difference, nor in its disappearance, but in what happens to it along the way.

The great paradox: striving for what would destroy us

Here a deep paradox unfolds in human existence. Humans strive for equality, for justice, for fair distribution, for a world without injustice. This striving is noble and human, and it deserves all respect. But the paradox is that complete equality, if ever achieved, would mean the end of striving itself.

What would a person still do in a world of perfect equality? Why would he get out of bed, write a book, start a business, enter into a relationship? Every motivation is rooted in a difference: the difference between where you are and where you want to be, between what you have and what you seek, between the world as it is and the world as it could be. Equality eliminates difference, and with it eliminates motivation.

This does not mean we should stop striving for a more just world. On the contrary. It means that we must cherish the striving itself, not merely the final destination. The path toward equality is where life unfolds. Every step toward greater justice, every victory over injustice, that is the life worth living.

There is, moreover, a second form of inequality that is often overlooked: the inequality between who we are today and who we might become tomorrow. Even if every human being possessed exactly the same opportunities, resources, and talents, this difference would remain. Human beings are sustained not only by comparison with others but also by the tension between their present selves and their possible future selves.

Perhaps this is, in the end, the most fundamental inequality of all.

Conclusion: inequality as a condition for life

The world lives by the grace of inequality. Not because inequality is always just, far from it. But because difference, tension, the distance between what is and what could be, is the source of all human energy and all life on Earth.

Jealousy, when transformed into ambition, is the compass needle that points us to the difference and drives us to bridge it. The full and the empty rain barrel teach us that movement is only possible where inequality exists. And the thermodynamic law of entropy whispers the ultimate secret: when everything is equal, everything is over.

Perhaps wisdom lies not in achieving equality, but in consciously and courageously continuing to strive for it. In the meantime enjoying the energy that this striving generates. In recognizing that life itself, breathing, moving, growing, exists because there is still inequality to respond to.

And thus, the most alive human is not the one who has found equality, but the one who, with passion and open eyes, is on the way toward it.