Most people would define what the Jan'ata is doing as evil and that it
should be stopped. The idea is that if the population is unbalanced, they must
kill off offspring to keep a sense of balance. Looking at it strictly in that
light, yes it can definitely be considered evil but what if on that planet,
what they are doing is actually benefiting the population as a whole?
Emilio says,
"I am not defending them. I am trying to explain to you what happened and
why. But it is their society, and they pay their own price for their way of
life... there are no beggars on Rakhat. There is no unemployment. There is no
overcrowding. No starvation. No environmental degradation. There is no genetic
disease. The elderly do not suffer decline. Those with terminal illness do not
linger. They pay a terrible price for this system, but we too pay, Felipe, and
the coin we use is the suffering of children. How many kids starved to death to
this afternoon, while we sat here? Just because their corpses aren't eaten
doesn't make our species any more moral".
This passage was really powerful but we are
so quick to judge what is right or wrong and what is evil and what is good, but
the consequences of it all may justify the act, after all. Looking at it from a
utilitarian point of view, the consequences are all that matters. If they have
to kill off a few offspring to present the greatest good for the greatest
number, who are we to judge what is right and what is wrong? Emilio presented
a controversial problem because as humans, you don't want to look at
your world and think we are the ones doing something wrong. We like to think
of ourselves as good and that we moral human beings.
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