Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Romans would place defective infants on a hillside to die of exposure. You and I both know that limited resources require strong measures for group survival. It's Lifeboat Ethics. When resources are more plentiful, more enlightened measures can be utilized. Consider some of the things that happened in New Orleans after Katrina and the use of triage in mass casualty events or combat.Babies and small children were abandoned to the wolves if Nomadic tribes percieved they would be an undue burden to tribal resources.
Living in the comfortable 21st century, it's easy for us to assume the golden rule has always applied to human societies.
The Hebrew bible was almost unique in the bronze age in that has a deep and abiding concern with social justice. At least compared to contemporaneous literature.
The code of Hammurabi is basically a criminal and civil code. Not a code of ethical truth.
I've read Plato and Aristotle, and there is very little direct concern for the poor, the oppressed, the downtrodden, concepts of charity. Plato wanted to practice eugenics.
There is very little in the Daodejing and Analects of Confucius that directly deals with social justice and economic inequality.
I don't think the ethical framework we take for granted just spontaneously arises due to known laws of evolution and biology.
The Case of Dr. Anna Pou: Physician Liability in Emergency Situations
A year after Hurricane Katrina, Dr. Pou was arrested and charged with one count of second-degree murder and nine counts of conspiracy to commit second-degree murder for administering drugs to patients who subsequently died.
journalofethics.ama-assn.org
Ethics and survival measures are two different things. Again, Lifeboat Ethics. Author Garett Hardin compared it to a lifeboat and "the tragedy of the commons" and expanded it to "Spaceship Earth". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboat_ethics
Although it's not my favorite episode, the TOS Star Trek episode "The Conscience of the King" was very thought-provoking for my 10-year-old mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conscience_of_the_King I'd asked myself, "What would I have done?"