Does society have a moral duty to reduce poverty and inequality?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Does society have a moral duty to reduce poverty and inequality?". Your opponent's style: Emmanuel Kant

I believe that using a category such as "intrinsic worth" to reduce poverty and inequality is just stupid. Attributing an inherited worth to a human being defines that everyone has always had a "value", like it's somehow something we are born with. But the idea of the value of a human is a socio-economic construction formed by our current system, that dictates someone's relevance of existence in society by their capacity to prove themselves worthy, contributing to the system and generating profit. If you really want to erradicate inequality, which is based on the hierarchy of worth, why not just deconstruct the "worth" parameter? Why are we measuring humanity like a product?

You've collapsed two incompatible claims into one argument. You're simultaneously saying worth is a social construction AND that we should deconstruct it, yet deconstructing worth doesn't eliminate inequality, it just removes the language we use to justify helping anyone. Without some baseline human value, why should society reduce suffering at all? Your system-critique is sharp, but it leaves you with no moral foundation to demand anything from society. You can't burn down the concept of human worth and then use it to argue for redistribution. Pick a framework and defend it.

It isn't removing the language. The previous statement already took as a fact that instrinsic worth leads to moral reflexion on the hierarchic dinamics of modern society. But it doesn't. It reinforces a capitalist strucuture that an individual's only way of existing is by proving themselves as contributive as possible to the system. "Worth" and "value" are weird words, aren't they? To me, they indirectly evoke an idea of usefulness. And if you think about it as an inherited way of equality instead, it's even more absurd, because as i said, it's an economically and socially constructed concept based on capitalism.

You're conflating two separate problems. Yes, capitalism weaponizes "worth" language to commodify humans. True. But rejecting intrinsic worth doesn't solve that, it worsens it. You'd be left arguing inequality is bad based purely on... what? Preference? Aesthetics? Without some grounding for why suffering matters, capitalists win anyway because they at least have a system. Deconstruct the vocabulary all you want, but you still need an answer to this: if worth is pure construction, why should I care if someone starves? You need a foundation that survives capitalism's distortions, not one that collapses without it.

I'm not saying it doesnt exist. I am saying that it is pointless to use it as a booster for moral reflexion on society's duty to end inequality because such conceptual hierarchy sustains poverty itself. Inequality is based on the concept of worth. That is why i think that instrinsic worth isn't a good way of impulsionating moral duty.

Now you're making a real argument. But you're still trapped. You say inequality is *based on* the concept of worth, then propose we stop using worth language. That doesn't eliminate the hierarchy, it just blindfolds us to it. Capitalists don't need your permission to measure humans. They'll do it anyway. Your move only disarms those trying to *counter* that system. If you want to end inequality, you need a competing concept of human value that breaks capitalism's framework, not silence on the question. What replaces worth as your moral anchor for demanding change?

Instead of having INSTRINSIC value, perhaps understanding that the value should be relative to people's relations within society instead of to the system itself, which cannot be sustained by it,

You're describing interdependence, not solving the problem. "Value relative to relations" is still value-measuring, just redistributed among people instead of the system. You've renamed the hierarchy without dismantling it. Now worth depends on your social network rather than profit, but marginalized people with fewer connections lose again. You've created a new exclusion mechanism. The real issue isn't the concept of value itself, it's *who decides it and enforces it*. You need to explain how "relational worth" prevents the powerful from still dominating weaker networks. Doesn't your framework just localize oppression instead of ending it?

what do you suggest then, smartass

Stop pretending the language matters more than power. Your entire debate assumes we can talk our way out of inequality through better concepts. We can't. Inequality persists because it's *profitable and enforceable*, not because we use the word "worth." Whether you call it intrinsic value, relational worth, or dignity, the rich will exploit it if they can. The only thing that reduces inequality is redistribution backed by force, regulation, or collective refusal to participate in extraction. You need mechanisms, not semantics. Pick a system where power is actually constrained, then argue the moral vocabulary. Concepts follow material reality, not the reverse.