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NancyLebovitz comments on Rationality Quotes: March 2011 - Less Wrong
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The reason it's a social and political question is that if you aren't in an emergency situation, it's much harder to tell what your capacity for help is. It isn't infinite, but it could probably be more than you're unthinkingly willing to allocate. It's plausible that people are being neglected for no good reason.
I'm not saying it makes sense to plan as though resources are infinite, but but it can also be a good heuristic to ask "what would we be doing if we cared more"?
Right or Wrong (by who's definition) is more in how you base your decisions, not in whether you make the decisions.
If you can only save one person, and all other things being equal, is it wrong to save the more attractive person because they are more attractive. If so, should you NOT save the more attractive person, just in case their attractiveness may be biasing your decision?
What if $4000 is spent on equipment to save one premature infant per year, who will probably be permanently impaired anyway, when the same money could have saved two or more adults per year?
The larger context is that if that sort of decision is common (and note that "attractive" is shaped by who you've been trained to like, it isn't an absolute), people will put substantial resources into being attractive and/or will be irrationally excluded from opportunities to contribute for being unattractive.