Aporophobia—the aversion toward the poor—has recently gained at- tention as a lens to understand exclusionary attitudes in contemporary societies. This paper argues that aporophobia can be interpreted as an unintended consequence of meritocratic narratives. While meritocracy is commonly viewed as a principle of fairness, public and political discourse often reduces merit to individual effort and success, downplaying struc- tural factors and luck. This framing sharpens distinctions between the "deserving" and the "undeserving" poor, thereby reinforcing attribution biases that erode support for redistribution and shape attitudes toward low-income immigrants and marginalized groups. Building on Sen's no- tion of the "obligations of power," the paper proposes an ethical frame- work for counteracting these narrative externalities. The argument high- lights both the responsibility to assist the victims of aporophobia and the epistemic duty to challenge meritocratic narratives that misrepresent the sources of disadvantage. The framework provides conceptual foundations for empirical and experimental research on deservingness, narratives, and redistribution in public economics.