Originally posted by Monique
I thought we were here for the sake of the planet, not the human race. Funny that views like this don't fall under racism..
And what made you think that?
Monique, think about this for a while, just about what we are saying completely out of context, as an abstract idea. Think about the basis for it, and why we are saying it. Neither Russ nor I are saying that we shouldn't 'be humane' nor that we shouldn't try to avoid torturing animals, and killing relentlessly, nor that we should plunder the Earth no matter what. Neither of us are that stupid.
What russ and I are talking about, is the very basis for every moral that we have constructed for ourselves. The way I see it, the ethics that our society has come to hold have been constructed over countless millenia from evolution initially, and then social constructs finally, and now we have fooled ourselves into believing certain absolutes about our actions, forgetting the reasons for them. I actually find this a major problem with laws these days too: People get so caught up in following the rules, they often forget why they are following the rules, to what ends the rule was actually created for in the first place, and eventually act in ways which contradict the purpose of the rule by following it to such a strict degree that they have imposed upon themselves.
Why do we have a moral imperitive? What is morality? Morality is a set of rules that enable us to work together as a community to make each and everyone of our respective lives easier. Thats all it is.
And so every action we make needs to be made with that ends in mind.
Are we here for the sake of the planet? In a way, absolutely we are: We need to be, because we need this planet. Without this planet, there would be no where for our community to exist. We would die. We need this planet: We need the plants and the animals with it to maintain a viable ecosystem.
but being here 'for the planet' is only a means to the ends of sustaining our society, and in the end, sustaining our own lives.
The paradox.. what is moral? A moral is something that is socially accepted and makes us feel good, therefore it is a moral obligation to be humane in killing it.
All things considered equal: Should we kill painfully or painlessly? It would be a moral obligation to kill humanly assuming other people knew of it, otherwise it would be apersonal decision based on whether u 'enjoyed' killing it inhumanely or not. Moral obligation only comes into the picture when other people are present/implicated in the picture.
A moral is something that helps to maintain the stability of our society. (my personal definition. I will soon re-write my treatise on ethics if you want, and we can get right down into ethics (My current favourite topic)(Again))
I want to ask both of you: do you live with pets? And no, I am not projecting my feelings upon them.
What makes u think either of us are accusing them of being 'lower' and not able to be compared to humans? I called humans animals, because we are somewhat equal. The only difference, is that Humans can express their desire to be part of our functional community, and can express their understandings of the rules.
outside of that, as far as I am concerned, humans are no different to animals, and as unpopular as this view will be, I don't much see the point of treating humans who can't interact practically with our society as something so special. (PS: Before you go and accuse me of all sorts of socially unaceptable things because of the historic reputation of Nazis and various other ideas of killing off the 'unfit' etc, don't think I am closed to other points of view, I am just as yet unable to justify any other stance. Everything I am presenting here, is a theoretical principle which makes absolute logical sense to me. I am mearly awaiting reasoned arguments to show me the error in my ideas.)
Yes, I understand the need of experimentation on animals, but if you don't know how to have respect for living organisms, you are not entirely human.
I'm sure we know how to 'have respect', its just that we don't like the use of the word respect. I don't think it conveys the real relationship at all well. Empathy is a much better word, and we all tend to feel that. As such, we don't like killing animals. It makes us feel terrible. But we only get that feeling when we run over cats, or hit kangaroos, or kill other cute animals. We would hate to kill a dolphin because we can see ourselves in them... etc.
But how many times have you regretted killing a mosquito? Have u ever been fishing? Dragging a fish out of its habitat, by its cheek, only to let it slowly suffocate to death. I get the impression that snail pellets aren't very nice to snails... etc. its the animals which we empathise less with, that we feel more able to kill at will, and possiby even enjoy killing.
Hypothetical situation: if were to go out in a spaceship and found a world with a life form, we can just whipe it out without blinking? No, you'll say, we have to bring out our scalpels and cut them open, put the remaining ones in observation and take over the planet, since we are humans and we need to advance. You must've seen startrek.. what is their policy and is it wrong?
What are the organisms like?
Are they like: Bacteria? (Yes, we would cut them open etc) Dogs? ( We would treat them like we treat dogs) etc
We would treat alien life forms very much the way we treat our own planets life forms.
If they were intelligent, then we would try to amalgamate them into our larger community in some way, hoping they would be our friends, and help us to live better lives. If they didn't, then we would either try to live without them, or we would exploit them. (I'm just saying what would happen, not what I advocate). From there, there is a potential of going to war and killing etc.
In any of the above situations, I guarantee that first chance we have, someone would cut them open and see how they work.
Human nature, and I am sure you understand this already, u just need to let yourself see it through all of the social programming that we have been spoonfed from birth as to what is 'right' and 'wrong' in the absolute sense.