What reasons are there for this position?
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Moral Worth of Animals
- Thread starter The Hammer
- Start date
What reasons are there for this position?
As @ChristineM points out, humans are animals, too. Thus, you must rephrase the question -- is one kind of animal morally superior to all other kinds of animals. And frankly, I don't know how to answer that.
I'll remind you if it weren't for other animals, you wouldn't be here.
No.
But they also couldn't explain the concept of 'enemies'.
I think it's worth noting that taking moral actions requires a level of introspection some creatures don't have.
But so does taking an immoral action.
More intelligent creatures would seem to be more capable of taking a range of actions, both moral and immoral. Whereas a single celled organism is doing neither.
If you want to say a human has more 'moral potential' because of that, then fine. As long as you acknowledge they have more 'immoral potential' too. It approaches a truism in my mind.
Interested in your thoughts on my position (stated in post immediately preceding this one)
McBell
Resident Sourpuss
Please explain the why.
We no doubt have a much more evolved system of morality, given that we have minds capable of reasoning to a large degree and of evolving such morality to benefit ourselves as a species - even if we bicker a little as to what such morality should be but we still mostly agree to a core of such. But to think that non-human life has no morality (just instincts) or such has little value where it can be seen - numerous examples can be found - is a bit suspect. I fear that if we simply separate human morality out from any that other species might display then we are on a rather nasty path as to how we treat non-human life, and it is bad enough already. What other species display is what has evolved in their sphere and should be accepted as such, not compared with human morality, or as being inherently inferior because they seem to have less intelligence. Their intelligence after all is a result of their environment.
Secret Chief
nirvana is samsara
Interesting article.
Regarding the speciesist view - that humans have more moral worth simply because we belong to the species homo sapiens. I'm not sure this has a problem (as the articles says it does) regarding the so-called District 9 scenario (which I have seen - good film imo). The fact that the intelligent extra-terrestrials have the same traits as us is not a problem for the speciesist view is it? This view, when you scratch underneath the surface, seems to be fundamentally and simply "Humans first, all else second." The traits we have are the justifications we use to describe our superiority but the bottom line is we are automatically the ones to take precedence. So it doesn't matter if the something else is a mouse, a dog, an octopus or an intelligent ET. We come first in the saving from the burning building scenario. We look after our own; an outlook that is obviously not unique to homo sapiens.
Secret Chief
nirvana is samsara
I'm not quite understanding the term moral superiority in respect of other species. Morality is concerned with codes of conduct. Whether or not we as a species consider it ok to do something regarding non humans (for instance go fishing for a hobby) - how does that say anything about our moral superiority or inferiority? Is it meant to justify our actions? - that seems to be the assumption in the article. Personally, I find going fishing for a hobby in no way demonstrates a moral superiority.
Codes of conduct exist within many non human species. Within each species some of these will be similar to ours, some will be different. Again, how can it be argued that the codes of conduct of humans are superior to other species? There is no reason why the codes within one species should be identical in all ways to those in another. Who are we to make the judgment that our codes are superior, and thence justify our (for instance) killing of non human animals for sport? The concept of "morality" seems to me to be a human construct, an intellectual idea only in the minds of homo sapiens. I don't know how we can posit that concept in the mind of another species, beyond identifying behaviours associated with species-specific codes of conduct.
leroy
Well-Known Member
1 If the existence of a single human causes the death of many animal
2 And If animals are equally valuable than humans
Then the most moral thing to do would be to kill as many humans as possible (saving many animals as a consequence)
The reasons are many. One being treating animals as their own persons, with independent wants and desires seperate from our own.