Posted by so on May 22, 2005, at 0:24:48
In reply to Re: Just for the record... » so, posted by alexandra_k on May 21, 2005, at 22:03:15
Alexandra, I think we are so far apart on appreciating the continuum of motivation that binds humans and animals, it's probably not worth me trying to explain their sentience and the slavery to desires we share with them. Sure humans are as different from other animals as we are similar. But there are as many if not more differences between a bug and a bear than there are between a human and a bear.
I hope you recognize that not all people, especially outside of Western and Christian cultures, are all that impressed with the idea that humans are moral agents. I'm not. I don't consider moral agency relevant to my behavior in the least. I don't believe in right or wrong outside a context of goals and the right or wrong way to get there. And I certainly don't believe we can *sses others by what they should or should not have done. All we have to go on is what we wanted them to do. I believe morals are cultural constructs, and I vote.I'm not alone, and I'm certainly not to be condemned along with millions of fellow animists for holding forth for the similarities we share with the rest of the animal kingdom. I don't think I have a moral obligation to the environment. I don't think we need to preserve it because it is instrumental. I just want to keep it more than I want a Rolls Royce, so that's where I try to invest my effort -- much the same way a stallion tries to maintain his harem of mares or a pack of wolves jealously defend their territory.
Fortunately for the animistic cultures of the world who would otherwise be afforded no more credibility in modern society than animials, each of the notions you represent that separate us from animals -- that they can't hold abstract thoughts, that they can't make and keep promises, that they are not sentient, that they don't have duties or obligations, that they don't have mental capacity to contemplate alternatives, that they are not members of their own ethical communities, has been challenged in scientific literature by people who methodically study animals. I'm probably not going to debate these findings here, because they are too precious to me to represent without doing the kind of research and editing that costs more than I care to invest here.
For sure, there are other ways of looking at things, and most people in industrialized societies hold fast to notions of human moral agency and humans as some pinnacle of evolution. Some of us see it differently, we have for a long time and we will continue see it that way for a long time, and we will be valuable contributors to society all the while.
Heck, I might even hook up a quadrapalegic son of an old farmer with a computer where he can hunt in a private game preserve over the Internet. He's eaten packaged meat so long, I want him to have the opportunity to appreciate the reality of his relationship with an animal, albeit as removed and artificial as is our dialogue here. I hope this isn't a forum where my choice is considered so reprehensible to people who don't share my values that I am fair game.
poster:so
thread:498173
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20050509/msgs/501029.html