Do you tend to dislike people who step on bugs?

[Jakeyjake]

@Yazata

@Jakeyjake

Do you tend to dislike people who step on bugs?

Probably depends on whether they did it accidently or on purpose. If they did it intentionally, I guess that I’d wan’t to know why. If they were just killing the little animals just for the fun of killing them, yeah, I might tend to like them a little less.

Part of it is I enjoy experimenting with their reactions. Not sure if I count that as “fun” as much as just satisfying curiosity. It’s cool to watch their reactions in response to different situations. For example, when I encounter an ant or just a few ants separated from their colony, they will zig zag in response to a shoe overhead, clearly trying to avoid getting crushed. Meanwhile, their reactions are way different if I’m standing over their home. I could hover my foot inches above an ant mound, and they don’t try to evade it at all. It’s like Independence Day where there is a giant spaceship over the city but instead of everyone panicking, they’re still taking the train to work. Even after I bring my shoe down, it is interesting to watch how quickly they return to business as usual. Even if I stand with my foot completely covering their home to try and block traffic in and out, they are undeterred. A small number will crawl on top of my sneaker I presume trying to bite me but the majority just continues to crawl around or even underneath the obstruction so they can go in or out. Ants seem to react differently to a human presence depending on their number and location. To me that is interesting.

I tend to feel some kinship with all of the other sentient beings that share this planet. I feel like they are just trying to live their lives like I am. So I’d feel guilty taking their life for no reason.

You know, bugs and I are quite literally relatives. Distant relations true, but related nevertheless. If you go back far enough in both of our family lines, you will end up with common ancestors to both me and them. Sometime prior to 500 million years ago, when the ancestors of the arthropods split away from the ancestors of the chordates.

You could say the same thing about single-celled organisms though, if you go far back enough. I think we’ve diverged to a point where that stopped mattering. The kinship you describe sounds more like an intellectual acknowledgement of a common ancestor rather than an emotional bond. I don’t believe there is anything inherently wrong with that. But it always flummoxes me that some (but not all) see how one treats bugs as a measure of their capacity to empathize. To them I’d say bugs are unempathizable.

[Jakeyjake]

@iambiguous

Again, who knows?

Other than, of course, those who insist that they do know. Whether stepping on bugs, fishing or doing anything else that involves harming creatures other than ourselves, different individuals make different choices. And different individuals react to those choices differently.

And here I am with my “fractured and fragmented” “I” convinced that 1] individual reactions are rooted subjectively in dasein and 2] philosophers [among others] seem unable, using the tools at their disposal, to determine what all individuals ought to think and feel about human interactions with other animals.

If they wish to be thought of as rational and virtuous human beings.

Only “I” go beyond that and suggest this quandary is true in regard to all contexts in which moral and political value judgments come into conflict.

Again, this thing:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

Then I challenge others [especially the moral and political objectivists] to explain why their own sense of self is not “fractured and fragmented” like mine.

If we take your statements as truth, such as (paraphrasing) others are unable to determine what individuals ought to think and feel about human interactions with other animals, how does that shape your perception of a guy like me who – I freely admit – doesn’t value the lives of bugs. Does it constitute a free pass to do whatever to them? I am curious as to your statements application. Since it seems to veer away from choosing sides morally or politically. It sounds like nihilism although I may not be fully comprehending.