Normally I leave the alone, especially outisde. But this one was in my room, where I plan to spend most of my day drinking and listening to music. He would have annoyed me all day, and I suspect would have taken more than his fair share of BlueChicken blood. So I ended him, I raged and he went splat.
Is there anyone here that would take issue with that on a moral level? Is there anyone convinced that all life is morally considerable that even the mosquite that would have antagonized me to no avail is worthy of life? What is we push the argument one further and say it was a puppy? Or even a baby? I just want a feel for where non-human lifeforms fit into their worldview. If I hadn’t given it another thought I would have wiped the insects flayed corpse away and been done with it, I now feel somewhat angsty (in a strange sort of way) as I think about it.
I live in skeeter heaven, don’t sweat it. His brothers are going to find you.
A puppy or a baby does not carry virrulent diseases, not normally.
Nor do they have venom , nor are they a threat in any way shape or form.
You defended yourself. That bug saw you as a meal. I don’t think its immoral to protect yourself from being used as a buffet.
What else could you do? Put a leash on it and take it outside where it may bite some innocent baby , giving it west nile virus or some other illness? No you heroically put yourself as a protector and defended the life blood of some innocent child or puppy.
On a lighter note:
Drink and enjoy your day. That skeeter will have its vengence another day if that makes you feel better. The swarm is coming
Jains would take issue with it. They even have a rather absurd ritual where a mattress infected with Bedbugs is carried around by boys asking, “Who will feed the bugs?” Jains will give the boys a sum of money (I forget what) and the boy will lie on the mattress and feed the bugs. The boy gets to keep the money and the payer bought some virtue.
In what has been called the first psychological novel, “Tristram Shandy” by Lawrence Sterne (no relation to Howard) a character named Sir Toby Belch notices a fly in the window. Sir Toby opens it to let ther fly out, noting, “In a world big as this is, there is surely enough room for me and thee.” The room for both closes when one realizes that the fly pukes on your bread and tries to hatch offsping in your potato salad.
Once I was privileged to attend an American Native sweat lodge religious rite. When I picked up a stick in the woods for the fire, the native watching me for white-eyes ignorance exclaimed, “Not that stick! It’s occupied.” Sure enough, it was populated with crawlies.
Now, I’ve been one to let a wasp or cricket out of the back door where I worked while my boss was screaming “Kill it!” But when it comes down to them against me, I realize that many insects will survive a nuclear holocaust, wheras I will not. That realization modifies my empathy for critters who breathe through their sides.
I do not disagree with the above line of reasoning.
Now, shouldn’t someone start instructing cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, plants, and, in general, the entire planet (and, probably, the universe) that human beings are to them as mosquitoes are to human beings?
Isn’t it a moral imperative for the entire non-human part of reality to get rid of us and prevent us from turning everything else into our buffet?
If God exists, and if God is a moral being, shouldn’t we be exterminated?
It has been proved, via polygraph, that plants scream when threatened with fire. So where do we draw the line on whose scream demands moral consideration?
No one instructed us, why should they get help? And as for non humans trying to get rid of us, the world makes efforts everyday.
If God made us do you think God would ever admit to making a mistake? If god got rid of us, that is pretty much a confession of guilt.
As far as humans and our fellow creatures I guarantee there are plenty out there that would kill and eat us given the chance. Food is food and where food is conerned the morality level becomes only a problem for humans and not our brethren creatures. Its not immoral to eat, only immoral to kill just for pleasure. And morals are a human luxury.
Plants may scream when hurt but so do I when I have hundreds of fire ants crawling up my legs, taking bites out of me. Keep in mind there are carnivorous plants and plants do thrive on dead material in the ground so I mean come on food and defense is one thing pleasure is another.
One cannot ask moral questions about an animal that does not share the same language. Because morality is based on agreement in language, the triangulation is not complete without a world and at least two language users.
The only moral relationships humans have are with other humans.
Animals should be treated like tools. For work, consumption, entertainment, what have you. But our use of the animals should be humane and free of violence.
Animals that are consumed should be killed as quickly and efficiently as possible, even if the methods cost more. That is the extent of our “obligation” to animals.
Well, to the extent that we did not ‘make’ ourselves, we owe what we are/have become, including our capacity for moral reasoning, to whatever ‘force’ (divine, evolutionary, or whatever) played a part in shaping our particular brand of being.
{For the moment, I am leaving aside considerations regarding which human beings are actually capable of moral reasoning, as opposed to being convinced/coerced by ‘pious lies’ or some such device.}
Granted. But this merely points to the difference between matters of fact and moral obligation. The discussion is about whether we ought to kill mosquitoes (for reasons of self-preservation, etc.), and whether, on the same basis, other beings ought to eliminate us.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that God did, in fact, ‘make’ us, I don’t see a subsequent decision to exterminate us as being any more problematic than the decision, for example, to boot Satan out of Paradise, or to expel Adam and Eve from the primordial Garden. An all-powerful and omniscient God could create a being with the capacity to freely opt for good or evil. The fact that such a being then actually opts for evil does not imply either that God made a mistake or that God should assume responsibility/guilt for what happened.
Only if the discourse consisted of words which had no multi-linguistic meaning, or no equivalent. This is probably impossible.
However, to answer your question, the “guilt” is another matter and that depends on the personal morality of the person at one end of the language exchange.
Although the definitions of words and ideas are triangulated, there are differences in means and possibilities in each individual speaker context. This is where the moral “opinion” is generated; it is a subjective expression of a value from a point where an end is unlike another end toward which the word was used by the Other.
In other words, no terms in a moral discourse are subjective…each term has to, by virtue of the principle of triangulation, have a definite meaning or reference to something in or about the world. It is the pre-reflection of the approaching end that establishes opinions, since opinions are about preferences…a preference is not a concern with a fact…but a way or a use of some fact.
To say “it is killing” is only a statement about the world. To say “it is wrong killing” is to state a value about a fact about the world. There can be no value where there are no ends. Inert things have no ends…only language speakers and simpler animals which have no language but respond to thresholds in the nervous sysetm (their experience of pain- language free pain not relying on the “thinking” of the term “pain”). Conscious animals create value but the value is “untouchable” in language- it cannot ever be a lexicon of objective word truths. When we talk about it…we just barely get at it.
I agree with the distinction between statements of value and statements of fact, however, I see no reason why we can’t engage in a relationship of meaning with animals (many people do – see, pets) which strongly suggests that there is more to language then mere words. Indeed, people who do not speak the same language are often able to very effectively communicate their intentions to one-another.
So, I see values as existing not in one individual or another but as existing because of the interaction(s) of two individuals. Since interaction of that sort is possible with animals (and with humans who do not speak the same language) I would argue that claims of animals being morally-void are specious at best.
Too much emphasis on talking, not enough on thinking. What you are proposing is hardly a good Marxist view of the world, and it certainly isn’t materialistic! After all, you’ve gone ahead and created a special category for humans-as-they-related-to-each-other there, which is hardly justifiable.
This doesn’t say anything about the necessity of at least two communicators of which both assign meaning to a language (in whatever form) Communication with animals other than humans is always a human assigning of intent. Communication with humans can take many forms because of empathy. (He’s just like me!)
detrop has the question of morality neatly pinned. An invention of sentience to place value on otherwise neutral facts.
Any interaction is, ultimately, going to be one individual assigning intent on their end. Otherwise, it would be telepathic, and that doesn’t make sense. Our interactions with humans are rooted in empathy as are our interactions with animals. No difference, except that we can have a more specific conversation/interaction with a human because of a greater degree of shared language and a greater degree of shared thought-processes.
Sorry, I will communicate with creatures but, not bugs and not a creature that wants to eat me. Nor will I try to empathize with a plant. I will be grateful to any creature or plant that helps sustain my life I will be as merciful as possible in removing or denying them life to sustain me.
But a bug? nope. I do apologize if I kill one inadvertantly I feel bad about harming one that is non threatening. Hell I have apologized to fire ants that attacked me because I smashed their homes. but when I apologize to them its not communicating to them, it is absolving me of a human feeling.
But, no, morally it is fine to kill for defense or food. It is immoral to kill for pleasure.
K.,
When I was a child, I was fascinated by bugs, considered most of them friends, with the exception of predatory insects who caused me pain. Aphids, stink bugs, snapping beetles, grasshoppers were met with joyous discovery. At 5 yrs of age I found “doodlebugs” (ant lions) soft and interesting. I had no problem with their building sand traps for prey. Such problems came about from hearing adult obsessions with morality.
My native friends, and some primitives still extant, claim that all I need to do is ask an animal for forgiveness before I eat it. I like that idea. It allows me a full stomach and absolves my guilt.
In a remarkable poem “The Book of Thel” William Blake writes of a female spirit who is considering being born as an Earthling. Looking down at our planet, she finds that its dynamic of energy for living beings amounts to a sexual devouring. Horrified, she flees back to the realm of beings who can’t use each other in these ways.
Steven Gaskin of The Farm, one of the last holdouts of midcentury, utopian communes, claims he has been to a hog slaughter and to a vegetable cutting and can base his morality on the audibilty of the screams. I see no such distinction. The fact remains that, on this planet, one must eat what is living or was alive, much to the horror of Thel, or die.
The only problem I would have with all this, K. is that which you stated well–killing for sport, killing endangered species just to have a trophy, etc., seeing killing as fun and games. I kill the mosquito that attempts to suck my blood, not out of disrespect for its being, but out of the sense of self-protection it shares with me.
I once went to a discussion sponsored by PETA, and given by a close associate of Peter Singer.
Upon listening to his speil about animal rights, I raised my hand and asked him to describe what it means for an animal with a fundamentally different construction from his, to feel pain. He responded with, okay, but only if you tell me what it means for you to feel pain. I quickly responded that I know what it means for me to feel pain because I experience it, and given that me and him share many morally relevant characteristics, I can make an educated guess on what pain means for him, but given that animals lack many important biological similarities with humans, I cannot do the same with animals.
He paused for a moment, and said something about seeing an animal suffering, and this is enough for him to “know” that animals feel pain. Then he moved on to another question.
The problem IMO with many arguments regarding the moral relevance of animals, exempting religious arguments, is that it is predicated on the idea that it is fundamentally bad for an animal to feel pain. But given that animals differ biologically in very important ways, moral ways, I see no reason why one assumes that pain is bad for an animal in the same that it is bad for a human. We have no idea what the biological differences mean in regards to the apprehension of pain. I would go as far as to say that we cannot even know what pain means for another human.
I suppose that all depends on how much the experience of pain is caused by our brains. Human brains are all fairly similar, if it is reasonable to say that having experienced pain myself (as a human being) I can see why it would be bad to have other humans experience pain, I fail to see why the identical argument based off the notion that mammalian brains are similar. After all, a parasite that is able to control a rat’s actions is also able to control human actions (Taxoplasma gondii, if you are curious). But that isn’t all, if you look at the brains of what is normally thought of with the word “animals”, they are all quite similar, especially in the areas that experience pain (which would be part of the so-called “Lizard brain”). I fail to see how anyone can reject that argument without either resorting to soliphism or human exceptionalism, both of which are dubious-at-best philosophical positions.
