Hook me up to a solar panel, baby!
Like solar energy?
Oh, well that settles it.
That’s like a psychopath saying “We must torture our victims as humanely as possible.”
Yes / Carnivores need omnivores and herbivores / Omnivores need herbivores and plants
Herbivores need plants / Plants need insects / Insects need plants and every animal type
So then everything in the food chain is directly or indirectly connected to everything else
Those at the top of it would die if those at the bottom of it died too so equality does exist
There is no simple objective answer to this question other than what is acceptable to any individual
And this is because morality is subjective by default and so any universal metric is beyond its means
Psychopathy is a psychiatric disorder where as eating meat is not
So why do you think eating meat is wrong yet eating plants is not
Now why is your imaginary line in the sand morally superior to my imaginary line in the sand
Why is eating one living thing any different at all in principle to eating any other living thing
Psychopathy is just the lack of guilt or remorse over the deliberating causing of harm to another sentient organism. Whether or not you want to call it a “disorder” depends on your opinion of what counts as “normalcy”. And one could argue that killing is a form of “causing harm” (quite easily).
I don’t.
There is no reason why. But since you implicitly betrayed your moral relativism, I’m going to say that my morality, relative to me, is superior to your morality.
Well, you just posed the question in an incredibly stupid way. What is the difference between one “living thing” and another “living thing”? ← Your words. NOTHING!!!
They’re both living things and that’s all we can say about them given the parameters of your question.
But if you were to say: what’s the difference between eating a human baby versus eating raspberries from a bush, well I’d have to say there’s a HUGE difference and I’m sure you’d agree.
I think if we go back far enough the morality of cannibalism starts at diseases and civil war/fighting. Most ancient ethics/morals started due to strong problems that occurred from behaviors. Right and wrong morals/ ethics started for survival not mental balance.
It is an issue of enabling a potentially dangerous thought free from any governance. The less similar to killing human life or causing human suffering something is, the further from the thought of killing humans or making humans suffer it is. And thus the less it crosses over the line.
Those with extreme wealth fully accept that people are nothing but barn animals and what is allowed for barn animals, is certainly acceptable for common people. And just like barn animals, one must be careful to not be seen causing harm, preferably seen and heard making soothing sounds, preaching love and security, and thus not start a rebellion or riot. People can be very viscous animals, especially in large numbers. So they must be slaughtered quietly, subtly, and always with a scapegoat at hand.
They can make for a good crop as long as they never wake up. Just keep them young and naive. Once they are fully out of sight and hearing from the others, they can be used for whatever without fear.
I think, that perhaps You meant this figuratively, because a pre-existing automorphism may be working , or a developmental isomorphism is in the works, literally…Perhaps…?
I fully agree with this. The concept of morality is not intrinsic to the human mind. We didn’t always have such a concept. You go back, say, two thousand years ago and they would have said “Morality? What’s that?”
The concept was derived from an older idea of social norms and customs meant to guide individuals in their efforts to gain favor or avoid disfavor of those in authority. You didn’t want to piss off those in power so you conducted yourself in a manner that wouldn’t criminalize you or get you into serious trouble somehow.
At some point in history, a very interesting twist occurred, and whoever orchestrated this twist was a genius. Somehow this concept of conducting one’s self in order to gain favor or avoid disfavor became the concept of conducting one’s self just for its own sake–behaving, that is, because the behavior itself was “good” or “bad”–no, it made you good or bad–the individual all of sudden was susceptible to acquiring inherent moral worth because of his actions, or in other cases, because of his character, who he was. The punishment or reward that one typically got for this or that behavior was no longer seen as merely a consequence of that behavior but “deserved”.
The idea that this or that consequence for such-and-such behavior was good or bad somehow got severed from the consequence and placed upon the person himself. It was no longer that such-and-such behavior lead to a bad consequence but that it made one a bad person. I’m not sure how this came about? Maybe from the idea of God’s rule being absolute. Maybe it was a consequence of going from a culture in which if a mob wanted to string you up for a crime you committed, everyone at least agreed that this stringing up was just something the mob wanted to do, to a culture in which if the mob wanted to string you up for a crime you committed, everyone thought that God sanctioned such a decision christening it an absolute fact–no longer something that the mob just wanted to do but something that was to be done… or something like that.
Gib, a lot of that goes back into early Hindu, 5000 years or more wherein you ARE your behavior and nothing more. If your behavior is such that it brings bad karma (a bad situation for you in the future), then your behavior is condemned and anyone behaving as you, are equally condemned.
Did they see such behavior as morally reprehensible? Or was it more like smoking–nothing immoral about it per but it’s gonna catch up with you some time down the road.
Absolutely and totally meaningless. What a waste of time and effort. How could you be so easily duped?
I suggest people follow up on the BBC series “Kill it, Cook it, Eat it”, rather than this childish crap you posted.
It all has the same beginning. Religion/closed communities create memes for survival and thriving of self and community. We have self instincts and social/ herd/pack instincts. The two instincts work separately and together.
The Egyptians line their beaches with fine two-metre high nets that can stretch for miles across the Nile delta and will catch any bird coming close; the Maltese will cover whole trees in nylon; the Cypriots smear branches in glue to stop birds flying; the Italians will kill nearly anything that flies and the French like to set metal traps for small birds.
But the sheer scale of the cruelty of the illegal wild bird killings around the Mediterranean which was revealed last week has shocked conservationists and bird lovers across Europe.
According to the first study of its kind, which has attempted to put a realistic number on how many birds are killed illegally each year, possibly 25 million chaffinches, thrushes, robins, quails and many other species are being shot, trapped or poisoned as they migrate to and from mainland Europe.
But what has shocked most is that strong laws have been shown not to be working and are being openly flaunted by hunters. Nearly half the 25m killings occur in EU states where the birds directive applies, and many other Mediterranean countries also ban the hunting of songbirds.
The Guardian, August 2015.
How do you know so few people care ? How do you know that they only come up with excuses ?
How do you know it is all bullshit ? How do you know it is a coping mechanism ? Who is claiming
that there are no problems in the world ? Do you have any evidence for all of these assertions ?
What, are you making this into an epistemic argument?
How do you know that you know?
Nope. You gonna doubt me now? Oh God, please say it ain’t so!
The issue is that YOU (and others of later generations) acquired a distorted and hysterical view of what being “immoral” meant. Those who read scriptures without education paint their own distorted view of what it is all about … and then go preach it to others. The insane create the insanity of which they complain: “Cast thy bread upon the waters and it shall return to thee….”… distorted and swollen completely out of proportion.
I’m afraid gib is precisely right about that one. That is exactly what is going on in the majority of society.
…just like the Brits; always sterilize before public eyes: “Make it LOOK acceptable to the ewe. Don’t bother with any truth regarding it. They wouldn’t comprehend it anyway.”
To me the issue is one of priority.
As long as Man is fighting with Man and in the most insidious ways, Man will never be able to care for that which is not himself. Man is Man’s greatest challenge, requiring more of Man than Man has to offer. Man requires everything of Man merely to survive Man.
Man is at war with Man (just look at Lev). And there are no good guys in war. There is no love in war. There is no room for sympathy nor empathy concerning anything in war. War is a mindless and heartless blinded focus on trying to win against the “terrorists”.
How could Man possibly afford to even think about, much less care about the cruelty to “lesser” animals when there is still an escalating threat and war to suffer?
“Eat, drink, and be merry, fore tomorrow YOU shall die” … be eaten.
“Care for nothing else” - such is the way of war.
As long as Man challenges Man in war of any kind (especially the insidious cold war kind), nothing around Man has hope but to be thrashed in the madness and mechanisms of Man.
Fix the right problem first. And then the other problems go away quite readily. Until then, you ARE the problem.
Now while there is much truth to what gib says I think it unwise to present it as a generalisation based on the entire global population
Not everybody is only interested in satisfying themselves whilst remaining ignorant or indifferent to the plight of others less fortunate
Modern society is actually more aware of such inequality compared to societies of the past since progress is being made to alleviate it
There is never going to be a truly equal society but one that is as equal as possible though is attainable and so that should be the goal
Sure, like a game of telephone. One person whispers something into the next person’s ear, the next person mis-hears it and passes on a distortion of the original message. But that’s the concept as we have it today.
About your example of the Hindu conception of moral behavior, are you saying that our modern concept of morality can be traced back to ancient Hindu thought from 5000 years ago? Or would say this is an isolated incident, one in which a concept emerged very similar to our concept of morality, but then faded away (or maybe it didn’t–maybe it’s still with us but still having no link to the modern Western concept of morality)?
I said what I said based on the responses I saw in this thread. I saw far more responses trying to excuse apathy than voicing real concern.
You realize that’s tautological. Any society could be as “equal as possible”.
I thought you were talking about society in general and not the selective replies of some here so apologise for making the assumption