Subject:
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Re: 3 Question (was: Did animals have rights before we invented rights?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 3 Jul 2001 20:07:35 GMT
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Viewed:
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976 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton writes:
>
> > The tricky part is defining where the line gets drawn. Not to pull back
> > evolution as a topic, but how about the Ancient Egyptians? How about
> > cavemen? How about Cro-magnon man? How about monkeys? Etc. At what *specific
> > point* (and yes there must be one to say that animals don't and we do,
> > unless you don't accept evolution) does morality come into the picture?
>
> You're creating a false dichotomy between a la "it must happen at specific
> point X, or else it cannot happen at all." This is simply untrue.
I whole-heartedly agree. However, in order to argue that animals do *NOT*
have it and that humans *DO*, something must be different. But I don't argue
that. Accepting the premise that animals *DON'T*, I hold that at some
*point*, morality would "pop in". That's not to say that once "popped in"
that it wouldn't be developmental, mind you-- just that at a certain point,
it exists.
> Having said that, it is without question that the framework on which
> morality is based has arisen through evolution.
How come people counter me with exactly my point? :)
> Further, though it's not essential, I would assert self-awareness as a
> good precursor of "morality" in the "human" sense.
I'll go ahead and state what I think in a more broken down state:
Morality is a social desire. Hence, in order to comprehend morality, we must
have some concept or envisionment of both society and desire.
In the specific, creatures have desire. And it is when they begin to equate
other entities with desires of their own that morality begins to take shape.
And not insofar as the others' desires *exist* (it is no breakthrough
towards morality to acknowledge that the wolf wants to eat me), but that the
others' desires have value in the same way that one's own desires have value.
However, one does not need to be "self-conscious" (not that you said one
needed to) in order to be moral-- it merely helps. BTW, how would one define
self consciousness?
Anyway, if there were a line to be drawn, I think it would be at that
*point* wherein beings acknowledge a social existence. However, that "point"
is (I hold) impossible to find, if extant, though obviously theorizable.
DaveE
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