Subject:
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Re: Vegetarianism etc. (was: Re: Why is AIDS such a big deal?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 2 Jun 2000 13:57:29 GMT
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Viewed:
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1145 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, James Simpson writes:
> 2. If you could chose to be reincarnated as either a human or a horse, would • you
> not chose to return as a human, because in examining the inherent qualities of
> the 2 creatures, the human is endowed with faculties that render it able to
> experience an altogether Better existence?
Nope. I would chose the human option, but not because I believe that it is
capable of experiencing a "Better existence." I'm familiar with it, I know
it's OK, I'd go with the known over the unknown in this case (unless I had
reason to believe that there would be further reincarnations, in which case I'd
experiment). I am not at all convinced that humans are capable of being
happier than horses. If such a thing can be measured at all, we haven't done
it, and I have no experience to suggest that your claim is correct.
> By stating that inherent rights do not exist for any creatures, and that • rights
> are constructs of the powerful, you seem to take the teeth out of your
position.
I have had that problem for years. But just because it is sticky, doesn't make
it not so.
> If rights are no better than those who have the strenght to assign them, and • if
> said rights have no greater pressing claim than personal whim or arbitrary
> utility, then what grounds do you have to assert that people who willingly
> support the way in which we make calves anemic in order to enjoy their meat • (as
> veal) are evil?
It seems that you have assigned the term evil to mean the violation of rights.
I think of evil as being the enjoyment of others' discomfort (or such a degree
of unconcern that it's equivalent to enjoyment). I don't think the fact that
rights are a fiction cause the ideas of good and evil to be meaningless. In
fact, I don't think the idea of rights is meaningless, but it is important to
understand that there is no universal force that hands them down. (Except that
you probably disagree.)
> As such, evil does not exist because to call an action evil is
> by nature to compare it to a set of objective and true standards
I don't think so. For instance, behavior that has been considered evil has
changed over time. Are you suggesting that these objective and true standards
have drifted too?
> Granted, you are certainly a kinder person, but one
> could argue that such kindness would also be an arbitrary whim; you are simply
> doing what you have the right to do, and those who torture baby animals are
> simply doing what they have the right to do.
Again, I don't see a problem with this. Rights are not the measure of
goodness. And kindness seems like an integral element of the good/evil
continuum.
> How can we really convince
> the unkind that kindness is objectively better when we can depend upon no
> principles before which even the most powerful stand guilty?
We can't.
> I'd prefer to say that we should be kind to animals because
> animals are qualitatively the sort of creatures that deserve
> kindness; and this principle is every bit as objective as
> the principles that state that a square must always contain
> 4 right angles; such things just Are.
I just don't think these two ideas are at all the same kind of ideas.
Chris
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