lmao tettleton my dear do you understand the concept of a hypothetical situation?

@Thucy, I have to agree that your account of morality completely fails to support the conclusions you (often correctly) want to reach. You urge Draug (for example) to imagine this Somali kid so that he can empathize with him and be made to feel unhappy until he does something about it. You say that this empathy / unhappiness is an evolved response.

The problem is, so is his apathy, and you haven't given any reason why he should bother to think about the kid in the first place when his nature is saying not to. In fact, you're urging him to ignore what is (apparently) his more strongly evolved response of apathy in order to listen to a different evolved response, morality, yet BOTH of them have "gotten us this far." Why shouldn't he just do whatever comes naturally? (i.e., apathy).

"So basically, the rest of the story goes like this - if you wouldn't want that to happen to you, then you should try to stop it happening to other people."

That doesn't follow either. You could always just count on the fact that there are enough people out there deluded enough (arguendo -- I'm not really saying they're deluded) to help others, and outwardly encourage them, so that THEY will be there for you.

Your "chimp morality" theory totally fails to support any kind of moral imperative. Because here you are -- arguing that he should listen to his "chimp morality." But where does THAT "should" come from? His chimp morality as well? But we already established he's happy to ignore that, and why not? His chimp apathy is doing awesome.

Sure I would want and appreciate it, but I would also understand that the average Chinese citizen is under no obligation to provide it at the risk of their own lives and I would rather no one *risk* their life to save mine. That would be an abligation I wouldn't want to take on.

The key is obligation. I feel none even though I have both empathy and sympathy for others plights. And I wouldn't wna the obligation that comes with someone else dying to try and help me. That's just bad karma for me.

Each situation must be weighed as to risk, obligation, and reward. If I see a bum on the street getting beat up by a couple of thugs when I'm out with my buddies, we go kick some thug ass. If I'm alone, I call the cops and discreetely follow the assailants guiding the cops in.

Here is a good example... I was sitting in non-moving traffic when I saw a girl in front of me reach back with a gym shoe and start pounding her kid. I called the cops and reported the license plate and gave a full description. when they arrested her, I testified as to what I saw. But I didn't have a clue if the guy in the passenger seat had a gun or something so I didn't directly intervene. I am OK by my internal morale compass with those actions. She went to jail for 6 months and the kid went to foster care. I had no obligation to put my life at risk to save that child from a beating.

Thucy, I understand you have to focus on lunatic fantasies because you can't hack it in the real world.
That's what is a common thread among people on the ideological left, and inability to deal with reality.

"and, you didnt answer the question - if you were in need would you not hope that a stranger would help you?"

Why do you keep insisting I'm not answering. I did. I said "not if it risks their life". I said this. I meant this. I don't want someone to die trying to help me. Period. Clear?

+1 Thucy

Darwinism does much to explain the evolutionary expansion of empathy. We no longer depend on our immediate community for survival, so we now have the capacity to express solidarity with a wider network of not only people, but living things.

yeah draug im not saying you are obligated to risk your life as much as possible lol i would have done the same in your shoes.

i am also not saying every last inhabitant of the western world needs to pack their bags for somalia tomorrow - it wouldnt even make sense.

but there *are* situations where all that can be done is to risk your life for someone else, and in those situations, that's what you should do.

an example could be:

you are driving along in Oklahoma and there is a tornado forming in the distance. you hoof it the hell out of there but wait... that's a kid on the side of the road. the tornado is coming this way. the kid is not going to be able to avoid it.

if you detour and stop and get him, you may die. if you do not, you will survive but the child WILL die (remember that this a hypothetical so just roll with it).

in this case you should get the kid if you see no one else around. i dont understand how you could be okay with leaving him.

we, as a collective, therefore, *are* obligated to prevent atrocities from happening to ourselves. so when there is a war, we as a society are obligated to try to stop it. we have methods for this, and our society has a structure.

i.e. we have people who have jobs that make them cut out to do the stopping - soldiers and lawyers and that sort of thing.

i think you may have misunderstood - i was stating why i am choosing my career path the way i am choosing it - i feel the obligation. i think it is an obligation we all share but i do not think everyone should do exactly what i am doing.

i do think everyone should do something though. and perhaps more important, i think everyone should agree that all human lives have worth... because once you have a society where we believe that, everyone *will* do something.

----

semck:

i dont see why empathy doesnt work: i know what it is like to be a human. i know that other humans have the same experience. i am glad i have a life, thus everyone else deserves a life as well. all human lives become therefore equal and worthy of protection.

i dont see how reading that in a leather bound book makes it any more true

haha well putin thats where i disagree with you i think it is fundamentally consciousness that gives a person sanctity, therefore animals, especially those that are certainly not conscious like chickens, do not have a moral existence.

this doesnt mean i dont care about inhumane slaughterhouses. i care, i think we should change. but the reason i think they should change is because of the effect it has on the people who work there and on us as a society - treating animals like that will inevitably effect humans and our behavior. at least that's my opinion about it

TC, honestly, this has nothing to do with the left-right dichotomy you love to jack off to. Why don't you weigh in instead of attempting to import your boring conventions into the thread?

In your hypothetical, I would get the kid. But then a tornado is not a warlord's mercenary soldier carrying a gun or a waste of human DNA in a passenger seat possibly carrying a gun or a thug packing who knows what and obviously already looking for trouble.

Now, I find it funny that your reasons for supporting stopping the inhumane treatment of animlas is abnout what it does to us. I, on the other hand, have done anuimal rescues before because I can see the pain in the animals eyes and empathize with them as much as you do with the little boy from Somalia.

But you're increasingly becoming an anachronism. It's amazing how much the animal rights movement has grown in such a short time. It's amazing how popular non-meat and even vegan diets have become. Human beings sympathize and care about animals because they interact with them as companions more and more. If they look at their pet and imagine that pet being tortured the way animals are tortured in factory farms, it's horrifying to them. The only way people continue to support the factory farm industry is by ignoring it. But it's becoming increasingly hard to ignore.

@Thucy: Chickens are certainly unconscious? ....

But anyway. :-P

My point is that all you're doing at most is saying why YOU feel an obligation. You are not giving a sufficient way to distinguish or choose among different evolutionarily instilled intuitions. For example, Draug has empathy. He also has an instinct for self preservation. He apparently privileges the latter over the former in many instances. Just how is that wrong? You can't appeal to evolution, as you tried to -- it instilled both.

See my point?

I would say a growing number of people have more sympathy for animals than humans for precisely the reasons why Thucy does not. Because they do not have the human capacity for deliberate action that humans do, they're considered far more innocent. It's akin to why people love children so much.

And quoting Jesus' teachings while talking about evolution instilling empathy... Jesus would say The Father planted that empathy within you...

Yeah no I am against that type of thing as I said Putin, because I do think we humans empathize with animals, as such I think mistreating them fucks with us and makes us more immoral people.

But I don't think that an animal has a santcitity of life in the same way that a person does. This means that a human life would always take precedence, and it means that hearing that 100,000 deer died would be bad, but only for the environment, not because the deer lost their chance to live, or something.

I support animal rights but only in the humaneness sense. Killing an animal humanely to eat is not wrong in the abstract. In today's world it is however wrong for another reason - it uses up something like 10x the food resources to produce a pound of meat vs a pound of grains or legumes, therefore eating meat is a bit like taking food off of other people's plates since there is not at the moment enough food to go around.

Or, well, there is, but it just *doesn't* go around. 40% of American food production is lost as waste, whether at the dinner table, in the cooking process, in the farming process, or in the processing. And that 40% is not the inedible stuff - it's the perfectly healthy food. That just didn't look pleasing or we just couldn't cram down our gullets.

I can quote Jesus without being Christian as much as I can quote the Dalai Lama without being Buddhist.

Lol yes I have encountered people that have said more than half seriously they would save a goat over a person.

What. The. Fuck. lol.

To me, the goat has no life to lose, since it cannot actually contemplate its own life. It is an automaton.

meaning qualities like "innocence" are humanized qualities only truly producible by conscious humans that we project on them the same way we can call a storm "angry"

I disagree. Those assholes who engage in shark finning, I support the sharks wholeheartedly in defending themselves and hope the shark finners get eaten. Humans who are evil are not worth one shark's life.

And that goes to a larger point that there absolutely no circumstances whatsoever where there should be a conflict between the "precedence" of human vs animal life. Humans should be able to co-exist completely without destroying animal life. It's only greed that keeps that from happening.

"Lol yes I have encountered people that have said more than half seriously they would save a goat over a person."

Depends on the person who needs saving.

No innocence is an objective description that describes a being that has not intentionally harmed anyone. Things and qualities exist whether they're given names or not. Substance precedes consciousness.

" Humans should be able to co-exist completely without destroying animal life. It's only greed that keeps that from happening."

This is potentially true, but not necessarily. What about when Shackleton's men had to either eat their dogs or each other?

Do you also, Putin, believe all human life is not equal? i.e. do you think some people are worth more than others? you seem to think so. you seem to think some people are worth less than goats. this is troubling.

Worth to me is based on the whether the person or being exists to enhance or undermine our collective survival, and "our" is a larger group than just humans. Human beings who deliberately kill endangered species for sport or profit are not worth 1 kilo of goat droppings. Millionaires who torture dogs for sport are not worth the same as humanitarian workers helping to save earthquake victims.

Quick question for Putin. Is it the person's actions or motivation that gives them worth? To clarify the question, is a humanitarian worker searching for earthquake victims worth less if his motivation was solely to impress a girl that he liked than it would be if he was doing it to forfill a need to help his fellow man?

Ah yes I suppose you think that because you are communist - the bourgeoisie tend to be outside your framework of "persons"

It's too bad - you're so progressive otherwise.

So if you guys - this is directed at anyone - believe in the statement "love your neighbor as yourself," how do you define neighbor and love if not to treat him equally with yourself?

Primarily the actions, although intent is not nothing. The girl-impressing humanitarian worker is still worth far more than the guy committing identity theft on 9-11 victims, but probably less than the people who have committed themselves to this activity for a long time for its own sake. There are people with good intentions who simply are unlucky and can't help as much as they'd like. They're still worth a lot, in my view. Ideas and attitudes are not nothing, but they're not worth as much as action and results.

Human life depends on how the life is lived, are you happy then it rises in value, are you depressed then it lowers in value, after all we all seek happiness and attach value to it.