Anyway, yeah, I would change "civilization" to "all humans" at this point. Why all humans and no more? Because that implicitly takes into account the rest, to as much as we care about. People instinctively like kittens, they are valuable to us, therefore their well-being is included in ours.
No, no, no... it does not take into account the Kitten's interests, and that's a really important point.
That's like saying we don't need to worry about black people thriving because it's already taken into account by the fact that white people love their fellow man.
Nearly all of the important ethical disagreements that people have are based on how large of a group to include in the pool of interests you're considering. Ethical individualists say each person should only care about themselves. Many conservatives tend to care only about their families and other rich people like themselves. Some people care only about civilized culture and they don't give a crap about uncivilized cultures. Some people care about humans, but don't give a crap about animals. The people who do care about animals all have different weights to how much they care, that's my whole point... there's no objective standard because everyone has a different morality metric they use based on their own personal desires. A lot of people happen to have similar metrics, and that's the only times where we agree on things. It is not similar at all to the case in science, where when we agree it's because we're both on the right track. In ethics, when people agree it is only because they happen to have similar desires, not because they are both right or anything.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-12-03 02:53 am (UTC)Anyway, yeah, I would change "civilization" to "all humans" at this point. Why all humans and no more? Because that implicitly takes into account the rest, to as much as we care about. People instinctively like kittens, they are valuable to us, therefore their well-being is included in ours.
No, no, no... it does not take into account the Kitten's interests, and that's a really important point.
That's like saying we don't need to worry about black people thriving because it's already taken into account by the fact that white people love their fellow man.
Nearly all of the important ethical disagreements that people have are based on how large of a group to include in the pool of interests you're considering. Ethical individualists say each person should only care about themselves. Many conservatives tend to care only about their families and other rich people like themselves. Some people care only about civilized culture and they don't give a crap about uncivilized cultures. Some people care about humans, but don't give a crap about animals. The people who do care about animals all have different weights to how much they care, that's my whole point... there's no objective standard because everyone has a different morality metric they use based on their own personal desires. A lot of people happen to have similar metrics, and that's the only times where we agree on things. It is not similar at all to the case in science, where when we agree it's because we're both on the right track. In ethics, when people agree it is only because they happen to have similar desires, not because they are both right or anything.