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> What's the logic behind that distinction? If a child stumbles into a pond and drown, or is mauled by a wild coyote, will you let them die on the basis of non-interference? Great point, you got me there. All life forms being equal, then yes if I adhered to my own system I suppose I would have to silently watch a child get mauled by a coyote. Obviously, I wouldn't take it that far, so perhaps there's more criteria to the decisions than I'm admitting or able to even dig out of my psyche at the moment. I'll think about this. Your other points about utilitarian math are well-taken, and perhaps I misunderstood you there. > If I follow that logic and extend my caring to insects, I should care about all insects. So if you care about starving children, and apply the same rules you apply to children to insects, you'd be donating a lot to charity, basically. Makes sense =]. So once again, my live-and-let-die attitude towards insects is at odds with my "help unfortunate members of humanity" "morality." Another good point (granted, I don't donate much to charity, but if I did, I would probably donate to poor/starving people as opposed to insect charities). > I'm a dumb ape who tries (and even maybe succeeds) to be logical sometimes, my moral 'system' is a hodge-podge of intuition, rule-based and consequentialist thinking, I don't claim I have found a fully logical moral system. This is probably the most coherent, self-aware moral system I've heard. Most people try to ascribe their beliefs to some overarching theme that they pretend to follow in all circumstances, when in reality most of our actions are governed by a tiny fraction of what we believe to be morality, and the rest is knee-jerk reactions to situations that affect us emotionally one way or the other. Not only that, but our beliefs (as you pointed out in my case), are a "hodge-podge" of rules, emotions, and hardwiring. All that said, I still try to be nice to all animals, and will continue to do so until I find the next mishmash set of rules to figure out why I believe what I believe. EDIT: relevant: http://wondermark.com/c/2015-06-25-1135earn.png |
To insect charity yeah. Or spending a lot of time doing insect advocacy or something.
Instead I donate for anti-malaria bed nets for kids and argue about animal ethics on the internet.
> if I adhered to my own system I suppose I would have to silently watch a child get mauled by a coyote
Right. Obviously no one but psychopaths act like that. I think what you call 'non-interference' ties in with the difference between the moral weight of action vs inaction. Most people's moral intuition draw a distinction between the two, and think action matters more. The interesting thing is that you can construct scenarios where that intuition changes.
Don't know if that comic was aimed at me I can sympathize with black hat guy though I know he's supposed to be the annoying dick in the comic.
I think it's interesting to take propositions to their logical extremes, but you have to hedge the results with common sense because when you take things to their extremes a small error in reasoning could lead you far astray.