| There's no need to define boundaries that give rise to bazillion exceptions. Nihilism isn't the ultimate end. I'd say that if you can choose between eating a fruit, and killing a bird and eating it's flesh, a virtuous agent would eat the fruit. It's unnecessary to go the utilitarian way of trying to draw the lines and meet every single exception to the rule. Acting in the world as a virtuous agent is a much more practical approach. Would you test and experiment on someone who has a nervous system capable of feeling pain and suffering, if it could save thousands or even millions of people? Given the data of the lack of success of a huge percentage of studies, you would, being virtuous, deduce that it's better to seek other means of testing instead of doing a hit and miss approach on animals. People don't behave as virtuous agents, and they do not act kindly. Especially not to those they deem less worthy than them. That's why stuff needs rethinking and regulation. |