[perfmode]

Lawyers are partially responsible for the dismissive attitude that makes certain humans feel superior and justified as treating others as instrumental. It is likely that present day legal concepts impede progress and deeper understanding and appreciation of the world.

Lawyers write laws that ensnare us in self-righteousness and complacency.

It is totally fine for me to determine that there are things which are legal which are unethical.

I will not wait for the law to catch up to the idea that people are not property. I will not wait for the law to classify for me which life forms are means to an end and which are ends in themselves. The American legal code has been used to justify countless injustices against indigenous peoples and does not deserve to own our language. It does not deserve the privilege to declare what is murder and not murder.

[visarga]

Lawyers, yes, but religion also plays a major part.

> "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

So righteous people felt entitled to exploit animals with no regard to their inner lives, and exploit nature with no concern about the ecological disasters they might cause.

Only now, after we 'multiplied and filled the earth', have come to a point where we can't just ignore ecology, there are limits and constraints we now understand. So we developed new ethics that would help humanity survive.

[ianai]

That’s a great explanation and sentiment about ethics. I wish more people adopted it.

[michaelmrose]

Very insightful. I can't up vote this enough.