>If someone told me they don't love their child but consider it cute I'd also wonder if they should remain the child's guardian.
This is the problem. Children are not pets, and pets are not children. Children are humans, and human lives are infinitely more valuable than the lives of animals. Children have personalities, consciousness, and intelligence. They have the capacity to give and receive actual love. They are fundamentally different things. I would never, ever feel that way about a child.
People die all the time. Animals die all the time too. But this animal dying would have a huge negative impact on my life, whereas whether or not someone I've never met would not.
I'm fascinated by your opinion here, aphextron. I have a question for you. Say that you chose a stranger over your dog. Then that stranger went and killed another person. Would you regret your decision?
How do you choose to save a stranger's life without knowing anything about them and what they're like?
>Say that you chose a stranger over your dog. Then that stranger went and killed another person. Would you regret your decision?
No. Because I still would have made the best decision possible at the time given all available information. This is the same argument essentially as the death penalty question. Someone else's violent act can never vindicate your own. That's only valid in the case of immediate self defense. Although if you take this argument to it's logical conclusion, which would be "Kill a thousand dogs, or hang Hitler", I'd have to admit it becomes pretty indefensible. So the real moral choice probably lies somewhere in-between.
>How do you choose to save a stranger's life without knowing anything about them and what they're like?
It's faith in the fact that any single given human life has more intrinsic value than any number of any animals. I'm essentially putting myself in that situation. Would I be ok with dying to save a dog? No, never. And so I extend that to every other person. Obviously this only works with animals. Would I feel the same about a person I love instead? Absolutely not.
Thank you so much for your responses in this thread. While I do not feel the same way about the value of life, I do understand your reasoning for your opinion, and you've given me some stuff to think about.
Like I've explained above, the reason I'd be willing to choose my dog over a stranger is because I know what my dog is like. I know he's never going to kill anyone. I know nothing about the stranger.
But yes, I would regret it if he went and killed someone after I chose his life over a human's.
I would also deeply regret it if I chose a stranger over my dog and then that person turned out to be a Bad Guy.
Also, statistically speaking dogs are less likely to come up with new methods of improving life on earth or even simply helping out other creatures in need.
> but I would also have no hesitation whatsoever in killing it to save the life of a random stranger I've never met.
No hesitation, really? Not even a bit? I can't fathom how.