[jonahx]

Your argument is "Why care about a selfish species that kills other species indiscriminately while pursuing its own ends?"

But that is every species. So why care about any of them? Why even care that we are killing off the gorillas or fish? They are equally selfish -- only less powerful.

And if your answer is that you don't, then you're just arguing for nihilism. If you do, then again: what do you think is so specially evil about humans?

[haweemwho]

I appreciate that you elaborated your thoughts. That makes for a much nicer discussion!

I'd turn your argument around. We seem to not care about any of the N-1 species. Why treat the remaining one specially? Because we belong to it? I don't find that convincing. Maybe we're focusing too much on individual freedom that suddenly caring about the species as a whole seems is odd. The population around me, as a whole, is giving pretty few f*ks about me. I basically just return that attitude.

Or, to formulate it differently, I'd get on board caring about not just the survival but flourishing of our species, if we'd extend that courtesy to all the other species around us.

[satvikpendem]

> And if your answer is that you don't, then you're just arguing for nihilism

Sure, and nihilism is a useful philosophy too.