shut up for a minute island
Party Report #2: Matt and Ben (and everyones) delayed Birthday Parties
Occasion: It was a slow part of the drinking season.
Expectations: I expected it to start at 10 pm, because the invitation said 20:00 and I can't do subtraction. Then I expected it to be in a different room number than it actually was.
Venue: Matt and Ben live at Daron's house, ( Read more... )
Regarding the Hitchhiker's animal, though, I would argue that you can only extend that sort of consideration to members of your own species. So much of ethics depends on reciprocity, i.e. we don't murder other people to create an environment where we ourselves are less likely to be murdered. An animal is incapable of abiding by the ethics that we impose upon ourselves for their benefit. A dog will bite and maim people regardless if we decide maiming people is ethical or not. Similarly, a dog will bite another dog, regardless of whether or not we decide that ethically, it is wrong to bite dogs.
Environmental and animal rights laws are based on human values anyway. We protect those species that we consider valuable, whether it is because they are endangered or because they are cute. We can't kill pets because that means someone else cannot kill our pets. The idea that we can't cause non-humans pain is flawed because they are free to cause us pain. By free, I mean not ethically bound. Of course, if a dog bites us, we kill it (and damn right too), but it is not because it betrayed its own ethics against us, it's because we again are imposing our own values onto them.
I guess in summary, we cannot speak for the pain of non-humans because we are not and can never be non-human. (In this lifetime. Not that I believe in that).
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