Self-Awareness, Morality, Elephants, and the Prime Directive

[scarlettina]

This morning, jaylake posted a link to a Centauri Dreams blog entry that discusses the philosophy of Star Trek's Prime Directive and then extrapolates more nuanced principles that might be more effective, more practical, and more ethical than the broad concepts that Trek put forth. (Go read it; I'll wait. It's fascinating

Comments

[seankreynolds]

{if cows demonstrated self-awareness in the way that elephants do, I might feel differently... I'm trying to think all of this through with some shred of objectivity

[scarlettina]

Arrogance? Maybe a little. I'm not entirely convinced by the comparisons you're drawing--I did say that there are problems here and that no one said this wasn't complex and challenging--but that's OK. I'll still eat cow and chicken. I'll also still refrain from eating elephant, dolphin, and chimpanzee. And even though you've called me a racist, I still like you anyway. I hope you won't hold my racism against me. At least, from what I've seen, you haven't so far.

[seankreynolds]

Hmm, I don't see where I called you a racist.

[scarlettina]

An enlightened person says, "hey, maybe we shouldn't be racist just because we were raised to be racist." I like to think an enlightened person also says, "hey, maybe we shouldn't eat animals just because we were raised to eat animals."

Perhaps I'm misinterpreting, but this looks a lot like a one-to-one comparison you're making. If I've misunderstood, I apologize.

[seankreynolds]

Ahh. No, I was unclear and trying to make the following comparison