To jump in, I don’t think people disapprove of his actions because he killed pigs to save humans, but because as the son of God he didn’t have to kill the pigs to save the humans. That is, killing pigs is better than killing humans, but it still isn’t necessarily good.
Would you present yourself to your creations as a god, or would you try to explain to them exactly what they were? Would you exercise your power and preform acts which you considered to be good? What if one group of A.I.'s began to dominate the virtual world, mostly through cruel and evil ways, would you stop them?
I believe it would only be moral to try to explain to my creations exactly who and what I am and what my relation to them is. If they are truly sentient and intelligent beings, the question of intervention in their affairs is a difficult one. One could argue they’d have a right to live their own lives. I think I would try to teach them so they could live on their own. If I did intervene–say in order to stop one virtual nation from wiping out another one–assuming I had basically god-like control over their world I think I could do a better job than just wholesale slaughter. Instead of killing the invading army, for example, I could just make their weapons vanish, and instantaneously transport them back across the border.
But (yet again) why is killing pigs better than killing humans? Does evolution establish man as the moral superior to the pig? Does empathy? What?
Ummm… I’d say that humans are ‘worth’ more than pigs because we’re that much more sentient\intelligent. I suppose that’s due to evolutionary history. Of course, there’s also some self-interest in there, I think I’m more important than a pig, and would want to be treated better than one. And I suppose that’s empathy also, it’s easier to sympathise with another human than an animal.
I think I’m getting over my head here, and I just wanted to comment on what seemed to be a strange example, but I’ll try to continue. ‘Moral superior’? Not really, I don’t think you can call a pig moral or not. And that would be the difference, that they don’t consider such issues, they just act. But there is a broadly continous spectrum going up to humans, which as I think you’re saying implies that there is no fundamental difference between humans and every animal. I think I’d agree, which means I have to ask myself why I can eat meat, exploit animals, etc. You can put in a somewhat arbitrary division, and that’s probably what I’d do. I’m not sure there is a single cut-off point though, I’d certainly treat different animals differently, but still humans differently to them all.
To (finally) try to justify that. I’m not sure I can, which is pretty poor I know. While I can come up with some okay arguments, I can’t come up with something really good, obviously true. So having written a fairly long post to say that I don’t know what I’m talking about, I’ll shut up now.
Shortie:
A noble attempt. Please don’t shy away from joining the discussions.
So, are you going to try to discuss his arguments?
IF “God” says that homosexuals are evil and must be destroyed, AND you believe that if “God” does something it must be right, THEN you believe that the destroying of homosexuals is right.
What part of the equation am I missing here?
Captain Amazing:
Er, what’s to discuss? Shortie said:
I had said:
Easy, there. I thought you would prefer answers from materialist rationalists, rather than me the Empiricist-does-not-completely-discount-the-possibility-of-a-spirit-world-but-thinks-it-pretty-damn-unlikely. But if you want me answer as to what I would think a rationalist materialist woud think a human is more significant to a pig, I will. (What does this have to do with the OP, anyhow?)
People are significant to us because they are like us, and we care about them. Just becuase a person is a materialist doesn’t mean he doesn’t have feelings. He would also be aware that other people have feelings, and that since he does not like pain or death, they probably don’t either. As well, most people tend to think that intelligence is worth preserving; a fully sentient pig would have approximately the same “significance” to me as a human. If push came to shove, I might still choose a human over a sentient pig, but that’s due to a desire to preserve my species. And even then I’d probably save the life of a good, moral sentient pig over a evil human. Human have a moral sense, and as a general rule acting morally can have many benefits for a specific human, and almost certainly for humans as a whole. Part of this is due to the principle of reciprocity; you save a human because you hope that if the positions were reversed that they would do the same for you. A pig cannot comprehend this.
However, killing a pig is not a morally neutral act, even if it is not on the level of killing a human. To cause suffering without need is wrong. It is more wrong according to the creature’s capacity for suffering, and we generally think that the more intelligent animals can “feel” more. So killing a pig needlessly is crueler than killing a dandelion needlessly, but less cruel than killing a chimp needlessly.
Note that this only addresses the significance of a human or pig from a standard human’s viewpoint; the estimation of significance would be different from the perspective of another pig, or from the universe. But it is not an arbitrary choice; it is based solidly on human biological imperatives, reason, emotion, self-interest and empathy. It’s not like people throw a dart and it sticks in a little piece of paper that says “save the human” and that’s how they decide.
Yes, yes. But I was talking to The Fromeister, who does not beleive that there is anything inhernently moral/immoral about anything, even coercion. For him, what is moral/immoral is solely dependant upon what the creator of all chooses to do, so if the Creator rapes children, raping children is moral. I don’t agree with him; my post was simply restating his argument explicitly (mostly becuase I find the thought that anyone could believe that raping children could be a good thing is nuts). I think any God worth his salt should do good because it is good, it shouldn’t be that whatever he chooses to do, no matter how foul, becomes good. However, this is not the position held by The Fromeister. If you want to try to convince him that there in an inherent morality that is different than “what the creator wants”, feel free.
Gaudere:
It sounds to me like they threw a dart, and it landed on a decision to climb up the ladder of evolution (chimps over pigs, pigs over dandelions), an amoral, and therefore arbitrary, process for making moral decisions. At any rate, I’m sorry for pinning “materialist” on you. Vaguely, I think I remember now that you have disclaimed the label before.
Oh. Well, nevermind.
Libertarian wrote:
Not “up” the “ladder” of evolution – more like across the ladder of similarity. Humans have more in common with chimps than we do with pigs, and much more in common with either chimps or pigs than we do with dandelions. Since a chimp is the most similar to a human, we figure a chimp has the best chance of feeling things in a way similar to the way a human would feel them. So a moral stance that values a chimp over a pig and a pig over a dandelion is one based on our perception of sympathy, which is neither amoral nor arbitrary.
But why is similarity a basis for morality? Isn’t that the rationale used by racist bigots?
Ladder? Lib, I thought you knew better than that. We’re not “more evolved” than chimps, we just evolved in a different way.
Yes, up the ladder was a stupid metaphor for which I apologize. It was set straight by Tracer, but dug the notion of a materialist morality into even a deeper hole.
Oh, and this:
I believe the most pertinent question in all this is whether what God did in the Old Testament was moral. I explained in my post to you (though it should have been addressed to The Fromesiter) why it was.
I just wanted to check in to say that I won’t be able to do any posting until Wednesday. I was hoping to have the time to compose a good, long response today, but preparations for the upcoming Jewish holiday (which is tomorrow and Tuesday) have occupied all my time. I’ll post a long, thoughtful response on Wednesday, G-d willing. See you then.
Chaim Mattis Keller
Ok, and so when they tried again, what would you do? Send them back again and let them build up their military strength again? Is there any permanent solution you could come up with which allowed the world to continue in relative normality (ie, no infinitely high walls of 5 mile thick titanium around the agressive society) which would conform to your ideas of morality?
The problem is that “relative normality” is so loosely defined that no matter what solution is presented, you can reject it on “normality” grounds.
Would it be abnormal to keep the aggressors sealed up and sterile until they died out? Or accelerate them to live out their lives, only to die of old age after one second passed for everyone else? Or to transport them to another habitable, but uninhabited, planet?
-Ben
Sorry, my bad, I shoulda been more precise in what I meant by normal. What I meant by normal was in not disturbing the natural flow of things. Creating un-natural objects or occurences would be what I’m talking about, a purely synthetic means for achieving your goal. Using nature is ok, but no Divine Death Rays™ or other such non-earthly means.
Well tell me, how is keeping them sealed up and sterile aany different than wiping them out with plagues or by sending ones chosen people to kick their collective asses? And the acceleration thing, you just take them away from the rest of the world, effectively killing them. And the transportation thing, while human would not solve conflicts within that people, nor would it be wholly natural.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by The Fromesiter *
**
The difference would be that they’re still alive, same for acceleration. Not exactly nice, but better than killing them. Given that you as a deity was going to intercede, why should naturalness (naturality?) matter? I don’t think MEBuckner said anything about that, and if something supernatural is occurring surely it isn’t going to be natural by definition?
I find it hard to understand a god who intercedes sometimes. Never doing it would make sense, allowing free will, and forcing humanity to sort itself out. On the other hand you could intercede constantly, every time an injustice would occur. I think I’d find it hard to refrain from at least trying to do that if I had the power, but it still seems a bad idea, preventing any self-governing moral system from arising.
Intervening only on occasion would seem to combine the worst of both, and lead to a truly confused society at the receiving end.
Libertarian, thanks for that, but I think I disagree with you, though I didn’t phrase it very well. The exact position of a dividing line is arbitrary, but the fact that different organisms are more important than others isn’t. Gaudere said pretty what I was trying to.