starship earth

Originally posted by humy... euthanizing all wild animals (including herbivores ) is 'morally right' because only by doing so can you guarantee no wild animal would have a slow stressful death from predictors or disease or old age etc. ...

The only argument I see right now is the big picture. Which involves evolutionary pressure. There would be no majestic elk without the howling wolves trying to eat them. Or something like that.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Along the same lines, should we forcible sterilise all Ethiopians?

I've thought about this. We should balance the wealth. Or kill everyone else, of course.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Along the same lines, should we forcible sterilise all Ethiopians?

will the next generation of Ethiopians in general have a slow cruel death like that of wild animals?
I believe modern medicine, welfare, etc would be a better approach for cruelty reduction; -not that I ever took the proposal of forced sterilization of humans seriously. Cannibalism, yes, they make good eating; but forced sterilization? that's a no no.

Originally posted by apathist
Let's get clear. Which do you advocate?

I advocate that microwaving kittens is up to the owner of the kittens. I would not do it, but nor can I justify stopping someone else from doing it. I do think it is cruel, and not a good reflection on a persons character.
As for nature, I don't know. Its a tough one. I recently watched the first episode of 'Planet Earth II' (nature documentary) where there are some penguins dying trying to get up some dangerous rocks in order to nest. And I was thinking, could we not build them a safer route up? Would that be bad? Would it be bad not to?

Me, no one will predate nor microwave life in my field of influence.
Not even bacteria, or only higher life? ( I microwaved a whole bowl of rice yesterday).

For example, we can hunt for food, but we won't use pellet guns to kill feral cats. We won't hunt for trophies but we can kill the coyotes who want our chickens. I'm conflicted. Answer my question please.
As I said, a lot of it is emotional not logical. We should therefore recognise it as such and not try to create an ethical framework around it, and most importantly not try to enforce it on others.

Originally posted by twhitehead...
As I said, a lot of it is emotional not logical. We should therefore recognise it as such and not try to create an ethical framework around it, and most importantly not try to enforce it on others.

Is it logical to dismiss our emotions?

What reasons do you have for claiming that ethical frameworks should not be built around emotions?
What reasons do you have for claiming that we should not enforce our ethical frameworks on others?

Originally posted by twhitehead
Me, no one will predate nor microwave life in my field of influence.
Not even bacteria, or only higher life? ( I microwaved a whole bowl of rice yesterday).

Bacteria doesn't need my help, I'm sure of that. The grass was done with the seed, sure about that too, and nothing got hurt when you microwaved a bowl of rice.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I advocate that microwaving kittens is up to the owner of the kittens. I would not do it, but nor can I justify stopping someone else from doing it. I do think it is cruel, and not a good reflection on a persons character. ...

But if you allow it, you are guilty of allowing it. Guilt. Why do you accept it when you agree it is wrong?

Originally posted by apathist
But if you allow it, you are guilty of allowing it. Guilt. Why do you accept it when you agree it is wrong?

note the word 'wrong' here has a highly subjective meaning and he may not agree that it is 'wrong'.
When we speak of morally right and wrong, it is extremely difficult to explain exactly what we are talking about and what is morally right and wrong is a very complex unresolved philosophical problem.
If you don't believe that, just try and answer this; What do you mean by morally right and wrong?
I am guilty of speaking of morally right and wrong without defining what I mean by that even to myself.
There are even some people that claim and believe that all talk of morally right and wrong is literally all gibberish about pure nonsense but note they do not expect that belief to anyway effect or influence their behavior for they would point out they still have the same emotions such as compassion etc and they are of the view that it is those emotions, not 'moral' beliefs, that are the real cause of our behavior. That view may be a bit simplistic but, until if or when someone comes up with a concise and complete definition of morally right and wrong that most of us would agree with, it is difficult to argue against the claim that all talk of morally right and wrong is literally all gibberish about pure nonsense and that we don't know what we are talking about.

Originally posted by apathist
Is it logical to dismiss our emotions?

I do not dismiss emotions. I just recognise that that is what they are, and try not to pretend that I am basing something on some argument when it is really an emotion.

What reasons do you have for claiming that ethical frameworks should not be built around emotions?
Partly the fact that emotions vary considerably from person to person. My sister for example rather likes spiders Other people would happily squash them. But she is also a farmer who has little difficulty slaughtering animals she has raised.

What reasons do you have for claiming that we should not enforce our ethical frameworks on others?
I think that when our ethical frameworks are based on emotions, there is not a particularly good argument for forcing those frameworks on others who do not share the same emotions. This issue is most commonly to do with religion. For example, one person may feel very very strongly that it is absolutely essential that women cover their hair at all times. I do not think they have the right to enforce that moral on those of us who think otherwise. As for blasphemy, that frequently carries the death sentence in theocracies.

Originally posted by twhitehead
It is almost certainly possible already to search for genes that correlate with certain desirable characteristics including health and intelligence. The danger of putting multiple such genes together is that they may not work as planned. Two genes that individually result in greater intelligence may when put together result in mental problems or even some totally unrelated unforeseen issue.

I agree with this. But there are still several big issues with these correlations:

1) The biggest one for me is there is no way to show that gene variants are actually causal to the phenotype being studied. Genetic information is often linked to other genes, so until you do the experiment (in humans) you don't really know where the "effect" comes from. Many of the strong correlations in gene variants can also break down along race/ethnic lines. Since these populations share lots of other common gene variants, it blurs the significance of one DNA polymorphism.

2) They typically are very low-confidence predictors. So, if you have one genetic variant you are only at a slightly greater risk for such and such disease.

And 3) is to your point: off-target effects. Not only can two disease-protective genes have interrelated (and possibly oppositional) functions, they also have multiple functions individually. As quoted in the study linked below, one variant "decreases the risk of Crohn’s disease but increases the risk of rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes."

Anyway, this is a good article that gets at the high complexity of the issue. It may be solvable but, even at the single-gene/single-phenotype level, it's a long way from being well-understood. http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v14/n7/pdf/nrg3461.pdf

Originally posted by apathist
Bacteria doesn't need my help, I'm sure of that.

Why are you sure? On what basis do you neglect bacteria but not kittens?

The grass was done with the seed, sure about that too, and nothing got hurt when you microwaved a bowl of rice.
You do know that seeds are baby plants? Rather like kittens?

Originally posted by apathist
But if you allow it, you are guilty of allowing it. Guilt. Why do you accept it when you agree it is wrong?

I agree that it is cruel, I am less sure that it is wrong. If I say that it is wrong, then I must either come up with a reasonable argument for why it is wrong or I would reasonably declare that all people who eat meat are equally wrong. Or would you be OK with cutting of the kittens heads before microwaving them?

What about eating a live octopus, is that wrong?

Morals are somewhat like political boundaries. They are mental, not material, and they establish which group you are in. So like the map lines between countries, they are both imaginary and very real at the same time.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I agree that it is cruel, I am less sure that it is wrong. ...

You've also said that ethics should not involve emotions.

Morals and ethics are essentially the same thing: our understanding of right and wrong. I believe such understanding is built on our emotions.

You probably know how I'd answer your questions when you realize I believe correct behavior involves minimizing suffering and maximizing pleasure, which is a lot more complicated than it may sound at first. I'm not sure what moral country you are in where unnecessary cruelty may not be wrong.