I read your last to posts with interest. It is very applicable in more down to earth situations compared to this post…

You weighed the possibility of extending equality and rights (what I generalize as “good and evil”) to animals. I will attempt to answer my questions, in my own unique way, of my first post.

1. We cannot propose systems of good and evil that have arbitrary exceptions. Exceptions with a valid basis are acceptable.
1.1 We cannot discriminate between a human and a flower (or a chimp) on a genetic basis, because that would imply we can discriminate against humans with genetic differences.
1.2 We cannot discriminate on intelligence because that would imply we can victimise less or more intelligent humans.
1.3 We cannot discriminate on their ethical systems as that would mean we can do the same to humans which disagree with us.
1.4 We cannot discriminate on their physical abilities by the same argument.

So we come to AC1′s aphorism number 44 (why bother starting at 1?)

Systems of good and evil applies between all the family of life, unless there is a logically valid reason why some part should be excepted.

Note: I have not yet heard a valid reason why animals and plants should be excepted. That was the ground work that my first post was attempting.

If we weight our current ethical systems, we then are faced with two options:
1) Extend rights and equality to all life forms including plants. “what are we then to eat?”
2) Reject it as flawed

Therefore “all human life is sacred” is flawed because it arbitrarily discriminates on genetic lines. Also, if we evolve into another species, this law is obsolete! And “all life is sacred” is flawed because we have to eat to stay alive! Admittedly life being sacred does not necessarily exclude killing but note how we kill the sacred for our personal benefit (to be nourished).

Suffering

“The capacity to suffer is the only benchmark we should look for in a ‘being’ in order to extend to it a degree of equality.”

Since we have no agreed way of measuring capacity to suffer, even among humans, this is can’t be put into practice. Can you ask someone in a coma if they are suffering? Can you determine the suffering of a lamb being eaten by an eagle or the eagle would suffer more when it starves to death? Can you ask an amoeba if it suffers? What if the amoeba “disagrees”?

Perhaps Eddie Izzard might have influenced my mind…

Eddie Izzard: How do you get an evil herbivore? It’s weird. We have bad dog though. Bad dog does exist.
Human: Down, down, bad dog! Stole a biscuit! Bad dog! Stole the entire contents of the table! Bad dog!
Dog: Who are you do judge me? You humans! You have genocide, you have wars against people of difference colours, skin, creed! And I stole a biscuit? I ate some food to keep me alive?! Is that a crime???
Human: You got a good point there.. umm. Have another biscuit, sorry about that.

Delicious New Species Discovered. Yum.

“We kill and eat flesh as a result of the desires of our palate, not as a survival or dietary imperative.” “In our scientifically advanced age (soya, tofu, GM crops) a carnivorous diet is a trivial and specieist luxury.”

This is not a universal law because at some point we evolved to a omnivorous diet. “The view of humans as omnivores is supported by the evidence that both a pure animal and a pure vegetable diet can lead to deficiency diseases in humans.” (Wikipedia) Some animals are dependent on meat eating – why can they eat meat and we can’t? And why value animal lives over plants? – Clearly kingdom animalia-ism! Perhaps vegitarianism would be good ecologically but that’s a separate issue.

Why don’t I argue for vegetarianism? My hypocrisy only goes so far!

Humans are the “Best”

“It is seemingly wrong to kill a human, because a human is conscious of his existence overtime and has desires and purposes that extend into the future. We cannot make the same assumptions for other primates (as yet) due to communicability problems.”

I don’t think this is the case since primates in research projects are known to save money for expensive treats. That indicates they understand time, money, effort, consequences of their actions and so on.
If other primates have any similarity in good and evil to humans (of which there is a very significant overlap) we can consider the following possibilities:
1) Good and evil (as far as human/primate common behavior goes) is a product of the physical world.
2) Good and evil (as far as human/primate common behavior goes) has a metaphysical source and it applies to the human and non-primates. If that metaphysical source is God, that certainly would be a discovery.

“We have an obvious position atop a ‘heirarchy’ of the species, evident by our intellectual, scientific and cultural accomplishments.”

Yeah but only according to human measurement of achievement. This also opens a loop hole for a more “advanced” species that would be in a position above homo sapien that would be exempt from our moral code (and that’s not an original idea).

Thats enough damage for one day!

Anti Citizen One

PS This is one of my more nihalistic posts, which is a destination I don’t want to arrive at.