Lower than low?

Consider, if you will, the human species as a whole.
In particular, look at our bad aspects.
We continually expand, alter our environment, dominate other life, destory entire species for fun or profit. kill each other for land and religion, show little regard for preserving the crucial natural balances of life and ecology that keep us alive.

In some ways, you could say that we're the lowest, most destructive, most savagely wanton beings on this planet.

What do you think?
Is humanity and unredeemable blemish on the world, our do we have positive aspects to outweight our negatives? Do our many great accomplishments prove that there really is hope and goodness?

I remember one of my teachers humans are the most useless species on the Earth. But in my opinion our positives outweigh the negative, for human life that is. There will always be problems with what humans do. We are not perfect.

Well, we could disappear tomorrow and the ecosystem would survive perfectly. The same could be said for all animals and other forms of life that find themselves between the plant link and the decomposing bacteria link on the food chain.

We exist by consuming other resources, sometimes to the point of destruction, yes. Just like parasites. And, uh, *cough* viruses. But that doesn't make us "unredeemable"; it just makes us, well, beings that exist at the cost of other beings around us.

As for our "great accomplishments", I dunno, aren't most of them oriented towards the propagation of our own species, which can then continue to expand and destroy? I can't think of many great accomplishments that benefit any other species other than ourselves, unless perhaps as an additional side benefit.

That doesn't make us evil though, any more than a tick is evil. Maybe we give the universe some kind of balance. Or maybe we were supposed to, but got off track somewhere along the way.

A psychiatrist once told me that he believed firmly that man was a bad seed from birth. He pointed out that babies bit their mothers if no milk came out, and that children who grew up with little supervision turned out horribly violent. I hope he was wrong.

Every creature on the planet lives by killing other creatures, and we're not better, but we're also no worse.

Human beings are the only beings that understand "value". A dog doesn't care whether it lives or dies; "caring" is beyond its mental capacity. A dog doesn't care if we destroy the ozone layer or spread garbage around or waste fossil fuels. We are everything good in the world and everything evil; those concepts only apply to people. Without people there would be no good or evil; there might be worth in the world, but there would be no one and nothing to appreciate worth; there might be beauty, but nothing could understand it. The world might as well not exist, if we aren't on it.

It's not that we are bad, it's that we have degenerated. I really don't feel like writing a whole text about this...just...read Poet in New York.

Very nihilistic.

I believe there is a difference between survival and domination over resources(and each other) to the point of extinction. We now know we came within a single word of nuclear destruction. Such human institutions cannot be considered healthy, but are openly supported. For what? Power? Wealth? Ideology? None of these are necessary for survival or the advancement of humanity.

We're no worse than those damn shrimp and their accursed plankton-plantations. >:O Only if they'd never had evolved intelligence.

Dr Unne has it right -- regardless of philosophical justification the end result is that humans are the ones responsible because of our ability to understand value and act upon it. This is why there is such philosophies as 'free market environmentalism'. Anyway, it can be argued that intrinsically speaking even if there were one human alive, s/he would still be morally bound to environmental ethical concerns. However if there were no humans, no sentient being would be bound to environmental ethical concerns (at least within the confines of this planet).

Anyway, specific to this topic, the only reason we're 'bad' to the 'environment' is because we engage in activities to 'it' that we would otherwise consider 'bad' to 'us'. So in order to avoid being hypocritical, we must acknowledge that what we are doing to the environment is also 'bad'. It's really that simple, because there exists no logical argument proving conclusively that we ought to do good to the environment*.

*actually there is, and the argument can be reduced to 'not being hypocritical', which is what I was talking about earlier

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For what? Power? Wealth? Ideology? None of these are necessary for survival or the advancement of humanity.

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These things are the ONLY things moving humanity forward.

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Originally posted by War Angel
These things are the ONLY things moving humanity forward.

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Science and the arts can exist independently of those things. Indigenous cultures all over the world did it for thousands of years.

that's why we're special!

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Science and the arts can exist independently of those things

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No, they can't. Both are a result of a desire to use one's intellect, to get better, to achieve things. A desire for power, for knowledge, for a better life. Humanity seeks to advance, and that is the only thing that matters.

Like all other past human institutions, I think we will find money become outdated as a method of pursuing happiness. As a smaller and smaller percentage of the world's population collects a larger and larger percentage of the world's money, it will eventually lose value because the vast majority of the world's people will go on living without it. The power of money will make it obsolete.

Ants and termites regularly hold wars both against each other, and amongst themselves. These wars are for territory and resources. When civilized humans (read: non-extremist exceptions) go to war, we don't annhilate the other side completely, we've advanced beyond genocide. Ants and termites haven't. Army ants go on long treks, killing every creature in their path, indiscriminantly. Some, they eat, and some they don't. This sounds like indiscriminant animal killing to me. Are ants and termites "evil"? Are they an irredeemable plague upon the planet? If you say that humans are because of war, then be sure you label ants the same way. You probably noticed how foolish you'd sound, if you started calling various insects "evil".

Beavers clear down trees to build their homes. Population control keeps them from becoming too damaging, but it's not a conscious decision by the beavers. If the beaver population grew too large, forests would be cleared for beaver homes. If deforestation is evil when humans do it, it's evil when beavers do it too. If it sounds foolish to label beavers as evil, then perhaps you should question applying such labels to humans who do the same thing, only on a larger scale.

Are bacteria and viruses beyond redemption? Are they the most destructive and evil life on the planet? They exist only to kill and cause sickness. This is worse than humanity, that tries to do good, but sometimes slides into evil. Somehow, I don't often hear such descriptions in bacteria and virus discussions.

Why the double standard? Someone should make a thread for the flaws of each and every other species that commits the acts we describe as wrong and irredeemable. Non-awareness is no excuse. I don't consider it an excuse when for example, a retarded person commits murder, and is excused as mentally unaware of his actions. Murder is murder. The analogy fits here too. If these labels sound stupid when applied to other species, they sound equally stupid when applied to humans.

[q=Garland]You probably noticed how foolish you'd sound, if you started calling various insects "evil".
[/q]Don't flame me for asking a question. I never said I believed the things I was saying, merely bringing them up as a topic for discussion.

Compare people to other animals.
Besides humans, only two other species commit rape - ducks and apes. Out of the countless millions of living forms, we're one of the few that perform such barbarism.[q=Unne]A dog doesn't care whether it lives or dies; "caring" is beyond its mental capacity.[/q]Dogs care for one another, and their offspring. Survival and nurturance are instinctive to them, like they are to us. However, grey dogs have never banded together and decided that all brown dogs are inferior and need to be annihilated.[q=Unne]A dog doesn't care if we destroy the ozone layer or spread garbage around or waste fossil fuels.[/q]We actually have the capacity to care about such complex matters; doesn't this add to our culpability?[q=PG]there exists no logical argument proving conclusively that we ought to do good to the environment*.

*actually there is, and the argument can be reduced to 'not being hypocritical', which is what I was talking about earlier[/q]Actually, the argument for caring for the environment is thus: failing to do so will ultimately kill every living thing, including us. There's nothing else alive that's capable of causing this kind of destruction, nothing else that can comprehend such an act - humans understand the consequences of their acts, yet continue anyway, in the hope and expectation that someone else will make things right.

What separates us from beavers, shrimp, viruses in this regard is the notion of the conscious will to do something, and the fact that animals in nature simply don't go to the destructive extremes that we do. Beavers don't clear-fell entire forests, wiping out everything in the area; viruses don't decide to kill everything and then actually do it.
Therein lies the difference.

This is merely a discussion of possible views and sides of this question, not some guy trying to flog his nihilist doomsday philosophy. As a matter of fact, I love humans to bits. We've done a few silly things, that's all.
All that's being debated here is whether an objective examination of human behaviour and history could paint a picture of us as being completely out of line with what's right and good in this world.

Sorry. That wasn't a flame or directed at you. I was speaking in general. I meant you in the same way one would say "one". One would sound foolish calling insects evil. Sorry again.

Garland, I was starting to be convinced when suddenly it dawned on me: every example you gave me did not include a species or life form capable of the value judgement that the action is wrong -- ants are obviously not thinking things, as their actions are determined by some sort of genetic programming. Beavers have no idea that deforestation is bad -- they are just trying to live, and besides according to the overpopulation principle I just fictionalised (the name not the concept), when beavers destroy enough trees they will die, and the trees will grow, and the beavers will constantly live at maximum capacity relative to the surroundings. I'm not even going to go into the virii/bacteria example.

Big D: that's a pretty good argument but it implies that the environment should be preserved for human consumption and usage. There's no justification to view and treat other non-human living things as tools and other artifacts for our own gain, so that argument fails on that account. The argument I gave is good enough -- we treat each other well because we want to treat ourselves well. Since there is no intrinsic difference between living things, all living things deserve to be treated with the same 'good' that we want for ourselves. That's what I meant by avoiding hypocrisy. The only pitfall is that I haven't proven ontologically that we deserve to be treated well, and I assure you if there's an argument for that, I haven't heard it.

I can't help noticing that when compared to animals, people tend to rate favorably, and I don't think this is necessarily true. Animals in communities (which would technically be our classification) are much more efficient and fair in their organization than we are. There are no homeless ants. There are no wolves that go nuts and go around raping cubs. Beavers don't deforest more than they need to.

Humans not only create unjust positions in their societies, but they come to accept them as normal. I've never ever seen a news report on all of the homeless people that died overnight, no matter how low the temperatures go. Japanese society even has a motto that goes, "If you don't work, you don't deserve to live". People everywhere refer to beggars as “those annoying people outside of Starbucks”. And high school in the US is a 4 year long experiment on exactly how cruel children can be to one another before their victim has a mental breakdown of one form or another.

In the south of Chile there is a poisonous spider that can cause a slow, painful death. People generally catch it alive and take it to the local hospital to make sure it is what they think it is, and then the hospital just dumps the living spiders in a glass box for entertainment (hey, beats what I've seen in hospital waiting rooms elsewhere). The spiders run around randomly, until suddenly they realize something: almost all of them have, for some reason, converged on the right side of the cage, and there's only one spider on the left side! The spiders swoop down, in a wave, upon the unlucky spider and kill him. Then they go back to running around randomly until they realize that yet another spider has found himself alone in the corner, and they swoop again.

In an English class once, the teacher asked us to name an example of animal behavior that most resembled human behavior that we had seen. All I could think about was those spiders. Ok, I was 16 years old at the time, but adulthood hasn't shown me a much different side of human nature, just a more discreetly cruel one.

I suppose one of the serious problems on the planet is the sheer number of humans... most species in fact all species have other predators that they cannot defeat which balances there are never too many of a species on the planet because they keep each other in tow for example - A dramatic increase in the number of bunny rabbits would throw the ecosystem out of sync but to compensate the number of rabbit predators - foxes and wolves would increase to compensate for this feeding of the surplus bunnies untill there is no surplus then the surplus predators starve to death and die lowering the number of predators to "normal" levels. however human beings are the top predator of the planet therefore have no natural predators left to lower the number down. In history humans have served as their own greatest preadatorusing wars to kill the number of humans in an area where there are too many of us to be supported. E.G. WW1 was not about power it was about the resources available if the countries involved could take the resources of another country they could support their population better so countries in dire need of this e.g. Germany and Austria used force to try and take what would never freely be given by their neighbouring lands. the ensuring war was responsible for millions of human deaths and afterwards there was enough resources for a few more years then other countries recieved problems and the now even smaller Germany was one therefore to regain their pride and former status and the resources such as arable land they had lost they voted Aldof Hitler to power resulting in WW2 and another couple of million deaths world wide.
This action lowered the stress on the ecosystem to support humans and we flourished for 50 years or so to present day where once again countries are feeling the strain to support their people however the Taboo of another WW is enough to stop what we refer to as Sophisticated people like Blair and Bush and other world leaders from taking risks and now we only fight against those who cant stand a chance I.E. Iraq 17 years of sanctions and they were meant to have nuclear weapons grade plutonium? utter crap if you ask me. therefore the number of people is not reduced and we feel the strain. the effects of this are the landmarks like the American dust bowl and the missing species that we eradicated.

Does a creature have to be aware of good and evil in order for an evil act it commits to be concidered evil? I would say no. To me good and evil is black and white. Murder is murder. Deforestation is deforestation. Not knowing the evil of one's ways doesn't negate their evilness. To put it purely in human terms, a poor logger working to feed his family is no less guilty of deforestation than a logger for a multinational corporation. The scale is different, and the circumstances are different, but in the end, trees were cut down to build homes. Granted a beaver has no thoughts of good and evil, of profits and deforestation, but regardless, if there were enough beavers (and there would be if beavers had their way), beavers would be a huge threat to the world's forests.

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Originally posted by Garland
Does a creature have to be aware of good and evil in order for an evil act it commits to be concidered evil? I would say no. To me good and evil is black and white. Murder is murder. Deforestation is deforestation. Not knowing the evil of one's ways doesn't negate their evilness. To put it purely in human terms, a poor logger working to feed his family is no less guilty of deforestation than a logger for a multinational corporation. The scale is different, and the circumstances are different, but in the end, trees were cut down to build homes. Granted a beaver has no thoughts of good and evil, of profits and deforestation, but regardless, if there were enough beavers (and there would be if beavers had their way), beavers would be a huge threat to the world's forests.

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Yes, the main difference is that beavers do not hold a threat to the natural developing as they are alienated to the natural order of things, while humans, capable of using reason, can choose wether to act in an "evil" way or not. I still don't like the concepts of good and evil too much, but I guess I can hold to them to define what we are talking about without having to go into the whole genealogy of moral thing, since it would be completly off topic.

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These things are the ONLY things moving humanity forward.

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Forward, you say?

We don't punish people or look at them as immoral if they are imbecilic, do we? If they are incapable of understanding morality they should not be held accountable to the rules.

Animals in communities (which would technically be our classification) are much more efficient and fair in their organization than we are. There are no homeless ants. There are no wolves that go nuts and go around raping cubs. Beavers don't deforest more than they need to. --Anaralia

Humans are more efficient, I would argue. There are no homeless ants because the weak ones die. Wolves don't rape each other, but mother wolves will attack their own cubs after a certain age, once the cub is ready to be on its own, from what I understand. Some spiders, on the other hand, kill their mate after mating. Nature is not fair, in the sense we understand it. Weak animals die. Strong animals survive by slaughtering weaker ones. Human beings make a huge, often selfless effort to preserve the life of every other human being that is born, to the point where any death anywhere is a tragedy.

I've never ever seen a news report on all of the homeless people that died overnight, no matter how low the temperatures go. Japanese society even has a motto that goes, "If you don't work, you don't deserve to live".

The alternative is, what? Should I be forced to support people who don't support themselves? That is slavery. So people who don't work are entitled to things they don't earn, and I am not entitled to things I DO earn; is that what you call fairness?

I suppose one of the serious problems on the planet is the sheer number of humans... --Fallen_angel_666

And yet, even though our population grows and grows, our quality of life gets better and better. I think we're doing OK for ourselves.

In history humans have served as their own greatest preadatorusing wars to kill the number of humans in an area where there are too many of us to be supported. E.G. WW1 was not about power it was about the resources available if the countries involved could take the resources of another country they could support their population better so countries in dire need of this e.g. Germany and Austria used force to try and take what would never freely be given by their neighbouring lands. the ensuring war was responsible for millions of human deaths and afterwards there was enough resources for a few more years then other countries recieved problems and the now even smaller Germany was one therefore to regain their pride and former status and the resources such as arable land they had lost they voted Aldof Hitler to power resulting in WW2 and another couple of million deaths world wide.

I don't know that I agree with your assessment of the motivation behind those wars. Seems rather simplistic.

Does a creature have to be aware of good and evil in order for an evil act it commits to be concidered evil? --Garland

I would say yes. Evil implies a choice, and animals have no choice in their actions. Their actions are predetermined by their instincts. An animal is no more evil than a rock that falls off a high place and lands on someone's head and kills them. The rock's action is predetermined by gravity. This is likely why we don't put insane people into prisons. They are like animals. Rationality is a requirement because a moral decision is just that, a decision.

it's seems simplistic but in many ways it is true the fact that Germany was after power and more land shows this - more land more resources, more resources - more influence on the world, more influence - more power see my logic? The pattern is simple but it's quite true for an easy to see example play SMAC or Civ and make your base the biggest on the planet - use cheats if neccessary then once you are the biggest you'll notice that the power level of the planet changes and even if you commit an attrocity you tend to get away with it or without severe repercussions as he other armies are of no contest to take out all of your bases before you kill them.

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I would say yes. Evil implies a choice, and animals have no choice in their actions. Their actions are predetermined by their instincts. An animal is no more evil than a rock that falls off a high place and lands on someone's head and kills them. The rock's action is predetermined by gravity. This is likely why we don't put insane people into prisons. They are like animals. Rationality is a requirement because a moral decision is just that, a decision.

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Thats a very good point, but I have a question (A little bit off topic). Suppose we are not free beings, suppose our actions are totally determined and that our option to choose is unexistant, in other words, pure determination. Many people defend this, I personally don't, I think human beings are free, but if they were not...do you think we could blamne them for their actions? It would kind of bring the whole concept of justice down, but it's the idea I have every time I read the opinions of a determinist.

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The alternative is, what? Should I be forced to support people who don't support themselves? That is slavery. So people who don't work are entitled to things they don't earn, and I am not entitled to things I DO earn; is that what you call fairness?

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My idea of fairness is: no one should have a beach house and a condo and a place in the city until everybody has a place to live. No one should sleep tranquilly at night until everybody has enough to eat. No one should get cosmetic plastic surgery until everybody has access to basic proper healthcare. I don't think that's too much to ask, but it is, realistically. I realize that. And there's no self-righteous tone in that at all, because I myself don't do my share to help, and I'll be the first to say so.

If you don't work because you're lazy, then yes, you brought it upon yourself, and I shed no tears for you. But if you're sick, or mentally or physically disabled, then you deserve some support.

Thats a very good point, but I have a question (A little bit off topic). Suppose we are not free beings, suppose our actions are totally determined and that our option to choose is unexistant, in other words, pure determination. Many people defend this, I personally don't, I think human beings are free, but if they were not...do you think we could blamne them for their actions? It would kind of bring the whole concept of justice down, but it's the idea I have every time I read the opinions of a determinist. --Shadow Nexus

It makes no sense to look at it that way. If things are determined due to some mystical otherworldly "fate", it wouldn't matter. Our reality and our perception of it would be the same. Did I type this because I was free to choose to do so, or because I was fated to? In terms of myself and my world, it doesn't matter. Both situations are the same to me.

Even if determinism has a worldly cause, like physics, I don't see that it means anything. It's a different context. Thought and choice and pain don't exist on the level of atoms and sub-atomic particles, and that's the realm where determinism would exist. Choice is a human-level abstraction, maybe, but it's what has meaning when dealing with morality. Even if choice is an illusion, that illusion is what matters in the context of moral decisions.

My idea of fairness is: no one should have a beach house and a condo and a place in the city until everybody has a place to live. No one should sleep tranquilly at night until everybody has enough to eat. No one should get cosmetic plastic surgery until everybody has access to basic proper healthcare. --Anaralia

If someone is incapable of writing a computer program, for example, and I am capable of doing it due to four years of hard work in college (and incurring thousands of dollars of financial debt, in the process), I should be forbidden from being compensated for my work because someone else is unwilling or unable to do it? I should rather be paid the same as a dirt-shoveler or Taco Bell employee, just to equal things out? More specifically, if I make more money than someone else, more of my money should be taken away to give to poor/disabled people? The harder you work, the more you're punished?

If I work harder, I should be given more reward. If I'm capable of doing something most people can't do, I should be compensated for it. The fact that other people in the world aren't as smart as I am, or as hard-working, or whatever, shouldn't limit my potential, or cause me to incur penalties in life; otherwise what is the purpose of even putting effort into anything? I was tempted to use the word "less fortunate", but I decided not to, because fortune has nothing to do with anything. My family was/is poor as dirt, and if I'm ever a success it will be my doing. Everyone is capable of being successful if they work for it. Maybe not everyone is capable of being super-rich, but everyone is capable of doing pretty well for themselves.

I'm in favor of helping people who are disabled, sure. I think people who are disabled get plenty of help as it is. My father is physically disabled in fact, and we survive. I don't think that helping the disabled requires that everyone in the country be poor. I don't think people having nice houses has anything to do with helping disabled people.

I don't think anyone is obligated to help poor people. That's slavery, like I said. It's nice to do it if you want to, but being obligated to do it is forcing the rich to be the slaves of the poor.

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f someone is incapable of writing a computer program, for example, and I am capable of doing it due to four years of hard work in college (and incurring thousands of dollars of financial debt, in the process), I should be forbidden from being compensated for my work because someone else is unwilling or unable to do it?

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Yawza, we are in the same line of work. Yes, seriously. I agree that we should be compensated fairly, (I'm getting compensated right now for sitting here debating with you hahahahaha) but there are some manual workers below me who work at least as hard as I do, for more hours, and get paid half of what I do, if that. On the other hand, above me is a very nice woman who doesn't know the difference between Pascal and C++, and spends valuable working time conducting meetings where she compares our company to a rowboat where everybody must "get in the boat" and "row in the same direction". She once spent. One. Hour. Explaining. This. For about twice my salary. She is white. The laborers are not. She, about half as intelligent as I am. The workers have learned a good deal of English in the few months they've been in the country, which is more than I could say for myself if I were ever to be plopped in the middle of Germany or something.

This bugs me. A lot. It's unfair. The smart person who works more gets less. It's the opposite of what should happen.

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If I work harder, I should be given more reward.

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Should, but it doesn't always happen. We're past the point where a good attitude and hard work can guarantee you a good life. Myself, for all of my years in college, happened to graduate at a bad time for the economy and had to endure low-paying jobs where I was a month or two of unemployment away from becoming homeless myself. Generation X marked the moment where education and a willingness to duke it out with the world was no longer enough.

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I should rather be paid the same as a dirt-shoveler or Taco Bell employee, just to equal things out? More specifically, if I make more money than someone else, more of my money should be taken away to give to poor/disabled people? The harder you work, the more you're punished?

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Nope, I'm not advocating socialism here. Some people have smaller houses than I do, and that's fine with me. I deserve it. I've worked for it. It's when some people have no houses at all, that I start to look at my own house, and think that it wouldn’t hurt to give more to charity and buy less shoes.

I don't think that money should be "taken away from us". It's our money. I think that we, as a society, should evolve to the point where we voluntarily give away enough of our excess (food, money, clothes), if we have any, to compensate for other people's losses, and make sure that everyone else in the society lives at a minimum standard at least. Some have more, some have less, all can survive.

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I'm in favor of helping people who are disabled, sure. I think people who are disabled get plenty of help as it is. My father is physically disabled in fact, and we survive.

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I hope that they get enough help. Sorry about your Dad.

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I don't think that helping the disabled requires that everyone in the country be poor. I don't think people having nice houses has anything to do with helping disabled people. I don't think anyone is obligated to help poor people.

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I agree (we don't have to help to the point of becoming poor ourselves. Giving, say, 1% away to the needy is more than enough to make a difference), I agree (did I draw this parallel? Sorry if it was implied), and I agree (but it would be nice. It would show that we are a species that looks out for our own, and is above other animals, which was the original topic of this thread.)

Yes, seriously. I agree that we should be compensated fairly, (I'm getting compensated right now for sitting here debating with you hahahahaha) but there are some manual workers below me who work at least as hard as I do, for more hours, and get paid half of what I do, if that. --Anaralia

I shouldn't have said "work hard". I don't think working harder, in terms of physical effort, entitles you to more reward. Rather I think that people should get paid more for producing more. Imagine someone digging a ditch with a spoon. They'd be doing an insane amount of work, and putting a whole lot of effort into it, but that doesn't mean they should be paid more than someone who uses a shovel. Now someone coming along and inventing a backhoe to dig the ditch in a hundreth the amount of time, THAT is hard work that deserves reward. You write computer programs which will do the work of thousands of men working away with papers and pencils. You deserve more than people who do manual labor.

On the other hand, above me is a very nice woman who doesn't know the difference between Pascal and C++, and spends valuable working time conducting meetings where she compares our company to a rowboat where everybody must "get in the boat" and "row in the same direction".

You might be right in your specific case, and I'm not sure if you're making a general statement that people in management positions have no purpose / work less hard than other people, but I would disagree with that generalization. Management is necessary. A general in the army might not be the strongest guy in the army or the best fighter, but he's still worth a thousand normal soldiers. It's not easy to run a business, or to manage one for that matter. If it was, everyone would do it. Why aren't you a manager, for example? Or why don't you create your own business instead of working under people you perceive as being less able than yourself? Either you're unwilling or unable to do so. I personally am probably unable, and definitely unwilling to be a manager or to run my own business, for example. So it is fair that I be paid less than a manager.

If the person who owns your company pays a woman to do nothing but waste people's time, then s/he's an idiot. But maybe that womans does serve a purpose. Most people who run businesses aren't idiots, or else they don't run them for long.

Should, but it doesn't always happen. We're past the point where a good attitude and hard work can guarantee you a good life. Myself, for all of my years in college, happened to graduate at a bad time for the economy and had to endure low-paying jobs where I was a month or two of unemployment away from becoming homeless myself. Generation X marked the moment where education and a willingness to duke it out with the world was no longer enough.

I would disagree with you there. Work hard enough and you will have a good life. "Hard enough" may be beyond what people are willing to do, but that's people's fault, not a fault with the world. There are always opportunities for people willing to take them, and if there aren't opportunities, then you can make your own. There is work enough for everyone; maybe not the kind of work people WANT, but wants are beside the point.

Nope, I'm not advocating socialism here. Some people have smaller houses than I do, and that's fine with me. I deserve it. I've worked for it. It's when some people have no houses at all, that I start to look at my own house, and think that it wouldn’t hurt to give more to charity and buy less shoes.

It really sounds like you are advocating socialism though. What is it about people with no houses that says I should give them the means to get one? Only that they need a house. What is it about me that obligates me to help them? Only the fact that I have the ability to do so. That is socialism, isn't it?

I think that we, as a society, should evolve to the point where we voluntarily give away enough of our excess (food, money, clothes), if we have any, to compensate for other people's losses, and make sure that everyone else in the society lives at a minimum standard at least.

When you say "should", you're speaking of moral obligation. You're hiding your "should" by saying "People should volunteer to give other people their money" instead of directly saying "People should give other people their money". It's like saying "People should voluntarily not commit murder". This is exactly the same statement as "It is wrong to commit murder". You're saying it's wrong not to give away my money to poor people; that I'm morally obligated to do so; that there is in fact nothing voluntary about it; that if I don't do it, I'm doing something wrong. Being obligated, i.e. forced (if not physically forced, at least morally compelled) to give my money to other people is robbery and slavery, like I said.

...I agree (did I draw this parallel? Sorry if it was implied)...

Sorry if I misunderstood.

...and I agree (but it would be nice. It would show that we are a species that looks out for our own, and is above other animals, which was the original topic of this thread.)

I don't agree that it would be nice, I guess. Slavery is not something that places us above other animals. Ants don't use the most able, strongest ants as sacrificial animals to keep the weaker ones alive. I don't really want to be a sacrificial animal either.

I care very deeply for the enviroment and my fellow Earth inhabitants. As a result of that, I dislike the human race. Mankind has done much good for itself but for me it cannot even begin to outweigh the harm it has done to the world. I do not view humans as the highest standing animal. I don't think like that; instead I apply equal value to all creatures. To me we don't have any special position what so ever. To me, the negatives outweigh the positives by so much that it's unfathomable. That's my personal take on things.

I do not view humans as the highest standing animal. I don't think like that; instead I apply equal value to all creatures. To me we don't have any special position what so ever. --Modigliani

So if a baby and a puppy were both drowning and you needed to save one first, you'd just flip a coin to see which?

Flipping a coin, no, that would be rather silly. But I understand what you mean by that, and no, I would not automatically save the baby first. As I said, I make no difference. Even though you don't agree with me, I want to explain something that you could keep in mind. You should think of it like this:
I do not think of both to hold the same value as most people give dogs (i.e. rather low compared to humans); instead I value both just as high as most people do a baby. I hope the difference makes sense. Seen it as most people do, one might look at it as if though I have moved the rest of the living creatures to the same "level" as they put humans on, which is very high up. I hope I've explained it somewhat adequately even if you don't think the same way.

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Even if determinism has a worldly cause, like physics, I don't see that it means anything. It's a different context. Thought and choice and pain don't exist on the level of atoms and sub-atomic particles, and that's the realm where determinism would exist. Choice is a human-level abstraction, maybe, but it's what has meaning when dealing with morality. Even if choice is an illusion, that illusion is what matters in the context of moral decisions.

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Think of cybernetic physicallism. Imagine we are just a series of electirc pulsions and chemical reactions, and our thought or reason is based only on that, making us like complex PCs with no choice whatsoever over our actions. Now suppose we KNEW this, not that we suspected it (Like many do now) but that there was actually evidence to proove it. This would instantly give human beings the value of machines, which sucks, but it would also keep them from any blame for any action, since they had no choice.

Yeah, I don't like determinists.

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I hope I've explained it somewhat adequately even if you don't think the same way.

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I think I understand you well enough. Interesting point of view. I've met many people who say they think the same way, but don't follow through (e.g., vegetarians who wear leather shoes). I'm curious about one thing though: do you consider all animals equal, or do you consider man to be below other creatures? You seem to swing back and forth a bit between the two views.

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I shouldn't have said "work hard". I don't think working harder, in terms of physical effort, entitles you to more reward. Rather I think that people should get paid more for producing more.

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I tend to agree, or else I wouldn't have spent 8 years of my life in a university. This has put me in a position to administrate manual labor, directing them, training them, and eliminating their jobs wherever possible. In the process, I have come to appreciate the fact that we need and will always need blue-collar workers to lift heavy boxes, clean bathrooms, and connect cables. More often than not, they are intelligent people who work long hours without complaint, and who weren't given the brains/money/time to go to school long enough to secure a different type of job. I've tutored them in English, and they study their behinds off. I tell them to go home, and they refuse, because one hour of overtime buys one more bag of diapers. I've come to respect them more than I respect any of my colleagues, and they deserve more than what they have.

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Management is necessary.

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Yup. My intention in giving this example was to give on example of someone intelligent and hardworking being worse off than someone who was not as smart and not as productive. Management has my respect even when I don't think they deserve it, and I wouldn't dare generalize on whether or not managers are inept, because I simply can't speak for anyone but myself.

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Why aren't you a manager, for example? Or why don't you create your own business instead of working under people you perceive as being less able than yourself?

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Someday I will. Not today. :(

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There are always opportunities for people willing to take them, and if there aren't opportunities, then you can make your own.

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Our economic system is based on a certain percentage of people being out of work at any given time. Say everyone in the country has a job. I need a secretary, but no one answers my ad, so what I do is go to the Pepsi factory and offer their secretary 1.5 times her salary to come work for me. She does, I raise my prices to accommodate her salary, and so Pepsi has to go to Dell, and offer their secretary 1.5 times her salary to work for them. Then they raise their prices. And so on. 0% unemployment = 0% economic growth = prices soaring = salaries soaring = a never-ending spiral of disaster.

So, we will always have some people (say 5%) out of work, and actively looking for work. (The term "unemployed" in the strictly economic sense only applies to people who are actively seeking work) These are people who need jobs, and don't have them, and this will always be like this because that's how the system is built. They can create opportunities for themselves, but the law of economy predicts that they will fail. If they make it, another person across town will take their place.

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"Hard enough" may be beyond what people are willing to do, but that's people's fault, not a fault with the world.

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Some people, but not all of them. Some try and try and simply can't get ahead. I know people who work 3 jobs, sometimes getting as low as $5 an hour. How can you live on that? Even if you work your tail off. [off topic] Waiters and waitresses make as little as $2.50 an hour on average, which is why we should always remember to tip.[/ot]

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What is it about people with no houses that says I should give them the means to get one? Only that they need a house. What is it about me that obligates me to help them? Only the fact that I have the ability to do so.

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Well, yeah. Except, change "obligates" for "compels". Otherwise, yeah, that's what I think.

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That is socialism, isn't it?

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No, because socialism is when the government grabs your paycheck and gives part of it away to the poor without asking for your permission. This IS an "obligation". You have no say in this. I have lived in socialisms (albeit briefly), and what we have is nothing like it. I don't advocate anyone taking any of your property away from you, ever, for any reason. No "obligation" about it.

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You're saying it's wrong not to give away my money to poor people; that I'm morally obligated to do so; that there is in fact nothing voluntary about it; that if I don't do it, I'm doing something wrong. Being obligated, i.e. forced (if not physically forced, at least morally compelled) to give my money to other people is robbery and slavery, like I said.

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Every time that you use the word "should", you are implying that you have a choice, and that one choice is somehow more favorable than the other. But you have one. Look at the difference between:

I should go to work tomorrow. (Because I’m behind on my deadline. Tomorrow is Saturday. It's not an obligation, but it would be nice.)

I have to go to work tomorrow. (Because it's a workday. If I don't go, I'd better call them and say why.)

I had better go to work tomorrow. (I've missed 5 days this month. They'll fire me if I don't go.)

And so on. Did I mention I've taught English as a Second Language? The modals are very clear cut in the sense that "should" represents a recommendation (I should get out more, I should eat more vegetables), "have to" and "must" represent obligations (I must eat my lima beans, I have to get up early tomorrow) and "had better" represents a strong obligation (You had better watch your mouth). "Should" implies that you are better off going down this route, but if you don't want to, fine.

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I don't agree that it would be nice, I guess.

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If we can't agree on this one, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, because we'll never see eye to eye. This is the very essence of the point I was making.

As a side note, if I were to tell my husband that he "should" volunteer a few hours down at the local hospital, and he accused me of "slavery", I would assume he was thinking of that morning, when I asked him to pick up his towels. Then I would get mad at him, for casually using an unspeakable horror to make a point about something comparatively minor. It implies demagoguery, and that you see a moral equivalence.

Um...what are we debating here now? It sort of drifted to hierarchy of workplace positions to saving babies or puppies....anyway:

puppies, kitties, and other sentient creatures can feel pain; our actions, knowing this, should reflect this truth and act accordingly. Meaning we shouldn't cause a sentient creature pain. Now this brings up the whole argument over whether pain is good or why we should do good, but I'm not getting into it (I really would like to, but if I did it'd all degenerate into pro-good rhetoric anyway because we like good things like chocolate and pies and cake and donuts). So if a puppy and a baby were both drowning there would be a moral dilemma, because you know that both could die, and either dying is a bad thing. However you would definitely save the baby. My only argument is that saving a baby (assuming that if you went for the baby first you would succeed or something) potentially creates a better good than saving the puppy. The puppy would only grow to be a dog, and while dogs potentially can save lives and be helpful and aide the blind and all sorts of marvellous things, a human can potentially do more. So the 'potential greater good' argument is my stance.

There's all sorts of arguments for environmentalism so I'm not even going to touch that until a thread or a heated discussion starts.

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Originally posted by Anaralia
I think I understand you well enough. Interesting point of view. I've met many people who say they think the same way, but don't follow through (e.g., vegetarians who wear leather shoes). I'm curious about one thing though: do you consider all animals equal, or do you consider man to be below other creatures? You seem to swing back and forth a bit between the two views.

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That I see all animals as equals includes human beings as well. Human beings as such are just as much worth as other animals. The actions of mankind, however, is a whole other matter. I have serious qualms with that. I try to keep the two separate but it's hard not to let my feelings get to me and mess it up. :)

But I understand what you mean by that, and no, I would not automatically save the baby first. --Modigliani

Your views are insane, in my opinion. I have trouble believing that you really live by them.

I've come to respect them more than I respect any of my colleagues, and they deserve more than what they have. --Anaralia

I also definitely respect anyone who works to the best of their ability, whatever that ability may be. I think that if someone does so consistently, eventually they WILL be successful. It's not fair that everyone starts on different levels, I guess. Some people start off rich and just need to get richer. Some people grow up in a terrible situation and need to play catch-up. But that's the nature of the world. That's not the fault of humanity as a species. It's impossible for everyone to be equal in all ways. It IS possible for anyone to ascend to any height though, and that's what's important.

They can create opportunities for themselves, but the law of economy predicts that they will fail.

Yeah, I think I vaguely remember learning that in economics class. Wish I'd paid attention. But anyways the same people aren't unemployed all the time. Like you said, it rotates. I've been unemployed in the past (and the present :(). You have too. But someday I won't be. Say everyone is unemployed for a year or two total out of their lives; that could cover all the required unemployment in the economy, and yet the vast majority of people have a job the vast majority of the time. Fact remains that at any given time, there's a whole newspaper filled with available jobs just in my city.

Some try and try and simply can't get ahead.

I just don't believe this, I guess. If you're never successful, you're just doing something wrong. If you show up to work every day on time, do your job and do it well on a consistent basis, you're so far above most of the bums in the world that you can't help but rise. Maybe I'm naive.

No, because socialism is when the government grabs your paycheck and gives part of it away to the poor without asking for your permission.

I mean, your ideology is socialism. Our government isn't socialist, no, but socialism is what you believe in, right? At least in the specific sense I mentioned, if not in general.

"Should" implies that you are better off going down this route, but if you don't want to, fine.

"Should" implies a choice, but it also specifies which choice is the correct choice. In terms of ethics, "You should do X" means that X is right and Y is wrong. "You should not kill people" meaning killing people is wrong. You still have the choice to kill people, but you would be wrong to do so. "You should give your money to poor people"; I have the choice not to do so, but if I choose not to, I would be wrong.

This is an argument of semantics, it seems to me. But in any case, aside from the meaning of the individual words, w're talking about right and wrong here. You speak of feeling guilt when you don't do something, and that doing something is the right thing to do; those are words of morality, to me.

When you proclaim something right or wrong, I give that proclamation a whole lot of weight. "You should not kill people"; if that's true, then I have a moral duty and obligation not to kill people. I am compelled not to kill people, in other words. Even if I want to kill someone, it is morally wrong to do so, and so I shouldn't do it. If I am a good person, then I am forbidden to do so. I am compelled by my own beliefs that doing the right thing is the right thing to do; I'm not compelled by physical force, but I am compelled nonetheless.

When you say "You should give your money to poor people", if that's true, I am morally compelled to give my money to people, even if I don't want to. I feel that it is not just to give my money to other people when I don't want to, because I've earned it and they haven't. Being compelled to give my money to other people, even though I don't want to, is the definition of robbery. It's not robbery in the physical sense; I use "robbery" and "slavery" as a metaphor, but it is very similar in my mind.

A moral is an obligation, insofar as I demand of myself that I be a good person. It's technically a choice, yes; the choice is, either do X, or be immoral. That is not a choice to me though, because being a bad person is not an option.

If we can't agree on this one, then I guess we'll have to agree to disagree, because we'll never see eye to eye. This is the very essence of the point I was making.

I am in favor of doing nice things if you want to. Giving money to poor people is "nice", if it's voluntary. Being morally compelled to give money to poor people is all I have a problem with, for reasons stated above. The only way for something to be voluntary is for there to be no moral attached to it. I feel that the axiom "You should give money to poor people" is something that looks good on the surface, but is not moral in reality.

puppies, kitties, and other sentient creatures can feel pain; our actions, knowing this, should reflect this truth and act accordingly. Meaning we shouldn't cause a sentient creature pain. --PG

Pain is not inherently evil. If it was, dentists would be the most evil people on earth. I don't believe that animals feel pain in the same way we do. They don't feel emotional pain, because they have no emotion, and emotional pain is what matters. Causing pain to animals seems wrong to us because WE have emotions, and we associate pain in animals with something physical pain in ourselves, which causes emotional pain in ourselves. I think that kicking puppies is wrong because it will make me sad, and it will make people who see me do it sad, etc. The puppy, however, being dumb as a bucket of dirt, doesn't care, because there is no such thing as "caring" in animals. If it feels the pain of being kicked, it will instinctively do something (probably bite me). If it feels me petting him, it will do something else. It's mindless and automatic. Animals are sentient, but they aren't rational beings. That's an important difference.

That's just my belief though. I can't say I'm an expert in this; I'm no biologist or animal psychologist, if such a thing exists. And I don't hurt animals, but only for the reasons stated; it makes me sad to do so.

Unne, I agreed with just about everything you said in your last post (except for minor points which are either too small to be worth discussing further, or things we can agree to disagree on). Thank you for a refreshing and invigorating discussion. Having been raised in a liberal household, and having created one of my own when I was old enough to, it's a pleasant change to hear respectful disagreement of the ideals that I usually take for granted as "logical".

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I would not automatically save the baby first.

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Ya know, the more I think about this, the more it bothers me. I originally interpreted it to mean "I would hesitate for a moment, in which I would be sad that the puppy was going to die, but then of course my brain would kick in and I would rush to save the human baby.". Is this not what you meant?

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I would not automatically save the baby first.

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It is natural for any species of animals to care for its own. A lack to do so, or the lack of will to do so, is un-natural and even perverted.

'Caring' for the enviorment, to me, is not caring for the endangered Purple Spotted Brazillian Michael Jackson Beetle, but rather, understanding that keeping the enviorment in a good state would mean our further survival, and over-all better living conditions.

Save the baby. It's the right thing to do. If a dog were faced with the same dilemma, it wouldn't save the baby first. Species look after their own.

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The puppy, however, being dumb as a bucket of dirt, doesn't care, because there is no such thing as "caring" in animals. If it feels the pain of being kicked, it will instinctively do something (probably bite me). If it feels me petting him, it will do something else. It's mindless and automatic. Animals are sentient, but they aren't rational beings. That's an important difference.

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I'm aware of that difference. That's why the argument is focused on animal sentience, not rationality. The 'dumb as a bucket' puppy may not be rational, but it is sentient. I'm not going to tackle whether its motor functions and sentience is a product of mechanical automation. I don't believe it is. Anyway, a big factor is whether or not we should do good to one another. Unnecessary pain is bad. A dentist may hurt you when drilling your teeth, but if s/he didn't, you would be in greater pain later. So the pain is done to avoid greater, unnecessary, and preventable (<=I may be redundant here, so ignore this if I am) pain.

A drowning puppy should be saved, whether drowning by itself or drowning next to a drowning Nobel Prize winning individual. The difference is that in the moral question regarding a puppy and a baby is that a baby is potentially more practical than a puppy. If a puppy was drowning by itself would you not try to save it? Simply speaking the answer is yes (I could go into things like saving random animals that fall in water, especially when they are overpopulated, or something).

Anyway, the basis for treating puppies well is because they are sentient and feel pain. Also, whether or not we deserve to be treated well (goodly), we do it to each other (or try to), and should do in kind to animals. I'm not advocating veganism, which would still result in the killing of field animals when the giant tractors run them over, but that we should have consideration for them. Senseless slaughter of animals because 'they aren't thinking things' is irrational, unless you can prove to me that animals don't feel pain when you take a scalpel and cut them up, or do live autopsies like our favourite philosopher/scientist Aristotle (or so I've heard. If he didn't somebody else did throughout history, and you can substitute his name there).

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Originally posted by Moo Moo the Ner Cow My only argument is that saving a baby (assuming that if you went for the baby first you would succeed or something) potentially creates a better good than saving the puppy. The puppy would only grow to be a dog, and while dogs potentially can save lives and be helpful and aide the blind and all sorts of marvellous things, a human can potentially do more. So the 'potential greater good' argument is my stance.

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That a human potentially can do more good than a dog might be true. But a human can also potentially do more evil than a dog, so saving the human could cause more good (than the puppy-saving scenario) in this world as well as it could cause more evil (see previous parenthesis). Which at least to me brings it back to square one again. I personally think it's each person's choice to do what they feel is right in that situation, I don't have any rock-hard opinion on it.

[stupidpost]Um...


Or just let them die both and end of problem! Oh, and laugh at them.
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Actually that's a valid solution considering overpopulation concerns, but that's hardly a sufficient argument for most people. For some reason humans rank higher than animals and plants, to the point where a vegetable human > a smart animal. I don't get it, but it concludes that no matter what, we ought to save a drowning baby