From: roholdr@ccu.umanitoba.ca (R Ross Holder Jr)
Subject: Re: Vegitarianism
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 16:48:14 GMT


On Thu, 21 Jan 1993, Corey D Minter wrote:

> >In the recently released movie "Alive" survivors of the plane crash end up
> >eating other passengers, but under those circumstances it isn't imorral is
> >it?  Would it be if survival wasn't an issue?  If not why not?
> 
> No, is this a difficult question for anyone?

For someone who simply "feels" murder is wrong, surely you can see the
difficulty in cannibalism.  There are a far greater number of cases of
murder than 'true' cannibalism.  (I say 'true' because some argue that
somehow the Christian rite of Communion counts as cannibalism too.)

> The passengers are dead.  You are
> going to die unless you eat.  You eat a person because you are hungry and this
> is a source of food.  There is really no reason to appeal to any other
> authority.

Isn't there?  I don't usually eat people and I do need some justification
for doing it.  If I were to adopt the ontological approach to morality and
argue that people know right from wrong, I (depending on my cultural
background) might know better than to eat people.  If this is the case, it
is likely I'd need some 'overriding principle' to guide me towards doing
so.  Even as a utilitarian, my cultural biases might be too powerful to
consider the notion.  Not all of us are as ready to compromise those
biases as you.

> >Why not?  We could say that life was "sacrosanct" and that all killing is
> >wrong.  Shortly thereafter we might all starve to death, but my aren't we
> >virtuous? :) Some quality or set of qualities must necessarily determine
> >life's value because if life is valueless, can there still be no harm in
> >killing someone?  The person being killed likely feels pain or a "sensation
> >of death", and since this would almost always outweigh any associated
> >pleasure, we say that it is wrong to murder.  If we hold that murder is
> >pain and that pain is wrong (evil), sentient life must have value. 
> 
> I would argue murder is 'wrong' but not for these reasons.  You have to
> look at what happens if your philosophy is adopted by most.  Murder as a has
> a way of weeding itself out of a culture.  I would argue that morality is
> evolved.  We have evolved for the most part to feel murder is wrong (I am
> in this category).  However the goodness or badness is neither here nor there
> this is just the way it is.  When murder is a norm the species will die out.
> Remember that I am not saying the species favors it, it just will happen.

I would tend to agree with you to some extent.  Morality is evolved in the
sense that at whatever point a spieces gains 'sentience', morailty causily
follows.  This view is entirely compatible with utility.  Indeed, what
you've shown here is that morality is a product of evolution - and seem to
be suggesting (correct me if I'm wrong) that since it is a product of
evolution there is no 'real' good or evil.  If this is the case, there's
something missing because B simply doesn't follow A.  Let me illustrate
(perhaps) more clearly:

Given that it is the case:
	A.   Sentience is a product of evolution.
	B.   The abstract concepts 'good' and 'evil' are a product of sentience.
It follows that:
	C.   The abstract concepts 'good' and 'evil' are a product of evolution.

I have no problem with A, but I think you have to _show_ how B is true
(i.e. destroy the notion of moral absolutism).  I don't believe you've shown
it here.

Where you state "morality is evolved" you didn't explicitly indicate if
you agreed that 'murdering' 'higher' animals was wrong in your view.  For
you, is it the case that pigs have evolved a morality?  If so, is pork not
the choice meat?

> Would you say a society that dies out because murder was moral favored it.
> No, what was left was everything else (including ideas that it is ok to 
> murder some of the time, that's called war).

I don't think I could live with myself if I suggested it made any sense to
fight a war for some 'higher' moral purpose to the exclusion of every
member in a given society.  This is what mankind faced under the threat of
mutually assured destruction (MAD).  The only exception would be some case
where a society was under threat of ceaseless torture if the war was lost
or some other equally hideous fate.  Apart from this, though, it is an
issue of some contest if killing war constiutes murder.  There we get into
issues of self-defense and right to life, freedom, liberty - lots of fun
stuff not particularly relevant to the issue at hand (vegetarianism).

> >It has to do with distinguishing goodness from badness.  Assuming we all
> >_should_ be moral (good), given the reasons outlined above, sentient life
> >has value.  Good, of course, being whatever promotes greatest pleasure and
> >minimizes the greatest ammount of pain (the [in]famous Theory of Utility).
> 
> Of course if you asked 10 people the relative value of utility from an
> action you'll get 10 different scales with possibly infinite values.
> Utility in any sense that we might be able to derive a foundation for 
> morality is quite worthless.  What is the end effect that you would assign
> utility to anyway?  Exactly!

This standard attack on utility theory gets into some trouble, though,
when you consider that no where is it written that utility grants the answer
to every question.  It is supposed to serve as an absolute moral foundation -
not a crystall ball that magically tells you what 'more pleasure' or
'least pain' is.  No one is omiscient and such things are usually
perspective-relative.  Indeed, what moral theory is there that answers
every question ever asked?  Utility is as close as it gets.  

> >I'm sure it's a product of being sentient; curiosity.  Hence we seek
> >reasons.  At any rate, if we don't have reasons for not murdering people -
> >some might be mistakenly led to conclude it would be okay.  As creatures
> >of both instinct and reason, we have the capacity to distinguish pleasure
> >from pain; good from evil.
> 
> Probably just pleasure from pain.

Ah, but you said you felt murder was wrong.  If good and evil are merely
abstract concepts that have no objective meaning (whatever that means)
murder could neither be right or wrong, could it?

> >------------------------DISCLAIMER:-------------------------
> >The views I express are not necessarily those of the U of M.
> 
> This is not a flame (disclaimer used for effect, follow along ;), but I
> assume people put these disclaimers so that others will not accuse their
> organization of holding a particular viewpoint.  That is like saying my 
> opinions do not reflect those of the United States.  What is more insane
> is that someone might think that the UofM has some grand view and that
> in turn reflects your viewpoints.  Is it just me?  Fear of Sweeping
> Generalizations, dictosimpiciteraphobia (same thing).  I know I suffer
> from it (the fear).  How do your fears influence your actions? 

I completely and whole-heartedly agree.  However, someone who felt I was
using language that hurt his feelings in another debate sent a complaint
to my administration demanding that I have my userid revoked.  Of course,
the administration found I had in no way violated net rules, or etiquette
but felt that if I was to continue getting into "biting" arguments, I
should attach this disclaimer on to my .signature file.

R. Ross Holder, Jr.       INTERNET: roholdr@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Department of Philosophy     *    The University of Manitoba
------------------------DISCLAIMER:-------------------------
The views I express are not necessarily those of the U of M.

-- 
R. Ross Holder, Jr.       INTERNET: roholdr@ccu.umanitoba.ca
Department of Philosophy     *    The University of Manitoba
------------------------DISCLAIMER:-------------------------
The views I express are not necessarily those of the U of M.
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc