From: cdminter@icaen.uiowa.edu (Corey D Minter)
Subject: Re: Vegitarianism
Organization: Iowa Computer Aided Engineering Network, University of Iowa
X-Newsreader: NN version 6.4.19
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 02:21:42 GMT

roholdr@ccu.umanitoba.ca (R Ross Holder Jr) writes:


>In <1993Jan20.034654.1597@news.eng.convex.com> cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes:

>>In article <1993Jan16.180706.3126@cnsvax.uwec.edu> nyeda@cnsvax.uwec.edu (David Nye) writes:

[stuff deleted here and there]
>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?  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.
---
>>that renders a being intrinsically valuable, that confers upon it the "r ight
>>to life"? I don't see why _any_ quality or characteristic should have this
>>effect. Why should it be wrong to kill something that has a "soul", that is
>>"conscious", that can speak Italian, play chess, or bicycle? --Certainly not
>>the mere fact that it has a "soul", is "conscious", speaks Italian, etc.

>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.
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).
---
>>Whatever quality you name--no matter what "x" you point to as
>>distinguishing beings that have intrinsic value (and therefore a right to
>>live) from those that don't, it seems that you have to give me a reason why
>>one ought to _care_ about this x. And I can't imagine what such a reason
>>might be like.

>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!
---
>>Why should we think that an argument is _required_ to prohibit murder, or
>>that a criterion must be found that confers a right to live?  Where did we
>>get the idea that philosophy ought to give us _reasons_ for the simplest
>>things?

>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.
---
>-- 
>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.

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'm not a philosopher but I play one in life.
--
The view expressed by the University of Iowa are not necessarily those
of Myself, what would that mean anyway, duh?
-- 
cdminter@icaen.uiowa.edu / cdminter@eng.uiowa.edu (Qlink: EarthsWake)
"The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face."
"We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients.  But we can't scoff at them
personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me."  -Jack Handy, SNL