Debate: Does a animal have the same value as a human
Side: Yes

The mentioning of solipsism was purely to represent my holding of morality as a purely individual-based phenomenon, and the potential for the mentioned example doesn't denote anything.Duly noted.Fear not, I'll not try to "define" your stance into immorality like most other Objectivist-minded people would be inclined to do(a major reason among others for my hesitation for self-identifying as an actual Objectivist).I have had few conversations with objectvists, so I am not entirely certain to what you are referring. I suppose it is not entirely relevant at this point?By Objective I mean that which exists independent of the mind or experience. & By Subjective I mean that which is existentially mind-dependent.I was initially using these same definitions; however, my post immediately preceding this one adjusted terminology by introducing intrinsic to mean what you have now defined objective to mean (and objective was used to reference a mix between the intrinsic reality and the subjective reality). Although I think I prefer the new trifecta terminology better I will return to the simpler objective/subjective delineation for this conversation, since it seems we are both fairly familiar with that. By Value I mean the varying degree to which an action, behavior, or thing is in relation to the criterion.What do you mean by the “criterion”? Are you from a LD debate background?When I use value I refer to a subjective judgment of preference projected onto things, actions, or ideas by people. By Virtue(should it ever arise) I mean the means by which we achieve a value.I refer to this simply as the means. Virtue is too loaded a term for my preference in most cases. Not on ecological terms […] that is the extent to which they can be given moral value.Noted and, I think, not in active dispute.We can surely assess it in degrees. Adopting a little more of Sam Harris's rhetoric, there are varying degrees to which we can increase well-being(rational self-interest) from our decisions. We may not pick the action that produces the maximal amount of benefit, but that doesn't exclude any moral value from the chosen action(in other words, there are varying degrees to which your interests are served). This is where the concept of moral value arises.That was rather my point, actually. We can only assess our rational self-interest in degrees, much as we can only assess the full ecological importance of any given creature in degrees. What struck me as curious is that you are so readily dismissed the practicality of the latter while you premise your framework on the latter. My argument is that we are not capable of fully aligning our moral sense with our rational self-interest, and that as a consequence the two are in practicality two distinct (albeit potentially interrelated) ideas and ought to be treated accordingly. I think your approach conflates the two as potentially synonymous.Regarding your scenario. Firstly, as I understand your argument morality is individually-based and would thus be derived from and particular to the perspective of the individual. That being the case, Man 1 might be considered moral by his own standards or Man 4 might consider his actions moral rather than amoral.Secondly, I think your scenario sidesteps the ambiguity of rationally derived moralities. You expressly acknowledge but still exclude complicating variables from your ascription of amoral character to Man 4 (“in light of no assumed or added variables”), and completely ignore the potential complicating variables surrounding the others. I would argue that even were morality defined by pursuit of the rational course of action the complexity of everyday decisions renders that pursuit (and thus the definition of morality) impossible to accurately fulfill. Thirdly, your scenario defeats your premise in that Man 1 may consider himself a wholly moral man even as his conduct is arguably against his rational self-interest. Morality is not, and I would contend cannot be, rationally derived.How can the irrational be conducive to our well-being? […] based within rational processes in spite of the irrational.My argument here was not that the irrational is conducive to our well-being, but that our behavior and moral sensibilities are not and cannot presently be purely rational. It is not in our nature.The mass of humanity at any given point and time have believed or acknowledged things as true that aren't, continuing even now under scientific scrutiny. The persistence of such things (religion for example) doesn't denote anything of epistimological value. So too for the given example. Persistence in nature is not necessarily an indicator of a positive trait. I could site detrimental mutations that occur that don't result in the death of a species but still yield a demonstrable negative effect on their standard of living. I recognize that persistence does not make something a positive attribute. My point was that irrationality and emotion are not so detractive to human well-being that they were selected out by the natural course of evolution. Pure or even prevailing rationality is not only unnecessary for survival, but its tenuous influence upon human decision making indicates that it may not even be that terribly strong of a positive attribute.This statement could be an ad-populum of a sort. If the Muslim god were real, but there were no Muslims, the Muslim god would still be real.I fail to see how ad-populum applies; I am not appealing to the masses nor to popular sentiment or emotional appeal. My argument is that there is no evidence that pure rationalism is attainable, and that absent such a basis the subsequent conflation of morality and rationality is in error.Varying points across the moral landscape In re: “Your argument would make sense if our internally-generated, objective moral projections ever truly and wholly aligned with our actual, intrinsic interests.”I am unsure what you are getting at with this response.I'm becoming a little wary of being Sam Harris heavy, but I agree whole-heatedly with him in that if morality deals with something other than well-being than it is a meaningless term.Why? I am not familiar enough with Sam Harris to know the argument.There will always be a valid discussion about what is or may not be in a self-interest. As flawed human beings in a flawed social dynamic, of course what we may perceive to be in a self-interest may indeed run contrary to it. But using it as a criterion for evaluating our decisions, we can reach greater levels of personal utility and understanding. And always underlying is the fact that there are actions that yield the maximal amount of benefit to our self-interest.I would add that most actions are not purely beneficial or purely detrimental, but are more commonly a mix of costs and benefits. To agree with your statement here, though, there are absolutely instances when our perception does not match our genuine self-interest. That difference between perception and actuality is precisely my reason for rejecting a conception of morality derived from its self-interest utility. It seems to me that you are advocating for rationalism but attempting to call it by another name (i.e. morality). To me, it is more sensible to cut out morality as the middle-man and pursue reason as a means to its own ends.I think the only thing we can denote about morality given its diversity is that mankind has an intrinsic want to determine morality, and even that is assumptive and subject to better explanations. & In case it wasn't clear, I didn't mean morality here in the general sense but in the specific context at hand.It cannot be intrinsic to the human condition if there are people who do not want to determine morality. I am one of those people. I do not ascribe moral value to the people, objects, ideas, or events in my life. I do not think that morality can be improved upon, made less assumptive or subject to better explanations, at least very effectively. Again, it makes more sense to me to abandon morality in preference of a better means and ends.If morality deals with self-interest, and we can in any way determine that, than there are examples in which there are right and wrong actions, correct?I believe my stance against this particular premise is quite clear from my above comments, yes? That being the case, to address this as if I did not dispute the premise:My issue with “right” and “wrong” is that they inherently connote a judgment rather than a practical observation. We may give preference to something which is better, but I would contend that this is very different than choosing something because it is “right”.