Species-ism, and Humanocentric Moral Systems

[Robert Anthony]

The unlimited arrogance and myopic self-fixation of human beings sets me ablaze with anger. Almost all humanity's efforts are directed irrationally towards its own immediate gain, utterly disregarding and blotting out from awareness the vast interconnected universe in which it exists, the only thing feuling this infamous behavior a delusional conceitedness, an 'anthropologism' which somehow justifies the mishandling and trivialization of all non-human aspects of the world.

Unsurprisingly, this species-wide immaturity finds its societal valorization by almost all the moral systems humanity has erected throughout the centuries, whose one main underlying tenet has been, "Man is more important than the rest of the natural world; Man is unique, and thus nothing really matters but Man". This kind of distorted self-centeredness serves as the foundationstone for moralities of every type. Two apparent opposites, utilitarianism and the theistic dogma of traditional abrahamic religion, are united in their near insane overestimation of the valuability and necessity of human culture.

All the arguments for human specialness, and thus a special human-focused morality, fail uniformly. We are biological products of the earth, fellow-beings to innumerable other lifeforms, sharing one origin and ultimate essence.

The species-ist orientation must be regarded as the ignorance of yesteryears, the conceptual dark infancy of our race. It is high time we adopt a holistic and balanced morality, a nonexclusionary morality, not created to excuse the survival and refinement of any one class of beings. We must uproot the self-serving lie that humans are fundamentally or even ontologically different from animals and plants, and that all non-human organisms are set here for the enjoyment of our random impulses.

MORALITY MUST BE RETHOUGHT.

[Luiseach]

Originally posted by Robert Anthony
All the arguments for human specialness, and thus a special human-focused morality, fail uniformly. We are biological products of the earth, fellow-beings to innumerable other lifeforms, sharing one origin and ultimate essence.

True enough.

MORALITY MUST BE RETHOUGHT.

I would say it is in the process of being rethought...aren't environmentalism and conservationism part of this move forward in our moral/ethical development?

[Robert Anthony]

I found this article immediately after posting

http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=305

and was heartened to learn of an enlightened treatment on the very same subject matter to which I had just dedicated a posting. Please read it. This is not 'fringe' stuff.

[Robert Anthony]

Originally posted by Luiseach
I would say it is in the process of being rethought...aren't environmentalism and conservationism part of this move forward in our moral/ethical development?

Yes, it is being rethought, in some quarters, such as you mention. Yet mass civilization slumbers away. The intent of the post is to stimulate rational, public debate, forcing the unacknowledged rottenness of popular morality to surface.

[Kalkin]

I agree with much of what you say, Robert, but I disagree that human anthropocentrism is bad. Yes, we are part of a vast web, we are small, perhaps we are not special - but why does this mean we shouldn't be self-interested? Every living thing looks out for its own kind ahead of others - any argument that we should be different is hypocritical at the point when you're saying we're not special. Rationality tells us we should be careful of the environment which we depend on, but not that we should value it outside of its usefulness to us.

I'm an environmentalist, but deep ecology of the kind you're advocating here is ridiculous. Really, is an earthworm as important as a human? If not, how do you weigh them? Do you assign intrinsic value to organisms? To ecosystems? On what basis? How can we, as people, assign value to non-people on any rational basis - given that the concept of "value" is human? If you don't assign intrinsic value, how is it possible to give anything moral weight outside of its usefulness to humans?:rolleyes:

[Soliton]

[Soliton]

Originally posted by Robert Anthony
Almost all humanity's efforts are directed irrationally towards its own immediate gain

As opposed to more rational activites directed towards our immediate suffering and loss. Let's all poke our eyes out!



It is high time we adopt a holistic and balanced morality, a nonexclusionary morality, not created to excuse the survival and refinement of any one class of beings.


I hope you aren't the evil anthropocentric sort that takes medicine when they're sick, because that's a hubristic assumption that your well-being is far more important than the lives of bacteria and viruses. Talk about 'myopic self-fixation'!

[winstonjen]

When animals start caring for other species, I'll start caring for them. And no, I'm not talking about dogs - they only stick with us for the free food and lodging.

[Alonzo Fyfe]

(1) There is no such thing as intrinsic value. The Opening Post is not clear in this, but in part seems to be arguing that certain things in nature have intrinsic worth. There is no such thing. The only type of value that exists is in the form of relationships between states of affairs and desires. Nothing has value except insofar as it is desired, or it is useful in bringing about something that is desired. That's just the way the universe is. Anybody who claims to see intrinsic value in things is mrely seeing ghosts of their own desires.

(2) It follows from (1) that people who claim to see 'intrinsic' value are elevating their own desires, and are seeking to impose on others an obligation to sacrifice the desires that the others may have for the sake of what the seer of 'intrinsic' value desires. This unjustified elevation of one's own preference, and demanding that others sacrifice so that one may obtain these desired ends, is itself a root cause of much immorality.

(3) The claim that nothing has intrinsic value applies to humans as well. Humans do not have intrinsic value, and any moral system built on the assumption that humans have intrinsic worth is built upon a fundamentally flawed foundation.

(4) Contrary to the claims made in the Opening Post, utilitarianism does not suffer from the flaw in (3). We can look at the simplest form of utilitarianism to illustrate this fact -- hedonistic utilitarianism (the only good is pleasure, the only bad is pain). Utilitarianism does not distinguish at all between human pain and animal pain; human pleasure and animal pleasure. Pain and pleasure alone have significance, regardless of who or what experiences it.

(5) I have argued extensively elsewhere that moral value concerns the value of desires. To make this consistent with (1) good and bad desires are determined by whether those desires themselves contribute to the fulfillment or thwarting of other desires. (3) requires the additional modification that no being's desires have intrinsic worth -- that all desires are relevant regardles of who (or what) has those desires.

(6) I believe it is quite reasonable to believe that sunsets and landscapes have no desires. Nothing has value to a sunset or a cliff, and we need not worry that our actions thwart any desire of theirs. Plants, also, I am confident, do not have desires, and thus no input in the moral calculation. Plants, sunsets, and landscapes have value only insofar as they fulfill the desires of those beings that have desires. I am also willing to extend this to the simplest forms of animal life, though I admit that I am unclear as to where to draw the line. One reasonable (though, admittedly, arguable) possibility is to draw the distinction at the line of those creatures that have brains.

(7) Even among animals that have brains, the nature of what it can desire is tied to what it can understand. A dog cannot understand death; it goes through life impervious to the fact of its own mortality. The antelope flees from the lion, not because he is afraid of death, but because he is afraid of lions.

(8) Even among animals with brains, animals do not have a concept (for example) of "three years from now". So, animals have no desires for far future events. They may have desires for near-future events, but such desires are limited. So, you cannot thwart an animal's desire that something happen three years from now -- there is no such desire to thwart.

(9) From (5), (7), and (8) it follows that morality, though it argues for an equal regard for the desires that animals have, need not regard an animal's aversion to death or frustrating an animal's future plans. Indeed, about the only desires that exist, and thus that have moral relevance, concerns the animal's present comfort.

(10) I will agree to the criticism that animals' present comfort is unjustifiably given too little weight. And so I agree, in part, with the sentiments of the original post. To the degree that humans undervalue animals' present comfort, to that degree they act immorally. But, to the degree that humans undervalue other humans, and argue that humans be thought of like animals in spite of the morally relevant differences, to that degree one acts immorally as well.

(11) It follows from (4) that the pain suffered by an antelope as a result of a lion's attack is not qualitatively (or morally) different than the pain caused by a human's attack, except insofar as one may kill more quickly and with less suffering then another. So, if it is a bad thing that an antelope is killed by a human, then it is also a bad thing that an antelope is killed by a lion. And if lions may kill antelope for food, then humans may as well.

(12) I have heard it argued, against (11), that lions are not moral agents. Yet, this defense ultimately fails. We are not talking about the lion's decision to hunt or not hunt. We are talking about the humans' decision to permit or prohibit this. Humans are moral agents, and if we permit the lion to kill the antelope we cannot dismiss this decision on the fact that the lion did not understand what it was doing. We understood what the lion was doing, and decided to allow it. And if it is permissible to allow the lion to kill the antelope, then consistency seems to allow that it is also permissible for humans to hunt the antelope themselves.


Conclusion: We are morally obligated to be as concerned with an animal's pesent pain and suffering -- and we are presently lacking in the morally relevant level of concern -- but there are no morally relevant concerns beyond that.

[xorbie]

I disagree. I do not consider humans to be the only important animal, but I would only consider speicies with free will as morally important. I would chuck all other species into the "only important to the extent that they fullfill the desires of other entities." I think that a desire resulting of free will is inifitely more important than mere instinct.

Radical tree hugging bleeding heart liberals who argue that a tiger is more important than a human baby should be shot, and fed to tigers. I think this would make them happy.

I do believe that humanity has overpopluated the earth, and that the amount of people that should exist should be more like 500 million, maybe. This is of course a very ballparkish estimate. Basically, we will soon enough invent robots that can do things like clean houses, work in sweat shops and do other menial chores. Things will get very, very ugly for a while, but I do think that the human population will begin to decline fairly soon.

[Shake]

The article linked to from the kiosk is good, but not without its flaws. The step, leap I should probably say, which is taken by some non-species-ists (animal rights activists for example), is from man is no better than the animals (or plants), to therefore every man should suffer for the good of the animals (or plants). This just does not follow.

I agree that we should be more aware of/empathetic towards/respectful of our fellow occupiers of the planet. We have been grossly negligent in that we don't understand how interconnected everything is, and how you can't just take away one species and expect everything to work exactly as it had before just minus that species getting in the way. Man as a species has only the barest, scratching the surface idea of how his environment works. We often don't realize how important or deep interspecies roles are until we've eliminated one or made the system so lopsided as to have effectively eliminated one. Man has introduced species into environments where there are no natural enemies and thus they run rampant. Then we bring in some natural enemies, but there are unwanted side effects with bringing yet another species into play.

We are more knowledgeable about some areas than others, and we're still learning a great deal, as there's so much we still don't know. How many people know that fire is an important part of the development of the prairie? Not many. As civilized folks, we're taught that fire, esp. when uncontrolled (by man), is bad. Nature actually depends on fire to get things done. Read Kevin Kelly's Out of Control (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201483408/qid=1062532519/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-1023135-9960955) for more on what I've just been talking about and just generally for an exciting read!

A point I was trying to make earlier, but got distracted, was that sure, animals and plants are important, at least as much as we are, at a species level. But that doesn't mean that every single one is sacred, nor should they be treated that way. If man is to blame for putting a species at the brink of extinction, then I believe it's man's duty to help it back to healthy levels. We don't, I believe, have a duty to necessarily try to save a species that is dying out just naturally. Well over 90% of the species that have ever existed on the planet are extinct, and most of those happened well before man arrived on the scene. Read up on mass extinctions, and not just the most recent one which ended the reign of dinosaurs.