Which is why so many atheist groups become so unbalanced (Nazis, communists, greens?).

First it’s the fairness issue, let’s all share, you share your food even if you’re hungry because otherwise you are a big meannie. I suppose with a few more years of that, we can go into guilty for being fed animal phase.

“I’m not sure I buy the notion that killing or torturing weaker species “leads to” adult sadism. Torturing animals is a possible indicator of future mental pathology, not a direct cause.

Agreed, which is why I said “…it opens the door to sociopathic behaviors.” The person is likely a sadist internally, but then the seal is broken, and inhibitions to acting on those tendencies is reduced or destroyed.

“And cats get a pass because they’re cuter than scientists, Christians, or primitive hunters.”

Fair enough!

It probably is a romantic view – I get my meat at the grocery store. My grandfather took me to a cattle auction once, and after that we visited the slaughterhouse. I got to see them popping the cows in the head with a bolt gun. The guys doing it didn’t seem too guilty, and if they were praying it was probably just for Friday to get there sooner. Maybe hunters think the same way about their jobs.

So guilt about the treatment of animals is just a peculiarity of our non-hunter-gather, mostly non-agricultural lifestyle. We have the leisure to sit around thinking about what killing animals “means.” (Or at least I do, sometimes, when I’m not thinking about women and booze.) And to project our guilt (those of us who feel it) onto the “noble savages” who have noble, mystical ways of dealing with it. If we were honest, we’d just say some animals kill other animals to survive and we’re right in there with them.

So would that make us more or less civilized? And would it mean for the lab rats?

Oh – the guys who popped the cows in the slaughterhouse didn’t spend their weekends torturing little children; nor do most scientists who perform animal research. So I’m not sure I buy the notion that killing or torturing weaker species “leads to” adult sadism. Torturing animals is a possible indicator of future mental pathology, not a direct cause.

And cats get a pass because they’re cuter than scientists, Christians, or primitive hunters.

That’s because they were. Lions think antelope were created for their benefit too.

“Therefore, it was OK to exploit and kill other living things. It was just God’s natural order. Humans were more important than animals. Animals suffered, humans were relieved of suffering. Different reasoning than the scientist’s, but reaching similar conclusions.”

That’s right. It reached similar conclusions to the scientist’s because it is accurate. God’s law or the law of nature, either way, we’re special, and top dog on the food chain.

“Frankly, I find the aboriginal’s reasoning more realistic and compassionate. It recognizes the animal’s status as another living being – perhaps even as an equal or superior being – and not just a complex biological system or a piece of meat. It recognizes the terrible but necessary tradeoff of taking another being’s life in order to preserve one’s own. And it tries, in some way, to make amends to the animal or the world or somebody for doing this deed. It deals with the act and the emotional consequences of the act.”

Rather quaint and romantic, your view. They feared going hungry, so if ‘honoring’ the killed animal (or the god/power that it bolonged to) kept game around, and stomachs full, they were all for it. It was a fear motivation (don’t anger the great buffalo…), not so much a ‘respect’ issue, though it ends up granting some ‘respect’ to the creature- not that that is bad, but it ain’t the motivation.

“There is another difference, too. Aboriginal hunters and religious people don’t usually torture their victims. Not sure what that means…”

It means they’re hungry, not bored. By the way, modern hunters USUALLY don’t torture their ‘victims’ either.

Moral compass is a subjective judgement. It depends upon who you’re asking. Likely, most people will say that they are the ones with a correct moral compass, and everyone else is wrong about judging him or her. Murderers think this way as well. Superior aliens will also have a different moral compass, therefore while I don’t use moral compasses as a criteria of differentiation, it still makes people with different moral compasses superior to others judging by your criteria. There’s not much use to that criteria however.

If I take the reasoning in quotes above, it would just support my conclusions, even if I would not use such a reasoning myself. If we are the superiors of animals because we have a moral compass that is foreign to them and their world, and does not enter into the treatment of humans on humans, then this justifies any alien who has a superior way of treating people, to judge us as their inferiors.

The whole “if we treat chimps this way, others will be justified in treating us this way” is nonsense that dissolves on contact with a drop of reason.

Not really. People like terroists and fascist dictators always treat people who are more powerless than they are, their inferiors, in an evil way. That justifies almost any excuse to get rid of the terroists and fascistic dictators, particularly using the same thing on them that they did on everyone else. This goes all the way back to the Crime Must Fit the Punishment.

People who study Ethics already know this. But the problem with the golden rule of treat others as you would like to be treated, is that it lacked definition. It runs into the basic problem of what do you do with people who will committ the cruelest of tortures upon the innocent, and yet protect their family? What about the criminals who act respectful towards people who are more powerful than they are, but prey upon the weak? In those situations, treat others as you would like to be treated, is meaningless without further classification of the “others”.

Hence, the meta-golden rule. Treat people who are less powerful than you are, the same way that you would expect more powerful people to treat you.

There are too many ethical beliefs that hinge upon this, too many to list for that matter. But the one about defending against aggression, defeating fascism, executing barbarous murderers. These things come close.

Most Americans would not buy the philosophy that you should treat torturous murderers with mercy when the murderers showed no mercy to their victims (9/11). Some Christians believe in turning the other cheek, but that’s their perogative. Fake liberals will say that you are becoming as bad as the people you execute, but the fact is we are just giving murderers what they asked for, what they knew was coming, and what the murderers themselves deserve. Giving people what they deserve is justice, it is not becoming the enemy.

The logic that the murderers used when they killed their targets, justifies in return, a more powerful entity killing the murderers. It’s as simple an application of the meta-golden rule as is possible.

The US is morally justified to do the things I recommend to Iran, not based upon international law or some kind of “national security interest”. It is justifed, ethically, because of how Iran treats their own citizens and the citizens of Iraq. They send weapons and funds to kill innocent civilians, just for power. THey brutalize their own women and children, just for religious control.

Those who would treat their inferiors thus, deserve nothing better from their superiors, the United States.

If we use Westbank’s criteria, then it doesn’t work for Iran, because their morale compass is different than ours, which would make them superior to the US? Not very workable.

We could say that the question has been asked as long as humans have hunted other creatures in order to survive. Don’t many aboriginal people have myths and legends and customs to help rationalize the killing of prey? Like the animals are giving their lives freely to help the people feed their families. I’m mostly thinking about the Ainu and their bears – who are ritually killed but supposedly quite happy about it and immediately consigned to bear heaven. Also of cave paintings, e.g. Lascaux, which seem to have been a lot of trouble to make if the painters were just depicting meat on the hoof. I think the worshipful attitude toward the animals one hunts might help to assuage the guilt resulting from killing them.

Whether it’s a positive development or not, science has taught us that killing is killing and dead is dead and no amount of mumbo-jumbo can alter the fact that the hunter (or scientist) has done the worse possible thing one can do to another living being. The same reasoning applies to torture. No rationalization is possible – only cold calculation: animal suffers, people are relieved of suffering. People are more important than animals, so animal suffering is justified. Thus the psychological fruits of secular humanism.

But there seems to be some irony here. A common attitude among religious people of the past (and some today) is that the entire world and all the creatures in it were created for Man’s benefit. Therefore, it was OK to exploit and kill other living things. It was just God’s natural order. Humans were more important than animals. Animals suffered, humans were relieved of suffering. Different reasoning than the scientist’s, but reaching similar conclusions.

Frankly, I find the aboriginal’s reasoning more realistic and compassionate. It recognizes the animal’s status as another living being – perhaps even as an equal or superior being – and not just a complex biological system or a piece of meat. It recognizes the terrible but necessary tradeoff of taking another being’s life in order to preserve one’s own. And it tries, in some way, to make amends to the animal or the world or somebody for doing this deed. It deals with the act and the emotional consequences of the act.

There is another difference, too. Aboriginal hunters and religious people don’t usually torture their victims. Not sure what that means…

1) Let’s note that Harlow’s experiment is poised at the very focal point of ethics in experimentation – paradoxically, most of us have no problem with experiments that inflict *physical* pain or death on animals to attain aims of *physical* healing. What disturbs here is that the pain is *emotional*, and the experiment is for that reason conducted precisely on animals that are *emotionally* similar to us.

2) Could those spouting the glib garbage about “superiors” and “inferiors” please clarify themselves – or else admit that they are talking gibberish?

We are not the “superiors” of chimps and other animals because we are stronger or smarter than them.

We are their superiors because we have a moral compass that is entirely foreign to them and their world, and does not enter into their own treatment of each other.

In other words, we’re the only ones worrying about ethics.

What then is the analogue to those “superior” to humans?

The whole “if we treat chimps this way, others will be justified in treating us this way” is nonsense that dissolves on contact with a drop of reason.