Moral and Scientific Progress

[Norsemaiden]

many of us know the consequences, but that doesn't mean we should value those things more than our lives

I can't even imagine how many rabbits we've killed here.
I can't imagine how many animals died when their habitats were burned by native americans to make the forests easier to hunt for deer.
I can't imagine how many viruses we've murdered outright!
But just because other organisms live on this planet doesn't mean it's our job to protect them. Millions of anaerobic organisms died out, Millions of dinosaurs died out, Millions of men have died out and man will become wiped out entirely. -- nature isn't picky about who runs the world, if we act to preserve the way the world is today, we're only doing it because this state of the world suits us, not because it's 'good for nature' as if nature decided all biological progress should stop here and all these current creatures should prolong forever.

You have misunderstood me. In fact the idea that we should consider ourselves as no more important than any other life form on this planet is unnatural. It is natural that each species be concerned for their own survival, segregation (cladogenesis) and expansion. Natural selection disposes us against empathising with other biological groups, seeing things their way and putting ourselves at a disadvantage to help them. If we help them it has to be for selfish reasons. If we find a deadly snake like an adder has made a nest in our house we destroy it, considering our own life and that of our family to be worth more than that of the snake and its offspring. Yet, to the snake, we are the enemy that threatens its precious brood. What is the mistake of manmade morality like humanitarianism is, effectively, to see things through the snakes eyes. So we get out of our house and let the snake have its way.

That is not a natural way for any creature to behave. (By "natural" I mean when unaltered by the warping effects of domestication/civilisation). Yet we can use our knowledge of what the consequences are of living an unsustainable lifestyle to change direction from what we have now and to practice a kind of triage. Triage means getting our priorities right. It means we don't try and help others if their survival is at a price of environmental disaster. Such things as the destruction of the rainforests should be stopped by military force if necessary. And third world famines should be accepted as a fact of life.

 

[Justin S.]

!WARNING!

This thread contains flawed teleology

Keep away from small children and impressionable minds.

 

[Norsemaiden]

!WARNING!

This thread contains flawed teleology

Keep away from small children and impressionable minds.

Okay - I edited the last post so it isn't teleological any more. I only ever meant it metaphorically anyway, not like Creationists who mean God designed things entirely literally. Is metaphorical teleology really so objectionable?!

 

[Justin S.]

Okay - I edited the last post so it isn't teleological any more.

How so? This entire thread expresses it.

Is metaphorical teleology really so objectionable?!

It can be. Especially when the words chosen are simply placeholders for the old mystical forces.

 

[Gordon M]

'Moral progress' is an undertaking of the individual, not the collective.

 

[Seditious]

Such things as the destruction of the rainforests should be stopped by military force if necessary.

why? you've already said man can destroy any snake in his way as it suits him. a rainforest is just another part of nature to feed our desires like killing an animal to eat.

 

[OldScratch]

why? you've already said man can destroy any snake in his way as it suits him. a rainforest is just another part of nature to feed our desires like killing an animal to eat.

He can - but should he? Destroying a rainforest is a far cry from killing an animal for food. Nearly wiping out a species for profit would be another issue altogether. What is good for an individual man(or men) isn't necessarily good for Man.

 

[Seditious]

He can - but should he? Destroying a rainforest is a far cry from killing an animal for food. Nearly wiping out a species for profit would be another issue altogether. What is good for an individual man(or men) isn't necessarily good for Man.

but whose place is it to tell all men to act in the best interest of man? sure, maybe it is our place, but this is why I was asking NorseMaiden that question.

off track for a paragraph - why should men even be expected to put themselves aside and act in the best interests of man if the existence of man is no good for men, what then would be the point in 'man' existing if not for men and women themselves - to me, that would be like preserving food for the food's sake rather than so the food is there to be used.

anyways, Maiden said "Science has spelled out the way to a new moral reasoning, based on the laws of nature: the selfish gene, natural selection,"

...so where in there does it say we need to impose such man-made constructions as preservation of all man and his ecosystem? That's exactly what she was opposed to.

 

[OldScratch]

but whose place is it to tell all men to act in the best interest of man?

Fair enough...enter the God(s) concept...

 

[Norsemaiden]

Think of the people cutting down the rainforests as one would think of rabbits eating all the vegetables in your garden - only its a lot worse than that because the rabbits won't cause the entire planet to destruct. You have to be cruel to the rabbits to protect what is yours, or what you need for survival.
The craziest thing of all is to go to the supermarket and buy extra cabbages because some of those rabbits are not getting enough.

The whole reason there are so many and they are causing this destruction is by considering it a moral duty to help them survive - and then they breed. That is the fault of man-made morality.

 

[Seditious]

Think of the people cutting down the rainforests as one would think of rabbits eating all the vegetables in your garden - only its a lot worse than that because the rabbits won't cause the entire planet to destruct. You have to be cruel to the rabbits to protect what is yours, or what you need for survival.

we could cut down all the rainforests today and that wouldnt cause 'the world' to destruct. It might ruin the homeostasis for a lot of aerobic animals but the world will go on, as a favourite quote of mine by Levi-Strauss says, "The world began without man, and it will complete itself without him."

 

[Norsemaiden]

Well okay then, we could have a world like Venus. Venus seems to have had a runaway greenhouse effect. The oceans would boil up and evaporate, etc.
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0115361/greenhouse effect.html

In any case the things that are being done which dangerously reduce the quality of life on this planet and threaten the existence of life have been done as a result of mankind's disregard for the laws of nature.

It is pointless to "tell all men to act in the best interests of man". It could never be achievable. A minority can benefit from understanding how to work within the limitations set by nature, and not against nature. They may have a future.

 

[Seditious]

In any case the things that are being done which dangerously reduce the quality of life on this planet and threaten the existence of life have been done as a result of mankind's disregard for the laws of nature.

there is 'life' in boiling water and rocks and before we had an oxygen abundent atmosphere there was life, I dont see 'the existence of life' being threatened.

I have no reason to imagine nature intended to get to the point it's at now. and when the sun swallows the earth in a billion years I imagine nature wont be upset saying 'damn, first we lost humans now we lose everything, why me!'

it's all good if you want to preserve the state of the world we enjoy because you think this is quality life, but it would be a man-made thing to do, not a natural thing, that's really all I have to say about it.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Nature couldn't give a stuff. What survives does so (barring bad luck) through having a drive to survive - which is what my point is- each individual, family, sub-race, race, species is concerned with the perpetuation of those that most closely genetically related to it. We are not designed to be concerned with all life equally at all, as you seem to think. That is the man-made morality. We are supposed to be concerned only with what is best for our own kind (the closest family above all). But a shitty world of pollution without the ecosystem we rely on for survival would not be good for our own kind. That is why we care about it. We don't care about it so that it can exist WITHOUT us - that would be unnatural.

 

[Seditious]

Nature couldn't give a stuff. What survives does so (barring bad luck) through having a drive to survive - which is what my point is- each individual, family, sub-race, race, species is concerned with the perpetuation of those that most closely genetically related to it. We are not designed to be concerned with all life equally at all, as you seem to think. That is the man-made morality. We are supposed to be concerned only with what is best for our own kind (the closest family above all). But a shitty world of pollution without the ecosystem we rely on for survival would not be good for our own kind. That is why we care about it. We don't care about it so that it can exist WITHOUT us - that would be unnatural.

ok cool, so as long as we had an artificial way to regulate global warming you'd be ok with any forest/rainforest/etc being turned into crop ground for native peoples?

 

[Norsemaiden]

ok cool, so as long as we had an artificial way to regulate global warming you'd be ok with any forest/rainforest/etc being turned into crop ground for native peoples?

What if the artificial way to regulate global warming failed, or there were other negative consequences from it? Anyway we should assume that is not going to be implemented. Presumably, you would be happy with this scenario you mention?

Desertification happens when humans cut down rainforests. Then they will all be starving/emigrating/warring. So there is more to it than just global warming and the carbon dioxide.

 

[Norsemaiden]

While we are designed to be loyal to our own kind, there are always situations where we will apparantly attack our own kind (animals do this too) without it being aberrant behaviour in the slightest.

Sibling rivalry is normal, and so is attacking another person who is behaving in a highly objectionable way - this can include pointless cruelty towards animals. But none of this conflicts with the idea of the selfish gene, even though it may initially appear that it does.

 

[cryosteel]

many of us know the consequences, but that doesn't mean we should value those things more than our lives

I can't even imagine how many rabbits we've killed here.
I can't imagine how many animals died when their habitats were burned by native americans to make the forests easier to hunt for deer.
I can't imagine how many viruses we've murdered outright!
But just because other organisms live on this planet doesn't mean it's our job to protect them. Millions of anaerobic organisms died out, Millions of dinosaurs died out, Millions of men have died out and man will become wiped out entirely. -- nature isn't picky about who runs the world, if we act to preserve the way the world is today, we're only doing it because this state of the world suits us, not because it's 'good for nature' as if nature decided all biological progress should stop here and all these current creatures should prolong forever.

Christ would approve.

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

In my view, humans are just another organism among many. Having higher intelligence has come to mean ruthless extraction from ecosystems for purposes of comfort and pleasure, effectively Biblical reasoning. Higher intelligence can be used for understanding the human position in nature, in a holistic manner, as stewards of a necessary continuum (life) rather than self-oriented agents of ruin.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Christ would approve.

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

In my view, humans are just another organism among many. Having higher intelligence has come to mean ruthless extraction from ecosystems for purposes of comfort and pleasure, effectively Biblical reasoning. Higher intelligence can be used for understanding the human position in nature, in a holistic manner, as stewards of a necessary continuum (life) rather than self-oriented agents of ruin.

That's right. We have to realise our place in the ecosystem and stop the agents of ruin ,which are other humans. (If you agree with this then you don't see these other humans as kin.)

 

[Grovesy]

Christ would approve.

Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Genesis 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

In my view, humans are just another organism among many. Having higher intelligence has come to mean ruthless extraction from ecosystems for purposes of comfort and pleasure, effectively Biblical reasoning. Higher intelligence can be used for understanding the human position in nature, in a holistic manner, as stewards of a necessary continuum (life) rather than self-oriented agents of ruin.

I think you are missing the context of Genesis 1 here a little - mankind was at this point perfect and effectively without their selfish nature. Hence, this instruction from God was not to ruthlessly extract oneself from nature and abuse it, but rather to recognise one's place at the top of the pecking order and respect one's position. I don't think 'dominion' in this context was meant to be something akin to ruthless tyranny.

Actually, I think Biblical reasoning offers quite a good explaination of why we are like we are.