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Irrelevant
Falacious
Any argument based on the law of nature is absurd on its face. We modify nature in every aspect of our lives for any number of reasons. Ultimately any decision on how to treat beings that are different from each other will involve some subjective values, but we can certainly work our way closer to the crux of the issue. For instance, do animals feel pain? Certainly they do. We don't doubt that other human beings feel pain the way we do, and the "lower" levels of our neural networks are very similar to those of animals. One might then go on to consider higher level functions, such as being able to look forward to a future event. These sorts of capabilities might be assigned arbitrary moral value, but we should at least be aware of these capabilities in order to decide whether or not they merit value. Would you say it is ok to kill a mentally retarded person if they were incapable of reciprocating rights? By your logic this would be morally permissible.
- ToddG
August 21, 2008 5:47PM
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Not Falacious, but simply correct.
My comment isn't absurd. It's pointing to the relevant fact that man is a part of nature and the course of human discovery or adaptation is natural. That is unless you are a God, and not encumbered by the trappings of nature.
Note that I do mention that this is largely an issue of species and nature. While a mentally retarded person may not explicitly reciprocate rights, our species bestows the framework of rights onto other humans because the human species reciprocates those rights amongst ourselves. Whether the human is retarded or extremely intelligent is irrelevant. But let's flip your question on its head:
Is it morally and ethically permissible for a dog to kill retarded dog? If reciprocation is irrelevant, then all life on this planet must have a universal moral and ethical code that is above and beyond nature of which there is no evidence.
- sumwatt August 21, 2008 8:22PM
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Ah. Simply correct.
It makes debating much easier when arguments are so conveniently titled. :-)
I'm afraid yours is a circular argument. "our species bestows the framework of rights onto other humans because the human species reciprocates those rights amongst ourselves." What? We give ourselves rights because we give ourselves rights? That doesn't help explain why we do it. Nor does it explain why we don't do it to other species. Your speciesist views remain unfounded. Much like racist and sexist views. Upon scrutiny, arguments do not successfully justify excluding any sentient beings from the scope of morality.
As for your question about the morality of dogs, your argument will only end up whittling down to "well they don't do it, so why should I?" This argument just doesn't hold. There are plenty of heinous acts performed by humans on other humans, but you'd never use that to justify a relative code of ethics. There is something above and beyond the laws of nature: logic and reason.
- mike
August 21, 2008 9:57PM
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Now I see...
...why you called it a fallacy. Your assumption is that I'm arguing the "appeal to nature".
However let me clarify my point: the appeal to nature is only fallacious if you can define what is unnatural. If everything, as a part of my original statement and argument assumes, there is no such thing as "unnatural", my point stands. I do understand the point of the fallacy but the fallacy itself is only as good as the expectation that nature and non-nature (or anti-nature) are both universal. The argument I use here is that our system of diet is derived from a system of reciprocation that is within the framework of nature.
- sumwatt August 21, 2008 8:59PM
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