Great, kismet. Then I'm sure you can agree that there is no point in you arguing for life extension, nor is there a point for your continued existence.
If your existence does have value, then you are admitting that value does exist and, by extension, the possibility that other beings have value.
I concur that my existence has no value and no meaning. However, the breaking-point of your "counter-argument" is that neither is there a point in my non-existence.
Anyone who has empathy, meaning anyone who isn't a sociopath, would agree that we should take care not to cause unnecessary suffering. Once that premise is accepted, and one takes into consideration the near certainty that animals suffer, especially higher mammals, then the logical deduction is that, unless absolutely necessary, we must forgo meat which has been harvested in a way which causes suffering. Since virtually all meat production causes suffering, there is no excuse for creating demand signals which contribute to the problem.
Sure there is an excuse: There are animals which are slaughtered for meat after having had a better life than wild type animals and without suffering. Furthermore having some form of empathy towards humans does not dictate any empathy towards a different species which cannot even communicate, understand or respect the "rights" we want to give them.
I want to remind that directly or indirectly insulting me won't really convince anyone of your point. Please stop.
Several contradictory statements in your post:
Morals don't exist; morals are an invention of human; morals evolved via natural selection; morals are dictated by society. Which is it?
Come on, that's a very cheap shot. Obviously, I meant that morals, if defined as absolute or self-evident, e.g. as Progressive apparently does, do not exist. If morals are dictated by society, it makes them an invention of the human mind.
Additionally, they developed via natural selection (as different "moral codes" exist among animals). No contradictions.
If there is no right and no wrong, why do you use these words in the first place?
oops I misunderstood your question: "right" and "wrong" -- happy now?
The idea that there are no morals is what is patently absurd.
That's the reason why people should always define what they mean with the words they use... I suppose we agree that absolute morals do not exist. I can merely agree that morals exist in a "descriptive sense" as
Wikipedia defines them, making them just a set of pragmatical rules to achieve certain goals, but the word moral is way to laden, which is why I try to avoid it. E.g. implying they're something that we all can or should be able to agree on...
You did not claim morals are universal per se, however, you entertained the thought that "99% of humans who have ever lived [might] have been immoral" if Progressive's premise were correct. I countered that morals are not only relative but also
transient. In any case we can't judge the people of yesterday by the moral codes of today.
Furthermore, assuming people were immoral*, does it matter? You seemed to ascribe way too much importance to "morals" in this sentence, even though you apparently concur that they're just "a tool", which I simply wanted to put into perspective.
*and yes, people in the past were pretty
damn immoral going by today's standards, not only when it comes to how they obtained their food. As Dawkins eloquently put it, Hitler's genocide wouldn't have really stood out in the times of the Roman Empire.
Edited by kismet, 09 June 2009 - 06:09 PM.