🚀 go-pugleaf

Conan the Libertarian writes (by email):

>How do ethical considerations apply to non-human species?  Does the
>furbrish lousewort have rights? Are snail-darters endowed by their Creator
>with certain unalianable rights?
>
>Ethics and morality were invented by humans for humans to protect humans
>from other humans. Behold the lillies of the field, they neither toil nor
>spin, neither do they have constitutional rights.
>
>Conan the Libertarian
>
>-- 
>"If you can't love the Constitution, then at least hate the Government"


I replied:

> 
> How do ethical considerations apply to non-human species?  Does the
> furbrish lousewort have rights? Are snail-darters endowed by their Creator
> with certain unalianable rights?

Ethical considerations apply wherever we find it useful to apply them.
Evolutionarily, an ethic is a constraint on freedom of action in the
struggle for existence. It can arise in constrained systems whose success
is greater than that of their unconstrained separate components. In biological
evolution, that leads to mutualisms. In cultural evolution, to political
systems -- to *civilization*.

A constraint on civilization to conform to the limits of the biosphere 
for the success of the system of civilization + biosphere would be an ethic. 

> 
>> Ethics and morality were invented by humans for humans to protect humans
> from other humans. Behold the lillies of the field, they neither toil nor
> spin, neither do they have constitutional rights.
> 

Ethics is an evolutionary development in certain kinds of systems. It remains
to be seen whether humans can continue their evolution in this direction
rapidly enough for their own future persistance as biospheric symbionts.
Many symbionts begin as pathogens -- but pathogens ususally do not survive 
their hosts. They are selected for lowered virulence.

At present, we are a disease in the biosphere. We will not survive our
host -- and we cannot be *genetically* selected to become less virulent.
Only *cultural* selection can accomplish that for us. Any cultural system
which constrains us, and makes us successful symbionts, is an ethic -- an
ethic derived from the supreme value of the biosphere, and all the life 
which makes it up. 
>
> Conan the Libertarian
>
Very apt juxtaposition.

> 
> -- 
> "If you can't love the Constitution, then at least hate the Government"
> 
> 

------------
Alan McGowen


Conan writes:

>Then if I read you right, we are more likely to survive as a species if we
>treat our home (i.e. Earth) with more care. I agree totally, but this is a
>pragmatic consideration (which I completely approve of) as opposed to an
>ethical or moral consideration (which is dreck). Ethics / morality are
>rules imposed by stronger human beings on weaker human beings to maintain
>the status quo.
>
>I completely support sensible ecological constraints which benefit my
>species. However I do not believe for one microsecond that other species
>have *rights*. They may have attributes, the preservation of which is good
>for us guys, but inherent rights, nonsense.
>
>I also agree that the market system in and of itself is insufficient for
>preventing one human from imposing a hazard or a harm upon another. That
>is why we have cops to deal with fraud and violence.  
>
>Now if someone wanted to kill *all* the birds, I would be the first to
>stop him, not because I love birds (filthy turd droppers that they are)
>but because I dislike being covered with bugs up to my nostrils even more.
>Thus the value I place on birds (say) is derived totally from the value I
>place on myself in particular, and human beings in general.
>
>CtL
>
>"If you can't love the Constitution, then at least hate the Government"


And again, Conan writes:
>
>Oops! One more question. Do you love your home for its own sake, or
>because it keeps you warm in the winter, and it keeps the rain off your head?
>
>For home, substitue planet. Gaia is nonsense, Earth is my home. Since I
>have no other I value the one I do have.
>
>CtL
>
>"If you can't love the Constitution, then at least hate the Government"
>
>


I replied:

> Now if someone wanted to kill *all* the birds, I would be the first to
> stop him, not because I love birds (filthy turd droppers that they are)
> but because I dislike being covered with bugs up to my nostrils even more.
> Thus the value I place on birds (say) is derived totally from the value I
> place on myself in particular, and human beings in general.

There seems to be an implication here that we can pick and choose what
we like from the biosphere -- "let's keep just the bits that matter *to
us*, and scrap the rest!" It doesn't work that way. Whatever nonsense you
may have heard spouted about "Gaia" does not belie the fact that ecosystems
-- and the biosphere -- are *living systems*. You can't expect to degrade 
them selectively any more than you can expect to degrade your own body's
functioning selectively. 

"We can kill off species of birds -- destroy the habitats of birds -- short of 
killing *all* birds" is a bit like saying: "I'll smoke as many cigarettes as 
I want, except for the last one that would kill me. That one I won't smoke."

The biosphere is not being degraded by some huge vicious plot. It's just 
being nickel-and-dimed to death everywhere by innumerable human actions.
Whether you want to call a civilized resolve to stop that destruction an 
"ethic" or not is a quibble. The important thing is that the resolve be 
there. Psychologically, I think that very few people would be able to
form such a resolve and stick to it without attaching ethical value and 
affection to nature. And why not? Humans are products of nature -- if 
humans can be the objects of ethical regard and affection, why not the
natural processes which produced us? Why not our kin, as well? We seem
poised to take that ethical step now. 


------------
Alan McGowen