Atheistic morality: Is harm to animals on a continuum with harm to humans?

[Tassman]

We've been warned of dire consequences before, and they failed to materialize. But keep crying wolf, little boy, keep crying wolf.

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

OTOH it could be a sign of the end times, this would be a good thing right?

[Cow Poke]

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

OTOH it could be a sign of the end times, this would be a good thing right?

18 spectacularly wrong predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, expect more this year

[carpedm9587]

Elsewhere on this forum I wrote:

[Harming another being is] wrong in proportion to its level of 'mind' - i.e. its sentience / cognition / conscious / comprehension / memory / self-awareness faculties. So rocks aren't on the scale because they don't have minds in any way shape or form, while plants / bacteria are at the absolute minimum of life on up through insects, fetuses, fish, mammals, and finally humans with fully functioning minds which have the maximum mind we have yet to encounter

And in doing so I felt somewhat surprised this was something I really needed to explain. But on this forum I've noticed most Christians here treat humans as qualitatively different to animals when it comes to morality. They believe that because humans are made in the image of God / have immortal souls / will be resurrected in the afterlife / have been given different commands by God about action toward other humans as compared to action toward animals, that therefore human-human moral interactions aren't on a continuum with human-animal moral interactions but are rather completely different to them. As such, they believe things like killing a developing human fetus is utterly and completely different to killing a developing animal fetus even if the two have the same levels of brain function (or lack thereof).

So, I'm wondering whether I'm right in simply assuming that all atheists here would share the same basic moral premises as myself that:
1. Humans exist on a continuum with animals, having evolved from them,

Yes - humans live on a continuum with the rest of the animal kingdom. There is not characteristic humans possess that is not present, to some degree, in other members of the animal kingdom.

2. That what makes beings morally relevant is the extent to which they posses minds (let's avoid details here of whether by that we mean 'consciousness' or 'self-awareness' or 'possessing intention' or something else)

I do not know how you can tackle this one without a discussion of what "mind" is. In order to moralize, a certain degree of cognition, self-awareness, and consciousness is required. A being without a sense of "I" and an ability to reason consequences and intent cannot be a moral agent.

3. That minds exist on a scale of not there at all through to human-level

Agreed

...and thus share the belief that the moral differences between humans and animals are quantitative not qualitative.

I am wondering, in particular, if Carpedm will come down on the side of affirming all those premises, or will argue that because in practice morality is a social construct created through a social contract that therefore animals cannot participate in it because they can't negotiate their part in any contract.

Vote in the poll!

I'm not sure why my view is of any particular relevance. In general, I would argue that we cannot expect animals to moralize unless they have the requisite capabilities (e.g., consciousness, reasoning). However, I do believe that we have a moral obligation to be "humane" (if I may use that words) to animals. We should eschew needless harm to other beings capable of feeling pain. But I am not Buddhist in my leanings. I do not suffer a moral quandary if I destroy a bee's nest that is under my eaves and threatens harm to my children or visitors. I am not a vegetarian and see no reason to be one. But I will only buy meat that has been humanely raised, and slaughtered with minimal pain. In that, the rabbis can teach us a lot.

Not sure if that answers your question - but there it is.

[carpedm9587]

Tassman, can you PLEASE stop with these goofy false accusations of dishonesty?

Ummm....

[Cow Poke]

Ummm....

You got something to say?

[carpedm9587]

Isn't the general consensus of climate scientists that we're screwed no matter what we do anyway?

There are some who feel we may have passed the "point-of-no-return."

I'm not sure that view is warranted. Frankly, I don't think there IS a point-of-no-return. I think the longer we take to shift away from fossil fuels to renewables, the greater the consequences we will have to face downstream. Unfortunately, humans don't have a good track record of long-term planning. For example, if the right long-term choice is X, but it has short-term consequences Y, humans will tend to avoid the short term consequences because the long term ones will be someone else's problems.

I suspect, someday, our children's children will be facing the consequences of our current choices, and wondering "what on earth were they thinking?" What we were thinking is simple: today's issues are more important than the consequences 100 years down the road.

[Cow Poke]

There are some who feel we may have passed the "point-of-no-return."

I'm not sure that view is warranted. Frankly, I don't think there IS a point-of-no-return. I think the longer we take to shift away from fossil fuels to renewables, the greater the consequences we will have to face downstream. Unfortunately, humans don't have a good track record of long-term planning. For example, if the right long-term choice is X, but it has short-term consequences Y, humans will tend to avoid the short term consequences because the long term ones will be someone else's problems.

I suspect, someday, our children's children will be facing the consequences of our current choices, and wondering "what on earth were they thinking?" What we were thinking is simple: today's issues are more important than the consequences 100 years down the road.

Pretty much, yeah, but if somebody could actually say "if we do X, we can reasonably expect Y to happen, and here's the data...."

All I ever get is "more money, bigger government, no idea how much money or how big government needs to be to get whatever ROI...."

[carpedm9587]

I think the solution is already doing itself. As we naturally switch over to electric cars, improve battery and solar power technology, most of the causes of pollution will diminish which should stop any further global warming due to fossil fuels right? And such technological advances will happen whether global warming is true or not.

Possibly not. There are some effects that have a cascade function. So, for example, the absence of sea ice in the Arctic in the summer presents a darker surface to the sun, which then absorbs more heat, which shortens the time the arctic is covered with ice, etc. If this gets into a feedback loop, we could well see a time when there is no ice covering the north pole year around. The same thing happens as ice shrinks on Greenland. We see this effect on our roof in Vermont. As long as the snow covers the entire roof, there is little melting. As soon as the snow melts enough to expose the edge of the roof, the darker shingles absorb more heat, which melts more snow, and the process accelerates as it goes. Greenland is already into this cycle, and there are concerns that Antarctica could as well.

And those are just a couple examples. I do not think that we are in danger of the kind of runaway greenhouse effect at work on Venus, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility, depending on how long it takes humanity to stop pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

[carpedm9587]

But... Cow Farts!!!

Amazingly enough - yes - cow farts are a fairly major source of greenhouse gases. And as our hunger for meat increases, we make the problem worse.

One would think, however, that our decimation of the buffalo herds would have countered that, at least to some degree. I wonder how modern cow herds compare with the buffalo herds pre 20th century?

[carpedm9587]

You got something to say?

I think I just did

[carpedm9587]

Pretty much, yeah, but if somebody could actually say "if we do X, we can reasonably expect Y to happen, and here's the data...."

All I ever get is "more money, bigger government, no idea how much money or how big government needs to be to get whatever ROI...."

I am dubious. We actually have a fair amount of what you describe above, but the fossil fuels industry is busily throwing as much sand in the air as possible, and (as usual) some percentage of the population is buying it. I don't know when we will learn. The lead industry did this about lead - touting (believe it or not) it's health benefits for years. The cigarette industry did the same thing. Now the sugar and fossil fuels industries are doing the same thing. And because they are backed by the enormous profits these industries realize, they can flood the marketplace with their claims and perpetuate their business models well past the time they should have ended.

It's sad, actually.

[Cow Poke]

I think I just did

Ya know, for somebody who moaned and groaned about emojis, you sure do use them a lot.

[Cow Poke]

I am dubious. We actually have a fair amount of what you describe above, but the fossil fuels industry is busily throwing as much sand in the air as possible, and (as usual) some percentage of the population is buying it. I don't know when we will learn. The lead industry did this about lead - touting (believe it or not) it's health benefits for years. The cigarette industry did the same thing. Now the sugar and fossil fuels industries are doing the same thing. And because they are backed by the enormous profits these industries realize, they can flood the marketplace with their claims and perpetuate their business models well past the time they should have ended.

It's sad, actually.

OK, so clue me in.

How much money is enough?
What do we spend it on?
How much government expansion is needed?
What, exactly, will all that accomplish?

[Cow Poke]

Amazingly enough - yes - cow farts are a fairly major source of greenhouse gases. And as our hunger for meat increases, we make the problem worse.

One would think, however, that our decimation of the buffalo herds would have countered that, at least to some degree. I wonder how modern cow herds compare with the buffalo herds pre 20th century?

And then there were the dinosaurs!

[Tassman]

18 spectacularly wrong predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970, expect more this year

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories...heclimate.html

So if, as seems to be the case, they're right we and more to the point our children are at great risk on a planet that can no longer sustain us.