Do you think that if a being has no meaning to any human being that it does not deserve ethical consideration?
I think that every living being, human or not, deserves ethical consideration on the basis that it is alive. I agree that as humans we are always going to put ourselves, our families, and our own pets above any other living creature. But, what about animals such as ants? Ants are not like our pets. We really don’t have emotional ties to them, even if we do keep an ant farm or something. So, do they matter? Do they have ant families? We really don’t know. We know that they are relatively insignificant in our everyday lives but they do contribute to the natural cycle, so do they deserve ethical consideration?
What about a human who is completely alone in the world. Someone who has no family, no friends, and no pets. Do they still deserve ethical treatment even though they don’t matter significantly to another human? I would say that most people would say they do deserve ethical treatment because they are still human. So why couldn’t we say that about the ant? This ant has no special meaning to me but it is still an ant so it deserves to be treated right. Most people wouldn’t say that which proves what you said that “some beings matter to us more than others even if we know it is ethically wrong.”
Why do some animals matter more to us than others?
No comments:
Post a Comment