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 Ped
Interested In Your Brain
Registered: 08/30/99
Posts: 5,494
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 7 years, 4 months
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>> I mean sure if i was truly benevolently compassionate and put other animals in front of myself, i would never eat, and i would die.
There are many healthy, successful vegetarians in the world. Plant life is not generally considered sentient life, and is therefore not subject to this kind of priortization.
It is not necessary for a human being to kill other sentient beings to survive. Out of compassion for other's suffering, many human beings have chosen to refrain completely from harming other sentient beings for any purpose.
Let's focus on this point:
>> If we must kill a person to survive, same deal. [Make is as painless as possible]
Before we can engage in the act of killing another living creature, we must first conceive of their survival as being of lesser priority than our own. We justify killing animals for food because there are many reasons why they can be seen as lower life forms whose surival is less important than ours. These reasons are debatable, but for the sake of this discussion let's just assume that this popular view is a correct one. If it is indeed true that animal life is of lesser priority than human life, then it is conceivable that taking steps to reduce the suffering of their slaughter could be considered compassionate. This is true because there has been no selfish prioritization of self over other in this case, and instead there has been care and concern brought toward another living being.
However, according to this widely accepted philosophy it is impossible to justify killing another human being, because if we are to adhere to this criteria all human beings must be considered life of equal value. This is why murder is so hotly despised in our culture, even in survival cases. If all human life is of equal value, equal importance, than any decision to prioritize one life over that of another must be entirely subjective. If we follow these rules, there is no imaginable scenario in which one human being kills another which can be said to contain any trace of compassion, no matter how many steps are taken to ensure a quick and painless slaughter, because the killer has valued his or her own survival over that of another for purely selfish reasons. Compassion does not prioritize one's self over others for any selfish reason.
Since according to your view it is justifyable to kill another human being for the sake of your own survival, it must be true that not only do you conceive of animals as life of lesser importance (not that I object to this), but you also conceive of yourself as the most important human being in your universe (not that I object to this either). There can be no question that your philosophy is totally self-important, totally self-centered, and therefore posesses no substantial element of compassion whatsoever (I'm trying really hard not to judge you, seriously).
Introducing the clause "as long as it's as painless as possible" could be seen as merely a translucent screen meant to sheild this fact from scrutiny. Though, I must apologize for suggesting that in my previous post, as it was entirely inappropriate.
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Edited by Ped (10/06/04 02:15 PM)
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 Moonshoe
Blue Mantis
Registered: 05/28/04
Posts: 27,202
Loc: Iceland
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 Re: Compassion  [Re: Ped]
#3223109 - 10/06/04 02:22 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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well to be honest i dont see animals as lesser beings, nor do i nescessarily see plants as lesser beings than animals. All of these, humans, plants and animals alike are members of the kingdom of life, each one with their own needs, desires and wants. To me the whole problem with compassion as refraining from ending the life of any living thing is that their is no set rule on where to draw the line. Some people say only men are really important, its ok to use women as objects. Others say only the rich, or the white, are truly important the rest can be killed for whatever reason. Still others say only humans are important, animals are simply food and clothing. Still more people say, only the higher animals are important, things like gorillas and chimps and dolphins, but not cattle or slugs.
And so on and so on. And in each case people are making their defintion of acceptable death based on their own personal circumstance, and this goes right down to the level of the vegetable life or bacterial life.
Therefore i do not classify life's importance based on how close it is to being like me, rather i seek to view all life as essentially sacred. However i also do not lie to myself about the fact that life feeds on life, and always has and always will. The predator must eat the prey weather that prey is a lower animal or a vegetable. Often various organisms simply cannot coexist. To save a human life you must kill thousands of bacteria or viral organisms, and so on.
Therefore, my idea of compassion is simply to harm life ONLY when it is nescessary for your own survival. If i am starving i will eat what i can. If i am attacked, i will do what i must to defend myself. If possible i will not kill, and when i MUST kill i will do it as painlessly as possible.
To me this is compassion. I do not deny that for me, i must remain the center of my own universe, when it comes to the preservation of life. I believe preservation of life is a divine right. Perhaps in certain circumstances i could even put the life of another, whom i loved greatly, before my own.
In any case, i do not seek to define compassion as the total lack of harming other biotic life, because this is impossible unless you are willing to sacrafice your own life. I also do not define compassion as harming only certain forms of life that i have arbitrarily defined as 'ok' to injure or kill. Rather i simply seek to do the absolute minimum of harm to my enviroment and the living things in it, from other humans, to cats and dogs, to bugs and slugs, to even vegetation.
I will not feel guilty when i wash my hands with antibacterial soap to prevent disease. I will not feel guilty when i pick a carrot or slaughter a chicken to stave off starvation, and i will not feel guilty when i snap a mans neck to prevent him from murdering me or my family.
Perhaps this is not compassion, but if not i think compassion is then entirely outside of the realm of human achievement.
Also note that this belief is not egotistical or self centerd. I do not believe i am more important than other humans, or other animals. i simply believe i am AS important as other humans and animals, and thus i am entiteld to the same right as all of them, the right to self preservation.
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Everything I post is fiction.
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Ped
Interested In Your Brain
Registered: 08/30/99
Posts: 5,494
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 7 years, 4 months
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I can understand and fully appreciate this view.
The fulcrum of our argument has to do with our disagreement about the value of plant life.
On my side of things, I make effort to discover why it's true that all sentient beings are deserving of the same right to happiness and survival. Plant life is not included in the definition of sentient beings; that is how I'm able to conceive of surviving without bringing any form harm to other life.
Where you're coming from is a space of deep respect for the life cycle, understanding that all organic life is entitled to feed on all other organic life. Having conceived of plants as being life equally valuable as human life, it has permitted you to maintain first priority on your own survival without comprimising your basic respect for life itself.
It is my understanding that plant life is not sentient and therefore not capable of experiencing suffering as I kill or consume it. Do you wish to debate this point as well, or agree to disagree?
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Dark Triangles - New Psychedelic Techno Single - Listen on Soundcloud
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Frog
Warrior
Registered: 10/22/03
Posts: 4,284
Loc: The Zero Point Field
Last seen: 11 years, 2 months
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I have another perspective on compassion.
(Sorry to always talk about law, but it's my life, almost 24/7)
I have clients who are sometimes guilty. (  ) For instance, recently I had a client who was busted for a DUI. He had 3 previous DUIs. He only drove because a friend called him to come help after he broke down on the freeway. His BAL was only .07.
I had compassion for him, because he was looking at 18 months in prison. But how hard do I fight for someone who keeps driving while intoxicated? What about the people who he might crash into?
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The day will come when, after harnessing the ether, the winds, the tides, gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And, on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire. -Teilard
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Moonshoe
Blue Mantis
Registered: 05/28/04
Posts: 27,202
Loc: Iceland
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Re: Compassion [Re: Frog]
#3223467 - 10/06/04 03:59 PM (19 years, 6 months ago) |
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"It is my understanding that plant life is not sentient and therefore not capable of experiencing suffering as I kill or consume it. Do you wish to debate this point as well, or agree to disagree?"
well, if sentient means aware of its own existance, as i have understood it, than i think i would have to say plant life is sentient. I mean, you seem to agree that animal life, lets use the example of a cat, can qualify as sentient. I know that a cat is sentient, from my own experience (i have two) because i can observe that cats actions throughout the day. My cat, just like me, acts in order to achieve its goals and satisfy its desires. It knows when it is hungry, it knows when it is thirsty, it has a favourite chair, it likes to be pet in certain ways and not others. It expresses emotion through a variety of different body language ques and different tones of meow.
In other words, just like me, my cat has likes and dislikes, and it acts in such a way as to satisfy the former and avoid the latter. To me this indicates that on many levels the cat is aware of itself, in relation to (and seperate from) its environment.
To me this indicates sentience, or awareness of self.
I believe that plants can also be said to meet this criteria, the only differance is the degreee to which they are actively able to satisfy their desires and avoid their dislikes. A plant is aware of itself in that it is aware of its own needs and dislikes. It responds positively when its needs are met, and it responds negatively when they are not. A sunflower, for example, actively readjusts its position to get more sunlight, and to me this indicates that the sunflower is aware of itself at least in as far as it is aware that it wants sun, and it will do anything in its power to get sun.
Again, i think the differance in sentience between a human and a plant is simply one of degree. The human organism has a plethora of wants and needs, from the purely physiological, to social needs, to self actualization and even contact with the divine. Like that sunflower that turns towards the sun, we do everything we can to meet those needs, because we percieve them as being our needs. We are sentient because we have an active desire to change our status in relation to our environment, and i see that same quality in every form of life.
I dont know. This is all poorly formed in my head, and comes more from an instinctual feeling than a logical analysis. My feeling is that the idea that plants are not sentient is simply another form of the egocentrism that at one time lead us to believe that animals dont really feel, or that black people arent really people. We see differances and ignore similarities. We use ourselves as the model, whereas our personal form of self awareness, of conciousness, is only a miniscule fraction of the forms that conciounsess can take.
Whoo.
Now, one thing. I have great respect for vegans, and the lifestyle commitment that they make. I think veganism is a morally sound choice, and i myself have tried to make it. I think that although all life is sacred, and even sentient, there is a differance in the ability of a form of life to feel pain , both emotional and physical. A cow, with its nerve endings and even its maternal instincts and emotions, is capable of experiencing great suffering, that a carrot is probably not.
Therefore, if possible i think it is more compassionate to eat only vegetation.
Sadly my previous attempts at this diet change have been foiled by a lack of willpower, poor knowledge of vegan cooking, a powerfull taste for meat and a massive need for protein do to wieghtlifting and exercise.
in time perhaps i will try again
good chat thanks
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Everything I post is fiction.
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