Without God, Do Humans Have More Intrinsic Value Than Animals?

by leavingwt 64 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  Further, if you and I enter the wilderness unarmed, the animals hold a similar view of us. They view us as 'fair game' for food, etc.

  I've thought about that in the past, too, LWT. But it always led me to more questions...

  • Does that apply to just carnivorous animals? What about cattle and fowl (the primary sources of meat in our country)?
  • Can I justify acting like a common animal (slaughtering other species for food) while claiming to have a higher standard of ethics and morals than common animals?

  Of course, I'm pretty sure I have the capacity to kill another human in self defense just as I'd kill an animal in self defense... and wouldn't hesitate to butcher a horse if my family were starving. There I can find a consistent justification in that if a life/lives are threatened, I will set out to preserve my family's and my own. That sounds like a hard-wired evolutionary trait.
• 

  still thinking

  SweetBabyCheezits...have you ever read 'The Eat right Diet' by Dr. Peter D'Adamo?

  Aside from being a very interesting read from a health perspective, it also covers different blood types and dietry needs. For example (A) blood types being more suited to vegetarian diets. He goes into a fair bit of detail involving evolutionary reasons for his ideas. Well worth a read.

  I suppose the question really isn't about if we should eat meat or not (morally), it's about if we should eat meat or not for our health. If we need to eat it, for me, that sets aside the moral argument.
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  I haven't read that, ST, but it sounds interesting. I'll have to check it out, thanks.
• 

  N.drew

  Humans can and do take care of animals but animals do not commonly take care of humans except for when humans eat them.

  But humans do not need meat to live.

  If humans all stopped eating flesh, then humans would have more value even according to the animal population.
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  BTS: Is a cockroach life as valuable in his eyes as a human one?

  Mmm, naturally I'd say no. But I think it's a valid question - why DOESN'T a cockroack deserve to live out it's life as much as I do? I've asked myself that a number of times about different species all the way down to mosquitoes (for which, I'm a serial killer). So far I've come up with a very weak life-span argument to make myself feel better but it's just that - weak. I really don't know.

  I'm no monk but I believe I should be able to give a well thought-out reason as to why one species' life is worth more/less than another and I think it should stand apart from commonly-held bias. "That's the way it is" and "we've always done it that way" need not apply.

  I'm not debating just to debate. I'm really trying to assess my own thinking here. I love a thick, juicy steak. There's no hidden agenda where I want to give up meat or take down the beef industry.

  Woods: I am not trying to piss you off, SBC.

  No pissage here, Woods.

  Woods: I am just saying that the value of a human is greater than the value of an animal. Just that simple.

  Just that simple to you, perhaps. But you also ignored my hypothetical questions about higher life forms killing humans for food or about the value of H. erectus/habilis if they walked the earth today. It's easy to wave off something like this as trivial or silly when you sit at the top of the food chain. But what if that wasn't the case?

  This, to me, is a tricky issue because it presents some moral ambiguity in my mind. We would like to think we are moral and ethical creatures. And in some ways we seem to be. But when it comes down to it I'm beginning to wonder if we're just self-aggrandizing animals. Maybe I'm guilty of moral preening after all.
• 

  still thinking

  N.Drew...humans do not need meat to survive...but some may need it to remain healthy.
• 

  still thinking

  Up until fairly recently...humans did consume humans in some places...and lets face it...insects still do the same...sometimes after mating...

  Cannibalism was widespread in the past among humans in many parts of the world, continuing into the 19th century in some isolated South Pacific cultures, and to the present day in parts of tropical Africa. In a few cases in insular Melanesia, indigenous flesh-markets existed. [ 5 ] Fiji was once known as the 'Cannibal Isles'. [ 6 ] Cannibalism has been well documented around the world, from Fiji to the Amazon Basin to the Congo to Maori New Zealand. [ 7 ] Neanderthals are believed to have practiced cannibalism, [ 8 ] [ 9 ] and they may have been eaten by modern humans. [ 10 ]

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannibalism

  The fact that we no longer accept cannibalism as acceptable behaviour can only be attributed to societies morals. However, these morals change depending on circumstances. Who knows, in the future we may have messed up our food supplies so much that humans may resort to eating one another again.
• 

  simon17

  Yes, humans have more intrinsic value because of intelligence and ability to use that intelligence. Ultimately existnence of life is of more use, and only humans have the capability to allow life to persevere past things like the end of the solar system. Therefore I conclude they have more intrinsic value. Perhaps that isn't "intrinsic" but it is value.

  Also we should probably say humans have more potential intrinsic value, because their abilities could also be used for harm in a way that no other animal or organism could achieve.
• 

  SweetBabyCheezits

  I think I'm spiraling towards nihilism.... for the rest of the day, at least.

  Once upon a time, in some out of the way corner of that universe which is dispersed into numberless twinkling solar systems, there was a star upon which clever beasts invented knowing. That was the most arrogant and mendacious minute of "world history," but nevertheless, it was only a minute. After nature had drawn a few breaths, the star cooled and congealed, and the clever beasts had to die. One might invent such a fable, and yet he still would not have adequately illustrated how miserable, how shadowy and transient, how aimless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature. There were eternities during which it did not exist. And when it is all over with the human intellect, nothing will have happened. - - Nietzsche
• 

  hamsterbait

  How many of us pour DISINFECTANT down the toilet, and wear deodorants to kill the stink making bacteria on our skin? How many of us use moth and fly killer in our closets?

  That shows how much we value other living things in relation to ourselves.