right and wrong -- mortal mind/self-other(s)

[Guest guest]

At 03:21 PM 7/31/00 -0400, JSharps wrote:

>If eating meat is a sin ... how does eating potato chips,

>pop corn, cake candy, cookies, pies, meat substute

>and other " vegetarian foods " stack up???

>Are these sin, or are they OK?????

 

J. Sharps

 

I can see that your concern is largely about

your responsibility to your own body,

and that's an emphasis that I wish many

animal rights advocates would incorporate

into their own overarching philosophy

about life, reality, understanding, et al.

 

However, there seems to be something wrong

when one's philosophy is ONLY self-centered,

even if one's philosophy is the philosophy of

" prudentialism " .

 

Shades of Ayn Rand and " objectivism " ,

even if that " objectivism " is showing up

in the language of religion or spirituality.

 

I think that the insights of modern psychology

can be helpful here, in helping us sort out some

of the self-other distinctions, but that long process

of personal maturation is much greater than I could

delineate here in a few sentences in an e-mail to you.

 

But, if the several varied spiritual perspectives --

from the Biblical tradition to the reflective traditions

of the East in Asia -- look at moral discernment in

identifiably distinct, but somewhat similar

(in limited ways), we can begin to ask ourselves

whether any of them in any ways, or perhaps all

of them in somewhat limited ways, address our

condition and help to illuminate our decisionmaking

in ways that make life and the world better for us

and perhaps for the world about us.

 

If the world about us were NOT made better by

certain types of understanding and decisionmaking,

one would expect that the survival of various

psychologies and worldviewing traditions

would be about as popular as " fad psychologies " ,

but instead they have the imprimaturs of " moral truth "

from the various societies that support them.

 

I " go off on a tangent " because the whole

" background question " of how to go about

discussing 'personal ethics' is so complex

that we need to do that.

 

But, in short, my response to you would probably

be more on the order of:

 

" I think we need to include our impact on others --

all others, including future generations AND

other species -- in our decisionmaking

to be fully ethical, just as I think that excluding

our behavior's impact on us, the decisionmakers,.

would also be a very limited and distorted view

of what ethics truly is. "

 

But obviously, " prudence " IMO " ought " to be

a well-integrated part of every individual's

decisionmaking.

 

Religious systems of ethics will address

metaphysical questions, and make reference

to God and God's just and perfect will,

and with God as not only the Creator

and Sustainer of the world, but also the

only one to whom both the world

(the space-time continuum) and all

the " world's " inhabitants " belong " (Psalm 24:1),

the individual, even the human individual,

has no absolute claim on the lives and bodies

of any other for any purpose.

 

This insight is embodied in the secular

" rights traditions " as individual rights,

or personal rights, or even " civil rights " .

 

This kind of " rights " ought not to be seen

as absolute entitlements, nor even as

some sort of secular sanctions for any and all

behaviors. Rather, this kind of " rights " ought

to be seen as -- how could and should we

think or conceive this, and express it --

a moral semi-independence from others

in terms of one's distinct moral value

and worth deriving from something beyond

one's social utility to others.

 

If we emphasize THAT aspect of independence

from social utility, it would be society's understanding

that the individual's " inherent worth " is not totally

obliterated by one's failure to realize personal

maturity and a contribution to the social and

historical process.

 

The cat who is on death's door and costs

a personal fortune is still " inherently valuable " ,

although it might not be in one's own range

of abilities and resources to " do for " that cat,

nor even one's own " uniquely personal "

responsibilities.

 

In this world, what we CAN do is to

" declare a truce " towards other persons

and to so order our lives so that we, at least,

individually are not engaged in the world in

ways which violate the " rights " or personal

existence of others in overt and brutal ways.

 

We can seek to resolve issues and conflicts

within a respectful frame of reference.

We can be vegetarian, for that requires

a truce with nonhumans, and actually works

out better for us individually, and for our

ecosystem (since there are now so many

of us, and the systems of animal agriculture

are so ecologically destructive when implemented

on large scales).

 

Yet to emphasize ONLY the health benefits,

and to truncate one's sense of what

" vegetarian ethics " is, or even what ethics is,

to ONLY consider " what we get from it "

(on the prudence or personal responsibility side)

seems to be strangely " egoistic " .

 

Indeed, there are numerous philosophical writers

in ethics who emphasize the egoistic dimensions,

and those who wish to study ethics formally

will wish to explore the " egoistic " tradition carefully.

But my clear perception is that while " ethics "

is surely about " the quest for the good life " ,

" the good life " which is merely about

acquisition and consumption is not a good life,

nor is the good life which only calculates one's

one short-term, medium-range, or longterm good

in terms of what can be envisioned. a truly " good life " .

 

Yet, I agree with egoistic critics, and even those

who like Friedrich Nietzsche, who pointed out that

constantly rushing to the aid of others who cannot

care for themselves does not make OUR lives good

enough to inspire others to

 

In other words, a life totally given to " caregiving "

may NOT be sustainable.

 

But I'm not asking folks to be " caregivers " ,

but rather to be " at peace " with others as much

as is possible.

 

While the New Testament when discussing this

ethic of " being at peace with others " does oblige

us, at least in the verse where this is most

explicitly declared, speak only of " being at peace "

with other human beings, the clear intent overall

seems to be that the ecosystem is NOT ours

to merely exploit and abuse, to rapaciously

corrupt and rearrange in shortsighted ways,

or only for private profit and selfish greed.

 

One might hope, but not be too confident,

that the US Republican Party's friendship

with Biblical Christians would be a moderating

force which would challenge the temptation

towards rapacious and shortsighted self-interest

which shortchanges and even harms some,

if not many, and certainly overtly harms

billions of nonhumans annually, both directly

and indirectly.

 

Indeed, continuing to win elections does require

a sustainable majority vote. But is that ethics?

No. It's only the negotiated interests of the

participants, all of whom are human beings,

and only a limited number of those human beings

at that, the ones who are both interested and

willing to engage the political system at that level.

 

And, the place of nonhumans who do NOT vote?

 

Well, electoral systems CANNOT be expected

to become substitutes for real ethical reflection,

although one could expect that private preferences

among human beings will become expressed

within those systems which ONLY serve the

interests of the human beings who are entitled

to express themselves through them, as well

as the persons (of any kind) who are their

" objects of concern " .

 

But is Rev. Dr. Andrew Linzey of the Church of England

correct when he says that, even when humans or

nonhumans do NOT respect the " rights " of animals

(for lack of a better word), those " rights " are

somehow, largely unknown to us, " conserved " in God,

who is both the Creator and the Absolute Lord of Creation.

 

Maynard S. Clark