Metaethical Concerns

What obliges one to participate in an ethical system?

I've had quite a number of conversations about ethics on campus and there seems to be about three popular reasons why one should act morally. By far the most often heard is because one doesn't want to get into trouble, which is no ethical reason at all. Another I heard once or twice was when discussing why one wouldn't trust a person who didn't believe in God: a person who doesn't believe wouldn't have any reason to act morally  That one is the most scary because it implies that that believer is only acting morally for fear of punishment by God, not because they want to act morally.

Only occasionally do people appeal to a humanist ethical system. I can't help but feel that there is a grain of truth to the theists supposition that it is hard for those not coerced by a god-figure to act morally. Maybe also some of the blame lies in alienating justice from morality, as if it could be a separate entity.

I want to figure out how to diffuse this disconnect in a way that everyone can see and understand. If morality is fundamentally constructed off the starting point of the necessity of satisfying basic human needs then morality is fundamental to the DNA of human sharing and reciprocity. Since we are fundamentally social creatures it is impossible to ignore morality as it is the fundamental understanding informing all our actions.

Having a SOAL is Important

The subject of a life (SOAL) criteria is vital for any humanist or post-absolutist system of natural rights above and beyond the issue of animal rights. Our nation's founding documents list our rights as natural and 'God given,' but what happens when there is no God? There is no such thing as a morality derived from nature, or else you could argue that homosexuality was immoral because it makes no sense from an evolutionary perspective (also false). How then do we talk of 'rights,' insinuating duties to individuals above and beyond arbitrarily ascribed law, when there seems to be no absolute basis to put rights on?

That's where the SOAL criteria comes in. While it is true that the universe is fundamentally meaningless and valueless we still tend to seek meaning and value things. The key is that value is not external or intrinsic to the metaphysical objects of the world around the conscious subject, but rather it is the capacity in the subject's mind to value that creates value! A conscious being with the ability to value likely values itself and objects related to it. Moral value is thus constructed, but it is absolutely constructed (1) in that a subject values itself and certain metaphysical objects around it, so therefore the subject itself has inherent moral value created a priori from being a thing that values.

Talk of rights should then be fundamentally informed by the SOAL criteria, which provide the epistemological mechanism for deciding if a being possesses natural rights. Relying on a document as the basis for rights is dangerous and fundamentally fallacious because that document needs to refer elsewhere to guarantee rights. It would be fantastic if the popular concept of rights considered them as something naturally beyond the reach of government or societal regulation.

(1) That is, not haphazardly constructed in any way the conscious mind wants like some would argue.

My Course Take Away

Animals and Ethics has served to strengthen my resolve on issues relating to animal rights and clarified a key issue I was still on the fence about. Animal testing seems to be in the category of ill-gotten gains, those sort of gains you cannot ever resort to because they are fundamentally morally wrong. Thus, like it is wrong for doctors to experient on a human without their consent for no other reason than humans are enSOALed beings with a right to not be killed and tortured against their will, animals have a similar right because they are similarly enSOALed.

Moving into the future I plan on becoming fully vegan, following my younger brother who at 16 has been vegan for almost two years proving it's not as hard as I used to assume. Aramark is terrible though  and I hope to get off the meal plan next year so I can design my own more healthy and balanced diet for the next year.

I really hope everyone has come to a similar realisation that the case for animal rights is pressing and requires action.

Changing Attitudes on Animal Rights

In response to Sebastian's post here

While this is not a strictly philosophical post, it is fascinating to reflect on the history of various social movements that have achieved (to some degree) success nationally and internationally. Some movements that have succeeded are the international movement's for women's rights, to abolish slavery, and now gay rights may have moved into the category of successful movements. On not one of these issues has there been a perfect victory(1), but at the very least the legitimate powers-that-be recognise the issue and at least make lip service to fighting against these various transgressions against certain groups natural rights.

The victory for animal rights, if it comes, will be far more complete and satisfying than any of these other victories, except perhaps that victory over legal slavery, because of the shear scope and horror of animal suffering under our current system of systematic murder and torture. Naturally this movement is different because it is inherently a liberal movement not a radical one, despite political radicals often being the first to support animal rights. It's a fundamentally liberal movement because animals cannot rise up and advocate for themselves, thus the movement falls into the liberal model of the socially and economically included advocating for the expansion of legal rights to those groups that were previously excluded.

Hopefully the day will come where 'speciesist' is as much an insult as 'homophobe' or 'racist,' but animal rights being accepted by society is by no means inevitable  Our species seems to have an uncanny ability to rationalise, and despite the economic conditions being right, we have been owning and eating animals for millennia. It's going to be a hard habit to break, but we must try, if only in our own lives.

(1) Even slavery still needs work http://www.state.gov/j/tip/what/