Philosophy Thread~ Human Vs. Animal

[vern_humphrey]

Are they?

I’ve been in combat with buddist troops.

I like these proposals. You are looking at the issue from a faith point of view. How do you think we should convince those without a faith to agree?

With science and human rights.

Human life is sacred.

The right to life is the most fundamental of all human rights. Without a right to life, all other rights are valueless. What good does freedom of speech do a dead man? How can a corpse exercise the right to trial by jury?

The right to life accrues to each of us as a part of our basic humanity. It is as much a part of us as our minds, our personalities, or our arms and legs. It is given to us by no one. It is ours merely because we are living human beings.

There are those who say that “society” or the government decides when we get the right to life. If that is so, then it is no right at all, but merely a privilege, for if the government can grant the right to life, it can surely withhold it. Once you accept that the government has this power, you must accept, willy-nilly that the government can decree some people – perhaps Jews, or Blacks or Catholics – never get the right to life.

If, therefore there is such a thing as a right to life, it must accrue to every living human being. This sets up a simple, three-part test.

 Is the unborn child living? If it were not, we would not be having this debate!

 Is it human? Check the DNA. If it has rabbit or squirrel DNA, then it is not human. But if it has human DNA, it is human.

 But is it a being? Check the DNA again. If it has the mother’s DNA, then it is a part of her body. But if it has its own DNA, then it is a being – a separate and distinct human life.

Very clearly, the unborn has the same right to live as any other living human being. Who denies that, denies the whole concept of human rights.

 

[FightingFat]

Does the repost to this line of argument center around the importance of the mother’s rights over those of the child?

 

[Greg27]

I suppose we come to an interesting question which touches a number of points. What does it mean to be human? What is human nature? What is a person? What is a non-person?

Peter Singer and other Philosophers have argued that non-human beings (in which he classes animals) have intrinsic rights. Singer argues from a Utilitarian perspective, that is, on the basis that unnecessary suffering is evil, including suffering inflicted on animals by humans when they are used in biomedical research, for food production, agriculture, and other industries.

Singer used a lot of good evidence, and while his sampling might be criticised, some experiments and agricultural practices did seem to cause excessive suffering to animals.

Connecting this with abortion, the objection to abortion argument usually runs as follows:

1. A foetus or embryo is a person
2. Abortion involves destroying an embryo or foetus
3. Destroying a person unjustly is homicide
4. Therefore, abortion is murder
5. Therefore, abortion is morally wrong, and gravely so

The Catholic objection to abortion as well as the Orthodox objection involves the notion each moment of conception, i.e. the fertilisation of an egg by sperm, involves the immediate creation of a unique and precious human being who is willed into existence by God. In Evangelium Vitae, from memory, John Paul II argued from a Thomistic perspective and also using the Fathers that each human being who comes into existence is basically willed into existence by God himself, in an act of outpouring of God’s love and goodness to create a new being or creature. John Paul’s position is very ‘Thomist’ and sacramental, in the sense each human being represents a fusion of both spiritual and corporeal realities in a harmonious and beautiful way, even though each human is also mysteriously affected by the reality of sin. Abortion is a grave evil precisely because it destroys this beautiful new creation of God, as in fact all of creation is beautiful and good and willed by God himself in his overflowing abundance and beauty and goodness (John Paul quotes Denys the Aeropagite quite beautifully to argue this point).

Contra to this position, Peter Singer and others regard human beings as animals. Now, Christian anthropology also regards humans as rational animals with self-concious awareness which makes human beings ‘greater’ than animals in the sense animals follow their instincts and are not sentient. This awareness is due to physical organs like the brain, but is also part of the mysterious ‘soul’ which is created by God and allows man to commune with God. Animals might be sentient (particularly the higher apes and dolphins) but were not made in God’s image. Secular thinkers on the other hand, regard all humans as animals who arose through evolution by natural selection (atheistic evolution) and all human traits, including conciousness, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural causes and effects. This means as Mortimer Adler pointed out in one essay, humans do not differ from animals in kind but only in degree, i.e. humans are a special kind of animal, but only an animal nevertheless. Christian anthropology though, says humans differ from animals in kind as well as in degree.

In terms of abortion and killing animals then, I am not familiar with the arguments of secular thinkers or animal rights advocates. Perhaps the connection is that in both cases there is the taking of life which is questionable from a moral perspective, but clearly from a Christian perspective, it is morally more evil to take the life of a human unjustly for any reason, than it is to take the life of an animal.

 

[Greg27]

My question is whether our morality is established through a consistent reasoned process, or an arbitrary and emotive method that simply favours our personal preferences.

There are various theories in ethics, ranging across various philosophical schools. Given the predominance of Analytical Philosophy, most ethical schools try to set up their ethics using reason alone, including those who argue for moral relativism and emotivism in ethical thinking.

Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox ethicists also use Philosophy and also the information they believe is garnered from infallibile divine revelation, which for Protestants is scripture and for Catholics and Orthodox scripture and tradition.

Many people who do base an ethical judgement on religious beliefs do appeal either to their beliefs alone (which is a fallacy logically speaking, in the sense of circular reasoning) or beliefs combined with philosophical argument. Whether the arguments are theological or philosophical though, it is important they are placed in a rational form and not as fanatical threats. Thankfully, most Christian ethicists including those in the CC do their best to put their case forward rationally to those outside of the church who may not believe what they do.

It is a trickier question though when members of a religion then try to legislate their beliefs into law. Many Catholics are active in movements which aim to pressure legislators to overturn court decisions which legalised abortion and also to introduce laws which would make abortion illegal in all circumstances, and the Church has also threatened to excommunicate Catholic politicians who support abortion legislation. Since the civil law is binding on all citizens in democratic countries, regardless of religious affiliation or belief, this then introduces a tough problem in Catholic moral or religious beliefs being legislated into law and then made binding, including on non-Catholics. A number of good arguments have been made that this endangers the separation of state and church, though it should be noted conservative Protestants and Orthodox also have much the same positions on moral issues.

In my own view, Catholic morality is binding on the Catholic faithful by canon law. This and the magesterium properly answers questions from a Catholic perspective, including on abortion. But I don’t believe the CC or any other religion has the right to force its beliefs or doctrines on those who don’t belong to their faith. The Church can condemn behaviours it sees as morally grave evils, and remind its faithful on what their conduct requires, but personal and religious freedom are in my view fundamental personal rights which are not to be overidden, particularly in matters of religion.

In terms of ethical virtue, it is very important we consider virtue and the Good very carefully and not neglect the Good for airy-headed relativism and simple indulgence in dissolute pleasure. But at the same time we need to keep our guard up against any attempt to make democracy theocracy, however well-intentioned the beliefs of religious people may be in wanting to reform society and its evils.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Does the repost to this line of argument center around the importance of the mother’s rights over those of the child?

No one has a right to kill an innocent person.

I cannot kill my neighbor for my convenience – no matter how obnoxious he may be.

In fact the phrase “the mother’s rights over those of the child” is an oxymoron. If the right to life does not exist, there are no rights of any kind.

How can there be a “right” to commit the act that vitiates** all** rights?

 

[East_and_West]

Look, we may share common ancestors with animals. We may have evolved from animals, but my friends, we are not animals. We are far beyond that. Consider what G.K. Chesterton states concerning this issue:

“It is not natural to see man as a natural product. It is not common sense to call man a common object of the country or the seashore. It is not seeing straight to see him as an animal. It is not sane. It sins against the ligtht, against the broad daylight of proportion which is the principle of all reality. It is reached by stretching a point, by making out a case, by artificiality selecting a certain light and shade, by bringing into prominence the lessor of lower things which may happen to be similar. The solid standing in the sunlight, the thing we can walk round and see from all sides, is quite different. It is also an extraordinary thing; and the more sides we see of it the more extraordinary it seems. It is emphatically not a thing that follows or flows naturally from anything else. It we imagine that an inhuman or impersonal intelligence could have felt from the first the general nature of the non-human world sufficiently to see that things would evolve in whatever way the did evolve, there would have been nothing whatever in all the world to prepare such a mind for such an unnatural novelty. To such a mind, man would most certainly have seemed something like one herd out of a hundred herds finding richer pasture; or one swallow out of a hundred swallows making summer under a strange sky. It would not be in the same scale and scarcelly in the same dimension. We might as truly say that it would not be in the same universe. It would be more like seeing one cow out of a hundred cows suddenly jump over the moon or one pig out of a hundred pigs grow wings in a flash and fly.”

Chesterton, in his most poetic language, does not deny that man has some similarities to animals. This makes sense, in light of the fact that man is akin to them and that we evolved from them. However, everything on this earth has similarities in one one way or another to anything else. We can sit around all day trying to find similarities between dirt and water, yet we do not conclude that they are the same thing. We can comment on the fact that black and white are both colors that we an see. But they are not the same. In fact, they are exact opposites. We can discuss the fact that man and animals both have similar organs and bone structures, etc. But upon true and honest analysis, man and animal are so utterly different that man is a sort of absurdity upon this earth. As absurd as a pig growing wings and flying. Chesterton notes some of those differences: “The simplest truth about man is that he is a very strange being ; almost in the sense of being a stranger on earth. In all sobriety, he has much more of the external appearances of one bringing alien habits from another land than of a mere growth of this one. He has an unfair advantage and an unfair disadvantage. He cannot seep in his own skin; he cannot trust his own instincts. He is at once a creator moving miraculous hands and fingers and a kind of cripple. He is wrapped in artificial bandages called clothes; his is propped on artificial crutches called frunitrue. His mind has the same doubtful liberties and the same wild limitations. Alone among the animals, he is shaken with the beautiful madness called laughter; as if he had caught sight of some secret in the very shape of the universe hidden fro the universe itself. Alone among the animals he feels the need of averting his thoughts form the root realities of his own bodily being; of hiding them as in the presence of some higher possibility which creates the mystery of shame. Whether we praise these things as natural to man or abuse them as artificial in nature, they remain in the same sense unique. This is realised by the whole popular instinct called religion, until disturbed by pendants, especially laborious pendants of the Simple Life.”

… continued below

 

[East_and_West]

Continued from above

You see man is so different from animals that if man is even looked upon as an animal, one must conclude that this animal has gone mad. For this animal alone feels shame; this animal alone creates for the sake of creation; this animal alone requires the ritual of religion; can feel shame. Man alone can create art and we do not find gradation of such art among animals. As Chesterton states, " For in the plain matter like the pictures there is in fact not a trace of any such development or degree. Monkeys did not begin pictures an d men finish them; Pithecanthropus did not draw a reindeer badly and Homo Sapiens draw it well. Th higher animals did not draw better and better portraits; the dog did not paint better in his best period than in his early bad manner as a jackal; the wild horse was not an Impressionist and the race-horse a Post-Impressionist." The point being this: man is wholly other when compared to animals. Man alone posses the unnatural ability to create and man alone has the unnatural ability to reason. It is the duel gift of creation and rationality that places us into another category altogether. And thus, man is not animal. Man is above the animal. So drop the “we are animals too” argument because it does not hold water.

Now for the “animals are people too argument”. This is absolutely and utterly ridiculous. When animals produce the Mona Lisa, or Bach’s B minor mass, I will buy it. When animals produce the philosophy of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas I will believe it. When they build beautiful temples to their animal gods, and develop the most tantalizing and adventurous myths, akin to Roman, Greek, and Norse Mythology, I will say that animals are people. When animals use rings as symbols of an undying love, I will change my mind. But until animals reach such a sublime status, then stop calling that which is not a person a person. To call animals people is succumb to the childish fantasies of Walt Disney cartoons. I am sorry my friends, but we do not live in the world of Bambi or Snow White.

 

[rpp]

Why doesn’t a blade of grass or an ear of corn have the same rights as cattle? I mean they are alive too.

 

[rwoehmke]

Why is the teaching of the “Kundun” any more valid than the Bible. Why is human reason and philosophical arguements any more authorative. If one lives a while with both animals and with humans, it ordinarily becomes quite obvious that there is a huge gap between the two realms. Sure babies do not show much more intelligence than an animal, but I have yet to see any animal no matter how mature that surpasses a healthy adult in what it seems to “know” and can do.

If it tickles your minds to philosophically discuss this stuff, have at it. There is no law against it, but when the rubber finally hits the road, use your common sense.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Why doesn’t a blade of grass or an ear of corn have the same rights as cattle? I mean they are alive too.

Ah, reductio ad absurdum – the rock on which all nonsense argments founder.

We might also ask, what about microbes? If you have a fever, your body is killing the microbes that are infecting you. Isn’t it more moral to go ahead and die, rather than kill millions and millions of microbes?

 

[toaslan]

In point of fact, baby girls are routinely aborted in India.

In point of fact, baby girls are routinely aborted throughout the Christian world.

In point of fact, these facts do not bear upon the argument in principle.

Equating children with rats does not elevate their status.

There is no attempt to equate one with the other. When doing philosophy, we make distinctions, we note similarities and contrasts; we see what belongs and what doesn’t. I’m sorry I was not able to convey my point to you.

 

[vern_humphrey]

In point of fact, baby girls are routinely aborted throughout the Christian world.

In point of fact, these facts do not bear upon the argument in principle.

What principle? That Buddists don’t kill?

They do. They abort babies. They kill in battle.

There is no attempt to equate one with the other. When doing philosophy, we make distinctions, we note similarities and contrasts; we see what belongs and what doesn’t. I’m sorry I was not able to convey my point to you.

Perhaps because your point was not valid?

 

[freesoulhope]

Right then; the abortion thread is moving along in a good direction and before this issue comes up and derails it, I thought I’d start a new one to discuss the issue head on!

At what point does “life” begin? Is it at the point that the brain has developed and can sustain consciousness, or is it at the point when the egg is fertilized and can sustain life

An egg is an egg, and a sperm is a sperm; but a fertilized egg is something else. My life began as a fertilized egg; whether I was conscious of it or not is not relevant to that fact. To destroy that fertilized egg, is to kill me.

The main problem with why some people cannot understand that fact is because their minds have been clouded by that popular opinion which demands that life begins when you can receive some kind of response or bennifit from it; the attitude is completely selfish. I don’t deny that alot of people have been innocently fooled in to thinking that what they are carrying is not really a child, and that they are not intentionally killing a child, and with them i sympathise as far as they are naive; but partly why this dellusion has developed, is because of peoples loose atitiudes towards the power of sex and the great responsibility that it carries. The human value system is dying fast, and abortion marks the near end. People have not been tuaght about the value of life and the responsibilties that come with it, and it is not suprising to me that we can only get this wisdom from Christianity and are belief in an objective God, since Gods existence brings true value to life, and so reveals the truth about it.

Life has become a matter of entertainment, not moral values. The value of human life has become largely subjective to the situation people find them selves in or how they feel, rather then an objective permanent fact of life that people must respect.

My life began when that egg was fertilized, and I take great offence to the idea that my mother ever thought of ending my life due to some desire of self, or naivety. I also take great offence to the idea that the only value my life has, is relevant to how somebody feels about being pregnant. The biggest fallacy is the idea that we take away womens rights when we take away their right to end the life of their child. They shout out “its my body”, but they fail to realise that its not just “their” body anymore; it is the home of a developing child.

There’s one thing we can be sure of; abortion is the killing of an underdeveloped human being; whether or not people perceive it to be so is irrelevent. When people want a child, the fertilized egg is a child; but when having a child becomes an inconvenience, that very same fertilized egg is just an irrelevant lump of matter. If this is true, then all life is just an irrelevant lump of matter, the only difference is, we are aware of it. If we take this philosophy seriously then why not end the lives of those who have brain damage and serious brain disorders; why waste the expense on people who cannot think properly, if the value of life is relative to the response or the benefits we get from it. Why should they live? The problem with society today is that moral values are objective until they get in the way of are own desires.

People lie to themselves about the value of an unborn child, and when somebody lies to themselves and is determined to believe that lie, there’s very little one can do, except raise some awareness of it in the hope that future generations won’t follow in their footsteps.

Peace.

 

[vern_humphrey]

I ran across this in another thread, and thought it would be interesting in light of the claim that somehow hindus and buddists are morally superior because they “respect all life.”

cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/05/damon.india.widows/index.html

VRINDAVAN, India (CNN) – Ostracized by society, thousands of India’s widows flock to the holy city of Vrindavan waiting to die. They are found on side streets, hunched over with walking canes, their heads shaved and their pain etched by hundreds of deep wrinkles in their faces.

These Hindu widows, the poorest of the poor, are shunned from society when their husbands die, not for religious reasons, but because of tradition – and because they’re seen as a financial drain on their families.
They cannot remarry. They must not wear jewelry. They are forced to shave their heads and typically wear white. Even their shadows are considered bad luck.

 

[FightingFat]

What principle? That Buddists don’t kill?

They do. They abort babies. They kill in battle.

I don’t think they’re supposed to though are they? I mean, it’s not following Buddhist principles to kill!

 

[vern_humphrey]

I don’t think they’re supposed to though are they? I mean, it’s not following Buddhist principles to kill!

It’s not following Catholic principles to commit murder, either – but many a Mafia Don goes to Mass every Sunday.

Cambodians are Buddists – does the phrase “Killing Fields of Cambodia” ring a bell?

 

[freesoulhope]

It’s not following Catholic principles to commit murder, either – but many a Mafia Don goes to Mass every Sunday.

Cambodians are Buddists – does the phrase “Killing Fields of Cambodia” ring a bell?

Hello Vern

If your going to show a particulor religion to be violent or currupt, you have to show the principles and practices of the religion itself to be in error; and prove that the core accepted intepretation of religious scripture to be perverse. Otherwise you will find yourself attacking, not the religion, but the sins of indivisuals who stray from the teachings of their supposed faith. What happens then is that the religion, which is innocent of the guilt of its followers, gets blamed for the acts of evil men. I don’t think thats fair.

Does Budism, as a religion, approve of abortion? I myself don’t know, but i am wondering if you do?

Peace.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Hello Vern

If your going to show a particulor religion to be violent or currupt, you have to show the principles and practices of the religion itself to be in error; and prove that the core accepted intepretation of religious scripture to be perverse. Otherwise you will find yourself attacking, not the religion, but the sins of indivisuals who stray from the teachings of their supposed faith. What happens then is that the religion, which is innocent of the guilt of its followers, gets blamed for the acts of evil men. I don’t think thats fair.

Does Budism, as a religion, approve of abortion? I myself don’t know, but i am wondering if you do?

Peace.

Ding! Ding! Ding! Five point penalty for not following the thread.

Buddists were introduced into this thread to show their moral “superiority” – they “don’t take life.” I have shown that buddists do take lives – including human lives in mass quantities.

 

[cpayne]

:My question is whether our morality is established through a consistent reasoned process, or an arbitrary and emotive method that simply favours our personal preferences.

According to the natural-law tradition of the CC, neither of these options is exactly on target, especially the second. Basic moral principles, such as “Murdering innocent humans is wrong,” are neither arbitrary nor emotive; they are principles of knowledge known by the practical intellect just as surely as basic theoretical axioms are known by the speculative intellect. On the other hand, these principles do have the force of axioms; thus we can reason from them, but they are not themselves “established through a consistent reasoned process.” They are established by our knowledge of ourselves as human beings, and then become the foundation for further moral reasoning. Our knowledge of ourselves, however, is pre-rational.

On the general topic of when human personhood begins—I would argue it’s at conception. I don’t want to post a long argument on this, but if anyone wants to look up Robert P. George on this, or Francis Beckwith (recent convert to Catholicism), I think they’re the best writers arguing this viewpoint. Recommended!

 

[freesoulhope]

Ding! Ding! Ding! Five point penalty for not following the thread.

Buddists were introduced into this thread to show their moral “superiority” – they “don’t take life.” I have shown that buddists do take lives – including human lives in mass quantities.

I see. You mean that there are some Buddist that act out of sinc with Buddist teachings. Yes?