• flamingos-cant@feddit.uk
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    11 months ago

    Just because they’re incapable of being moral agents, i.e. capable of understanding why murder is wrong, doesn’t make it OK to murder them. A toddler would happily push you off a cliff, but that doesn’t give you the right to push toddlers off cliffs.

    • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      A toddler would happily push you off a cliff, but that doesn’t give you the right to push toddlers off cliffs.

      right, but the thing that makes it wrong to push a toddler off a cliff may not apply to non-human animals.

      • flamingos-cant@feddit.uk
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        11 months ago

        Like what? What criteria would allow for toddlers to be given moral consideration that would exclude animals?

                • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                  11 months ago

                  ok well that line of argument falls prey to a line-drawing fallacy. there is a clear difference between people and non-human animals. even if there is no singular trait, or no less-than-complete set of traits that we can point to as the distinguishing mark, it is obvious that there is a difference or we wouldn’t discriminate between humans and non-human animals.

                  SINCE THAT IS NOT WHERE YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE HEADING

                  i would just say “we’re human” and, in light of the rebuttal to the NTT argument (which you weren’t conciously advancing), i think it’s that is sufficient.

                  • flamingos-cant@feddit.uk
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                    11 months ago

                    it is obvious that there is a difference or we wouldn’t discriminate between humans and non-human animals.

                    Isn’t this just the is-ought problem though? Just because we currently distinguish between animals and humans doesn’t mean we ought to.