Posted by alexandra_k on March 1, 2005, at 14:44:42
In reply to Re: (1) One or Six??? » alexandra_k, posted by medhed on March 1, 2005, at 5:44:02
That might be what you *would* do, but is it really what you *should* do???
Isn't that why we often morally condemn sociopaths???
Aaah. 'There are too many people in the world anyway'.
You could justify your act by appealing to Aldo Leopold's Land Ethic. For him our moral obligation isn't to people, it is to the ecosystem or the biotic community. From the perspective of the land ethic 'massive human diebacks would be good' and it follows from this that it would be our duty to cause them!
Many have taken this to be a reductio ad absurdum of the Land Ethic, however. (That is when the conclusion is so absurd that we can use that as an argument to deny the theory that results in that conclusion).
Callicot is one philosopher who tries to fix it up by talking about 'degrees of care'. We have an obligation to close family first, the rest of humanity second, the ecosystem third - or something like that.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:464517
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050224/msgs/464978.html