Which moral system the human race uses is relative, arbitrary, and meaningless, just as there’s no reason for the pebble sorters to like prime numbers instead of composite numbers, perfect numbers, or even numbers
But that’s clearly not true, except in the sense that it’s “arbitrary” to prefer life over death. It’s a pretty safe generalization that actions which are considered to be immoral are those which are considered to be likely to cause harm to others.
But which others matter how much is an open question. Some would suggest that all humans matter equally and that only humans matter, but I don’t buy it, and I don’t think many others do either. For example, I (and I think everyone I know) would agree that we should make at least some effort to avoid causing suffering to animals, but that it would be going way to far to treat a rat or a pig as equally important as a human. I understand that there are people out there who think it’s perfectly appropriate to treat a pig as nothing but a machine for turning corn into meat, and others who think we out to consider a pig every bit the moral equal of a human being, and I acknowledge that either position is better defined and more internally consistent than my own. I can’t see anything “wrong” with either extreme position, I see no reason to believe anyone could convince the others of the “rightness” of his position, even in principle.
Which moral system the human race uses is relative, arbitrary, and meaningless, just as there’s no reason for the pebble sorters to like prime numbers instead of composite numbers, perfect numbers, or even numbers
But that’s clearly not true, except in the sense that it’s “arbitrary” to prefer life over death. It’s a pretty safe generalization that actions which are considered to be immoral are those which are considered to be likely to cause harm to others.
But which others matter how much is an open question. Some would suggest that all humans matter equally and that only humans matter, but I don’t buy it, and I don’t think many others do either. For example, I (and I think everyone I know) would agree that we should make at least some effort to avoid causing suffering to animals, but that it would be going way to far to treat a rat or a pig as equally important as a human. I understand that there are people out there who think it’s perfectly appropriate to treat a pig as nothing but a machine for turning corn into meat, and others who think we out to consider a pig every bit the moral equal of a human being, and I acknowledge that either position is better defined and more internally consistent than my own. I can’t see anything “wrong” with either extreme position, I see no reason to believe anyone could convince the others of the “rightness” of his position, even in principle.