Therefore there must exist some features besides the fact that they live that a human has and a bacterium has not, that divides living beings into things that I am willing to kill and things that I am not willing to kill.
If one gets out of the rationalization game, and looks at why you don’t kill people, much of it is because other humans in a position to be a threat to you would object.
People aren’t threats; they are too self-obsessed and small-minded to be a threat; rarely do they glance up from their own little worlds. We live in a society in which everybody is spending so much time worrying about what other people think of them that they don’t notice that everybody else is too busy worrying about what other people think of them to form any kind of coherent thought about other people. Insofar as they form opinions, they are opinions of non-agent actors in a play revolving around their own personal motivations, not opinions of other people. Even, yes, lovers.
People vote. They support government action. Government is a gun.
I agree with your complaints in general about people caring too much (for my tastes) about what other think, but to the extent that people are pointing that gun at you, you should care. If men with guns are going to show up at your door, you should care.
If one gets out of the rationalization game, and looks at why you don’t kill people, much of it is because other humans in a position to be a threat to you would object.
People aren’t threats; they are too self-obsessed and small-minded to be a threat; rarely do they glance up from their own little worlds. We live in a society in which everybody is spending so much time worrying about what other people think of them that they don’t notice that everybody else is too busy worrying about what other people think of them to form any kind of coherent thought about other people. Insofar as they form opinions, they are opinions of non-agent actors in a play revolving around their own personal motivations, not opinions of other people. Even, yes, lovers.
People vote. They support government action. Government is a gun.
I agree with your complaints in general about people caring too much (for my tastes) about what other think, but to the extent that people are pointing that gun at you, you should care. If men with guns are going to show up at your door, you should care.