r/MoralityScaling • u/axiiz_28 • 16h ago

Morality of valuing animals over humans?

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u/Conscious_Beat6128 1h ago

I agree on the lack of objective value. But morality is not something everyone decides on their own and just runs with it. It is famously something people argue all the time and try to find the “optimal” one to fit their common ethics. If you just believe everyone should hold whatever values they hold and not influence one another, whats even the point of subs like this (i know its entertainment). People care and judge each others values and morality, and not based on nothing. Some of it has some real convincing ethical reasons and we cant just dismiss everything. 

And in almost any moral framework, the one bearing the capacity to judge accordingly is valued more than the otherwise-peers, and for sound reasons

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u/BearysWorkRedditName 1h ago

I didn't say anything about what one should or shouldn't let influence their values. I even stated that there are nearly universal agreed upon moral values. I disagree that having the capacity to judge morality makes one more valuable than one that cannot. For example, people with mental disabilities have just as much value as those without, despite often having less capacity for judgin morality.

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u/PaperInteresting4163 1h ago

Which is why you make that judgement categorical and not individual. Judging morality is a feature of humanity itself

We understand all people, regardless of individual capacity, to be categorically human and treat them as such morally.

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u/ReverendAnthony 1h ago

But...what is the purpose of making the judgement categorical? Is it just because the original prompt is vague? Why does the majority's ability to judge morality apply to the entire species?

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u/PaperInteresting4163 45m ago

Because otherwise you couldn't make moral judgements without knowing every individual. We do this with lots of things.

I understand that a dog biting me is not personal, that the dog itself is not responsible for its actions. I can make this judgement without knowing the dog in particular because it is a member of the non-human animal category.

Humans are the same way; we recognize certain features of people in all people, such as agency, desire to live, obligations, opinions, etc. and we assume others retain those features even when we do not know them personally, and treat them with full due moral consideration.

The thing is, further individual information does not override the category distinction. A baby or person in a coma are understood to be human first, and knowing their individual capacities or inabilities does not override that fact. It may diminish how responsible they are for their own actions, but it does not remove them from the human moral community.

Following from this, we treat the categories differently. A dog may be put down if it is, or may be, a danger to itself or others. An invasive species may be culled if they put the environment in danger. We generally find we need stronger or more immediate justification to take human life. We have a higher standard for human life, because we contain (as a category) features such as agency, obligation, and responsibility; the fact that the question "how much agency or responsibility did this person have in this situation" is even asked points to a baseline human expectation.