On 4/11/2012 3:23 PM, Dutch wrote:
> "Rupert" > wrote
>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
>> the default starting position.
>
> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
> community, my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant
> species, lower level animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in
> there somewhere.
>
> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
> interests, that is the way the world works.

That's right, and even when considering others' interests, one is still
considering one's own, and that's going to affect how you weight the
interests of others. I consider my son's interests ahead of my wife's,
my wife's ahead of my friends', my friends' ahead of my neighbors', and
so on. There comes a point at which I would consider my dog's interests
ahead of some humans' interests. If I have $100 and am faced with a
choice of taking my dog to the vet because she's ill, or donating to the
Haitian earthquake relief fund, I can tell you the Haitians are going to
be $100 short.