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Zerkon[_2_] Zerkon[_2_] is offline
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Default Moral considerability

In article >,
says...
>
> It has degrees; it isn't absolute. If I see my neighbor Smith's dog get
> loose and attack my neighbor Jones's cat, I'll try to stop the attack
> and save Jones's cat. If I see Smith's dog attack a squirrel in the
> front yard, I probably won't try to save the squirrel; if I do try to
> stop the attack, it will be more out of consideration for Smith and how
> he wants his dog to behave. If I see a coyote come down the street and
> attack the squirrel, for certain I won't do anything to try to save the
> squirrel.
>
> The squirrel simply doesn't enter into my imprecise calculus of moral
> consideration in the same way that Jones's cat does, and to the extent
> it enters into it at all, it's highly context-dependent. No one gives
> equal moral consideration to the interests of all beings capable of
> suffering, nor should we be expected to do so. We may not be able to
> say exactly where we draw lines, but that doesn't mean it's arbitrary.
> In any case, the "ar" radicals tell us that arbitrariness sometimes
> doesn't matter, or sometimes it does, so they are being arbitrary.
>
> For example, I am told that it is permissible for me to take my kinship
> with my child into account in deciding whether to rescue him or some
> other child from an impending catastrophe where I have time to rescue
> only one of them. However, the same source would tell me that if
> neither of the two children were my known relatives, but if one were of
> my race and the other were of a different race, I would not be able to
> use race - also an indication of kinship, even if much more remotely so
> than family - in deciding which one to rescue.
>
> The sophists are trying somehow, any way they can, to find a means to
> salvage something they intuitively like. There is no rigor to it at all.


Ok in the "Jones' cat" case you present the decisions as being your's
alone then forcing the position of "no one gives equal moral.. etc" from
what you gave or not. This does not ground your argument simply because
there very well might be people who, in degrees, do attempt to give
equal moral consideration, so what you do becomes only what you do not a
given of what everyone does.

In your "kinship" example you now are being dedicated to or told by
'sources' without explanation of why these sources matter to you.

Bringing in the issue of race into a child rescue situation is blatant
sophistry. Here again you are being victimized by people telling you
things you can or can not do. Sort of like people on radio talk shows.
You are forcing a conclusion via a 'straw sophist argument'

As another moral excercise place yourself in the catastrophy but in a
far off land alone among people of your own race in a small tight
community suspcious of all outsiders and who spoke a language you did
not understand. A person of another race but from your home towm shows
up. What sense of kinship do you have now?

What comes out of all this is the question of how are you hearing these
really bossy sources and how do each of you, you and your sophist
sources, know so very much what the other is thinking?