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Jay Santos
 
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Scented Nectar wrote:

> "Jay Santos" > wrote in message
> k.net...
>
>>Scented Nectar wrote:
>>
>>>>Sophomore Ron, do you believe sodomizing small children
>>>>with broom handles to be morally wrong? Yes or no,
>>>>Sophomore Ron - dispense with your usual blowhard windy
>>>>equivocation.
>>>>
>>>>If you do, Sophomore Ron, do you think someone who
>>>>sodomizes small children with a broom handle only two
>>>>or three times a week is entitled to feel virtuous in
>>>>comparison with his neighbor who sodomizes small
>>>>children with a broom handle on a daily basis?
>>>
>>>
>>>Careful with this one Ron.

>>
>>Why does he need to be careful? It's a straightforward
>>question: Does he believe it is morally wrong, or not?

>
>
> You seem to enjoy comparing child abuse
> to meat eating.


The analogy is appropriate. Both involve things that
some people say are absolutely wrong. If something is
absolutely wrong, there is no ethical room for anyone
to do any of it.

>>Is killing animals morally wrong, or not? If it's
>>wrong, then how can you set some non-zero amount of it
>>as acceptable?

>
>
> It's like pollution...


No, it isn't like pollution at all, dummy. That was
the whole point of bringing up pollution. Pollution
isn't morally wrong, it's just undesirable from a
utilitarian standpoint.

>
>
>>You ****ing idiot. I told you twice, this isn't like
>>pollution. Polluting is not morally wrong, it's just
>>something that makes us all worse off than we would be
>>if there were no pollution. GIVEN that it is not
>>absolutely wrong to pollute, it is correct to view a
>>reduction in pollution as an improvement: we ARE
>>better off for having attained the reduction.

>
>
> Who are you to say whether pollution is morally
> wrong or not?


It isn't. No one views it as morally wrong.

>
>>But ethical values are different; they're not
>>utilitarian. You can't legitimately call a reduction
>>in the amount of child sodomization YOU perform an
>>improvement, unless you stop doing it entirely.
>>Exactly analogously, you cannot call a reduction in the
>>killing of animals an "improvement", if you believe -
>>as you claim to believe - that killing animals is
>>absolutely wrong.

>
>
> First of all, I never have and never will abuse a child.


Why not? You could, and apparently you still would
feel good about yourself, just so long as you were
abusing a child less often than someone else, or
perhaps less often than you did last year.

That was the whole point of the example.