since i am not able to write a full post right now, i’m posting some of the crappy schoolwork i’m doing.
here is my ridiculous philosophy paper on eating apes. i don’t condone eating apes, this is just for philosophy class. in philosophy, you can’t make an argument without proving all these intermediary steps. but, of course, with jon breaux’s help, anything is possible!
I think it is morally acceptable for humans to eat any animal, even the great apes. I believe that the highest ethical good is perpetuating morality, and as it follows, the capacity for morality. Eating animals serves the highest ethical good. Though Dale Peterson argues against eating apes in “To Eat the Laughing Animal,” his arguments are not strong enough to rule out eating apes under any circumstances.
1. In my value system, the highest ethical good is perpetuating morality.
2. I posit that the capacity for morality is peculiar to humans.
3. Morality did not exist until Humans existed. Once the capacity for abstract thought actually evolved in humans, the capacity for morality followed.
4. Morality is not identical to intelligence or sentience. One may be able to construct and solve complex problems with no utilization of ethics. Animals may be intelligent and sentient, but even these intelligent animals are not moral beings. Other species may profit from human’s morality, but they are incapable of using morality to further any goal.
5. Thus, to perpetuate morality, we must perpetuate those beings that have the capacity for morality, defined only as humans. It is ethical to achieve this end (the highest ethical good) by any means, which may include the killing and eating of animals.
6. Eating is perpetuating life. In the case of humans eating animals, the eating of animals is therefore perpetuating the capacity for morality, which perpetuates morality itself. Eating animals serves the highest ethical good.I agree that killing animals for no reason, for example, other than mounting on a wall, does not serve the highest ethical good. The act of torturing animals also does not perpetuate morality. However, animals need not be tortured to become human food. Any animal without the capacity for morality, including an ape, holds a lesser value than any human. Indeed, there is a sense in which serving the highest ethical good by being food for humans adds more moral value to an animal’s life than the animal would have on its own.
Dale Peterson argues three points against eating apes in “To Eat the Laughing Animal”. The first is to conserve biodiversity. If humans eat so many apes that apes become extinct, and then another factor in the environment that depended on apes existing came back to kill humans, then perhaps we should not eat so many apes as to make them extinct. There is no explicit reason not to eat any ape in this argument.
The second argument is to prevent the spread of disease. Again, if all apes had human-contractible disease, and this disease was not innocuous and contributed to the death of humans, this would certainly be an important argument. However, not all apes have such diseases. Furthermore, disease in meats is not unique to apes. If there existed a regulated safety commission to test bushmeat for disease, like there is with domestic meats, the likelihood of human death would be significantly diminished. Peterson notes this lack of safety testing in the opening of his second argument (pp. 152-153) and instead of suggesting the creation of such a safety commission, he advocates avoiding bushmeat entirely. This does not provide a strong philosophical argument as to why to not eat apes, and functions more like personal advice based on anecdotal evidence.
The final argument is his strongest argument for those who agree with his value system. He contends that the great apes are so close to humans genetically, biologically, and even socially, that they should be considered alongside humans in moral questions. However, it is my position that the capacity for morality belongs only to humans, and in no way does Peterson provide any proof of the capacity of morality in apes. Although apes have many similarly evolved traits as humans, they are not human. Eating apes still perpetuates the capacity for morality.
The capacity for morality belongs exclusively to humans, and perpetuating this capacity effectively perpetuates morality, which is the highest ethical good. Anything that perpetuates the capacity for morality, including the eating of animals (apes) by humans, serves the highest ethical good. Peterson’s arguments do not definitively determine that the eating of apes does not serve the highest ethical good.
I don’t care if you copy this and call it your own, but really??? my webpage is totally on the search engines. you are shooting yourself if you do this. and, you are not perpetuating morality. tadaaa!
So, by extension, if a human is immoral, we should eat him. (Maybe cook him slowly over a low fire first). But, who would want to eat immoral humans but other immoral humans? What a dilemma.
i don’t think the argument says “we should eat immoral humans”, it says it is ok to eat beings that do not have the capacity for morality.
if a human is immoral, he still has the capacity for morality, and in fact, may come around and repent or whatever and be a moral person. After all, it is stated as a premise that humans have the capacity for morality. if you kill him, you run the risk of violating the highest ethical good and actually destroy the capacity for morality. This makes a case against capital punishment as well.
If he is already dead, well, he has no life, and therefore definitely has no capacity for morality, so he is a definite non-issue.
Exactly. If you don’t read the opening premises closely, you’ll miss the whole thing. Any feedback on this yet?
next week, hopefully
A chartered plane of vegetarians crash on a remote snow covered mountain top on their way to a convention promoting vegetarianism. Some survive, some die, and some are in a vegetative stae. After several weeks they must choose whether to resort to cannibalism to survive. They face a moral dilemma but in the end reconcile their morals by only eating the “vegetables” among the crash survivors.
this is a funny joke. i laughed because it is a joke.
unfortunately, these vegetarians may have actually destroyed the capacity for morality. what if the vegetables woke up from their comatose state? and how are these vegetables kept alive in the first place? no life support, i imagine, so they probably will die from starvation or hypothermia, and in fairly short order. Only after they have died a natural death (because there is nothing the others can do to save them as they’ve been surviving on the water from mountain snow and huddling together as they attempt to keep their self-produced BTU’s) could it be considered morally neutral to eat their remains.
Bravo Dave. That is what I call a thoughtful thesis. Setting aside the fact that I believe morality is a bunch of who-ha, I think you’ve done a great job with the topic. Now indulge me to go off on a tangent. I do not eat animals. But, like everyone else, I do what I do for completely selfish reasons. I am content and at peace as a vegetarian. I would not be content and at peace if I were starving and could not find vegetable matter to sustain me. Vegetarianism is a luxury (if you’re asking me). I would try to make myself kill and eat and ape or a human if it meant survival. And yes, I would feel bad about it.
PS – My heroes are Jane Goodall and Birute Galdikas.
[...] Chappie and myself, though Jon posts a lot more than Chappie). You should probably skip on over to this link and find out why you should eat an [...]
As you can see, I liked it.