11-10-2012, 01:11 PM
(11-10-2012, 12:57 PM)kandrathe Wrote: By the same logic; there is no reason to prosecute any crime against a mass of chemicals we call human that may or may not be living.
There is no scientifically objective reason, no. Were you expecting to find the Code of Hammurabi written in our DNA? Values are values, and biology is biology. Trying to justify the one in terms of the other is fruitless.
Quote:We either have a way of defining harm against animals, or against people, or we do not? Which is it?
This seems to mean "either we have a grand unified system of science and ethics, in which all values can be reduced to their scientific components, and all science justified in terms of our values, or we don't." We make do with what we've got. Science isn't very messy, but it doesn't imply any particular values. Values are messy, but we can't ask science to tell us right from wrong.
I think that we owe ethical treatment to anything which can feel pain. Unnecessary cruelty to animals should be a criminal offense, but killing animals per se is not murder. Killing a fetus is not murder, but if you violate a mother's body, you violate her rights, which is serious assault, or even attempted murder, given the possible consequences. I think we owe human rights to anyone who has been born. I can't reduce these positions to science, because they aren't science.
-Jester