Moving on, then, to the response I'd promised:
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm
Harry Baird wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 6:31 am
Perhaps, given the design of this reality, some or even many of the sentient beings within it (both human and non-human) are as you say forced to behave in less than preferred ways just to survive, but "should" implies "could", and so, to the extent that their choices are forced, they aren't in the moral domain anyway. Otherwise, although probably not all or many of the non-human sentient beings in this system engage in explicit (especially abstract) moral reasoning, I'm comfortable ascribing a meaningful degree of moral agency to many, most, or even all of them.
“Less than preferred ways”? It is a curious phrasing. To whose preference?
To the preference of moral beings - isn't that obvious? Moral beings are characterised by having an interest in avoiding harm and suffering where possible. It is obviously, then, not their preference (not preferable in general) to be confronted with situations, given the system in which they occur, in which it is
not possible to avoid causing harm and suffering. Right?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm
I am curious to know if you’ve studied much natural history?
Put it this way: by the time you
finally discovered David Attenborough, I'd been aware of him and his work for several decades.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm
Is your view of nature romantic?
No, but yours is pessimistic.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm
I'm comfortable ascribing a meaningful degree of moral agency to many, most, or even all of them.
The lion runs down the gazelle but at the last moment has a “change of heart” and decides “I’ll go hungry this week!” “My cubs will have to get by …”
I've
already addressed those sort of sentiments.
Is it in any way productive to re-raise sentiments to which I've already responded without your having even acknowledged, let alone addressed, that response?
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm
I think that sone animals can recognize when a fellow is in danger and offer help. A dog whose companion has fallen into a swimming pool comes to mind. Animals strictly in the wilds might act similarly. But they cannot act against the “rule” of ecological determinism.
Do you have a (non-romantic) contrary argument?
I don't
need one, because I'm not denying that what you say there is
roughly true.
The clarification that I think is worth making is that although, generally speaking, non-human living beings
don't - for very good reason - act against that which you characterise (in terms different to those I'd use) as
"the “rule” of ecological determinism", they
are - in the metaphysical sense -
free to do so, and
capable of doing so. That metaphysical freedom is why I'd choose a different term in this context than
"determinism".
I also think it's worth affirming that the example that you provide of moral behaviour in animals is a good one, and that there are
plenty of others.
Finally, let's have a closer look at
this in context:
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon May 29, 2023 12:43 pm
one can begin to examine man’s choices: a contrary spirit determined (or strongly influenced) by an imposed value system
A lion is - as best we understand - an obligate carnivore, meaning that, to survive in the wild, a lion has no choice but to kill (that gazelle that you mentioned or some other animal). Lions, though - and predators in general - tend to succeed most at killing the very old and the very young, so, if a gazelle isn't almost immediately killed after birth, that gazelle has a pretty good chance of having a long life relatively close to its natural lifespan; a life spent free in the wild and relatively pleasurably: wandering around with friends and family eating yummy stuff, having sex, having kids, and looking after those kids (note carefully: I am
not contending that aside from predation, the life of a gazelle is
guaranteed to be
solely one of pleasure: obviously, there are all sorts of unpleasant possibilities, such as breaking a leg - resulting in a slow death from starvation - or falling incurably ill, etc etc).
A human, in contrast, is - as best we understand - an omnivore, meaning that, to survive in the modern world, a human can[1]
freely choose whether or not to kill (even if that killing is "only" by proxy, via that human's consumer choices). The animals that a human
avoidably chooses to kill (by proxy) or to otherwise extract food (milk; eggs; etc) from - are generally deliberately bred to grow rapidly and are killed a
short fraction into their natural lifespan. They are typically kept in
captivity (often, such as in the case of battery hens, in appallingly cruel
close confinement),
denied access to sex (instead, being artificially inseminated),
denied access to their children (the male calves of dairy cows, for example, are typically torn from them immediately after birth and either slaughtered immediately or raised to be killed for veal only a short while later), and mutilated without pain relief by various procedures (debeaking; disbudding (dehorning); mulesing; etc etc).
Sometimes, that human will then explicitly say that (s)he
doesn't feel the slightest moral guilt over his/her avoidable choice to kill, and sometimes, that human will
rationalise it as necessary.
So, yes, let's
examine man’s choices, but
contextually:
Between the human and the lion,
which is more of the moral monster, and which is more of the moral exemplar?
[1] To a meaningful extent; yes, I get that
totally avoiding deaths in modern agriculture is difficult to achieve.