Peter Singer said, in his "Equality for Animals?", that if we concur that reciprocity is the origin of ethics then posterity becomes meaningless to us, because human beings of hundreds years later cannot benefit to human beings as of now. He said so in an attempt to conclude ethics should be something beyond mutual benefits among beings (human and even non-human)
I think this argument has problem in both the premise and conclusion; Firstly, no one can deny that breeding has its intrinsic value, which reflects the very primitive need of a group being (such as human) in maintaining the continuity of a group/community such as human species, country, community, villege, family and etc. It implies even if reciprocity is proven the origin of ethics, posterity caring is still a reasonable action. Secondly, for the conclusion, I think before we can find a more convincing reason other than reciprocity being the origin of ethics, we should treat it as. For example, before we find a faster one, light is always the fastest.
I have a quick browse onto Peter Singer's book referring to "Ethics and Reciprocity".
回覆刪除I get his point that if we accept "reciprocity" as a base of morality, it will be meaningless in doing anything good for posterity - our future generations. As our future generations can do nothing back to us as a return. Reciprocity implies an ethical contract, and the reason for entering such contract is of self-interest. It then follows that if some beings have no capacity to take part in a reciprocal agreement with us (e.g. animals), then there will be no reason for us to treat them morally. And it is of such that violates a lot of our ethical judgments.
Reciprocity may still be the explanation of historical origin of ethical judgments, but it is not justifiable in practice. Singer's view is to abandon reciprocity which the contract view is based on, and to base on universalisability instead in considering which beings ought to be included within morality.
I think his view makes sense.
I do think animals can have reciprocal agreement with human beings: Their own existence. That is, as long as they (say, such as pig) are not extinct and provide the fresh meat to us, they maintain the agreement. Similar reciprocal agreement exists between capitalist and labor as well, in an capitalism society.
回覆刪除Yes, I think that the only obligation of human beings on animals is to keep animal species continuity, in order to maintain a good balanced eco environment on the Earth, which is ultimately a self-interest motivation. Cruel but true :)
To me , a reciprocal agreement has to be「對等」.
回覆刪除The legal definition of "reciprocal agreement" is: Obligations assumed and imposed by two parties as mutual and conditional upon the other party assuming same obligations.
Ref to http://law.yourdictionary.com/reciprocal-agreement
Your examples appear not reciprocal. Am I right?
Hmmm, I agree that "animals can have reciprocal agreement with human beings: Their own existence. " is wrong. It can at most be called "biased equilibrium". Thx for your correctness.
刪除Back to the "Reciprocity being the origin of Ethics", maybe I should rephrase it to "Reciprocity being the grounds of Ethics". I understand that it builds a "slippery slope" to cause us to make some intuitively unethical decisions, such as justifying torturing a dog.
But if we deny "Reciprocity being the grounds of Ethics" and agree with "animal rights", I find some even worse problems:
1. Most of us cannot beat the temptation in eating meat, just the same way our intuition towards torturing a dog. Which instinct (eating meat v.s. compassion towards animals) should we choose?
2. The failure of Communism taught us a lesson: Human is such a selfish creatures that they are not willing to serve other human beings at no cost. Is it really practical and rational to ask them to serve other species (don't eat meat) at no cost?
3. Etc, too tired tonight to talk about it now :P
It depends on what we mean by "animal rights".
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