People who avoid eating meat (or stepping on bugs) for ethical reasons don't usually believe that animals have *just as much* moral worth as people. They believe animals have some, and that's enough to justify a moral response.
In theory you could construct a moral outlook for human relations that also did without the idea of equal worth,…
People who avoid eating meat (or stepping on bugs) for ethical reasons don't usually believe that animals have *just as much* moral worth as people. They believe animals have some, and that's enough to justify a moral response.
In theory you could construct a moral outlook for human relations that also did without the idea of equal worth, but it would go against all of Western social thought since the Enlightenment. (All respectable social thought, anyway. Plenty of people do operate without a belief in humans' equal worth, but moral philosophers hardly ever talk about them except to point out that they're obviously wrong.)
The problem is that without an objectively verifiable claim about humans being equal in some crucial way, there's no solid secular basis for liberalism, socialism, feminism or any of the other doctrines that nearly all of us (not just the left) accept in some form or other.
Nietzsche rejected all those doctrines in favor of a sort of aristocratic proto-Nazism. But even if you're sure that's the wrong solution, as most people are, I think the problem remains unsolved.
A minimum guarantee of rights is there to ward off authoritarianism. Large carve outs based on IQ or some other arbitrary criteria would fatally weaken the whole enterprise.
I'd actually argue the existence of psychopathy is a much bigger issue for equal human moral worth than stupid people. Psychologists are finally coming around to the idea that psychopathy is largely immutable (and possibly genetic) as increasingly early childhood detection and intervention has done nothing.
But - at least to me - it's much harder to treat someone who has no ethical center as a free moral agent. How do you empathize with someone with no empathy after all?
I'm talking about psychologists here. It's baby steps for them, you know.
But the idea of immutable...monsters...from birth is something which is horribly threatening to the idea of equal moral worth. Even taking into account that most psychopaths are not sadists, and will generally only willingly hurt other people if they think it's to their advantage.
Because if there is a (relatively small) percentage of the population which is just irredeemably evil (for lack of a better way to put it) it becomes arguable from a utilitarian perspective that outright elimination is the best policy.
Basically the world would be better off with no psychopaths, and since we cannot cure them, we should just get rid of them one way or another. I'd certainly hope it's through targeted gene editing or selective abortion at worst however.
I mean, if you're inclusive of all psychopaths (not just the sadist serial killer types that true crime dramas love) I think it's more honest to say they are unconcerned with good and evil than they actually are evil. If they believe doing the right thing is in their own self-interest, they will do the right thing - as long as they think there's a chance they could get caught. But they can't internalize social norms like normal people - they can't just think doing something is wrong because it's morally abhorrent or will cause others to stigmatize them.
Still, even "normal" psychopaths aren't really assets to society. They are believed to be found at disproportionately high numbers at the highest levels of corporate management - which should tell you everything you need to know.
People who avoid eating meat (or stepping on bugs) for ethical reasons don't usually believe that animals have *just as much* moral worth as people. They believe animals have some, and that's enough to justify a moral response.
In theory you could construct a moral outlook for human relations that also did without the idea of equal worth, but it would go against all of Western social thought since the Enlightenment. (All respectable social thought, anyway. Plenty of people do operate without a belief in humans' equal worth, but moral philosophers hardly ever talk about them except to point out that they're obviously wrong.)
The problem is that without an objectively verifiable claim about humans being equal in some crucial way, there's no solid secular basis for liberalism, socialism, feminism or any of the other doctrines that nearly all of us (not just the left) accept in some form or other.
Nietzsche rejected all those doctrines in favor of a sort of aristocratic proto-Nazism. But even if you're sure that's the wrong solution, as most people are, I think the problem remains unsolved.
A minimum guarantee of rights is there to ward off authoritarianism. Large carve outs based on IQ or some other arbitrary criteria would fatally weaken the whole enterprise.
I'd actually argue the existence of psychopathy is a much bigger issue for equal human moral worth than stupid people. Psychologists are finally coming around to the idea that psychopathy is largely immutable (and possibly genetic) as increasingly early childhood detection and intervention has done nothing.
But - at least to me - it's much harder to treat someone who has no ethical center as a free moral agent. How do you empathize with someone with no empathy after all?
"and possibly genetic"
Possibly? "Genetic influences explained 69% of the variance in the latent psychopathic personality factor, "
I'm talking about psychologists here. It's baby steps for them, you know.
But the idea of immutable...monsters...from birth is something which is horribly threatening to the idea of equal moral worth. Even taking into account that most psychopaths are not sadists, and will generally only willingly hurt other people if they think it's to their advantage.
" horribly threatening to the idea of equal moral worth."
How so?
Because if there is a (relatively small) percentage of the population which is just irredeemably evil (for lack of a better way to put it) it becomes arguable from a utilitarian perspective that outright elimination is the best policy.
Basically the world would be better off with no psychopaths, and since we cannot cure them, we should just get rid of them one way or another. I'd certainly hope it's through targeted gene editing or selective abortion at worst however.
Are psychopaths evil? I thought they were just ruthless. Their goals could be evil or not.
I mean, if you're inclusive of all psychopaths (not just the sadist serial killer types that true crime dramas love) I think it's more honest to say they are unconcerned with good and evil than they actually are evil. If they believe doing the right thing is in their own self-interest, they will do the right thing - as long as they think there's a chance they could get caught. But they can't internalize social norms like normal people - they can't just think doing something is wrong because it's morally abhorrent or will cause others to stigmatize them.
Still, even "normal" psychopaths aren't really assets to society. They are believed to be found at disproportionately high numbers at the highest levels of corporate management - which should tell you everything you need to know.