Freebase Dali

Nah. It was more about rights and consideration of species, which would fall further into the vegan category.

Sansa Stark

Jeremy rules

MoonlitSunshine

Oh, definitely a natural tendency of mine. I've studied a certain amount of philosophy, but never found one that agrees entirely with me. I'm a bit of an odd mix: I'm a Maths Undergrad with serious leanings towards logical argument and reasoning, but I relish the idea of uncertainty.

Why I prefer it... I think this is going to be hard to explain. Largely because I haven't thought much about why I feel this way, due to the fact that it's an inherent part of who I am. I think to a certain extent the simple fact that the grey area is.. well, grey, appeals to me, that how we choose to act in those grey areas defines very much who we are. If we rid ourselves of the grey areas, it automates our responses. Hell, you could feasibly program a computer to be moral, if it were the case. That, personally, is something I find quite scary.

I guess when it comes down to it, I trust myself to act in a way that I consider moral under all circumstances that might arise (bit of a tautology, I know), and that my actions would never incur more than moral displeasure from someone else, unless their beliefs were extreme. And in that case, the chances are I would incur the same response regardless of my beliefs unless I agreed entirely with that person, as such is generally the case with extremist views.

Given the above, given a choice between being able to sit down with someone and say "this is an exact outline of what I believe, under all circumstances possible" and being able to sit down with someone and have a good steak, I prefer having the steak, and only having my concept of morality truly understood by myself.

Does that make more sense?

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"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"

- Arthur Dent

skaltezon

It does, eloquently. But does that prevent you from taking stock of your decision-making process and forming some generalization about it, let's say to assure a friend that you won't suddenly decide to push him off a cliff? The people and animals around you are more likely to relax if you're a little predictable.

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MoonlitSunshine

Oh sure

The vast majority of my morals would follow a social norm: I wouldn't kill anyone unless it was them or someone close to me, and even then I'd only do so if it were the only option available to me. I wouldn't kill an animal unless I was going to eat it (or it was endangering someone close to me, as above).

That pretty much sums it up, though as I said, there would be circumstances under which they might be bent, depending on the gravity of the situation. Given desperate enough circumstances, I would probably revert to Cannibalism, but I would (probably) only eat an already dead person, though one never knows truly how one will react in such a circumstance.

I guess in a way my morals are pretty clear-cut, but they aren't exact. There is hypocrisy in the way that I will happily kill an animal to eat it, and yet I would be pretty enraged if a bear killed my gf to eat her. Same Ethic on both parts, and yet I will not spare a second to think about how the bear feels if I eat his offspring.

__________________
"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"

- Arthur Dent

skaltezon

I guess you're not that different from me then.

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MoonlitSunshine

Probably not! As I said, I feel that my ideas of what is moral and what isn't is pretty much a norm for people who are similar to me... which in itself requires no small amount of insanity but definitely a large amount of empathy as well.

As the end of the day, I know how I feel, and my friends understand me... well, enough to understand that I'm not going to kill them and eat them. That's about as much as I need, and I still get steak :P

__________________
"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"

- Arthur Dent

Sansa Stark

Mmm, vegetarian fed eggs are so much better than regular eggs

skaltezon

You're really attached to that steak, at least rhetorically. What if your friend is a cow?

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MoonlitSunshine

I would consider it quite unlikely that I would develop a relationship with a cow, however on the outside chance that there existed a cow that could communicate well enough with me that I would become friends with it, then I probably wouldn't kill it unless I had no other food available and was actually starving.


Probably.

Actually, I really don't know. What were the circumstances under which I met this cow? did I buy it in order to eat it, and then grew fond of it over time, or did i stumble upon it over an online forum and from there our friendship blossomed? The underlying reasoning would probably affect my actions somewhat.

__________________
"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"

- Arthur Dent