>
i am not sure i understand... how does the issue of "intrinsic" affect ethics? is there something intrinsically better about joe shmoe's child over the zillions of microscopic organisms killed in various human actions?
> In
> any objective sense, plants are just as worthy of life as animals
> like us: they play a crucial role in the ecosystem, many are astoundingly
> beautiful, they're alive. It's strange to me that people like
> Singer use humans as the gold standard for life to respect and
> simultaneously argue that we shouldn't make a distinction between
> human and animal life.
i am not sure i understand this either. singer as i understand him, does not argue for using humans as the gold standard. nonetheless, if one uses ethical considerations in choosing actions, then he attempts to show that such considerations, when grounded in objective i.e., formal terms, compel us to reject speceisism. also, singer is interested in 'practical ethics', rather than formal moral systems. it seems to me, we use practical rules of ethics in conducting our affairs, all the time, however incomplete they may be.
someone made fun of "fruitarians", but there are communities in india that use similar principles.
>
> Okay, plants move away from dark and cold; a paramecium moves away
> from an organism that tries to engulf it. Aren't those living things
> "trying to avoid death"?
>
how is a plant moving away from dark and cold to be interpreted as its not wanting to be eaten? in particular, a part of it from being eaten? and if you want to rally for paramoecium rights, i am all for it. why, indeed, should they be subject to avoidable suffering?
--ravi