Ted,
I really appreciate your thoughtful reply to my earlier question. There's
so much in your response I hardly know where to begin. I'll comment on one
small part now and hopefully can comment on more of the remainder at some
later time.
>Ted here. Again, apologies for not responding promptly to this one. It is
>hard to
>keep up.
>
snip
>
>
>Thanks Maria. OK, but you state only part of the answer, or at least the
>statement is
>not sufficiently clear because you need to include the precursors of "the
>human"
>among the organisms that survived and lived. If our animal ancestors had
>not existed,
>we would not be here and when we were in our "precursor" form, we were
>relatively
>benign and part of the great megasymbiosis of the Ecosphere. We were not
>parasitic,
>like today. Maybe philosopers need a new word, such as "philosophical
>precursor" in
>order to discuss "human value?" But if we are to consider whether Earth
>without human
>life now would be better or not, that we can do. In this regard, the
>evidence seems
>overwhelming that without humans almost all organisms of this planet
>would be
>better off. If today, all organisms could vote on whether humans should be
>exterminated, they would almost unanimously vote in the affirmative
>because, after
>all, we do them and the ecosystems which made and keep them great harm,
>and continue
>to exterminate ever more of them and their felow earthlings. The only
>ones that
>*might* vote in our favour are domesticated cats and dogs, etc., (those
>that are
>treated as family pets or that help humans do things while not being
>mistreated).
>Also, all "our" domesticated animals and plants (pigs, chickens, cows, horses,
>turkeys, wheat, corn, soybeans, plantations etc. etc.) * might* vote in
>the negative
>(i.e. to let us continue as a species) on the grounds that they actually
>get to live
>for a moment under he sun, until the moment we get to eat them or cut them
>up well
>before their natural life would come to a normal end. And this does not
>even get into
>the cruelty to sentient animal issues.
Ted, this strikes me as simple misanthropy. Am I wrong, or is what you
write misanthropic? And if it is misanthropy, why then can we not consider
your point of view to be an example of "anti-human hate propaganda"? This
is a serious question, and not intended to be snide at all. One of the
common criticisms of environmentalism is that it is misanthropic and thus
is not really an "ethic" at all. Why should any human adopt any point of
view that includes the kind of sentiments expressed here in your final
pargraph?
Jim
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