Why killing an ant is not illegal if all lives have same value?
Rafea10127:
Good question
Answers
Answered by
1
Intent is a really important thing. An ant doesn’t have a sense of self. An ant’s brain is so incredibly tiny, that pain is registered in simplistic ways, without a complex psychology and a sense of suffering and agony.[1] But intent matters.
Morality is a human construct that largely exists to guide human behaviors with and towards other humans. We have morality because —without it— we’d unlikely have become who are as a species. Our ability to empathize with the suffering of those who can suffer is an important cornerstone of our morality. (i.e. it’s not enough to just be alive — a clam, tree and paramecium are alive, but cannot suffer thus killing them has no moral value other than their impact on humans)
If you are causing an animal to suffer (who can feel such a thing) for personal pleasure, then that becomes immoral not because the death itself is of import —ants die by the bazzillions all the time and frequently because they just followed a scent trail mindlessly and wandered to their doom— but because it highlights potential harm to other humans, their possessions or those other animals that can suffer.
In the end, we ratchet up and down our morality based on a creature’s capacity to feel pain. Torturing a human is considered one of the most immoral acts possible. Torturing an ape or an orca is also considered highly immoral. A cat, a dog and horse is considered highly immoral, but not on par with a human. Causing a rat, a mole or a bird to suffer is barely considered immoral by most people and usually not by much. Torturing a grasshopper or a worm may only be considered immoral by a small few. A tomato plant cannot feel pain, so there is no capacity to torture it. Same for blade of grass.
Most of us are pragmatists when it comes to “immorality”. Some see all life as equally valuable. Most do not. We kind-of-sort-of try to match our empathy to a creature’s internal sense of self and its ability to feel sense agony/pleasure. The greater our understanding of a creature, the better we match our morality to its capacity to sense these feelings.
Morality is a human construct that largely exists to guide human behaviors with and towards other humans. We have morality because —without it— we’d unlikely have become who are as a species. Our ability to empathize with the suffering of those who can suffer is an important cornerstone of our morality. (i.e. it’s not enough to just be alive — a clam, tree and paramecium are alive, but cannot suffer thus killing them has no moral value other than their impact on humans)
If you are causing an animal to suffer (who can feel such a thing) for personal pleasure, then that becomes immoral not because the death itself is of import —ants die by the bazzillions all the time and frequently because they just followed a scent trail mindlessly and wandered to their doom— but because it highlights potential harm to other humans, their possessions or those other animals that can suffer.
In the end, we ratchet up and down our morality based on a creature’s capacity to feel pain. Torturing a human is considered one of the most immoral acts possible. Torturing an ape or an orca is also considered highly immoral. A cat, a dog and horse is considered highly immoral, but not on par with a human. Causing a rat, a mole or a bird to suffer is barely considered immoral by most people and usually not by much. Torturing a grasshopper or a worm may only be considered immoral by a small few. A tomato plant cannot feel pain, so there is no capacity to torture it. Same for blade of grass.
Most of us are pragmatists when it comes to “immorality”. Some see all life as equally valuable. Most do not. We kind-of-sort-of try to match our empathy to a creature’s internal sense of self and its ability to feel sense agony/pleasure. The greater our understanding of a creature, the better we match our morality to its capacity to sense these feelings.
Similar questions