Posted on 04/27/2014 4:13:57 PM PDT by don-o
I would tend to agree, but a more powerful argument is that animals cannot make moral choices.
To know good from evil is to have the nature of, as J. Budziszewiski said, is to have a knowledge of 'what we can't not know'. This is referenced in Romans 1:20 through the second chapter of Romans. As hard as man tries, it is impossible to not know it is wrong (morally) to kill one's offspring, or to have sexual relations with your neighbors wife, or to blaspheme God. Now, this may be suppressed, but it cannot be discarded. It is the nature of a person. This is Natural Law. We cannot not know it is wrong to gratuitously harm another person. We cannot not know it is wrong to take property which belong to another person. If you look carefully at the Decalogue you will see the parallels.
I agree with your statement that animals cannot make moral choices. This is not in their nature to do so.
Does Mr. Wise honestly expect an animal to go to court if its “rights” are ever violated?
he (the evil one) is not at all unhappy to see the animal creatures being elevated in status.
Moral choices derive from spirit resonance, which is not a part of the animal soul behavior mechanism, except in those to whom God breathed a living soul. ... I contend that ETs are technologically advanced, but do not have a spirit component.
What I do know is that moral standards are prescribed by a Moral Lawgiver, and if there is a Moral Lawgiver then persons have a moral obligation to that Lawgiver. One does not reason the law, but discovers the law. Without objective standards of meaning of morality then life becomes meaningless and choices become capricious. There is, under this scenario, no right an wrong and no absolutes of any sort. Everything becomes a matter of opinion. J. Budziszewski says there is no country in which virtue and gratitude is vice. Everyone knows there are absolute moral obligations, at all times, and in all places.
Person-years or dog-years?
The Wendell Urth mysteries are few in number, but more entertaining than Asimov usually is; I think he wrote them under a pen name to avoid being associated with the detective genre, and maybe because he still had hopes of becoming successful again. :’)
By “we” I meant people who unnecessarily torture animals, and those who support their right to do so.
My rats took forever converting from a slide rule to a calculator.
Thanks for bringing Scripture into it. I think I was probably making the mistake of thinking in secular terms.
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