Quote:
Originally Posted by TGS
Let's use your example - once the kid "knows" that stepping on ants causes them, the ants, to feel pain the kid has a moral responsibility to...
not deliberately step on ants?
take care not to accidentally step on ants?
make adjustments to their life so as to virtually guarantee that they will not step on ants?
|
There are two separate issues here. In my mind the important part is that the child has learned that this question
is a moral question. How he/she responds to it depends on the values he/she was raised with.
I think it's invalid then to take that next step of specifying what now is expected of them because of that. eg. I would not consider the Dalai Lama immoral or bad for not following the Jain tradition of carrying a broom to sweep small creatures from his path. He values all life and desires to remove all suffering - he just doesn't take it to the extremes that the Jains do. And Buddhists themselves are much more conscientious about not causing harm than the average person.
Troy