Quote:
Originally Posted by Ea
Someone (and you, Sparrow) offered up "suffering" - but then I ask, what does it mean? What does "suffering" mean? Who is to determine the level of suffering of other living things? I don't think we can and that makes the term "suffering" meaningless. I don't think it's "logical" to take suffering into account - perhaps it would be better to call it "sensible", but I would still ask, what "sense"?
|
I don't have a problem with the term 'suffering' - I think I have experienced it to some extent; and I think I have seen it in others - e.g. witnessing sufferers trying to avoid what makes them suffer (snatching hand out of fire etc.). Although maybe they just acted as if they were suffering, but weren't actually (Descartes view).
'Suffering' is a subjective term, but I don't think it's any more problematic than other subjective words.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ea
Hmm... what if I suggested that the only real reason behind minimising "suffering" and "being good to anmals" is because it gives us warm fuzzy feelings? And because we (most of us), and the society we live in, can afford those feelings.
|
I have a lot of sympathy with that view. I think it is also why we are 'good' to other humans; and don't like seeing them suffer. It's a lot to do with empathy - after all, if you didn't care, you wouldn't care.
P.S. I don't subscribe to the "christian idea of man as care-taker of nature, and an implicit understanding that humans are somehow above all other animals." - so it doesn't influence my attitudes to suffering (I hope
).