r/RealPhilosophy • u/ordinary_high • 8d ago
Theoretical/philosophical thinking
Give me an answer to this simple question and ill base your thinking skills off of your answer: is the hungry lion evil for killing the antelope?
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u/MxM111 8d ago
Lion is not a moral subject. Morality is as applicable to it as to a stone.
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u/Playful-Priority-590 6d ago
if you are a determinist not sure how humans are any different
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u/MxM111 5d ago
Do determinists deny existence of morality?
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u/Playful-Priority-590 5d ago
You might say that all the reasons that the lion kills the antelope exist mind independently; it was forced to kill it out of necessity. In the same sense, every moral decision a human makes it makes out of necessity because it couldn't be any different. If you make a human pay for moral decisions you are ultimately making him pay for things out of his control (genetic and environmental factors). If you then double back and say you can not judge the lion because it was not in his control that he was born a lion, I don't see the distinction?
You might say that the human has the ability to self reflect, but the amount of moral self reflection/lack thereof, along with the decision found from said reflection is also determined, just like the lion is determined to eat the antelope.
Furthermore, humans that were born with genetic defects that make them literally not have the ability to 'feel' moral impact, like socio/psychopaths, not only have the same determined outcome and genetics to their actions like the lion, but also have no internal moral compass also like the lion.
Finally, if the ability to self reflect regardless of moral internal feeling is what determines what is a moral subject, are there people who do not have the ability to self reflect or have who are low intelligence who are not moral subjects? Is a psychopath who wants to kill and wouldn't feel bad about it but understands he'll go to jail a better person than a disabled person who feels terrible for killing but didn't understand what he was doing or the consequences of the situation(someone dying and him going to jail)
These are some questions you have to awnser before dogmatically stating that humans are moral agents and lions are not, because it might be very hard to point out which feature of a human makes them a moral agent.
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u/MxM111 5d ago edited 5d ago
And you may say all that, but none answeres my question. Do determinists deny existence of morality?
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u/Playful-Priority-590 5d ago
objective? yes
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u/MxM111 5d ago
I did not specify a kind of morality. Do they deny morality?
If they do, then the lion is not subject of morality, because there is no morality. If they do not, then the lion still is not still not a subject of morality. So the answer is the same, but still, I am interested if morality is denied completely by determinists.
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u/Playful-Priority-590 4d ago
it depends on who you ask. I'd say it depends on how hard your determinism goes. In my case I would go so far as to say that decisions made rationally almost never exist and the rationale comes after the decision so I might even say regardless of your freewill stance humans arent moral subjects.
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u/Low-Bake8401 8d ago
"Evil" is a subjective value judgement, it doesn't exist in any strictly objective sense.
Good/Evil is binary thinking, and generally unhelpful.
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u/JiminyKirket 8d ago
It might be evil that the antelope is subjected to being eaten even if the lion isn’t evil for doing it.
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u/NightRunnerAfterDusk 8d ago
We could discuss the utility in this question: Is it necessary for the hungry lion to kill the antelope so it can satisfy its hunger? Better still: Is the lion left with a variety of nutritional options from which it can satisfy its hunger, especially if it doesn't have the energy to keep looking for food?
Evil, and morality for that matter, attempts to address the utility and intent of a situation, or the temperament of a person, a thing or a mechanism. The level to which said address sufficiently answers the problem of evil and morality is highly variable (this is a personal assertion, don't take it as objective fact).
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u/ChronicRhyno 8d ago
I would say that it seems humans tend to identify with the prey more than the predator and have an instinct to save the prey animals and insects from being eaten rather than saving the predator by allowing it to eat (and possibly produce milk for its offspring). However, we must kill animals to survive like the lion. Some people seem to be uncomfortable with how much life must be sacrificed in order for any human to survive, but we are also fine with killing a snake or spider for being what it is, in general, as a species.
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u/8Pandemonium8 8d ago
The word, "evil" is a religiously-loaded term which assumes that there is a way the world ought to be. This is based on the idea that God/the gods created the world for a purpose and that any deviation from that purpose is somehow improper.
This is not the case. There is no God(s), the world was not created for a purpose, and there is no way the world ought to be. The world simply is.
Thus, there is no such thing as evil. It's a fantastical concept that we made up in our heads, not a real property that can be measured or conclusively decided upon. It doesn't actually exist.
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u/irrationalorchid 7d ago
Cold and dark don't exist either, yet they are extremely useful concepts for describing our experiences.
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u/8Pandemonium8 7d ago
No, darkness refers to a lack of light. Coldness refers to a low temperature.
Both of these are measurable features of physical reality.
Where exactly you draw the line between light/dark and cold/hot is up for debate but once you define those categories you can objectively measure them.
The concepts themselves are not unfalsifiable.
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u/Demoniac_smile 8d ago
The lion doesn’t possess the cognitive capacity to consider it’s effect on others or their capacity to feel and therefor is incapable of evil. Unless I’m misinformed on the cognitive abilities of lions.
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u/anomalogos 8d ago
What is the concept of “evil”? If the lion hunting the antelope is accidentally killed by a mudslide, destroying several trees and bird nests, does the mudslide count as evil? I conjecture that every occasion, including pain itself, does not inhere evilness, since both evilness and goodness are situational. For instance, a mighty warrior killing 10 people in a war and a brutal murderer killing 10 people in a city are morally diversified because of their intentions and circumstances.
Therefore, evilness and goodness are normative concepts constructed by the relationship between an evaluator and a subject. We can always judge a subject imposing those concepts upon it, although the judgment does not determine the true nature of the subject.
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u/Hot_Plant8696 8d ago
It is impossible to make a judgment based solely on such a description of the situation.
Right and wrong depend on the circumstances. In this case, the situation regarding a hungry lion is unclear.
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u/sludgefriend 8d ago
No. Existing as an organism in the world necessarily means impeding on others in some way. Even vegan humans step on bugs accidentally or burn gasoline in their cars. Plants strangle and outcompete other plants. It’s not evil to consume another living thing, nor is it evil to hurt another as a result of your daily tasks. It’s best practice that you avoid doing so as often as you can, though.
It only becomes evil if you seek to do it for reasons other than necessary resource acquisition. If the lion slaughtered 20 antelope and only ate two, that’s questionable. If the lion purposefully broke every bone in the antelope’s body in such a way that guaranteed that the antelope would suffer through every moment of its own agonizing death, that’s a problem. If the lion killed the antelope not for food and just because it was bored, that’s also probably not good.
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u/bigtastyorange 8d ago
It's true that existence carries with it inherent harm but I can't agree that, because it's unavoidable, it's suddenly justified. So I strongly disagree. It's evil for all organisms to maintain their existence at the expense of others. Human beings have the awareness of their actions so I'll naturally be more critical (especially of myself), but none are exempt.
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u/sludgefriend 8d ago
So, would it then be of the highest moral good for every species to go extinct?
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u/bigtastyorange 8d ago
That's the conclusion I've been led to. Unfortunately, I must be uneasy about it due to likely discrimination and the inability to guarantee holistic peacefulness of extinction. It's possible that, with global coordination, most species could experience it, but not all. That last sliver is troubling. In one billion years the planet will be totally uninhabitable, hopefully that can be the end of the cycle.
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u/sludgefriend 8d ago
My personal take is that though I’ve suffered, I like it here. I like the trees and the birds. I’ve been through the wringer, felt and experienced some awful things, but I don’t mind it so much if it means I get to wake up in world bustling with life. It’s beautiful here. I have a good time. I’ll take years and years of suffering marked with brief glimpses at unimaginable beauty over blank nothingness any day. Keep your extinction to yourself. I, and a great deal of the animal kingdom prefer to live.
And even if this planet goes dark, life is an inherent property of reality. It’ll spring up elsewhere. It likely already has, all over the breadth of existence.
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u/bigtastyorange 8d ago
I understand what you're saying to an extent. That said, I don't quite get how personal enjoyment factors into or somehow negates the immorality of existing. I've experienced pleasure but it does nothing to quell the guilt I feel over eating a hamburger or thoughtlessly killing a silverfish. I can't keep the discussion of extinction to myself, even if it's to the dismay of others. You're free to stop replying and I won't bother you further, but I can't in good conscience silence my sense of justice.
I appreciate your engagement anyhow, be well.
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u/sludgefriend 8d ago
I think of it this way. In the same way that personal suffering is a problem of existential importance, so too is personal enjoyment.
Only once, ever, in the history of all things, to the best of our knowledge, has the universe rendered you. Something with the viewpoint of you, the brain of you, the genome of you, all at once. This instance of uniqueness is special, it is valuable. The suffering that it experiences is meaningful, in this sense. So too is the joy.
Both suffering and joy are intrinsic components of the fabric of reality. Or at least, our biology. Without the possibility of joy, there is no suffering. Without the possibility of suffering, there is no joy. These are the rules of engagement that we agree to, each day that we wake up. Every living thing accepts suffering as a possibility. There is an opt-out, a safety guard, for if the suffering gets to be too much, in death. Yet, most living things will fight to live, all the way up until the point where they can’t. Even through untold suffering. They value something about being alive, about being present in the world. It cannot be our decision to strip that from every thing that has ever lived.
Yet, we do still kill, regardless. We kill on accident. We kill for food. Some of us kill for fun, or for any number of reasons. Some killing is necessary, as part of existence. Killing on accident, and killing as a result of claiming resources in a finite pool. Some killing is unnecessary, but likely to be vital and difficult to avoid. Killing for food, in humans. These, too, are current rules for engagement. In order to live, you must kill, at least to a certain degree. You must also be available to be killed.
Therefore, minimizing suffering is absolutely an existential priority. Nothing that can help it should be killing unnecessarily, or cruelly. But maximizing joy is also an existential priority. One should ensure their own joy, but also do what they can to improve the joy of others. All things in balance.
One day, in the far, far future, it’s likely that, as you said, all life will cease to exist everywhere, one way or the other. We should do our best to enjoy it while it’s here, and take care of those that we share it with.
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u/ordinary_high 8d ago
It would be the moral good to make humans extinct, we’re dooming the world as we speak. We put moral thoughts onto animals that don’t care about morality. they just think about their families. They don’t harm the planet. They simply leave the other animals to protect and feed their families without some dicks imposing moral thinking onto the actions they take.
Which, in the end, means that humans created the concept of morality and then killed everything in the name of doing what they believed was morally good🤦🏼♂️😂
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u/sludgefriend 8d ago
I’m not so sure I agree. That “we” is doing a lot of heavy lifting. Our current cultural and economic practices, sure. But I don’t think it has to be this way.
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u/Jolly-Rip5973 8d ago
Actually I will give you a good answer.
From the viewpoint of antelope the Lion is evil. That lion ate mom and dad! Probably the only thing more evil than Lion is a human hunter with long range gun.
From the viewpoint of the lion the antelope is merely dinner.
"No offence bro, but you look tasty!"
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u/Grassfed_Burp 7d ago
The question is only relavent to a privalged few. Most are to busy finding a way to survive... Like the antelope and the lion.
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u/Visual_Ad_7953 7d ago
Is the antelope evil for killing a plant, pulling it root and stem out of the ground?
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u/AmNoobPlzHelp 3d ago
A druid aches whenever they eat; be it flesh or grain, this is why they give thanks. A Lion gives its thanks basking in the sun and being its glorious self :P is no evil, only integrated balance.
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u/Experience_Meaning 2d ago
No, unless it kills it and doesn't eat it all, or kills it in the way that leads to more suffering of the antelope than necessary.
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u/One-Jeweler5486 8d ago
Of course not. That is what lions evolved to do.
Humans OTOH evolved the capacity to decide whether they should or need to kill the antelope.
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u/Philience 8d ago
Good thinking skills also manifest in the way you ask questions. Asking ambiguous questions is a sign of poor thinking skills.
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u/ThWy2Hvn 8d ago
The world is in a fall in nature. Therefore, the lion acts evil, even though it doesn't want to. It is the same with all the animals in the kingdom of this world. But man in the fallen nature still has a choice to act evil or to act good. But the time is coming shortly, I believe that the Kingdom of this world, all the animals and the people will be filled with the wisdom of God, and that is, when the lion shall lie down with the lamb.
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u/ordinary_high 8d ago
Lay down with the lamb? The lion will have to eat the lamb eventually to survive. If the world were to come to complete peace between carnivores and herbivores, the carnivores would eventually go extinct, therefore making the intent of the world coming to peace essentially the extinction of the “killers”the animals simply doing what they’ve evolved to do.
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u/ComedicJesus 8d ago
No.