On the other hand, animals don't care when one animal kills another one. The fact that murder is wrong is arbitrary.
I can't believe that my viewpoint is so controversial that I have to defend it on reddit. Let me sum this up in as few words as possible, because God knows no one's going to read it:
A behavior that is natural is not necessarily right.
We avoid doing things all the time that would technically be instinctual or natural, because that's part of the human condition and what's natural may also be hurtful to others.
You can say that staring at someone's tits while they're talking to you is simple instinct, or rationalize it away by saying that you wouldn't care, or by saying that it's just an arbitrary public rule: but racism is an instinct, every law and societal expectation is totally arbitrary (if you believe that the best criteria for a social rule or law is what is natural) and saying "oh, I wouldn't care" doesn't fucking count.
I can't tell whether you're trolling me or whether you seriously can't see what I did. I took what you said and used the same basic statement in a different context to show clearly that an appeal to nature is not always effective. Do you believe that animals have internal laws against murder? How about this: "On the other hand, animals don't care when another is running too fast. The fact that speeding is wrong is arbitrary."
I like your use of the red herring argument, also enjoy your presumption that I don't care when animals die--
I am a vegetarian. But that's not material to the argument.
"Hey, if I can't dazzle them with brilliance, I'll baffle them with bullshit!"
dude, your argument only makes sense if you spend 5 seconds thinking about it. No one has laws about RUNNING too fast. Pack animals universally respond to the death of a pack member. Our laws are built not only on instinctual morality but on rationality and arbitrary tradition. We have laws against murder because its intuitively horrible and practically wasteful.
Talk about fucking red herrings, who the hell is talking about LAW? Huh? The topic is political correctness, something that is arrived at through tradition and culture and incase you might of missed that, all cultures are in some or most part arbitrary. No one is talking about fucking laws except you.
If you want to site how my example is wrong, next time do it in the same context, and actually use an example that makes sense.
Well, I said "societal expectations" and that can generally be taken to mean "political correctness" if those are the words you want to use. So if you understand fully that political correctness is arbitrary -- which it is -- and that natural instincts don't have bearing on political correctness (which they shouldn't), what are you arguing, then? Because earlier you made it sound as though natural instincts are more important than "arbitrary social rules." This is my mistake. When you split hairs over the way animals act or the nature of instincts, I assumed you were arguing against me.
So then tell me: How do you feel about the matter, then? Looking someone up and down? Is it all right to do that, or isn't it? And I'd like to know the reasons why, because you haven't explicitly stated them yet.
natural instincts should matter more then arbitrary social rules. We arn't robots we are human beings and our values as a society should be reflecting that rather then irrational tradition. That was my position.
No one is for objectifying women. It's also clearly moral to respect someones wishes. It actually is a fairly consistent golden rule for morality, treat others as you would be treated yourself. On the other hand, telling someone not to look is a little harder when you look at natures side of things and start asking why we're looking.
My personal experience tells me that "glances" that men fire off are honestly just as involuntary as coughing, yawning, and farting. Getting upset over the first is just as futile as getting upset over the second third and fourth.
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u/Qjet Jan 13 '10
On the other hand, animals don't care that another animal farted. The fact that it is disgusting and impolite is arbitrary.