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Notes -
I recall you cared a great deal about a dog, if I’m not confusing you with someone else.
You are correct. But the apparent contradiction doesn't exist. It might seem to: On one hand, I profess a functional indifference to the moral worth of non-human animals; on the other, I admit a deep and abiding love for my own dogs, to the point where I would have few qualms about visiting significant unpleasantness upon anyone who harmed them.
This isn't so much a contradiction as it is a clarification, best captured by amending my original statement: I don't care about the moral worth of most non-human animals. The ones in my circle of concern are a rounding error, statistically speaking - 99.99999...% of them fall outside it.
My moral framework isn't a flat, universalist plane where all entities of a certain class are assigned equal value. It’s better modeled as a series of intensely-felt concentric circles.
For example:
I love my mother. I would inflict what the law might term 'grievous bodily harm' upon anyone who purposefully hurt her. This is a non-negotiable axiom of my existence.
And yet, I do not, as a rule, love the mothers of other people. I might feel a general, abstract goodwill toward the concept of motherhood, especially in an era of demographic decline. I might even feel a pang of sympathy hearing a story about a stranger's ailing mother. But my level of emotional and practical investment is, let's be honest, functionally zero. My strong protective instinct is parochial; it does not generalize. I suspect for most people, it operates the same way. I suspect you love your mother more than you love mine.
This model extends to almost everything. I am willing to be taxed (in theory, if the system were effective) to prevent my phone from being snatched on the streets of London. I am not, however, moved to donate to an anti-thievery initiative in Nigeria. My concern is a function of proximity and personal stake. I disagree with Singer when it comes to the failures of a Newtonian model of ethical obligations, a child drowning in front of me compels me to act far stronger than one in Australia. The latter is, as far as I'm concerned, not my business.
This brings us to the dogs. My dogs are my dogs. The pleasant-looking labrador I met near St. Pancras station today received some affectionate scratches because he was a "good boy" and reminded me of my own, but my moral obligation began and ended there. If a restaurant in Sichuan province serves dog, my sole practical concern is ensuring my pups never wander off unattended if we visit.
As I've outlined elsewhere, my moral system is built not on a universalist foundation, but on a framework that approximates it through the mutual respect of property and sovereignty. It's a system designed for a world of bounded sympathies.
Calling a beloved pet "property" sounds cold, I know, and perhaps it’s an imprecise shorthand. They are a special class of entity within my sphere of sovereignty, one imbued with immense sentimental value, more akin to an irreplaceable family heirloom or a child than to a fungible commodity like a chair. But they exist within that sphere, and my duties toward them are products of that relationshipof ownership, stewardship, and affection. The cow destined for a steakhouse does not.
A committed utilitarian might call this a classic cognitive bias, a failure to apply the principle of impartiality, a failure of my moral software. I do not care, who gave them the right to dictate objective morality? But I find this model to be more descriptively accurate of how most humans actually operate, and perhaps more prescriptively stable than a universalism that demands a level of saintly, impartial concern that almost no one can consistently achieve.
So the paradox resolves cleanly. My dogs are loved not because they are dogs, but because they are mine. My concern for them is an exception that proves the rule*: my moral landscape is not flat, but mountainous, with peaks of intense personal obligation surrounded by vast plains of practical indifference. It's not a universalist's map, but I find it an honest and livable one.
*That phrase, for once, applied correctly.
I'd say that I am mostly with you here. I however have an additional position which can give animals moral worth - if they impact humans. This is I think Kantian position, where animal moral worth is derivative from humans. E.g. we give pets more moral worth compared to nonpets, because killing pets impacts their owners orders of magnitude more. Additionally animal cruelty by perpetrator may make them more cruel to people, so we may regulate that behavior somewhat. Of course this argument can be hijacked by somebody claiming any animal suffering causes them a lot of harm. So it is not a sure thing, but it is directionally correct for me so we can have some basic prescriptions when it comes to animal cruelty while not morally equating [some number of] animals to humans as some rationalists do.
At the end of the day, most moral systems reduce to normality, outside of edge cases which are, well, edge cases. If you're not cooking my dog, and I'm not feeding yours poison, we'd get along regardless of the underlying reasons.
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