It's my first post and it's real long... sorry!
If you see a "you" in the following that isn't specified, you know who you are!
People in india think its wrong to eat meat. Thats their moral call.
And yet we eat meat.
Why, if it's wrong?
Is it because we don't think its wrong?
Are we right and they wrong?
Are they right and we wrong?
We're taking the life of an animal that could make a good pet (my dad used to play with a cow when he was a kid; he said it would play rough like a dog, and cut up and be playful; and then my grandpa slaughtered it, and when they were eating it, he would pick at my dad and say, pass a piece of rose over here... and, rose sure does taste good.)
So imagine having your dad say, today we're eating the dog. and he goes and kills it and skins it and mom fries him up and you eat him and when you cry your dad picks at you about it.
Would we kill the animal if it were not useful to do so?
Why not?
Why not kill dogs for the fun of it?
Is it at all regrettable that the cows have to die for us to eat them?
Would it be less regrettable for a cow to be killed for us to eat or for a cow to be killed for the pleasure of some wierdo serial cow-killer?
Is it regrettable for a cow to die at all?
So, then, are the Indians right?
And yet were it not for our interest in eating cow meat, very few cows would be born and very few would die. And so, we perform the regrettable (wrong) act of killing cows in order to meet our selfish desire for cow-meat. Furthermore, we compound our crime by raising cows--bringing them into existence-- by carefully breeding adult cows so that they might have offspring which we intend to consume, even though we acknowledge that the taking of the offspring's life before its consumption will be regrettable (wrong) and unnecessary--but useful. If you ignore the argument up to this point, I ask, does the fact that killing the cow is useful justify killing the cow, when killing the cow for no reason is wrong? (I eat cow-meat ALL the time)
You say, the taking of a human life for the benefit of other humans is wrong. But by analogy with the cow example, the fact that it is wrong should not be sufficient to stop us from doing it, since you are likely a cow-meat-eater, and yet you think killing cows is regrettable (wrong). But you will say that though killing a cow is regrettable and doing it for no reason is wrong, killing a person for reasons of self-interest (or the interest of others in your social contract) is always wrong and to a much greater degree than killing a cow. But, since you are a beef eater, you agree that slightly useful ends (tasty cow-meat) justify slightly unjust actions (the regrettable killing of a cow). Then, I ask, do not greatly useful ends (the eventual immortality that might [and I firmly believe WILL] flow from stem cell research) justify greatly unjust actions?
HAH!
Truth be told, I don't believe the destruction of blastocysts or cysts or fetuses or whatever is unjust at all, but I felt obliged to argue on the ground you would feel comfortable treading.
What is the first memory you have?
Mine is holding my Papaw's finger walking to his buick car in his shed in rural Bon Wier Texas.
If I had never gotten past the blastocyst (or whatever) stage, would I ever have known the difference? Would I have ever known Anything?
More succinctly, would I have known the difference more or LESS than the cow you ate yesterday?
If we're going to waste our time deliberating on what the fetuses COULD be, we should also argue about what all the sperm in my gonads COULD be if I were to make myself useful and give every female I saw a free sample whether she wanted one or not. Think of all the children we're murdering by locking up just one rapist.
Tell me this: if it is wrong to kill a cow for no reason, is it wrong to destroy a cow blastocyst for no reason? What if you had a very good reason?
What about the ages where people weren't people yet? When we were ape-like... would destroying a homo habilis blastocyst for a very good reason be wrong? What about Neanderthals? Many anthropologists believe homo sapiens cannot be traced back to neanderthals because they branched off in another direction, which died out on the "tree". So would destroying a neanderthals blastocyst for a very good reason be more wrong than destroying a cow blastocyst for a very good reason? After all, they are just animals since they didn't evolve into humans (who enjoy a special status), right?
The answer, you may say, lies in sentience. But clearly human blastocysts are not sentient. So we modify our reply and say, the potential for sentience. But clearly all of the sperm-egg combinations of rapists and teenage girls have potential for sentience. So now I am at a loss in pursuing your argument for you and I leave it to you to continue it for me where I cannot, if you so choose.
