“I recently read an essay by Peter Singer, Ethics Beyond Species and Beyond Instincts, in which he defined the moral as that which is universalizable, in this sense: “We can distinguish the moral from the nonmoral by appeal to the idea that when we think, judge, or act within the realm of the moral, we do so in a manner that we are prepared to apply to all others who are similarly placed.”
I read that, sat back, and said to myself: “I cannot do morality.”
I cannot do it in the same sense that an alcoholic cannot drink, and a person with an eating disorder cannot go on a diet. I am incapable of engaging with universalizable morality in a way that does not cause me severe mental harm. While I can reject a universalizable moral claim on an intellectual level, I am incapable of rejecting them– no matter how absurd or contradictory to other things I accept– on an emotional level. If I fail to live up to such a claim, I will hate myself and curl in a ball and be utterly nonfunctional for a few hours, causing harm to both myself and those who have to put up with me.
So (with much backsliding) I have started to make an effort to weed out the universalizable morality from my brain. I do things I want to do, and I don’t do things I don’t want to do.”
You and your girlfriend seem to have adopted a philosophical standard of morals which humans cannot uphold. I happen to believe that the case for the moral weight of organism lacking central nervous systems is extremely weak, but resisting the temptation to dismiss your position on those grounds alone I would say that if your slime civilization was proven real tomorrow, then there would be nothing to do except acknowledge the tragedy and move on with life. It’s not like human-dominated environments make up a majority of those that are so theoretically miserable for ants and dust mites and the bugs in Brian Tomasik’s compost, so even radical anti-natalism would accomplish a statistical nothing. If the ants suffered as you killed them, then the tragedy is not that you did it but that those ants were born into a world so hostile that if you hadn’t killed them because they can’t live in your apartment, then they would have been eaten by birds, or at war with other colonies, or frozen/drowned/dehydrated by the millions thanks to the weather.
Thankfully I do believe the case for the moral worth of ants is weak, so I hope you will consider seeking out counselling on how to reduce your/your girlfriend’s apparent feelings of shame for the largely hypothetical moral suffering you worry about causing.
From Ozy:
“I recently read an essay by Peter Singer, Ethics Beyond Species and Beyond Instincts, in which he defined the moral as that which is universalizable, in this sense: “We can distinguish the moral from the nonmoral by appeal to the idea that when we think, judge, or act within the realm of the moral, we do so in a manner that we are prepared to apply to all others who are similarly placed.”
I read that, sat back, and said to myself: “I cannot do morality.”
I cannot do it in the same sense that an alcoholic cannot drink, and a person with an eating disorder cannot go on a diet. I am incapable of engaging with universalizable morality in a way that does not cause me severe mental harm. While I can reject a universalizable moral claim on an intellectual level, I am incapable of rejecting them– no matter how absurd or contradictory to other things I accept– on an emotional level. If I fail to live up to such a claim, I will hate myself and curl in a ball and be utterly nonfunctional for a few hours, causing harm to both myself and those who have to put up with me.
So (with much backsliding) I have started to make an effort to weed out the universalizable morality from my brain. I do things I want to do, and I don’t do things I don’t want to do.”
https://thingofthings.wordpress.com/2016/06/13/assorted-thoughts-on-scrupulosity/
You and your girlfriend seem to have adopted a philosophical standard of morals which humans cannot uphold. I happen to believe that the case for the moral weight of organism lacking central nervous systems is extremely weak, but resisting the temptation to dismiss your position on those grounds alone I would say that if your slime civilization was proven real tomorrow, then there would be nothing to do except acknowledge the tragedy and move on with life. It’s not like human-dominated environments make up a majority of those that are so theoretically miserable for ants and dust mites and the bugs in Brian Tomasik’s compost, so even radical anti-natalism would accomplish a statistical nothing. If the ants suffered as you killed them, then the tragedy is not that you did it but that those ants were born into a world so hostile that if you hadn’t killed them because they can’t live in your apartment, then they would have been eaten by birds, or at war with other colonies, or frozen/drowned/dehydrated by the millions thanks to the weather.
Thankfully I do believe the case for the moral worth of ants is weak, so I hope you will consider seeking out counselling on how to reduce your/your girlfriend’s apparent feelings of shame for the largely hypothetical moral suffering you worry about causing.