29 upvotes, 7 direct replies (showing 7)
Thank god we don't accept your initial premise. Man is part of nature just like all the other animals. Is a beaver evil if it builds a damn that floods a riverbank and destroys habitats of animals that live along it?
Comment by Gravity_Beetle at 26/01/2020 at 07:01 UTC*
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Did you actually read the article, or just come here to be outraged? The author’s whole point is that affecting the environment by merely existing *isn’t* evil, and that we *shouldn’t* be so quick to villainize one another for it.
Comment by Partha4us at 25/01/2020 at 16:40 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
No man is evil, when for selfish gain in fear of death, nature and mankind are enslaved in terror of extinction and suffering in sickness and unworthiness, divorced from fellowship with man and communion with nature.
Comment by DrRidleyCooper at 25/01/2020 at 16:00 UTC
5 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Exactly. Environmental activists, while meaning well, have elevated the environment itself to having a moral status (or so I argue in the link). I think the moral aspect to affecting the environment only comes in when there are consequences that increase suffering of sentient beings...(which of course live in and depend on the broader "environment")
Comment by starskyandguts at 25/01/2020 at 16:04 UTC
4 upvotes, 3 direct replies
I think the beaver who floods the river is on a lower level than the human who dumps chemicals into the river and poisons it for the foreseeable future. There's a difference.
Comment by platoprime at 26/01/2020 at 01:51 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Thank god we don't accept your initial premise.
Right?! What a preposterously stupid thing to assert. I suppose we should consider it long enough to dismiss it.
Is a beaver evil if it builds a damn that floods a riverbank and destroys habitats of animals that live along it?
Beavers are a significant benefit to the ecosystem. Even if they weren't they can't be evil because they don't possess the cognition required for something to be evil. In this case the impact a beaver has is either positive or negative not evil or good.
Also even if there were evil beavers out there destroying rivers to make unsustainable wetlands they'd eradicate themselves shortly after destroying the wetlands. The damage caused by humans is not limited to a local ecosystem.
Comment by [deleted] at 25/01/2020 at 16:08 UTC
2 upvotes, 6 direct replies
In doing so the beaver creates others habitats for different creatures. The beaver doesn't eradicate entire species and cause the planet to be uninhabitable. Terrible comparison.
Comment by Minuted at 25/01/2020 at 17:13 UTC
-1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Animals aren't moral agents.