#moral-philosophy — Public Fediverse posts

🧠 VOUS N'AVEZ PAS CHOISI VOTRE TALENT. POURQUOI MÉRITERIEZ-VOUS D'ÊTRE RÉCOMPENSÉ POUR LUI ?

Imaginez deux personnes.

La première possède une facilité extraordinaire pour les mathématiques. Elle apprend vite, comprend intuitivement des problèmes complexes et finit par gagner beaucoup d'argent grâce à ses compétences.

La seconde gagne exactement la même somme à une loterie.

Laquelle mérite davantage cet argent ?

Vous avez probablement déjà une réponse.

La première a développé ses capacités, étudié, travaillé. La seconde a simplement eu de la chance.

La distinction paraît évidente.

Mais remontons un peu dans l'histoire de notre mathématicienne.

Elle n'a pas choisi ses prédispositions. Elle n'a pas décidé de naître avec cette facilité particulière. Elle n'a pas davantage choisi l'époque dans laquelle ses capacités seraient valorisées.

Bien sûr, elle a travaillé.

Et personne ne lui retire ses efforts.

Seulement, une question commence à devenir gênante : pourquoi considérons-nous certaines caractéristiques reçues à la naissance comme du mérite, et d'autres comme de la chance ?

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🔬 LE PARADOXE DU TALENT

En mai 2026, une étude publiée dans l'European Economic Review s'intéresse précisément à cette contradiction.

Les chercheurs examinent la manière dont nous jugeons les inégalités produites par le talent et celles produites par le hasard.

Le résultat est particulièrement intéressant.

Les participants acceptent davantage les inégalités attribuées au talent que celles attribuées à la chance.

Jusque-là, rien de très surprenant.

Mais cette préférence persiste même lorsqu'on tient compte de leur perception du contrôle que les individus exercent sur ces facteurs.

Autrement dit, reconnaître qu'une capacité n'a pas été choisie ne suffit pas à la placer, dans nos jugements, au même niveau qu'un tirage au sort.

Les chercheurs appellent cela le « paradoxe du talent ».

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💥 NOUS NE RÉCOMPENSONS PAS SEULEMENT CE QUE LES GENS ONT CHOISI DE FAIRE.

Nous pouvons aussi juger légitime qu'ils bénéficient de caractéristiques qu'ils n'ont jamais choisies.

Pourquoi ?

L'étude suggère une piste : lorsqu'une personne utilise effectivement son talent pour produire quelque chose, nous avons tendance à considérer qu'elle possède un droit particulier sur le résultat.

La différence ne tient donc pas uniquement à l'origine de l'avantage.

Elle tient aussi à ce que la personne en fait.

Et c'est là que la question devient beaucoup plus intéressante que le simple affrontement entre mérite et chance.

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🧩 ALORS, LE MÉRITE EXISTE-T-IL ?

Cette expérience ne permet pas de répondre à cette question.

Elle étudie nos jugements de justice, pas l'existence philosophique d'un mérite objectif.

On peut parfaitement défendre l'idée qu'un individu mérite une récompense pour avoir cultivé ses capacités, même si ces capacités dépendent en partie de circonstances qu'il n'a pas choisies.

On peut aussi considérer qu'aucune réussite individuelle ne peut être complètement séparée des conditions qui l'ont rendue possible.

La science peut examiner comment nous formulons ces jugements et ce qui les influence.

Elle ne décide pas, à notre place, de ce qu'une société devrait considérer comme juste.

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🔎 Une discussion récente avec @gomli m'a donné envie de revenir sur cette question.

Il demandait notamment si le mérite était réellement une notion universelle, ou simplement une manière particulière d'interpréter nos actions et leurs conséquences.

Je trouve que cette étude apporte un éclairage passionnant à sa réflexion.

Car nous savons distinguer le talent de la chance.

Mais lorsque nous devons expliquer pourquoi l'un mérite une récompense et l'autre non, notre réponse devient soudain beaucoup moins évidente.

Peut-être que la question la plus difficile n'est pas de savoir qui mérite sa réussite.

C'est de comprendre ce que nous avons décidé d'appeler « mériter ».

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📚 SOURCES :

• « The talent paradox: Why is it fair to reward talent but not luck? » (2026).
European Economic Review, vol. 185, article 105268.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2026.105268

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — « Moral Luck » (révision 2025).
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-luck/

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#QUAERO #science #psychologie #mérite #talent #chance #inégalités #espritcritique #philosophie #justice

#Science #Psychology #Meritocracy #Fairness #Inequality #MoralPhilosophy #CriticalThinking

Also, to me it's more about the causing of pain than using as a means. I can think of situations where one can manipulate another without harming them. I'd be interested to see Kant's argument that it's still wrong.

Also, according to Wikipedia, Kant died 5 years before Darwin was born, so my framing of humans as a kind of animal probably wouldn't have made sense to him.

#morality #philosophy #moralphilosophy @gutenberg_org

"We are not good. We are not even fine." Secular ethics borrows the standards without building the repair infrastructure. by @bledewitz.bsky.social

https://onlys.ky/teshuva-for-the-secular/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fresh

#Secularism #Humanism #Ethics #Judaism #MoralPhilosophy

(New paper) — The phrase "expected x" is potentially misleading. Except when dealing with past realities, "expected" isn't a predicate; it's an operator (like a doxastic belief operator). Crucially, an expected x is not an x.This linguistic distinction impacts how we (should) view "expected consequences" in moral philosophy

https://doi.org/10.18267/j.e-logos.520

#PhilosophyOfLanguage #MoralPhilosophy
#Ethics
#Philosophy

A New Book Examines The Wickedness Of Trump. Sort Of.

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://defector.com/a-new-book-examines-the-wickedness-of-trump-sort-of

Biblical ethics provide a foundational framework for moral decision-making, emphasizing principles such as love, justice, and compassion. These teachings encourage individuals to act with integrity and to consider the impact of their actions on others. Understanding these ethical guidelines can lead to a more harmonious society. #BiblicalEthics #MoralPhilosophy #ChristianLiving #FaithInAction #EthicalLiving

All-new in SEP, Animal Normativity, by Simon Fitzpatrick,

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/animal-normativity/

#sep #animal #elain #normativity #etiikka #ethics #moral #moralPsychology #agency #responsibility #social #norm #filosofia #philosophy #moralStatus #empathy #morality #moraali #biology #human #eläinoikeudet #animalCognition #animalRights #duties #moralPhilosophy

Temptation and Where it Leads

It’s hard for people to know this until they get there, but money has such diminishing returns. Once you can buy dinner and not worry about it, everything beyond that is just marginal square footage in a second home or an extra-comfy seat on an airplane. However, wealth can be useful if you see money as a system. I have more “system points” than others, so if I want, I can donate money to my kids’ school or fund businesses that I think are interesting. Accumulating wealth for its own sake is creatively bankrupt. But deploying it to move needles you care about moving is a super-good use of time and energy.

Startup CEO Daniel Eberhard, interview with Macleans, 10 August 2026

Eberhard is newly rich and elsewhere in his interview sounds like he has been hanging out with bad company who tell him he is more productive than a homemaker or a bus driver who keeps the local makerspace going I think he is smart enough to understand why the rest of us don’t like a few people who were lucky in their parents or lucky in business moving so many needles. But I don’t know he has seen where this kind of thinking leads as well as Agatha Christie saw in 1952.

‘Lewis was a great man,’ (Carrie Louise) said. ‘A man of great vision, and a passionate believer in what could be accomplished – with money. He didn’t want it for himself – or at least not in the greedy vulgar sense – he did want the power of it, he wanted the power to do great good with it -‘
‘He wanted,’ said the Bishop, ‘to be God.’ His voice was suddenly stern. He forgot that man is only the humble instrument of God’s will.’
‘And so he embezzled the trust funds?’ said Miss Marple.

Agatha Christie, They Do it With Mirrors (1952) p. 212

One of the most important decisions in your life is who you chose to listen to and respect.

(scheduled 17 August 2026)

Companies are hiring philosophers, and that's a good thing, right?

https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/the-philosophers-are-here-which-philosophers

#ai #ethics #philosophy #aiethics #governance #utilitarianism #selectionbias #technology #criticism #moralphilosophy #analyticalphilosophy #power #institutions #hiring #employment #perspectives #blog #substack #podcast

Schopenhauer’s Moral Philosophy by Patrick Hassan, 2022

Develops new perspectives on Schopenhauer's moral philosophy, addressing the moral status of animals; the moral permissibility of suicide; the possibility of altruistic action; the virtue and asceticism; and how Schopenhauer integrates Western and Indian traditions.

#books
#nonfiction
#MoralPhilosophy
#Schopenhauer

A 'technical' blog about #MoralRights - so one for the academics in relevant areas.

tl;dr - if moral rights are entitlements and being entitled is a bad thing, then why do we think moral rights are such a good thing? Can moral philosophy do better without them?

https://listed.to/@24601/74138/on-being-entitled

#Academia #Ethics #MoralPhilosophy #Philosophy

“If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.”*…

Stoicism is having a moment. The estimable Timothy Snyder considers the events of the day in the light of Marcus Aurelius‘ thoughts– and actions…

As Donald Trump announced his whimsy war in Iran, I was reading about another imperial campaign, long ago, against an Iranian people.

In the late second century AD, the Roman Empire confronted armies that had crossed the border at the Danube River and even broached the Alps in northern Italy. Among them were the Iazyges, speakers of an Iranian language, who hailed from the Ukrainian steppe.

In Ukraine this February, I was learning about an archaeological find which reveals the interactions of the Romans and the Iazyges, which included alliance as well as enmity. The Roman war against the Iazyges allies was commanded personally by Emperor Marcus Aurelius, who spent the years between 171 and 180 AD at the front. During that time he kept a philosophical diary, probably written at night in his tent. Discovered after his death, that text, known as the Meditations, is a great work of Stoic philosophy.

I turned to the Meditations to see if I could learn anything that would help me to understand the work of Ukrainian archaeologists about the interactions between Romans and Iazyges. I found something else: perspective on the wars of today, and a sense of why, beyond his obvious incompetence in military matters, Trump had to lose his.

It was shaming to read the bombast of Trump: (”no president was willing to do what I have done tonight”) alongside the reflections of Marcus (“when things have such a plausible appearance, show them naked, see their shoddiness, strip away their own boastful account of themselves.”) Trump broadcast his arrogance to millions of people; Marcus wrote for himself.

Despite the fact he was commanding an army at the front, Marcus never mentioned the war in his Meditations. War was simply something he had to do; he had no difficulty seeing the other side as people, or understanding their motivations. He mentions the Iazyges only once in the text: to make a broader point about hubris, to suggest that it was wrong for Romans to take pride in taking a prisoner of war.

Although Marcus did not broach the subject of my interest, I could not stop reading his Meditations. The contrast with Trump’s utterances was astounding, and vertiginous. The one could spend nine years in command and write a philosophical diary in which he did not even mention the war; the other immediately leapt to praise himself for a war he would lose in weeks…

[With an focus on the “adventure in Iran,” Snyder elaborates the (painfully unflattering) comparison…]

… The American leaders had no idea of who they were or what they wanted, aside from the satisfaction of their emotional needs by the killing of others. They were unable to imagine that people on the other side might have ideas about their own interests and plans for their own behavior. The could not see the world, even in its plainest representation as geography; whereas Marcus exploited a bend in the Danube River to tactical advantage to win a battle; Trump chose to ignore the physical limit the Straits of Hormuz can place on world trade. As soon as the war began, the Iranians did the obvious: they responded to American long-range attacks with the same; and they blocked the Straits.

Because the Americans were operating without a sense of themselves, of the world, or other people, this came as a surprise. Marcus Aurelius offers this mild comment: “How absurd — and a complete stranger to the world– is the man surprised at any aspect of his experience in life!”

The Americans, strangers to the world, reacted to their feelings of surprise with fantasies of destruction. The pleasure they took in killing became a vision of annihilation. Rather than confront the errors they made about war, the Americans leapt to visions of violence in which no one would ever have to think again. Trump lost control on Easter Sunday when he tweeted: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.” He then promised that he would bomb Iran “back to the Stone Age, where they belong” and said that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” In our modern legal and ethical language, this is of course genocidal language. The American bombast was followed by American surrender.

Marcus Aurelius won his war against the Iazyges. He combined victory and prudence, and for this he was and will be remembered. The defeated Iazyges returned to their previous role as Roman clients, offered thousands of cavalrymen as soldiers of Rome, and opened trade routes to the east. Marcus’s philosophical diary has been read for the better part of two millenia; so long as we are present as a literate civilization, it will be read. Despite Marcus’s certainty that we will all be forgotten, others built a victory column in his honor after his death; it still stands in Rome, more than one thousand eight hundred years later.

Another legacy of Marcus’s victory also touches the center of what we think of as Western culture. As part of the peace accord, he dispatched 5,500 Iazyges cavalrymen, taken into his service, to the north of what is now northern England, to defend the Roman border at Hadrian’s Wall. Their first commander was a man named Arthur, and it is possible that the Iazyges and some of their Iranian-speaking kin incorporated his name into stories of their own — of a lady in the lake, of a sword in a stone, of a quest for a golden cup — which, with time, became the legend of Christian chivalry. That is another story, and one worth telling.

But it is also part of the story of Marcus Aurelius, which, despite the fact that he chose not to tell it himself, or rather precisely for that reason, is instructive about our predicament today. Stoicism is a way not to be a stranger to the world; it can protect the powerful from vanity and folly. To fall into a stupor of self-absorption, as Trump has done, is to flee from reality. Few wars are worth fighting; those that are fought can only be won in the world, and not within the tortured confines of estranged minds. Trump hastens now towards our shared horizon of death, seeking honors that only posterity can accord and will not…

On what Trump could– and should– learn from Marcus Aurelius: “Of Stoicism and Stupor,” from @timothysnyder.bsky.social.

“We are the other of the other”

“Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?”

“Kindness is invincible.”

– Marcus Aurelius

(TotH to MKM)

* Marcus Aurelius

###

As we barrel back to basics, we might recall that it was on this date in 1956 that Elvis Presley, working for the first time with  backing vocal group the Jordanaires, recorded “Don’t Be Cruel,” which had been written by Otis Blackwell. 

The single was released on July 13, 1956, backed with “Hound Dog.”  Within a few weeks “Hound Dog” had risen to No. 2 on the Pop charts with sales of over one million. Soon after it was overtaken by “Don’t Be Cruel,” which took No. 1 on all three main charts; Pop, Country, and R&B. Between them, both songs remained at No. 1 on the Pop chart for a run of 11 weeks. “Don’t Be Cruel” was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. In 2004, it was ranked No. 197 in Rolling Stone’s list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

source

Thaddeus Metz has revised his excellent SEP-entry on The Meaning of Life,

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/

Hyödynsin aikanaan artikkelia kotisivujeni asiaan?-sivun puolivälin paikkeilla, https://www.lupposofi.com/asiaan/

#sep #life #meaning #meaningOfLife #filosofia #philosophy #etiikka #ethics #moralPhilosophy #kuolema #death #afterlife #existentialism #love #friendship #value #arvo #significance #political #politicalPhilosophy #wellbeing #mortalityAndMeaning #psychology #sociology

“We do not stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing”*…

… and so we shouldn’t. Ryan Weber (a professor of technical writing who, happily for us, moonlights) is here to help…

More at “‘Descartes Against Humanity’ and Other Games Designed by Famous Philosophers,” from @mcsweeneys.net.

Unrelated, but important: “Help save Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine by signing this petition.”

* George Bernard Shaw (though often mis-attributed to Benjamin Franklin)

###

As we play, we might spare a thought for a philosopher whose game would likely be “The Game of Life,” Bernard Williams; he died on this date in 2003. As Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and Deutsch Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, Williams became known for his efforts to reorient the study of moral philosophy to psychology, history, and in particular to the Greeks. 

His publications include Problems of the Self (1973), Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), Shame and Necessity (1993), and Truth and Truthfulness (2002).  Gilbert Ryle, one of Williams’s mentors at Oxford University, said that Williams “understands what you’re going to say better than you understand it yourself, and sees all the possible objections to it, and all the possible answers to all the possible objections, before you’ve got to the end of your own sentence.”

Described by Colin McGinn as an “analytical philosopher with the soul of a general humanist,” he was sceptical about attempts to create a foundation for moral philosophy. Martha Nussbaum wrote that he demanded of philosophy that it “come to terms with, and contain, the difficulty and complexity of human life.”

source

Secularism got so afraid of sounding like religion that it surrendered the concept of justice. Originalism filled the void. That's the argument — and it lands. via @bledewitz.bsky.social

https://onlys.ky/cannot-let-fear-of-god-belief-poison-law-politics/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=evergreen

#Secularism #ConstitutionalLaw #MoralPhilosophy #Politics #Originalism

Mark Twain, writing as "Archangel Satan," 1909:

"But now [Adam & Eve] could do evil – and suffer for it; now they had acquired what the Church calls an invaluable possession, the Moral Sense; that sense which differentiates man from the beast and sets him above the beast. Instead of below the beast – where one would suppose his proper place would be, since he is always foul-minded and guilty and the beast always clean-minded and innocent. It is like valuing a watch that must go wrong, above a watch that can't.”

#religion #skepticism #christianity #marktwain #twain #moralphilosophy

A Cemetery Story: The Lives Behind the Gravestones

https://albert-alarcon.com/2026/05/09/a-cemetery-story-the-lives-behind-the-gravestones/

KARMA – YOUR PERSONAL FAnTASY

https://ridiculousbharath.wordpress.com/2026/05/08/karma-your-personal-fantasy/

Folke Tersman has revised his SEP-entry on Moral Disagreement, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/disagreement-moral/

The author on Uppsala University's pages, https://www.uu.se/en/contact-and-organisation/staff?query=N8-3

#ethics #morality #moralPhilosophy #philosophy #filosofia #etiikka #metaetiikka #metaethics #disagreement #erimielisyys #kiista #hyvä #paha #good #evil #bad #right #wrong #MorallyWrong #cognitivism #psychology #relativism #skepticism #realism #epistemology #uppsala

Michael Cholbi ja Brent Kious ovat päivittäneet SEP-entryään itsesurmasta, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/suicide/

Historiallisen katsauksen lisäksi mukana on itsesurman moraalisuuden ja rationaalisuuden pohdintaa yhdeksän eri näkökulmia valottavan alaluvun kautta, ja lopussa on myös linkki Robert Youngin 2024 entryyn vapaaehtoisesta eutananiasta, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/euthanasia-voluntary/

#suicide #itsemurha #kuolema #death #eutanasia #euthanasia #filosofia #philosophy #morality #prohibition #law #psychology #sociology #humanity #suicidology #autonomia #authonomy #voluntaryEuthanasia #paternalism #oikeus #rights #wellbeing #paternalism #libertarism #moralPhilosophy #ethics

Humans are not rational moral agents.
https://youtube.com/shorts/RAX5mkTopvw?feature=share
#philosophy #moralphilosophy #reason

Vielä kaksi aina ajankohtaista päivitystä SEP:ssa, Rainer Forstin suvaitsevuudesta https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/toleration/, ja Russellin ja Warmken anteeksiannosta https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/forgiveness/

#sep #new #revised #update #ethics #moralPhilosophy #justice #suvaitsevuus #anteeksianto #atonement #emotion #tunne #morality #supererogation

A nice video about moral dialetheism :
https://youtu.be/bWdJ8BRl9lA?si=sYOEggapwwGCpy92

#philosophy #analyticalphilosophy #continentalphilosophy #metaethics #moralphilosophy #ethics

🤖✨ AI's profound journey into the depths of moral philosophy: Step 1️⃣—turn on #JavaScript. Step 2️⃣—check #cookies 🍪. Truly, the future of #ethics is here, as long as your browser settings are correct. 🙄
https://civai.org/p/ai-values #AI #MoralPhilosophy #FutureTech #HackerNews #ngated

We are delighted to welcome Prof. Martin Van Hees (Dean of the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences), who is co-teaching a course on Moral Philosophy and Justice this semester. The course opened with some foundational questions of morality, obligations and what does it mean to be doing philosophy instead of only learning it. #MoralPhilosophy #LegalEducation #PhilosophyofLaw #VUSoL

Morality isn’t a cosmic scoreboard. It’s social signalling with badges of power stitched in.
👉 https://philosophics.blog/2025/12/26/good-bad-and-the-quiet-arithmetic-of-power/?utm_source=masto&utm_medium=social
In this post, I dismantle the cosy story that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ map onto metaphysical truths, and show how authority collapses complexity into a verdict and calls it reality.
#Philosophy #Ethics #MoralPhilosophy #CriticalTheory #Postmodernism #PowerDynamics #EnlightenmentCritique #blog #podcast #spotify

“The trolley problem forces us to weigh outcomes against intentions. Do we pull the lever because it saves lives, or because we’re unwilling to be the cause of death?” #TrolleyProblem #Ethics #MoralPhilosophy #DecisionMaking #ThoughtExperiment

Philosophies of Justice in Acholi: Responsibility in Times of Collective Suffering, Book Launch with Benedetta Lanfranchi

December 10, 2025, 5 p.m. (CET)
Hildesheim University, GloPhi Center

https://www.uni-hildesheim.de/glophi/2025/11/03/justice-in-acholi/

#Acholi #africanphilosophy #philosophy #justice #MoralPhilosophy #politicalphilosophy #responsibility #Uganda #worldphilosophies

Bayes’ theorem tells us how evidence should move belief. But with wildly different priors and loyalty-weighted likelihoods, polarisation becomes inevitable.

https://philosophics.blog/2025/09/21/bayes-in-the-culture-war-how-priors-become-prison-walls/

#Probability #Statistics #Political #Politics #Epistemology #Tribal #Beliefs #Public #logic #Reason #Rationality #Perspective #Perception #Video #Philosophy #MoralPhilosophy #Moral #morality

Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue dismantles the Enlightenment scaffolding of modern moral discourse. Unfortunately, like Descartes before him, he tries to rebuild—first on God, now on Aristotle’s teleology. Different crutch, same collapse.

https://philosophics.blog/2025/09/17/je-pense-donc-jai-raison/

#Philosophy #Ethics #CriticalThinking #Modernity #Postmodernism #MoralPhilosophy #AfterVirtue #ThoughtLeadership #Books #AmReading #AmWriting

Applications are still open for an ERC-funded Research Associate position in the History of Philosophy at #UCD School of #Philosophy. Closing date: midday (Irish time), Monday 15 September. #PhilJobs #EarlyModernPhilosophy #MoralPhilosophy #BMoral

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5rbx6ew3gjgd25eujq4ywrdr/post/3lxk5hjov5c2o

Cary Wolfe on “Another Moral Vocabulary”

This is from Natasha Lennard’s 2017 interview with Cary Wolfe in The Stone:

On the one hand, rights discourse is Exhibit A for the problems with philosophical humanism. Many of us, including myself, would agree that many of the ethical aspirations of humanism are quite admirable and we should continue to pursue them. For example, most of us would probably agree that treating animals cruelly, and justifying that treatment on the basis of their designation as “animal” rather than human, is a bad thing to do.

But the problem with how rights discourse addresses this problem — in animal rights philosophy, for example — is that animals end up having some kind of moral standing insofar as they are diminished versions of us: that is to say, insofar as they are possessed of various characteristics such as the capacity to experience suffering — and not just brute physical suffering but emotional duress as well — that we human beings possess more fully. And so we end up reinstating a normative form of the moral-subject-as-human that we wanted to move beyond in the first place.

So on the other hand, what one wants to do is to find a way of valuing nonhuman life not because it is some diminished or second-class form of the human, but because the diversity and abundance of life is to be valued for what it is in its own right, in its difference and uniqueness. An elephant or a dolphin or a chimpanzee isn’t worthy of respect because it embodies some normative form of the “human” plus or minus a handful of relevant moral characteristics. It’s worthy of respect for reasons that call upon us to come up with another moral vocabulary, a vocabulary that starts by acknowledging that whatever it is we value ethically and morally in various forms of life, it has nothing to do with the biological designation of “human” or “animal.”

Having said all that, there are many, many contexts in which rights discourse is the coin of the realm when you’re engaged in these arguments — and that’s not surprising, given that nearly all of our political and legal institutions are inherited from the brief historical period (ecologically speaking) in which humanism flourished and consolidated its domain. If you’re talking to a state legislature about strengthening laws for animal abuse cases, let’s say, instead of addressing a room full of people at a conference on deconstruction and philosophy about the various problematic assumptions built into rights discourse, then you better be able to use a different vocabulary and different rhetorical tools if you want to make good on your ethical commitments. That’s true even though those commitments and how you think about them might well be informed by a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the problem than would be available to those legislators. In other words, it’s only partly a philosophical question. It’s also a strategic question, one of location, context and audience, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that we can move more quickly in the realm of academic philosophical discourse on these questions than we can in the realm of legal and political institutions.

#abundance #animalRights #animals #authority #caryWolfe #commitment #difference #diversity #ethicalCommitments #human #humanism #humanity #legalStanding #life #moralAuthority #moralPhilosophy #moralStanding #moralVocabulary #morality #otherness #power #sharedCommitment #standing #theHuman

Race You To The Water

The other day I expressed some misgivings over the word that Earthworks chose to apply to water in the first sentence of its report, Polluting the Future: their characterization of water as an “asset,” I said, made me uneasy. The water flowing from springs and brooks, the water of rivers, lakes and streams, the raindrops that fall from the sky and the dew on the morning grass, the water in our bodies, in plants and trees, the water in dogs, flowers, bugs, fish, elephants, walruses and caterpillars, the water in everything that is alive on earth — water is and will always be something greater, more wondrous and something other than a mere entry in the accounting ledgers of some grand business enterprise, which is all that the word “asset” conjures for me.

I came across the word again today as I was reading an editorial in The Detroit Free Press. I am in complete sympathy with the position it takes against plans to build a huge network of oil pipelines carrying diluted bitumen (or dilbit) across the Great Lakes region, and to transport crude oil by barge across Lake Superior. These are reckless, irresponsible ideas. The threat they pose to the integrity of the Lakes and the life the Lakes sustain is only made worse when you consider a couple of salient facts. First (and it is curious that the editorial does not mention this), the new mining around Lake Superior — as I’ve noted repeatedly — is already going to put pressure on Lake Superior and the Lake Superior watershed; the shipping of oil by barge would bring even more industrialization and greatly heighten the risk of environmental catastrophe. Second, the company building and running the pipeline (the Canadian company Enbridge) has already been responsible for an environmental disaster in Kalamazoo, Michigan — the worst inland oil spill in US history, in fact.

The editorial takes the position that these plans betray a “deep misunderstanding of the true value of the lakes,” but when the editors try to say what that value is, they run into trouble:

It’s easy to wax poetic about the value of the Great Lakes to Michigan and the other states they border. The beauty of the lakes, the wildlife and fish that dwell in and around the lakes, the environmental benefits the lakes present — they’re incalculable.

But let’s get practical: Clean freshwater is one of the scarcest commodities there is. And it’s only going to get worse. Clean water will be an asset that’s worth far more than oil. Jeopardizing the Great Lakes isn’t just morally and ethically wrong. It’s financially foolish, as well.

It’s interesting how the argument here moves, in just a couple of short paragraphs, from the “incalculable” to the crudest of calculations — the “worth” of clean water. This is tantamount to arguing that what is “morally and ethically” right should take second place to what is financially sound — as if finance should have more claim on the imagination and intellect (and the heart) than morality, and monetary value should be privileged over moral and ethical considerations.

I suppose that’s the way it goes nowadays, and I just need to get real. Still, there’s a great swirl of confusion in these two paragraphs, and I have a number of questions about the concept of morality being invoked here, how we’re to distinguish it from ethics, and why those things don’t seem to figure into what are called “practical” considerations. Practice and finance here are unmoored from and unrestricted by moral and ethical concerns; it’s precisely that kind of thinking that got us into the precarious situation we’re now in.

One remedy for all this confusion may lie in the perspective that holds water to be a basic human right — a perspective I also found missing from the Earthworks report. But even then we need to go beyond talking about assets and recognize the limitations of the argument that “clean freshwater is one of the scarcest commodities.” Why? Follow the link from The Detroit Free Press editorial to the National Geographic site on the “Freshwater Crisis.” There you enter a Malthusian world:

While the amount of freshwater on the planet has remained fairly constant over time—continually recycled through the atmosphere and back into our cups—the population has exploded. This means that every year competition for a clean, copious supply of water for drinking, cooking, bathing, and sustaining life intensifies.

Here, all of humanity is engaged in a contest or race. More and more people enter every year to compete for the same, limited resources. This is one reason why it’s imperative to recognize freshwater as a human right. Otherwise, history becomes a death match, or a big, global reality TV show: intensifying “competition” over this scarce “commodity” means that there will be winners and losers in the water game. The winners are fully vested with their rights; the losers struggle to survive in arid, toxic regions, or simply die of thirst.

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