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Is It Morally Wrong To Love Your Pet More Than A Stranger?

rhinefire said:
Yesterday I heard a young woman claim she would die if anything happened to her horse so I thought up this question. This is a little far fetched but here goes-you have to choose between permitting the killing of a human being somewhere in the world you do not know and never will or allowing your favorite pet to be killed in their place so that person may live. You are not permitted to learn any information of any kind about the person. How would you choose?
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LOL I'de kill the person that made me choose. He's the monster.
 
Yes, it's immoral. Selfishness is immoral and choosing a pet over a human being is selfishness. In some instances, choosing your children over a stranger is selfishness.
 
Its not immoral to love anything over another thing. An impulse is an impulse, the action resulting can be questioned.

While I agree that I would sacrifice my pet to save a strangers life, despite loving it more, it's a bit of a slippery slope as a hypothetical if I categorise it as the moral action. Shouldn't I forgo wasting my time and money on an animal (indeed any non human thing that brings me pleasure) and direct it toward humanity in that case?
 
Ben K. said:
Its not immoral to love anything over another thing. An impulse is an impulse, the action resulting can be questioned.

While I agree that I would sacrifice my pet to save a strangers life, despite loving it more, it's a bit of a slippery slope as a hypothetical if I categorise it as the moral action. Shouldn't I forgo wasting my time and money on an animal (indeed any non human thing that brings me pleasure) and direct it toward humanity in that case?
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The time and money given to an animal can be for the good of humanity. But I think I've allowed another slippery slope: "Do the greatest good to the greatest number of people". I disagree with the slippery slope I give, and instead would rather focus on the premise "people are more important than animals". This principle may be nullified if it was an entire species vs one person or something like that.
 
rhinefire said:
Yesterday I heard a young woman claim she would die if anything happened to her horse so I thought up this question. This is a little far fetched but here goes-you have to choose between permitting the killing of a human being somewhere in the world you do not know and never will or allowing your favorite pet to be killed in their place so that person may live. You are not permitted to learn any information of any kind about the person. How would you choose?
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Not that far fetched... happened to a friend of mine in fact. Says he would do it again in a heart beat.
 
Radical said:
Yes, it's immoral. Selfishness is immoral and choosing a pet over a human being is selfishness. In some instances, choosing your children over a stranger is selfishness.
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"Selfishness" is not immoral. Where di you ever hear such nonsense?
 
WCH said:
A better question would be...would you shoot a starving homeless guy who wanted to eat your pet when there was nothing else?

At least you would know who's dying.
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Is the pet already on the skewer? My "pet" is a dozen little neon tetras so unless it is Otto it ain't gonna be that great.
 
Bodhisattva said:
Is the pet already on the skewer? My "pet" is a dozen little neon tetras so unless it is Otto it ain't gonna be that great.
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In this scenario I catch the guy trying to swipe my dog. [his intentions are obvious]

It is going to be a hassle digging that hole.
 
rhinefire said:
Yesterday I heard a young woman claim she would die if anything happened to her horse so I thought up this question. This is a little far fetched but here goes-you have to choose between permitting the killing of a human being somewhere in the world you do not know and never will or allowing your favorite pet to be killed in their place so that person may live. You are not permitted to learn any information of any kind about the person. How would you choose?
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sometimes I love animals more than I love humans.however I would save that person I think
 
Bodhisattva said:
"Selfishness" is not immoral. Where di(d) you ever hear such nonsense?
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From logic. "All men should be selfish" is inherently contradictory. Read G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica. He gives a decent response to the Egoist. Sidgwick does it better in "Methods of Ethics".

"All men should be selfish" translates to "Each man should have himself as his own end". This means that each person ought to consider themselves as the sole, universal good. This is the contradiction: There is multiples of the one good. Therefore, I must logically conclude not all men should be selfish.

I will concede that, given the correct circumstance, the selfish option is also the correct choice, but I will not (yet) concede that it is the correct choice because it is the selfish option.
 
Radical said:
From logic. "All men should be selfish" is inherently contradictory. Read G.E. Moore's Principia Ethica. He gives a decent response to the Egoist. Sidgwick does it better in "Methods of Ethics".

"All men should be selfish" translates to "Each man should have himself as his own end". This means that each person ought to consider themselves as the sole, universal good. This is the contradiction: There is multiples of the one good. Therefore, I must logically conclude not all men should be selfish.

I will concede that, given the correct circumstance, the selfish option is also the correct choice, but I will not (yet) concede that it is the correct choice because it is the selfish option.
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Logic has no place in the discussion of morality...
 
Radical said:
"Where di you ever hear such nonsense?"
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You still haven't explained how selfishness is immoral. You stated how some guys think about selfishness but nothing about how that translates to morality... not at all. It shouldn't be that hard. You are obviously an educated guy that after only two posts with me is trying to shove it back in my face. That reveals not only education but arrogance. To defeat me effectively takes more creativity than what you have done though...
 
Bodhisattva said:
You still haven't explained how selfishness is immoral. You stated how some guys think about selfishness but nothing about how that translates to morality... not at all. It shouldn't be that hard. You are obviously an educated guy that after only two posts with me is trying to shove it back in my face. That reveals not only education but arrogance. To defeat me effectively takes more creativity than what you have done though...
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You didn't like me quoting you? I thought I was a funny dude...

But alright, I'll bite. What assumptions do you make? I know nothing about you, so I don't know where exactly to begin. The monkey profile pic makes me think you're likely to deny the existence of morality altogether, and write everything off as a product of our random genetic upbringing. I'm going to ask questions rather than assume though.

1) Do you think morality exists? Do you think value (good/bad) is a real, existent thing, or is it a creation of our own minds? (moral realism vs moral fictionalism)
2) If morality does not exist, then what is the source of the fallacious concept? If morality does exist, what is the source of that real value? (metaethics)
3) Is the universe logical? Is logic something discovered or something invented? Is logic a tool that can be used to discover truth? (metaphysics)
4) What is truth? Is truth external or internal to our understanding? Are our own conceptions of the universe too distorted to actually understand anything beyond ourselves. (epistemology)

Depending on how you answer is how I'll order my response. We can do this via private messaging as well, if you don't wanna derail the thread.
 
Radical said:
You didn't like me quoting you? I thought I was a funny dude...
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No... I got it. It was a little funny. :)

But alright, I'll bite. What assumptions do you make? I know nothing about you, so I don't know where exactly to begin. The monkey profile pic makes me think you're likely to deny the existence of morality altogether, and write everything off as a product of our random genetic upbringing. I'm going to ask questions rather than assume though.

1) Do you think morality exists? Do you think value (good/bad) is a real, existent thing, or is it a creation of our own minds? (moral realism vs moral fictionalism)
2) If morality does not exist, then what is the source of the fallacious concept? If morality does exist, what is the source of that real value? (metaethics)
3) Is the universe logical? Is logic something discovered or something invented? Is logic a tool that can be used to discover truth? (metaphysics)
4) What is truth? Is truth external or internal to our understanding? Are our own conceptions of the universe too distorted to actually understand anything beyond ourselves. (epistemology)

Depending on how you answer is how I'll order my response. We can do this via private messaging as well, if you don't wanna derail the thread.
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Morality exists and it is a subjective creation of our own minds although the vast majority of people would tend to agree about common themes...

I like the other questions but I am sorry... how does any of this pertain to your argument where you still have yet to explain the connection?
 
Bodhisattva said:
No... I got it. It was a little funny. :)
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Yay! =)

Bodhisattva said:
Morality exists and it is a subjective creation of our own minds although the vast majority of people would tend to agree about common themes... how does any of this pertain to your argument where you still have yet to explain the connection?
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To convince you that selfishness is immoral, I'd have to appeal to some reasons that would contradict or otherwise make you think twice. These reasons would have to be from real things (question 2), logically coherent (question 3), and truly knowable (question 4). Question 1 is most important, but I asked the other questions because you made the comment that logic doesn't belong in moral discussions. If I can't use logic, how am I supposed to argue anything? So if truth is unobtainable, I would have to critique that. If truth was obtainable, but logic was an invalid means of discovering truth, I'd have to critique that. If logic was a valid means of discovering truth, but it doesn't connect to morality, I'd have to critique that. All these things must be shared principles, otherwise how am I to argue anything in ethics?

But I'll just go ahead and make an argument. Your position seems to be that morality is created within the mind of each individual, and it just so happens that people agree on the majority of stuff the majority of the time. Here's the paradox: Each person has their own one morality. This means not only does morality exist, but moralities exist. And each one of these is true. The problem arises when moralities conflict. One person says that X is immoral, the other says it's moral, another says it's neutral. Who is right? According to "each person has their own morality", all three are right. But that is absurd. You must either concede to objective morality or say morality does not exist in order to remain coherent.
 
rhinefire said:
Yesterday I heard a young woman claim she would die if anything happened to her horse so I thought up this question. This is a little far fetched but here goes-you have to choose between permitting the killing of a human being somewhere in the world you do not know and never will or allowing your favorite pet to be killed in their place so that person may live. You are not permitted to learn any information of any kind about the person. How would you choose?
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The thread title is a bit misleading. The choice you give has nothing to do with love. You don't love a stranger. You DO love your pet. It's a question about whether or not you value the life of an animal over another human. Imo, it strictly depends on who the other human is, and how much you love your pet. Do I believe there is automatically an obligation to put a stranger's life ahead of an animal that you love? NOt necessarily.
 
The question is sort of a non-sequitur for me. It asks if it's morally wrong to save a pet if a random unknown person will die. The cold clinical answer is yes it would be immoral to save the pet, but given the distance, the seeming lack of consequences in choosing the pet over the human, most of not all would simply rationalize choosing the pet....

Ontaliguy is right. This is about emotional connection, Killing your pet would cause you and your family more pain and suffering than saving a person you will never see and meet. Mentally and emotionally, you would have a hard time reconciling allowing your pet to die saving a random human on another continent. Now if you were shown a live video of a little girl tied to a post about to be set on fire if you didn't give up your pet and failure to do so would cause her to die in a fire and you are forced to watch, then most of us could mentally reconcile the death of our pet as having some measure of value, but without the connection it will feel as though the pet was given up for nothing, regardless of what you are told.

It would be much, much to easy to save the pet and rationalize the decision away.
 
rhinefire said:
Yesterday I heard a young woman claim she would die if anything happened to her horse so I thought up this question. This is a little far fetched but here goes-you have to choose between permitting the killing of a human being somewhere in the world you do not know and never will or allowing your favorite pet to be killed in their place so that person may live. You are not permitted to learn any information of any kind about the person. How would you choose?
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Not far-fetched at all. For those of us who have pets, we make this decision every day. There are atrocities all over the world, injustices where people die, and we could be doing something to help instead of indulging our pets... and we don't.

Myself included.

You're adding the "pet be killed instead" angle, but really I don't see the distinction in a significant sense. We're still choosing our pets over strangers.
 
radcen said:
Not far-fetched at all. For those of us who have pets, we make this decision every day. There are atrocities all over the world, injustices where people die, and we could be doing something to help instead of indulging our pets... and we don't.

Myself included.

You're adding the "pet be killed instead" angle, but really I don't see the distinction in a significant sense. We're still choosing our pets over strangers.
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This question is similar to the "Train Dilemma". While the result is the same, it matters how we connect actions and consequences as to how we judge our actions.

Trolley problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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