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Originally Posted by senor rubirosa  But why do you mention the killing of animals as though it is, ethically, on a plane with killing humans?
It might indeed be so ... but that needs some argument.
A great deal of argument, I would say.
The offence given to the sanctity of life could be quite the same.
So there would be, arguably, significant overlap between execution and murder.
But no, I don't say there is no distinction.
You say you are not a humanist. I assume you are religious.
Certainly, most church-going people in the States support capital punishment.
But the official positions their churches take may be quite different.
The Methodist Church in Texas opposes the death penalty.
Ditto for the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas.
The American Baptist Church is opposed.
The Mormon Church neither promotes nor opposes capital punishment.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church is opposed.
The Orthodox Church in America is opposed.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops calls for abolition of the death penalty.
These are opinions expressed on a website that deals with the death penalty.
I haven't cherry picked them ... just opened links at random, and the opposition to the death penalty seems remarkably consistent. However, opening other links might change the picture a bit. |
Ah, but the formulation of the concepts (man & animal) is tendentious and already provides the answer as a given
If we instead begin with the precept that life itself is of value, different queries follow, different answers
I could just as easily argue that the only ones arguing that humans are the only ones contending that there is a difference between the killing of "animals" and the killing of "man"
At first blush, the assertion is silly -- but think of where the morals arise from.
Do we ourselves define what is moral, just and good?
If so, then the ugly Frenchman had it right -- he could nail living dogs to boards to slice them open to study their circulatory systems; he could enslave the African, as the African was an inferior being; he could maintain his woman as a subservient being
Odd result for humanists espousing their piety
If, on the other hand, we recognize that the value of life originates outside of us, precedes us, then the different result obtains