I think that you're too quick to dismiss the idea of measuring the value of human life versus the value of animal (or even plant) life (especially in our current circumstances where humanity poses serious threat to thousands of other species.)
For example, let's frame the discussion in a classic moral dilrmma: the railway man. A train carrying x number of lions is hurtling down the tracks. At some point, the tracks diverge: one path leads to a brick wall (and certain death for all of the lions on board the train) and the other path leads to a clear path with one human being tied to the track (certain death for him or her if the train is diverted to that track.) What should the railway man (responsible for choosing which track the train should proceed on) do? Morally, what number of lion lives equal one human life? What if evrey last lion (30,000) is on the train and only one (of 7 billion humans) is on the track?
At some point, surely, it becomes a difficult decision for the railway man.
This isn't the point of that thought experiment, and it is only half of the thought experiment.
The "railway man" (actually usually referred to in terms of a "trolley") is meant to illustrate the moral difference of actively engaging in conduct that will produce an unfortunate result. For example, if you have 10 people in a trolley car hurtling towards a split track, and by flipping the switch you save the ten people but kill the five others who are stuck on the track they'd be diverted onto, you have directly participated in killing five people. If you don't flip that switch, you are a passive bystander who could have prevented the death of 10 people. The point is that there is a perceived moral difference between actively doing something that leads to a undesirable result, and passively allowing it to happen.
The second part comes when you present that thought experiment to people. In the abstract, at least, most everyone agrees that you have to flip the switch. The utilitarian calculus just moves people in that case. But if you change it slightly, the results change. The second part is this: you now have a trolley car with ten people on it heading towards certain death. There is no switch, but you're standing on a bridge overtop of the tracks, and there's a fat man there with you. If you push him onto the tracks, he'll be killed, but the trolley car will come to a stop (don't ask how this works in terms of physics - it's a thought experiment). People are much less likely to be willing to push the fat man than they were to flip the switch. Which engages all sorts of questions, many involving empathy.
So your analogy is misplaced.
In my view, there is no calculus of lion lives vs. human lives. The best way, practically, to approach the problem is to ask which path better serves the flourishing of the human species. If we're worse off, on the whole, to have 100 dead lions as opposed to one dead person, that's where the line is.
(EDIT: I don't want the above to be misinterpreted as my view on moral theory - it is a moral statement but it's purely a pragmatic one. I think utilitarianism has so many nails in its coffin, it's not tenable philosophically, but I simply have nothing better to offer in so far as how we can survive in the real world.)
Turning back to empathy and the problems associated with it, this is worth a listen.
There's one particular part of that discussion that I'll bring out: studies have been conducted wherein it's determined the level of emotional reaction (outrage, sadness, what have you) attached to a reported event depending on who the victim is. The most telling result there is that the larger the field of victims, the less people seem to care about it. But more significantly, that holds true even if the larger class contains all of the members of the smaller class.
Put another way, if there is a story about something terrible happening to an innocent young girl, people will generally have a highly emotional response. However, if the story is that the same thing happened to her and her brother, the response is decreased. If it's to her, her brother and a dozen others, the response drops off a cliff. This is a problem with the way we're wired and explains to some extent the disproportionate outrage we see to stories that are not statistically significant, like this one.
I know the usual reaction is to say, "just because other bad things are happening doesn't mean we should ignore this bad thing". That's fair. But our psychologically ingrained tendency in this area is a problem, because at every level (individually, socially, globally) we have finite resources. That includes the number of things we can focus our attention on. The ALS ice bucket challenge resulted in a massive donation influx to ALS research but corresponding decreases elsewhere. These things are flexible, but not infinite, and at some point enough is enough.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Last edited by CorsiHockeyLeague; 08-01-2015 at 03:01 PM.
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to CorsiHockeyLeague For This Useful Post:
As much as people want him extradited to face trial, I very much doubt that the U.S. is going to deliver him into the hands of Mugabe's idea of a justice system.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
The Following User Says Thank You to CaptainCrunch For This Useful Post:
Okay trophy hunting is stupid, I dont like it and its not cool. With that being said its show how sad we are here more worried about this guy than the guy that shot up and killed the four Marines.
Okay trophy hunting is stupid, I dont like it and its not cool. With that being said its show how sad we are here more worried about this guy than the guy that shot up and killed the four Marines.
sad the lion is dead but priorities people
What a dumb thing to say. First - who says that people are more worried about this issue. Second - who says that people only have the capacity to worry about one thing at a time.
Sorry but when people say stuff like this it drives me crazy.
The Following 17 Users Say Thank You to JiriHrdina For This Useful Post:
As much as people want him extradited to face trial, I very much doubt that the U.S. is going to deliver him into the hands of Mugabe's idea of a justice system.
Mr. Palmer is a complete goof, he now has 2 illegal kills that we know of and probably countless more we don't, he's running from the U.S. fish and wildlife service even know they just want to "talk" ...he's a stupid nasty arsehole of human being...period.
What would they do to him? do you think a death sentence would be possible or something? Mugabe is corrupt be he's not stupid, large fine with money going to the hwange park and a tidy year in a Zimbabwe jail would make Mugabe look like a hero.
What a dumb thing to say. First - who says that people are more worried about this issue. Second - who says that people only have the capacity to worry about one thing at a time.
Sorry but when people say stuff like this it drives me crazy.
People can care about more than one thing at once. However, we have all kinds of metrics of how much attention a given story achieves in the mainstream and social media. Page hits. Tweets. Re-tweets. Facebook sharing. Emails to the editor. And this story is more prominent than the marines being shot. People in the media will tell you that stories about animals being beaten generate far more letters, emails, and public denunciation than stories about people being beaten. We can speculate and debate about the reason why. But it seems pretty clear to me that the North American public does, in fact, get more outraged about specific, personalized incidences of violence to animals, than incidences of violence to humans. That doesn't mean they don't care about people being beaten or killed. But in most cases they don't get emotionally riled up they way they do about a story of a dog being starved and beaten. It's a curious phenomena, and one worth analyzing and understanding.
__________________
Quote:
Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
Last edited by CliffFletcher; 08-01-2015 at 10:59 PM.
I think people care about things that become real, when there is a compelling back story or visual attached to it. Again I go back to the domestic abuse example - and how much heat the Ray Rice story got.
In this case, what is making people gravitate and react to it is all the stuff we are being told about this particular animal. That is what gives a story emotion and gets reactions.
I agree it is worth understanding. What I object to is this idea that if you care about this story, it means you aren't caring about others.
Reports of Jericho's demise were greatly exaggerated.
It was just some other random no name lion that was shot and killed.
Nothing to be concerned about here.
The Following 8 Users Say Thank You to EldrickOnIce For This Useful Post:
Mr. Palmer is a complete goof, he now has 2 illegal kills that we know of and probably countless more we don't, he's running from the U.S. fish and wildlife service even know they just want to "talk" ...he's a stupid nasty arsehole of human being...period.
What would they do to him? do you think a death sentence would be possible or something? Mugabe is corrupt be he's not stupid, large fine with money going to the hwange park and a tidy year in a Zimbabwe jail would make Mugabe look like a hero.
Not to defend the guy, but I don't think he's been running from Fish and Wildlife, he according to reports has reached out through a representative to the government.
You never know with Mugabe who's a complete nutjob, he's just as likely to give Palmer a life sentence just as a middle finger to the Americans.
Mugabe is a thug and Palmer's lawyers will fight any extradition attempt by pointing out to the justice system over there as being corrupt.
Its more then likely that the State department will negotiate a guilty plea in absence and a fine that goes right into Mugabe's pocket that the State department will pay.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Not to defend the guy, but I don't think he's been running from Fish and Wildlife, he according to reports has reached out through a representative to the government.
You never know with Mugabe who's a complete nutjob, he's just as likely to give Palmer a life sentence just as a middle finger to the Americans.
Mugabe is a thug and Palmer's lawyers will fight any extradition attempt by pointing out to the justice system over there as being corrupt.
Its more then likely that the State department will negotiate a guilty plea in absence and a fine that goes right into Mugabe's pocket that the State department will pay.
Having a buddy phone them doesn't mean he isn't running.
Quote:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to talk to Walter Palmer. So far, that hasn't happened.
Investigators for the service knocked on the front door of Palmer's house, stopped by his dental office, called his telephone numbers and filled his inbox with e-mails.
Social media: OMG, gear up the outrage, his brother Jericho has been killed! Let's put this into full gear again, I'm so saddened by this, how could anyon.........Oh wait, it was just a regular lion.
Phew, I'm so happy it wasn't a lion with a name that was killed, that would have been tragic.
The Following 3 Users Say Thank You to jayswin For This Useful Post:
What a dumb thing to say. First - who says that people are more worried about this issue. Second - who says that people only have the capacity to worry about one thing at a time.
Sorry but when people say stuff like this it drives me crazy.
Fallacy of relative privation, its absolutely one of the most abused fallacies that come up nearly daily on my social media feeds.
Another hunter is in trouble after killing a giraffe and posing with the dead carcass. This time it's an accountant from Idaho who is receiving a lot of flack for pictures of her trophy kills
Quote:
A big-game trophy collector from Idaho has been criticised by animal rights activists over online images of herself posed with the carcasses of a giraffe and other wildlife she killed during a recent guided hunt in South Africa.
Sabrina Corgatelli, an accountant for Idaho State University, appeared on NBC’s Today show on Monday to defend trophy hunting amid mounting international outrage over the killing in July of Cecil, Zimbabwe’s most famous lion, by an American dentist.
“Everybody thinks we’re cold-hearted killers and it’s not that,” Corgatelli said in the nationally televised interview. “There is a connection to the animal and just because we hunt them doesn’t mean we don’t have a respect for them.
“Giraffes are very dangerous animals. They could hurt you seriously, very quickly.”
"Day #2 I got a amazing old Giraffe. Such a amazing animal!! I couldn't be any happier!! My emotion after getting him was a feeling I will never forget!!!"
So I decided to kill it. Because when I see amazing things, my first instinct is to shoot it, or spray paint graffiti all over it, or smash it (hitchbot).
also...
Quote:
“Giraffes are very dangerous animals. They could hurt you seriously, very quickly.”
Yes, you are a brave warrior. Congrats on surviving.
So I decided to kill it. Because when I see amazing things, my first instinct is to shoot it, or spray paint graffiti all over it, or smash it (hitchbot).
also...
Yes, you are a brave warrior. Congrats on surviving.
I like the fact that they show her tripod gun mount in the photo. You can't hand hold a rifle and hit an animal the size of a giraffe? Master Huntress. The pride must be hard to contain.
I like the fact that they show her tripod gun mount in the photo. You can't hand hold a rifle and hit an animal the size of a giraffe? Master Huntress. The pride must be hard to contain.
On Saturday, the day after she posted an image of herself with a dead impala, she turned to the Bible apparently to defend her actions, posting two verses from Genesis.
Genesis 9:3 says, "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything."
Genesis 27:3 says, "Now then, take your weapons, your quiver and your bow, and go out to the field and hunt game for me."
Okay trophy hunting is stupid, I dont like it and its not cool. With that being said its show how sad we are here more worried about this guy than the guy that shot up and killed the four Marines.
sad the lion is dead but priorities people
You're worried about the Marines?!?!?
After a child was killed acting as a bat boy this week?
Public shootings are sad and all, but children are more innocent than adults.
Disgusting you are even thinking of the murdered Marines at such a time as this.
The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to Bill Bumface For This Useful Post:
The whole 'hunting them is an act of respect, some connection with the animal B.S.' is what really annoys me with trophy hunting. You know what would be even more of an act of respect? Not killing them, not taking photos of their dead body, not being happy or excited about taking a life. Heck, if you really, really respect the animals, how about actively working for and donating to their conservation and protection from poachers.
If you admit you just like the thrill of hunting and killing wild prey, or it makes you feel good about yourself, or you just like the way dead animals look on your wall, then I won't respect you but at least you're being honest. It feels to me like a perversion of native perspectives on hunting: as though trophy hunters have decided that if they talk some of the same language about respect for nature, they get a free pass.
The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to octothorp For This Useful Post:
