Quote:
Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate
I remember a friend of mine who told the story of Joe and Steve. Joe recycled nothing.. everything went into the trash. Steve on the other hand recycled his bottles, plastics and papers, but couldn't do the composting because he couldn't find a way to do it without drawing bugs.
Joe would look over the fence and laugh at Steve. He said Steve was a hypocrite. Steve believed in consuming less resources and was doing what he could to reduce his ecological footprint... but what an ass. He was tossing away all these compostable materials. Joe on the other hand didn't give a rats ass about the environment and therefore wasn't a hypocrite at all, no matter how much trash he threw to the curb each week.
By taking ANY moral stance that involves degrees (I will give more to charity because I feel the poor deserve a hand up; I will volunteer more because the community needs more people to pitch in) makes the person automatically a hypocrite. If you want give $1,000 to the United Way... why not $2,000? Or are you a hypocrite and don't REALLY believe that the poor need a helping hand? We all draw a line. And while Steve may be a hypocrite, I'd rather be him than Joe.
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Do you have any arguments that don't involve BS analogies or attacking strawmen?
You can claim you are making a moral or ethical choice not to, but you have to understand that your personal morals or ethics are irrelevant to human biology. People need energy to live and we have evolved so that we extract that energy from consuming many different things, including animal proteins.
Your moral stance means nothing in the face of people's desire to stay alive.