In my last post, I illustrated why logical actions should be pursued with earnestness by everyone, regardless of the actions' pertinence to the realm of human morality. There is a second reason to broaden one's scope of decision-making indicators, however: the potential for non-human agents to cause harm to themselves, to other non-human agents, and to human agents.
No one frames nature in moral terms, but we can tell when something like the AIDS virus is negative. You can't put the AIDS virus in jail, but it's still bad.
Can you put an earthquake in jail? No, because, while bad, earthquakes are not immoral activities, or entities perpetrating immoral activities.
Morality only takes us so far; logic, in the most general sense that we can fathom, currently takes us farthest -- even if this is ultimately a relative statement.
Can you put this blog in jail? No, but it's still bad.
ReplyDelete