In defence of the Great Chain of Being
Ethics is the study of how a being ought to treat other beings, and the ethical is essentially to treat each being according to their proper ontological value. The ontological value of beings as described in the Great Chain of Being (GCB) is given as a hierarchy, as so:
God > angels > humans > animals > plants > objects
[note: the animal kingdom has itself a hierarchy within it but let’s exclude it for simplicity]
As such, we ought to treat gods as gods and objects as objects, and ought not to treat gods as objects nor objects as gods. It also follows that, should there be a situation where the choice is to benefit a being and harm another or vice versa, we ought to pick the choice that benefits the being with the greatest value, so as to obtain a net gain. We also deduce the Golden Rule: Do unto others (humans) as you would have them do unto you (also human). Now, can we demonstrate this GCB hierarchy to be true? In an attempt to show that we all have an innate knowledge of it (much like the laws of logic and math) please do the following thought experiment with me, and let me know your answer.
A house is on fire. You are a rescuer whose goal is to save the beings stuck inside. There is one human, one animal (say a dog), one plant, and one object (with no monetary value but destroyable). All else is equal. You can only rescue one at a time. Who would/should you rescue first, second, third, and fourth?
Objection: some civilizations are known to treat some animals like cats and cows as gods, thus showing that the GCB hierarchy is not innate in all.
Counter-objection: This premise is true, but they did this because they believed these animals to be gods, inasmuch as christians treat Jesus as God because they believe him to be one, not just a human being. As such, these civilizations still had innate knowledge of the GCB hierarchy.
God > angels > humans > animals > plants > objects
[note: the animal kingdom has itself a hierarchy within it but let’s exclude it for simplicity]
As such, we ought to treat gods as gods and objects as objects, and ought not to treat gods as objects nor objects as gods. It also follows that, should there be a situation where the choice is to benefit a being and harm another or vice versa, we ought to pick the choice that benefits the being with the greatest value, so as to obtain a net gain. We also deduce the Golden Rule: Do unto others (humans) as you would have them do unto you (also human). Now, can we demonstrate this GCB hierarchy to be true? In an attempt to show that we all have an innate knowledge of it (much like the laws of logic and math) please do the following thought experiment with me, and let me know your answer.
A house is on fire. You are a rescuer whose goal is to save the beings stuck inside. There is one human, one animal (say a dog), one plant, and one object (with no monetary value but destroyable). All else is equal. You can only rescue one at a time. Who would/should you rescue first, second, third, and fourth?
Objection: some civilizations are known to treat some animals like cats and cows as gods, thus showing that the GCB hierarchy is not innate in all.
Counter-objection: This premise is true, but they did this because they believed these animals to be gods, inasmuch as christians treat Jesus as God because they believe him to be one, not just a human being. As such, these civilizations still had innate knowledge of the GCB hierarchy.
Comments (55)
Can a thing both be and not be at the same time and at the same respect? Can a god be a human and can a human be a god? A god is infinitely powerful, knowledgeable, beautiful, etc., a human is not. So can you be both infinitely good and not infinitely good? Can you be omnipotent and not omnipotent at the same time? I hardly think so. I think religions that deify humans, animals, plants, rocks, and sub-atomic particles are way off the course as a worship direction.
Baby Hitler and your cute little cat are in a burning house. You can only save one.
I'll make this sharper. The adult Hitler is inside and he's fully evil already.
Your system says you should save Hitler because he's human. I say, save your cat who loves you.
In this case an animal may be placed above a human in ontological value.
Some takeaways:
* Ontological value is subjective. Hiter's mom would save Hitler.
* There may be some overlap in your levels. A cute kitty outranks an evil human.
ps -- What are angels? Are you arguing from a purely Christian perspective? Metaphysically I know what a God is, but I'm not sure about angels. Like if we're a simulation, would God be the project manager and angels the grunt coders? How does all this work exactly?
There are four main types of Angels. 1. Heralds. They bring tidings of great joy. 2. Guardians. 3. Harlots. 4. Satan. The first three types are pleasant; the last one, a type unto itself, is evil.
My uncle who is a Roman Catholic, tells me that all angels are male.
As for heralds, guardians, harlots (really?), and Satan, where did this come from?
What about Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels?
Ye watchers and ye holy ones,
Bright seraphs, cherubim, and thrones,
Raise the glad strain, Alleluia!
Cry out, dominions, princedoms, powers,
Virtues, archangels, angels' choirs,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
et cetera
I think CS Lewis had a pretty good idea of it. When discussing man's dominance over, and therefore right to vivisect animals, he said (Please excuse the very long quote, but the entire paragraph seems to speak perfectly to the point you're addressing in the OP.),
"The only rational line for the Christian vivisectionist to take is to say that the superiority of man over beast is a real objective fact, guaranteed by Revelation, and that the propriety of sacrificing beast to man is a logical consequence. We are ‘worth more than many sparrows’, and in saying this we are not merely expressing a natural preference for our own species simply because it is our own but conforming to a hierarchical order created by God and really present in the universe whether any one acknowledges it or not. The position may not be satisfactory. We may fail to see how a benevolent Deity could wish us to draw such conclusions from the hierarchical order He has created. We may find it difficult to formulate a human right of tormenting beasts in terms which would not equally imply an angelic right of tormenting men. And we may feel that though objective superiority is rightly claimed for man, yet that very superiority ought partly to consist in not behaving like a vivisector: that we ought to prove ourselves better than the beasts precisely by the fact of acknowledging duties to them which they do not acknowledge to us. But on all these questions different opinions can be honestly held. If on grounds of our real, divinely ordained, superiority a Christian pathologist thinks it right to vivisect, and does so with scrupulous care to avoid the least dram or scruple of unnecessary pain, in a trembling awe at the responsibility which he assumes, and with a vivid sense of the high mode in which human life must be lived if it is to justify the sacrifices made for it, then (whether we agree with him or not) we can respect his point of view"
Usually I will try to present my responses in my own words, but I believe that in this instance Lewis hits the nail on the head so perfectly that trying to put it in my own words would only detract from the point.
As for the "you can only save one" fire hypothetical, I think most people, even dog lovers, would say that rescuing the human would be preferable in principle, unless you add extra criteria to the example like, the dog is a beloved family pet while the human is a murdering, raping bastard who has no remorse for his crimes and implies that he'll keep committing such crimes if he gets the chance. In that case you may find a very different answer. As Lewis suggests, humans are not born superior, but rather born only with the option to become superior through the choices we make.
You make a compelling case. :)
I'm not sure how it is in other religions which may have angelic beings, but at least in Christianity it seems gender will become irrelevant in terms of spiritual importance. When questioned on who would be married to whom in the next life, Jesus suggested they had a wrong understanding of spiritual relationship dynamics and that there would be no marriage (which presumably means no sex or babies in the sense that we understand it here on earth). There's an OT reference (from Genesis 6) which suggest that angelic beings impregnated women, leading to "giants" but the reference is obscure in a few different ways, so not particularly reliable as evidence that angelic beings are male.
The appearance of angels in the NT are often described as "men" but remember that these are the same people to whom Jesus said, "If you won't believe me about earthly things, how will you believe me about heavenly things). I think it is more likely that either the people misunderstood what these beings were and mistook them for being male in gender, or that the angels took on the appearance of normal human men, when communicating with me, because that's what the humans of that time would be best able to relate to.
The bible, both old and new testaments often use both genders to refer to all people. The children of Israel (including men) were often referred to has a harlot cheating on her husband. The new testament refers to the children of God as the "bride" of Christ and the Revelation references a special, elite army of "virgins" who "follow the lamb withersoever he goeth". They are described as being without guile and redeemed from among men. In spiritual terms, there's a lot of crossover between both male and female character traits.
Fantastic observation.
My point is that while we each may claim that we'd first save our cat, dog, or other pets, we actually wouldn't. We would save Hitler. We would save Nero and Caligula and Stalin, if we heard them cry out with fear, pain and desperation.
Heralds: Some religious Jew described Angels to me as carriers of messages between God and humans.
"Guardian Angel".
Harlots: "You are my little angel".
Satan: He used to be a main angel, an Archangel if you like, like Gabriel or St. Peter or Peter Gabriel, but for one reason or another God tossed Satan from the heavens into the netherworld to be its ruler.
I haven't made any of this up, although I do admit my list was incomplete and the elements in it were taken from different, disparate cultural streams of belief.
Quoting Samuel Lacrampe
All of those can mean different things to different people. It may be a picture of someone that you love that you value over a human, animal, or plant. It could be a valuable plant that you think may be the cure to a terrible illness. Same thing with the human or animal. That thought experiment doesn't prove anything about the validity of that hierarchy. I think the lines between "living" and "non-living" are put there by humans, like many other divisions, to allow ourselves to justify our needs and meaning we place on those needs. When enough people agree on common definitions and common values we call those ideas morals. Different definitions/values lead to different morals. I feel like humanity should be more focused on the definitions and values and why we hold them. It's there where we find our commonalities. Asking about who I would rescue would be about the what and who, not about the more important question of why. :^)
I believe this is true. Each part alone and the whole thing together. I chalk it up to a difference in the morality gene as a product of instantaneous mutation. It is a fallacy to think that we are all equal in our own personal and very compelling ethical responses. Much like we differ in height, weight, IQ, etc, we differ in moral fortitude and in moral vicissitude. It has to do with the microbiological physiology of the "morality gene".
In real terms: much like many of us anthropomorphizes our own pets, there are people who objectify or animalize other humans. This is not a disease; it is on one hand an aberration, and on the other hand, it can serve as a survival tool, when survival is aided or is only possible by murdering another person. It is not easy to murder someone. Not just physically speaking, of the mechanics of it, because that is hard, too, without firearms. It is not an easy decision, or an easily executed task. So if you somehow can convince yourself that your human enemy is worse than a dog, for instance, then it's easier to murder him.
Heck, it's not even easy to kill a mammal. I was lead through an abattoir in my high school years, by one of the vice presidents of the abattoir, during a field trip in my geography class. There was a guy whose job was to kill the cows. The vice president said in front of that guy, "it is the only job I would refuse to do in this establishment." The executioner, so to speak, grinned uncomfortably.
What you are saying is somewhat similar to a hypothetical claim, that since person X can solve Problem B, but Person Y can't solve Problem B, it follows that IQ is not an innate quality. It is; but it differs in its material instance between the IQ levels of X and Y.
How soon we forget our own words. :-)
Right on, Petrokotbifas
I think the christian doctrine says that Jesus condescended down to the human level to become human, thereby not being perfect in every way during that time. I think he kept his omniscience but not his omnipotence because he could suffer physical evil. As for deifying animals, I think their definition of gods is not the same as the christian definition of God. A god (lower case g) may be better than a human but is not perfect in every way.
Quoting fishfry
Actually I agree with you that, in this case, I too would not save Hitler. But that is because we know Hitler to be evil because he killed many humans, and is likely to kill more humans if saved; and this choice would not result in the largest net gain. So the GCB hierarchy is still followed.
Quoting fishfry
Here is my understanding. In essence, angels are rational immaterial beings with free will, in contrast to humans who are rational material beings with free will. Good angels are just called angels, and evil angels are called demons. If the definition of gender is related to sex, then angels have no gender because of no sexual organs. If the definition is about emission and reception of things, then they may be male if they emit, and female if they receive. God is represented as male because he always emits (love, info, existence) to all other beings, who are all female in relation because they receive all of this. That is the reason why Jesus is referred to as the 'husband' and Israel as the 'bride'.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Do I detect irony? I am fairly sure that in some countries, as a rescuer you would get sued for failing of duty.
I like CS Lewis. Where does this quote come from?
I agree with you regarding the murderer case. It may not be unethical to let Hitler burn. This in fact supports the GCB hierarchy where we ought to find the largest net gain. That gain is not found if we have reasons to believe the murderer will murder again.
There are indeed. But ethics is about 'what ought to be', not 'what is'. Would you not say that such people are either crazy, uninformed, or else unethical? And I don't mean just subjective opinion, but objective fact, much like it is an objective fact that Hitler is unethical.
This is true. But it is also true that Hitler is seen as unethical by a large majority, thereby confirming the ethics based on the GCB.
Quoting ?????????????
Not in every case indeed. But ethics is about 'what ought to be', not about 'what is'; and the thought experiment is about you, not about other cases in history. You and I are on the same page that some people would indeed not abide to the GCB ethics, but then this entails an unethical behaviour, not an error in the ethics itself.
Would you choose a pic over a human? Would you not call this rescuer insane?
Quoting yatagarasu
The thought experiment states that the object has no monetary value. Even then, the cure would be to benefit humans, either directly or indirectly. It it does not, then it has no worth. If it does, then this act would abide to the GCB ethics.
Quoting yatagarasu
It would follow that slavery was morally good at the time it existed, and that Nazism would be morally good if Hitler had won. But this is absurd.
Part of the GCB ethics is to pick the choice that results in the greatest net gain. It may not be unethical to kill someone for the sake of survival, say as self-defence, because it is one human life vs another. Nobody considers an abortion to be unethical it is the only way to save the mother's life.
Quoting ?????????????
Not so much how 'we would' but how 'we should, or feel we should'; and also how you would. Innate knowledge can only be tested as a personal thing. Sure the fact may be that some other people may behave differently, but it is hard for me to interpret their thought based on the act because I am not them.
I didn't think you had made it up, I just wondered where the information came from. I don't recollect there being that much about it in the Bible.
I understand your forced-choice set up here, but we are not in forced-choice situations. In our ordinary unforced choice situations people don't rigorously honor the great chain of being. Our emotional commitment to the GCB (and the ethics of who ought to be saved first) is pretty heavily affected by physical distance, how much affinity we feel, how pressing the various (frequently trivial) demands on our attention are, and so on.
People may not be literally thrown under the bus very often, but by intent, neglect, indifference, and so on we are throwing lots of people under the bus all the time. If my neighbor's house was on fire, I would call the fire department. I would attempt at a reasonably safe distance to assess the environment inside. I would not just rush in to save these people, let alone a plant or their cat.
I haven't donated a dime to save refugees or migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean (and often drowning) or the US-Mexico border (dying in the process often enough) and I probably won't.
Up close and personal, however, the hungry and homeless will get a donation. Again, it's a question of proximity. I don't think I am unique in this. Absent proximity and felt urgency, The GCB fades into an abstraction with no motive power.
Perfection is one of those weird words that has taken on a modern-day meaning which may not be consistent with how the word was used thousands of years ago. If you study the way the word is most commonly used in a biblical context, it seems to refer to motivation, maturity, and sincerity (e.g. he did that which was right in the sight of the LORD, but not with a perfect heart). This sounds very much like what Jesus described when the pharisees gave huge amounts of money to the church, but did so "out of their abundance" while commending a poor person for giving in a way that would keep them poor. Motivation, and not amount, was what concerned Jesus.
The writer of Hebrews says Jesus, "learned obedience through the things he suffered" and as a result was made perfect. The Revelation talks about a special army of people who are "redeemed from among men" and who are "without blemish".
Humans always seem to get spiritual principles turned around. Animals sacrifices were meant to make them appreciate the consequences of their sin; it worked for a while, until they turned it into a business. The Sabbath day was meant to give people a rest at least one day a week, until it became so holy that the day itself became a burden (I personally witnessed a group of religious Jews who had to walk up 6 flights of stairs because pushing an elevator button on the sabbath day was considered work).
The Bible seems to strongly suggest that perfection is not a lack of any kind of problem ever, but rather, that sincere desire deep down inside to never stop trying to overcome the problems we face. The perfect person is the one who never stops trying to be good no matter how much they struggle along the way.
We are. That's the trick to free will. Within the limits of reality around us, we have the freedom to choose, but every choice we make is only relevant within the context of the same morality which affects every other human. We cannot choose to exist in a reality where our choices do not have some kind of moral effect on others around us, but within that context, we are still responsible for the choices we make.
Quoting Bitter Crank
A choice we all make in dozens of different ways every day.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I agree (or I agree with what I think you are saying, here). All of reality around us acts as an influence on how we will make our choices. It is not possible to escape all influence, which is why learning how to use wise, fair judgment is so important.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I really like your straight-forward assessment here. I find it easy to imagine the best about myself, that I would run into a burning house to save someone. But if I were faced with the reality, I don't know that I would. Who knows what one is capable of when it comes to real life, but still, I think the examination of hypotheticals like this makes for good practice.
You are right that it does not prove the ethics to be true. But likewise, the argument that some people do not act according to the GCB does not prove the ethics to be untrue. To avoid circular logic, we can look in ourselves for this innate knowledge.
Quoting ?????????????
Like any experiment, by using the good old inductive reasoning. If most answers are "I personally believe we ought to save the human first, animal second, plant third, and object fourth", then we can reasonably draw that conclusion. Say there are a few exceptions? Well the exception makes the rule!
Maybe I misunderstood what you originally said. The GCB ethics does not entail that having pets is unethical, inasmuch as doing something for pleasure is not unethical. Choosing to have a pet is unethical only if that choice results in the harm of a higher being.
That is correct. And they don't, do they? They are only represented as humans with wings as a symbol, like God is represented as a light or an old man.
Mr Crank, I understand your point. But I think this is not a case of the ethics decreasing with distance, but rather accuracy of facts decreasing and technical issues increasing. I too would rather contribute to local charities and avoid contributing to distant charities. This is not because I am a nationalist, but I reason that my money is more efficient if spent close by. I also have direct experience of my area, and only indirect experience of distant events. Our ethical goal is to optimize the net outcome. It would be absurd to ask each individual to help all the poor in the world, as opposed to focus their effort to help the poor in their proximity. Also it is not unethical to avoid rescuing a human being if you are not confident in your skills. Getting killed in the process does not result in the greatest net gain at all.
Bottom line is that the GCB ethics is still the standard to follow, and we can only do our best in practice, given the limited info and abilities we have.
Yeah I agree when it comes to moral perfection. Kant says 'ought implies can'. Thus being morally perfect means doing the best we can do.
Yes. One way to check this, as Pascal and Descartes say, is that "we cannot doubt natural principles [or innate knowledge] if we speak sincerely and in all good faith". I personally cannot doubt that it is my duty to save the human first, and cannot imagine that it is my duty to save another first (given the conditions established before). To clarify: I can imagine myself behaving otherwise, but not out of duty.
That is a good point. Where is the right balance between duty towards others and personal pleasure? Using common sense alone, it seems too extreme to spend all our money on our own pleasure, and also too extreme to spend all our money to help others with nothing left for our own pleasure. The right answer is somewhere in between and I don't know it. But I don't think it really harms the GCB ethics, it only makes it complicated to apply in some cases.
It is indeed an axiom or first principle, but it is found through argument. The whole point of the thought experiment is to demonstrate that the GCB hierarchy is innate.
Indeed. This works in favour of the GCB hierarchy which claims that animals have ontological value of their own.
I agree. One of the things that makes it possible for the tough to get going when the going gets rough is rehearsal of hypotheticals. Of course, fire-rescue requires more than a little hypothetical rehearsal; I don't think about it very often. My neighbors had better install a sprinkler system.
Can you explain why?
Quoting ?????????????
Aside from their ontological values, humans also care for plants and animals because they benefit humans as a means to survival like for food, transport and clothing. So it all abides to the GCB ethics.
I already addressed this issue here. Let's put it another way. It would be unethical for me to use all my money to buy a pet if a poor person was at my doorstep begging for food. But if I give a reasonable amount of money, then it seems correct to keep some money to buy a pet. Don't you agree?
Quoting ?????????????
That sounds right. So what? If indubitable, then it is necessarily true, then you cannot disagree.
The goal is optimize the net outcome, and you are forgetting such factors as efficiency of care and law of diminishing returns. It is less efficient to give to the needy that are far away; and once the needy in proximity have received the basic care, then any additional marginal amount of care diminishes. In fact, they might not even want too much charity at some point. And yes, if you give absolutely nothing to the needy when you could have, it follows that you are an unethical person according to the GCB ethics.
Quoting ?????????????
Yes it does. The highest kind of proof is logical proof, where the contrary of the conclusion entails a contradiction. Can you prove the law of non-contradiction to be true? No, we cannot logically prove logic to be true. But it is strong because, and only because, it is indubitable. So if you deny that an indubitable proposition is necessarily true, then you must also deny that the laws of logic are necessarily true.
Following Plato rather than Aristotle, these higher principles were considered distinct metaphysical realities that were the archetypes of the natural world. Each higher higher hypostasis gives rise by a process of emanation to the next, with the lowest one generating the material world. There, "beneath" (although not in any spatial sense) the three hypostases, at the maximum point of emanation, is the world of the senses, the material world of pure quantity (hyle), with nature (physis) sometimes as an intermediate principle between the world soul and matter. Later neoplatonists such as Iamblichus and Proclus built on Plotinus' scheme, adding ever more hypostases and replacing the mystical immediacy of the One with a series of progressively transcendent strata.
With the fall of classic learning the last formulation of pagan metaphysics was lost, and the Middle Ages reverted to the more classic Platonic and Aristotelian approach, via Augustine and Aquinas. But at the same time, later Neoplatonism, especially as propounded by Proclus, the last of the great Neoplatonic synthesisers, was to have a strong influence on both Christian and Islamic medieval metaphysics (via Pseudo-dyonsius and Avicenna respectively). Plotinus himself became one of the major metaphysical sources of Islamic philosophy, via the pseudepigraphical "fourth book" of Aristotle. The elaborate cosmology and theology of mystical Judaism (Kabbalah) was, if anything, even more strongly influenced by Neoplatonic ideas of emanation.
For the most part though, in the middle ages, the highly metaphysical Neoplatonic concept of emanation and hypostases became God and the hierarchies of angels and archangels bridging the divide between First Principle and the human world. At the same time, beneath man was the hierarchy of nature as described by Aristotle. Between these two was the feudal system, showing how secular and religious social strata fit into the larger divinely ordained pattern. As a result, during the medieval period The Great Chain of Being represented a visual metaphor for a divinely-inspired universal hierarchy ranking all forms of higher and lower life. At the top is God, immediately underneath are His angels, then Kings and Queens (or Pope if one is Catholic), and the whole feudal social stratified sequence of Archbishops, Dukes and Duchesses, Bishops, and so on, down through the ranks of greater and lesser nobles, to commoners and tradesmen, servants, tenant farmers, beggars, pirates, thieves (and actors and gypsies who were likewise placed near or at the bottom) then the various kinds of animals, birds, reptiles, insects, worms, plants, minerals, and rocks. Drawing from both the Aristotelian and the Biblical (including the modern creationist) understanding of the world (which were synthesised in the theology of Aquinas), the great chain of being presented an essentialist worldview of immutable species, and, in Feudal society, a social strata.
The Great Chain of Being: Medieval Woodcut
Source
Quoting ?????????????
I agree that utilitarianism is compatible with this GCB ethics; the difference being that instead of the subjective happiness found in utilitarianism, the evaluation criteria is on the amount of good done to a being, with more weight given to higher beings in the hierarchy. You keep calling special pleading, but never explained why.
Quoting ?????????????
The claim that the feeling of duty is indubitable only to me is again unfounded. And whatever reason comes up to debunk indubitable thoughts, watch that does not accidentally debunk the indubitable thoughts that are the laws of logic along with it, or else it is my turn to call special pleading.
Man that was a lot of technical terms, but great summary of its history.
If, as I suspect, the GCB hierarchy is innate knowledge, a first principle or an eternal truth, then it can be rediscovered over and over again from its roots, without having to worry about its bumpy evolution throughout history.
I don't hold out a lot of hope, really. There are powerful historical forces behind the rejection of the concept of an hierarchical ontology. There will always be some who recognise it, but no form of materialism can accommodate it.
Yes he did:Quoting ?????????????
Your only defence was:
Quoting Samuel Lacrampe
which is simply incorrect. Saving a life in sub-Saharan Africa costs far, far less than saving a life in an OECD country, even after administrative expenses and travel are taken into account.
If what you say about the needy in Africa is true, then it follows that we ought to provide as much help as we can offer before considering our personal pleasures, in accordance to the GCB ethics. The one obstacle I (and I think many others) have, is matters of facts about the problem: Is there a real lack of resources, or a bad distribution of it? Are there not people within their own country that can help out, and if so, why don't they? Will giving money provide a long-term solution, or is it missing the root cause? The further away it is, and the harder it is to know the real facts about the problem, the cause, the best solution, and even about the charities we are giving money to.
But I want to reiterate that, if we could have certainty on efficiency, then that is what we ought to do.
Quoting andrewk
I do not know that in any obvious way, and it is improbable for it to always be the case. Thus the point of these questions is to find out when it is the case. If in doubt, my personal advice is to give locally because of direct experience of the problems and outcomes; others don't have to agree with me. Regardless, this disagreement is on facts, not on the goal of abiding to the GCB ethics.
Quoting andrewk
Still unconvinced. I could not tell you if being charitable is a trait found in the majority of people, but it is not an uncommon trait by any means. And for those who are not, it is possible that they cannot.
Quoting andrewk
Even if you happen to be right about everything else, this conclusion still does not follow. We cannot derive an 'ought' from an 'is'. The GCB ethics is backed up by an innate knowledge of duty, not by acts. Your claims are compatible with the existence of the ethics, and in which case, it would follow that these people are unethical. Does that really sound surprising? Even without the GCB, surely you have heard of the Golden Rule, which "occurs in some form in nearly every religion and ethical tradition." (Source). Would you not want to receive help from others if you were in need?
I've heard enough, dog it is.