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Being part of nature comes with no moral qualifications. The fact that can't "live outside nature" implies that everything you do is living inside nature, wheth
by Retra 11y ago
Being part of nature comes with no moral qualifications. The fact that can't "live outside nature" implies that everything you do is living inside nature, whether you find it morally repugnant or not. We have (social) responsibilities to each other and to ourselves, and that includes taking care of our environment, but we do not have any metaphysical responsibility to nature itself, including such things as "not ruling over it."
- ZenoArrow 11y agoWhy would you want to rule over something that you destroy in the process?
- Retra 11y agoI don't see how that question has any bearing on anything at all. Your word choices in this discussion are strongly indicative of a none-too-thought-out black-vs-white worldview. Don't ask me why I would want to rule. Perhaps I would like to rule over your mind to destroy this propensity for dumb questions to be asked of me. The world would be a better place for it.
- ZenoArrow 11y agoIf you answered the question you'd have seen why it was relevant, but if you'd rather not then allow me to elaborate. Imagine someone is fascinated by seeing a butterfly moving between the plants in their garden. Does the person own the butterfly? Naturally, it has no allegiance to any person. Can they own the butterfly? The only ownership possible appears to result in the butterfly being held captive, either alive or dead. The captivity robs both the person and the butterfly, the butterfly is robbed of its freedom, and the person is robbed of the joy of seeing the butterfly live naturally, which is what they may have found fascinating in the first place. This is a hard thing to explain, because it requires a different mindset. If someone is of the ownership mindset then it doesn't matter to them what existed before that ownership, or what happens after their ownership. However, with a less individualistic mindset, different values emerge. For example, is a tree worth more than the paper it can produce?
- Retra 11y agoWho's talking about ownership? We're talking about control. You can control something that you don't own.
- ZenoArrow 11y agoIf you were using land to grow food, do you control it or own it?
- Retra 11y agoNo, I don't know the price of tea in China.
- ZenoArrow 11y agoLet me explain then. In a scenario where you use land to grow food, if you don't own the land you can't say you control it. How this that the case? You can state you control it without owning it, and use that land to grow food. However, that control only lasts if only one person has access to the land. If I decide to dig up all of your crops and use the land for my own use, then do you really have control of the land? No. Neither would I in this scenario, anyone could undo the changes I made as well. Ownership enables exclusive control. When it comes to managing resources, there is no reliable control without exclusive control. In other words, in this case, there's no point in making the distinction between ownership and control.