7 ms·

Actually, I kind of like this analogy. If 4chan are bears, that means they don't have any moral responsibility, and it's okay to shoot them.

• buu700 14y ago
  How did you go from "bears have no moral responsibility" to "it's okay to shoot bears"?
  • Cushman 14y ago
    Well, it's not a direct causal connection -- that's how we use "and" in English -- but basically, moral responsibility is commutative. Bears don't have a responsibility towards us: they're bears, they don't realize it's wrong to eat hikers. And accordingly, we don't have a responsibility towards bears: If there's a bear that's eating hikers, we don't try to have a conversation with it, we shoot it and move on.
    • andreasvc 14y ago
      > moral responsibility is commutative That's nonsense. A baby doesn't know right from wrong, but parents are obliged to care for it. Just because a bear doesn't have responsibility doesn't mean we can shoot it wily-nily, there has to be some justification such as in the example you mention. And commutativity is a property of operations, you probably meant that moral responsibility is a symmetric relation.
      • Cushman 14y ago
        Infants have no ability to care for their parents. Do you truly argue that a child, when they become able, has no responsibility to take care of their parents, when they become infirm? And metaphor need not hew closely to semantics, but having is, linguistically, a ditransitive operation-- technically stative, but the difference isn't important here. I may have responsibility, and I may have responsibility toward you. Responsibility may commutatively have me toward you, if that made sense, or you might commutatively have responsibility toward me, which is the more sensical. In any event, the metaphor is clear.
        • andreasvc 14y ago
          That infants have no such ability was the whole point of the example. Children do have such responsibilities when they have the ability. have is actually a transitive word, not ditransitive. An example of the latter is give: A gives B to C. I disagree that there's metaphor here, commutativity is a very technical term and it relates to operations such as addition. So in fact I do think it's relevant that have is stative, because this implies it's not an operation. When speaking of ethical matters it is simply more common to use words like symmetry and reciprocity.
          • Cushman 14y ago
            I'm sure I can make the case that bears are the indirect object of my having responsibility -- or rather are not -- but if you prefer, I withdraw the metaphor. The point is that it goes both ways :)
            • andreasvc 14y ago
              Ah I see now why you would call it ditransitivite. I believe that you would call it an argument/complement to 'responsibility', as 'have' is not an inherently ditransitive verb. The point about whether it goes both ways is a matter of opinion I think. I feel that humans have an obligation to treat animals well, not necessarily because of how they would feel or their obligations to us, but because it makes humans look bad not to. Kind of like how a gentleman is supposed to be polite regardless of the situation.
    • icebraining 14y ago
      That's a ridiculous example, and in fact it proves the opposite. Notice that we only shoot bears that are actually eating hikers, even though no bear actually have moral responsibility toward us; that's because we as a society do feel moral responsibility towards bears (and animals in general), and therefore avoid shooting them except when required. We certainly don't feel anywhere near the same moral responsibility towards animals as we do towards people, but we feel some. And as society becomes less religious, that'll tend to increase.
      • jackpirate 14y ago
        Notice that we only shoot bears that are actually eating hikers Not true. Bears are a popular animal to hunt in every state in the US that has them.
        • icebraining 14y ago
          Right, I was speaking as a non-US citizen. That said, there are various animals which we do not hunt; bears were just the given example.
      • noahc 14y ago
        Michigan[1], Maine[2], and Minnesota[3] to name just a few states have a bear season. [1]http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10363_10856_57530_57531---,00.html http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10363_10856_57530_5... [2]http://maine.gov/ifw/hunting_trapping/hunting/bear.htm http://maine.gov/ifw/hunting_trapping/hunting/bear.htm [3]http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/hunting/bear/index.html http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/hunting/bear/index.html
      • noahc 14y ago
        I think you're actually mistaking religious for urban. In the Bible we talk about dominion over all animals, that is certainly a part of western culture, but few people actually believes that one should walk around randomly kicking puppies and shooting kittens in the head because they can. Instead, I would argue that this is a function of urbanization and removal of a connection between humans and animals. Animals, which provide meat, eggs, and milk are removed as the providers as such and instead these things come from the grocery store. Because of this disconnect, animals undergo a process of anthropomorphism, which can clearly be seen in the form of lolcatz.
    • songrabbit 14y ago
      > basically, moral responsibility is commutative oh dear. this is scary
• BryanB55 14y ago
  haha, "bears do not have any moral responsibility, therefore, it is ok to shoot them". What!? Don't let PETA hear that.