The Ethics of Belief

[robvalue]

Very good post! I am pretty much on board (pun intended).

I agree that each belief held for bad reasons is at the least going to make it more likely to acquire more beliefs for bad reasons. So it's never harmless in that respect.

Err, oops. After rereading your OP what I've written may not be appropriate. I'll hide it away.

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With regard to morality, as killing humans was brought up, you can only rate what is moral and immoral after deciding what you value. For sure, we generally value human life a lot, more than anything else. That's how we are. So our morality almost always places a very high value there. But equally you can look at animal life, and the harm that humans cause to it. Most people place harm towards animals at a much lower value to that towards humans. Again, this is understandable.

But there is no "right answer" in what we should value, because it's ultimately arbitrary. All we can do is discuss them, and perhaps change each other's minds. It's only once we've agreed on some sort of common ground that we can discuss whether one action is "more moral" than another.

I pondered yesterday about the morality of me killing all humans in one go, if I got the single chance to do it. I'd have to weigh the benefit to animals, against the loss of humans. That's no easy calculation for me, although my instincts come down on the side of killing all the humans. Whether I could go through with that, even if I decided it was best, is another matter. (I added some sort of fail safe where nothing like us could evolve again. It's obviously a thought experiment only.) Also, is it the same moral question, or a different one, if I can save all the humans who are due to die, given one chance to do so? Is my accountability any different?

This is different to me trying to just go around killing people, because it's ultimately going to make little difference to animals and will cause lots of hurt to humans.

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