Maximizing Moral Virtue

[bennyboy]

In a world where we maximize virtue, act potency and cuteness may all be moot.  There's only one question for us to consider.  How many women we'll be chaining to gurneys and forcing to give birth.

If we decide that we have to prevent abortions in order to maximize virtue - that number will be high, and doing so must be part of virtue no matter what arguments are used to put it forward any position on babbies.  

It's the same with killing animals.  If we decide that we have to stop killing animals to maximize moral virtue we will have condemned a significant number of animals (including human animals) to death.

OFC, I don't think that act and potency -or- cuteness are moral arguments, nor do I believe that it's impossible to be an ethical omnivore.... but we're running with it.

First, let me say good job circling all of this back to the OP.

Let me be clear about my position.  It isn't so much that abortion is right or wrong, or killing animals.  It's that where there's inconsistency in approach, but still an attempt to rationalize, then there's likely a cover-up for an emotional position-- and we either accept that morality is a mediated moral position, or do the work of cleaning up the rationale. It's going to be very hard to "maximize moral virtue" if you can't be very clear about what the moral impulse is and why it should guide behaviors.

For example, if someone says they're "pro-life," but is not vegetarian, then what they really mean is pro-human-life.  Then, in my opinion, they'd better have a really good rationale for why human life is sacrosanct, but not animal life.  The REAL answer, in my view, is that they're mostly Christians, and while they employ logicish-sounding langauge, the real motive is the expression of a pseudo-Biblical human exceptionalism-- "A baby is a precious gift from god, and killing such is abhorrent to all that is good in humanity." Or, if they're not Christians, they basically just don't give a f*ck-- "I'm gonna kill and eat Bambi because I can, because he tastes good, and that's a good enough reason for me."

Even worse, in America, is that many are pro-life right UP TO the moment where an actual human is born and begins living its life. They will deny state-funded daycare, welfare for single moms, extra funding for special education in the case of babies born with defects due to drug or alchohol use, and so on. But then, when some kid gets shot in the chest and is in a coma, they'll probably try to force the hospital not to pull the plug because. . . super-sciency reasons. That idea, that life is all about breath and a pulse, and not about actually living, seems very strange to me.

Or, if you take a stand against science in general-- for example, by demanding the inclusion of a Biblical view of reality in classrooms, but are very concerned about a "unique genetic makeup" at conception-- bruh where's the cherry-picking coming from?  If you're pro-science, you need to consider what science says about spontaneous abortions or miscarriages, about the development of the nervous system, and so on.  But they don't.

Some monks of various traiditons DO, as Belacqua mentioned, have an absolute pro-life position.  They wear masks to avoid inhaling and kiling bugs, they look down constantly to avoid accidentally killing anything, and so on.  I, on the other hand, will mercilessly murder any mosquito that enters my house.  I won't eat a hamburger, but I will most definitely slap a mosquito.  If I claim that animal death and suffering is intrinsically abhorrent, then Lucy, I have some 'splaining to do.

It turns out that many vegetarians are guilty of the "squeeee" reponse, and are no better than Christians in that regard. Kill a baby seal? Life in prison for you, if I can arrange it! Kill a spider that's just chillin' in the corner? Eeeeeek--- where's a man when you need one?

Maximizing moral virtue? What does it mean? So long as "moral virtue" is a collection of doubletalk to cover for the "Squeee" response, the moral topology is going to be strange and largely incoherent.