Animal Slavery

[John V]

Whether it is adequate justification or not is not the point. You are attempting to mount an argument about god on an invalid premise, the aforementioned false dichotomy. This doesn't make it any less a false dichotomy and therefore your conclusions about god based on the dichotomy are non sequiturs.

I don't have a false dichotomy, as I'm not insisting on the initial dichotomy presented at the beginning of Part II. Those two options are what came out of Part I. As I have shifted direction, I'm addressing additional prposed options, such as yours.

If, as your argument goes, it is in our interest as a biological species to maximize the utility of non-human resources to increase our odds of survival, it does not follow that god has an equally rational basis for his behavior because he is not a biological being whose interest is defined by his biological nature.

Valid conclusion, but there are problems with your premise.

It could be argued that human slavery could be structured to increase the odds of survival of humanity. Are you arguing that such slaveru would be ethical?

The existence of species which do not enslave other species indicates that such behavior is not necessary for survival.

The existence of humans who do not enslave other animals indicates that such behavior is not necessary for human survival.

Humans don't act as a whole for the benefit of the species.

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Human slavery is moral according to the bible, including sex slavery. How does it then follow that animal slavery is immoral? According to the bible, animals are playthings for humanity to do with what we like.

It seems alpha male can't advance this argument without denying the truth and accuracy of Genesis:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

I don't get how a Christian can advance this argument with a straight face, as it seems to invalidate not only the infallibility of the bible, but also invalidate God as the source of morality.

As noted previously:
BTW, note that the OP asked questions, and I've tried to keep my responses in that form as well. I'm exploring the issue. For the record I own pets and eat meat, eggs, and dairy products, so if such use of animals is slavery, I too am a slaver both directly and indirectly.

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You need to look up what the word "intrinsically" means because all your examples fail. These groups may have 'thought' they were intrinsically valuable to themselves, but that doesn't mean they were. However, humans, by virtue of a shared biology which is interdependent on itself, are intrinsically special to other humans.

When I read his post, it seemed he was implying that they only thought they were intrinsically more valuable. Sometimes such implications don't come across well in the format of an internet post, but I thought that one was pretty clear.

We aren't special to ourselves as a species as a case of special privilege; we are special to ourselves because of the way biological evolution works. Because there is a rational explanation as to why we matter to ourselves, it is not a case of special pleading. Special pleading only applies if there is no reason to treat one case differently than the others, and in this case there is such a reason. We may not 'self-consciously' apply them to other areas of our life, but biological explanations don't require self-consciousness of their existence for them to be real.

Biological evolution produces slavers and rapists and all the other bad things we see in humanity. Do you really think it's a good source of ethics?

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I would suggest that species-centrism and evolutionary psychology are the proper backbone for a generic, scientific concept of ethics.

What do you base species-centrism on? This seems philosophical, not scientific. Scientific observation shows that in some species, individual members and/or subgroups are fiercely competitive with other individuals/groups. I would suggest that a quick read of the world news shows that biology has produced in humans a tendency to identify more strongly with subgroups than the species as a whole. Ethics based on observable human nature would accept human slavery.