Moral standards

[Esquilax]

You submit to me? Am I standard?

Submit as in, present for your appraisal.

Why does complex life have inherent worth? Just because we can reason? What about simple life?

Complex life has worth because it's the life that considers morality and acts upon it. The reason sentient life has moral worth is because without it the entire concept of morality becomes meaningless. There'd be nobody to discuss it, and no actors to perform moral deeds. The conversation would be over.

Morality comes from life; our nature as evolved organisms sculpts the values we use to come to moral conclusions. Our ecological niche, the thing that allows us to succeed, is cooperation and social grouping; it's no coincidence that the traits that made us the dominant species on the planet also happen to be the things we prize as moral goods, like romantic love, self sacrifice, and so on. It's just a function of how the moral conversation takes place: we need to frame morality in terms of benefit to ourselves and others because without us- without life,- there would be no conversation to have.

If morals are merely constructs of sentient entities, then what happens when there are no sentient entities? Is torture still wrong even if there is no one to torture?

At the point at which there are no beings, who is there to perform the act of torture, and who is to have it performed upon them? What you're asking is akin to asking me if, without any rocks, would the concept of rocks still exist? If there's nothing around, then evidently neither are we to be talking about it. All I can really say is that torture would be morally wrong when there are beings around that would have the same reactions to it that we do.

If another life form were present that somehow benefited from torture, then the morality of the act would change for them, as there would be no harm being inflicted. But that's a much larger issue that's just hypothetical.

And you mention euthanasia as an exception to your system. Who draws that line to where what you have said is the first parameter of maintaining life suddenly becomes moot?

Well, the reason that life is the first parameter is because we, generally speaking, enjoy life. There is potential in life, happiness and success to be had, and so on. When I brought up euthanasia I was speaking in the context of people with incurable diseases or injuries that rob them of that potential and leave them in irreversible pain for the rest of their life. It's still their choice, but at that point the benefits of living might be outweighed by the pain- aversion to pain being another parameter, for obvious reasons- to the point where they might find ending that life to be preferable.

I feel like you're trying to look for easy, blanket answers, and taking the fact that other people are factoring in contexts as a sign of weakness. Could you just get to the point you were trying to make?