The Universal Moral Code

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

2. All life has equal rights. Each living being is equal in value or importance to every other living being. No living being or group of beings has any rights, including the rights to exploit, or abuse, or force their own will, upon any other living being or group of beings, unless all beings involved are willing participants.

Malignant cancerous tumors are 'alive' by any meaningful definition of the word.  Is such a tumor  'equal in value or importance to every other living being'?  If so, then any attempt to destroy the tumor (radiation, chemotherapy, excision surgery, etc) in order to save the patient is evil, according to your definition.  Antibiotics used to treat life-threating bacterial infections would be evil, as would eradicating insect or rodent pests that pose a threat to human populations.


Do you object to medical experimentation performed on rabbits, pigs, non-human primates, etc?  Bearing in mind that such research has saved untold millions of human beings from death and misery, would you consider these experiments 'evil'?



Did you eat anything today?  If so, did you eat living beings?  Even if you are an uber-vegan, you might want to reflect that soy beans and celery stalks are living beings.


You may want to think this through again.


Boru

[Aroura]

Does the wheat consent?  Is it going to karmicly enslave you for eating it? What's the moral significance of bread?

The wheat doesn’t chose to participate, and thereby becomes exempt. All beings that cannot understand the OP moral code fall into the second category, so it is no less ne’er morally wrong to harm them.

I guess? I wondered exactly the same when I read the op. Life feeds on life. No getting around it.

It’s a nice idea, but utterly impossible. Tigers eat meat. Even if we wish not to impose ourselves on the tiger, it must impose itself on the water buffaloes. Circle of love from and all that.

[AFTT47]

I like the general idea of the first 4 principles except for the obvious problem that all living beings can only exist by feeding off other life. Considering unconscious plants living beings for the purpose of morality really complicates things unnecessarily. There is no getting around that lions are conscious and zebras are conscious though and that lions don't do too well on a diet of eucalyptus leaves.

The second part - dealing with those who fail to adhere to the code is actually where I have my biggest problem. It sounds like revenge-think. Sinking to same level as evil is definitely not the way to deal with evil. Not if we are to think of ourselves as good.

[The Grand Nudger]

Does the wheat consent?  Is it going to karmicly enslave you for eating it?  What's the moral significance of bread?

The wheat doesn’t chose to participate, and thereby becomes exempt. All beings that cannot understand the OP moral code fall into the second category, so it is no less ne’er morally wrong to harm them.

Not by OP's system or comments.  The OP claims these rules for non-sentient non consenting objects "because we're all made of stuff".

I guess? I wondered exactly the same when I read the op. Life feeds on life. No getting around it.

It’s a nice idea, but utterly impossible. Tigers eat meat. Even if we wish not to impose ourselves on the tiger, it must impose itself on the water buffaloes. Circle of love from and all that.

Most of us call that a "necessary evil", eh...and engaging in necessary evil doesn't justify some evil being thrust upon us in retribution.

I'm sympathetic to the idea of a universal or objective moral code..but if there is one...the OP hasn't even remotely approached it.

[The Grand Nudger]

@TGB

Even if you did....and I do...I'll still kill it and eat it.

[Edwardo Piet]

a. Evil is anything or anybody that causes any type of harm, pain, suffering, damage, impairment, injury, loss, detriment, distress, affliction, or any other disagreeable experience, or does any injustice, to a living being against its will.

That's all I need. I scrap the rest.

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Oh and "3", "3.b.", "3.c" and "3.d" are all identical in moral meaning. They are all about how evil is making people suffer/evil is bad m'kay.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Does the wheat consent?  Is it going to karmicly enslave you for eating it?  What's the moral significance of bread?

Guess I'd have to give up antibiotics too.

[Crossless2.0]

Congratulations, OP. You’ve devised a ‘universal moral code’ that would ensure the extinction of the only species that could conceive of or care about universal moral codes.

Deep, man!

[BlindedWantsToSee]

Does the wheat consent?  Is it going to karmicly enslave you for eating it?  What's the moral significance of bread?

The wheat does not consent. I really don't know all of the details or mechanisms of how karma works, but what I know is that it finds a way of making food out of a living being that makes other living beings, against their will, food for himself or herself.

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Would you like to tell us how you are a victim of others that are not living by and/or applying your Universal Moral Code?

This sounds like a reactive justification to some perceived wrong you've unjustly suffered. 

Your "Universal Moral Code" lacks depth of thought.

I don't believe I'm a victim of others. If a victim, I am a victim of myself, for not observing the part of the Code that indicates that an injustice should not be accepted or put up with by anybody.

[The Grand Nudger]

The wheat does not consent. I really don't know all of the details or mechanisms of how karma works, but what I know is that it finds a way of making food out of a living being that makes other living beings, against their will, food for himself or herself.

I think you've mistaken predation and decay for karma. Those things will happen no matter what you do..or don't do.

So, on a scale of 1 to 10, how evil is bread? Do you feel that your consumption of food would justify your enslavement?