In an attempt to express my affection for animals I made this rather childish composition. I hope it brings some color in the lives of animals, and into your life too.
Related posts:
Reflections: Freedom, Happiness,
Products in the value shop: Freedom, Happiness
Creative
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Yet, that is mostly not what we really want them to do. Conformation to social norms usually takes precedence in the real world. So,
Do as we do.
And that is what most people end up doing.
It implies that
On the one hand they are told to make up their own mind, but on the other hand they are forced into obedience to social norms. In other words,
As a result people tend to live in a phantasy world. A world of make-belief, that we are rational and responsible moral agents. Yet, in reality
copying our conspecifics. We imitate.
We imitate because
It is painful and direct. Personal responsibility diverging from social norms is treated as treason.
It implies that
This absolves us also from our moral responsibility.
without feeling guilty, without remorse.
But not being rational and not being morally responsible also implies we are not much different from other primates and from other animal species.
People tend to hide in the crowd. They rarely want to take full responsibility for their actions. If they would, they should drastically change their habits, but if they don’t they should give up their notion of being special. Either way,
Either from thinking we are special, to really living up to it,
or from behaving like beasts to really accepting that we don’t deserve much better.
Think for yourself
How do you do?
My name is Animaximo @AnimalMinded. I’m trying to solve animal-welfare problems. I’m trying to solve animal-welfare problems in many different ways. In my personal life I do what I can for animals. In my professional life too. Even in my virtual life.
My real life is virtual and my virtual life is real. I am not a fool, but I may easily be regarded as such. I’m seeking self-expression. Self-expression in the real world is limited. In the real world I am oppressed. I feel oppressed by ‘the system’. That’s why I must be silent in the real world. In the virtual world, however, I have much more freedom of expression. That is nice. I have longed for freedom of expression for many years. I have learned the hard way that Foucault is right, that many institutions like schools and hospitals serve to protect ‘the system’ like prisons do. Hence, I’ve become a political prisoner in a country that is offer used as an example of ‘the free world’. That’s why my virtual identity is a good way to escape. It allows me to escape from a permanent straight jacket. My virtual self has hope, hope that I will be able to be real again, one day.
I must keep it short. I will be back later. I hope I haven’t caused too much concern or pity. It is not my who deserves pity, but my cause is. My cause is to solve animal-welfare problems. These problems are enormous. If you have pity too with my cause, please help me become real in my virtual, and who knows even in my real life, some day before, or after I die.
Have a nice day,
Animaximo @AnimalMinded
Add:
Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) have a bad name. They created the bubble of speculation that led to the financial crisis. Banks used Credit Default Swaps to spread the risk on loans. However, in a modernized form Credit Default Swaps may provide animal welfare solutions.
When you are in the animal welfare business, like in any other type of business, it may be necessary to invest. However, when it is not clear that you will be able to pay, it may be difficult to get a loan. In this case it may be an option to exchange, i.e. ‘Swap’ products or services. You do something for me, I do something for you. When under such an agreement either party fails to deliver what has been agreed, i.e. in case of ‘Default’, the agreed exchange in natura may be transformed into a monetary dept, i.e. into ‘Credit’. Hence, in order to run an animal welfare business I propose contemplating the use of ‘Credit Default Swaps’: to exchange products and services so you can do your business and I can do mine, without actual payment, unless either party fails to deliver. Such Credit Default Swaps can help to get work done. You scratch my back, I scratch yours, tit for tat.
Further information:
Credit default swap on Wikipedia
Citations:
“A credit default swap (CDS) is a financial swap agreement that the seller of the CDS will compensate the buyer in the event of a loan default or other credit event. The buyer of the CDS makes a series of payments (the CDS “fee” or “spread”) to the seller and, in exchange, receives a payoff if the loan defaults. ”
“CDSs are not traded on an exchange and there is no required reporting of transactions to a government agency.”
“The buyer makes periodic payments to the seller, and in return receives a payoff if an underlying financial instrument defaults or experiences a similar credit event.”
Tit for tat on Wikipedia
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Here is a moral dilemma in a thought experiment. You see a train coming down the track towards a group of workers. Standing near a lever, you must decide whether to leave the lever along and let the train kill the workers, or to pull the lever to let the train change tracks and kill only one worker on s subsidiary track. What would you do?
This moral dilemma can be considered using a consequentialist, deontological and virtue-ethics framework. According to consequentialist view something like the greatest good for the greatest number of people is to be obtained. Prima facie, a utilitarian might prefer to pull the lever. Deontology prescribes duties, such as not killing people. Prima facie, a deontologist might not pull the lever, e.g. because of the duty not to be actively involved in the killing of an innocent person. Finally, a virtue ethicist might focus on one’s capabilities, e.g. practising intellectual virtues like theoretical and practical wisdom, and moral virtues like prudence, justice, temperance and courage. Prima facie, a virtuous agent might pull the lever, in as far as this is in accordance with the human/societal flourishing.
A thought experiment like this is not just a theoretical exercise. When dairy farmers are confronted with exploding field mouse populations, it may cost about 100.000 Euro’s/dollars per farm. Population control using poison is considered socially undesirable, and alternatives like drowning and gassing also have serious drawbacks. As a result, farmers prefer to wait for a cold spell, such that large numbers of mice would be frozen to death. Another example is the myxomatosis rabbit. It has swollen eyes, sits by the side of the road and doesn’t run away. Such rabbits don’t eat and will eventually die when left alone. However, it may be more humane to take a minute to kill the rabbit so as to reduce unnecessary future suffering. The train, the mice and the rabbit constitute moral dilemma’s because they involve a choice between being passive or being active, and between more or less harm done to the individuals concerned.
Train: Pull lever → 1 person dies; don’t pull lever → 5 die
Mice: Poison/gas/drowning →quicker death; wait for cold →slower death
Rabbit: Hit → quick death; leave along →die more slowly
What is better: to stand by and let ‘nature’ take its course, or to act so as to reduce overall harm?
The morally best course of action would be to do one’s duty in minimizing harm and maximizing happiness and flourishing. While contributing to happiness and flourishing may be supererogatory, i.e. morally good/laudable but not required, it is a morally required obligation to refrain from causing considerable harm to others whenever possible.
In general, moral dilemma’s can be solved relatively easily. This is because the bigger the dilemma, the smaller the difference between the moral value of the alternatives. Hence, the bigger the dilemma, the more likely it is that the problem can be solved by tossing a coin. For tossing either will make you do what is morally right, or it will make you do what approaches doing what is morally right, and there is no strong moral obligation to be perfect.
Another route to solving moral dilemma’s may be to critically examine the underlying assumptions, e.g. that non-human animals can suffer and that human lives are valuable. When animals were mere reflex machines, then all concern about animal welfare would be erroneous, and the moral dilemma’s of the mouse overpopulation and the myxomatosis rabbit would dissolve instantly. Similarly, when humans were only destroying the earth by overpopulation and self-interested hedonistic materialism devoid of moral decency, or something like that, then we may be mistaken about the presumed value of human life. If the railroad workers were in fact morally equivalents of somebody like Hitler, then surely the approaching train could be turned into a moral solution, rather than a moral dilemma.
