Rational ethicist wrote: ↑Thu Dec 29, 2022 2:50 pm
If you define 'Morality' as what agents should and should not do, then anything goes and there will be no efficiency towards any form of progress in terms of doing good and avoiding evil.
How do you mean "anything goes"? It is just a definition. Or do you disagree with my definition? Morality is not about what agents should and should not do? In any case, this discussion was about universal rights, and that clearly relates to what agents should and should not do: agents should grant rights, should not violate right,...
If you identify X as good and that I, most or all should [ought] to do X as well, why should I and others comply with your should?
That is going back to the first year undergraduate in philosophy: write an essay about "why be moral?" Let's leave that for another discussion and focus here on the idea of universal rights: which rights would you grant, to what/whom, and why? What if you have to grant rights to everything?
To answer your question: if X = "avoid unwanted arbitrariness", then you have to do X as well, because if you may allow unwanted arbitrariness, then so is everyone and you cannot want that. My point was that in the traditional approach of rights-based ethics, there is unwanted arbitrariness in granting rights to others. That is why I propose to grant rights to really everything, without arbitrary exclusions. You should comply to this idea, because if you disagree, then I may grant rights arbitrarily to others, so I may arbitrarily exclude you from being granted rights, and you cannot want that.
The religious authorities enforce their 'oughts' on all believers because God commanded so; that is not morality
Now you are confusing me with what you mean with morality. It is morality, because it is about what we ought to do. That divine command theory is one particular moral theory. It is a bad one, because it contains unwanted arbitrariness, so we can reject it. But it remains a moral theory, so it is morality. Compare it to geometry: there are different geometrical theories or systems, such as Euclidean geometry. Euclidean geometry does not contain arbitrariness. But you can formulate a theory that says for example the rule (axiom) "between every two points you can draw a straight line, except between the points in the upper-right corner over there." This axiom is like one of Euclid's axioms, but it contains an arbitrariness, with that exception. So this is a bad geometrical system, no mathematician is using such a system. But it is still geometry.
Morality proper is related to the spontaneity [not forced, threatened or motivated by desires and rewards] in acting good [not evil] by individuals in alignment with what is intrinsically moral within them.
ok, nice definition, but I don't think it is useful in this discussion about rights.
I stated morality is primarily directed to the human species.
then it has unwanted arbitrariness (as you arbitrarily exclude non-humans), and hence it is a bad moral theory, which we can reject just like that divine command theory. I can simply exclude/reject your anthropocentric moral theory, and you cannot give valid arguments against that exclusion. You can ask me: "On what grounds do you exclude my theory? What valid reasons do you have to reject it?" And, being lazy, I can simply respond by saying: "I just arbitrarily decided to do so, without valid reasons. And according to you, arbitrary exclusions are permissible because you arbitrarily excluded non-humans. So you said that I may arbitrarily exclude things, so I decided to arbitrarily exclude your moral theory."
Other than that consideration should be given to ensure our actions do not have a negative feedback to our well being
Who counts as "our"? Does "our" refer to humans? That is arbitrary, because you and I are also mammals, so it could equally refer to the class of mammals. Or the order of primates,...
to ensure preservation of the individual[s] and therefrom the species.
why preservation of the species and not preservation of the race, of the family, of the genus, if the infraorder, of the order, of the class, of the phylum,...? You and I belong to a phylum...
If you were to extend morality to all living things, then what about the millions of good and bad bacteria within your guts and microbiome that you are killing and depriving them of life every day?? You are familiar with the 'microbiome'.
yeah, what about that? easy: you simply take those bacteria also in consideration.
How do you deal with this dilemma?
the same as with other dilemmas: find and choose the best option.
What point are you trying to make? Let me change your words a bit: "If you were to extend morality to all humans, then what about the thousands of black slaves that you are using? How to deal with that dilemma?" Yes, if you give black slaves their freedom, then your well-being will be lower and those of the slaves will be higher. Increasing the well-being of one person decreases the well-being of others, so it is a dilemma. Now what? Conclude that we should not extend morality to all humans?
But why restrict those rights to humans? It arbitrarily excludes non-humans. Therefor, I suggest to avoid any arbitrary exclusions, by granting rights to everyone and everything. So I suggest "universal right of entities"
It is not arbitrarily if you are more observant of what is going on in Nature out there?
what do I have to look for? I don't see anywhere in nature written that rights may or should be restricted to humans.
IN GENERAL members of each species do not kill each other for food
that is an "is" (a fact), from which you cannot derive an "ought" (a value). Your "in general" is also concerning, because it introduces an arbitrariness: how many species (in percentage) must have the property that its members don't eat each other, in order for you to derive the moral claim that rights may or ought to be restricted to humans? I don't see the connection between on the one hand a percentage of species having such a property and on the other the idea to restrict rights to humans.
indicates living things are species-centric.
that is factually not true: living beings are not species-centric. You could equally say that they are genus-centric, because
IN GENERAL members of each genus do not kill each other for food. Or race-centric, or subspecies-centric, or family-centric,... There is a simple reason why most living beings are not species-centric: because they do not understand this very abstract notion of a species. There is no living being who is capable of determining which other living being does or does not belong to its own species. You are not able to determine which living being belongs to the human species.
Members of a species may be tribalistic and may killing others of a different tribe but such killings are not significant to the survival of the species.
neither are they significant to the survival of the genus, or the order, or the class, or the phylum,... In fact, such killings are far less significant for the survival of the phylum than for the survival of the species. So why not adopt a phylum-centric morality? Why not restrict rights to vertebrates (our phylum) instead of humans (our species)? Arbitrariness...
As I had stated, morality is primarily confined to the human species
yes, you stated it, but I think you have to argue for it. If you are unable to give an argument, your morality contains unwanted arbitrariness, and that is definitely not allowed.
and therefrom extend to living things that has self-awareness
what about the humans that don't have self-awaraness?