We work. The other animals live.

For the longest time, we humans were no different from other mammals in that we hunted and gathered to feed ourselves, and over the rest of the hours of the day, we played, fought, mated, and scratched ourselves.  And we slept.

Some stupid humans proposed that we simply stay put, raise some animals, grow some crops, and our problems began.  From that moment on, we were destined to reach the point where we are now.  Growing crops and raising animals meant that we could no longer simply hunt and gather when we felt the hunger pangs, but now had to start planning towards the next meal.  We had to start worrying about the crop going bad, or the animals dying on us.  It was only a matter of time before we played less, mated even less, slept a whole lot less, and stressed out a lot!

I assume that sometime soon after that, as humans became "civilized," we started cleaning up after we defecated.  When that happened, it must have been one hell of a "aha" moment!

Of course, it is all tongue-in-cheek.

The process of "civilizing" that began 12,000 years ago has led us to the world today in which we do not hunt and gather our food--well, with a few exceptions, that life is impossible for us anymore.  Instead, we work in order to get paid, which we then use to buy the food and more.  The question then is how much do we want to work.  Not much work is needed for mere survival, and a lot more is needed if we want to lead a materially prosperous life.

We begin to interpret the options very differently.  Increasingly, most find the work they do to be meaningless--even when it pays them a lot.

If only students paid attention to such stuff that I freely dish out!  If they did, they will rejoice that nobody has ever talked about such stuff!  Which is a shame:

Studies show that this generation of students cares deeply about purpose, meaning, and happiness at work. In reference to millennials, one recent Chicago Tribune article notes that they ask themselves: “Is my work meaningful to me? Do I have a cause? Do I have influence, purpose, and alignment?” If higher education does not teach students how to explore these issues at the college level, students graduate at a disadvantage.

If only the world of higher education worked according to my rules!

Some colleges are already implementing course work, advising, and seminars to create a platform for students to use their college years to figure out not only what they are good at doing but also what they are passionate about. However, more should join the movement.

Exactly!!

During his farewell speech in January, President Barack Obama urged young people to find their passion and “hitch your wagons to something bigger than yourselves.” The truth is, today’s young people already expect to do exactly that. Colleges and universities across the country must help our students meet that expectation. For the sake of our students and the future of our country, we must reinvent ourselves to help students explore meaning and purpose.

Imagine the narcissistic trump giving advice to students about "something bigger than yourselves." For all I know, trump perhaps believes that his asshole produces only gold!

Cheeseburger Ethics: Our Lives of Moral Mediocrity

By now, from the many posts, it will be clear that one pet peeve of mine is that for almost all--including me--the action does not match the rhetoric.

It seems like an overwhelming majority of us mortals lead lives of moral mediocrity at best, and often practically immoral lives, all based on our own individual moral codes--not even somebody else's code.

Suppose it’s generally true that we aim for goodness only by relative, rather than absolute, standards. What, then, should we expect to be the effect of discovering, say, that it is morally bad to eat meat, as the majority of US ethicists seem to think?

Imagine that--we don't aim to be good for goodness sake, but only for relative goodness?  If a whole bunch of people around are crappy, then I need to merely be slightly better than them and I am satisfied with this relative goodness?

You might hope that others will change. You might advocate general societal change – but you’ll have no desire to go first.

Hmmm ...

The author of the essay that triggered all these thoughts writes that lengthy piece in order to discuss:

Are professional ethicists good people? According to our research, not especially. So what is the point of learning ethics?

Professional ethicists apparently are no different from you and me, who are not professional ethicists.

Ethicists do not appear to behave better. Never once have we found ethicists as a whole behaving better than our comparison groups of other professors, by any of our main planned measures. But neither, overall, do they seem to behave worse. (There are some mixed results for secondary measures.) For the most part, ethicists behave no differently from professors of any other sort – logicians, chemists, historians, foreign-language instructors.

If even professional ethicists do not make sure their actions are consistent with their talk, then why complain about the everyday person who does not get paid to, for instance, think about killing animals for food or whether the rich should donate to the poor.

We aspire to be about as morally good as our peers. If others cheat and get away with it, we want to do the same. We don’t want to suffer for goodness while others laughingly gather the benefits of vice. If the morally good life is uncomfortable and unpleasant, if it involves repeated painful sacrifices that are not compensated in some way, sacrifices that others are not also making, then we don’t want it.

Seriously?

I’d be suspicious of any 21st-century philosopher who offered up her- or himself as a model of wise living. This is no longer what it is to be a philosopher – and those who regard themselves as wise are in any case almost always mistaken.

Such disconnect between the talk of moral code and action is what we see when Bible-thumping tRump's toadies gladly vote for tax cuts for the super-rich while taking away food stamps from the poor!

Genuine philosophical thinking critiques its prior strictures, including even the assumption that we ought to be morally good. It damages almost as often as it aids, is free, wild and unpredictable, always breaks its harness. It will take you somewhere, up, down, sideways – you can’t know in advance. But you are responsible for trying to go in the right direction with it, and also for your failure when you don’t get there.

Yep, it is up to you.  You are responsible for trying to go along the correct path.

(ps: Why "cheeseburger ethics"? Read the essay!)

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

I was a vegetarian by accident, having been born into those circumstances.  Over the years, I have largely stayed off animal proteins because I am increasingly uncomfortable with killing animals for food, though I fall off the proverbial wagon once in a while.

If we humans were truly beastly, apes that we once were, then like other animals, we too would be engaged in a predator-prey existence.  Eat or be eaten, as a high school classmate once phrased it.

But, apes we are not.  Unlike other animals--and tRump--that rely on their instincts and reflexes, we humans use reason. We think through, and plan ahead and behave in ways that animals do not.  In such a non-beast existence, when we have laid down laws against killing humans, how is it ok for us to kill animals?

How can we justify this "false contrast between the values of human and animal lives"?

It is a tough question.  I have also come to believe that this is a moral issue, and I lack the capacity to explain to others why I prefer one set of morals over another.  A set of morals in which I see no way in which I can justify killing an animal for food, which is also why I get uncomfortable chewing on animal protein, which I do once in a while.

"So the lives of humans and of other animals are very different. But does that mean that human lives are more important or more valuable than the lives of animals?"

Of course, this is a non-issue to tRump and his toadies, to whom the lives of some humans--if they are melanin-deficient Christians--are more important than the lives of humans from "shitholes."  But, to the rest of us, with empathy and feelings, it is not easy to declare that human lives are more important.  Why else would, for instance, tree-hugging liberals fight on behalf of spotted owls that most Americans have never seen ever!

And in case you think that we humans are better than animals because we can fly to the moon or create music, well, consider the fact that not all of us do those things.  Just because one human merely punches in and out of a low-level office job, while a cancer researcher is on a mission to find the holy grail of a cure, "most of us do not think that one individual is valuable simply because more good things happen in his or her life."

There are wusses like who merely talk, and then there are others who practice without bothering to talk about it.  Like these wonderful people who "offer water, love and comfort" to truckloads of pigs that are on their way to being slaughtered.  (Watch the video at that link.)  "As people at the vigils give the condemned pigs water, the connection they feel with the animals, often instantaneous, is understandable."

Around 7:30 p.m., the lead organizer for the night gets on a microphone and goes over the few rules: Obey all commands. No flash photography, because that’ll startle the pigs. Look both ways before crossing the street.
“Come up nicely, calmly,” said Benperlas during a recent action. “The pigs feel your energy, so be kind and show love. Try not to be too sad in front of them.”
The trucks’ routes are familiar: They always head east on Vernon Avenue after making a left from Soto Street, about a football field away from the plant’s gates. Their diesel engines, wide turns, and tall, distinctive trailers announce their arrival.
Someone yells, “Truck!” and attendees quickly prep. Bottles are distributed; jugs are filled. The leader that night stands in the middle of Vernon Avenue; the officer on patrol directs bewildered drivers around the stopped rig.
Everyone else tends to the pigs.

Perhaps only technology can deliver us from this moral dilemma:

Moral disagreement is a constant feature of the human condition, as we struggle to find the right way to live. Whether we should kill animals for food is one of the deepest disagreements of our time; but we should not be surprised if the issue is rendered moot within the next few decades, when cultured meat (also called clean meat, synthetic meat, or in vitro meat) becomes less expensive to produce than meat from slaughtered animals, and equally palatable. When that happens, I suspect that our present practices, being no longer gastronomically necessary, will suddenly become morally unimaginable.