Recent content by Way

I'm not. I'm just assuming you aren't. Given that neither of you is, I fall back to a more personal choice. My pet is important to a few people. And my misery at it's death would affect still more people. Humans can are insufficently diverse in their ourputs to be considered meaningfully...

History shows that so would a human, sadly.

Go up to them and say you're more upset about losing your six kids and parents than they are about losing their dog. It'd still be callous, no matter what it was you lost. You're arguing something entirely different, something which no-one was disputing in the first place.

Possibly. I've yet to see a really strong argument for saving the human posted, and you've failed to make one. Ethics is not simply making up a rule or answer. You need to not only to be able to explain it, but also be willing to repeatedly do so. You win by convincing others that you are...

The above is another reason not to link value purely to utility. But with that out of the way, what other reason can there be for humans to be "better" than animals? Because you've removed the key thing that makes us different to them.

Re: the above. Sorry, my bad. But you demonstrate no great value (it's not an insult, read on!). To me personally, or to humanity as a whole. Your ideas aren't powerful enough and your skills are unlikely to be sufficient to make any significant difference. Your loss would be an emotional...

You have no right that demands I save you. Your right to life is to prevent me killing you, but does not require that I endanger myself. To do so would imply your life if more valuable than mine.

Your inability to deal with guilt is an entirely selfish motive. Your first thought being how their death would affect YOU. So even if you saved the person, your action has no moral worth. If you replaced the pet with a human I loved, then it'd still be selfish to save them over you. If my...