Right

Heyo everyone, this weeks blog is very late, due to technical difficulties and a very very busy week, but it’s about what is right, and how we define it.

During a lunch hour within the last week or two, a discussion arose at the table which I was sitting at. It changed topics several times, but followed the same general gist. To what end is human acts acceptable, and what should the repercussions be? The main topic was about the raising of livestock. A point was brought up that there’s two main paths people raise livestock. People who raise with care and tolerance and patience, and those who do not. Several people vouched that it was clear which was the right way, and which was not. I saw that too. However, if one way was so wrong, why do people do it? Stuck on this question, I detached myself from the conversation to mull it over. I came to the conclusion that there is no definitive definition of right when it comes to moral and ethics beliefs. Everyone has their own opinion of what is right, and this is affected by several factors. One is tradition. If a man grows up watching his father raise cows the way his father did it, it will have a certain level of rightness in his mind. When you factor in life experiences and understandings, each one will alter your opinion of right. Overall, a sense of empathy has been established in a large portion of the population. The respect for living creatures, each other, etc. However, there is still a large portion of people who don’t respect anything or anyone that doesn’t immediately impact themselves. These are the people who litter, pay no attention to mishaps in livestock production, pollute without much conscience thought.

A member of the conversation, a vegetarian, produced the argument that there is no reason we should value the life of any animal over our own, because they think and live the same as us, and that the only reason we assume ourselves to be smarter is because we created the system which defines intelligence. With immense bias on the system, intelligence can be seen to be measured through means such as communication, expansion of thought into realms such as political and economic, and that we set ourselves up to succeed in the food chain. Whilst this is all true, I thought, why do people eat meat? Millions of people don’t, so quite obviously we can sustain quite well without it. What ethic or moral law gives us the right to pray off other species? There is none. The only right we have is the same one given to bears and badgers and hedgehogs and other omnivores by nature. We have evolutionary traits which let us consume and benefit from meat, and yet, we can also survive sufficiently without. When it comes down to it, I think that the big thing which matters comes back to ethics and moral. I personally understand taking the life of another creature as a source of food, you see it all the time in nature. However, what truly matters is the respect of the life of all creatures. To me, respect should be a universal “right”; something untouched by tradition and morals and ethics, unconditionally a part of our way of life.

On the topic of universal rights, I don’t think there’s much, aside from values such as respect. As the golden rule is always repeated in school, treat others the way you want to be treated. But from that, go further. Treat others the way they deserve to be treated. There’s not a lot of exceptions to this, aside the ones set in place by nature herself. And I’m not talking about hierarchies over other creatures. Nature has clearly set the line in which we need to pray off of each, however that’s a lot more philosophy I don’t feel like getting into much more.

With that, this is my last post until the grading. My feelings are quite mixed. Anxiety and nervousness are colliding with excitement and anticipation. Overall, it’ll be an experience.