On 2005-03-27, Mary penned:

"Monique Y. Mudama" wrote :

You're asking a tough question here. For me, cats are cats regardless of
breed, so I have to put the question to myself in terms of dogs, where
variations are more significant to me. There are most certainly breeds of
dogs that I like much better than others.

I believe in the principle of generalization (kind of like the golden
rule): this is one way that Kant proposed to evaluate whether or not
something is moral. You simply pose yourself the question, if everyone
were to do what
I
am considering, would I find the world to be a better or a worse place?


Mo, surely you know that Kant's ethical proofs are entirely full of ****.
His metaphysics are more defensible IMO. But most people think they are too.
The principle of generalization is along the line of Aristotle's Doctrine of
the Mean. Okay in a survey course but entirely indefensible in terms of
proofs. Did you have these things as part of logic courses or Intro
philosophy?

Doesn't matter. Of all of the attempts to philosophize moral arguments,
this is the only one that's actually been useful to me in daily life.
And I actually have a minor in Philosophy, so while it's been a while, I
certainly have studied more than just a survey course. It has its
limitations, but asking yourself "What would happen if everyone acted as
I did?" is a very good start in figuring out whether what you're
thinking about doing is a good idea. I don't really care if it can be
logically proven. Logic proofs are fun and neat, but in the end they
always start from some assumption that can be argued, so even if there's
no flaw in the logic, the proof itself won't convince someone who
doesn't want to be convinced.

If you have a better rule of thumb, let me know. In the meantime, it
seems to me that this is exactly the reason that most of us choose
shelter animals over breeding; in the realization that if everyone did
this, breeders would go out of business and there would be fewer cats
euthanized. Otherwise, buying vs. adopting a single cat wouldn't matter one
whit in the grand scheme of things.

--
monique, who spoils Oscar unmercifully

pictures: http://www.bounceswoosh.org/rpca