While the universe might not care, people can. Will you?

In many situations you have the choice to help or to be the one that choses selfishness. To bridge a divide or not.

I can, and do, and people should. You have missed the point of my post if you're replying like this.

I agree with karma and deservedness not being aligned but I am pretty sure an animal doing what it is doing is limited by the need to hunt and feed rather than to subjugate and be sadistic?

Clearly you do not own cats.

Are you talking those cute furry four legged sadistic serial killers?

Hot damn I don't. I always thought I'd be a cat person but sounds like I need to revisit my choices!

Not for more intelligent animals. Consider the footage of killer whales "playing with their food" from Blue Planet.

I have seen California sea lions killing ocean sunfish (mola molas) in a way that appears to be sadistic, or at least just for sport. The sea lions bite the fishes' fins off without eating them, then play with the crippled bodies like living frisbees. After a while the sea lions get bored and let the fish sink to the seafloor where they're eaten alive by crabs.

Nature, red in tooth and claw.

Is that a form of sadism? Perhaps the sea lion is unable to conceive of the suffering of the fish. To the sea lion, the fish is merely an object. Playing with the fish is no different than playing with a rock to the sea lion.

Does that matter for the fish?

No, but that's not the question being discussed.

Sounds very similar to a psychopath incapable of empathy.

Lack of empathy is the norm in nature, not the exception. A species of predator that could empathize with its prey would starve to death.

Yeah, my point was that the GP probably wouldn't view a psychopath as innocent as a sea lion, hence there would seem to be a double standard.

Karma is just confirmation bias

Karma is a psyop perpetuated by people with power to keep that masses passive, because they think the universe will do the job of dealing out justice for them.

Ditto belief in a god that judges and punishes the wicked in the afterlife.

Yes the majority of animals die a violent death. If they manage to survive long enough, they get too old to escape a predator.

> Evidence: How many, many animals live and thrive is deeply immoral by human standards.

The fact that non-human animals live an existence of violent survival does not seem to be prima facie evidence for the nonexistence or incoherence of human morality.

Human beings are rational animals. The term rational here is being used in a specific and technical sense. Non-human animals are subject to the laws of nature in a manner that acts more directly on their passions. Human beings are also subject to the laws of nature, but the forces of nature are mediated by our rationality.

Animal Act: (1) Offspring are hungry (2) brings food to offspring

Human Act: (1) Offspring are hungry (2) Reflects and Decides to provide food (3) brings food to offspring

An act is deemed immoral if it is a misuse of the rational faculty for ends that are not in conformity with the laws of nature.

Human Act (immoral): (1) Offspring are hungry (2) Reflects and Decides not to provide food for selfish reasons (3) offspring go hungry

Animals suffer but they are not moral agents like human beings since there is no mediating rationality that can be misused for ends that are not in conformity with nature's laws. The phrase Nature's Laws is being used broadly to include physical, biological or evolved social laws intertwined with the essential characteristics of the species.

> The fact that non-human animals live an existence of violent survival does not seem to be prima facie evidence for the nonexistence or incoherence of human morality.

You missed the point. Morality is a human invention, much like computers are (albeit philosophical, not physical in nature).

Like computers, it didn't exist before consciousness evolved.

Talking about morality as a universal truth, and there being some invisible scales of justice which will eventually even out is thusly irrational.

Apologies if I'm missing the main point. I certainly agree that consciousness + rational choosing must be a prerequisite for moral acts.

But I wouldn't concede that morality is a human invention like the computer. That would imply that it's accidental and not grounded in anything fundamental to our species or nature's laws.

Do you believe that choosing to feed your kids, or choosing to not kill someone are simply created constructs like the computer or the airplane?

Also, I think these two statements can be true at the same time: (1) The Moral Law is real and exists outside of our subjective experience and historical cultural evolution and (2) concepts like Karma are without evidence.

> Do you believe that choosing to feed your kids, or choosing to not kill someone are simply created constructs like the computer or the airplane?

The actions exist obviously.

My point is that in the absence of consciousness there is no positive or negative value ascribed to them.

Let's take the example of feeding your children, but use the opposite extreme. What you see plenty of in nature is a mother eating her children. Sometimes for no reason at all (Octopus, Guppies, rodents).

Are there certain species that are fundamentally immoral? Maybe so, from our perspective. But without our perspective no value is assigned. It is just another thing animals do without any moral weight.

I don't think the concept is morality is relevant in those extreme cases. It looks like we are more or less saying the same thing.

I am not sure we're saying the same thing. Extreme cases are how we test to see if our worldview holds up. But anyways, Happy Holidays!

> With few exceptions, pick just about any horror movie and I can show you an animal who exhibits those behaviors in its normal life.

But in the end, the animals that thrive end up being the ones that cooperate both within their species and with other species. From humans to symbiotic bacteria and jellyfish...