I am upset at my dog, who is upset at me because I "brutally and unjustifiably" tackled her to the ground when she tried to murder our half-feral pet pidgeon.
Primary needs and whatnot...
Conversation
It may well have happened before in connection with some wild animal or something, but it's the first time I can remember saving a life.
It... kinda sucked.
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When you don't identify strongly with your sense of right and wrong (or any other internal chatter), moral decisions are often extremely uncomfortable.
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You know you feel like you're doing the Right Thing, but it still feels rotten and awful (to the extent that you're doing something bad).
Replying to
At the most fundamental level, moral behaviour is a choice. Maybe a compelled or conditioned choice, but a choice nonetheless.
Choice implies responsibility. Responsibility implies not looking away from consequences. This is often not easy.
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If you're free to behave the way you want, this means you often do behave the way you want. This sounds trivial, but the implications are very much not.
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Self-delusion through arguments like "the greater good" don't protect you if these things are not felt to be part of your identity. Then you're just sitting there with "well, I did it because it felt right/I wanted to/couldn't help myself/whatever", not "I had to".
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So it turns out I have no problem physically coercing and dominating my (much smaller) dog if I feel it's going to do harm. Great, I'm not abetting violence - but I'm also being violent. It's not a binary.
I'm culpable, even if I'm doing the Right Thing. This is very important.
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For many people, animal welfare is too abstract a topic for this to mean much. But the exact same example holds true for any human interaction.
It changes nothing, fundamentally, except your own relationship with what you're doing.
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I sense it's problematic to talk about this as well, especially in writing. People think this is all obvious, intellectually, but if you talk to them about their real choices the tune changes *completely*. It's a very easy trap to fall into.
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"Yes, yes, we all make choices and so on. Blah blah."
"Then why did you do this or that?"
"Well, I had to, see?"
:)