In response to a post about the moral value of mountains

[feotakahari]

“I know probably better than you, given that it’s clear half the people reblogging this have no grounding in environmental ethics (sorry to be mean but jesus christ y’all at least read aldo leopold or SOMETHING).”

There’s a certain amount of salt from ethics majors who’re mad that their discipline isn’t taken as seriously as math or physics majors, but a discipline in which you can say “read this specific author or collection of authors, and you’ll understand” is flat-out worse than a discipline in which you say “read more of the latest research.” You see the same thing in economics—an order of followers builds up around a few leaders, and their research becomes attempts to prove the point of those leaders, and the leaders are wrong and the followers become wrong-squared. (Contrast evolutionary theory, another topic that produces weird fringes, but one in which researchers are overjoyed to proclaim the ways in which they think Darwin was wrong. I maintain that evolutionary theory is better in this sense than economics is.)

Yes, I realize the hypocrisy of saying this on a blog that also proclaims itself “buddies with Bentham.” The most I can say in my defense is that I will never tell you the reason you disagree with Utilitarianism is that you haven’t read enough Bentham. Ultimately, my points are my own, and if you think I’m wrong, maybe it’s because I’m wrong.

Comments

[sigmaleph]

i found that post very frustrating

"Everyone keeps misinterpreting me!" ok but even after you've thoroughly explained every way you think you're being misinterpreted i still have not found one reason to care about mountains as subjects in themselves.

[lb_lee]

I am still puzzling over the idea of mountains having moral value. I thought their purpose was to crush idiots trying to climb them, raise mountain goats/yetis, and also collect snow. But moral value? That just seems insulting to the poor mountain. It's got better things to do than care about human morals.

--Mori

[feotakahari]

To be fair, it sounds like Rogan puts moral value on an ocean. (I don’t remember if I’ve seen your thoughts on such.)

But yeah, it ties into an argument that “there is no such thing as an individual self,” and that seems narcissistic to me. I recently saw a post accusing “patriotic” conservatives of seeing their entire country as part of themselves, and wanting to purge their country of all the people who are not like them. I think the liberal version of that is to see your planet as part of yourself.

(It’s good to see you up and about! I figured you’d need a little more rest before you were ready for philosophy again.)

[lb_lee]

To be fair, it sounds like Rogan puts moral value on an ocean.

Wait, does "moral value" mean, like, "it is valuable to humans for moral reasons?" I'm a Philistine.

Also, I mean, the ocean is a thing that lives in our head and is arguably alive, while far as I know, Mt. Everest is neither! Mt. Everest is just Deathrock. And while I think it has all the right in the world to exist, being big and rocky and an independent ecosystem (plus just frickin' cool), I'm not sure I would phrase its value as MORAL.

it ties into an argument that “there is no such thing as an individual self,”

LOLLLLLLL. See, I'm no student of philosophy, but my kneejerk reflex is, "BUT WHAT IS SELF THOUGH?" Because my personal conception of self is, we have a sorta macro self (which we sometimes refer to as "our brain," which seems to play the long con and be totally willing to WRECK us individually for the sake of overall survival), our individual selves (like me, Rogan, Sneak, whatever), and then it further breaks down to sub-selves in the case of things like our system dead, memory chunks, things like that.

(The ocean... I have no idea whether it has its own sense of self. I kinda PRESUME it does, since it ACTS like it does? It clearly can tell the difference between itself and not-itself. But asking it a philosophical question of that intensity is kinda beyond our communication abilities. You know what, no, fuck it, I'ma just ask it.)

(Yeah, ha, no, that didn't work. I asked if, "do you have a sense of self?" and it just bubbled madly at me as if to go, "wtf kind of question is that?!" and then wanted its ball back. What can I say, I tried.)

I recently saw a post accusing “patriotic” conservatives of seeing their entire country as part of themselves, and wanting to purge their country of all the people who are not like them. I think the liberal version of that is to see your planet as part of yourself.

Huh. You know, I actually could kinda buy both... but in reverse? Not, "the land is part of me," but "I am part of the land." We see our prosthetic stapes bone as a part of ourself, after all. It doesn't seem totally beyond reason that other parts of environment could be seen as a part of self, or human beings as a smaller part of a much larger symbiotic macro-self. (Kinda like how one bee isn't much, but a hive has ways of regulating and behaving that is a lot more impressive. Bee selves and hive selves, if that makes any sense.)

(It’s good to see you up and about! I figured you’d need a little more rest before you were ready for philosophy again.)

You and me both! But Rogan staged a miraculous recovery. I guess when you abort a plaguefetus made entirely of nasty, it's amazing how quickly you feel better afterward! We went from like, a 2 on the quality of life scale to a 6 over the course of like twelve hours, it's fucking magical!

--Mori

[feotakahari]

“Wait, does "moral value" mean, like, "it is valuable to humans for moral reasons?"”

Didn’t sound like it. I guess I’ll just link the post, since it’s hard to summarize: https://riseofthecommonwoodpile.tumblr.com/post/187813608056/hey-op-here-let-me-clarify-some-things-about-this

[lb_lee]

...huh. Well, that sure is a textslab. I never thought people would CARE so much but I guess that's the Internet for yez.

--Mori