Human beings have a bad reputation for attributing a higher value to their own existence compared with the rest of the animal kingdom
Religion is responsible for a lot of that sense of superiority. If God has bestowed that sanctity, it is hard to argue against it as a non-believer
Yes, life has value and we should treasure the experience, but does human sentience and consciousness give us ‘dominion’ over other species? Maybe we could argue that all life has sanctity, which would make it awkward to be a meat eater.
Does human evolution necessarily give homo sapiens a greater right to life and it’s sanctity than other species? I’m not convinced. It’s obvious we have greater control and power over other life forms. Our uniqueness may very well be valuable and special, but does it merit the description ‘sanctity’?
Book 4 of my distance learning course on Philosophy is titled The Value of Life. One of the chapters deals with the relationship between the meaningfulness of life and the inevitably of death. Interesting stuff. I hope for a chance to discuss this area with like-minded people.
odespinner 