Hi Jean-Louis,

You wrote:
>I disagree with Stefan when he says that the problem of killing has
>an objective answer. Is the life of an insect as important than the
>life of a cat? Of a 2 days-old embryo? Should we let a fetus which has
>severe mental and/or physical disabilities develop (is there a notion
>of "right to live")? Is abortion justified in case of a rape? To
>determine the value of the life of an egg, should we take into account
>the actual, or potential life, do we harm the hens when we steal their
>future "children"?

All of your questions are dealt with in detail in the book of Peter
Singer (I got its title now. It's indeed "Practical Ethics". See my
reply to Martha.)
The fact, that you weren't able to answer these questions doesn't mean
they can't be answered from an objective point of view.

Jean-Louis:
>I have had longish discussions on these subjects in a local French
>newsgroup (a few thousands of messages), which yielded
>nothing... Because each of us had different axioms. Ethics cannot be
>justified by instinct/evolutionary biology or anything else, because
>each society introduces rules, some of which being arbitrary, and even
>contradicting the instinct in some way (but frustrations are avoided
>in principle by redirecting the pulsions to other directions).

Peter Singer also discusses the question of different axioms and ethical
beliefe systems. Again: if your ethics is specific to your race, society,
culture etc. it's just ethical relativism and worthless.

Jean-Louis:
>I think that people dreaming of universal ethics have an unrealistic
>view of the world, and have too much self-esteem: generally, the
>values that are praised (liberty, equality,...) are the western ones
>(as if we were closer to perfection than "barbaric" civilizations).

And I think that people posting their oppinions to the internet without
having deeply thought about the contents, are overstressing the patience
of the others. For me personally you have exhausted my patience now
with your continued posting of material about themes you haven't
enough experience in. You look shortly at a subject, then your judge-
ment comes. Somehow you remind me to the last postings of Bob Avery, who
dealt with the things a similar way. His judgement came even quicker
than yours and he obviously spent just minutes to write his postings
while you are often carefully explaining and arguing. Still I miss a
certain level of depth and perhaps research in your contributions.

Anyway, thank you for giving your list of improvements with raw food and
sharing your experience with the others.

Ethical regards,

Stefan

E-Mail: Stefan Joest <[log in to unmask]>