When does killing an animal constitute murder?

You talk about psychopaths but you won't even explicitly state that you consider the life of a human of more moral worth than that of an ant that you step on without a second glance.Go figure.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

My irrational poistion is this:Sentience is key. Except when it comes to humans.I would object to the farming, eating or anything else of a species that were demonstrably equivalent to us in terms of sentience. Such aliens should be treated as partners. Not culled.I feel sort of the same about our less sentient ape cousins but don't have the courage of my convictions to really do anything about our abysmal treatment of them.But humans, no matter how insentient, for reasons of age, disease or whatever I would give more moral consideration to than pure sentience considerations demand. Just because they are human and I am inclined to special plead the moral worth of humans on the deeply subjective basis that I am one.

And yet I still don't believe that if faced with the genuine moral dilemma of having to wipe out the ant colony in your house or be responsible for the death of your human neighbours that you would choose the existence of the ants over the humans.Maybe I am being optimistically human in this. If that is not your stance I think you are a genuinely worrying member of society and I am glad that I am not your neighbour.But I still believe that your stance in this thread is a debate tactic rather than a genuine statement of considering the lives of ants as being morally equivalent to your human neighbours........

I still don't see how you can deny that in general you consider a human life of more worth than that of a bug?You can name all the extreme situations you want - But in general I have absolutely no problem stating that I consider a human life as of more moral worth than that of a cockroach.How you have talked yourself into a debate position where you cannot explicitly agree with that I don't know.Will you agree that given the choice between the life of a random human and a random roach you would consider the human life of greater moral worth?If you can't explicitly agree with that - Then yes I continue to think you have cornered yourself into a silly debate position rather than one you actually believe in.

Maybe so. But unless we are talking about speciocide the number of ants killed (to be honest) barely registers on my moral radar.

How about "aborting" a 1 year old?

I agree with the logic of what you are saying generally. But I am not sure that logic is the deciding factor is such situations.For example: And yet many parents would risk, or even give, their own lives in order to save those of their children. Even 'low value' (by the terms of the logic being applied above) toddlers and infants.I just don't think personal morality (which is what this thread asks about) is, or even should be necessarily driven by logic alone. There are more human factors that inevitably play a part.

So you remain unwilling to give greater moral worth to the life of an unspecified human over that of a random bug? That is your final position in this thread? Nonsense.Your extreme scenarios are just ways of avoiding the question being asked in this topic — Namely whether you consider some life-forms as being worthy of more moral consideration than others. I don’t see how you can function in society without considering human life as generally more worthy of moral consideration than that of bacteria or bugs.Have you ever been fishing and used maggots, worms or insects as bait? Legal considerations aside — Would you use a human for the same purpose? Even a "dreg of society"?

Have you ever been fishing and used maggots, worms or insects as bait? Legal considerations aside — Would you use a human for the same purpose?If not what is the difference morally as far as you are concerned?

That would be both illegal as well as very widely and strongly socially condemned in the UK: Are social and legal attitudes the same in the US or is your view more accepted over there?I know this thread is about personal morality rather than law but I just wondered what the situation is and won't veer off any further down that tangent.

It is only silly because you don't can't to answer the question without contradicting the silly stance you have taken in this thread.Would you use a human for shark bait in the same way you would use a worm for fish bait? I would imagine a thrashing human would be quite effective shark bait.C'mon jar - You are not being honest here. You cannot function in society giving no more moral consideration to humans than you do bugs or worms. You would have to either walk around like those monks feathering the floor before every step in order to avoid trampling ants or be banned from things like driving because you would plough through anyone that got in your way with the same oblivious disregard that most of us trample ants.It's nonsense.

I think my natural instinct gives me a deep attachment to the personality and person that is my child. I am asking questions about people's personal moral outlook. And I don't believe that people's personal moral outlook is driven by logic alone. I know mine isn't.

So you remain unwilling to give greater moral worth to the life of an unspecified human over that of a random bug.That is your final position on this matter?

Do you not think that "society's collective morality" places the life of a human as having greater worth than that of an ant? If that is all that is stopping you let's hope you never have that opportunity. Which is exactly why such scenarios are a complete red herring with regard to the topic of this thread - Namely one's personal moral position on the relative moral worth of different life-forms. This has nothing to do with questions like "Does a murderer deserve to die?" does it?If I had that much against somebody that I wanted to kill them then the life of the bug just wouldn’t come into it. In that scenario the only moral question would be whether or not I am willing to kill the human. The bug is an irrelevance. Set it free. Squash it. In the face of that scenario I wouldn’t give a flying shit about the bug either way.Thus such scenarios have no bearing on the moral worth of different species and have no place in this thread.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

What does any of this have to do with your views on the relative moral consideration to be accorded to different species?