THE MECHANICAL VIEW

If we view animals in the context of the evolution from chemicals, through primitive life forms, and eventually to us human beings; then it is possible to see all life forms as essentially just complex chemicals. From this assumption it is a short step to seeing all animals, including human beings, as machines.

Once we take that view, then there is nothing special about animals: they are just another collection of complex material-based systems in our vast universe which are governed by the laws of science. Any sense of ethics towards them is just a sentimental human construct that prevents us from being realistically objective.

Such objectivity would presumably mean that we should be no more upset by incinerating an animal that has died in a medical experiment, than scrapping an old car. So what connects this view with all the others? . . .

Then is

← that

same as

this?→

Or is

← that

same as

this?→