The Notion That Human Life Is Sacred

To Give Preference To The Life Of A Being Simply Because That Being Is A Member Of Our Species Would Put Us In The Same Position As Racists Who Give Preference To Those Who Are Members Of Their Race.

Evolution Has No Moral Direction. An Evolutionary Understanding Of Human Nature Can Explain The Differing Intuitions We Have When We Are Faced With An Individual Rather Than With A Mass Of People, Or With People Close To Us Rather Than With Those Far Away, But It Does Not Justify Those Feelings.

Were We Incapable Of Empathy – Of Putting Ourselves In The Position Of Others And Seeing That Their Suffering Is Like Our Own – Then Ethical Reasoning Would Lead Nowhere. If Emotion Without Reason Is Blind, Then Reason Without Emotion Is Impotent.

According To The Dominant Western Tradition, The Natural World Exists For The Benefit Of Human Beings.

Marx Saw That Capitalism Is A Wasteful, Irrational System, A System Which Controls Us When We Should Be Controlling It. That Insight Is Still Valid; But We Can Now See That The Construction Of A Free And Equal Society Is A More Difficult Task Than Marx Realized.