Fairness (and meat-eating)

It is 2AM at night. It appears that reading about philosophers in an attempt to get to sleep was not such a good idea. The very fact that I’m still typing right now is proof of that.

One guy I happened to read up on was John Rawls. I’m quite sure my dad mentioned this guy a few years ago. His main point of view is basically as such: if we are behind a veil of ignorance about who we will be born as, what kind of society will choose to be born in? Is it one where there are the extremely rich people and the extremely poor — and you could be one of them? Or is it one where everyone ends up equally well-to-do, not too rich and yet not too poor?

To be honest, his argument does appeal to both reason and emotion. I would have chosen the latter world. But then again, that’s just due to my personal preference — there’s no need to be too rich and I don’t want to be too poor. On a more caring note, it’d in fact be better if poverty was non-existant! This may explain how my views are pretty much socialist thus far. (reading Free To Choose hasn’t seemed to change that)

However, let’s extend his logic. Behind this veil of ignorance, we may very well end up as an uh oh, aborted foetus. We shouldn’t have abortion either. I sure as hell won’t want to be a to-be-aborted-foetus just cos of some wild party regardless of the reason.

More importantly, we shouldn’t even eat meat! Behind this veil of ignorance, we may end up as some farm animal, we may very well end up getting abattoired , chopped up after death and well, eaten.

Consider this scenario: in a futuristic world, a new breed of superhumans have evolved. They are stronger and smarter than the average human being by a difference of heaven and earth. But there’s one problem — they enjoy feeding on human blood. For the purpose of illustrating my point, these vampires do not need blood to survive, they just enjoy sucking the blood of humans. Man is subsequently locked up, force fed and bred specifically for the purpose of providing blood for this new elite superhuman race.

We cringe at the very thought of being drained of blood, let alone getting killed and eaten like animals. We detest the manner in which a supposed “elite” breed of people would like to take control over us. Yet we are all guilty.

Perhaps no matter what we do, animals are going to continue getting killed for food anyway. But then again, shouldn’t we show even the slightest support against the act of eating animals. In fact, more people eating animals will result in more animals being killed to meet the demand.

Do bear in mind — that eating meat is in no way necessary for us. But we do so anyway. I find no justification in the killing and eating of animals, but I’m going to continue to do so anyway. Most people will.

Enjoy Thanksgiving! We weren’t born as turkeys!”

I’d like to find a justification

(But back on John Rawls, one must bear in mind not to be hypocritical. In accepting John Rawls theory, it has to be applied to both abortion and the issue of meat-eating — otherwise reject it. )

 

The World DGAS about fairness

Fairness — a vague abstract concept, almost as abstract as the sanctity of life if you ask me. (By now, those who know me well enough should also know the meaning of DGAS well enough)

But regardless of what fairness really is, no one really cares about fairness. As in really really.

People who are getting the good end of unfairness obviously won’t care. It would be against their own self interest to degrade themselves and lose whatever benefits they have. It’s one thing to donate a small decimal portion of your salary to the poor, its another to remove half of your salary and divide it equally  with an unemployed man. No one would willingly give up any unfair advantage they have unless it is regarding something that doesnt matter to them — i.e. i dont care about losing my competitive advantage if i dont care about winning

People who *are* disadvantaged and getting the bad end of fairness don’t really care about fairness either. Yes, they do care about the situation — their situation. But their main concern isn’t about upholding fairness as a principle, it’s about self interest as well — in order to change their situation/voice their resentment, they resort to a  form of moral blackmail. If they were now given a special advantage over everyone else, would they give that opportunity away because its unfair? certainly not.

Many a times, fairness is a term that is thrown around without proper logical explanation as to what is so important about fairness. But i’ve never seen anyone who argued against the principle of fairness or even questioned the importance of fairness (okay fine ,there is one guy i know, but he’s a psycho -_-) even i know that no one will buy the argument of “there is no such thing as fairness” because fairness as a concept has a natural appeal to the human instinct.

Why?

The world was created to be is unfair to begin with. Some are created (to avoid sounding blasphemous, nowsadays anything is blasphemous even pokemon!) born smarter, others created born blind or born in a third world nation. There’s nothing we can do about fairness really. Not even a communist world (sigh) can get rid of the unfairness in birth — how some are smarter, stronger while others have a hole in their heart.

“Whose sin is it that this man is blind — his sin or his parents?” (not that i really remember the exact wording, any more exact and i’ll be accused of being blasphemous, nowsadays anything is blasphemous even pokemon!) Spastic people certainly didnt deserve to be spastic…

Maybe it’s not just that the world DGAS about fairness,
fairness DGAS about the world as well.