How do we reconcile the idea that animals are beings in their own right, irrespective of how we perceive or conceive them to be useful for meeting human needs (and wants?) vs the idea that it’s impossible to consider relationships among humans and between humans and nonhumans without self-interest of one form or another?
To what what extent is it the case that moral progress is a matter of evolving wiser forms of self-interest, in terms of human-to-human and human-to-nonhuman relationships?
Maybe with such a standard humans may see how striving to meet our needs with minimal physical and mental harm to all lifekind is actually in at least our long-term self-interest, as individuals, communities, and as a civilization?
Using that standard, to what degree is it ‘useful’ to explore the extent to which humans and nonhumans can have symbiosis with each other without physical and mental abuse?
To what extent is it useful to compare the deep ecology idea about valuing nature irrespective of human utility with the idea that the best ecological responsibility humans can muster is a wiser form of enlightened self-interest?
To what extent may it be the case that humans are unable to perceive or conceive of nature without at least a subconscious bias in favor of human interests?
How does that idea relate to the misanthropy found with in some aspects of ecology movements?
How does it pertain to analogous connections between veganism, deep ecology , and theology, in terms of a counterproductive sense of personal purity, and perfectionism that evades reality and/or imagines an alternative reality where perfectionism is achieved?
To what extent might this manifest within ‘secular faiths’ as a type of utopianism that has an overly confident sense of historical inevitability?
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