Reddit reviews Evolutionary Medicine and Health: New Perspectives
We found 2 Reddit comments about Evolutionary Medicine and Health: New Perspectives. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Evolutionary Medicine Evolutionary Medicine and Health: New Perspectives
The book assumes a basic knowledge, but it is a great collection of articles on multiple topics.
>Name me a moral concept. Or a few. And why are we assuming that nature is non-moral?
That's the thing, I'm saying that there are no distinctively "moral" properties in nature. Morality, defined as "The extent to which an action is right or wrong," is a useful fiction, based on the conventions and designs of other human beings. When someone says that "rape is morally wrong," what they are saying in effect is that its consequences are undesirable, and should be prohibited as a matter of principle. Once enough people come together and reach a consensus on this point, a new moral is born. But the moral itself does not derive its authority from an objective ground of value, which stands above and beyond the practical interests and agreements of human beings.
I'm far more comfortable with using the terms good or evil, just or unjust, equal or unequal, appropriate or inappropriate, suitable or unsuitable, proportional or disproportional, adaptive or maladaptive, functional or dysfunctional, efficient or inefficient. Note that I'm not talking about good or evil in a theistic or moral sense, I'm speaking in purely functional terms. A "good" thing of a certain kind is one which performs its function well. For instance, the function of a knife is to cut: cutting is that which a knife alone achieves, or achieves better than other objects. It is a distinctive quality of a knife that it cut well or badly. To the extent that an object lacks these traits, it will be evil or bad as a result. In that sense, the words that I use are devoid of subjective valuations, there is no expression of liking or prejudice, rather, I'm using these words to point to objective criteria, and as a result the claims are matters for empirical investigation, not what one or another ideology proclaims is right or wrong.
>Humans feel pain and process emotions in the same way that most mammals do.
I never denied that fact. However, I'd characterize the issue differently. As I said before, it is in the consitution of our species that we eat animal flesh for subsistance. Obviously, I'm not claiming that we require a wholly carniverous diet, only that a large proportion of our food comes from animals. The only implication that follows from this is that nature prescribes that lower animals are the proper prey of human beings, and thus it is fitting, appropriate, or suitable to our species. You are the one introducing a moral claim into this situation. And as I said, your claim is groundless as it appeals to an arbitrary preference of subjective taste. It has no moral authority. You also lack the general consent of others, which would be required to turn this into a principle or norm of conduct. So where does that leave us? I maintain that we have a natural right or entitlement to prey on other creatures for the good of our species. This right follows from the fact that we are proportionally superior, in nearly all respects, as it pertains to fitness, which is the only measure of comparison at issue in the final analysis. If you dispute this claim, kindly explain how it is possible for us to fish out entire oceans, or reduce whole ecosystems to cinders to suit our purposes. The suffering of other animals is indeed an evil, but only for those species so unfortunate to become victims of the human appetite.
Here's a small taste of the contradictory evidence you requested.