I was thinking today. Kants view of the relationship of human beings to the other animals is heavily indebted to the Christian worldview. A truly atheistic Kantian would have to make a Categorical Imperative against murdering animals, since there does not seem to be a reason why killing a cow is good (or morally acceptable) and killing an infant is bad, unless of course one presupposes a Christian view of the relationship of humans to animals, namely that animals were created in some sense *for the sake of* human beings. Many animals have just as much intelligence as small human children, and animals also have something like moral sensibilities (i.e. look at the regulative behavior characteristic of a wolf pack, a lions pride, or a band of gorillas). To me Kantianism is not translatable into a minimally atheistic moral system, and it is also a very deficient theistic moral system, since the God that Kant seems to posit for his ethical system is simply the Christian God devoid his acts in redemptive history. Kant still presupposes that the order of creation of Christianity is still true, namely that human beings are some how distinct from other animals in a substantial degree, such that the Categorical Imperative yields a view of ethics that is highly anthropocentric. Why is it a problem for atheists that the Categorical Imperative is highly anthropocentric? Answer: because in an atheistic universe, why should man be given a special focus in ethical norms? Human beings evolved from lesser primates, and thus the substantial distinction between humans and other animals disappears. There is no good reason to extend the Categorical Imperative to humans alone, unless of course one presupposes the Christian view of human beings, namely that regardless of whether we evolved from lesser apes or whether God created us in an instantaneous event, human beings are substantially different from other animals by virtue of the Imago Dei. A truly consistent atheistic Kantian would have to say that it is wrong to take the life of another earthly being, which would lead to not only abstinence from meat, but also abstinence from all types of plants which die when their fruit is harvested. Atheistic Kantianism would seem to lead to substantial human death by starvation and malnutrition.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 00:20:17 +0000
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