Rodent News, Ethics

[tcpip]

Naughty rat (the one with the white paws) passed away this afternoon. She was old and tired and rather over the heat, but also content with her lot. At 32.5 months of age, she comes in at roughly 81 human years. Friendly and gentle, she had been a good mother, underwent two tumour removals, and generally was good company to have around. We hope your time on this planet was comfortable and safe. Her parting leaves us with but four members of the order rodentia in our household; her children Picador and Pranskter, her cage-mate Lucky, and the visiting rat Suki. On-topic, I have received a brilliant reply to my request for cabybara milk (alas, in the negative). In other animal news, was delighted to discover a children's party on the estate this morning which included a large number of young rabbits and guinea pigs, a young sheep, and a kid goat. I think I was having more fun with their company than the children.

Adam Ford gave a presentation at The Philosophy Forum today on normative ethics, giving a broad overview of consequentialist, deontological, and virtue ethics. I must confess that I have always struggled intellectually with the latter, as I've considered it to be the result of deontological and consequentialist reasons, rather than an foundation. There is, of course, a good argument for virtue ethics as an intrinsic emotional point of view and in which case the argument for character building by habitual emulation of ethical leaders (Socrates, Jesus, Gautama Buddha, & etc) makes more sense. I raised the possibility that Nietzche was, in a sense, a virtue ethicist who was trying to build virtue by subjective overcoming - which of course concurs with my general assessment that he was very alone indeed in his mind.

Comments

[iris]

I bet Naughty rat was a very happy rat! I have never known anyone to actually own rats, even if I know they are a common pet, so I enjoy reading about your rats. Well, not the bad news. I hope to hear some good news about your rat family soon, as they sound very interesting. :)

[redcountess]

Sorry about the loss of Naughty, I remember Erica mentioning her when she gave me a lift back into the city after Michael's birthday. But that does sound like a good innings.

[ratfan.livejournal.com]

The rats and I extend our condolences on the loss of Naughty, but glad to hear she had a good time while she was here and had a nice long ratty life.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I like virtue ethics because it gives you a framework with which to apply to unique situations. Deontology is too rigid to be applied to new and unique moral decisions and consequentialism requires one to be able to see the future. With virtue ethics I look at a situation and think "what is the right way to act here?" and then act. Sometimes that means I have to break common held "rules" and sometimes it means I wind up making things worse.

[pollyanna-n.livejournal.com]

I went to visit the capybara last week. What was the reply?