Matter Arising

Matter arising from my last post: can an ethical society based on moral principles thatare held to have universal significance leave anything alone?

If ethical society is our nation, does that mean we have a responsibility to people within our borders, but not beyond it?

Given that there is no difference between an animal suffering in nature and an animal suffering because it has been brought into the human world, why help one but not the other?

It could be that we have a moral responsibility to allow for the freedom of other beings. But this doesn't quite play out. The freedom of an animal to eat another animal greatly hinders the freedom of the animal being eaten. It would therefore be our responsibility to prevent all carnivores from ever eating.

It could be a matter of resources: we cannot feed all creatures on the planet, so we have to leave them be. But if this is the case there would be no moral reason to help one entity rather than another. Instead our resources go on the nearest problems or where they do the most good.

This leads to two contradictions: helping the nearest entities leads to the contradiction of a person wanting to prevent a specific animal from being killed for food, while supporting the principle that carnivores eat herbivores. Helping the most needy leads to another paradox. One's money may be best spent helping one group of people, but there are still other people less "deserving of help" who are starving to death.

Maybe morality has no standards which can be agreed upon, in which case all ethical decisions become arbitrary. So it might be best to think in terms of general over-arching principles which are subordinate to a long-term view. If this is the case, it stands to reason that we should have some idea of a long-term view for the development of life in general, so that we can use our resources effectively.

It still leaves me wandering whether society based on rights should be extended to cover all beings possible, or whether some things should be left outside of rational universality in order to remain in accordance with their own natures.