When does killing an animal constitute murder?

I would still try to intervene.Legality enters in that case; legally there are limits on what actions I can take.Edited by jar, : add second line.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Would you object to the culling of a Homo Erectus population if one was found today? (Assuming the culling was done for reasons that benefited Homo Sapiens)Respectfully,-Meldinoor

Are you suggesting that I should take the psychopath at his word and take respinsibility for his actions? If incredulity is your best argument, I'm not going to expend much effort on a response. Allow me to rephrase: Until I have detailed specifics about the situation, I don't need to analyze my principles. Until the situation requires them, for all intents and purposes, I don't need them.Most errors in such situations arise from people pre-deciding what they would do and then going with the pre-decision instead of an appropriate one.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

If the psychopath was threatening to kill a bug would you try to stop that? And I think your "depends on circumstances" answer is rather stupid and evasive because we both know that in general you hold human life in higher esteem than that of a bug. You just cannot explicitly say that without contradictig your previous misplaced assertions in this thread.

Yes I would. Because, rationally or otherwise, I have some empathy with our Homo Erectus cousins in a way that I don't with (for example) rats.

As I've already said, there are social implications to swatting humans. I make decisions based on consequences.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

Fine.Because I cannot believe that you don't consider human life as more valuable in general than that of bug.

If I substituted Australopithecus Afarensis* for Homo Erectus in my question, would your answer change? Chimpanzees? Gorillas? Where do you draw the line personally?The result of the hypothetical culling still benefits Homo Sapiens significantly.-Meldinoor*Not a fair question I suppose, since we really don't know how well we would empathize with living specimens.

I make decisions based on personal morality.Just call me old fashioned.......

That puts you firmly in the camp of the creationists who cannot believe evolution happens. Come on. Up your game. Don't expect people to agree with you just because you want them to.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

All good questions. And the more "human" the species in question becomes the more empathy and irrationally inspired objection I will have to the violent acts you suggest.In principle I object to gorilla and chimp hunting/culling/killing.But in practise I am a lazy morally irrational human who just finds it hard to get excited by such concerns.My moral stance is not consistent. But then my argument is that a consistent moral stance is not an attribute that humans excel at.

That's a dangerous attitude, only a step or two away from, "I was only following orders." It's important to keep your brain running all of the time, just in case you do come across a situation where a bug is more valuable than a human.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

The person is still a psychopath by your definition and so I would still have to try to stop him.Do you see how silly your example really is?Now if it was just some random person killing a bug I might not even notice, however more than once I've stopped someone from killing a bug so I could take it back outside and let it go free.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Are you seriously telling me that you treat bugs with the same moral consideration that you do humans? And if you don't that this is purely because of legislative consequences?I don't believe you. Not just on some subjective whim, but because you would be the only human I have ever witnessed do that or even heard espouse that as a reasonable moral stance.In fact it would go against everything I understand about human nature, evolutionary psychology and all sorts of relevant observational data.You would be an anomoly of astronomic proprtions if your debate stance is genuine. That is why I think it is just a debate stance.

In principle then, do you believe that this objection extends downwards into less and less "humanness", or is there a discrete cut-off point? In other words, do you consider the killing and eating of snakes to be less morally ambiguous than the killing and eating of rabbits?By what criteria do you measure "humanness"? Genetic similarity? Intellectual and emotional similarities?To explore another hypothetical: If we were to discover advanced alien life on another planet with intellects and emotions similar to our own, but completely unrelated to us, would you object to the culling and killing of their kind for the benefit of humanity?Respectfully,-Meldinoor