Introduction

Core sentence: A philosophical dialogue examines whether moral reasoning is possible without human prejudices and cultural frameworks.

TREBLA: Good morning Alex.

ALEX: Good morning Trebla.

TREBLA: How are you? I am glad that you want to accompany me on my daily walk.

ALEX: It is a beautiful day, let us enjoy the yellow landscape with blooming rapeseed.

TREBLA: During my daily walks I often listen to podcasts — about philosophy, science, evolution, and other topics. After listening and reading some books about those themes, I find it fascinating to reflect on what has been said and what I have learned from it. Would you find it interesting, while we walk, to reflect on these topics?

ALEX: That seems very interesting to me.

TREBLA: One of the things that struck me was the discussion about good and evil — especially with regard to humans. Shall we first discuss how we might best approach good and evil, Alex?

ALEX: Yes, that seems like an interesting challenge.

TREBLA: Do you not think that one of the problems with this subject is that it is difficult to remain objective, because we ourselves belong to the human species and therefore tend to think from a human perspective? In other words: we call something good when we believe that it benefits us as a human species.

ALEX: That seems to be true, but what can we do about it, since we cannot escape our human identity for the moment?

TREBLA: I think it might be possible if we first mentally place ourselves at a great distance from our species. We would need to zoom out in order to view the entire universe as one total system. But first, to keep things manageable, let us limit ourselves to the subsystem: planet Earth.

ALEX: Yes, that seems like a reasonable starting point.

TREBLA: On Earth we find animals, humans, vegetation, various landscapes, and so on. Consider it as if someone has built a model railway layout with trees, ski lifts, and railways, and is now considering whether everything works properly. And by properly we mean here that the system functions in such a way that it continues to exist and does not destroy itself. We must look at this system as a spectator looks at a model: with attention to the whole, without making direct moral judgments about the individual components.

ALEX: That seems like a good starting point.

TREBLA: So our main goal is to understand the functioning of this subsystem ‘Earth’. Therefore we should not place humans at the center, but rather the subsystem Earth; humans are only one part of it. It does not matter if one component functions less well, as long as the whole remains sufficiently balanced to continue functioning.