Observe what passes for "moral philosophy" in the cultural debris of our age.
A mind, frightened by the sight of a candy wrapper, erects a theoretical funhouse in which ten‑minute shrimp sufferings, trillion‑to‑one accident statistics, and a mysterious "immortal human" are stacked like circus props, then pronounces a death sentence upon anyone who refuses to genuflex before the sacrificial altar.
The spectacle is not new. It is the recurring ritual of altruism: destroy the man who thinks and lives, call the collective "need," and demand that the individual extinguish his values, one Skittle, one mile, one life at a time. The only novelty in the current performance is its shrill insistence that arithmetic can transubstantiate duty into morality.
Let us, therefore, clear the intellectual fog.
The Floating Standard
The author chants "obligatory" as though the word possessed self‑evident authority. Obligatory to whom, and by what standard? Morality is not a set of arbitrary commands; it is a code of values required for man's life as man, a rational, volitional being who survives by thought and productive action. The standard is man's life qua man, not the pulsations of shrimp nerves or the collectivized whims of highway statisticians.
Probability Is Not Morality
The argument's core is a grotesque calculus: if you drive one mile, someone might die; therefore your Skittles are soaked in baby's blood, therefore you must sacrifice them to lobster‑like invertebrates. Observe the sleight of hand. Probability is a tool of knowledge, not a sledgehammer of ethics. A rational man weighs risks against the requirements of his life, he does not atone for the cosmic possibility that the sky may fall.
By smuggling "one death per X miles" into the moral scale, the author abolishes the realm of purposeful, contextual choice. On that premise, eating breakfast, starting a business, or even expressing a thought becomes homicide in embryo: any action, however life‑enhancing, carries some infinitesimal risk to someone, somewhere. If risk alone nullifies value, man is sentenced to paralysis; to an existence unfit even for the shrimp he is ordered to save.
The author brandishes large exponents, 10¹⁰ shrimp, 10⁶⁰ shrimp, as though morality were an auction won by the highest digit. They speaks of "infinite value" only to mock it, then tries to resurrect infinity with a barrage of zeros assigned to shrimp agony. The stunt ignores a fundamental truth: rights are not additive. A single human being possesses an inalienable right to his life; ten trillion shrimp possess none. They cannot think, choose, contract, or speak; therefore they cannot be victims of injustice. Pain? Yes. Tragedy? Perhaps, but not moral violation.
No quantity of organisms lacking rights can elicit a moral claim against one who possesses them. To cajole a man into martyrdom because "the numbers are high" is to admit that one has no moral argument, only an abacus and a thirst for sacrifice.
Radical Evil
"Radically evil" is hurled at anyone who values his Skittles above shrimp torture. Let us redirect the accusation. The truly radical evil is the inversion of the hierarchy of life: that sentience without reason may command reason, that needs without effort may devour achievement. That doctrine slaughtered millions in the twentieth century, whether under the hammer‑and‑sickle or the swastika, each regime chanting its own arithmetic of sacrificial duty.
If you threaten a man's life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness because he refuses to flip your mystical switch, you are the advocate of force. You have stepped outside the realm of persuasion and into the realm of coercion, the hallmark of every tyranny.
The Moral Alternative
What, then, is the rational response to suffering; human or animal?
Compassion, where freely chosen, is a virtue; generosity is admirable when it springs from one's values, time, and resources. But the nobility of charity is destroyed when divorced from choice. A gift extracted at gunpoint, whether the gun is literal or wrapped in moral denunciations, is not benevolence but robbery.
A man may fund humane farming, invent painless harvesting, or abstain from shrimp cocktails altogether. Fine. Let him do so by the verdict of his mind, in pursuit of his happiness, trading value for value with others who share his judgment. Let him refuse to prostrate himself before every engineered scenario that places an impossible burden upon human life.
Conclusion
The shrill defender of shrimp seeks to chain your capacity for joy to an endless assembly line of sacrificial demands, today Skittles, tomorrow your automobile, eventually your life.
Reject the premise.
Your moral obligation is not to bleed for every claim of need, but to think, to judge, to live. A civilization that upholds that principle will produce more abundance, more safety, and yes, more humane treatment of animals than all the guilt‑mongers' edicts combined.
Choose, therefore, the morality of reason, purpose, and self‑esteem.
Choose to drive for Skittles when you wish, to aid shrimp when you judge worthy, and to let no collectivized chant of "obligation" eclipse the sovereign fact of your own life. Anything less is not ethics but the philosophy of the grave.
