23 Feb '24 04:26>
@pettytalk saidYou're right, of course, I can't select what I enjoy seeing, any more I think than can anyone. I enjoy meeting friends, I don't enjoy seeing animals suffer, (for example) and as I thought I made clear, these are personal and emotional responses. We are unique as a species in that we can have empathy with other species, and can 'empathise' with an animal which is suffering. We are also unique in that we have the ability to consiously make choices as to how we behave, nature may be mindless, but we have evolved not to be mindless, that is our lot, clever old us. If you take the existential or philosophical stance that there is no good or evil, and no right or wrong, then I have no argument with you, that is your prerogative, but I think you would intervene if someone was beating up your best friend, or kicking your dog. (If you have either)
You can't be selective about what you enjoy seeing or don't. If you accept evolution with all its flaws, then all people are behaving and thinking just like Mother Nature has evolved them and shaped their brains/minds.
We are what nature has mindlessly made us to be... that's evolution, in a nutshell. If there is no purpose or direction, or preferences in nature, there i ...[text shortened]... ion, so it's argued. Evolution does not care, nor is it sad or happy for what it causes, mindlessly.
I agree with you that from an academic viewpoint, we should not care whether one species or another becomes extinct, including our own, and evolution has no mind to care with, but I'm unable to entirely see the world from an academic viewpoint; the sadness at seeing a species go extinct is, as I have said before, a personal and emotional reaction, which I would not expect you to share. I think we have to make a distinction here between the personal and the academic.