What Was the Original Rule?
If I were to posit one question that sums up my philosophical inquiry it would be this: “What makes humans different from animals?” For me, it is the single most important question to ask. Philosophy in its Western form comprises three main parts, which are conveyed to us by the three Greek words: Metaphysics, Epistemology, and Ethics. In my opinion, (and it’s probably a minority opinion), Ethics is the most important of these three, precisely because it is at the heart of what makes humans distinct from animals. But the subject of ethics is most troublesome to grapple with. Where does ethics or morality come from? This was never an easy question, but nowadays it seems so much more complicated to answer, because our society has so many overlapping jurisdictions. This is why it is hard to know whether a particular rule is a moral rule, an obligation, or merely a convention. For instance, the Mosaic rule against making images of a deity - considered a moral rule by many Jews, Ch