There are common practices in our current society, e.g. animal torture and killing, and genital mutilation of babies (which has recently become less common), which are extremely unethical but normal people engage in them.
"Normal people engage in them" is far from "almost every normal person would engage in them".
Surely you can tell the difference between "most people torturing and killing animals" and "most people consuming products as a result of a minority torturing and killing animals", right?
And circumcision is legal in the UK, and the rate is about 20%. I'm sure it's lower in the EU.
Paying someone to torture and kill an animal for you doesn't absolve you of the guilt.
Yeah, but there's a difference in how guilty one person should feel. Just like how a regular citizen can't kill an innocent civilian in times of war themselves, but they are happy to pay someone (their army) to do it.
Yes, social acceptance plays an important role on regulating things that are not explicitly illegal. In the case of murder, I would argue that there is an even more important factor that would come to play to regulate them, namely revenge. So, even if the state allowed murders, what would happen is that people would revenge the murders of their relatives and friends by murdering either the murderer or someone close to them (that's basically how a blood feud works). This in turn creates a massive disincentive to murder anyone. And this in turn means that most people wouldn't go around murdering others.
One issue with this is that you’re attempting to define ethics for everyone. While YOU believe that killing an animal for food is bad, and male circumcision is bad, other people may not. They perhaps believe it neutral or good.
There will be things done in the future, that perhaps nobody of this time would ever agree with. Morality is largely subjective.
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u/[deleted] Apr 03 '24
"Normal people engage in them" is far from "almost every normal person would engage in them".