I thought the same way about this, but something that changed my mind a bit was a friend asking me: ”If a baby tried to steal your blood to survive would you kill them for it?”
Now, this is a contrived example and you may have a extremely low moral weight for mosquitoes (I have pretty low moral weights for them too), but I wonder how your thoughts about the statement changes if it is instead:
I have no qualms about killing someone that stole my blood to survive.
The baby analogy seems a bit forced to me because babies do not drink blood (and babies in utero do not choose to be there). But if an adult came along and started biting me hard enough to break the skin, potentially infecting me with some disease, I’d consider myself justified in whacking them as hard as it takes to get them off. I guess to your point I’d try to hit them non-lethally though, unlike with a mosquito.
I thought the same way about this, but something that changed my mind a bit was a friend asking me:
”If a baby tried to steal your blood to survive would you kill them for it?”
Now, this is a contrived example and you may have a extremely low moral weight for mosquitoes (I have pretty low moral weights for them too), but I wonder how your thoughts about the statement changes if it is instead:
I have no qualms about killing someone that stole my blood to survive.
Would be interested to hear your thoughts!
The baby analogy seems a bit forced to me because babies do not drink blood (and babies in utero do not choose to be there). But if an adult came along and started biting me hard enough to break the skin, potentially infecting me with some disease, I’d consider myself justified in whacking them as hard as it takes to get them off. I guess to your point I’d try to hit them non-lethally though, unlike with a mosquito.