That is a wonderfully lucid reply. I only have one thing to correct:
EightEyes wrote:To say that we're all equally responsible for how we're constituted (i.e. not at all) is not to say, however, that we're all of equal stature. I'm certain that this is not your implication, either.
That is exactly my implication.
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The moral of this discussion: One man's insult is another man's identity. There is nothing to be done about this, nor is there anything wrong with it. It simply is how the world works.
To put it another way, just as a gay person would not take it as an insult if someone called him gay, a vermin would not be insulted if someone called it vermin. Insults stem from value judgements; so when I, a man, am using the word 'gay' as a pejorative, I am making a judgement as to the relative value of men and gay males, just as Schopenhauer was making a judgement as to the relative value of men and vermin. Whether this value judgement is correct or not is sometimes easy to discern (men vs. vermin) sometimes harder (men vs. gay males). In the end, only nature can be the final arbiter of the dispute, in the form of the evolutionary process.
P.S. The above is a good example of what I call "harsh truths".