Ah, and here is a key area where we are shooting right past each other on this topic. We may all agree it's best to minimize suffering, but the statement doesn't end there. For some, the statement goes "it's best to minimize suffering whenever possible." For others, the statement goes "it's best to minimize unnecessary suffering." For even others, the statement goes "it's best to strive toward minimizing suffering." There are other variations, and all of them carry different connotations. You may complain that they are all basically saying the same thing, but if we want to be specific about it they are definitely not. They are reflections in language of different degrees of value in terms of necessity (or what even constitutes necessity), of degrees of interpretations defining suffering (or what constitutes suffering), or even degrees of effort or focus on that aspect in particular. While I'm pretty sure you're willing to accept that there are different forms to the language, I'm also pretty sure you're unwilling to accept that they mean different things to different people, and it's that in particular concerning the variations in value and degree that lead to different conclusions than what you've reached.
Here's another distortion. Why did you not bother coping with the nature of my distinction, the alleged false dichotomy. Here is what I wrote: "Fundamentally there are two arguments for outlawing the torture of animals, the non-rights view and the pro-rights view" -- or, A and not-A. And if someone else does have an alternative argument, one not anticipiated in the original post, I will energetically address it. I cannot think of any strong examples off-hand (your whining about the distinction in lieu of generating another type of argument is not exactly a strong example).
As to the first part -- necessity vs. unnecessary vs. minimizing -- I thought we already established that those are meaningless truisms. Too often words inadequately describe what people think and how they feel, so while a person may intend something else -- say, minimizing suffering in the context of still keeping meat on their dinner plate -- it might, just might, be the case that those two things are not quite consistent... which is why we are having the argument.
Most people "on the street" simplify a lot of concepts down to short answers that you could say aren't exactly deeply thought-out. I'm not asking you to address that. I'm asking you to make an argument that relies on its own logic and not one that relies on countering common claims from "on the street." The reason I'm asking you to do this is not because while you're demanding logical consistency I'm interested in whether your argument has internal consistency or is just a reaction to that common "on the street" view.
The comment I am about to make is relevant to other parts of your post, parts I will probably now snip or ignore.
An important, if not essential, component of any argument on animal rights/animal liberation involves addressing speciesism -the morally arbitrary, non-justified attitudes toward animals. If we are having an argument on slavery, or racial discrimination, I'm sure one could start from a premise of utilitarianism, and argue from there... but it would not do much good. Alternatively one could start from respect, duty, obligation, but that would not do much good either because people have different comprehensive moral doctrines. What would, does, and largely did work were arguments showing that racial categories are basically meaningless vis-a-vis basic rights. All a person then has to do is take that insight and integrate into their own world-view rather than rebuild their view anew. Nobody, not even the smartest people who have ever lived -- Kant, Mill, Rawls -- is capable of creating an argument that will win a wide consensus among philosophers let alone the laity. Yet, this is what you seem to demand from me, and it's only unneccessary but simply unreasonable. It's like using a hammer to crack an egg.
I'll try to be as specific as I can. You seem to be demanding that I provide you with an argument that you find convincing according to your criteria.In the process, while you've made several assertions or arguments "addressing" certain counterpoints to your conclusion, I'm still unclear as to what exactly your full argument is on its own merit. I understand your conclusion just fine-- you don't think eating meat is acceptable if the premise that suffering of animals is considered a given-- it's your argument I'm having a problem being able to wrap my hands around and say "there it is." You've already pointed out that my last post where I thought I had the more granular parts of your arguments in hand were not accurate or were not exactly arguments leading toward your conclusion, but instead were counter-arguments in defense of it.
As specific as you can and still not a single, identifiable concrete example.
Basically, from the first post in this thread you used the concept that 'animal rights' leads inexorably to a veg[etari]ian decision, as if your post were clearing the matter up for those of us who didn't know ("People are confused, not surprisingly."). Your whole argument works backward from that conclusion, but only by first creating a false dichotomy ("there are two arguments") about the number of options for reasoning, by defining your whole argument by that dichotomy (and leading to a rather boring slippery slope straw argument), and you spend most of your post addressing the arguments you may oppose before they've been made by people in the thread, though you obviously cut it short ("I suppose there are also some utilitarians who could also make peculiar arguments that I refuse to pre-empt"). The bulk of your argument positively laying out your "logical conclusion" in the first post consists of the following hyperbole, anecdote, and reduction:
Calling this "anecdote" is mistaken (I was reciting an argument a friend had made). I don't mind hyperbole -- the "decent view" still amuses me, and it's still a correct description, but it was intended to provoke as was the last comment. You have the mistaken view that I intended it as an end all be all when I know from experience how long these threads last. I will also note again you're not longer even pretending to meaningfully attacking the arguments, but now, this late in the game, take issue with their expression, which we see here:
Essentially, from the get-go you come out guns blazing and ready to (try to) shoot down any argument that may be counter to your conclusion. Ten pages later and your style hasn't much changed (though the last two posts are a welcome improvement). If you think I've missed some key element throughout these pages of arguing where you laid out your entire argument in a more concise and less vague manner, then all you have to do is copy-paste it and I can take a look. No need for a needle-haystack search if you already know where you made the argument, because I'll plainly admit that I can't find it through all the insults, course counters, and hyperbole. Maybe you could re-word it, or post it on its own, separate from the attempts at sarcasm and pith at the expense of the actual message. Until I see otherwise, however, I'm going to have to assume that the bulk of your argument rests on countering a point of view I don't share in the first place, and that you're only willing (so far) to address the argument in the terms of those counters. You can fix that quite easily by simply copy-pasting or making the argument that isn't assuming I believe things that I don't.
Attempts at sarcasm? If some of the more colorful comments have disappeared as of late, I attribut it to circumstances -- writing posts an inferior machine, far from my normal surroundings.
What I have been trying to do is address your (alleged) unanticipated arguments, but, not surprisingly, you have not exactly been forthcoming in articulating that point of view. The simplest questions go unanswered, and not until recently did you even claim that the distinction between humans and non-humans is moral agency, only to then quickly abandon it. You take issue with what you call my "two arguments" construction, which, by the way, was about torturing animals, but when asked how conservationism prevents torture, I get nothing but silence.
Right, the one I have already said is absolutist the way you keep presenting it, despite how much you may protest. Since my actual statements-- as opposed to your paraphrasing-- are not absolute in context, I'm pointing out that I don't agree with your absolutism on the subject.
*sigh* A number of claims here, which are not only unsupported, but unsupportable. What do you mean by "absolutist" here because that's a term that has been abused far too often in this thread. I thought my quotes from you were innocuous, but again, whenever I bend over backwards to try to reach common ground, which you may sense leads to the "logical conclusion," you immediately pull back. You've done this with what I thought we accepted were truisms (necessary, unnecessary, minimize), with rights vs. protected status, etc. You cannot make any definite statement of belief because then you can be held accountable for it, so round and round it goes, when it stops, no one knows...
I'm really not going to bother getting into the arguments over different types of protiens or amino acids, B12, iron, and so on. All I'm going to say is that it isn't as confused an argument as you make it out to be, as this thread has obviously borne out.
Might I say that that argument has already been addressed as well?
[Rather than quibble and correct, I'm cutting this stuff on rights groups, the law and personhood.]
I'm not sure I can explain it to you. I have trouble explaining growing up extremely poor and the limitations of diet under those conditions. Not because there are difficulties in the facts of it, but because it gets real frustrating hearing people glibly comment "well, why didn't they just..." without realistically assessing the context of trying to survive with so little and so little choice. There are real and measurable risks to a child growing up with insufficient nutrition to fuel their development, and not everyone has access to a Whole Foods or Central Market, or the opportunity to learn some of the time-tested methods of changing their entire dietary habits in a manner that doesn't risk malnutrition, especially to children. I won't disagree that there is too much focus on consumption of meat, mostly since just after WWII, but the "why don't they just..." commentary isn't very helpful to the discussion.
Again, I think I articulated a fairly clear, unusually well-established moral principle, one which you no longer seem to dispute. As with the law, people will apply it differently. (It being the notion that one can only be held morally accountable for the choices she makes.)
This is one of the problems I'm having with your arguments. You're dismissing what I said as too complicated, when my very point is that the issue is more complicated than you're allowing for in your arguments.
So noted. But again, I do not mind complicated, just needlessly complicate. I also mind arguments that stray from more central concerns, barring demonstration to the contrary. So let's look at your replies to some of the reasons why I said this:
It's not the people I levy that accusation to, but the groups and the leadership of those groups.
OK, I thought that was basically who I was referring to, but let's put your words into my comment:
A common accusation made against the groups and the leadership of those groups concerned about the mistreatment of animals (we saw it here, as you know) is that they try to appear moderate, but beneath that facade they really want to ban the consumption of animals, which naturally makes them all the more insidious.
And I said it was a common accusation, not your accusation, but it's still relatively meaningless, a needless diversion.
Fundamentalism doesn't just concern religion, and I'd disagree with your conclusion that evolutionary science is a threat to religion either. That's another thread, though-- the point is that things aren't so black or white.
I thought the context was sufficiently clear in that case that I was not saying fundamentalism concerns only religion. I frequently lambast market fundamentalists, but OK...
See my comment above where I specifically address my problem with your original argument. Can you make an argument that doesn't rely on trying to pre-empt things you think might be brought up, so that when someone brings up something different you don't dismiss it? I feel that currently you've been so dismissive of some of the statements made because they don't fall within the confines you set forth in your original argument (which was against nobody, or an imaginary arguer) to begin with.
I thought this was so important that I addressed most of it at the beginning rather than here at the end. One added comment: any sort of half-decent argument, especially for a starting post, does in some way anticipate and answer the most obvious replies. This is actually an effort to get people to generate different kinds of arguments, but you see it otherwise, and you fail, time after time, to state what arguments you think I am ignoring.
My biggest beef with your thesis, Cain, is that there is supposedly some logical consistency when even within the vegetarian and vegan lifestyle there are differences of degrees. Some who normally eat vegetarian will eat meat on occasion
[example], and there are people who fluctuate between vegan and vegetarian diets because they are similar anyway. I don't see this as hypocrisy on the part of any of the people who do this-- do you?
I know people who did this sort of thing. I was a person who did this sort of thing. I might do this sort of thing again. With this in mind, I can confidently tell you that these people view themselves as hypocrites. I think Teek may have said as much a little while ago. (The article is not popping up for me.)
Such examples are simply a subset of the same type of dietary decisions people make in general, though in differing degrees and for varied reasons. The problem I have with your thesis is that only a small percent of the people who are already a small percent are of a similar level of dietary stricture as you're proposing as the only logical and non-hypocritical approach-- and please don't deny it, anyone can see you are-- and even within the subset of people who have come to the same dietary conclusion as you there are differences of degrees to the strict application of the diet. You have to already know this, I highly doubt this is news to you, so why are you so quick to demonize resistance to your proposed "logical conclusion" throughout this thread?
"
Demonize"? Talk about reduction and hyperbole. And
this is your biggest beef? I think a far better descriptor, one that has the virtue of accuracy, is "recognize". Become cognizant of their hypocrisy in this area. I refer you again to the thread title. Unless a person has seriously f'ed up, infantile "moral" beliefs, no one can ever be completely free from hypocrisy. Also, as more people adopt a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle, it becomes easier still for others to make the transition. I forget how I phrased it earlier to Mumblethrax (discussing Kristof's op-ed), but I value critical thinking and self-awareness. I know people who are aware of the arguments against eating meat, accpet them, cannot live them, and then, unprompted, explain their shortcomings to me ("I know I
shouldn't...), and I don't really care. They blame themselves for making excuses. I do have a problem with self-righteous meat-eaters loudly advertising their unexamined arguments.
