What is your excuse for killing animals?

[Roboramma]

I have no problem with fetuses being unprotected. If society as a whole develops a stronger emotional attachment to them again, they will once again have the protection of the social contract.

There have been times when people of one particular race or another, or one particular religion or another, were not given the protection of the social contract, or at the least given less protection by it. If you lived in some society in which a distinct group (different from your own) was not given protection, would you have any problem with that, or would you simply accept that this is the social contract as it stands, and take advantage of said group as much as everyone else? If not, why not?

 

[Cavemonster]

Cavemonster, I think you make some good points in your above post, but I have to wonder what you think about moral questions from a personal, rather that societal, standpoint.

Specifically, if you were in a position to steal from me, and knew you could get away with it without being caught, would you?

You may suggest that it's impossible to know for certain that you'd get away with it. Perhaps, but you can certainly judge the likelihood. If, then, you were in a position to steal $1,000,000, and looked at the evidence and judged that your chance of being caught was 1/100,000,000,000, would you do so? If not, why not?

I'm not trying to be argumentative, but rather I find the viewpoint that there is no "morality", only a social contract to be difficult to accept, mainly because I personally would not steal in that situation. I suppose you may say that rationally you should, but you have an emotional feeling that leads you not to want to steal, which is interesting, and fair enough if it's the case.
Anyway, I'll stop trying to guess your answer and let you respond for yourself.

I personally wouldn't steal from you because I'd feel an emotional revulsion to the theft that would preclude me from enjoying it. Just as you guessed. Plus, you'd need to define "being caught" Even if no law enforcement caught up with me, I could still suffer some ill social effects if, say my significant other found out, or my friends or parents.

 

[Cavemonster]

There have been times when people of one particular race or another, or one particular religion or another, were not given the protection of the social contract, or at the least given less protection by it. If you lived in some society in which a distinct group (different from your own) was not given protection, would you have any problem with that, or would you simply accept that this is the social contract as it stands, and take advantage of said group as much as everyone else? If not, why not?

If I was the exact person I am now, I would feel an emotional revulsion to taking advantage. And the knowledge I have now is that the forced illiteracy and subjugation of a group of people robs the general populace of their potential contributions, and sets the stage for hundreds of years of terrible tensions.

Imagining I didn't have the upbringing and knowledge I have? It's a bit hard to do honestly. We do know that some degree of sympathy seems to be hard wired in mirror neurons, and that some objected to slavery to some degree in most places it was practiced. Would i be one of those people? Probably a lot would depend on my education. If I were miseducated, like most people in those times, that the slaves were biologically inferior and incapable of contributing to society in a deeper way, or that their servitude was justified by some common moral or religious code, that may have overwhelmed natural sympathy, hard to say.

 

[Roboramma]

I personally wouldn't steal from you because I'd feel an emotional revulsion to the theft that would preclude me from enjoying it. Just as you guessed. Plus, you'd need to define "being caught" Even if no law enforcement caught up with me, I could still suffer some ill social effects if, say my significant other found out, or my friends or parents.

And you find that emotional revulsion isn't made up for with $1,000,000?

I don't like lying, and have what I would consider to be an emotional revulsion toward it, but I don't have a moral problem with it, at least not in general, not necessarily. If I found that I could make $1,000,000 by telling some lies, without doing things that I considered immoral, I'd easily overcome my emotional revulsion to lying.

In fact, I can't think of anything that I only have emotional revulsion toward that I wouldn't do for $1,000,000, unless it also carried other negative consequences. I'd probably be willing to have sex with my sister for $1,000,000, though the negative consequences of the weirdness between me and my sister afterwards (rather than the simple physical and emotional revulsion toward the act) might stop me.

I'm happy to say that your answer isn't contradictory, but I find it hard to believe. Of course, that's because I'm in my own head and know what I would do, you are certainly a different person and may just be more effected by feelings of emotional revulsion than I am.

Or maybe I'm just particularly poor, or particularly imaginative about what I could do with a million dollars.

[by the way, I don't have a stake in the main argument here: I had fish curry for lunch today, and lamb curry for dinner last night. ]

 

[Cavemonster]

And you find that emotional revulsion isn't made up for with $1,000,000?

I don't like lying, and have what I would consider to be an emotional revulsion toward it, but I don't have a moral problem with it, at least not in general, not necessarily. If I found that I could make $1,000,000 by telling some lies, without doing things that I considered immoral, I'd easily overcome my emotional revulsion to lying.

In fact, I can't think of anything that I only have emotional revulsion toward that I wouldn't do for $1,000,000, unless it also carried other negative consequences. I'd probably be willing to have sex with my sister for $1,000,000, though the negative consequences of the weirdness between me and my sister afterwards (rather than the simple physical and emotional revulsion toward the act) might stop me.

I'm happy to say that your answer isn't contradictory, but I find it hard to believe. Of course, that's because I'm in my own head and know what I would do, you are certainly a different person and may just be more effected by feelings of emotional revulsion than I am.

Or maybe I'm just particularly poor, or particularly imaginative about what I could do with a million dollars.

[by the way, I don't have a stake in the main argument here: I had fish curry for lunch today, and lamb curry for dinner last night. ]

To be more thorough, it would depend who I was stealing from what level of revulsion I felt. If I could steal $1million from Bill Gates, or Oprah without any possibility of being caught, I might be able to get over the revulsion, but that would still require either lying to my friends and loved ones, or being a thief in their eyes. There's no getting around that, even if I could magically wipe their memories, that would be the equivalent of lying to them, and likely everyone I'd ever meet who'd want to know how I got so rich.

 

[Roboramma]

If I was the exact person I am now, I would feel an emotional revulsion to taking advantage. And the knowledge I have now is that the forced illiteracy and subjugation of a group of people robs the general populace of their potential contributions, and sets the stage for hundreds of years of terrible tensions.

The first part of that I can accept as a valid reason for you personally to not want to keep slaves, even in that kind of society.
The latter is a valid reason that you think that the society itself should outlaw slavery and that you personally may want to go to some minor trouble to contribute to it being stopped.
It's not a reason to go to more than minor trouble, however, as the possible gains that you could achieve from that trouble are very very small. I suppose that you may get some emotional satisfaction, but only if actually care about the people involved or the society that will later exist. But now that I think about it, that sort of caring doesn't contradict with your moral system, so I guess I can accept that as well.

Basically it seems to come down to the fact that you emotionally care about some things that can't possibly affect you, and don't see any need to justify that as being a part of a moral system or not, which I suppose is entirely valid.

I actually find myself seeing things that way sometimes. But I also look at things from a standpoint of a moral system as well, and hope that my moral system is at least internally consistent. The fact that I really do think that my own suffering and the suffering of people I care about is a bad thing leads me on to other conclusions. But I accept that if you don't think there's something objectively bad about that suffering, and you only care about it from an arbitrary emotional position, then the rest of your stance is entirely valid and consistent, at least as far as I can see.

Anyway, thanks for the responses.

 

[cyborg]

[snipped some truly clever stuff about "retard birthmark" and "epic fail,"

I thought you'd appreciate me talking to you at your level.

still surprised you don't know who Mike Wallace is.]

Yes that makes sense. You're shocked, shocked that I don't know someone I don't know. Some early 20th century American journalist? Why exactly do I give a ****?

Oooh, I'm sorry. For a second there, I thought you were going to say something that wasn't stupid. Eating this seal meat would be immoral, for reasons already mentioned (A person who buys burgers from McDonalds is "not engaged in the act" of the cow's death.)

At which point is it immoral?

If the killer whale drops the seal is it moral?

If I don't corral the seals and wait a little longer for nature to take its course is it moral?

But no, I'm the stupid one for not seeing the obvious arbitrary delinenations in your vegan-addled mind as to what portion of blood you are prepared to accept on your hands.

Yes, I see your situation. I think that involves so many variables that the decision must be left to you.

I think at this point we can just see that you use the word "vegan" as a synonym, "I'm just a plain better person than you, you stupid, stupid igonorant idiot!!! But please don't ask me to quantify anything, math is hard."

I would not say "fundamental," or invoke a "computable threshold." It's not unlike people who choose to drive more eco-friendly cars or take their own bag to the grocery store. Then they also take into account their positive contributions to the world, which might be an alien concept to you.

So in other words you're pulling this all out of your ass but you still feel you've got the moral high-ground. How predictable.

 

[cyborg]

We decide for ourselves.

No, you decide for us Kevin.

 

[CriticalSock]

(this is an argument aimed at the you wouldn't torture a dog or condone bear baiting, so why do you condone eating meat)

Look! It's really very simple:

Animals = Trees.

For every animal there is a tree equivalent.

Not convinced?

Milking cows = Apple trees

Beef steers = Pine trees

Pet dogs = ornamental cherry blossom in my garden

Tiger in a zoo = Oak tree in a park

Tiger in the wild = The kings oak in Sherwood forest


You treat each of these pairs exactly the same. You take the produce from the cow and the apple tree. You don't kill them or harm them.

If you come into someones garden and chop off a branch of their ornamental cherry tree, I will be as horrified as if you beat a dog.

If you tease a tiger in a zoo or cut your initials on a tree in the park, the keepers will both chase you with sticks.

And of course there's the beef cow and the pine tree. Carefully husbanded and harvested to provide us with crappy burgers and tacky Ikea furniture.

SO! My position is that the leaf-eaters argument is as applicable to trees as it is to animals. Show me where I'm wrong or NEVER buy a self-assembly wardrobe again!

 

[RenaissanceBiker]

I've tried to catch up. It seems you people have been busy on this topic this weekend. I must agree with Ron Tompkins about projecting morality where it does not exist. Morality does not extend into every corner of the universe. It is a concept within human society and nothing more.

Kevin, I'm trying to understand the difference between the moral relativism that you disagree with and the moral objectivism you hold so dear. You agree that we decide what is moral for ourselves, but then insist morality is unchanging and always consistent. Please clarify this point regarding the original question.

You claim that killing animals is unavoidably cruel and thus immoral. We can minimize the cruelty but not eliminate it as long as the animal is killed. Arguements have been made that there are now alternatives to eating meat that make it unnecessary. These alternatives did not always exist. It seems that it became unnecessary at some point and that's when it became immoral to eat meat. How is that this objective morality is unchanging when at one point in time eating meat was not immoral?

 

[Mirrorglass]

No, I did not misrepresent your view. You're wounded ego is filibustering...

Don't get me wrong, you haven't destroyed me with your razor-sharp insults. I'm just calling you up on it in hopes you might realize how rude you are and change your ways.

Pavlov lies.

Personally, I don't consider conditioned responses to be "anticipating the future to a great extent". Heck, a flytrap closing when a fly gets stuck on it shows about the same level of anticipation as a dog does when subjected to classical conditioning.

Adjectives escape me. First, you're inconsistent on this matter. In some posts you say it it unique to humans, in others you say it's possible for other primates to suffer. Earlier on you said rights are built on moral agency (or the potential for moral agency), yet you were also willing to grant rights to primates who learn sign language. It's difficult to follow this position if you keep changing it.

The comment about primates was just a side note to say you might be able to convince me of primate rights. You can disregard it if you like; it's not a key point in my arguments. (Anyway, to learn language is to learn abstract thinking, and I believe any being capable of abstract thinking to be a moral agent.)

I'm sorry that you have trouble following the conversation, but these are complicated questions. Keep at it, and I'm sure you'll get it eventually!

On this view babies, toddlers, children(?) cannot suffer.

True for the first one. I never said they could. The second two are already capable of speech, language and basic abstract thinking, though.

Second, it's just silly. What does an "abstract concept of suffering" entail?

Well, take a piece of paper and write on it what "suffering" means.

Now take a look at the piece. On it is written an abstract concept of suffering. If you show it to other people, they'll understand what it is (you may have to translate it to their respective language, but this can be done). Animals won't.

Uh-huh. So, in order for a dog to have rights it needs to throw itself a pity party and moan, "My leg! My leg! How will I hump? How will take a ****** I'll never play fetch again!"

Well, yes. That would do it.

You asked me "if a cow understands what death is."

It's pretty much the same thing. And you didn't answer that one either.

In what case? You do not need to kill them; you have alternatives.

But I have good reason to. That's enough for me.

And again with the "as painlessly as possible" -- why as painlessly as possible if pain doesn't matter? What do you personally care if animals die under horrendous conditions? Because it "dulls" the human spirit, as Kant would say?

Yes.

If it's fully robotic, automatic and violent, then it's morally kosher?

That doesn't follow. It's the suffering that matters. It doesn't matter whether we see the violence, if it's being perpetrated anyway.

Global veganism? I haven't gotten there yet. I still need to figure out what we're gonna do with all the cows.

True. Which is precisely why I don't subscribe to your view; you haven't even thought about the long-term consequences.

THAT was funny (my thing about soccer... not your thing about trolling).

Referring to playing soccer with embryos.. this also demonstrates an interesting point. You find that concept "funny", and you've repeatedly demonstrated you enjoy insulting people. You're also clearly provoking me, hoping I'll lose my temper. Don't any of these acts seem immoral to you? You're essentially trying to hurt me emotionally.

Alternatively, if you truly think this is the best possible way to convert people to vegans.. well, I guess there's no stopping you. Let me just ask you this: how many people have you converted to your opinion by calling them idiots?

So you think it's fair to say that infants develop "more or less on their own"??

Yep. All they need is food, shelter and social contact, all of which people will usually provide out of natural instinct, without need for abstract moral consideration. That's enough for me.

They're born Reaganites, rugged individualists.

Seriously. Putting silly things in people's mouths isn't argumentation.

Practicality, that's what I like! You did the right thing by saving the IMPLANTED embyros, but this is kind of a trick question because you're supposed to knock out the five year-old. You know, if you wanna do the super-moral thing. Good job, though. Maybe not the quickest thinker, but you have the right priorities.

Bolding mine.

We can argue that, too, but not in this thread.

I want to use the potentiality to talk about some things you said to Kevin:

This is a version of the equivocation fallacy. When we're talking about potentiality we mean harm to a morally significant being. So, suppose a woman gets pregnant, but drinks lots of alcohol and smokes crack. As far as the organism she carries is concerned, her behavior is only immoral IF... she chooses to go through with this pregnancy. If we discover she plans on having an abortion next week, then she has no problem (apart from the drug and alcohol addiction).

Alternatively, let's suppose somebody plants a nuclear bomb under Manhattan and sets it to detonate in 150 years. This is immoral if we expect morally significant beings to be affected, regardless of whether or not they currently exist. What matters is they WILL exist.

Essentially, yes, though you're assuming I consider abortion to be morally justified, something I haven't commented on. Again, it's a subject for another thread.

However, your idea that it's okay to kill a person before they become a moral agent doesn't sit well with me. What about a person who's asleep, or comatose? They don't think, and if you kill them quickly, they won't suffer. They had no hopes or expectations at the moment you killed them, and their potentiality to wake up doesn't matter. Why do you consider it immoral to murder people in their sleep?

Delightful is right. But I didn't think there was anything to refute because there was no real argument.

Yeah, that seems to happen to you a lot. All I can say is, keep trying and you may find the arguments some day.

I think the typical adult human being leads a richer, more important life than the typical dog. Since I'm forced to choose between the two, I choose the human.

Excellent. We agree that the richness of mental life matters in moral considerations. Now what you need to understand is that I believe it's the only thing that matters. All of my moral rules stem from only caring about humans.

Isn't it crazy how I chose to save people and you chose to save embyros? Ooops, I don't want misrepresent. You chose to save IMPLANTED embryos. You get a key to the city.

Nope. Potentiality, remember. Our values are different, but neither of us is crazy.

If it's really hard for you to understand my reasoning, take a look at the consequences of each choice. If I save the five-year old, five years from now there will be one ten-year old I saved. If I save the embryos, in five years the number of people I saved will be twelve. To me, consequences matter a great deal, much more than the morality of an act viewed out of context.

 

[Morrigan]

On Vegan Arrogance...

You will have to search hard to find anyone more arrogant than vegans. Just try listening to them. TRY. They're always like, "hey, I think it's wrong to eat animals blather blather blather." I resent these condescending jerks asking me to justify killing tard-cattle... but here's my humble answer: meat tastes delicious.

Humans are the dominant species on this planet, a position we earned. Never mind the fact homeless people are STARVING! Domesticated animals are lucky enough to have shelter and more than enough food. Do they need to worry about skin cancer? NO!

Yet the glassy-eyed, protein deficient freaks are always urging real people not to "live at the expense of others." Why does it feel like the only reason they keep us around is to feed their starving egos? Animals eat, defecate and screw. Their lives are worthless and I don't need some self-appointed do-gooder sitting in judgment, telling me otherwise. The arrogance!

Your question is irrelevant, stupid ...

That's a stupid reason to refrain from doing something.

....

... but I'm not here to be your bestest friend, nor am I here to get tactical advice from butthurt meat eaters.

Thanks, guys, for living up to the Self-Righteous, Sanctimonious Vegan cliché. Truly entertaining.

As an objectivist ...

Ah! A Randroid. That explains everything.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

We get it. You're a relativist. You think that because opinions about morality have changed over time that nobody is entitled to criticise anyone else's moral claims.

See? Wrong again. No, I think that, because opinions about morality have changed (and will always change all the time), we cannot talk about morality as if it was inherent to nature. Morality is a made up thing that we humans created. No serious scientist speaks of the behavior of nature in terms of right or wrong, good or bad, pretty or ugly. Your attempts at projecting human morality into the rest of nature, are dishonest and self important. You will never admit that what you're attempting to do is project a human vision on the rest of the world. It is clear you've successfully brainwashed yourself about this.

Your philosophical position is useless and almost certainly incoherent to boot, for reasons that have already been explained. Go back and engage with those reasons if you want to have an intelligent discussion instead of trumpeting the same debunked and nonsensical claims over and over again.

It seems you're projecting, as I'm making scientific claims. You're the one making philosophical claims, talking about morality and addressing it as if it was a scientific issue. You're the one taking a philosophical issue (morality) and trying to incorporate it into a scientific issue (nature and how it behaves).

Nope, I'm a person who is rational scientifically and philosophically. You're at best a person who is rational scientifically and irrational philosophically.

I'll take that as a compliment, as I happen to think philosophy is, for the most, a waste of time. Nothing truly useful about the world has ever been learned simply by recurring to philosophy (It can certainly help to illustrate things sometimes, but as a supplement to a serious scientific study) Science, on the other hand, is the only tool that will allow you to study nature as it actually is, regardless of what some humans think "ought" to be, "should be", etc.

Nature simply is. It doesn't care what you think it ought to be.

 

[Morrigan]

Two questions that I still haven't seen addressed (or not addressed very well):

1) Why veganism? Why not simple vegetarianism? If you don't want to kill animals, okay, but why extend that to eating eggs or cheese or wearing wool, if no animals need to die to obtain those products?

2) Where do you draw the line? Obviously, even the most hardcore vegans won't be bothered by the death of certain organisms. Is it just if the organism has pain receptors and if so, how can you be sure if it really feels pain or not? Fish, shrimp, crabs and insects react to stimuli, but does that mean they "feel pain" or that they "suffer"?

 

[Slayhamlet]

Ah! A Randroid. That explains everything.

Letter case matters. Even if he were an Objectivist (not a metaphysical objectivist), I fail to see how that would explain anything in terms of this thread. Objectivism seems largely incompatible with Veganism and the animal rights movement.

 

[Cain]

Yes, it does open up some unpleasant possibilities, but remember, that part of my argument was descriptive, not prescriptive. So your objection is an appeal to consequences fallacy.

Either you just up-turned hundreds of years of work from moral and political theorists, or you made an elementary error. Your argument is like saying the second law of thermodynamics invalidates evolution.

First, appeal to consequences: If a person argues "a widespread belief in atheism leads to war, depression and mass-suicide, therefore atheism is false," then he's appealing to consequences. Atheism is true or false regardless of what people choose to do. Now, he argued that promoting atheism leads to war/depression/mass-suicide, and therefore we should not promote it, then that's another matter.

Second, I do not think you have the slightest idea what social contract theory entails, as broadly understood. You're in the realm of moral relativism, and Kevin's above criticisms apply. A social contract is a fiction, one humans create precisely to avoid the negative consequences of a state of nature, where there is a "war of all against all" and life is "nasty, brutish, and short." If your project is descriptivist, then these implicit appeals to the demos is also unjustified. Instead, what it is... is, which means dictatorship and tyranny.

The fact is that we do legislate emotions, laws are passed by humans, gay marriage is illegal for mostly emotional reasons. This inarguably results in a lot of terrible laws, but recognition of emotional harm as real harm results in a lot of positive legal frameworks too.

How can you say any law is "terrible" or that gay marriage is illegal for "mostly emotional reasons"? If gays could marry then it might be for mostly logical reasons?

That's why we have crimes like harassment. That's why civil courts look at emotional cruelty in divorce proceedings and in awarding damages for emotional distress. That's why, when a child is sexually assaulted by a stranger, who does no physical damage, we have a charge we can press.

You're equivocating. There's a difference between emotion as a value and emotion as a decision-making tool.

To answer your question about different societies with different values, it would depend how these cultures interacted with the broader world. A self contained society that banned all meat consumption, that banned only certain animals, or one that allowed animal cruelty could all be internally consistent. And, in fact, historically, we've had all of these. You're right, I can't find any basis to judge them, but I also can't find any reason to judge them until they come into active contact with a society that doesn't share their values.

This is symptomatic of moral relativism.

No, I'd say that to be logical, before Paul [I think you mean Peter] has to defend himself against a murder charge, we must first understand why murder must be prohibited. Only then does he require an excuse, when the prohibition has been established to be rational.

Hold the phone. There's no reason why murder -- or what we may call murder "must" be prohibited. That's for this society to decide *obedient head-bobbing*.

I've laid out a rational and consistent prohibition against murder that does not include the protection of animals. You have yet to create a similar argument that includes animals aside from the bare assertion that harming a feeling being is 'wrong'.

If by rational you mean "based on emotions" and if by consistent you mean "whatever our emotions tell us," then yes, I suppose you did.

Suppose a social contract society has a policy of racial discrimination where some minority group is bred and eaten. Now, even though I'm a member of the dominant group I think this policy of eating X minority is wrong. Oops mistaken. What sort of arguments do I have at my disposal?

In the case of animals we have compared marginal cases: a baby versus a chimp, a developmentally disabled human versus a dolphin. What are the vitally important moral differences? Doesn't matter, you say because people have an affinity for babies.

There are three main reasons that children and the developmentally disabled are protected.

Yeah, this is nonsense, and the first two are not even necessary. It's more of the same moral relativism and all of the familiar criticisms apply.

--------------------------

Cyborg:

If the killer whale drops the seal is it moral?

If I don't corral the seals and wait a little longer for nature to take its course is it moral?

Then it would seem fine.

I think at this point we can just see that you use the word "vegan" as a synonym, "I'm just a plain better person than you, you stupid, stupid igonorant idiot!!! But please don't ask me to quantify anything, math is hard."

So in other words you're pulling this all out of your ass but you still feel you've got the moral high-ground. How predictable.

Look at you flail. Are you shaking. As for this straw man, I wonder, do you expect hard moral calculations with "computational thresh-holds" when it comes to consuming goods with raw materials that came from different mines? Unions vs. non-unions vs. slave labor? Must we calculate the carbon foot print?
----------------------

Mirrorglass:

Personally, I don't consider conditioned responses to be "anticipating the future to a great extent". Heck, a flytrap closing when a fly gets stuck on it shows about the same level of anticipation as a dog does when subjected to classical conditioning.

Do you know of any organism that anticipates the future without the aide of conditioning? Examples.

[On this highly idiosyncratic view divorced from any common meaning, babies cannot suffer] I never said they could. The second two [children and toddlers] are already capable of speech, language and basic abstract thinking, though.

Uh-huh. We're straying from the central point which is that you arbitrarily privilege one group over another. If you're willing to grant babies protections that you are unwilling to grant animals, why? Since suffering -- even your "understanding," such as it is -- is not a factor, then what explains the differences in treatment?

Re: If "cows know they will die," or "know what the concept of death is" which means pretty much the "same thing."

I doubt cows know they will die.

But I have good reason to [eat animals]. That's enough for me.

And that good reason would be...

That doesn't follow. It's the suffering that matters. It doesn't matter whether we see the violence, if it's being perpetrated anyway.

Negative. You're contradicting yourself in a couple of ways. First, the animals do not suffer because suffering is something only humans with an abstract concept of suffering can blah blah blah. Second, if you take the Kantian view seriously it's NOT the suffering that matters. What matters is how the suffering effects humans, and I think it's safe to say humans are less effected by meat production when we do not see or think about it. Or, as Paul McCartney's fond of saying, "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everybody would become a vegetarian."

True. Which is precisely why I don't subscribe to your view; you haven't even thought about the long-term consequences.

Yeah, I have no idea what to do with the cows. People ask me all the time, "so let's say everyone becomes a vegetarian, where do we put the animals?" It's a well thought-out question.

Referring to playing soccer with embryos.. this also demonstrates an interesting point. You find that concept "funny", and you've repeatedly demonstrated you enjoy insulting people. You're also clearly provoking me, hoping I'll lose my temper. Don't any of these acts seem immoral to you? You're essentially trying to hurt me emotionally.

Alternatively, if you truly think this is the best possible way to convert people to vegans.. well, I guess there's no stopping you. Let me just ask you this: how many people have you converted to your opinion by calling them idiots?

Which insults? When I asked why you were in ****y mood? Like Cyborg, my policy has been to respond in kind. Unless I'm mocking something idiotic. As for the dark sense of humor, I don't hope anyone loses their temper. And I'm not trying to convert anyone. I don't know who said it, but like theology, speciesism is a stone wall -- an ideal whetstone for the steely mind.

Yep. All they need is food, shelter and social contact, all of which people will usually provide out of natural instinct, without need for abstract moral consideration. That's enough for me.

So it's an unexamined faith.

However, your idea that it's okay to kill a person before they become a moral agent doesn't sit well with me.

I make a distinction between a moral patient and a moral agent, so it's not OK to kill prior to developing a sense of right and wrong. I do agree it's more difficult to reconcile from your monochromatic view.

What about a person who's asleep, or comatose? They don't think, and if you kill them quickly, they won't suffer. They had no hopes or expectations at the moment you killed them, and their potentiality to wake up doesn't matter. Why do you consider it immoral to murder people in their sleep?

Because it's not living moment to moment; it has an interest in the future. I discussed this already.

Excellent. We agree that the richness of mental life matters in moral considerations. Now what you need to understand is that I believe it's the only thing that matters. All of my moral rules stem from only caring about humans.

See, the inconsistencies bother me. If "richness of mental life" was really "the only thing that matters" then you would not save embryos over five year-olds, unless...

If it's really hard for you to understand my reasoning, take a look at the consequences of each choice. If I save the five-year old, five years from now there will be one ten-year old I saved. If I save the embryos, in five years the number of people I saved will be twelve. To me, consequences matter a great deal, much more than the morality of an act viewed out of context.

The implanted embryos are replaceable. The five year-old is not. Assuming artificial wombs are not used at capacity -- and you never sought this clarification since you make things up as we go along -- then saving the child would have meant that in two and half years you'd have one seven year old and a dozen two year-olds. (Also, your view implies birth control is used immorally.)

-------------------
Morrigan:

Ah! A Randroid. That explains everything.

As mentioned, you're confusing an objectivist with an Objectivist. A little embarrassing, but hey, why bother reading, or knowing things? Stupid vegans!

 

[Cavemonster]

Cain,
You seem so upset by moral relativism, I'm sure you'll be happy to hear that I am not a moral relativist. That is to say, I'm not a normative relativist. Of course I hold descriptive relativism true, one would have to ignore all observation to disagree with the fact that cultures hold differing moral truths.

But I don't hold that what is moral within a given society is good, because I hold to moral anti-realism. Kevin's criticism of moral relativism doesn't mean much to me from this vantage point. He can't say that I'm obligated to find the actions of the Nazis moral because I don't find anything moral, or immoral, or good or bad. Those are all at worst pure nonsense words describing qualities that cannot be reasonably measured or defined. At best they're placeholders for personal desires or culturally held standards. My decisions aren't based on doing what is right or avoiding what is wrong, because that's as meaningless as saying that you're doing God's will and avoiding the devil. My decisions, as I've already described, can be traced to self interest.

One thing you seem to insist on mangling is the role of emotion in my posts. My experience consists of physical sensation and emotional/internal experience. My decisions are made to maximize the quality of those, in the long run. You seem to confuse this with some notion of emotions dictating what is "right" completely missing that I haven't been talking about right or wrong at all. Emotions are one piece of experience that I wish to enjoy.

I'm not sure if you're actually reading my posts Cain, your criticism doesn't seem very related to what I'm saying.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Mirrorglass:

Do you know of any organism that anticipates the future without the aide of conditioning? Examples.

The Homo Sapiens species is known mainly for it's capacity for such things. In a famous example, Albert Einstein predicted the bending of light from stars as it passes the sun, which could only be observed during an eclipse, and his prediction later turned out to be correct. Other, less dramatic examples range from playing chess to keeping a calendar.

Uh-huh. We're straying from the central point which is that you arbitrarily privilege one group over another. If you're willing to grant babies protections that you are unwilling to grant animals, why? Since suffering -- even your "understanding," such as it is -- is not a factor, then what explains the differences in treatment?

I've said it any number of times, already. For reasons other than suffering. Read previous posts by me, and add Cavemonster's social contracts, which I have adopted as part of my thinking now.

Re: If "cows know they will die," or "know what the concept of death is" which means pretty much the "same thing."

I doubt cows know they will die.

Thank you. Now, I assert that from this it follows that cows have no opinion on whether or not they want to die.

And that good reason would be...

I need food.

Negative. You're contradicting yourself in a couple of ways. First, the animals do not suffer because suffering is something only humans with an abstract concept of suffering can blah blah blah.

Yeah, you're right there. I should have said "the pain". In case I make the mistake again, when I speak of animal "suffering" I'm talking about the primitive reaction to painful stimulus that animals show.

Second, if you take the Kantian view seriously it's NOT the suffering that matters. What matters is how the suffering effects humans, and I think it's safe to say humans are less effected by meat production when we do not see or think about it. Or, as Paul McCartney's fond of saying, "If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everybody would become a vegetarian."

Yes, it is indeed the effect on people that matters. However, the effect on people from just knowing animals are treated with unnecessary cruelty would be almost as bad as the torturing itself. It's not healthy to think just because something is hidden, it can have no effect.

As for the glass wall argument, it has some meat to it (pardon the expression). Many farms do treat animals with unnecessary cruelty, though slaughterhouses less so. It may also be the case that some people would become vegan if they had to see every animal they eat being slaughtered. This is not the case for me, however, and history suggests it has never been for the majority of humans.

Yeah, I have no idea what to do with the cows. People ask me all the time, "so let's say everyone becomes a vegetarian, where do we put the animals?" It's a well thought-out question.

Well, you really ought to try and find a solution. Otherwise your ideas have no substance to them.

Which insults? When I asked why you were in ****y mood? Like Cyborg, my policy has been to respond in kind. Unless I'm mocking something idiotic. As for the dark sense of humor, I don't hope anyone loses their temper. And I'm not trying to convert anyone. I don't know who said it, but like theology, speciesism is a stone wall -- an ideal whetstone for the steely mind.

If you're not hoping to convert anyone, why are you here at all? Do you really enjoy calling people stupid so much you'll keep repeating the same arguments over and over, despite them being shown flawed? It's true that arguing people with contrary positions is good exercise, but just claiming all view but yours are stupid because you don't understand them is like trying to sharpen your sword by hitting the whetstone repeatedly. To get something out of a debate you need to be ready to examine your own beliefs, not just mock others.

Yep. All they need is food, shelter and social contact, all of which people will usually provide out of natural instinct, without need for abstract moral consideration. That's enough for me.

So it's an unexamined faith.

Like "animals have expectations of the future"?

Seriously, though, I don't quite get what you're referring to. You don't believe an infant will grow up? You don't believe people feed infants, even if they haven't read Kant? Or you're saying I'm just guessing these things, and couldn't have observed them?

I make a distinction between a moral patient and a moral agent, so it's not OK to kill prior to developing a sense of right and wrong. I do agree it's more difficult to reconcile from your monochromatic view.

So where do you draw the line? Which organisms are okay to kill? Why?

Because it's not living moment to moment; it has an interest in the future. I discussed this already.

But a comatose human has no such thing. A newborn has more of that; at least it will feed when given the chance.

See, the inconsistencies bother me. If "richness of mental life" was really "the only thing that matters" then you would not save embryos over five year-olds, unless...

..you thought they had the potential to develop rich mental lives, or you had the natural tendency to want to take care of young members of your species, or you thought the mothers of the embryos would not appreciate them dying, all of which are stupid, baseless moral relativist nonsense?

The implanted embryos are replaceable. The five year-old is not.

Why on Earth would you consider an embryo more replaceable than a five-year old? They're both just as unique.

Assuming artificial wombs are not used at capacity -- and you never sought this clarification since you make things up as we go along -- then saving the child would have meant that in two and half years you'd have one seven year old and a dozen two year-olds. (Also, your view implies birth control is used immorally.)

And if I waited fifty years, the ages would be 55 and 50. How is this relevant to the point? As for the birth control part, I can assure you it does not. It helps if you don't look at each of my sentences in isolation; I've said before I don't consider sperm or ova to be worthy of moral consideration, since they cannot develop into (people on their own). If you want to discuss my views on abortion, open a new thread.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Ah! A Randroid. That explains everything.

Actually "objectivist" in the moral philosophy sense and "objectivist" the Ayn Rand sense are merely homonyms. I would say that it's an easy mistake to make, except that I've been explaining my views for pages now and I don't see any similarity at all between them and the views of Ayn Rand. In fact I'm pretty sure there's a fundamental incompatibility between my views and the ruthless social Darwinism Rand advocated.

So presumably you haven't read the thread, you aren't familiar enough with Ayn Rand's work to have informed criticisms of it, or both.

Two questions that I still haven't seen addressed (or not addressed very well):

1) Why veganism? Why not simple vegetarianism? If you don't want to kill animals, okay, but why extend that to eating eggs or cheese or wearing wool, if no animals need to die to obtain those products?

In the broad view, I think vegans are weird. I can't see what's not to like about commensal relationships with other animal species.

However they may have a case on specific issues. If you believe that battery hens are suffering then eating the eggs of battery hens rewards the people who made them suffer and perpetuates their suffering.

2) Where do you draw the line? Obviously, even the most hardcore vegans won't be bothered by the death of certain organisms. Is it just if the organism has pain receptors and if so, how can you be sure if it really feels pain or not? Fish, shrimp, crabs and insects react to stimuli, but does that mean they "feel pain" or that they "suffer"?

The only criterion that I personally feel would be meaningful as an absolute cutoff is consciousness. I think it's likely that insects have no consciousness at all, and are just biological automata, but since we don't have a proper scientific understanding of consciousness that might be wrong. If you have no consciousness then to me you don't have any moral status in and of yourself.

Fish seem highly likely to be conscious, and the fact that only relatively recently has the f***ing bizarre notion that "fish can't feel pain!" been challenged indicates just how far we have left to go as a society on our long march towards not being stupid.

See? Wrong again. No, I think that, because opinions about morality have changed (and will always change all the time), we cannot talk about morality as if it was inherent to nature. Morality is a made up thing that we humans created.

You keep saying this as if you think that it's news to someone. Repeating an irrelevant statement does not make it any less irrelevant.

I'll take that as a compliment, as I happen to think philosophy is, for the most, a waste of time. Nothing truly useful about the world has ever been learned simply by recurring to philosophy.

Well yes there's that. But apart from the scientific method, democracy, the emancipation of women and racial minorities, the end of slavery, the Geneva Conventions, freedom of religion, the rule of law, the right to a fair trial, mathematics, logic, and the canonical argumentative fallacies, what have the Romans philosophers ever done for us?

Your political system was shaped by political philosophers whose ideas were revolutionary in their time and are now taken for granted. Your penal system was reformed by followers of Bentham, and your medical system was and is still being reformed by moral philosophers who have built on his ideas. Your very view of yourself and your place in the universe was formed by philosophers.

Yes, questions of brute fact can only be answered by science. However the vast bulk of the ideas that make the First World work are ideas about how we should live and how we should treat each other which have nothing to do with scientific fact. Which scientific paper proved that women should be allowed to own property, or that we should minimise the number of animals killed in the course of scientific research, or that good quality medical care should be freely available to all in need?

You know what is so deeply depressing about you? You're proving some of the most irritating Christian apologists to be absolutely right.

One of their favourite arguments is "But once people stop believing in God, they'll have no moral compass at all!". This is a fundamentally stupid argument because moral philosophy as a secular project happens to exist.

However if there are people like you running around claiming that science proves that they can do whatever they want, with absolutely no need for any kind of introspection or attempt at coherent moral thought, those Christian apologists are absolutely right. We really would be better off with people like you believing in a supernatural sky-daddy who will spank you if you are cruel to animals.

 

[BTMO]

I am eating smoked fish (that I caught and a mate smoked) as I read this.

Delicious irony....