Yeah, sure. Your ability to read stuff I've never written and use it to prove my stupidity continues to leave me in awe.
A rather meaningless comment, just a place-holder for a dodge.
]No, it really isn't. It's perfectly logical if you start from my premises. By the way, could you explain, in simple terms, how do you define which animals have rights and which don't? I assume there's a clear, unambiguous line that divides the animal kingdom in half.
Rather than respond to the argument, or document the differences, I suppose saying "No, it really isn't" is enough. In your mind. As for animal rights, I already offered non-arbitrary criteria, how that translates into dividing lines is not always clear, if only because our science is limited. There's some discussion with Kevin surrounding the continuum of life. Vegans should (and do) have a mechanism for distinguishing cows from carrots. Similarly, meat-eaters should have some mechanism to distinguish humans they wish to grants from mammals who do not; indeed, this is more pressing because we kill billions of animals a year. For gray areas, it probably makes sense to error on the side of safety.
If you must accuse me of silly crimes against the art of debating, at least bother to quote the posts you refer to. Otherwise this just looks like childish babble without any substance to it.
I thought it was clear since you cried about it later on this same posting:
Why do you keep doing the suffering pain thing? Do you enjoy insulting me? Does it make you feel smarter, or just all warm and fuzzy inside?
Ah, so now the reason I should be vegan isn't the fact that I kill animals, but the "fact" that "abuse is inescapable"? Well, if you want to shift the argument there, fine, but that means accepting the killing itself is okay. Otherwise, I can argue that it's far more likely we'll be able to make farms as humane as possible than stop meat-farming in it's entirety. At least we can imagine a way to reach my scenario, which is more than can be said of your world without cows.
You've almost got it. What you do not understand about the argument I'm making here is that I'm carrying your premises to their logical conclusion, so of course I'm granting the assumption that it's OK to kill animals. What matters is the unnecessary
suffering pain.
I do not think it's possible to eradicate meat-farming anymore than it's possible to eradicate homicide; somebody, somewhere will still do it. Making farming "as humane as possible" could mean at least a couple of things. Depending on however you wish to define "possible" I do not think "as humane as possible" can mean anything other than no farms.
I do not think most people are willing to give up animals on account of moral reasons. But if there were meat-alternatives grown in a lab, then that could be a game-changer. In any event, you should become a vegan to protest an industry where unnecessary pain occurs and will continue as long as people eat over some 200 pounds of meat a year.
On a million deaths as a statistic:
Which is, of course, a lie.
This is too glib. In all likelihood the person who uttered it intended his/her words as social commentary, not a moral position.
What are you saying? That we'll never be able to stop people from starving, and thus shouldn't care about it? Or that people simply don't care about starving people, and that is perfectly acceptable?
No, this section deals not with "ought" but "is" because your position critically depends upon on how people empathize. You seemed to have missed this point in subsequent comments (omitted here).
You're misunderstanding something about society here. A society doesn't "delight" or "want"; it's members do, but not usually the same things. What matters is not the desires of the society's members - from a moral point of view, not even the majority's desire - but what is best for the society (as in: promotes survival and well-being within the society more than other alternatives). Also, the society I refer to includes every single human being on the planet. There are no isolated societies with different rules. (Well, I guess there may still be some primitive tribes, but we can just leave them alone on their islands.)
You're exchanging a terrible argument for something worse. There's too much to unpack here, everything from "society" to "well-being" and it's of almost no interest to me. I will merely note this as yet another shift in positions, inconsistent with view you have espoused so far. But thanks for wasting my time with the Kantian B.S.
I can't think of a situation where torturing a convict would benefit the society in any way. Can you? If it's reasonable, I'll probably approve of it in that special case.
This makes your "babble" comment from earlier sting.
In the case of the meat industry, look at its public relations department, large even by the standards of big business.
Sure. But I don't see how the laws of market economy matter when discussing morals. Like I've said, it's not what individual members of the society want, but what is best for the society as a whole that matters in moral considerations.
In other words, it doesn't matter since you admit you were BSing all along with the Kant stuff.
Yes. If every human being on the planet believes animals are being treated humanely, then it doesn't really matter if there really is some animal torture going on. That would be fine, though obviously it's an impossible situation.
Surely you don't claim people in today's world don't know of the inhumane treatment of animals on many farms? Or that it would be possible to just hide this from everyone without changing the actual treatment? "Everyone" including all the farm workers, of course.
This is silly. According to the BS Kantian argument, the amount of abuse people perceive is what's morally important. So by that logic, it can -- and probably often is -- a better bet to trick people into believing abuses are not taking place than to actually reduce the number of abuses. But this is moot because that argument has been replaced by what's best for society, by which we mean all humans and mean "survival or well-being" -- which ever is more convenient at the moment.
Do you never get tired of putting words in my mouth? First of all, when did I ever say I care about "purity of motives"? The concept seems silly to me. Motives don't matter in moral questions; only the actual actions and what they're meant to accomplish.
You're clueless. Where did I say "purity of motives" matters to you? No, I was blocking escape routes, saying one could not resort to either motives or consequences. But of course you'd rather pretend to be a victim.
I did say unimplanted embryos aren't the same. These embryos would not develop into children on their own, and I seriously doubt the parents could have much emotional attachment to them at this point.
Yes, but it's perfectly reasonable to just assume "grieving" mothers and fathers when their implanted embryo dies on account of someone saving a five year-old.
Honestly, it seems to me you're kind of desperate in trying to find something in my posts to attack. Even if I did make a typo in an earlier post, it doesn't really prove you right. Heck, I could even change my opinions during the thread; I actually did, in part, after Cavemonster posted his theory. If you want to prove something, you'll have to do better than "Look! Here, in this post several pages ago, you said something that could be seen as kind of contradictory to what you're saying now, if taken out of context and looked at maliciously!"
It's only because your view of "suffering" has been so dishonest. So dishonest, in fact, that you could not keep up the charade. I do not keep a lot of goodwill for people who would have me believe something they do not.
Cain writes:
I don't buy it. Maybe that's uncharitable, but it seems like you're making this up as you go along, inventing reasons after the fact to protect those you arbitrarily want to protect. Morality, like rationality, strives for impartiality.
to which you "reply":
This about sums up our entire argument. You just don't believe there could be a coherent moral system that allowed eating animals but not babies. And lo! You indeed can't comprehend any such systems when they're presented to you.
This isn't even a comment on what I'm saying. Maybe there's a rational argument distinguishing babies from chimps, or some such argument distinguishing whites from blacks. I'm pretty sure I haven't heard them though. It's not as though I was born and raised vegan either; I once bought into speciesist assumptions about the world.
Well lah di daa. It's not like we've had this conversation before. Could it be that I've indeed agreed with this multiple times, then proceeded to mention I still grant those humans moral protection for other reasons? Nah, surely not, after all, I'm just as dumb omnivore.
Yes, and those reasons were found lacking. So... big deal.
Fair enough. So we can't be sure whether or not the comatose patient has an interest in living. Okay to kill or not?
Maybe you're assuming circumstances I am not. Did this guy lose all memory as a result of going into a coma, so his replacement identity never took experienced the world? In that case, then I suppose it doesn't matter, but I'm not sure how we could possibly have any clue until he came out of the coma. There are other problems about knowing whether or not he actually has permanent loss of all memories.
Just that you're assuming you know something about a subject, despite not having any experience. And this is a subject where uninformed opinions can be very hurtful to people who do have personal experiences.
Um, I do know a thing or two about miscarriage. On the advice of Professor Oswalt, I paid a skinhead fifty bucks to punch around a girl who claimed I was the father. I'll never do that again because if it had turned out I was the father, I would've had to swing the finances for a special-needs kid.
