Beauty and the Beast

[I Ratant]

Two views of the standard Coyote seen locally.
One beating feet as soon as any human is sighted.
The second.... Mama looking towards the den where the pups are, and after throughly scoping me out, resting just in case.
Both responses may be instinctual, but they're both the result of being aware of the conditions.

 

[applecorped]

Mom's apple pie?
NSFW - Infamous Album

http://sleevage.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/pie.jpg

On second thought, maybe cherry pie.

 

[This One Guy]

Your defense of free will is to say that we can choose between possible actions? This is not a defense, it's a restatement of your conclusion. This is no different than any other "defense" you've put forward.

We *are* working from the same definition of free will. I'm just saying you've not provided an argument for it yet.

Yes I have. We have subjective experience of choosing our actions, or at least I have. I assume you have too. You do purposefully make decisions, don't you? This is what I mean by free will - conscious choice. I don't know what else to tell you. If you don't think this is sufficient, fine. I'll have to live with that knowledge.
By the way, there's a thread in Religion and Philosophy called 'Is free will an illusion, yet necessary for ethics?' where other posters make similar arguments to me. Perhaps they're more convincing.

Please, give us one of the compelling reasons why you believe animals do not have free will. Here are some tips to keep us from going around in circles:

Saying that an animal acts on instinct is simply restating that it doesn't have free will.

Maybe - but I can't think of any examples of animal behaviour that can't be explained by instinct. I assume they don't have free will for the same reason I assume a kettle doesn't have free will: they don't act as if they do.

Saying that an animal doesn't subject their actions to inspection is a bare assertion of which you can have no possible knowledge.

I never said it was too hard. I said it's in principle impossible to know whether an entity has free will, and so it's a bankrupt morality that's based on this condition.

This depends what conditions you're putting on knowledge. If you're looking for knowledge of the 100% irrefutable kind, I'm afraid I'm going to have to refer you to Descartes and Hume (there's subjectively no difference between the real world and an illusion, but we don't lend credence to the idea that everything's an illusion). I've given reasons why we might think that something has free will.

By your moral reasoning, if someone *in good faith* believes that Jews are subhuman and therefore have no free will, then it's okay for that person to burn them, right?

If this was true, yeah, it would be a tragic mistake. One which could be stopped by pointing out that jews are human beings.

Yeah, I guess it just sucked to be a Jew during WWII, what with the wrong judgments of the Nazis and all... Oh well, better luck next time, right?

Yeah, because the Nazis thought the Jews had no free will. Except they did sort of blame them for the state of the world.

Get over yourself.

I shan't.

My edit didn't destroy what you originally wrote, and only a complete moron would be unable to see exactly what I changed and how.

I did see exactly what you changed and how. I thought it was rude. You didn't argue that it was impossible to identify free will, you just alleged it, and then added a chirpy little, 'Fixed it for you.'

In any case, it's laughable to me that someone who thinks it's not immoral to torture puppies would presume to give me lessons in manners.

I've already been over this: I'm not a callous monster. I don't like the idea of people torturing puppies. I just don't think it's a moral issue. I certainly don't think it should be a legal issue.

I think your morality may be taking you places you really don't want to go, but you're just too proud to admit that you might be mistaken. At least, I really hope that's the case.

No - 'they have a right not to be stopped from torturing animals' has been my position all along. I might not have said, and you'll forgive if I didn't, but I don't believe in animal rights. See, thing is, I disagree with you.

This all assumes an absolutist morality, where what's wrong for humans is wrong for animals, and for the same reasons. It also assumes that agency is an all-or-nothing proposition. Lots of legal systems recognize that there are degrees of agency, such as children not being tried as adults.

My point was that the very idea of 'wrong for animals' seems absurd. Is there anything an animal can do that would lead you to saying it had behaved immorally? Many legal systems have laws against bestiality too. If I was taking legal systems as the authority for my argument, I'd believe something different. As it happens, I too think there are degrees of agency - I just don't think there's evidence of animals having any agency at all.

In any event, my view is that an animal's right to not be tortured has nothing to do with free will. So you don't advance your position at all by pursuing this point.

Okay. Should I ask why you do believe that animals have a right not to be tortured, or will this devolve into me simply saying 'no' and you simply saying 'yes'? What the hell - I'll ask. Why do you think animals have a right not to be tortured? Also, do you think that animals also have a right not to be killed for food? What about foie gras? Yay or nay? Hunting for sport?

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Your defense of free will is to say that we can choose between possible actions? This is not a defense, it's a restatement of your conclusion. This is no different than any other "defense" you've put forward.

We *are* working from the same definition of free will. I'm just saying you've not provided an argument for it yet.

Please, give us one of the compelling reasons why you believe animals do not have free will. Here are some tips to keep us from going around in circles:

Saying that an animal acts on instinct is simply restating that it doesn't have free will.

Saying that an animal doesn't subject their actions to inspection is a bare assertion of which you can have no possible knowledge.



I never said it was too hard. I said it's in principle impossible to know whether an entity has free will, and so it's a bankrupt morality that's based on this condition.

By your moral reasoning, if someone *in good faith* believes that Jews are subhuman and therefore have no free will, then it's okay for that person to burn them, right?



Yeah, I guess it just sucked to be a Jew during WWII, what with the wrong judgments of the Nazis and all... Oh well, better luck next time, right?



Get over yourself. My edit didn't destroy what you originally wrote, and only a complete moron would be unable to see exactly what I changed and how.

In any case, it's laughable to me that someone who thinks it's not immoral to torture puppies would presume to give me lessons in manners.



I think your morality may be taking you places you really don't want to go, but you're just too proud to admit that you might be mistaken. At least, I really hope that's the case.



This all assumes an absolutist morality, where what's wrong for humans is wrong for animals, and for the same reasons. It also assumes that agency is an all-or-nothing proposition. Lots of legal systems recognize that there are degrees of agency, such as children not being tried as adults.

In any event, my view is that an animal's right to not be tortured has nothing to do with free will. So you don't advance your position at all by pursuing this point.

Philosaur, he's messing with you. He's not being serious. He's just a troll. No one who isn't a sociopath is going to promote puppy torture and actually say it's WRONG to try and prevent puppy torture, and a sociopath isn't going to act like he has the high moral ground in making that statement.

He's just some bored guy who gets his kicks by messing with people online. At first I thought he was serious, but he's not.

Don't feed the trolls.

 

[Two Toed Sloth]

Philosaur, he's messing with you. He's not being serious. He's just a troll. No one who isn't a sociopath is going to promote puppy torture and actually say it's WRONG to try and prevent puppy torture, and a sociopath isn't going to act like he has the high moral ground in making that statement.

He's just some bored guy who gets his kicks by messing with people online.

Don't feed the trolls.

Wow for a forum which is supposed to pride itself on open debate and rational arguments there seems to be an abundance of ad hominem.

The guy is just putting forward an argument, as he said calling troll is just a convenient way of discrediting it. If you do not wish to debate the I wonder why you are posting here, If you do wish to debate then attack the argument not the arguer.

 

[This One Guy]

To Philosaur's credit, he has been attacking the argument.

 

[I Ratant]

Both you guys are protesting too much.

 

[This One Guy]

Both you guys are protesting too much.

Not sure what you mean by this? Which two guys? Two-toed sloth and myself? So what you're saying is that when somebody tries to have a debate and is dismissed as a troll, his claiming that he's not a troll is only further evidence of his trollishness? It seems that if those were the rules of debate, only the least scrupulous could ever come out on top.

 

[Schrodinger's Cat]

Wow for a forum which is supposed to pride itself on open debate and rational arguments there seems to be an abundance of ad hominem.

The guy is just putting forward an argument, as he said calling troll is just a convenient way of discrediting it. If you do not wish to debate the I wonder why you are posting here, If you do wish to debate then attack the argument not the arguer.

Dude, in 99.9999% of situations I would agree with you.

But come on, you honestly expect me to believe that this guy honestly thinks that if I'm walking down the street, and I see a little kid screaming and crying, and I run over, and that kid's dad is about to light the kid's dog on fire and burn it alive in front of him, and I try to STOP the dad...


...that I'm dong something immoral?

No, I don't buy it.

And he's not debating. He's posting the exact same information over and over and over again "free will can be measured" "morals are absolute" and "free will is the only thing that matters in determining whether abuse is wrong." The rest of us have taken apart these arguments one by one, and he just keeps repeating them. It's not like I can't hold my own with this guy. He just keeps rephrasing the same thing, and I feel like he's been pretty thoroughly debunked at this time.

I absolutely do not believe someone actually would say I would be morally wrong to prevent a puppy from being tortured. Come on, do you REALLY think he thinks that? That's like, comic book villain evil.

I agree ad hominem attacks are wrong. So I want to make it very clear, I do not think him being a troll is what makes his arguments unsound. I think that has nothing to do with the arguments he presented. I just feel those arguments were debunked, separately (i.e. his points about morals, free will, etc).

I am specifically speaking about his statements regarding animal torture. That is what I do not believe are true. That is what I don't believe, that very specific thing. I just don't buy that he really thinks that. That is the aspect of his posts I think are trolling. I think they are designed just to create an emotional response.

 

[This One Guy]

Dude, in 99.9999% of situations I would agree with you.

But come on, you honestly expect me to believe that this guy honestly thinks that if I'm walking down the street, and I see a little kid screaming and crying, and I run over, and that kid's dad is about to light the kid's dog on fire and burn it alive in front of him, and I try to STOP the dad...


...that I'm a bad person?

Right, but this isn't just true for animals. If a kid is screaming and crying because his dad's going to smash his CD player, you might feel similarly. This is about how parents are obligated to treat their children - clearly differently to how people should treat each other in general. And notice, while you were arguing in favour of animal rights earlier, now the evil is derived from the fact that a child's crying. Well, which is it? Is it bad to burn the dog because of the dog's rights, or because it upsets the child?

No, I don't buy it.

I don't need you to.

And he's not debating. He's posting the exact same information over and over and over again "free will can be measured" "morals are absolute" and "free will is the only thing that matters in determining whether abuse is wrong." The rest of us have taken apart these arguments one by one, and he just keeps repeating them. It's not like I can't hold my own with this guy. He just keeps rephrasing the same thing, and I feel like he's been pretty thoroughly debunked at this time. He's just not debating, he's a broken record, and he keeps just saying things that are increasingly repugnant. He's just trying to get a reaction.

I have been repeating myself, yes, but that's because I don't think my arguments have been debunked. I think you have failed to debunk them. I do believe that free will can in principle be detected, yes, because the kinds of systems that allow free will can be identified. It was Philosaur who claimed it could not, in principle, be measured, and provided no argument to support that belief. I at no point claimed that morality was absolute, I simply debunked the claim that it was determined by society, since, and for christ's sake you still haven't answered to this thought experiment, I would still think it wrong to burn a man alive even if everyone else in the world wanted it to happen. There I go again, repeating myself, but since nobody cares to provide an answer, and since it's an important point, I don't have much choice. Yes I think that free will is the only thing that matters, and I've asked both you an Philosaur again and again to explain why you think suffering is wrong - the only response I've had so far is that the buddhists think it's axiomatic. You can feel I've been as thoroughly debunked as you damn well please: I remain unsatisfied. There is one more thing of course, that you all seem to have forgotten about: even if I'm wrong and causing animals suffering is evil, it has yet to be demonstrated that bestiality causes animals suffering. They do, after all, have sex within their own species. You don't have to tear a brand new hole to make it work.

I absolutely do not believe someone actually would say I would be morally wrong to prevent a puppy from being tortured. Come on, do you REALLY think he thinks that? That's like, comic book villain evil.

Look, do you think it morally acceptable to physically restrain hunters? Is it okay to tear the gun out of their hands? If not, it's just a couple of degrees from here. And you have yet to explain why you think it is that animals have rights. And the only reason I say what I say is because I can tell the difference between when I'm grossed out by something and when I think it's morally wrong. If someone's torturing a puppy, I will refuse to speak to them. If they're burning a penguin, I will not use their business. If they're screwing a rhino, I swear to Woody Allen and Mark Twain, I will not invite them round for dinner. I don't like it either. I don't feel good about sending people to jail just for doing something I don't like.

I agree ad hominem attacks are wrong. So I want to make it very clear, I do not think him being a troll is what makes his arguments unsound. I think that has nothing to do with the arguments he presented. I just feel those arguments were debunked, separately (i.e. his points about morals, free will, etc).

Not so.

I am specifically speaking about his statements regarding animal torture. That is what I do not believe are true. I just don't buy that he really thinks that. That is the aspect of his posts I think are trolling. I think they are designed just to create an emotional response.

I'm glad you can read my mind. It's always enlightening in a debate when one side can say, 'Not only do I not believe it, you don't believe it either.'

 

[Lithrael]

If a kid is screaming and crying because his dad's going to smash his CD player, you might feel similarly.

Dude, no. Just no. An order of magnitude no. I might think a dad breaking his kid's toy just for fun was a jerk. I would think a dad breaking his kid's puppy just for fun was an evil SOB who was completely unfit for parenting. At the very least I would be calling the cops and suggesting to child protection services that the kid should be removed from the guy's influence.

I'll be bowing out of this one now though because I honestly cannot believe you are not trolling.

 

[Philosaur]

You do purposefully make decisions, don't you?

Yes. And from the behavior I see animals exhibit, I conclude they purposefully make decisions, too.

This is what I mean by free will - conscious choice. I don't know what else to tell you. If you don't think this is sufficient, fine. I'll have to live with that knowledge.

Maybe - but I can't think of any examples of animal behaviour that can't be explained by instinct. I assume they don't have free will for the same reason I assume a kettle doesn't have free will: they don't act as if they do.

Let me rephrase my problem with your morality: if your subjective judgment of who or what has free will is wrong, then whenever you kick the dog, you are being immoral.

You say that the fact that you just happened to misjudge acts like a get-out-of-jail-free card that excuses your immorality. Sorry, that doesn't cut it. That lets the Nazis off the hook, which is by almost any definition of morality, perverse. If you want to just go ahead and say you are using a very non-standard definition of morality, then go right ahead.

This depends what conditions you're putting on knowledge. If you're looking for knowledge of the 100% irrefutable kind, I'm afraid I'm going to have to refer you to Descartes and Hume (there's subjectively no difference between the real world and an illusion, but we don't lend credence to the idea that everything's an illusion).

My point has never been that we can't know for certainty, therefore make no moral decisions.

I've given reasons why we might think that something has free will.

No, you haven't. You've merely said that if something acts like it has free will, then we should treat it like it has free will. Do you not see the circularity here? We're asking for what a thing with free will acts like, and you're telling us it acts like a thing with free will. Then when we say that animals act like they have free will, you counter with the bare assertion that animals don't have free will.

If this was true, yeah, it would be a tragic mistake. One which could be stopped by pointing out that jews are human beings.

*facepalm!*
If only someone had thought to point out to the Nazis that Jews are people too, none of it would have happened! Where were you during World War II?

I invite you to tell a Jewish person anywhere that the holocaust was a tragic mistake, but not morally wrong.

I've already been over this: I'm not a callous monster. I don't like the idea of people torturing puppies. I just don't think it's a moral issue. I certainly don't think it should be a legal issue.

I'm sorry, but your protestations just don't ring true. Calling animal torture distasteful but morally neutral sounds pretty monstrous to me. But maybe you're using a different definition of "monster"...

No - 'they have a right not to be stopped from torturing animals' has been my position all along. I might not have said, and you'll forgive if I didn't, but I don't believe in animal rights. See, thing is, I disagree with you.

Why are you mincing words? "they have a right not to be stopped from torturing animals" is equivalent to "they have a right to torture animals".

Sort of like "Three million Jews were not murdered during the Holocaust" is a logical implication of your position. Congratulations! You are well on your way to being a Holocaust denier!

Okay. Should I ask why you do believe that animals have a right not to be tortured, or will this devolve into me simply saying 'no' and you simply saying 'yes'? What the hell - I'll ask. Why do you think animals have a right not to be tortured? Also, do you think that animals also have a right not to be killed for food? What about foie gras? Yay or nay? Hunting for sport?

I think it's wrong to inflict unnecessary suffering. The idea derives from my knowledge of what pain feels like. The corollary is that I think it's right to minimize suffering.

What's funny is that I might forget my morality were I to see someone torturing a puppy. I think I would inflict obscene amounts of GBH on the puppy torturer. Guess that's just the irrational human in me coming out.

 

[I Ratant]

Yes. And from the behavior I see animals exhibit, I conclude they purposefully make decisions, too.

.
I spend a lot of time out in the desert observing animal behavior, and a lot of it does include choices. Even in the simpler reptiles, their behavior is not predictable in any encounter.
They are aware of their surroundings and choose how to respond to my presence.
.

 

[Two Toed Sloth]

Dude, in 99.9999% of situations I would agree with you.

I like those odds

But come on, you honestly expect me to believe that this guy honestly thinks that if I'm walking down the street, and I see a little kid screaming and crying, and I run over, and that kid's dad is about to light the kid's dog on fire and burn it alive in front of him, and I try to STOP the dad...


...that I'm dong something immoral?

No, I don't buy it.

I absolutely do not believe someone actually would say I would be morally wrong to prevent a puppy from being tortured. Come on, do you REALLY think he thinks that? That's like, comic book villain evil.

I am specifically speaking about his statements regarding animal torture. That is what I do not believe are true. That is what I don't believe, that very specific thing. I just don't buy that he really thinks that. That is the aspect of his posts I think are trolling. I think they are designed just to create an emotional response.

Hmm these seem distinctly similar to arguments from incredulity, no? You can't imagine him thinking this therefore it is not worth continuing the argument ("don't feed trolls")?

As to him repeating his argument, one must assume that he is not yet convinced by yours. You may feel you have no more to say on the matter but I don't see why you feel the need to come back and dissuade others from continuing.

 

[Philosaur]

It was late when I posted last. Here's some clarification:

My point has never been that we can't know for with certainty, therefore make no moral decisions.

Sort of like "Three Six million Jews were not murdered during the Holocaust" is a logical implication of your position. Congratulations! You are well on your way to being a Holocaust denier!

What's funny is that I might forget my morality were I to see someone torturing a puppy. I think I would inflict obscene amounts of GBH Grievous Bodily Harm [not the date-rape drug GHB] on the puppy torturer. Guess that's just the irrational human in me coming out.