Hi Wolfman,
First, thank you for your politeness in responding to what a lot of people would consider a microminority and even a fringe view, I really appreciate it
.
Wolfman said:
First, Desi uses something of a straw man argument, with the statement that, "if I make an argument that animals have no rights because they aren't rational moral agents, I must concede that mentally similar humans are no more advantaged." Yet I would never argue that one's mental state or rationality are the determining factor in how people or animals should be treated. The level of intelligence, their ability to reason, their ability to make choices...I do not consider any of these to be reasons "why humans should be more advantaged"; and thus, the comparison to animals is entirely moot.
You certainly do, and I'm willing to be you make these distinctions everyday. See
here:
Dessi said:
Every single important moral characteristic that makes a person's life valuable is tied directly to some mental level, like a capacity to feel pain, pleasure, have wants, expectations, make moral decisions, and so on. The only way reason we can even have a coherent conversation about morality in the first place is because people want or avoid certain things, they can prefer some experiences and outcomes over others. Without references to a person's preferences to avoid pain, there's no possible way to make a moral distinction between performing surgery on an unanesthetized person vs an anesthetized person; if a person has no such preference to avoid pain, which would be the case if they're a corpse, then their really isn't a moral distinction.
You can see the distinction between sawing open a living person and a corpse, you can see a distinction between adults having sexual relationships with other adults and children, you can see the distinction between shooting spitballs at a person and using a blowtorch on them, you can see the distinction between a 3 week old embryo and a fully rational human. If you're a parent, you're already very much aware that children lack the rationality and capacity to care for themselves, so there's an argument for paternalistic care of them which generally does not apply to rational, able-bodied adults.
The only possible frame of reference to make these distinctions is by reference to some difference in a person's mental level, capacities, abilities, rationality, or intensity of experiences.
Desi will call me "chauvinist" for this, I know...but humans are valuable to other humans for the simple reason that they are human. This is a biologically determined imperative which is, in fact, absolutely necessary for the survival of our species. Likewise, a great many animals (who do not share our capacity for moral distinctions or rational thought) will value other animals of their own species...because that is what they are biologically programmed to do. Mother ducks protect their babies because evolution has taught them to; it has likewise taught them to raise an alarm and warn other ducks (even those who are not immediate family) because evolution favors that reaction.
I find this ethic alarming for two reasons:
1) Moral imperatives derived from evolution are false, because
evolution not a noramative moral theory. Even if it were, its certainly not a human rights moral theory, since its
wholly consistent with evolution to compete with members of your own species. We are equally justified by evolution cooperating with our own neighbors as we are enslaving him and harvesting his property and organs for our own use. On a grander scale, slavery and ethnic nationalism can be defended by the very same "biologically determined imperatives" to maximize the survival of ourselves and immediate population. Of course, no one takes those arguments for social darwinism seriously because
because evolution is not a moral theory -- its descriptive, not prescriptive.
2) The statement that we value humans
because their humans depends on the unjustified premise that species membership is a morally relevant characteristic. Bernard Rollin can explain better than I do,
p 496:
Bernard Rollin said:
Although different philosophers have approached the issue from different philosophical traditions and viewpoints, it is possible to finnd a common thread in their arguments questioning the moral acceptability of invasive animal use. Drawing succor from society’s tendency during the past 50 years to question the exclusion of disenfranchised humans such as women and minorities from the scope of moral concern, and the correlative lack of full protection of their interests, these philosophers applied a similar logic to the treatment of animals. In the firrst place, there appears to be no morally relevant difference between humans and at least vertebrate animals, which allows us to include all humans within the full scope of moral concern and yet deny such moral status to the animals. A morally relevant difference between two beings is a difference that rationally justifies treating them differently in some way that bears moral weight. If two of my students have the same grades on exams and papers, and have identical attendance and class participation, I am morally obliged to give them the same ?nal grade. That one is blue-eyed and the other is brown-eyed may be a difference between them, but it is not morally relevant to grading them.
Philosophers have shown that the standard reasons offered to exclude animals from the moral circle, and to justify not assessing our treatment of them by the same moral categories and machinery we use for assessing the treatment of humans, do not meet the test of moral relevance. Such historically sancti?ed reasons as “animals lack a soul,”“animals do not reason,” “humans are more powerful than animals,” “animals do not have language,” “God said we could do as we wish to animals” have been demonstrated to provide no rational basis for failing to reckon with animal interests in our moral deliberations. For one thing, while the above statements may mark differences between humans and animals, they do not mark morally relevant differences that justify harming animals when we would not similarly harm people. For example, if we justify harming animals on the grounds that we are more powerful than they are,we are essentially affirming “might makes right,” a principle that morality is in large measure created to overcome. By the same token, if we are permitted to harm animals for our bene?t because they lack reason, there are no grounds for not extending thesame logic to non-rational humans, as we shall shortly see. And while animals maynot have the same interests as people, it is evident to commonsense that they certainly do have interests, the fulfillment and thwarting of which matter to them.
The point here is that we can make a distinction between animals and humans, that they belong to different species, but its not exactly obvious that its a morally relevant distinction. More to the point, I think its notoriously difficult to make an argument that it
is without simultaneously justifying moral distinctions drawn on race, gender, intelligence, age, height, or any other characteristic real or imagined. See
here:
Dessi said:
I take it that the statement "race is a social construct" is intended to undermine "scientific racism". In other words, if race is demonstrably a social construct, then there is no justification for the racists
essentialist view that that the races are fundamentally different from each other.
I can see why people would make the statement, I just don't think its the best argument against racism. For what its worth, in the animal rights community, there's a popular essay titled
Species is a Social Construction which makes the same argument, only generalized to species as well. I don't agree with the title of the essay, but I agree substantially with the arguments made in it (please excuse the lengthy excerpt, it's necessary for context):
[T]he philosopher Carl Cohen writes:
We incorporate the different moral standing of different species into our overall moral views; we think it reasonable to put earthworms on fishhooks but not cats; we think it reasonable to eat the flesh of cows but not the flesh of humans. The realization of the sharply different moral standing of different species we internalize… In the conduct of our day to day lives, we are constantly making decisions and acting on these moral differences among species. When we think clearly and judge fairly, we are all speciesists, of course. (Cohen, 62)
I would first note that Cohen is using the term "speciesist" incorrectly, since he is talking not about the importance of "species" but about the importance of qualities that are correlated with our perceptions of species. His argument is therefore irrelevant because it ignores Singer’s point that individuals of different species (and individuals of the same species) should be treated differently insofar as they have morally relevant differences- just as men have no right to an affordable mammogram and wealthy white men have no right to the benefits of affirmative action. But what I really want to draw attention to is the question, what does Cohen mean by "species"? One might think that it would be giving Cohen the benefit of the doubt to just name one, preferably one that is accepted by many experts. Let's suppose, for instance, he is talking about Mayr’s biological species concept, which defines a species as a group of individuals capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. But surely Cohen does not believe that when we "are constantly making decisions and acting on these moral differences among species,” we are making our decisions based upon matters of who is capable of breeding with whom. For, not only do we not need to know any information about the mating capabilities of these animals to make moral distinctions between them; most of us wouldn’t even know what to do with this kind of information if we had it!
So perhaps Cohen means a "commonsense" concept of species. That is, what is morally relevant are the distinctions that we are all capable of making simply by looking, with no scientific or philosophical training. What is morally relevant, in other words, is appearance. Yet I doubt that when Cohen wrote this passage he had appearance in mind as a morally relevant characteristic. For Cohen, unlike Darwin, the difference between humans and other animals is not merely one of degree, but one of kind. It is difficult to imagine how Cohen might hold this essential difference of kind to be based upon appearance. More likely, he would probably claim that we make distinctions between species based upon appearance, but it is not the appearance that is morally relevant but something else that is inevitably correlated with appearance. For instance, we distinguish between worms and cats based upon how they look, but the morally important distinction is ‘something else’ that is correlated by appearance.
But unless someone can tell us what this ‘something else’ is, it is only prudent to assume that it is a "vivid illusion,” as biologists Frank Keil and Daniel Richardson argue in "Species, Stuff, and Patterns of Causation" (Keil and Richardson in Species, 273). And remember, this ‘something else’ cannot be intelligence, self-awareness, language, or capacity for suffering, because then those properties would be the morally relevant characteristics- but no one argues that they are equivalent to "species.” This ‘something else’ must simultaneously satisfy at least two conditions, which I believe is impossible. First, it must correspond with what we really mean when we talk about species, and second, it must at least be plausible that it is really the basis of our moral distinctions between supposed species. Mayr’s biological species concept and species concepts based on genes or DNA, for instance, do not satisfy the second condition. And properties like rationality and language do not satisfy the first condition.
In other words, my main reason for saying that species is socially constructed is that we often unconsciously argue as if species has an essence; as if there is something about species in the background that can not be described, but which can simultaneously satisfy both the first and second condition. Given the basis of any species concept, few would argue that that basis is morally relevant in any significant way. Given the basis of Mayr’s biological species concept, few would argue that whom we have the ability to mate with is a relevant characteristic for determining how much moral consideration we should be granted (Lewis Petrinovich may be an exception, though his work is not altogether clear on the matter). Given the major basis of commonsense notions of species, few would argue that how we look should determine how much moral consideration we should be granted. Why, then, do some philosophers hold that our species can determine how much moral consideration we should be granted? I believe it is because they do not equate species with any biological or commonsense way of determining species. Rather, they are probably committing Washoe’s fallacy, thinking of species membership as some essential characteristic of an individual that, in reality, does not exist.
When people say race -- or species -- is a social construction, what they really mean is that race is not a morally relevant characteristic, knowing a person's race does not communicate any information about whether that person deserves food, shelter, or to be free from harm. Whatever properties determine a person's moral worth, like their capacity to feel pain and pleasure, rationality, morally reciprocating, are, by definition, the morally relevant characteristics we care about, and none of those characteristics are equivalent to race at all.
I don't think its necessary to deny that race really is a characteristic of human populations. The line of thought above is more than adequate to totally undermine any rational argument for racism (or speciesism).
(Mumblethrax made the same point in a lot less words.)
You can say that a capacity to feel pain and pleasure is a morally relevant characteristic, because I'm harmed when I'm in pain and generally benefit when I'm happy, this capacity allows me to rationally prefer some outcomes to others. You can say a capacity to enjoy software develop is morally relevant, since depriving me of writing software harms me and allow me to pursue it generally benefits, so this capacity allows me to rationally prefer some outcomes to others. You might say that an interest in my continued existence is morally relevant, since depriving me of my existence harms me and respecting my continued existence is a benefit, so this capacity allows me to rationally prefer some outcomes over others.
Species membership, on the other hand, seems irrelevant. By the capacity of being humans, I'm harmed by being deprived of... what? I benefit by pursuing... what? In what way does my species membership communicate the ways I can be helped or harmed? It doesn't. I suppose you could say certain capacities, like being rational or feeling pain, correlate with different species, but then the morally relevant characteristics are rationality and capacity to feel pain, not necessarily species membership.
This is a huge problem -- its not clear how or why species membership is relevant in the first place, it doesn't tell us much of anything to make a moral decision by. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, species membership is totally irrelevant. As a startling consequence, I'd go even further and say that human life has
no intrinsic value, a person's species membership has no relevance whatsoever. And no, life, in and of itself, is not relevant either, see
here:
Dessi said:
Ethical vegans will almost universally acknowledge that life, in and of itself, isn't valuable. Its not biological life that matters, but biographical life and life which has an experiential welfare -- like the capacity to feel pain, pleasure, satisfaction, suffering, see one's self over time, have wants, expectations, and so on.
Plants, salmonella, ants, AI opponents in video games and such have no mental life. In what way is something harmed if it has no experiences whatsoever? How do you make an argument that being killed or staying alive is in an organisms best interests if it cannot, even in principle, prefer one outcome or the other? What moral characteristics do they have at all? Name just one which makes them comparable to an organism with experiential welfare.
This is not a controversial point of view. I'm quite certain that you support abortion up to a certain point, likely support non-voluntary euthanasia for people in a permanent vegetative state -- you might have your talking point reasons in debates, but if you're anything like me, you've probably wondered what moral characteristics early term fetuses or vegetative humans even have, how do you even harm something without a mental life in principle?
Human life is not an exception. If human life matters, we need to state the
reasons why it matter, a task which requires some reference to whatever morally relevant characteristics they have. In the case of humans, they have a capacity to feel pain, pleasure, satisfaction, suffering, have some level of rationality, make moral decisions, and have many other characteristics which are tied to their mental level. Certainly you can understand that these capacities are not unique to humans, many non-human animals have them as well, so we have no reason not to take them into consideration in our moral decisions.
Allow me to take Desi's argument to a logical extreme. There's a serial rapist, who's been caught, and confessed to his crimes. Should we argue that the question of "how we treat him" should be based on how rational he is?!? That depriving him of his freedom and rights means that we must likewise consider the freedoms and rights of every other human with an equal level of rational thinking to be worthless?
Somewhat odd example. Almost every court in the world considers a person's rationality at the time they commit a crime. In the US, we call it the doctrine of
mens rea, or "guilty mind". This distinction is one of the reasons why crimes of passion and accidental injury are prosecuted much less harshly than crimes involving premeditation.
With that said, I think there are a very good utilitarian reasons for confining a person who a public danger, are very good arguments Kantian arguments why a person who knows what they're doing and whose actions affect the outcome of some event bears the weight of praise of blame, and very good social contract reasons why a person who voluntarily infringes on the rights of another voluntarily forfeits his own. No matter what perspective, it seems that the arguments for confining people who public danger generally do not carry over to law-abiding citizens. A consequence, you might say freedom is a
contingent right, not an
inherent right.
Fundamentally, the purpose of humanity is to survive, and to propagate. This is not something that I've decided as a "human chauvinist"...it is something that is a basic biological fact. It is the very reason why I exist, and why Desi exists. Lacking that biological imperative, not I, nor Desi, nor any other human being would even be here today to engage in such debates. Now, there are certainly goals and values beyond mere survival and propagation -- and those goals and values are largely what separate us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
See discussion on evolution above. You have no such biological imperative to procreate. "Biological imperatives" as a general matter do not exist. Evolution is descriptive, not prescriptive, it has nothing at all to do with the way people ought to make ethical decisions.
To again take Desi's argument to a logical (if ludicrous) extreme, let's say that I see an earthworm, wriggling on the sidewalk after a rain storm. If left where it is, it will drown. It is able to sense a stimulus (the rain water), which is more than a human in a coma can do; it is able to take action in response to that stimulus (to try to escape the water), which is more than a human in an coma can do; it is able to move about under its own power (which is more than a human in a coma can do)...
...by Desi's argument, if I simply fail to pick up that earthworm and move it to safety...if I knowingly leave it where I know that in all probability it will die...then I must conclude that treating all humans of equal or lower functioning levels to that earthworm likewise deserve to be treated the same way; that ignoring that earthworm is equivalent to ignoring any human in a similar situation.
Which, at least to me, is not only fundamentally ridiculous, but also impossible to act on in any practical manner whatsoever.
Perhaps then we can only be faulted for behaving in ways which are in our control. For example, you may value human life, but I won't necessarily fault you for failing to control the movement of the earths crust in spite of the fact that earthquakes and tsunamis kill 1000s of people a year. Perhaps picking up every earthworm falls into this category, perhaps failing to police every ecosystem in the billions of square km of land and trillions of cubic liters of water to eliminate predation falls into that category too.
On the other hand, you can be faulted for behaving in ways which you are in control. For example, hunting, or a non-vegan diet, any number of other behaviors which consciously harm to non-human animals in ways that otherwise could have been avoided.
That's the logical implication of the principle you have above: minimize the harm you cause in the ways which are easy and practical for you to do so. This is
the principle that every animal rights activist on the planet uses to argue for a veganism. Seems you've already justified animals rights, you already hold the requisite principles for it, you just didn't know it.
