Vegetarianism, carnivorism and morality.

[AmateurScientist]

I do not think I'm God, I think I'm a reasonable human being, and you are not.

For example, you agreed with the Marquis' statement, which I will restate here so that it is true and makes more sense:

"Among humans, taste preferences are held by a vast majority, one of which is a taste for meat. Therefore, when constructing a diet to appeal to the the taste preferences of the vast majority, it is reasonable to acknowledge the taste for meat."

Do you understand what is being said here? It means "Most humans like the taste of meat." Did you not notice where I volunteered this in my argument? And explained why taste preferences are a relatively minor interest in relation to animal cruelty? You are very busily occupying yourself trying to prove things I have already admitted as true, as if this will somehow help you.

Dude, get a clue. Marquis was mocking your universality justification.

I was applauding his mocking you and joining in. Please do continue to go about shouting your Vegan Commandments from the mountaintop.

I'll keep breaking them, quite happily, and looking forward to going to my meat eating hell.

It's actually fun watching you spout self-important, pompous, intellectually masturbatory nonsense, just like Win used to do. I kinda miss him. You're the new Win. Congratulations.

AS

 

[mumblethrax]

Dude, get a clue. Marquis was mocking your universality justification.

Do you think I don't realize that, brah? But for his statement to make sense, and not be fallacious, it can apply only to taste preferences. If your taste preferences are your only motivator, you are saying that you are a moral nihilist. Do you know what this means? Do you know why most people do not consider this (metaethically) a good thing? It is the very definition of 'evil'.

I am not shouting commandments. I am pointing out that you are, exactly as Cain said you are, morally stunted. You are playing into precisely the argument theists make when they say that atheists cannot be moral.

Or you are desperately trying to rationalize your behavior, and throwing reason to the wind in the process. Please don't do that, you're better than that.

Here's an idea: think about why I consider Tricky's position reasonable, and yours completely unreasonable.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Exactly, but then you're likely to be condescended to and told that you're committing the naturalistic fallacy again, just like I keep doing.

You know, it should be a clue that you are on the wrong intellectual track when you keep using an argument which is a canonical fallacy, despite the fact you know it is a fallacy. Now either just about everyone who ever studied logic is wrong and you are right, or you are wrong. I really think you need to examine again that second possibility.

The bottom line is that what is in nature is absolutely no guide to what ought to be, morally. Any time you catch yourself arguing that X is "natural" and therefore morally right, you have just caught yourself being wrong. If you continue wallowing in the wrongness even after you have realised that you are wrong, well, maybe some condescension might be called for.

Now I love a nice big steak. There are cows on the property where I live that, in time, will be nice big steaks themselves. I am by no stretch of the imagination a vegetarian and I never have been. If your conclusion is that under some circumstances it is morally tolerable to tuck into a nice big steak, I agree with your conclusion. I am here to tell you, however, that the argument you use to get to that conclusion is stupid.

See, Marquis, mere mortal posters like you and me commit fallacies. This mumble fellow is of a higher order. He speaks universal truths. He's God, actually, or Moses.

This whining is unbecoming. Mumble is not God or Moses, he is simply articulating argumentative truths that make you angry and uncomfortable. Because you know he is right, you are reduced to moaning that Mumble is being mean to you by being too uncompromising in pointing this out.

Tough. It's a skeptic's board, and if you are not prepared to have dumb arguments robustly criticised when they deserve it you are very much in the wrong place.

Marquis doesn't quite get it either, but at least he's funny. He's right about rabbits in the combine harvester too - there is no such thing as cruelty-free food, at least not in quantities sufficient to feed humanity.

 

[Tricky]

That's not true at all. There have always been cultures that engaged in vegetarianism, or at least questioned the morality of eating meat. Benjamin Franklin was a vegetarian for a time (and then stopped, with a good deal of good-humored self-parody of the convenience of his reasoning, when he reasoned that fish eat other fish, and so would he).

There may have been a few. I know some parts of India are primarily vegetarian, but I would not say that it was widespread. Certainly the idea that animals have equal rights to humans is not one that seems to appear much in history. But I could be wrong. Got any references?

How long was Franklin a vegetarian?

"Enlightened self-interest" is either altruism or nonsense. It is obviously untrue that it is in your interest to accept altruism in the name of self-preservation; the best strategy in that situation is to pretend to adopt the golden rule, rule deceptively going about your nefarious egoistic business.

Completely wrong. In "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, it argues very convincingly that altruism is often a successful survival strategy. A general tendency to be protective of my gene pool is a good idea, wouldn't you say? So much so that it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that natural selection favors those who are capable of altruism towards their own species. Certainly we see protective instincts in many animals.

The only way it can be in your self-interest to consider the interests of others is to acknowledge that altruism makes you feel like a good person. Which is just another way of saying "We are altruistic."

No, it is more than just lip service. It has value to the species.

You are getting at the critical question here: it is not species but concrete moral properties which must govern who we deem worthy of consideration. A zygote is a member of my species; I care not for a zygote.

Morality has arisen to protect the species. Why do you think the motherhood instinct is so strong? Any while you might not care about an individual zygote, you would agree that we need some. Overall, many humans decide to protect and nurture certain zygotes.

We care more about great apes and dolphins because they have properties which allow them to have interests that other animals do not. They are not only aware, but self-aware.

Possibly true, but that is my point. We like things that are similar to us. Does this mean that things that are not similar to us deserve the short shrift? To answer my own question, I would say "sometimes". As I say, we protect the genes that are most like ours. However, when there is a conflict as to protecting distantly related genes versus closely related genes, guess who we pick? Your own moral code determines where you draw the lines, and natural selection will sort out which moral codes work best.

They have a limited understanding of consequence; they seek better solutions (for example, in tool use). This renders them worthy of greater consideration than other animals, by virtue of moral properties, not (necessarily) biological ones.

Again, you like them because they are like you. But biology trumps morality. If you were starving and meat was the only thing available, I suspect you would eat it. If biology says that eating meat gives the species an advantage, its ‘morality’ will adjust to accommodate this.

However, I do understand what you are saying. I simply draw my moral lines differently than you. I would not normally eat high-intelligence animals. But if chimpanzees were the only food available, I would eat chimpanzees.

And how do you separate instinct from ‘understanding of consequence’? Does a fly understand the consequence of remaining still while a flyswatter is approaching? How could you prove that it does not?

There is debate about whether lobsters feel pain in the meaningful sense or not; whether their neurobiology allows them to be aware of pain, or they just engage in reflex reaction. In that case, it would be ethically acceptable to eat them. I hedge my bets and avoid it (which isn't hard for me to do, blech).

LOL. If that isn’t pain, it’s a darn good act. Remember your first time fishing and your daddy told you, “The worm doesn’t feel pain”? It was a lie then and it is still a lie. After all, what is pain but a reflex reaction? It is something that evolved to protect us from injury. Same goes for the worm. Who knows, plants may feel pain in some way too, but being so dissimilar, we don’t comprehend it.

So, at some point, we draw the line and say “I don’t care enough about this creature’s pain that I will alter my desires to avoid it.” You do it. I do it. We just draw the lines differently.

Yeah, neither am I. But it doesn't follow that we will necessarily have more people if we are all vegans, the current trend is that population growth is decelerating, and our agricultural footprint could then be decreased.

True, but we have too many people now for long-term survival. Even with the best of technology, the soil eventually wears out. I’m not going to go all apocalyptic on you, but I think that most of the world’s problems have a good deal to do with overpopulation.

But my point was that if we continue to increase in population, then eating meat will probably be too much of a luxury to afford. Frankly, I think it would be a pretty miserable life on many fronts. But I digress.

Arguments for opportunity cost or the cruelty inherent in producing plant-foods don't make a lot of sense; all of these problems are made worse by increasing the demand for plant foods (which we do by consuming meat).

That is true to some extent. Certainly corn-fed beef requires more corn per calorie of nutrition than just eating the corn. Of course, not all animals are fed on agricultural crops. Many simply graze. But again, both agriculture and carniculture (to coin a word) have inherent environmental problems. I don’t think it is enough of an issue to be the deciding one in the moral decision.

I very much hope to have shuffled off this mortal coil by the time soybeans have been genetically engineered to the point where they are morally relevant.

LOL. Sorry. Too late.

I understand and appreciate your position; not everyone has the same ethical priorities. Veganism satisfies a lot of mine (reducing suffering, reducing agricultural footprint, having impossibly long discussions on the internet), so I accept it.

That is fine, and I respect your choice. I am glad you respect mine.

 

[AmateurScientist]

Benjamin Franklin was a vegetarian for a time (and then stopped, with a good deal of good-humored self-parody of the convenience of his reasoning, when he reasoned that fish eat other fish, and so would he).

Can someone please explain to me how Ben Franklin did not commit the naturalitic fallacy (which wikipedia states in an alleged fallacy, by the way, coined by a British philosopher in 1903) when he reasonsed that fish eat other fish, so it was OK for him to eat them too?

AS

 

[Cain]

Inclusion of animals into the human system of morality is a fairly recent development (I blame Walt Disney). Some might call this attitude "specism", and they would be right. My primary dedication is to my own species.

Do you have any pets? If so I'm sure you realize that the money you spend taking care of them could have gone to Oxfam or UNICEF to save your fellow humans. Do you get upset at people who do own pets because of this tradeoff?

Let's go back to the original post in this thread:

In the presence of many food choices, I think much of our morality of eating derives from what David Brin calls "otherness". We like the things most like ourselves. We fight most closely for our family, then our community, then our country etc. Similarly, we feel empathy with animals that share traits with us or that look like us. Cute, big-eyed, big-brained animals we like. Some like them to the point that they cannot consider eating them.

This might well be empirically true, but this widespread predisposition is irrational.

I think our dedication should be to our own species.

Why? This is an arbitrary non-distinction arrived at through specious reasoning.

So eating meat makes many of us happy. Is it worth the suffering of animals for our happiness? As I pointed out in the OP, we humans seem to care a lot more for the species that are like us or that like us.

Again, this might be empirically true, but it does not make for a strong moral argument. What about the sadists who derive enormous pleasure from torturing animals? Should this be condemned because people find it distasteful? If so you're predicating your moral argument on the whims of popular opinion.

Eating a cow may disgust a vegetarian but eating a porpoise is horrifying.

This is immaterial.

Eating a family pet would be likewise unthinkable. But why? If nutritional values are similar, then why should we care about where it came from? I say it is because we are specist that we do not care as much about the pain and suffering of fish or even of vegetables. We are incapable of empathizing with them because we are too unalike, yet they are living organisms as well.

Whether or not fish can even experience pain is still debated -- although I think the preponderance of evidence suggests that they do. Nobody here, as far as I know, is making a serious argument on behalf of vegetables for the all too typical reasons outlined and repeated on numerous occasions: vegetables cannot experience pain, they do not possess interests, they do not have future desires or interests, etc.

So my position on omnivority is that our diet is not the critical problem facing mankind, so you should eat whatever makes you overall happiest (noting that heart-attacks tend to decrease your happiness).

I suggest you look over this statement again. You know what, I do not think the health and welfare of Brian Sherman is a critical problem facing humanity, but that doesn't mean I can do whatever I please to him in order to make myself happy.

If your own personal level of empathy dictates that you can't eat meat, then don't eat it. I will not comment as you are eating about how many soybeans died so you could be happy.

It's not even a matter of empathy. It's a matter of rationality -- considering the interests of all morally significant individuals involved. Do you think you share more in common with a fetus than a full-grown chimp? The species distinction is arbitrary as far as moral concern... is concerned. It makes about as much sense as the notion that I should care about people with light skin more than people with dark skin.

As for Randfan, I noticed how you conflated epistemological skepticism with the modern skeptics movement -- another howler. You also said something about Michael Shermer. I suggest you read his book _The Science of Good and Evil_, specifically the chapter dealing with animal rights. Shermer argues for limited rights on behalf of chimps and dolphins, and I in fact e-mailed him and got into an exchange on the subject. He acknowledged that his dividing line was arbitrary, but as a matter of political savvy, the animal rights movement should first limit itself to its strongest cases.

Completely wrong. In "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, it argues very convincingly that altruism is often a successful survival strategy. A general tendency to be protective of my gene pool is a good idea, wouldn't you say? So much so that it wouldn't be much of a stretch to say that natural selection favors those who are capable of altruism towards their own species. Certainly we see protective instincts in many animals.

I'm afraid you're making a very basic error (and I'm not talking about putting the title of a book in quotation marks). The person you're replying to is talking about self preservation. Dawkins points out that evolution does not take place on the level of the individual organism, but the selfish gene. It is not in the self-interest of a prarie dog to act as a sentry, warning kin and relatives, at greater risk to her own life. At least that's not "self-interest" in any meaningful sense of the term because it begins to cover its opposite (reductive fallacy).

The leading animal rights activist Peter Singer actually invokes Dawkins quite often. See for instance _How are we to Live: Ethics in an Age of Self-Interest_, or the slim book _A Darwinian Left_.

Incidentally, I'm confident that Dawkins himself is a vocal supporter of the Great Ape Project, and one of his former wives is a vegan activist.

 

[AmateurScientist]

This whining is unbecoming. Mumble is not God or Moses, he is simply articulating argumentative truths that make you angry and uncomfortable. Because you know he is right, you are reduced to moaning that Mumble is being mean to you by being too uncompromising in pointing this out.

I would think you would recognize the difference between whining and mocking.

Mumble is Win II. He is using philosophical claptrap to justify his own aversion to meat eating. Fine. His own personal aversion and personal moral justification for it doesn't imply that meat eating is wrong and that everyone who does it is immoral, amoral, or worse of all, a moral nihilist like he says I am.

Ultimately, just like Win's arguments about p-zombies were exposed as circular, Mumble's justifications wear no clothes. He seems to be well on the way to taking just as many words to say that it's wrong because he says it's wrong as Win did to declare that the Hard Problem of Consciousness destroyed Materialism because he said so too.

Marquis doesn't quite get it either, but at least he's funny. He's right about rabbits in the combine harvester too - there is no such thing as cruelty-free food, at least not in quantities sufficient to feed humanity.

There's nothing to get. Life is hard and suffering and death are integral parts of it. Nothing you do or think will change that, but you can pretend that you're making a cosmic difference if that makes you happy.

What you can do is to implement morals and ethics you have adopted on your own, personal scale. Fine. I've never denied that you can't or shouldn't. Ultimately, however, I think that each of us does that to the degree that it pleases us; it makes us feel good to think that we are doing "good." Great. That's pragmatic. There's no such thing as true altruism.

I find it silly that Cain and Mumble have extrapolated my comments about morality not having a place at the dinner table (which is my shorthand for "Meat is not murder") to mean that I don't have morals or ethics and try to implement them. Nevertheless, at least I'm honest enough to admit that morals are invented, not discovered, and that ultimately each one of us has to accept that we can only implement those morals and ethics to the extent that we are comfortable with them. At its core, that's inherently subjective, not objective.

Mumble seems to deny that by claiming "universality."

I don't live in a fantasy world of what should be. I live in a practical world of what is, accepting that there are often severe limitations on what I can and cannot affect. Inasmuch as I can affect things which I believe to be beneficial or good or whatever you wish to call it, I do my best. Often I fail, but sometimes I succeed. It's called being a fallible human.

I don't pretend that we're gods, magically imbued with the moral weight of the universe or some imagined responsibility to prevent or safeguard other species from all suffering.

It does not logically follow that because we can contemplate such things, then we must do them or be damned to being evil.

AS

 

[mumblethrax]

Cain has covered most of the major points, but:

There may have been a few.

How long was Franklin a vegetarian?

Vegetarianism is common in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism (where it is taken to the extreme of not killing animals or plants), but almost every culture and religion has had a vegetarian subculture. Genesis implies that life in Eden was strictly vegan, and there have long been Christian monastic traditions. Same goes for Taoism. Many religions (Sikhism, for example) forbid eating meat during times of religious purification (which seems like a tacit acknowledgement that eating meat is at least morally problematic). Sikhism bans kosher and halal foods, because the method of slaughter is more cruel by virtue of its slow bleed-out.

A few religions (like Judaism) have had doctrines that seem to explicitly forbid vegetarianism, but there is usually at least a recognition that you can be vegetarian as long as it's for the right reasons.

Franklin seems to have adopted vegetarianism out of thrift and health, but probably conflated health and ethics into some notion of purity, which is presumably why his reasons for abandoning it read as an ethical argument (however fallacious). I think it was while he was a student, so probably a couple of years.

Here's a reference to vegetarianism within various religious traditions: http://www.ivu.org/religion/
And on Franklin: http://www.ivu.org/history/northam18/franklin.html

Completely wrong. In "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, it argues very convincingly that altruism is often a successful survival strategy.

As Cain points out, we're arguing at cross purposes here. I'm talking about an individual moral actor, and you're talking about an individual genome.

But the problem is essentially the same, so how can I say it's a good strategy in one arena and bad in another? Because the genome has a mechanism for ensuring that others will be altruistic that I do not possess. I can't actually force anyone to recognize the utility of altruism, as this conversation proves, and can't ensure that they won't cheat even if they do which is clearly the superior competitive strategy to any self-interested rational actor. The genome has a method of virtually ensuring that other members of my social group will also acknowledge this utility.

Morality has arisen to protect the species. Why do you think the motherhood instinct is so strong? Any while you might not care about an individual zygote, you would agree that we need some. Overall, many humans decide to protect and nurture certain zygotes.

The motherhood instinct should not be confused with morality. It cannot be said to be 'good' without ethical examination. In fact, the problem of overpopulation shows that it might very often cause ethical problems.

Insofar as the survival of moral beings is good, the motherhood instinct can also be said to be good. But that's unrelated to the moral properties of any given zygote; it has none beyond its capacity to satisfy the interests of a potential mother to plan for the future.

Possibly true, but that is my point. We like things that are similar to us. Does this mean that things that are not similar to us deserve the short shrift? To answer my own question, I would say "sometimes". As I say, we protect the genes that are most like ours. However, when there is a conflict as to protecting distantly related genes versus closely related genes, guess who we pick? Your own moral code determines where you draw the lines, and natural selection will sort out which moral codes work best.

This is an excellent sociobiological argument for genocide. (I'm not accusing you of anything here, merely pointing out the problem. Genocide is a natural consequence of group competition.)

This process of metaethical competition is ongoing, and it's clear that in a global sense, the best strategy is to maximize the interests of every morally important being, and reduce competition voluntarily by creating a global community. There is an ongoing genetically determined conflict between competition and altruism, but it seems likely that altruism will prevail, and evolution (with regard to moral agents) is itself evolving. Evolution leads us to group competition leads us to cooperation, to the point where we can disregard the imperative of the selfish gene. It's a risky gambit for a gene to have adopted (metaphorically), but it may well lead to better genetic consequences. We can now take evolutionary shortcuts, and guide the process of evolution as we see fit.

However, I do understand what you are saying. I simply draw my moral lines differently than you. I would not normally eat high-intelligence animals. But if chimpanzees were the only food available, I would eat chimpanzees.

Sure, so would I. Because I am confident that my sense of impending doom would make me more miserable than the brief terror and suffering a chimpanzee would experience. But that's not currently the case.

And how do you separate instinct from ‘understanding of consequence’? Does a fly understand the consequence of remaining still while a flyswatter is approaching? How could you prove that it does not?

Because we also have the (presumably genetically determined) instinct to intuit, to say "This happened, therefore that happened." Not that we always apply it to good ends (magical thinking, for example).

LOL. If that isn’t pain, it’s a darn good act.

I tend to agree. I think it's an attempt to rationalize away "suffering" by redefining it to mean stimulus of specific pain receptors in the brain. I think a creature that seems like it's in pain and demonstrates an ability to remember pain probably is actually in pain in the morally relevant sense. But there are also escape reflexes (like when I burn my hand on a hot stove) which don't actually require awareness of pain, so I consider it an open question as to whether some animals might not experience morally relevant suffering.

So, at some point, we draw the line and say “I don’t care enough about this creature’s pain that I will alter my desires to avoid it.” You do it. I do it. We just draw the lines differently.

I do it insofar as I need to. I don't kill insects for fun, but I stomp the crap out of the roaches in my apartment, because my interest in not living in a disease-prone environment outweighs their limited interests (I don't think they're all that aware).

True, but we have too many people now for long-term survival. Even with the best of technology, the soil eventually wears out. I’m not going to go all apocalyptic on you, but I think that most of the world’s problems have a good deal to do with overpopulation.

Me too, but that's a separate (but related) ethical question. I would generally prefer that we not overtax the carrying-capacity of the Earth to the point of ecological catastrophe, and I think veganism is part of that goal, until such time as population can be reduced to the point where we can all live like Kevin.

That is true to some extent. Certainly corn-fed beef requires more corn per calorie of nutrition than just eating the corn. Of course, not all animals are fed on agricultural crops. Many simply graze.

That's not typical of modern agribusiness, which is the source of most of our meat, eggs and dairy. But it's true, where land cannot support anything more than scrub, it might be ethical to raise food animals there. I await the happy day where this is how we actually do things.

 

[Iacchus]

The Holy Eucharist is an act of cannibalism. Which only goes to show we are all interconnected, in one form or another.

 

[Batman Jr.]

I don't live in a fantasy world of what should be. I live in a practical world of what is, accepting that there are often severe limitations on what I can and cannot affect. Inasmuch as I can affect things which I believe to be beneficial or good or whatever you wish to call it, I do my best. Often I fail, but sometimes I succeed. It's called being a fallible human.

I don't pretend that we're gods, magically imbued with the moral weight of the universe or some imagined responsibility to prevent or safeguard other species from all suffering.

If you're going about the anthropocentric, self-important responsibility nonsense still, please read my reply to this same contention from the science forum.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Mumble is Win II. He is using philosophical claptrap to justify his own aversion to meat eating. Fine. His own personal aversion and personal moral justification for it doesn't imply that meat eating is wrong and that everyone who does it is immoral, amoral, or worse of all, a moral nihilist like he says I am.

Ultimately, just like Win's arguments about p-zombies were exposed as circular, Mumble's justifications wear no clothes. He seems to be well on the way to taking just as many words to say that it's wrong because he says it's wrong as Win did to declare that the Hard Problem of Consciousness destroyed Materialism because he said so too.

I am not familiar with Win, but so far I have not seen Mumble engage in any really egregious philosophical errors. Mumble's thesis is coherent and seems to be based on assumptions a lot of people would agree with.

Although I haven't discussed this issue in detail with Mumble, I suspect the places we part company are in how bad we consider death to be, and whether we take it for granted that we should only discuss meat taken from animals raised in nasty factory farm environments, using feed and land that could have been used for soy and whatnot.

(As you may have guessed, our cows and our property do not fit that description).

There's nothing to get. Life is hard and suffering and death are integral parts of it. Nothing you do or think will change that, but you can pretend that you're making a cosmic difference if that makes you happy.

Moral nihilism? Naturalistic fallacy? Take your pick.

What you can do is to implement morals and ethics you have adopted on your own, personal scale. Fine. I've never denied that you can't or shouldn't. Ultimately, however, I think that each of us does that to the degree that it pleases us; it makes us feel good to think that we are doing "good." Great. That's pragmatic. There's no such thing as true altruism.

Moral nihilism, I think this time.

I find it silly that Cain and Mumble have extrapolated my comments about morality not having a place at the dinner table (which is my shorthand for "Meat is not murder") to mean that I don't have morals or ethics and try to implement them.

If they said that, I disagree with them. I think it would be fair to extrapolate that you have incoherent moral ideas, or that you are inconsistent in adhering to the moral ideas you have, but not that you have no morals at all.

Nevertheless, at least I'm honest enough to admit that morals are invented, not discovered, and that ultimately each one of us has to accept that we can only implement those morals and ethics to the extent that we are comfortable with them. At its core, that's inherently subjective, not objective.

Mumble seems to deny that by claiming "universality."

As I said earlier, if you want to have consistent and coherent moral values it's very, very difficult to avoid the conclusion that the suffering of animals should be prevented as much as possible. That is close to universality, but it is a conditional kind of universality which could in theory change if I heard a really good argument.

If your position counts as honesty, you are no more honest than anybody else in this discussion.

I don't live in a fantasy world of what should be. I live in a practical world of what is, accepting that there are often severe limitations on what I can and cannot affect. Inasmuch as I can affect things which I believe to be beneficial or good or whatever you wish to call it, I do my best. Often I fail, but sometimes I succeed. It's called being a fallible human.

The question is, are you illegitimately shuffling some moral problems out of the category of things you can affect, into the category of things you cannot affect?

I don't pretend that we're gods, magically imbued with the moral weight of the universe or some imagined responsibility to prevent or safeguard other species from all suffering.

It does not logically follow that because we can contemplate such things, then we must do them or be damned to being evil.

No. It does follow if we have the ability to contemplate and the power to act, however. Power and responsibility and all that.

 

[RandFan]

I'm not going to be able to spend a lot of time here for awhile but I wanted to post a quick response.

First let me say that I attempted to craft a universal standard for an absolute morality back in December. I've come to think such absolutes are problematic though I intuitively believe that it is basically correct. In any event.

In a debate with mumblethrax I said that I did not accept the golden rule. Odd since my argument in December was crafted on the golden rule. Further when I explained my reasons against forced euthanasia for those who suffered sever mental disabilities I made a golden rule argument. My apologies mumble. Let me clarify.

Golden Rule (empathic) I know what it is like to suffer, to feel pain, to not want to die and I do not want to cause anyone else to experience such negative things because of my empathy.

Golden Rule (utility) If I sanctify life and society sanctifies life then the chance of my survival increases. Also the chance of my immediate family, extended family and then tribe.

When Mumble mentioned golden rule I was thinking of the empathic version. My argument has always been based on the "utility" version.

Yes they are similar but it is possible to live the utility version and not give a damn about anyone. You live in such a way as to increase survivability and respecting rights is one way of doing that.

FWIW, I have ordered Michael Shermers book The Science of Good and Evil. It looks like he has some good things to say on this subject and there are few I respect more.

I'm very interested in the subject. However I won't have a lot of time to spend in coming days due to some looming deadlines.

What I would be interested in if it hasn't already been dealt with is how the golden rule applies to animals? I can see an argument based on the "empathic" version but I don't necessarily accept that argument. Animals are not going to live the golden rule so there is no utility in it.

A question that I would like to see explored is this. If we could kill an animal with zero pain and the animal would not know beforehand that it was going to die then would those who otherwise consider killing animals immoral would they still consider it?

Thanks folks. I'll try and respond if I can, we will see.

RandFan

 

[AmateurScientist]

I am not familiar with Win, but so far I have not seen Mumble engage in any really egregious philosophical errors. Mumble's thesis is coherent and seems to be based on assumptions a lot of people would agree with.

A lot of people agreeing with him does not make his underlying arguments correct, nor does it imply that he can lay claim to a superior moral position. He has effectively done so. That's where I call BS. He's demonstrated a remarkable hubris, which was one of Win's true hallmarks.

Moral nihilism? Naturalistic fallacy? Take your pick.

I pick neither. I suppose, if you must know, my moral worldview is probably closer to moral relativism. Of course, I suspect that Mumble might, with characteristic hubris, claim that moral relativism has clearly been shown to be intellectually or morally bankrupt. Screw that and all the pompous self-righteousness it implies.

I'm not the one claiming a position of moral superiority. He is.

Moral nihilism, I think this time.

Well, then you'd be wrong.

If they said that, I disagree with them. I think it would be fair to extrapolate that you have incoherent moral ideas, or that you are inconsistent in adhering to the moral ideas you have, but not that you have no morals at all.

I suspect that is true of all of us. We're fallible, after all, and no one can adhere to moral ideals in practice consistently, in all situations, and throughout one's life. If there were indeed One True Universal Philosophy, then there would likely be far fewer discussions or books about it. It would all be "solved" and we could go about the business of doing its work and stop debating it. Too bad there isn't anything near universal agreement throughout history or across cultures, or even across the street. Philosophy has been debated, hotly and cooly and luke warmly, for thousands of years. No one has solved anything because there isn't anything to solve. At the end of the day, none of us has any unique insight into why, how, or from where we derived morals.

Can you be honest about that?

What we can do is debate and discuss incoherences and inconsistencies within any given philosophical school of thought. They all have them. Some of us are more attracted to one or more of them than others. Again, it's ultimately subjective, in my opinion.

Where I take issue is with morally self-righteous windbags claiming some high ground--and militant vegans can be among the most insufferable of those--and looking down upon the rest of us as morally bankrupt. I can think of two choice words that violate Rule 8 that best summarize my response, but then that's an emotional response akin to Cain's calling me a moron. He doesn't really believe that.

As I said earlier, if you want to have consistent and coherent moral values it's very, very difficult to avoid the conclusion that the suffering of animals should be prevented as much as possible. That is close to universality, but it is a conditional kind of universality which could in theory change if I heard a really good argument.

There's the rub, isn't it? We can't agree upon those moral values. You want mine to be consistent with yours. Sorry, but it's not going to happen. Vegans and vegetarians can all hold hands and cry for the baby seals and denounce meat eaters as immoral killers all they like. Get it through your heads, however, that there is no universality of agreement of a moral position with respect to meat eating. Indeed, meat eaters vastly outnumber veggie persons and always have. Where's the universality again?

If your position counts as honesty, you are no more honest than anybody else in this discussion.

Oh, I recognize that I delude myself as well. We all do. Some intellectual candor and self-reflection would serve all of us.

are you illegitimately shuffling some moral problems out of the category of things you can affect, into the category of things you cannot affect?

On a theoretical or practical level? Illegitimately? That's loaded, isn't it? It implies that I must agree with your position or suffer the fate of being illegitimate. Sorry, no dice.

It is manifestly true that I can choose not to eat meat. If I do so, I must suffer the consequences of that decision, which are many, including health and practical concerns. I must first ask myself why I would want to do that. Mumble and Cain apparently feel compelled to eliminate meat on their own personal moral grounds. I'm not trying to stop them or condemn them for their position. It's totally cool with me. On the other hand, they have in fact condemned my practice--and that of billions of others--by declaring it immoral.

My approach? Again, as I've stated before, I'll go with the alleged naturalistic fallacy--one that was coined, another way of saying made up, in 1903 for Christ's sake--and choose as Benjamin Franklin did, to eat other animals because other animals do, and it seems to be the natural order of things. Nothing I can ever do will change that. Suffering is as much a part of life for all animals as birth, growth, reproduction, and death.

Do continue to reject such facts as morally objectionable if you like. I will counter that doing so is unrealistic, unduly idealistic, and smacks of wanting to live in a fairy tale.

No. It does follow if we have the ability to contemplate and the power to act, however. Power and responsibility and all that.

Power and responsibility? Again, that's hubris, in my opinion. We are human beings. We are animals, not gods. We are not going to stop hurricaines, nor should we, and we are not going to stop predation, nor should we (Yeah, I'm using "should." Sue me. I'm bounded by language just like you).

Both are beyond our capabilities to affect them in any significant degree, and at least one of them plays a vital role in the interconnectedness of life on our planet, and in its continued evolution. Humans are not an end product of that evolution. I contend that declaring that we alone have a moral duty and responsibility to fight nature and attempt to tame it is anthropocentric, as I have mentioned several times. It essentially places man in the role of God. I can think of nothing more full of hubris than that. We are not the arbiters of determining the future of life on earth, earth's ultimate fate, or that of the universe. Indeed, we are insignificant inhabitants here for a short time in geological terms, and a much shorter one in cosmic terms.

The more I hear from vegans and some vegetarians, the more I am convinced that some of their philosophies fit the definition of a religion, complete with its own dogma, quite well.

AS

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

A lot of people agreeing with him does not make his underlying arguments correct, nor does it imply that he can lay claim to a superior moral position. He has effectively done so. That's where I call BS. He's demonstrated a remarkable hubris, which was one of Win's true hallmarks.

It's not hubris if he is claiming superiority to a moral position that is manifestly incoherent, which he is. As long as you keep wallowing in the naturalistic fallacy Mumble will have every right to claim philosophical and moral superiority, and there is no way around that.

You can get offended and call Mumble names as much as you like, but doing so cannot change these facts.

I pick neither. I suppose, if you must know, my moral worldview is probably closer to moral relativism. Of course, I suspect that Mumble might, with characteristic hubris, claim that moral relativism has clearly been shown to be intellectually or morally bankrupt. Screw that and all the pompous self-righteousness it implies.

Since it has been shown to be intellectually and morally bankrupt, Mumble would be characteristically right if Mumble did so.

Well, then you'd be wrong.

I may be wrong about what you think your moral views are, but I do not think I am wrong in characterising what you posted as a moral nihilist argument.

I suspect that is true of all of us. We're fallible, after all, and no one can adhere to moral ideals in practice consistently, in all situations, and throughout one's life. If there were indeed One True Universal Philosophy, then there would likely be far fewer discussions or books about it. It would all be "solved" and we could go about the business of doing its work and stop debating it. Too bad there isn't anything near universal agreement throughout history or across cultures, or even across the street. Philosophy has been debated, hotly and cooly and luke warmly, for thousands of years. No one has solved anything because there isn't anything to solve. At the end of the day, none of us has any unique insight into why, how, or from where we derived morals.

Can you be honest about that?

Unique insight, no. More insight than you, evidently yes. The discipline of moral philosophy is not solely concerned with pointless navel-gazing. Philosophers like Parfit and Singer, among many others, have done a lot of good work in thrashing out coherent moral systems. If this fact has passed you by to the extent that you think I must be dishonest to claim it is a fact, well, I am sorry for your ignorance.

What we can do is debate and discuss incoherences and inconsistencies within any given philosophical school of thought. They all have them. Some of us are more attracted to one or more of them than others. Again, it's ultimately subjective, in my opinion.

Appeal to popularity, moral relativism, more of the same.

Where I take issue is with morally self-righteous windbags claiming some high ground--and militant vegans can be among the most insufferable of those--and looking down upon the rest of us as morally bankrupt. I can think of two choice words that violate Rule 8 that best summarize my response, but then that's an emotional response akin to Cain's calling me a moron. He doesn't really believe that.

The thing is, they kind of have a case.

There's the rub, isn't it? We can't agree upon those moral values. You want mine to be consistent with yours. Sorry, but it's not going to happen. Vegans and vegetarians can all hold hands and cry for the baby seals and denounce meat eaters as immoral killers all they like. Get it through your heads, however, that there is no universality of agreement of a moral position with respect to meat eating. Indeed, meat eaters vastly outnumber veggie persons and always have. Where's the universality again?

Appeal to popularity, moral relativism, more of the same intellectually bankrupt fare.

Honestly AS, you shouldn't wonder why people get short with you. You are constantly engaging in the most straightforward fallacies, constantly being called on it, and yet still failing to learn. How long are you going to keep articulating exactly the same fallacies before you start to think?

Oh, I recognize that I delude myself as well. We all do. Some intellectual candor and self-reflection would serve all of us.

Oh well, it is a start.

On a theoretical or practical level? Illegitimately? That's loaded, isn't it? It implies that I must agree with your position or suffer the fate of being illegitimate. Sorry, no dice.

No, you read that wrong. It implies that it is conceivable you could show that your categorisation of the problem was legitimate, even though I cannot at the moment see it.

It is manifestly true that I can choose not to eat meat. If I do so, I must suffer the consequences of that decision, which are many, including health and practical concerns. I must first ask myself why I would want to do that. Mumble and Cain apparently feel compelled to eliminate meat on their own personal moral grounds. I'm not trying to stop them or condemn them for their position. It's totally cool with me. On the other hand, they have in fact condemned my practice--and that of billions of others--by declaring it immoral.

Appeal to popularity.

My approach? Again, as I've stated before, I'll go with the alleged naturalistic fallacy--one that was coined, another way of saying made up, in 1903 for Christ's sake--and choose as Benjamin Franklin did, to eat other animals because other animals do, and it seems to be the natural order of things. Nothing I can ever do will change that. Suffering is as much a part of life for all animals as birth, growth, reproduction, and death.

Then you are voluntarily choosing to be an intellectual bankrupt, and you have no right to complain if someone like Mumble or myself points this out to you.

As you must realise, I think there are solid arguments for the moral legitimacy of eating some meat, some of the time. Your arguments are rubbish though.

Do continue to reject such facts as morally objectionable if you like. I will counter that doing so is unrealistic, unduly idealistic, and smacks of wanting to live in a fairy tale.

Lots of people are practising vegans. They are neither unrealistic nor living in a fairy tale, because as a matter of fact they are actually not eating any animal products. Insulting people who disagree with you, when you have no logical argument to back your position, frankly just makes you look small and mean.

Power and responsibility? Again, that's hubris, in my opinion. We are human beings. We are animals, not gods. We are not going to stop hurricaines, nor should we, and we are not going to stop predation, nor should we (Yeah, I'm using "should." Sue me. I'm bounded by language just like you).

Both are beyond our capabilities to affect them in any significant degree, and at least one of them plays a vital role in the interconnectedness of life on our planet, and in its continued evolution. Humans are not an end product of that evolution. I contend that declaring that we alone have a moral duty and responsibility to fight nature and attempt to tame it is anthropocentric, as I have mentioned several times. It essentially places man in the role of God. I can think of nothing more full of hubris than that. We are not the arbiters of determining the future of life on earth, earth's ultimate fate, or that of the universe. Indeed, we are insignificant inhabitants here for a short time in geological terms, and a much shorter one in cosmic terms.

I scarcely know where to begin with this nonsense. Asserting that humans alone (of the creatures we know of) have moral duties is no more anthropocentric than saying that humans alone can play a decent game of Go or invent televisions, and in any case I suspect Mumble would allot equal moral responsibility to similarly intelligent aliens. The fact that our lives are brief does nothing to clear us of responsibility for what happens within our arm's reach. How you construe this as hubris is beyond me.

The more I hear from vegans and some vegetarians, the more I am convinced that some of their philosophies fit the definition of a religion, complete with its own dogma, quite well.

The more I hear from you on this topic, the more I am convinced that your moral values are bankrupt and you know it, but that you cling to them anyway. That is a great deal closer to religious behaviour than anything I have seen from Cain or Mumble.

A direct question: When you have nothing besides known fallacies and insults (religion, woo, hubris, playing God etc.) to support the position you are advocating, do you not think it might be time to question your own position?

edit for tag

 

[Cain]

A lot of people agreeing with him does not make his underlying arguments correct, nor does it imply that he can lay claim to a superior moral position. He has effectively done so. That's where I call BS. He's demonstrated a remarkable hubris, which was one of Win's true hallmarks.

That you are reduced to this sort of silly comparison is not only pathetic, but shameful. As I noted in a previous post, the "sides" in this debate, as far as a larger worldview is concerned, are clear: some are defending the Enlightenment and Enlightenment values, and others -- specifically you -- bitterly oppose universalism and rationality.

I pick neither. I suppose, if you must know, my moral worldview is probably closer to moral relativism....

We're fallible... and no one can adhere to moral ideals in practice consistently, in all situations, and throughout one's life. If there were indeed One True Universal Philosophy, then there would likely be far fewer discussions or books about it. It would all be "solved" and we could go about the business of doing its work and stop debating it. Too bad there isn't anything near universal agreement throughout history or across cultures, or even across the street. Philosophy has been debated, hotly and cooly and luke warmly, for thousands of years. No one has solved anything because there isn't anything to solve. At the end of the day, none of us has any unique insight into why, how, or from where we derived morals.

I believe in one of the earlier issues of _Skeptic_, the one with Spinoza on the cover, the writer of an article made (essentially) the following observation: there are fewer moral relativists and subjectivists in (American) philosophy departments percentage-wise than evolution-doubters in biology departments. Universalism is a basic premise; an elementary moral principle that is very widely accepted by moral philosophers. The reason for this is because it's the most coherent position known.

Now, the content of these universal principles IS hotly contested. Let me put this in terms you might better understand: Evolution is accepted by the vast majority of biologists as a phenomenon, an empirical/historical fact; however, there remains strong disagreement over its mechanisms.

You do realize that moral subjectivism suggests that people are infallible, right? Suppose person A believes proposition X. Hey, it's all subjective. Proposition X is right for person A. Now let's suppose some time passes and she changes her mind; she decides proposition Y (mutually exclusive with X) is actually correct. Well, a subjectivist -- and I'm speaking on a basic level, there are more sophisticated versions -- essentially claims that Person A was right at both instances. Not only that, but person B, who also legislates for himself, is correct in believing proposition Z.

Universalism is different in that it doesn't matter who believes what at any particular time and place, morality transcends local geography (cultural relativism) and personal beliefs (subjectivism). Similarly the laws of gravity hold as much in northern Africa as they do in southern Australia regardless of what people on both continents believe.

What we can do is debate and discuss incoherences and inconsistencies within any given philosophical school of thought. They all have them. Some of us are more attracted to one or more of them than others. Again, it's ultimately subjective, in my opinion.

And so how is moral universalism incoherent?

Of course, I suspect that Mumble might, with characteristic hubris, claim that moral relativism has clearly been shown to be intellectually or morally bankrupt. Screw that and all the pompous self-righteousness it implies.

I'm not the one claiming a position of moral superiority. He is.

Here's what I suspect -- hypothesize -- is the thought process of a meat-eater confronted with veganism.

"Oh, my God, if that vegan Ian is correct, then I'm enabling atrocities.

And if I'm enabling atrocities, then that makes me a bad person.

But I'm not a bad person!

Therefore I'm doing anything wrong and he, like Madonna and Christopher Reeves, needs to get off his high horse. *humph* actin' all morally superior to me."

Where I take issue is with morally self-righteous windbags claiming some high ground--and militant vegans can be among the most insufferable of those--and looking down upon the rest of us as morally bankrupt. I can think of two choice words that violate Rule 8 that best summarize my response, but then that's an emotional response akin to Cain's calling me a moron. He doesn't really believe that.

AS, my calling you a moron is not an "emotional response". It is a conclusion based on a veritable catalog of logical errors, and, on a more disturbing level, your insouciant disregard for Reason.

There's the rub, isn't it? We can't agree upon those moral values. You want mine to be consistent with yours. Sorry, but it's not going to happen. Vegans and vegetarians can all hold hands and cry for the baby seals and denounce meat eaters as immoral killers all they like. Get it through your heads, however, that there is no universality of agreement of a moral position with respect to meat eating. Indeed, meat eaters vastly outnumber veggie persons and always have. Where's the universality again?

There you go again pretending like you have a point. There was once widespread moral agreement on slavery (even among the enslaved! I'm afraid to report that in morality one person plus a correct opinion overrules any majority. (Please note: this is not an argument for a fascist vegan state.)

It is manifestly true that I can choose not to eat meat. If I do so, I must suffer the consequences of that decision, which are many, including health and practical concerns. I must first ask myself why I would want to do that. Mumble and Cain apparently feel compelled to eliminate meat on their own personal moral grounds. I'm not trying to stop them or condemn them for their position. It's totally cool with me. On the other hand, they have in fact condemned my practice--and that of billions of others--by declaring it immoral.

As even you have probably realized at this time, my post has a common thread, and I'll pick up on it again here.

"Dude, you don't kill Mexicans? That is TOTALLY KILL WITH ME. It's a personal choice, and I don't begrudge you for it. Just please try to be tolerant of my own practices."

One might argue that this an odious comparison. Mexicans, as humans, are morally important. Cool. I argue that animals -- at least those in posession of certain morally relevant attributes -- are similarly important. We can discuss the merits of the case, but you will have to engage in a bit of moral reasoning.

My approach? Again, as I've stated before, I'll go with the alleged naturalistic fallacy--one that was coined, another way of saying made up, in 1903 for Christ's sake--and choose as Benjamin Franklin did, to eat other animals because other animals do, and it seems to be the natural order of things. Nothing I can ever do will change that. Suffering is as much a part of life for all animals as birth, growth, reproduction, and death.

Do continue to reject such facts as morally objectionable if you like. I will counter that doing so is unrealistic, unduly idealistic, and smacks of wanting to live in a fairy tale.

Yes, well, we can never stop humans from murdering other humans. It goes way, way back and it's also part of the "natural order". So why do we bother?

Let's return back to our common theme. Presumably you believe that it is wrong to murder other humans. Why? Is that just a personal, subjective opinion?* On what grounds can you claim it is immoral? On what grounds can you sanction others? Do you feel that you're morally superior to murderers? Why?

I'm sure the civil rights activists who were marching through the streets were advertising their moral superiority. "Oh, hey, look at us, we believe in equal rights. Oooooh, you suck, you suck, you suck." But it's not even about that.

Does anyone here feel morally superior to a racist? I bet few people think of it specifically in those terms. Rather, they're upset by racism and not interested in foolish, unnecessary comparisons. Also, crude racism has been marginalized; it is politically incorrect. The vast majority of people claim to be expliticly anti-racist. As far as veganism goes the majority of people are committed meat-eaters, and challenges to the reigning practice are quickly branded as "elitist". "What? You think you're better than me?" Atheists get this all the time vis-a-vis religion. "What? You think you're smarter than all of us because you don't believe in angels, miracles, and God?" And how do we answer: "Uh, yes." I'm kidding. We probably don't think of it in those terms. It's just one big f*cking red-herring.**






__________________________
* In one sense, to the point of meaninglessness, it is an opinion as everything is expressed as a personal belief. The claim "planet earth is not flat", strictly speaking, surely means, "I believe that planet earth is not flat," and there are all the concomitant epistemological (Gettier) problems that go with that -- distinctions between knowing and believing.

**I must confess that I do feel as though I am morally superior to AS -- but that's like being athletically superior to children at the Special Olympics, or bragging about being the world's tallest midget.

 

[mumblethrax]

First let me say that I attempted to craft a universal standard for an absolute morality back in December. I've come to think such absolutes are problematic though I intuitively believe that it is basically correct. In any event.

There's an important difference between absolute and universal morality. Absolutism doesn't really make sense, since there can't be said to be any external source of morality. Relativism is then the position that no moral code can be said to be superior, which leads to the obvious problem that you can't really condemn, for example, Nazis, and either have to take a completely permissive stance or an arbitrary cultural imperialism, indistinguishable from absolutism's.

So what to do? Universalism is an attempt to compromise between absolutism and relativism by trying to find the common ground between all people. Neither an external absolute, nor morality relative to culture, but to all people. In other words, is there any general moral principle that virtually everyone in the world will agree with? If there is, then we have some common ground from which we can build a coherent morality. If I then come to the position that genocide is wrong, and I notice that some ethnic group is being extinguished by another in a far-flung country, I can try to at least appeal to reason, to ask, "Surely, you agree that X, Y and Z?" and then lead those people to the same conclusion. And where I cannot impart reason, I can intervene to the degree that I do not make the problem worse due to practical considerations.

Golden Rule (empathic)I know what it is like to suffer, to feel pain, to not want to die and I do not want to cause anyone else to experience such negative things because of my empathy.

Yeah, this is more or less the underlying moral belief that utilitarians recognize. I have interests I wish to maximize, you have interests I wish to maximize.

Golden Rule (utility)If I sanctify life and society sanctifies life then the chance of my survival increases. Also the chance of my immediate family, extended family and then tribe.

Here's where we run into problems. If we disregard empathy, and instead rely on self-interested reciprocity, you'll quickly notice that outside of the fictional worlds Rand created, reciprocity is not actually the best competitive strategy.

Consider the following thought experiment: if everyone in post Galt's Gulch Randian utopia accepts on principle the idea that self-interest is the only morality, and that altruism maximizes the intersts of the self (by maximizing the interests of society), a clever rational actor will notice that there is actually a better way to maximize his interests in this world--to pretend to agree with everyone else about restraint in the name of rational self-interest, while stabbing them in the back whenever he can get away with it.

In other words, he cheats. Anyone who has ever met someone who exorts egoism but doesn't accept Rand's conclusions on principle will notice this behavior is familiar.

Strict reciprocity also has other problems, like that some humans can't reciprocate. You can argue that you can't kill someone else's infant because you wouldn't want someone to do that to your child, but you can't actually complain then when a mother drowns her baby.

By the way, "utility" is precisely the term that utilitarians use to describe actions which maximize interests in general, not just with regard to the self.

FWIW, I have ordered Michael Shermers book The Science of Good and Evil. It looks like he has some good things to say on this subject and there are few I respect more.

Yeah, it's a good read. From the interviews I've read, it's what set Michael Shermer on the path from anarcho-capitalism to wherever he sits today, and that's one of the reasons I respect him (even though we often disagree).

A question that I would like to see explored is this. If we could kill an animal with zero pain and the animal would not know beforehand that it was going to die then would those who otherwise consider killing animals immoral would they still consider it?

Traditional utilitarians would consider such an act ethically acceptable, except to the degree that it has traumatic effects on others (more a practical matter than an ethical one). Preference utilitarians would not. As an analogy, it's similar to whether you think gossiping about someone whose feelings would be hurt by the rumor you spread is ok if they never find out about it.

 

[Cain]

Yeah, it's a good read. From the interviews I've read, it's what set Michael Shermer on the path from anarcho-capitalism to wherever he sits today, and that's one of the reasons I respect him (even though we often disagree).

This stirred memories of my e-mail to Shermer. My initial missive notes that Shermer confesses he was an anarcho-capitalist prior to writing the book. Nevertheless, he's still committed to bizarre libertarian principles (citing Nozick) and knocks down a Rawlsian straw man of his own making. The guy has always struck me as somewhat gullible in spite of his current status as skeptic par excellence.

In a follow up e-mail, Shermer writes:

Animal rights is easy when dealing with primates and marine mammals (give em rights) or with cochroaches and bacteria (no rights); much fuzzier in the middle, say with cows which we like to eat.

Another comment on "enlightened self-interest". The following diabolical thought experiment might help others tease out the relevant fundamentals.

Suppose you live in a closed community of sorts, and one of the resident scientists develops an altruism pill. The pill only becomes active under very particular circumstances, and it produces the following behavior: A person will sacrifice her own life in order to save two or more lives. The reason why it's in the self-interest of everyone in the community to take the pill is that it's more likely you will be one of the two (or more) people in danger of losing their life than the self-destructive hero. Make sense?

Now here's the catch: A person who is truly self-interested -- that is, places his own self-advantage above others -- will *pretend* to take his pills, in effect benefiting from the robotic self-sacrifice of others while never putting his own life in danger. In terms of evolution the organisms who free-ride (in this case discard their pills) will proliferate over time, but at the expense of the inclusive fitness of the community.

Arguments from reciprocal self-interest have the worst of both worlds: they're morally wrong and foolishly unrealistic.

As for the naturalistic fallacy (AGAIN!!), I noticed the following sentence in my original e-mail to Shermer:

On page 62, drawing from an impressive list of human universals, you cite incest between a mother and son, and note in parentheses "obvious evolutionary moral trait."

Sex between mother and son is universally condemned as immoral. However, moral philosophers today question our knee-jerk reaction by asking, "who's the victim here?" Assuming the son freely consents, and the mother takes precautions to avoid pregnancy, there is no real crime. (Although we might question, noting power relations, whether or not a son could genuinely give his free consent).

Steven Pinker cites a similar question posed by psychologists on a hypothetical brother and sister having sexual relations (see _The Blank Slate_). We might think it's gross; we might think it's gross because evolution has ingrained the "yuk" factor into our primate brains as it once served an evolutionary purpose. But these emotional reactions are not any more justified than eating meat because of the shape of our teeth and the position of our eyes.

 

[Beerina]

Meat eating is a good example. A hunter taking excess game off the land is reducing the cruelty of nature, usefully. A factory farm filled with tortured chickens and dumpsters full of starving day old chicks, is manufacturing cruelty, for the sake of luxury. The former is more humane, the latter less humane.

So, I do not eat meat, (1) in principle, in protest of this modern system of agriculture, and (2) romantically, in protest of any needless killing of animals.

This is what I've been saying all along. The awfulness of cruelty to animals is inversely proportional to how much suffering occurs when humans kill them.

Most noble: "Savages" running the lands using animals for survival. Animals suffer much

Next: Modern hunters with bows and arrows. Powerful bows shorten suffering somewhat, but animals still run a bit before dying

Next: Modern hunters with guns. Faster deaths yet, but still some running

Least noble: Modern factory with quick kills


So the more suffering a human gives to the animal when killing it, the more noble it is.


Strange concepts, these humans.

 

[RandFan]

Yeah, this is more or less the underlying moral belief that utilitarians recognize. I have interests I wish to maximize, you have interests I wish to maximize.

I certainly don't see it that way and it was not how I expressed it. Feelings are a poor way to govern one's life. And we know that animals wouldn't act in our best interest.

Here's where we run into problems. If we disregard empathy, and instead rely on self-interested reciprocity, you'll quickly notice that outside of the fictional worlds Rand created, reciprocity is not actually the best competitive strategy.

No, I don't see that at all. BTW, my ethics are not based on objectivism. I'm not an objectivist. I don't reject altruism and I don't belive that we can absolutely know the truth. However my personal philsosopy parallels objectivism in some areas but then in prallels a lot of philosophis in some areas. Forget the objectivism argument it won't take you where I'm going.

Consider the following thought experiment: if everyone in post Galt's Gulch Randian utopia accepts on principle the idea that self-interest is the only morality, and that altruism maximizes the intersts of the self (by maximizing the interests of society), a clever rational actor will notice that there is actually a better way to maximize his interests in this world--to pretend to agree with everyone else about restraint in the name of rational self-interest, while stabbing them in the back whenever he can get away with it.

Objectivist philosophy asside, it is the realization that if everyone acted as such then society won't work. We still come back to the fact that it is in our best interest to act ethically. Sure there are exception. That I can so act doesn't mean that it is correct and the more who do so act the worse society is. BTW, I would say many do act to some degree this way. No one is completly ethical. Most of us make decision from time to time counter to our ethics.