I'm going to hasten to add I love animals and would never deliberately hurt them, I don't even have the stomach to personally hunt them and maybe vegetarianism would happen to me anyway if I was forced otherwise..but I still don't feel guilty about them being part of the food chain.

I'm not a heartless bastard. I'm just speaking as realistically and without pie in the sky bleeding-heart ideas getting in the way. The universe is a savage garden. That's reality. It's not "immoral" to accept that and look out for our kind.

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You have to realize that most Christian "moral values" behaviour is not really about "protecting" anyone; it's about their desire to send a continual stream of messages of condemnation towards people whose existence offends them. - Darth Wong alias Mike Wong

"There is nothing wrong with being ignorant. However, there is something very wrong with not choosing to exchange ignorance for knowledge when the opportunity presents itself."

Humans are animals.



Most primates would, as would pachyderms and cetaceans. Corvids might, and, frankly, there is a chance that many other vertebrate animals would have some sort of primitive one (there are instances of lions, for instance, taking care of antelope calves).



Depends on the animal. But, hey, how many humans are going to be equally concerned about your welfare? I don't think King Saud is going to be as concerned about my welfare as that of his grandchildren, so does that give me free reign to slaughter him for meat?



Do you do that with other humans beings who aren't immediate family and close friends?



That leads to problems such as mass extinctions and the eventual death of humanity. Oh well! It's not like having an ethical framework that includes animals could possibly be useful!



Why shouldn't he be? He does make a strong case that is difficult to logically refute. How is a newborn baby objectively different from a dog? Fur? Well, some men are bald, some people have hirsutism. A different number of teeth? Well, children have a different number of teeth from adults. What about potential for intelligence? Well, some children are born with cri-du-chat syndrome or some other severe mental disability that limits their intellectual growth to such an extent that linguistic learning is impossible, which limits everything else. There are very few important objective differences between humans and other mammals, so why shouldn't we apply ethical arguments to animals as well as people?

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SDNet: Unbelievable levels of pedantry that you can't find anywhere else on the Internet!

The most important point that comes to mind? We simply don't have the Godlike means of resource sustainability to do so. Fuck, we are going to have a problem with our own human population explosion. You want to add animals on top of the list of who has to be "looked after"?

Look, I know what you're saying. I can sympathize, but I am too fucking old and jaded to let these simplistic semantics affect my resolve. Again..this isn't Disney! We all can't live happily ever after. The lion isn't going to lie down with the lamb, manna isn't going to fall from the skies. My cause is humanity first. I would do all in my power to minimize unecessary suffering in our species and in any other species we could do so reasonably because that IS what an ethical person would do because we possess empathy. But equal footing? Sorry. When they can talk with us, meet with us, force us to parley in a way that demonstrates equal self-awareness and self-possession in a societal sense, then I'll get back to you.

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You have to realize that most Christian "moral values" behaviour is not really about "protecting" anyone; it's about their desire to send a continual stream of messages of condemnation towards people whose existence offends them. - Darth Wong alias Mike Wong

"There is nothing wrong with being ignorant. However, there is something very wrong with not choosing to exchange ignorance for knowledge when the opportunity presents itself."

If we can't alleviate their natural suffering we could at least minimize the degree to which we actively add to it. I'm not sure this is necessarily going to work against maximizing resources for humans; aren't present industrial meat-farming practices pretty wasteful, and would be less so if we only grazed animals on land insuitable for directly growing people food, but this would mean people would have to eat less meat?

Not arguing against that! Would be HAPPY to help animals and minimize their suffering in every way reasonably possible. In that sense or course I feel similarly as I do to fellow humans. I'm not trying to paint a 100% black and white situation of we matter totally, they don't. BUT if you put my back to the wall as a global species and where our priorities have to be in terms of life rights over the human race and other animals? I will support our species. Now the individual asshole deliberately wiping out animals without good cause, (food, shelter, clothing, etc..), I would take to task and control him within our culture because I DO believe other animals should have a general right to existence of course! It's not that there is any problem with them being an abomination or inconsequential as a consciousness...I'm just trying to make the overall watermark starting point that humans have to care about humans. No other animal has the capacity, (to my knowledge), the desire, or the proven history of altruism towards us as a species.

I feel like I'm arguing against devils advocates..am I just being punked or are you guys serious in your questions? Would you REALLY elevate a non-human species of ANY kind currently existing to have power over our lives at this time equal in our control on theirs?

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You have to realize that most Christian "moral values" behaviour is not really about "protecting" anyone; it's about their desire to send a continual stream of messages of condemnation towards people whose existence offends them. - Darth Wong alias Mike Wong

"There is nothing wrong with being ignorant. However, there is something very wrong with not choosing to exchange ignorance for knowledge when the opportunity presents itself."

Circular reasoning is not by definition inconsistent. It is just wrong.



Some animals do, actually. Dolphins for example will treat a human by THEIR social rules. It is just that their social rules are different from ours and sometimes this can get a human hurt. Same with chimpanzees and other apes. They have a social/ethical framework. It just evolved under different circumstances and signals can get crossed.

So, I want you to define EXACTLY what makes animals inferior to humans in such a way that we owe them absolutely nothing. I do not object to predation, but predation is way the fuck different from what we do them in factory farms, and what we do as a side effect of our agricultural practices to entire ecosystems. So, what makes us "special"? And you cannot simply define it as "humanity" because that is tautological, and is basically the logic of racism, just up a level of organization? Is it human level intellect? Again, tautology. Self-awareness? I can name a number of taxa that are self aware. Elephants, pretty much all the monkeys and great apes, most cetaceans, some parrots, probably octopus, and maybe monitor lizards. Dogs definitely, pigs.... may have better problem solving skills than a dog, but may not be self aware. (Basically, really really high problem solving skills require abstract thought sufficient to visualize the self. First order theory of mind. Highly complex social behavior requires the ability to use your brain to model someone else's reactions. Second order theory of mind or higher. With training, humans can get up to IIRC 6th order theory of mind--they can model reactions to five people down a chain-- .Chimpanzees can sometimes get to third order, dolphins have not been tested, but are at at least second order. I mention dogs as counting because they are highly social, can read human social cues, and can learn to understand language)

The answer to someone not trying to work to a pre-defined anthropocentric conclusion is obvious. What makes humans morally worthwhile? We experience life, and would prefer others to not make our lives miserable. We are all fundamentally the same, therefore, everyone prefers not to have their lives made miserable. Therefore, we will put rules in place to avoid being made miserable. Really simple. I could put this in a polysyllogism if you would like.

Animals with a primary consciousness experience life. The degree to which they are capable of experiencing life (abstractly registering damage-->fixed action pattern to avoid all the way to full self awareness and experiencing vicariously through others) is the degree to which they are similar to us. Therefore, the degree to which they are similar to us is the same degree to which our rules should protect their interests

And this is before we get into ecosystem connectedness. This is nothing more than our own moral intuition as performed by our amygdala and prefrontal cortex, with a consistency rule. It basically means that killing a chimp, dolphin, or elephant is murder (and others), but predation on other animals (like say, a hoofed ungulate that is has limited cognitive ability and basically registers damage) might be acceptable so long as said animal does not suffer thereby.

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GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Herpetology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences

There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

So, you take a paternalistic view of nature? It's been chugging along for 14 billion years just fine without us, why do you think it needs taking care of rather than left alone?



Active intervention is unnecessary, but what about not actively taking lives and directly preventing suffering vis a vis farming or similar methods? Eating meat, for instance.



I do not see infants talking with me, meeting with me, forcing me to parley in a way that demonstrates equal self-awareness and self-possession in a societal sense. Ergo, slaughtering infants for meat and leather is morally and ethically fine, QED.

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SDNet: Unbelievable levels of pedantry that you can't find anywhere else on the Internet!

Alternatively: how can I know you're on equal footing with me? For all I know, your speech is nothing more than a sophisticated set of automation from some sort of meaty robot that does not actually have any of the qualities that you described and are little more than an sophisticated insect. Should killing you, then, be ethically fine, due to me thinking you're not actually an entity with moral value?

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SDNet: Unbelievable levels of pedantry that you can't find anywhere else on the Internet!

Leaving them well enough alone should suffice. Nature has been chugging along much longer than we have been around.



If we teach them ASL, the great apes display a vocabulary and cognitive ability equal to that of human children. Dolphins have a language of their own (several, actually), we just dont speak it(them) yet. But I suppose that it is OK to kill them for meat. Same with elephants which also probably have a language, mourn their dead, and are one of a few dozen species on the planet that will take horrible vengeance over the course of weeks and months for the murder of their offspring. Mmmm Ivory. Gotta love it.

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GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Herpetology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences

There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

That's completely incredible. Our great ape cousins are in many ways very intelligent in regards to tool use, ability to solve problems in better ways than trial and error, etc. But that non-human animals have such linguistic ability is unsupported, unless we're going to take children under two years of age.

What their performance in the attempts to teach them language tells us is that they can learn that signs are valued by people and rewarded. Their vocabulary performance is dismal outside of a natural context. In other words, they use signs or lexigrams as an extension of their quite impressive problem-solving abilities, to effect outcomes out of their handlers, and not as a language; they can mand, but show no ability to name.

By no means do humans have a monopoly on intelligence, but they do seem to have one on language.

Except that they then proceed to teach said ASL to other apes in their group. Either way, I said human child, by which I meant toddler (which is about the same vocabulary depth of an above-average chimp), so that is perfectly fine.



And then we get into dolphins...

My apologies for formatting. Pulled from PDF

Herman LM, Uyeyama, RK. 2008. Bottlenose dolphins understand relationships between concepts. BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES, 31(2):139



This is not at all easy to do. To reach a consensus about a routine of behavior, much of which is novel, plan it in sequence, and then execute it (and yes, there is a period prior to obeying this command that the dolphins swim around and communicate with eachother). This sort of thing requires something that we might call language. It does not have to be at all complex, but if they can understand a really basic language (and they can, apparently, http://www.lacus.org/volumes/34/102_herman_l.pdf http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz3sQsTE5tA), have a vast vocal repertoire which gets modified when communicating with other groups of dolphins (or even across species boundaries, which they do), and they use cultural transmission of information...what exactly are we to conclude from this?

Are we to conclude that the huge vocal repertoire, completely different from their echolocation clicks and contact/signature whistles is just noise? Are we to conclude that an animal capable of understanding things like word order, transitive reasoning, presence and absence, and the meaning of verbs sufficiently advanced to modify their environment to perform said verbs... is not capable of a language--even a basic one--of its own? I dont think so.

If you reach this conclusion, what data would you require to show that they do, in fact, have their own language and are capable of actually learning others, such as one we might teach to them? Do you want the language of the group of dolphins living off the Fl. Keys fully translated? We cannot even do that with some old human languages.

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GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Herpetology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences

There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

There are many people in many places who die because they do not live in a technolgical age where they can feed themselves, efficiently and at a healthier standard, or by eschewing the consumption of animal flesh. When everyone has a full stomach, we can sit down and talk about being picky about food.

I'm not arguing for a Hindu or Sikh approach towards animals. Specifically I argue for a Jainist and/or Levinasian approach to ethics which would differ substantially both in rationale and approach to the statist and Sikh ethics you try to compare it to.


Both were expressly maintained and propagated by utilitarian ethics. M'intosh V Johnson (the US supreme court case which stripped Native Americans of land rights) expressly said that Native Americans could never utilize lands like the White Man so they could only be considered to be holding land in trust for white settlement. Many of the later atrocities were also justified via utilitarian approaches to ethics which forced Native Americans off of land that would later be settled by Whitey.

There is endless literature on the holocaust, but a number of authors have pointed out how the camps were designed to wring every last bit of utility out of the jewish inmates, and how the Nazis campaigned for election in certain areas by stating, simply, that the Jews caused more harm than good and thus out be disposed of.



That's exactly the point. Lacking a super-natural starting point there is no consistent way to exclude animals from the moral community.





That's not an argument. At best that's equivocation and at worst it's moral cowardice.

Yes it's an acceptable act to eat the flesh of animals if you live in place where its consumption is necessary in order to hope to survive. For us in the first world though? Their hardship is no excuse for us to commit needless moral atrocities, and to lump our relationship to food in with their relationship is an act of unimaginable hubris and disrespect.

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"My annoyance is exacerbated by the fact that the suffering I am witnessing now cannot exist on its own, it has to fall into the hierarchy of a “lesser animal suffering.” In the made-for-TV reality of American culture, the only acceptable genocide is historical. It’s comforting—it’s over. Twenty million murdered humans deserve to be more than a reference point. I am annoyed that I don’t have more power in communicating what I’ve seen apart from stuttering: “It’s like the Holocaust” " - Susan Coe

I haven't seen someone do the "But I'm not a racist!" in quite some time.

Firstly, your ethical systems needs a check of premises. Your first post makes it very clear that you only consider beings who care about you to be part of your moral framework. This leaves young children, the mentally handicapped, and people with less expansive ethical systems completely outside of any system you might propose.

As to this:

Replace species with race. You give no reason as to why you should include all of humanity other than "they're like me", and give no reason to exclude non-human animals except for "they aren't like me." Before you try to get self-righteous and say "But animals don't give a crap about me, so it's okay!" think about it long and hard. Would you be okay with me herding the mentally handicapped, elderly, and certain religious fundamentalists into a feed lot and then raising them for slaughter and consumption. Probably not. Do these people give a shit about you? No. Under your ethical system why is this wrong but the killing of animals okay? The answer is: It's not, at least without being massively contradictory.

So let's try this again, shall we?

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"My annoyance is exacerbated by the fact that the suffering I am witnessing now cannot exist on its own, it has to fall into the hierarchy of a “lesser animal suffering.” In the made-for-TV reality of American culture, the only acceptable genocide is historical. It’s comforting—it’s over. Twenty million murdered humans deserve to be more than a reference point. I am annoyed that I don’t have more power in communicating what I’ve seen apart from stuttering: “It’s like the Holocaust” " - Susan Coe

I'm conceding the argument for now even though most of you are still agreeing with me in the first place about all I 'm really trying to argue for in the first place, the right to eat animals for food but not to hurt or kill them indiscriminately or possibly special exceptions like primates and such. I should have admitted I was willing to consider differences with certain animals but I didn't want to get sidetracked.

Apparently I just don't know how to argue what I'm trying to put across properly because it's having some of you put a lot of words in my mouth. How the hell could you possibly slippery slope me from eating meat to killing babies and handicapped? Sheesh.

Withdrawn.

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You have to realize that most Christian "moral values" behaviour is not really about "protecting" anyone; it's about their desire to send a continual stream of messages of condemnation towards people whose existence offends them. - Darth Wong alias Mike Wong

"There is nothing wrong with being ignorant. However, there is something very wrong with not choosing to exchange ignorance for knowledge when the opportunity presents itself."

A. Pro-tip: When you want to concede a point don't get snooty about it, just concede.
B. I'm certainly not agreeing with you that it's alright to eat animals for food.
C. Unless you can give a justification for why animals are acceptable targets of slaughter and consumption and humans aren't, there really is nothing keeping you from justifying the slaughter of infants.

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"My annoyance is exacerbated by the fact that the suffering I am witnessing now cannot exist on its own, it has to fall into the hierarchy of a “lesser animal suffering.” In the made-for-TV reality of American culture, the only acceptable genocide is historical. It’s comforting—it’s over. Twenty million murdered humans deserve to be more than a reference point. I am annoyed that I don’t have more power in communicating what I’ve seen apart from stuttering: “It’s like the Holocaust” " - Susan Coe

You also cannot blame utilitarianism for being misrepresented, or having its assumptions violated.

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GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Herpetology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences

There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

Go check out the consequentialism thread. Util is neither being misrepresented nor having its assumptions violated, if anything Util's assumptions lead to the horrific consequences like the holocaust/CAFOs.

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"My annoyance is exacerbated by the fact that the suffering I am witnessing now cannot exist on its own, it has to fall into the hierarchy of a “lesser animal suffering.” In the made-for-TV reality of American culture, the only acceptable genocide is historical. It’s comforting—it’s over. Twenty million murdered humans deserve to be more than a reference point. I am annoyed that I don’t have more power in communicating what I’ve seen apart from stuttering: “It’s like the Holocaust” " - Susan Coe

Um. No.

Holocaust: Yeah. Sure. If you conclude that the jews as a race of people were doing more harm than good (a false claim), and the only solution was to kill them, and completely disregard their own contribution to the utility function. Remember, utilitarianism requires the maximization of the utility function. I am pretty sure there were higher utility options other than concentration camps--and that is you accept the statement as true, which no sane/intellectually honest person does.



Presupposes that land must be utilized in accordance with 19th century notions of progress. Something not claimed by utilitarianism at all. An observation by darwin, slightly modified, also seems to fit. The white man is expanding for economic advantage. The native american is fighting for their lives (or home), I wonder... who has a stronger utilitarian claim? Settlers, or the native americans who last I checked, outnumbered whitey locally until smallpox killed them all (horrifically). And remember, the utility function must be MAXIMIZED. No other solution to that problem that does not involve ethnic cleansing eh?

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GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Herpetology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences

There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

Leaving aside that you’re weaselling out of the fact that you didn’t specify that your ideals only apply to rich people, I'll save you the trouble: I don't employ morals with food, only with humans. That's why I work at Agriculture Canada - I don't want the world you offer. I want a world where everyone has the luxury of choice, where everyone can turn down bacon if they feel like it. And that world isn't coming about with empathy for pigs; but it may come about because departments like mine are coming up with ways to raise bigger, healthier, meatier pigs for slaughter.

I’m happy to see you’ve moved where you’ve drawn your line in the sand, although you’re going down the same road as every other idealist I’ve talked to about this: “Eating meat is wrong!” “What if you’re starving?” “Okay, maybe then”. I’m sure if I took the time to discuss global food markets with you, I could get you to agree to enough exceptions for North American production as to push it beyond the point where any layperson would consider it a useful philosophy.

You're missing the more fundamental ethical question. Util presupposes that there can be an accurate accounting of who counts, and who does not, as ethical subjects. The second such a count is made groups are left out and become legitimate subjects of eradication. The problem with the Jews and the Native Americans is that they were no longer viewed as ethical subjects under these systems of util, and were thus elided from the moral calculus except in so far as they effected actual ethical subjects. In other words, because the Native American had no claim to being an ethical subject because they didn't establish settlements they were always legitimate targets for exterimination and destruction. The only way out of this fundamental miscount (which we see most explicitly in this thread) is to get rid of the counting process at all and adopt a universalist framing for ethics and ethical conduct.

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"My annoyance is exacerbated by the fact that the suffering I am witnessing now cannot exist on its own, it has to fall into the hierarchy of a “lesser animal suffering.” In the made-for-TV reality of American culture, the only acceptable genocide is historical. It’s comforting—it’s over. Twenty million murdered humans deserve to be more than a reference point. I am annoyed that I don’t have more power in communicating what I’ve seen apart from stuttering: “It’s like the Holocaust” " - Susan Coe

That people fucked up said accounting because they were operating on false assumptions, or bigotry does not mean that consequentialism is not true. In the same way, in Kantian deontology, one must have a rational mind to count. If I don't think that group X is rational--say I take the solipsist approach and claim they do not really exist, or only appear to think--I can do whatever I want to them because I am not violating the categorical imperative by torturing an automaton/figment of my imagination.

Utilitarianism assumes, last I checked, that people are fundamentally the same. That I am no different from you, and no different than a black person etc.

If I use special pleading, I can invent any set of assumptions that breaks any ethical system. I can say, for example, that black people are not people and as such have no natural rights. That does not mean rights theory is invalid (it is invalid for other reasons).

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GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Herpetology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences

There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

"Stealing is wrong!" "What if you're starving?" "Well, ok then."

ETHICAL SYSTEM IN TATTERS!

But please do discuss the global meat markets. I'd love to see how you get me to agree for exceptions for the North American system.

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"Aid, trade, green technology and peace." - Hans Rosling.
"Market forces are a good servant but a poor master." - Zaune

A. Bullshit I only apply morals to rich people, I merely prioritize survival. If you live in the Serengeti or the South East Pacific and literally cannot live without the sacrifice of animals it is acceptable to kills as necessary. Nobody in the first or second (or most of the third) world faces that ethical dilemma, nor should they be excused from that choice.

B. The "luxury of choice" comes off the horrific maiming, mutilation, torture, rape, and needless slaughter of animals. The choice you call for is the choice to commit atrocity at whim via a process that's not only morally horrific but is also unhealthy and, in North America especially, environmentally destructive beyond all want or repair. What Agriculture Canada (and the DoA in America) does cannot be justified, and will (I hope) one day be a hallmark of one of this era's deeply shameful characteristics.

C. You want to talk this out in regards to North America? Fine. Let's have at it. You, me, the The Coliseum. "Resolved: It's ethically justifiable for North Americans to consume animal products as part of their diet." You affirm, I negate, and I'll even give you four posts to my three and first and last post. I'd make some snide comment here but I think this would actually be both of us doing our jobs, except on the internet.

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"My annoyance is exacerbated by the fact that the suffering I am witnessing now cannot exist on its own, it has to fall into the hierarchy of a “lesser animal suffering.” In the made-for-TV reality of American culture, the only acceptable genocide is historical. It’s comforting—it’s over. Twenty million murdered humans deserve to be more than a reference point. I am annoyed that I don’t have more power in communicating what I’ve seen apart from stuttering: “It’s like the Holocaust” " - Susan Coe

That's about as close to factually wrong as possible.

But let's say you were right, the question would be why? If you simply start from the stance that all humans count then you're being utterly arbitrary and can't rule out the exclusion of other groups on similar arbitrary grounds. Anything that is 'innately human' that would make humans count, typically language or higher intelligence, tends to elide large portions of humanity and render them as beings outside the moral calculus. Not only is that problematic but the standards that make humans count tend to be rather arbitrary and can change according to new social interpretations of the world that render more beings outside the moral community. Put more succinctly, any utilitarian calculus is always going to be based on a foundation of shifting cultural norms and presumptions that can arbitrarily include or exclude groups with no rhyme or reason.

The closest that anyone has gotten to overcoming this is Peter Singer and his gaggle of followers with his attempts to spread util's net as wide as it can go, but even his work is ridden with internal inconsistencies and contradictions. Better to take the logical next step and just adopt a universalist framing of ethics and be done with it.

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"My annoyance is exacerbated by the fact that the suffering I am witnessing now cannot exist on its own, it has to fall into the hierarchy of a “lesser animal suffering.” In the made-for-TV reality of American culture, the only acceptable genocide is historical. It’s comforting—it’s over. Twenty million murdered humans deserve to be more than a reference point. I am annoyed that I don’t have more power in communicating what I’ve seen apart from stuttering: “It’s like the Holocaust” " - Susan Coe