User Controls
We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
-
2018-03-23 at 5:03 AM UTC
Originally posted by 杀死所有的白魔鬼 but all you need is a disclaimer signed and you're fucking good.
this isnt an internet forum where an all purpose disclaimer can be typed by a 13y.o and will suffice.
IRL disclaimers have to be made and bulletproofed by a team of lawyers and even then, sometimes they still got sued becos of a certain error and omission. -
2018-03-23 at 5:06 AM UTC
Originally posted by Lanny I started replying to you, despite it being obvious you were trolling, because I thought you had a well formed position and I was high. I'm no longer high and this is just you being evasive.
Let me be more direct: why I treat a shoe different than a dog has nothing to do with qualia. I just think about the potential for how it might affect me. If there is a rock in my path, I step over it. If there is a small dog sleeping in my path, I might or might not step over it, depending on how I think it will react. If the dog is a P-zombie, I would probably act the exact same way. Do you really act according to whether or not you think animals or people possess qualia? Does that idea really affect your decision making? I genuinely believe that the only thing you respond to is the physical qualities of the world around you. And no, not what "your qualia" responds to; it's just your body interacting with some stimulus.Little but some. Ants are very simple animals, their capacity for experiencing suffering seems to be much lower than more neurologically complex animals.
I like that you said "seems to be". Why does it seem to be that way? -
2018-03-23 at 5:14 AM UTC
Originally posted by Jeremus Be honest, how much consideration do you give ants? If you ever leave a donut on the counter and find ants swarming it in the morning, how would you deal with it? Would you carefully remove the donut and then the ants, taking care not to hurt them? Or would you throw away the donut and then commit ant holocaust for convenience's sake?
I blow them off the countertop. Meanwhile, I busy myself thinking of ways to redirect them or plug their point of entry. When this stage is complete, I relocate the ones remaining to the outdoors where they belong. Sometimes this a long process, but I think it's necessary.
Originally posted by Jeremus Let me be more direct: why I treat a shoe different than a dog has nothing to do with qualia. I just think about the potential for how it might affect me. If there is a rock in my path, I step over it. If there is a small dog sleeping in my path, I might or might not step over it, depending on how I think it will react. If the dog is a P-zombie, I would probably act the exact same way. Do you really act according to whether or not you think animals or people possess qualia? Does that idea really affect your decision making? I genuinely believe that the only thing you respond to is the physical qualities of the world around you. And no, not what "your qualia" responds to; it's just your body interacting with some stimulus.
Even a hardened realist might have a difficult time with that claim. How do you explain your participation in a forum, if all you respond to is physical phenomena? What happened to information as your prime substrate for metaphysical entities? Is information not distinctly a product of the realm of ideas, and therefore immediately in conflict with your assertion that we only interact with the physical? -
2018-03-23 at 6:15 AM UTC
Originally posted by Jeremus Let me be more direct: why I treat a shoe different than a dog has nothing to do with qualia. I just think about the potential for how it might affect me.
Does the same principle extend to humans? Would you murder for profit if you thought you could get away with it (i.e. you would gain without negative consequence)?Do you really act according to whether or not you think animals or people possess qualia? Does that idea really affect your decision making?
Yes. Empathy, whether you think it's serves as a logically consistent basis for a system of ethics or not, is a major real world motivator of our ethical behavior and it would seem to require us to attribute qualia to other things. I don't feel empathy for a shoe because it doesn't seem to suffer or feel joy like I do. I might feel empathy for an anthropomorphized shoe because it seems more like me, it seems to have experience rather than an inert existence.I genuinely believe that the only thing you respond to is the physical qualities of the world around you. And no, not what "your qualia" responds to; it's just your body interacting with some stimulus.
I think you're missing the point. Maybe the use of the term "qualia" got us off track. I don't propose some metaphysical interaction between qualia or anything nutty like that. I'm just saying I experience empathy for things like dogs and humans because I believe (based on evidence) that they have experiences like my own. Humans probably have experiences which are more like my own than dogs do. And inanimate objects show so evidences of having experience like mine at all. I don't know that to be true because I can't detect qualia in other things directly, and maybe qualia don't exist at all, but I can gather evidence and form beliefs about self-similarity.I like that you said "seems to be". Why does it seem to be that way?
Because of similarity observable behaviors. When I'm injured I have an internal experience and also have some outward behavior, when I'm feeling happy I have a different set of outward behaviors. These things are so tightly related in my experience that, in so far as we can take any inductive evidence as valid, one seems to signal the other. Humans show very similar outward behaviors to my own and so seem very likely to have similar internal experiences. Lower animals variously demonstrate analogues to my responses to internal states and I ascribe self-same experience to them to the degree that they do. The outward behaviors of inanimate objects seem very different from my own. Plants appear much closer to inanimate objects in terms of experience-signaling-behavior than to myself, therefore I count them as outside of moral considerability.
While I think your motivations for treating inanimate objects differently than people are the same as my own, whether you accept it intellectually or not, you would seem to have to give us some criteria to justify the difference intellectually and I don't believe for a second that you really accept the egoistic notion that impact of your actions on yourself is the sole consideration. -
2018-03-23 at 11:34 AM UTC
Originally posted by Jeremus That's not the problem at all. We already have more than enough food to feed literally everyone on earth. In fact, since livestock production is such an insanely land, energy, nutrient and water inefficient process (the amount of shit we put in vs the calories out is incredibly bad), halting meat production and replacing it with food crops and modern farming techniques, not only could we feed everyone but we'd actually be able to feed them like kings, remove the ENORMOUS environmental impact of livestock farming, and a lot of the saved resources could be redirected to benefiting people's lives in other ways.
Now I will grant that it is a societal problem; if you stopped eating meat tomorrow, it wouldn't make an ounce of difference in the global meat industry. But as a society, it's hard to argue that we should stop eating meat, and such societal action would necessarily require you to participate in it.
I guess I'd just rather live in a world with less people and more meat then a world with less meat and more people. -
2018-03-23 at 1:47 PM UTC
Originally posted by Zanick I blow them off the countertop. Meanwhile, I busy myself thinking of ways to redirect them or plug their point of entry. When this stage is complete, I relocate the ones remaining to the outdoors where they belong. Sometimes this a long process, but I think it's necessary.
Why? Why don't you wipe them out?Even a hardened realist might have a difficult time with that claim. How do you explain your participation in a forum, if all you respond to is physical phenomena?
I don't see how my participation in a forum isn't just me responding to physical phenomena.What happened to information as your prime substrate for metaphysical entities? Is information not distinctly a product of the realm of ideas, and therefore immediately in conflict with your assertion that we only interact with the physical?
I make up things all the time to try my hand at debating them. It serves as an intellectual challenge to me. I hope that doesn't sound rude. I just like to assess people's beliefs by the merits of their arguments, and not of mine. I think that the information thing is an interesting idea that we could explore as a subject of study. But I don't think it currently holds philosophical weight on its own. -
2018-03-23 at 4:58 PM UTCSeafood is vegan right?. Everyone knows fish don't have souls.
-
2018-03-23 at 5:19 PM UTC
Originally posted by Jeremus Why? Why don't you wipe them out?
They have things to do, and dying on my counter isn't part of the agenda. I include them in my definition of moral agency. I know a lot of scientists have given reasons why they don't feel pain, but they run away from my feet and I have to believe they see a tragedy coming for them in those moments. I can't help but sympathize.I don't see how my participation in a forum isn't just me responding to physical phenomena.
I think I agree that there's an argument that might successfully reduce your forum participation to the interactions of matter, I just wasn't sure if it was your intention to argue it.I make up things all the time to try my hand at debating them. It serves as an intellectual challenge to me. I hope that doesn't sound rude. I just like to assess people's beliefs by the merits of their arguments, and not of mine. I think that the information thing is an interesting idea that we could explore as a subject of study. But I don't think it currently holds philosophical weight on its own.
That doesn't sound rude at all. You could say that I created this thread for similar reasons, except I'm also really a vegetarian IRL. -
2018-03-23 at 5:22 PM UTCZanick what about all those trillions of pathogens/bacteria that are constantly slaughtered by your bloodthirsty immune system? What about their moral agency god dammit.
This is genocide -
2018-03-23 at 5:32 PM UTC
-
2018-03-23 at 5:35 PM UTC
Originally posted by Fox Paws Zanick what about all those trillions of pathogens/bacteria that are constantly slaughtered by your bloodthirsty immune system? What about their moral agency god dammit.
This is genocide
My body is a complicated ecosystem, I don't have the ability to manage their affairs. So, I treat this issue the same way I treat any external population: if they're in their own environment, it's not my business. -
2018-03-23 at 5:41 PM UTC
-
2018-03-23 at 5:43 PM UTC
Originally posted by Zanick My body is a complicated ecosystem, I don't have the ability to manage their affairs. So, I treat this issue the same way I treat any external population: if they're in their own environment, it's not my business.
But you could manage it. You could live inside a bubble like a bubble boy.
The fact that you don’t shows that you actually don’t give a shit about moral agency. Or you only care as far as it’s convenient for YOU.
You make me sick -
2018-03-23 at 5:48 PM UTC
-
2018-03-23 at 6:10 PM UTCZanick why do ants running from your feet count as moral agents but plants trying to defend themselves against catiplliers does not?
Did you know the smell of freshly cut grass is their equivalent of an animal screaming in agony? Plants use their chemicals to send signals instead of sounds like us.
Anyway I thought we were going to talk more about the morality aspect of this. -
2018-03-23 at 6:14 PM UTCPlants don't experience agony according to everything we know. No reason to believe they do beyond conjecture
-
2018-03-23 at 6:18 PM UTC
Originally posted by 杀死所有的白魔鬼 Plants don't experience agony according to everything we know. No reason to believe they do beyond conjecture
Sure and I don't even care if Zanick wants to not talk about plants. That would be fine. But he even said that most scientists don't think ants feel pain, so why does he choose to define them as moral agents but not plants? Probably because he just wants to, because his morals are subjective and relative, and therefore none of us have a moral obligation to not eat meat. -
2018-03-23 at 6:20 PM UTC
Originally posted by Obbe Sure and I don't even care if Zanick wants to not talk about plants. That would be fine. But he even said that most scientists don't think ants feel pain, so why does he choose to define them as moral agents but not plants? Probably because he just wants to, because his morals are subjective and relative, and therefore none of us have a moral obligation to not step on ants.
Fixed that for you - even if we all agree his morals on the subject of ant crushing are not objective, this doesn't necessarily translate to his morals on the subject of eating meat. -
2018-03-23 at 6:23 PM UTC
-
2018-03-23 at 6:28 PM UTC
Originally posted by Fox Paws But you could manage it. You could live inside a bubble like a bubble boy.
The fact that you don’t shows that you actually don’t give a shit about moral agency. Or you only care as far as it’s convenient for YOU.
You make me sick
You could say that we all draw our own boundaries. I deserve to live in an environment of my choosing, just like animals. That some of them have taken up residence in my gut isn't my choice, and they'll have to contend with the same difficulties any organism inside of me would, including myself.
Originally posted by Obbe Zanick why do ants running from your feet count as moral agents but plants trying to defend themselves against catiplliers does not?
Did you know the smell of freshly cut grass is their equivalent of an animal screaming in agony? Plants use their chemicals to send signals instead of sounds like us.
Anyway I thought we were going to talk more about the morality aspect of this.
Plants aren't trying to defend themselves from caterpillars, as far as I know. Is there a more precise way of articulating that which would tell me about the plant and the mechanism to which you're referring?
I don't think grass screams for help, because it has no conception of the fact that asking other blades to help it would be futile. Intelligent organisms usually don't develop useless methods of communication.
The only drive plants appear to have is to use natural resources in the production of energy so that they can reproduce. I don't recognize them as moral agents because the facts tell me that they aren't in pain, nor do they care whether I eat them.
As for morality, I thought you accepted Jeremus' argument for ecology? That's a reasonable avenue to animal rights, so long as the activists remain pragmatic. I don't see how my forcing you to empathize with creatures you don't already care for would improve this position.
