User Controls
We have a moral obligation to stop eating meat
-
2018-06-21 at 6:22 PM UTC
Originally posted by Lanny I'm not. People who argue plants have hedonic faculties generally state in the general form of "plants can react to stimulus, so they must be able to feel pain!" which I think is a really flimsy argument. In general I think this is a camp that takes some real and interesting findings in biology and draws wholly invalid conclusions from them. But Obbe did put it in the most interesting way the question can be framed, as a hypothetical.
So if we found that all life is capable of well being or suffering, which I've put forward as the criterion for moral considerability, then we need to ask what the distribution and degree of considerability is among species. If plants have a very slight hedonic faculty but humans a much greater one, then it may be justifiable to inflict the amount of suffering required for our well being on plants. For what it's worth I think this argument applies to animals too: the lives of humans are certainly more considerable than those of chickens and I would never say that a starving person is doing something wrong for eating a chicken, it's simply that when we have a choice between eating an animal, which is somewhat less morally considerable than us, and a plant, which I think is totally morally unconsiderable, then we do something wrong by harming the animal.
So what if plants end being capable the same or greater depth of feeling than animals? I think the situation is really pretty far fetched, but if it was the case then I guess most of us would be obligated to die since I doubt we could sustain a very large population on fruit or whatever other sources of calories are available to us without killing anything.
Lol, you're the one dodging my questions buddy
That's possibly just a human-centric or animal-centric approach to morality / consumption.
Imagine if we stumbled on a form of alien life that we didn't even recognize as life but was actually intelligent and felt pain from our experiments while we didn't even realize it. Would that make us evil? Or imagine if something with super-human intelligence stumbled upon us and saw us as just another resource to exploit ... maybe come back to Earth every 10000 years to harvest new organisms, ideas, technologies. Just another experiment. Maybe it wouldn't even consider "suffering" to be something to be concerned about. Is that really evil? Or is it only evil 'to us'?
I guess my point is that I don't believe we have any obligation to die for the sake of some other form of life. And I do believe that eventually science will recognize that all forms of life, even plants, are intelligent to some degree and can suffer to some degree, and if your response to that is suicide I don't think that's going to achieve anything except people like me will still be here living life while people like you won't be. -
2018-06-21 at 6:22 PM UTC
Originally posted by A College Professor what if you give the animal some dope and cut its leg off and it wakes up and is happy again and you sell the leg to buy more animals to dope more animals up to cut more legs off to sell more animal legs to make more happy animals and so on
whay do you do to them after you took their leggs ??? -
2018-06-21 at 6:23 PM UTCkeep feeding it so it lays more eggs. i dont have to go to colege to invent stuff like the leggs n eggs humane love-meat method
altho sum people want to squabble over trvialities , meanwhile i will do a real solution -
2018-06-21 at 6:25 PM UTC
Originally posted by Obbe That's possibly just a human-centric or animal-centric approach to morality / consumption.
Imagine if we stumbled on a form of alien life that we didn't even recognize as life but was actually intelligent and felt pain from our experiments while we didn't even realize it. Would that make us evil? Or imagine if something with super-human intelligence stumbled upon us and saw us as just another resource to exploit … maybe come back to Earth every 10000 years to harvest new organisms, ideas, technologies. Just another experiment. Maybe it wouldn't even consider "suffering" to be something to be concerned about. Is that really evil? Or is it only evil 'to us'?
I guess my point is that I don't believe we have any obligation to die for the sake of some other form of life. And I do believe that eventually science will recognize that all forms of life, even plants, are intelligent to some degree and can suffer to some degree, and if your response to that is suicide I don't think that's going to achieve anything except people like me will still be here living life while people like you won't be.
or imagine if aliens that can communicate telepathically come to earth, and sees us unable to communicate telepathically,
just assumes us to to be not being able to feel pain.
becos they couldnt hear us scream.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2018-06-21 at 6:34 PM UTC
Originally posted by Obbe That's possibly just a human-centric or animal-centric approach to morality / consumption.
It's a practical approach. As you saw, I'm perfectly willing to consider consciousness and moral considerability that extends beyond humans an animals and doing so doesn't really pose any problems. But at the end of the day I need to choose what I'm going to eat for dinner and all I can act on is the best information available to be, which suggests that plants do not have the necessary mental attributes to suffer as a result of me eating them while animals do.Imagine if we stumbled on a form of alien life that we didn't even recognize as life but was actually intelligent and felt pain from our experiments while we didn't even realize it. Would that make us evil?
I don't think I've used the term "evil" in this thread. If we harmed morally considerable things, even out of ignorance, we'd be doing something wrong. "Evil" is a pretty loaded term.I guess my point is that I don't believe we have any obligation to die for the sake of some other form of life. And I do believe that eventually science will recognize that all forms of life, even plants, are intelligent to some degree and can suffer to some degree
I don't think we have any compelling evidence to justify that belief.and if your response to that is suicide I don't think that's going to achieve anything except people like me will still be here living life while people like you won't be.
The same argument has been used for justification of just about anything. "If I don't participate in the local genocide someone else probably will, so it's A-OK to murder this family", and hey, the guy who says that is probably right on the first part at least. -
2018-06-21 at 6:53 PM UTC
Originally posted by Lanny It's a practical approach. As you saw, I'm perfectly willing to consider consciousness and moral considerability that extends beyond humans an animals and doing so doesn't really pose any problems. But at the end of the day I need to choose what I'm going to eat for dinner and all I can act on is the best information available to be, which suggests that plants do not have the necessary mental attributes to suffer as a result of me eating them while animals do.
actually the choice is pretty obvious :
we are to eat what are meant for us to eat - FRUITS and honeys that we harvest with our mechanical bees.
fruits are what plants wanted us to eat, it was made for us and other animals. and honeys, do you know that flowering plants ORGASM when bees go and slurp their honeys ??? -
2018-06-21 at 7:19 PM UTC
Originally posted by benny vader or imagine if aliens that can communicate telepathically come to earth, and sees us unable to communicate telepathically,
just assumes us to to be not being able to feel pain.
becos they couldnt hear us scream.
This is why my moral system works better than utilitarianism. -
2018-06-21 at 7:20 PM UTCfor all you know aliens are already amongus and also they might think that screaming and crying and hollering carrying on is for pleasure
thats the real prolem -
2018-06-21 at 7:23 PM UTC
-
2018-06-21 at 8:07 PM UTC
Originally posted by benny vader do aliens have morals ???
All roads leads to Rome, and work in my moral system.
If they have some ability to communicate with me and we can both assess each other to be able to form some kind of social contract, we could form a society with them just fine.
If they have the ability to communicate with us and have no interest in forming a social contract with us and try to violate our own rights, then they don't have a justification to save them if we (or someone else) kick their ass; they already forfeited their right for us to not be violent to them. If we forgive them, that is through either our magnanimity or foolishness. That, or we lose. I can accept that conclusion, because at this point (when dealing with a non-moral actor), any moral system devolves into might-makes-right.
If they have an interest in forming a social contract with us but no ability to communicate it, I would be highly surprised by the existence of such a being, but then they would do well to either steer clear and practice nonviolence towards us, and if I ever ran into them in the wild, one could use this behaviour to infer some sort of loose agreement to nonviolence can be reached and attempt to give it some moral consideration, like a cat or a dog, or even a small child.
If they have neither, I don't see them different than any other animal, and my response would depend on their behaviour.
My system remains consistent and applicable. -
2018-06-21 at 8:13 PM UTC
Originally posted by Captain All roads leads to Rome, and work in my moral system.
If they have some ability to communicate with me and we can both assess each other to be able to form some kind of social contract, we could form a society with them just fine.
If they have the ability to communicate with us and have no interest in forming a social contract with us and try to violate our own rights, then they don't have a justification to save them if we (or someone else) kick their ass; they already forfeited their right for us to not be violent to them. If we forgive them, that is through either our magnanimity or foolishness. That, or we lose. I can accept that conclusion, because at this point (when dealing with a non-moral actor), any moral system devolves into might-makes-right.
If they have an interest in forming a social contract with us but no ability to communicate it, I would be highly surprised by the existence of such a being, but then they would do well to either steer clear and practice nonviolence towards us, and if I ever ran into them in the wild, one could use this behaviour to infer some sort of loose agreement to nonviolence can be reached and attempt to give it some moral consideration, like a cat or a dog, or even a small child.
If they have neither, I don't see them different than any other animal, and my response would depend on their behaviour.
My system remains consistent and applicable.
morality belongs to the strong. -
2018-06-21 at 10:07 PM UTC
Originally posted by Lanny It's a practical approach. As you saw, I'm perfectly willing to consider consciousness and moral considerability that extends beyond humans an animals and doing so doesn't really pose any problems. But at the end of the day I need to choose what I'm going to eat for dinner and all I can act on is the best information available to be, which suggests that plants do not have the necessary mental attributes to suffer as a result of me eating them while animals do.
I don't think I've used the term "evil" in this thread. If we harmed morally considerable things, even out of ignorance, we'd be doing something wrong. "Evil" is a pretty loaded term.
I don't think we have any compelling evidence to justify that belief.
The same argument has been used for justification of just about anything. "If I don't participate in the local genocide someone else probably will, so it's A-OK to murder this family", and hey, the guy who says that is probably right on the first part at least.
I don't see how animal husbandry is comparable to genocide.
What is your justification for your belief that we would have an obligation to die if it turns out we are causing life forms to suffer by eating plants?
If an advanced intelligence was farming us and didn't consider us to be morally considerable do you think it would matter? -
2018-06-21 at 10:34 PM UTC
Originally posted by benny vader morality belongs to the strong.
Yes and no. The ability to violate morality without pragmatic repercussions, belongs to the strong. But strong is relative, and if you can't extend your morality to those weaker than you, then you have to concede that someone stronger than yourself should choose to do the same to you. I am relying on their principle desire to continue persisting, so they can make their chances of having grounds for being killed or having their liberty revoked as close to zero as possible. -
2018-06-22 at 1:04 AM UTC
Originally posted by Obbe I don't see how animal husbandry is comparable to genocide.
I didn't really compare animal husbandry to genocide, I compared your justification for eating morally considerable things (i.e. if I don't do it, someone else will) to an argument justifying genocide.What is your justification for your belief that we would have an obligation to die if it turns out we are causing life forms to suffer by eating plants?
The same justification I offer for why we save people from burning buildings before animals or why hospitals are more heavily invested in than veterinary clinics and why we don't have rock-hospitals: we are interested in, and our moral obligation lies in, protecting things in proportion to how morally considerable they are. I think we're the most morally considerable things around, but if we're not then our moral obligation doesn't change, our interests just stop being the most important kind.If an advanced intelligence was farming us and didn't consider us to be morally considerable do you think it would matter?
Yes, I obviously would think it matters because we are morally considerable, regardless of the opinions of another species. Just as animals are morally considerable, even if many people don't think they are. -
2018-06-22 at 5:06 PM UTC
Originally posted by Captain Yes and no. The ability to violate morality without pragmatic repercussions, belongs to the strong. But strong is relative, and if you can't extend your morality to those weaker than you, then you have to concede that someone stronger than yourself should choose to do the same to you.
isnt this how the world had, has always been ???
morality has always been dictated by the strong.The following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire! -
2018-06-22 at 6:15 PM UTC
Originally posted by Lanny I didn't really compare animal husbandry to genocide, I compared your justification for eating morally considerable things (i.e. if I don't do it, someone else will) to an argument justifying genocide.
The same justification I offer for why we save people from burning buildings before animals or why hospitals are more heavily invested in than veterinary clinics and why we don't have rock-hospitals: we are interested in, and our moral obligation lies in, protecting things in proportion to how morally considerable they are. I think we're the most morally considerable things around, but if we're not then our moral obligation doesn't change, our interests just stop being the most important kind.
Yes, I obviously would think it matters because we are morally considerable, regardless of the opinions of another species. Just as animals are morally considerable, even if many people don't think they are.
My argument is that it doesn't really matter at all.
You must consider animals (and possibly plants) to be more morally considerable than your own self if you would truly be willing to die instead of eating them.
It might matter to humans, but if it doesn't matter to the aliens does it really matter? Wouldn't they do what they are going to do because they are superior beings? You might believe they are wrong but would that belief matter? -
2018-06-22 at 8:02 PM UTCIf two vegans fight... is it still beef?
*ba dum tss
-
2018-06-22 at 9:53 PM UTC
Originally posted by Obbe You must consider animals (and possibly plants) to be more morally considerable than your own self if you would truly be willing to die instead of eating them.
I obviously don't consider either more morally considerable than myself, as evidenced by my not starving to death for the benefit of plants or lower animals. The situation was a hypothetical where we have some reason to believe that they are more morally considerable than us, which like I said, seems far fetched.It might matter to humans, but if it doesn't matter to the aliens does it really matter? Wouldn't they do what they are going to do because they are superior beings? You might believe they are wrong but would that belief matter?
In short yes, it would matter. Do you understand how the is/ought distinction works? -
2018-06-22 at 10:28 PM UTC
Originally posted by Lanny I obviously don't consider either more morally considerable than myself, as evidenced by my not starving to death for the benefit of plants or lower animals. The situation was a hypothetical where we have some reason to believe that they are more morally considerable than us, which like I said, seems far fetched.
No, the hypothetical situation was that these lifeforms were capable of experiencing "well being" and "suffering". I never mentioned anything about these lifeforms being more morally considerable than us. However you did state that if these lifeforms were found to be capable of an equal "depth of feeling" as animals, that you would feel obligated to die rather than eat them. Doesn't that mean you would consider these lifeforms to be more morally considerable than your own self, so much so that you would give your own life for the sake of their lives?
That seems strange to me. I also don't believe it. I do believe that if you were starving you would eat these hypothetical lifeforms, and I believe you would eat meat if you were starving, too. If you were starving and all that was available was murdered chickens I do believe you would eat those chickens, morality be damned.
Originally posted by Lanny In short yes, it would matter. Do you understand how the is/ought distinction works?
I guess not. I don't think it would really matter at all. If a superior being came to Earth to experiment on us and didn't care about how immoral we thought the experiment was, it wouldn't matter how immoral we thought it was, it would happen no matter what we thought. And as far as we know, maybe the alien is experimenting on us for reasons that would excuse any perceived immorality if only we could comprehend it!
So anyway, why do you believe it would be absolutely wrong because some humans believe it would be wrong? -
2018-06-22 at 10:42 PM UTCI choose to eat what I like.
And I hope you do the same.
My moral fibre is just fine.
