6 ms·

For me, I drew the line at human and non human. I'm okay to do anything to non human.

by matz1 8y ago

wvlia5 8y ago
Isn't that kind of arbitrary? What if I said "for me, I drew the line at white people and non white people. I'm okay to do anything to non white"
- matz1 8y ago
  It is preference and yes your line might be different too.
- mr_overalls 8y ago
  Our lives and laws are necessarily filled with quasi-arbitrary lines and conventions. What is the age of consent for marriage? What threshold of blood-alcohol is too much to drive a motor vehicle? When is someone considered dead? Comparing the acknowledgement of such lines with racism is ridiculous.
  - wvlia5- 8y ago
    Ok, so let's propose another quasi-arbitrary line and convention: black people can be enslaved, white people cannot. So, this rule would be just as arbitrary and valid as any other. Or is there a ethical justification against it?
- bumby 8y ago
  Where do you personally draw the line? I'm not trying to be adversarial, just trying to understand how cogent your argument is. I think the race argument is a bit reductio ad adsurdum. Why is that any different than if you decide to only eat plants? That draws the line at the kingdom classification which is just another human convention. Drawing the line between species seems to have some logic to it at least, given there is a stronger biological definition rather than a contrived race argument. (e.g., we can strictly define a species, in part, by their ability to produce viable offspring)
  - wvlia5- 8y ago
    I do not draw a line in kingdom either, that would be every bit as absurd and arbitrary as drawing a line on species or race. In practice, I end up eating only members of plant kingdom, but that is just a fortuitous artifact, not the result of drawing a line at 'kingdom'. I seek to avoid causing suffering (I'm an utilitarian, but you don't necessarily have to be utilitarian to try to prevent suffering). Q: What entities can suffer? A: Sentient beings, by definition of sentience. In particular, animals that we usually kill, do suffer (but not necessarily every individual belonging to that kingdom does). Carrots do not (but if in the future we discovered an individual of another kingdom that suffered as much as a pig on a slaughterhouse, I wouldn't eat him either, being there so many other options). Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer had a chat explaining well this issue: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU
    - bumby 8y ago
      Thanks for the clarification on your stance and for sharing the link. Although I know a lot of people think Dawkins worships on the alter of rationality, I think some of his stances on this issue need to be taken with a grain of salt because he openly admits that he occasionally makes emotional arguments when it comes to (non-human) animal rights. I think the assumptions that need to be called out in Singer's argument (and possibly yours, given the little bit in your post above) are 1) we know how to define sentience and 2) we understand the link between sentience and suffering. These points may be a departure from Singer in part because he's making a philosophical argument and not necessarily a scientific one. The science part being relevant to this thread because I think part of the discussion is how strict definitions are necessary to avoid the moral relativism aspect of the conversation. There doesn't appear to be any scientific consensus on how to define consciousness or sentience. Some, like Sam Harris, define it simply in terms of information processing. In that case, what suffers can get murky fast. Are mollusks more conscious than, say, a venus fly trap? I don't know, but as a layman, I haven't come across a good definition to parse that question effectively. Even if we have an understanding of sentience, there doesn't seem to be a definition on how this translates to suffering. You seem to imply it is a given that sentience leads directly to the ability to suffer, but I haven't found a good consensus on this either. Some people like Gerald Edelman take the stance that suffering is dependent on complexity of the nervous system, so there's nothing morally wrong with killing lobsters and less complex animals. There's others like Vilayanur Ramachandran who go further and don't think more complex animals like cows suffer because they don't introspectively experience pain the way humans do. The above is a just a long-winded way of saying that I think we need strict scientific definitions to make some sense of the topic or we'll just be endlessly entangled in relativistic arguments. I'm not convinced we have made sense enough of the problem to define it this thoroughly.
wvlia5 8y ago
So you would be OK with me killing black people then, just preference
- matz1 8y ago
  I'm not but I am pretty sure there is someone who is Ok with that. Besides in my previous response I'm just specifically concerned with human vs non human. I'm not saying anything regarding human X vs human Y.
  - wvlia5 8y ago
    Sure there is, but in your view we couldn't say that those people are evil, because in the end it's just preference of where to draw the line, correct? Nazis chose to draw a line excluding jews, and that was their preference
    - matz1 8y ago
      Evil or not is relative. You can say nazis is evil but to the nazis they might not think its evil. To me evil or not is irrelevant. If you dont like Nazi action, then you have to force them to stop regardless.
      - drusepth 8y ago
        By that same logic, is it fair to say that Nazis who don't like anti-Nazi action should be forced to stop those trying to stop Nazi actions?
        matz1 8y ago
        Of course
      - wvlia5 8y ago
        Ok, so by that same rationale we could say: "Evil or not is irrelevant, but if you don't like animal-exploiters action, you have to force them to stop regardless"
perfmode 8y ago
Do you have any interest in how we structure our societal laws and standards? Or do you prefer the laissez fairy approach to morality? Edit: meant to say laissez-faire but I prefer fairy
- matz1 8y ago
  Not really, in term of morality, I'm more inline to this idea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_egoism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_egoism
  - perfmode 8y ago
    Are you afraid of having your rights violated? How can you hold this position in a society?
    - matz1 8y ago
      Not really, that's just how it is. Someone (or a group of person) fought and convinced other that its in their best interests to make a particular law. For example a law against murder, some people think that its in their best interest to punish people for murder, some other don't. Regardless what the "true" morality is regarding murder, the one who fight and and can either successfully force or convince other to follow, get to decide what the law is.
      - mmirate3 8y ago
        Thank you for being one of the few sane people in this thread.

For me, I drew the line at human and non human. I'm okay to do anything to non human.

by matz1 8y ago

For me, I drew the line at human and non human. I'm okay to do anything to non human.

Isn't that kind of arbitrary? What if I said "for me, I drew the line at white people and non white people. I'm okay to do anything to non white"

matz1 8y ago
It is preference and yes your line might be different too.
mr_overalls 8y ago
Our lives and laws are necessarily filled with quasi-arbitrary lines and conventions. What is the age of consent for marriage? What threshold of blood-alcohol is too much to drive a motor vehicle? When is someone considered dead? Comparing the acknowledgement of such lines with racism is ridiculous.
- wvlia5- 8y ago
  Ok, so let's propose another quasi-arbitrary line and convention: black people can be enslaved, white people cannot. So, this rule would be just as arbitrary and valid as any other. Or is there a ethical justification against it?
bumby 8y ago
Where do you personally draw the line? I'm not trying to be adversarial, just trying to understand how cogent your argument is. I think the race argument is a bit reductio ad adsurdum. Why is that any different than if you decide to only eat plants? That draws the line at the kingdom classification which is just another human convention. Drawing the line between species seems to have some logic to it at least, given there is a stronger biological definition rather than a contrived race argument. (e.g., we can strictly define a species, in part, by their ability to produce viable offspring)
- wvlia5- 8y ago
  I do not draw a line in kingdom either, that would be every bit as absurd and arbitrary as drawing a line on species or race. In practice, I end up eating only members of plant kingdom, but that is just a fortuitous artifact, not the result of drawing a line at 'kingdom'. I seek to avoid causing suffering (I'm an utilitarian, but you don't necessarily have to be utilitarian to try to prevent suffering). Q: What entities can suffer? A: Sentient beings, by definition of sentience. In particular, animals that we usually kill, do suffer (but not necessarily every individual belonging to that kingdom does). Carrots do not (but if in the future we discovered an individual of another kingdom that suffered as much as a pig on a slaughterhouse, I wouldn't eat him either, being there so many other options). Richard Dawkins and Peter Singer had a chat explaining well this issue: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU
  - bumby 8y ago
    Thanks for the clarification on your stance and for sharing the link. Although I know a lot of people think Dawkins worships on the alter of rationality, I think some of his stances on this issue need to be taken with a grain of salt because he openly admits that he occasionally makes emotional arguments when it comes to (non-human) animal rights. I think the assumptions that need to be called out in Singer's argument (and possibly yours, given the little bit in your post above) are 1) we know how to define sentience and 2) we understand the link between sentience and suffering. These points may be a departure from Singer in part because he's making a philosophical argument and not necessarily a scientific one. The science part being relevant to this thread because I think part of the discussion is how strict definitions are necessary to avoid the moral relativism aspect of the conversation. There doesn't appear to be any scientific consensus on how to define consciousness or sentience. Some, like Sam Harris, define it simply in terms of information processing. In that case, what suffers can get murky fast. Are mollusks more conscious than, say, a venus fly trap? I don't know, but as a layman, I haven't come across a good definition to parse that question effectively. Even if we have an understanding of sentience, there doesn't seem to be a definition on how this translates to suffering. You seem to imply it is a given that sentience leads directly to the ability to suffer, but I haven't found a good consensus on this either. Some people like Gerald Edelman take the stance that suffering is dependent on complexity of the nervous system, so there's nothing morally wrong with killing lobsters and less complex animals. There's others like Vilayanur Ramachandran who go further and don't think more complex animals like cows suffer because they don't introspectively experience pain the way humans do. The above is a just a long-winded way of saying that I think we need strict scientific definitions to make some sense of the topic or we'll just be endlessly entangled in relativistic arguments. I'm not convinced we have made sense enough of the problem to define it this thoroughly.

wvlia5 8y ago

So you would be OK with me killing black people then, just preference

matz1 8y ago
I'm not but I am pretty sure there is someone who is Ok with that. Besides in my previous response I'm just specifically concerned with human vs non human. I'm not saying anything regarding human X vs human Y.
- wvlia5 8y ago
  Sure there is, but in your view we couldn't say that those people are evil, because in the end it's just preference of where to draw the line, correct? Nazis chose to draw a line excluding jews, and that was their preference
  - matz1 8y ago
    Evil or not is relative. You can say nazis is evil but to the nazis they might not think its evil. To me evil or not is irrelevant. If you dont like Nazi action, then you have to force them to stop regardless.
    - drusepth 8y ago
      By that same logic, is it fair to say that Nazis who don't like anti-Nazi action should be forced to stop those trying to stop Nazi actions?
      - matz1 8y ago
        Of course
    - wvlia5 8y ago
      Ok, so by that same rationale we could say: "Evil or not is irrelevant, but if you don't like animal-exploiters action, you have to force them to stop regardless"

perfmode 8y ago

Do you have any interest in how we structure our societal laws and standards? Or do you prefer the laissez fairy approach to morality? Edit: meant to say laissez-faire but I prefer fairy

matz1 8y ago
Not really, in term of morality, I'm more inline to this idea https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_egoism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_egoism
- perfmode 8y ago
  Are you afraid of having your rights violated? How can you hold this position in a society?
  - matz1 8y ago
    Not really, that's just how it is. Someone (or a group of person) fought and convinced other that its in their best interests to make a particular law. For example a law against murder, some people think that its in their best interest to punish people for murder, some other don't. Regardless what the "true" morality is regarding murder, the one who fight and and can either successfully force or convince other to follow, get to decide what the law is.
    - mmirate3 8y ago
      Thank you for being one of the few sane people in this thread.