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The evolution of society to eliminate slavery and discrimination can be boiled down to a fundamental equality across all of mankind. I don’t see eating meat ev
by koolba 7y ago
The evolution of society to eliminate slavery and discrimination can be boiled down to a fundamental equality across all of mankind.
I don’t see eating meat ever getting to that level. It’d take the elevation of the rest of animal world to our level.
- blotter_paper 7y agoI think that as we automate more things we can comfortably afford to model more beings as being worthy of our consideration. People of the past divided humanity into subcategories they could more easily rationalise the exploitation of. We do the same to other parts of the biosphere. I'm not saying the two things are of equal ugliness, but I think they exist on the same continuum.
- senderista 7y agoI recommend Peter Singer’s writings about widening circles of empathy as a description of moral progress.
- brigandish 7y ago> It’d take the elevation of the rest of animal world to our level. In my estimation they're already there. I'd be interested to here how you measure the level upon which you gain the right not to be killed for food, as we obviously measure it differently. Seriously, how would it be measured?
- 0db532a0 7y agoRights are not a priori truths. They are a human creation, a game of language. Just like gods, reincarnation, gender pronouns and mythology. What makes you so sure that you and your dog have a right not to be killed for food?
- brigandish 7y agoWho suggested that rights were a priori truths? I certainly didn't. Who suggested that rights aren't a human creation? I certainly didn't. I wouldn't put rights - those things based on reasoning and experience, much like the rest of the vast body of law - into a category with gods, reincarnation, gender pronouns and mythology, but that's just me.
- 0db532a0 7y agoThe reasoning also necessarily falls back on experience. Personal experience is all we have. You’re admitting that your estimation is subjective. Why are you so worried about others eating animals, then? Because a lot of other people now are too?
- brigandish 7y ago> The reasoning also necessarily falls back on experience. Personal experience is all we have. Thanks, as a Buddhist I'm glad to hear that there are others catching up with Nagarjuna's insights, though you've still a long way to go. > You’re admitting that your estimation is subjective. All objectivity exists within subjectivity, I don't need to admit something I've not claimed to be otherwise. > Why are you so worried about others eating animals, then? There's no then, you've provided a non-sequitur, plenty of proponents of schools of thought that say all things are subjective - including us poor nominalists, the Buddhists, though not only us - find it actually strengthens our moral arguments, not obviates them. > Because a lot of other people now are too? Do you eat meat to be popular? Please. That kind of jibe is low grade and not for HN. There are animals, they suffer, humans have agency, we can do better, and I care to do better. I do not act simply because I can, and I do not lack consideration for others - especially those less powerful than me - simply because those around me think it's okay. Which is ironic given your jibe about wanting to be popular, meat eaters are the majority.
- 0db532a0 7y agoThe concepts of "better" and "suffering" are a matter of opinion, as you have agreed. I eat meat because that is acceptable to me and also because supermarkets still sell it. Who am I to claim what people objectively should and should not do? Not even Buddha did that. What I am trying to get at when referring to other people also not eating meat is: Are you really motivated by a moral cause, or are you taking the easy route, signalling away your guilt like many of the western middle class on this forum and elsewhere? Does your choice not to eat meat and prevent animal suffering, not really just mirror a realisation that you yourself are at the wrong end of the hierarchy?
- koolba 7y agoIMHO it’s measured on a binary scale with humanity as a one and everything else as a zero.
- brigandish 7y agoAnd may I so humbly request the reasoning behind it?
- koolba 7y agoPut simply, we’re above all else in existence and they’re existence is purely for our furtherance. That doesn’t mean I see have no empathy for other creatures of this world. Of course I do. Suffering or torture of animals would never be justified. But I’d never put their existence itself ahead of a fellow human’s. That’s, to me, totally asinine.
- brigandish 7y agoI meant, what is the reasoning behind the scale. You already made the binary nature of it clear. In what way do humans make the grade and animals not?