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Incredible! So much that is fascinating about non-human animals. I can't resist but think that there's a deep similarity between us, and them. One that we even

by zvmaz 3y ago

Incredible! So much that is fascinating about non-human animals. I can't resist but think that there's a deep similarity between us, and them. One that we even don't suspect. Reminds me of Tom Regan's words: "Animals have a past, a story, a biography. They have histories. Mink and bears, elephants and dolphins, pigs and chickens, cats and dogs: each is a unique somebody, not a disposable something."

Voultapher 3y ago
We can't prove or disprove that enslaving and exploiting animals is a bad thing. As a society we currently answer that with .. take a look at your supermarket. What if we are wrong?
- yungporko 3y ago
  of course we're wrong, we can easily prove that enslaving and exploiting them is a bad thing. we know animals are capable of suffering and we know animals do suffer in the conditions we create for them, it's as simple as that.
  - Voultapher 3y ago
    Why does it matter that they are capable of suffering? This is a serious question. When it comes to morality invariably when you dig down deep enough, all of it is based on human made assumptions. That doesn't invalidate discussions about morality, we just have to be aware that it is built on a subjective foundation. And for the record, I personally suggest a vegan lifestyle, because I believe exploiting animals is morally wrong.
    - yard2010 3y ago
      Because what stands in the center of it is empathy, which is not a human only thing
      - BlackFly 3y ago
        Cruelty, antipathy and apathy are also not uniquely human. Yes, you will see some animals behaving empathically in some situations, but people that walk over to pet bears and get mauled don't really earn much sympathy from people who know wild animals. Any given animal species will not share our norms. As an extreme example, the guinea worm should be extinguished from this earth. I believe no one can empathize with that species, but in any case I will support those people who seek to make it extinct. Between that extreme and equal membership in society are many models of co-existence and we will naturally disagree amongst ourselves of what norms we should have regarding that co-existence. There are no universal norms for our co-existence.
    - card_zero 3y ago
      Hey, good for you for asking this question despite being on the animal rights side. I wish I could say something useful as an answer. I could snipe at Jeremy Bentham for kicking it off in 1780 with shoddy reasoning: not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? he says, but this is really a side effect of an argument against slavery and contains no discussion of why reducing suffering is desirable, and he was also responsible for utilitarianism, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number", a fundamentally awkward fundamental axiom - and happiness isn't even identical with the things we tend to think are right - and then you have the problem of animals causing suffering to other animals routinely. But I can only agree that it's a good question.
      - retsibsi 3y ago
        What makes it a good question? It's obvious that we can't conjure universally compelling moral axioms out of nowhere; all of our moral reasoning ultimately rests on fundamental values that one either cares about or doesn't. If our sceptic has the capacity for empathy with animals, we can try to convince them to elevate their empathetic response to the status of a moral value. But if they simply don't care, and insist that they will only begin to care if logically compelled to do so, we're in the same position as if we were trying to reason a sociopath into valuing other people's wellbeing as an intrinsic good.
        card_zero 3y ago
        I think, first of all, you're not wrong, but also, you're mostly wrong. People with completely separate value systems exist, but only theoretically, or historically. I know there's a lot of hand-wringing at the moment about society being fractured and divided, and it may be Pollyannaish of me to say this, but I think we're mostly all on the same side with approximately the same bunch of deep values, by the power of culture (and we more or less all come from the same culture, "modern"). We can have productive discussions, we can work it out. The Myth of the Framework is a relevant book.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    To "prove" is to derive from a set of consistent axioms. There is no set of universally agreed axioms for badness and in fact the vast majority of people do not even have a consistent set of moral beliefs. Simply changing how you phrase a question can get very different answers (e.g. "conscription" vs "murder slavery" vs "making people defend the country that defends them").
    - card_zero 3y ago
      Yes. This doesn't mean that morality is subjective and divorced from reality, mind you. It just means that trying to hone an objective theory of morality will make you unpopular.
      - concordDance 3y ago
        Depends what definition of "morality" you're using. Most are subjective and the remainder tend to be either descriptive, local (making use of the speaker, and their properties such as their culture, in their definition/meaning) or religious.
- brabel 3y ago
  Most animals in the wild live very tough, short lives and have high likelihood that they be killed and eaten by predators, so they live every second of their lives in fear. I am not convinced that when animals are grown by humans in appropriate conditions (i.e. not overcrowded sausage factories), given all the food they need and able to "enjoy" (this is a human emotion, but perhaps they have an analogous "feeling" when out in nature?) nature while being protected, it's really wrong. We are part of nature and our physiology made us capable of eating meat, just like all other predators. Do you believe all predators are "morally wrong", or only humans?? Denying our nature never seems like a very wise thing.
  - pineaux 3y ago
    Its not a strong argument. Denying nature is what we do constantly. We teach our children to shit in a bowl that flushes water instead of shitting on the ground, we teach them to delay their gratification s, we tell them not to use violence, we teach them to ask for consent. All unnatural things to do. Are you saying these are not wise things to do?
    - defrost 3y ago
      [flagged]
    - brabel 3y ago
      You misunderstand what "natural" means. Nature doesn't care at all about those things. But as a social species, we evolved some "rules" which ensure our survival. In that sense, some of our morality has roots in nature and evolution. So I don't agree at all that by not using violence all the time we're going against our nature. But in the case of food, I believe we are, because evidently we require certain substances to survive, and one of the best ways to get those is to eat meat. In most regions where humans live today, without meat or foods imported from faraway regions, we couldn't survive.
      - bawolff 3y ago
        > But in the case of food, I believe we are, because evidently we require certain substances to survive, and one of the best ways to get those is to eat meat. If it was the only way this would be more compelling. However it is just the easiest way. Like arguably the best way to get money is to mug someone, but i don't think that makes it ethical when there are alternatives.
- vouaobrasil 3y ago
  We can take it as an axiom. I believe that enslaving animals and causing harm to the biosphere is just as bad as human enslavement and genocide. I believe such an axiom is the only moral one. It's not just our supermarket. Our entire society is based on the genocide of animal species and destruction and violence. It is the most sick society and disgusting thing I have ever seen, on the level of the atrocities of all of human history.
- bawolff 3y ago
  You can't prove or disprove any ethical claim with pure logic. You always have to ground it in some sort of axiom as a starting point (e.g. "causing suffering is bad") https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

by zvmaz 3y ago

Voultapher 3y ago

We can't prove or disprove that enslaving and exploiting animals is a bad thing. As a society we currently answer that with .. take a look at your supermarket. What if we are wrong?

yungporko 3y ago
of course we're wrong, we can easily prove that enslaving and exploiting them is a bad thing. we know animals are capable of suffering and we know animals do suffer in the conditions we create for them, it's as simple as that.
- Voultapher 3y ago
  Why does it matter that they are capable of suffering? This is a serious question. When it comes to morality invariably when you dig down deep enough, all of it is based on human made assumptions. That doesn't invalidate discussions about morality, we just have to be aware that it is built on a subjective foundation. And for the record, I personally suggest a vegan lifestyle, because I believe exploiting animals is morally wrong.
  - yard2010 3y ago
    Because what stands in the center of it is empathy, which is not a human only thing
    - BlackFly 3y ago
      Cruelty, antipathy and apathy are also not uniquely human. Yes, you will see some animals behaving empathically in some situations, but people that walk over to pet bears and get mauled don't really earn much sympathy from people who know wild animals. Any given animal species will not share our norms. As an extreme example, the guinea worm should be extinguished from this earth. I believe no one can empathize with that species, but in any case I will support those people who seek to make it extinct. Between that extreme and equal membership in society are many models of co-existence and we will naturally disagree amongst ourselves of what norms we should have regarding that co-existence. There are no universal norms for our co-existence.
  - card_zero 3y ago
    Hey, good for you for asking this question despite being on the animal rights side. I wish I could say something useful as an answer. I could snipe at Jeremy Bentham for kicking it off in 1780 with shoddy reasoning: not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? he says, but this is really a side effect of an argument against slavery and contains no discussion of why reducing suffering is desirable, and he was also responsible for utilitarianism, "the greatest happiness of the greatest number", a fundamentally awkward fundamental axiom - and happiness isn't even identical with the things we tend to think are right - and then you have the problem of animals causing suffering to other animals routinely. But I can only agree that it's a good question.
    - retsibsi 3y ago
      What makes it a good question? It's obvious that we can't conjure universally compelling moral axioms out of nowhere; all of our moral reasoning ultimately rests on fundamental values that one either cares about or doesn't. If our sceptic has the capacity for empathy with animals, we can try to convince them to elevate their empathetic response to the status of a moral value. But if they simply don't care, and insist that they will only begin to care if logically compelled to do so, we're in the same position as if we were trying to reason a sociopath into valuing other people's wellbeing as an intrinsic good.
      - card_zero 3y ago
        I think, first of all, you're not wrong, but also, you're mostly wrong. People with completely separate value systems exist, but only theoretically, or historically. I know there's a lot of hand-wringing at the moment about society being fractured and divided, and it may be Pollyannaish of me to say this, but I think we're mostly all on the same side with approximately the same bunch of deep values, by the power of culture (and we more or less all come from the same culture, "modern"). We can have productive discussions, we can work it out. The Myth of the Framework is a relevant book.
- concordDance 3y ago
  To "prove" is to derive from a set of consistent axioms. There is no set of universally agreed axioms for badness and in fact the vast majority of people do not even have a consistent set of moral beliefs. Simply changing how you phrase a question can get very different answers (e.g. "conscription" vs "murder slavery" vs "making people defend the country that defends them").
  - card_zero 3y ago
    Yes. This doesn't mean that morality is subjective and divorced from reality, mind you. It just means that trying to hone an objective theory of morality will make you unpopular.
    - concordDance 3y ago
      Depends what definition of "morality" you're using. Most are subjective and the remainder tend to be either descriptive, local (making use of the speaker, and their properties such as their culture, in their definition/meaning) or religious.
brabel 3y ago
Most animals in the wild live very tough, short lives and have high likelihood that they be killed and eaten by predators, so they live every second of their lives in fear. I am not convinced that when animals are grown by humans in appropriate conditions (i.e. not overcrowded sausage factories), given all the food they need and able to "enjoy" (this is a human emotion, but perhaps they have an analogous "feeling" when out in nature?) nature while being protected, it's really wrong. We are part of nature and our physiology made us capable of eating meat, just like all other predators. Do you believe all predators are "morally wrong", or only humans?? Denying our nature never seems like a very wise thing.
- pineaux 3y ago
  Its not a strong argument. Denying nature is what we do constantly. We teach our children to shit in a bowl that flushes water instead of shitting on the ground, we teach them to delay their gratification s, we tell them not to use violence, we teach them to ask for consent. All unnatural things to do. Are you saying these are not wise things to do?
  - defrost 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - brabel 3y ago
    You misunderstand what "natural" means. Nature doesn't care at all about those things. But as a social species, we evolved some "rules" which ensure our survival. In that sense, some of our morality has roots in nature and evolution. So I don't agree at all that by not using violence all the time we're going against our nature. But in the case of food, I believe we are, because evidently we require certain substances to survive, and one of the best ways to get those is to eat meat. In most regions where humans live today, without meat or foods imported from faraway regions, we couldn't survive.
    - bawolff 3y ago
      > But in the case of food, I believe we are, because evidently we require certain substances to survive, and one of the best ways to get those is to eat meat. If it was the only way this would be more compelling. However it is just the easiest way. Like arguably the best way to get money is to mug someone, but i don't think that makes it ethical when there are alternatives.
vouaobrasil 3y ago
We can take it as an axiom. I believe that enslaving animals and causing harm to the biosphere is just as bad as human enslavement and genocide. I believe such an axiom is the only moral one. It's not just our supermarket. Our entire society is based on the genocide of animal species and destruction and violence. It is the most sick society and disgusting thing I have ever seen, on the level of the atrocities of all of human history.
bawolff 3y ago
You can't prove or disprove any ethical claim with pure logic. You always have to ground it in some sort of axiom as a starting point (e.g. "causing suffering is bad") https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem