What exactly do you mean by "deities"? Could you give an example maybe? — Sir2u

Not really. They never tell you who or what the aliens are praying to or invoking or whatever they're doing when they're alone in their cabin with a burning candle, chanting or deep in some kind of trance.

The only deities that have been explicitly referred to, as far as I recall, were the Prophets of Bajor, and the ancient gods of the Klingons, whom the First Couple killed because the gods annoyed them....

... which suggests another question:
Who's minding Sto-vo-kor?

Done!

Are you an aficionada of science fiction movies and tv shows? I'm about to try starting a fun thread. (I usually fall flat, but wth?

Has anyone else here had a sense that what they were experiencing in early life wasn't truly real or that it was highly stripped down? — TiredThinker

How early? From what I recall of my first five years, reality was immense, vibrant, full of life and possibility, waiting eagerly for me to discover it.

Or is that natural when one hasn't yet accepting things as they seem to be? — TiredThinker

I don't understand this. In childhood, we begin by accepting the environment, things and people at face value; only as we gradually learn about illusion and deception, do we begin to question what things seem to be. Surely, by old age, we've figured out that nothing man-made is quite what it looks and sounds like; only nature is genuine.

I get that domesticated animals aren't exactly akin to a sickle, however they're not like a wild animal either. Their genetics were crafted by humans to fulfill a human designed function. — LuckyR

I know that. I also know that, because they are our property, made for our use, we tend to treat them like inanimate objects. And we have no real need - I mean need, as distinct from profit and desire - to have such vast numbers of captive, miserable animals. We have alternatives.
Since these strains have been adulterated to a point where most of them could not survive in the wild, the best way to let them go extinct is simply to stop artificial breeding programs. Allow the strongest and hardiest to mate at will and see if the offspring become adapted to life in the wild then release them gradually in small herds.
The rest will have to be slaughtered for the die-hard carnivores among us, as we wean ourselves off easy supermarket meat. The same people who, once the domestic livestock is no more available, will go after the surviving cattle and pigs in the wilderness and hunt them - probably with floodlights and overpowered military weapons. But the animals will at least have a chance at autonomous life.

I have no illusions about my species. Small gestures by well-meaning humans will be made - and many will succeed, but be ignored. Flocks of hens with no rooster lay eggs anyway; no reason they need to be kept in cages or have their beaks cut off. Dairy cows and goats can be induced to lactate without giving birth. Sheep don't need lambs to continue being sheared. Cheesemaking doesn't need rennet from calves. But a lot of people don't want to know, because the present system is quite lucrative, efficient and convenient.

Technology will continue to advance - while civilization lasts. We already have every possible food supplement; better vegetable-based processed food will become available - and the price would come down if the demand increased. Vat grown meat is also making progress, and will continue to be opposed by the meat lobby and rejected by hard-core carnivores. ('It's not natural!' - as if factory farming were.)

Humane eating is possible, and would become easy with humane human reproductive policies. But we're not going to have the benefit of either, because more powerful interests don't want it.

my only point is that to be fair, we should take into account the "purpose" of domesticated animals as being fundamentally different from the lives of wild animals. — LuckyR

The word 'purpose' always pulls me up short. I understand the purpose of a sickle or a canoe: something made by n intelligent being to accomplish something he wanted to do.
When we talk (all too frequently!!) about purpose in our own lives, we attribute that purpose to a deity (I am a mere sickle in the hand of Ceres) or else we must define our purpose, each for herself.
I reject the idea of gods; I don't want to be their thing. I do not wish to be a god and make other sentient creatures my things.
We could compromise and strike some kind of equitable deal with domestic animals that doesn't elevate us to godhood or reduce them to thingness, but it's not an easy one to find. I applaud the people who are trying; I try to buy my protein from such people - and try to avoid buying it off an assembly line.
The relationship will never be easy or mutually beneficial until our technology catches up with the best of our intentions. The technology is rapidly approaching; the intention need serious improvement.

What does that mean? Remember domesticated animals were invented to provide goods and services for humans. Commonly that involves their death or at minimum living in an unnatural situation — LuckyR

They were not invented - like one of our vehicles or tools. They were bred from enslaved wild cattle. How does that justify mistreating them? There is a difference between 'unnatural' in the benign sense of domesticity and the reality of feed lots on the way to a slaughterhouse, usually in their early teens. (And, of course, we must not even mention chicken factories!)

There is no heavenly edict that requires us to keep breeding cattle, pigs and lambs for eternity.
'Not existing' has already happened to all the thousands of species we wiped out to make way farming and the highways to bring food to the cities. Not existing also happens to every baby prevented by a condom. Personally, I would prefer not to be born into a short, miserable life, in which I have no choices.

I agree with you that small scale ranching leads to a better (less bad) quality of life for the animals, that's all I'm saying, take aim at the worst offenders, not the whole inductry. — LuckyR

I'm not familiar with a model of small scale ranching (what numbers? on what acreage? what procedures?) that would be beneficial to cattle.
And I already am holding up the factory farms - not just in beef production; turkey and pig farms are probably worse; industrial scale corn and wheat are not doing the ecology any favours, either - as the epitome of bad ways to feed ourselves. I've already pointed out some positive changes small farmers are making to dairy production. I'll add here: free range eggs (which is what I buy, and they're twice as good as the factory version for the same price).
And I maintain that farming shouldn't be "an industry" like making shoes or car parts.

I don't think an animal has quite the same deep societal understanding of the concepts of "mother" or "father" as a human does. — Outlander

Motherhood is not a human societal concept. It's a deeply embedded animal instinct - one for which many birds and mammals and even some fish risk their very lives. If the crying of a bereft cow doesn't convey enough pain and sorrow to a human, the deficiency is not in the cow's understanding of motherhood.

So, as intelligent beings who can prevent this process, if benefited from perhaps 1 animal while we save 1000 that would otherwise die, become extinct, or suffer, it's really self-evident. — Outlander

And what if we have the opposite effect? Suppose we benefit from 150, waste 50, extirpate 799 and save 1? (I'll do the research to support my numbers if you produce some to support yours.)

For good reason, the peasants often stole because they had no moral backbone or belief in consequence toward actions not immediately prevented. — Outlander

Or maybe because they were hungry and ground under the landowner's heel? But that's a question for another tale.

This can only be done with goats though. — LFranc

I recently saw a video about a bovine dairy where it's working very well. This is one way: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/29/mums-ask-when-cows-and-their-calves-separated-rise-ethical-milk-vegan but methods have advanced since then. The farmer I saw leaves the calves with their mothers for the morning feed, then puts them in a separate field and gives them the substitute until they can digest grass. The cows do give her less, but they're not stressed as the intervals of separation grow gradually longer. These are relatively small farms, and I wouldn't be surprised if they all specialized in cheese for the squeamish customer. Cream cheese and cottage cheese don't require rennet and older cheeses can be made with microbial rennet.

There may be more interesting developments along with cloned meat; I'm not at the cutting edge on the science.

Pretending that ranching is solely negative is a gross oversimplification. — LuckyR

I have not yet seen a model of cattle ranching that's good for the cattle, the environment and the climate. Migrating herders of ancient times probably did no great harm, but I can't think of one good thing to say for barbed wire fences.

So, you never ask another poster to justify a philosophical position? You never ask a child "What were you thinking?" or a colleague "Can you explain why this report is two days late?" or a spouse "What'd you go and say that for?"
most people do. I try not to, but it's hard to resist.

A two-step criterion: (1) performative self- consistency; if an action/policy is not, then the relevant, problematic inconsistency should be exposed and possibly reformed. (2) efficacious harm-prevention/reduction; if an action/policy is not, then It should be opposed and/or replaced with an evidently more efficacious alternative. — 180 Proof

Yess! Clear, coherent and logical.

I don't know what you mean in this context by "isolated act". — 180 Proof

I meant to distinguish the agenda of a publicly constituted entity, such as a board of education, from the idiosyncratic one-time behaviour of an individual - say, pissing in an alley.

Both of which are, of course, distinct from the most common situation in which we are challenged to justify our statements: classrooms and philosophy forums.

Simple policy, few objects needed, justification is enough objects and reasonings to show murder is bad so policy against it is good, or functional, and so justified, and we are done. — Fire Ologist

Terrific summary!

Before applying this to morality, and justifications for policies or actual individual acts, we can apply it to simply knowledge. — Fire Ologist

That was my premise: we can - and do - apply it to everything. Not just moral and legal issues, but personal hyginene, opinions, financial decisions.

We constantly ask one another to justify an opinion or statement of fact or even taste in music.
Yet we assume we all mean the same thing when we ask for, offer and accept or reject a justification.

The justification is purely one toward the individual's moral compass. — AmadeusD

In a legal situation, it is not. One of the very common situations in which we find ourselves having to offer justification for our actions is the legal arena. Dealing drugs is very clearly against the law - unless you have a pharmacist's license. A court of law is where such matters are decided by other people. The hypothetical honest criminal may justify his action in his own mind. Different criteria are applied externally and internally.
This was a single example, with which I chose to deal on its own real-world terms.

There are many other, quite different situations in which people are required to justify their opinions and/or actions: in politics, interpersonal relations, business, education, academia, science, civil compliance, religion, intellectual argument, even in writing fiction. Each situation has its own place and terms.

You think there's going to be a nuclear war? — RogueAI

I think we're heading for apocalypse. See the four big dust clouds on the horizon? One of them can be nuclear cloud.

If only we were a bit more smart! — unenlightened

Forever and ever, amen!

So the point is that justification is intrinsically social. Negotiation is to be expected as there is a balance always to be struck between the generality of social norms and the particularity of every individual's circumstances. And thus what we should expect living in a pragmatically moral social order is this balance between globalised constraints and individualised freedoms. — apokrisis

I like this explanation. Will have to reflect on it.

Ahem.

justify it to a jury — Vera Mont
This is a Neon Green goalpost, totally different to personal justification. That's my point. And it's correct. — AmadeusD

True. in the specific case, as an answer to an example. Not a goalpost; not in the OP.

When i say "lump individuals" I am talking about that individual's drug-dealing career as a 'case'. Not several individuals. Sorry if that was unclear. — AmadeusD

I didn't understand it that way, though someone else might have. Okay. How does one justify a career in drug-dealing? I assume you take into account the drug and the customer-base.

whereas a dealer who does not unscrupulously sell drugs may need a more thorough analysis — AmadeusD

Hoe do you judge a dealer's scruples in retrospect, not having witnessed his sales? It's up to him or his advocate to offer a justification, explanation, excuse or mitigating circumstance.

Very, VERY different question that shifts the entire conversation to a different goalpost (not sure you intended to do that - just being clear why its not addressed here). — AmadeusD

All kinds of different situations call for justification. It might be defense of a philosophical argument in an academic setting; it might be a confrontation with a spouse or employer who questions a decision; it might be advocacy for an allocation of funds in a city council; it might be criminal trial.
I set no 'goalposts' - I asked a question about the definition and usage of a word we encounter every day and rarely examine.

But, you can lump individuals as 'a case'. — AmadeusD

No, you can't 'lump' individuals - they're all separate - and the plural of anything does not make 'a case'. You might be able to make a single case for a particular kind of situation, but you would first have to show how all the specific instances have enough commonalities to justify their being considered as a single case.

It would be arguments that the individual/s that done the wrong were not fully to blame, or that we should be more lenient on them. — Down The Rabbit Hole

Yes.

n consequentialism the goodness or badness or an action is judged wholly by its consequences. — Down The Rabbit Hole

In which case, selling drugs would have to be judged on a case-by-case basis: which drug, to whom, under what circumstances; how did they use it, what affect it had. Doesn't that require a lot of usually unavailable information? How does the dealer justify it to a jury?

A strong justification could be an individual selling drugs to fund medical care for a dying family member. — Down The Rabbit Hole

I think that would count as a mitigation or perhaps excuse. It doesn't justify the act; it only explains the motive.
To justify selling a particular drug (say, morphine) to a particular person (say, one who is terminally ill and looking for a way out, though suicide is illegal) because you believe that person should have a right to that drug would be a justification. IMO.

Future generations will be far too busy trying to dig basic necessities out of the rubble to give us much thought beyond the odd "bastards" over their shoulder. And they won't have any animals to think or care about, except maybe some rats to hunt for dinner.

So you think that sustaining their living is not a justification because the risks from making changes are not risky enough? — Apustimelogist

Not from my POV. (Remember, I didn't ask anyone to justify anything.) We all have different perspectives, convictions and sensibilities. Whether a justification is valid, each person has to negotiate with their own conscience. But it's an interesting question.

Nothing is guaranteed. Many farmers do not sustain their living when they refuse to change. Many lose their farms and livelihood, are bought out by corporations or foreclosed by banks. There is risk in change and risk in no change; there is risk in farming and in every walk of life; there is risk in life. I'm saying, consider your options, your long-term goals and your priorities.

That seems implied when you gave the question: "How can we still justify... " — Apustimelogist

Only I didn't ask that question, and I don't think the OP was asking how the farmer justifies his living, but how the consumer justifies his food choices. That's just a guess, of course.

I guess it depends on economics. I'm sure if more ethical choices were economically more lucrative, farmers would jump on it. I can't speak for whether such possible changes present significant economic risk to farmers that threaten thwie livelihoods. Possibly for some in some places. — Apustimelogist

Most agribusiness is not owned by 'a farmer'. Many farms are held by families, so the decisions are made by several senior members. The living they provide can be precarious, but many of these farmers have changed their methods according to the consumers' changing preferences and to reduce their dependence on suppliers. However, the corporate investors don't need to be responsive to public sentiment or local market conditions.
There is always risk. But there is also much to be gained - and not strictly in terms of financial return. Farmers who adopt sustainable methods, stop using chemical fertilizers, etc. do have smaller yields in the first couple of years, but also save money, as well as their own health and that of their soil. Dairy farmers who don't remove newborn calves from their mothers do have to give up part of their milk quota for six months, but the cows produce better quality milk and live twice as long, and the calves thrive. The long term benefits of an ecological or ethical choice are not immediately obvious. There is always choice.

Maybe he doesn't need to justify it. Not everyone has the same sensibilities.
But I do question why a farmer who operates on a large enough scale to make a living in the livestock side of agribusiness wouldn't have choices, both is what he cultivates and how he goes about it.

Just so, and well farmed animals will suffer less stress, be better fed, and protected from disease and parasites than their wild cousins. — unenlightened

I don't think any comparison to nature is valid. We took ourselves out of nature a long time ago, and have done everything our clever imagination could invent to protect ourselves from nature. The only thing nature gives animals that we refuse them is liberty - one of the things we most prize for ourselves.

The operative word there is "well". Factory farming doesn't do well by animals and factory living doesn't do well by humans. With an industrial mindset, we tend not to do things well - just more. It's the same with travel and dwellings and clothing and work. Not better, just bigger, taller, slicker, faster, more.
(I lived on a small family farm in my youth, where the life of the pigs and chickens was comfortable enough, if short, but I hated the more gentle killing, too. I hated gutting, plucking and cleaning the entrails - kids' work. I hated the smells, the fluids, the mess. Milking the goat and looking for the eggs was all right.)

Often I feel we project our own capacity to suffer onto animals but I think we're far worse off in terms of our capacity to suffer. — Nils Loc

That must be comforting.
Still, it's not entirely about 'capacity', is it? It's more about how many of us - the ones who use most of the world's resources and gobble up most of the animals - escape suffering, or hope to; whereas, for a steer, piglet or fryer chicken, a horrible death in adolescence is inevitable.

Humans are probably the most angst ridden animal in the history of Earth. — Nils Loc

With excellent reason. As Mark Twain said: "Humans are the only animal that blushes - or needs to."

I've often admired vegetarianism, and have even tried to 'go vegetarian' for quite long periods, but living in a meat-based culture, and having been brought up consuming meat, it's hard to find the motivation to continue with it. — Wayfarer

Ours wasn't that hard. After we moved to the country, my SO asked where to build the chicken coop. I said I didn't want chickens. "Why not?" "Who's going to kill them? Not me!" "Me either. But wait, that's hypocrisy, having other people do your killing." "Yes, it is." "So what's the alternative?"
We bought a vegetarian cookbook and agreed to try it for a month. Turned out okay. Turned into a year, then 35 years.
We still eat eggs (free range, local) and some dairy products (oat milk mostly, but real sour cream and cheese) and I put some chicken soup on the dry cat food.
We're still hypocrites, but feel a little better about it.

The subject has come around a few times before, so don't be upset is people have lost interest.

Please do not hesitate to make several arguments at once. — LFranc

Ecology and climate change.
Cattle grazing takes huge tracts of land from the natural environment, displacing wildlife, causing massive loss of oxygen-producing forest, and polluting. On a small scale - independent family farms with a few milk cows - this causes no problem, as the cattle can browse in orchards and fallow fields; on the industrial scale, it wreaks havoc
The beef and dairy industries contribute substantially to global CO2 and methane emissions. Not just from the infamous bovine belches, but from all of the machinery involved in their slaughter, processing, transport and refrigeration.
While a lot of people don't mind about the animals' suffering, they might consider the health effects on humans of a meat-heavy diet.

It's not really an original idea. I just scaled it up to fit your hypothesis.

Looking at the universe in this way may make more sense. — Thales

If you start with some fairly implausible premises, yes. God exploded and bits of his body have been decaying ever since. Nice.

Because they are smarter, and they know best. At least in their own minds. If there was going to be a democratic vote on same sex marriage, I'd bet everything I own that it would be outlawed. "It's not good for society.". "It erodes our values." "It's a slippery slope. Soon we'll have to allow people to marry their dog." "They are equal. They have the same freedom to marry someone of the opposite sex that everybody else has." — Patterner

Ah, I see. No, individual people don't vote for "society" or "values"; they vote according to their personal concerns. Special interest blocs, such as business and churches launch propaganda campaigns to convince people that their own interests are endangered by someone else's. For example, drugs were not an issue for voters until after Anslinger declared a crusade against marijuana n the 1930's - because Prohibition was ending, and a new scapegoat had to replace alcohol, for a great big government agency to enforce. Much mileage was got from it by the Nixon administration and again by Reagan. The same kind of things happened with abortion and equal marriage: nobody much cares, until a political faction (to curry favour with a religious bloc) inflates it into a great big bogeyman.

Because the two sides have drastically different ideas of what is good for everyone, and many are not as concerned with what's good for everyone as with what's good for them. — Patterner

Not many people have original ideas about what's good for others. But a very few, who don't give a rat's ass what's good for anyone but themselves control the mass media and sway the populace with vague threats and hollow promises.
Hence my caveat of a robust, well-constituted democracy. What you're describing is neither: it's the result of a fatally flawed foundation, long slow efforts to correct the original mistakes and then massive corruption of the entire structure.

If the majority think what's good for everyone is incompatible with what some minority wants, — Patterner

If. But why would the majority think that way? Each person is not voting for "what's good for everyone"; each person is voting for what she or he wants for themselves. If that coincides with what others also want for themselves - and it's quite likely to - than it ends up being good for everyone.
Specific instances: old age pensions, public education, unemployment insurance, public transit.
The needs of the many do outweigh the wants of the few, because the needs of all are the same. But there are always a few who want more and are willing to take it away from the many. That's how democracy is corrupted and freedom is lost.

Oppressive measures tend to be advocated by minorities who want special privileges, rather than the majority who just want security. Of course, I did stipulate a

a reasonable constitution (no mass exclusions; equitable laws), where democratic process has been relatively uncorrupted — Vera Mont

If there is a state religion, military occupation, caste system or ethnic discrimination at the nation's core, democracy cannot work.

Democracy doesn't promote freedom or equality. — Patterner

Unless the participants want those things. Overall, in countries with a reasonable constitution (no mass exclusions; equitable laws), where democratic process has been relatively uncorrupted (not bought or coerced by a single interest bloc) for a few generations, the trend is toward equality and personal liberty. Because people all need and want pretty much the same things, when we vote for what's good for ourselves, we're also voting for the good of others.

We have an exceptional imagination, combined with an inflated self-image. Other animals live in the world as they find it. We want the world to be organized around us, for us and controlled by us. So we invent a human with superpowers who considers us special, pays attention to us, is flattered by our praise and charmed by our sacrificed children; to whom we can address requests and from whom we can expect favours.

The proof isn't in the institutions, it is in my immediate perceptions. — Pantagruel

Subjective experience, yes. We all have this. It's sufficient to convince us - to the point of basing all our institutions on it. We cannot do otherwise.

The evidence is so overwhelmingly on the side of freedom of will (it is the basis of all law, qua responsibility for actions, which is the foundation of civilization) — Pantagruel

Doesn't that seem circular to you? The proof for free will is in the institutions predicated on the presumption of free will.
Yes, we feel, think and act 'as if' - so we may as well believe it. Whether it is objectively true makes no difference to our subjective experience.

If this isn't free will, I don't know what is. — Igitur

Does anyone?

you would be talking about that instead of talking about other people — Tarskian

Well, it would be boring to talk about myself all the time. Other people are interesting, too.

You seek to personally attack other people. I don't. — Tarskian

How odd!

Finally, what is the motivation for even asking the question? The only one that I can think of is "denial of responsibility for the consequences of ones' actions." — Pantagruel

Good and successful ones as well as bad. And everyone else's. There is no advantage to be gained.
The motivation is an irresistible human drive to ask questions, even the silly ones, the too-diffucult ones and the ones that have no answers.