If you don't mind me asking. Why do you eat meat? — chatterbears
What exact mental capacity does a being at minimum need to deserve moral status according to you? Because if you draw the line to exclude all nonhumans including dogs and pigs, you will be excluding some humans. And as someone who has previously worked many years with handicapped persons, I can assure you that some are little different than your average human adult, and others are far less capable, mentally and physically, than a dog or pig. — NKBJ
You have no real basis to claim the pain perception of a pig is wildly different from a human's. Evolutionary theory and what we know about the biology of mammals (their nervous system and brains) leads to the conclusion that they do feel pain in the ways we do. And even if you cannot know it for absolutely certain, since it's way more likely than not, you have to err on the side of caution. — NKBJ
It's not about having or not having moral status. I haven't spoken in those terms. So you're asking me the wrong question. It's about the difference in how we treat humans and other animals in light of the differences between them — Sapientia
If you want to talk past me, then you're going the right way about it — Sapientia
To me that just seems to be a matter of difference in semantics. My same argument applies. If you exclude animals from certain types of treatment, you exclude some humans, and if you include all humans you have to include at least some other animals. — NKBJ
I don't believe I was talking passed you. I said pain perception, which means also how animals relate to pain, and would include their intelligence levels. The latter, as I already said, animals possess to the same degree as many groups of humans whom we protect. — NKBJ
There's no human sufficiently like a chicken to justify equal treatment. — Sapientia
No. There's no human sufficiently like a chicken to justify equal treatment — Sapientia
ou're either clearly wrong or have yet to reveal your own narrow interpretation of what I'm saying. No chicken, pig, cow, duck or other farmyard animal can relate to pain in the same ways that we do. You think that a chicken or a cow has an opinion on whether life is worth living, given the inevitable pain which we must live through? You think that they're able to contemplate whether that which doesn't kill me makes me stronger? You think they're capable of understanding to the extent that we are what pain is, and what causes it? No, of course not. That would be ludicrous. — Sapientia
I think he’s arguing more about humans having reached a certain threshold that other animals haven’t. It’s not just about a comparison between species. — Michael
Does it follow that the more different an animal is to a human, the worse it can be treated?
Why not, the less human, the better it should be treated? — jastopher
We seem to be generating an awful lot from the moral gold standard of human to human relationships, but why should evolutionary proximity be proportional to humane treatment once we step out of our species? — jastopher
Some of the persons I've worked with were much less capable than a chicken, since their disabilities kept them in the mental and physical state of infancy. — NKBJ
By that logic it would be permissible to cause pain to an infant, because they are not yet able to think abstractly about pain. — NKBJ
If the natural hierarchy you're arguing for is based solely upon power and intelligence, then what happens when a being of greater "advanced intellectual capacity" swings by and decides he wants to eat you? Are you going to willingly scuttle into a cage to await your execution by beheading, or look forward to hanging from the ceiling as your throat is slashed, or pace forward in a metal canal so that your head can be shot with high voltage electricity? — Buxtebuddha
I would likely act as expected and try to avoid that from happening. It is not a logical consequence of what I've said that I would willingly submit to any of that, so I see no valid point from you there. — Sapientia
Your position is one that must argue that it is right to eat that which is less powerful and intelligent than you, therefore that which is more powerful and intelligent than you is also right to eat you, so your unwillingness would be wrong. — Buxtebuddha
Such a threshold being power and intelligence, as far as I can see. What am I missing? If 1 is a rat, and 2 is a human, and 3 is a Martian, then 3>2>1. At present, because Martians don't exist, 2>1, and so Sappy can do what he wants with 1 because of A.) greater power, and B.) more intelligence. If, however, a 3 does exist, then Sappy can't, then, fudge the series and argue 3<2>1. — Buxtebuddha
My position must be what you say it is? No, that's not how it works, pal. I'm priority number one, irrespective of whether there were to arise a more powerful or intelligent species than my own, and I haven't once claimed or implied otherwise, so you've got nothing on me. — Sapientia
No, I took him as saying that once something reaches a certain level of intelligence then it would be unethical to eat that thing. Humans have reached that level and cows haven't. That there may be aliens who are more intelligent than humans doesn't change this. — Michael
No, I took him as saying that once something reaches a certain level of intelligence then it would be unethical to eat that thing. Humans have reached that level and cows haven't. That there may be aliens who are more intelligent than humans doesn't change this. — Michael
Yeah, I probably don't have anything on you because you've no coherent position to deal with. — Buxtebuddha
If your first plan of attack fails, call it incoherent and give up trying. I like your style. — Sapientia
Okay, let's farm them too, then. I'm sure Kentucky Fried Human would be a real hit. — Sapientia
But that's not my logic. I was only disputing your claimed equivalence in how humans and other animals relate to pain in light of their respective intellectual capacities. If I had meant to single out infants, then I could have easily done so. I suspect that you're intentionally skirting around my meaning to try to score a point. — Sapientia
Well, exactly because that is ludicrous we have to do the opposite: eat neither animals nor people. — NKBJ
It's what your logic leads to, whether you intended it to or not.
And I'm not trying to "score points." I wasn't aware that philosophical discourse was about winning or losing. I'm just trying to get at the truth and what the right thing to do is. Part of that entails explaining the problematic conclusions your argumentation would lead to logically. It's not personal. — NKBJ
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