This is silly. But I understand your focus better now. You're not really interested in animals, but in ethics. Which your thread title does disclose, so the confusion was mine.
If you were interested in animals you'd get that fake meat products which aren't appealing to meat eaters are not advancing the cause of animal rights. — Jake
Why would you conclude that I am not interested in animals? By that logic, you should say I am not interested in humans as well, correct? I am interested in how we treat our species, as well as other species on this planet. Ethics involves how you interact with the world and the things around you. — chatterbears
I already know that fake meat products aren't appealing meat eaters, and my point in my last reply to you, was that it should not matter if we supply them with a "just as tasty" alternative. — chatterbears
Caring about animals doesn't mean I need to supply meat eaters with a replacement product that will mimic animal flesh. — chatterbears
Im not sure why you fail to understand this considering you have admitted a subjective basis for morality already. His subjective basis is different than yours, and his measures are therefore different as well. — DingoJones
Could you give an example? — Terrapin Station
Yes, you prefer to scold them, and position yourself as superior. My only complaint with this is that it doesn't really work that well, and tends to generate as much resistance as it does support. — Jake
You don't have to, agreed. But not being interested in a solution that would actually work illustrates that it's moralistic finger pointing that interests you, not animals. — Jake
Again. If I tried talking to child molesters about how children should not be violated and are too young to consent, as well as can be easily taken advantage of. Would you just tell me, "You don't actually care about children, you need to give child molesters a solution!" — chatterbears
If you read above this, there's your example. As Dingo already mentioned, not everybody abides by their feelings in regards to what they describe as "wrong". One person may base an immoral action on whether or not it is an illegal action. Legality is separate from what the person feels, because their feelings do not make the law. Somebody separate from them, makes the law and dictates how the law works. At the metaethical level, yes, they are subjectively assessing the law as a good basis for what is right and wrong. But their normative and applied ethical stances, DO NOT hinge upon what they feel. — chatterbears
One day, the law could say. Gay Marriage is illegal. That person would now think gay marriage is immoral because it is illegal. The next day, Gay Marriage could become legal. That next day, the same person would now think gay marriage is moral, because it is now legal. — chatterbears
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Having a subjective basis for morality is separate from how your normative ethics work. I can agree that at the metaethcal level, moral values are completely subjective. But going a level above that (normative and applied ethics), it doesn't become subjective. One can base their ethics on whatever the law dictates.
Metaethics: I feel it is right to base your morals on the law. (subjective)
Normative ethics: What is morally right is what is legal. What is morally wrong is what is illegal. (descriptive)
Applied ethics: It is wrong to steal, because it is illegal. — chatterbears
I'm interested in tactical arguments, you're interested in moral arguments. I'm interested in what might actually cause a person to stop killing animals. You're interested in positioning yourself as superior. We have different agendas.
Feel free to pursue your agenda, they're your posts to do with as you wish. — Jake
You can claim I am interested in positioning myself as superior, but that's your wrongful assumption. — chatterbears
There's a severe ethical fallacy there; equivocation. — VagabondSpectre
Human consumption (and killing) of animals exists on ranges of necessary to sport and humane to sadistic; moral to immoral. The molestation of children is never necessary or humane or moral. — VagabondSpectre
You should be more specific about the practices you decry when making these kinds of comparisons. If killing and eating an animal is broadly akin to molestation, you should therefore support the eradication (or total incarceration) of lions and other predators who can only exist in the numbers that they do by inflicting pain and suffering on herbivores. If humans are wrong to thrive at the expense of other species, surely other apex predators are wrong as well, and even though they don't know better, we can still prevent them from doing more harm by taking action against them. — VagabondSpectre
I suspect that whatever justification you employ to allow lions to continue hunting gazelles can also be used to justify the consumption of animals by humans, at least to some extent. — VagabondSpectre
You must believe the lives of wild animals are worth living (hence your objection to our taking of them) but in reality the lives of wild animals are often filled with much greater hardship and suffering than the lives of some farm animals. What's your argument against traditional farming suited for developing countries? — VagabondSpectre
A way to counter my wrongful assumption would be to prove that wagging our fingers in people's faces and accusing them of moral crimes is the most effective way to convert them to vegetarianism. My complaint is only that I don't see that as a very effective tactic. — Jake
Can you tell me exactly which word(s) I am equivocating here? — chatterbears
We never hold an infant or a mentally disabled person accountable for their actions in the same respect we would hold you and I accountable. Similarly, we wouldn't hold a wild animal accountable who does not have the ability to self-reflect and evaluate their actions. Plus, wild animals eat other animals out of necessity, because they are forced to for their own survival. We kill animals for pleasure, not survival. — chatterbears
Lions also commit infanticide. If I commit infanticide tomorrow, and you called me out for it, could I respond to you in the same way you have responded to me. "But lions do it, so why can't I?" — chatterbears
Baseless assertions here. To claim that the lives of wild animals are worse than factory farmed animals, is absurd. — chatterbears
Terrapin - Do you believe everything we know about anything (health, math, logic, ethics, etc...) is all subjective? — chatterbears
From what Terrapin is suggesting, everything we know about anything, is completely subjective, — chatterbears
For moral questions, you seem to say that all moral perspectives/stances/etc... are based on "feeling". Would you say the same thing about health, logic, English language, math, etc...? — chatterbears
You can use this type of thinking for pretty much everything we can know or understand. — chatterbears
you can still make objective assessments based on the subjective criteria you agree upon. — chatterbears
Outside of making value judgments we're doing other sorts of things. — Terrapin Station
Other things, like spelling conventions, are just that--conventions, and we follow them for the sake of understandability. — Terrapin Station
It's important to understand the distinction between making value judgments and doing other sorts of things. "Right" seems to be a sort of value judgment in your examples, although I wouldn't guess that the sense of "right" being employed is the same in each example, and unless we're saying something pretty weird, we're not talking about a moral sense of "right." — Terrapin Station
Re your examples, I'd need to clarify how you're using "right." Presumably you're not using "right" in a moral sense, are you? If you're using it in a normative sense--"One should do this because . . . (whatever the reason(s) would be)" then that's ultimately going to come down to preferences, which are "feelings" in the sense we're talking about. — Terrapin Station
That's not anything about feelings/preferenes. It's about conceivability, which is different. — Terrapin Station
Re that, I definitely agree with it. But we don't agree on whether it's morally permissible to eat animals, especially because for me, that functions as a moral foundation. We can't go a "level down" to see if we agree on what "it's morally permissible/impermissible to eat animals" is based on in my case, because it's not based on some other moral stance (and remember that only moral stances imply other moral stances. Something that's not a moral stance can't imply a moral stance). — Terrapin Station
"Right" is the 'ought'. What one 'ought' to value as correct/right/etc... Essentially what you just said, which is "one should do this because." — chatterbears
- In the case of noncontradiction, you are essentially saying, "One should do this because it is conceivable." -
Molestation and the consumption of animals. You're not equivocating the definition of words, you're equivocating the moral implications of two unrelated actions. (establishing/portraying one as abhorrent by associating/liking it to another which is universally agreed to be abhorrent, when they are not in fact similar. — VagabondSpectre
But we still need to correct the actions of children, and if a lion is like an innocent child who doesn't know better, does that give it the right to ravage innocent ruminants? We could put a stop to the endless suffering of these animals by exterminating lions, and why not? Just because lions exist, they should be permitted to terrorize and consume their prey for all time? — VagabondSpectre
The existence of a prey animal who is about to be killed depends on the extermination of the predator who is about to kill it, so what's the harm in killing the lion to save the lamb? Are their lives unequal? If lions became more and more successful, driving other animals to extinction, should we intervene then? In other words, are lions aloud to exploit other animals in order to expand and thrive as a species? If so, I see no reason why humans cannot be permitted to do so, to some degree. — VagabondSpectre
This is another false moral equivalence. Infanticide is not the same as hunting wild animals (what lions and some humans do) and what I consider to be the ethical raising of farm animals (again, NOT factory farming). — VagabondSpectre
Well, let's make the closest comparisons we can: — VagabondSpectre
Where is anyone "essentially" saying that? Can you give an example maybe? I want to just address this first, because I see this as a highly controversial claim. — Terrapin Station
Then correct me if I am wrong, but it seemed like this is what you were implying. This is what the line of reasoning seemed to be.
I stated: Many systems have axioms, including logic. Such as the law of noncontradiction. You have to accept these axioms as self-evidently true, before you can move forward. The only way to accept something as self-evidently true, is what you personally prefer.
You said: Accepting the law of noncontradiction as true isn't about personal preference, it is about conceivability.
I then asked: Why should one value conceivability? — chatterbears
You do NOT have to accept the axioms as true--at least not in any "extra-systemic" way--in order to play the games in question. You're just operating with them as givens. It's just like you do not need to accept that it's true--outside of the context of the game, at least--that there is or was a Colonel Mustard to play Clue. — Terrapin Station
Finally, something seeming self-evidently true to someone isn't at all about their preferences. They might very well prefer that things were otherwise. They might prefer to believe something else. Or maybe they have no preference about it. — Terrapin Station
Maximizing the rights and well-being of sentient creatures — chatterbears
1. Explain why molestation is abhorrent but the contriubtion to animal rape, torture and slaughter is not. — chatterbears
2. Just because something is universally agreed upon, does not make it true/correct. At one point, slavery was universally agreed upon, but did that mean it was the right thing to do? — chatterbears
3. The two actions are related. Both actions (molestation & animal torture/slaughter) are causing pain and suffering to a sentient being. If you want to say that an animal's pain is worth nothing compared to a human's pain, you need to explain why. Many of the world's pet owners (who have dogs) would already disagree with you, btw. — chatterbears
1. We correct the actions of children because they grow up and learn more about self-reflection and how their actions affect other people. Lions never have this type of learning development. Lions are essentially 2-year olds that never grow up. — chatterbears
If a 1-year old hits another 1-year old in the face, are you going to exterminate that 1-year old? — chatterbears
Again, you are comparing the morality of lions to humans. And if lions can do it, humans should be permitted to do so, to some degree, correct?
Back to my original statement, which you completely dodged. If a lion commits infanticide, should humans be permitted to commit infanticide as well, to some degree? — chatterbears
I never said infanticide is the same as hunting wild animals. But you don't get to cherry pick what lions do in order to justify your moral actions. If you want to claim, "Lions can kill other animals, therefore humans should be permitted to do so as well", you cannot stop at that one action. If you want to justify your actions on the basis of lion behavior, you need to be willing to accept other lion behavior. — chatterbears
Your last few paragraphs were the result of buying into propaganda and the lack of research on your part. If you want to actually know what happens in animal agriculture, watch the youtube video I linked in the original post of this thread. Or just google "Dominion 2018" and watch it. — chatterbears
Rape and torture not withstanding, "slaughter" serves useful purposes. Explain to me why the lion killing the gazelle is not abhorrent? — VagabondSpectre
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