Individualism wants to shed all constraints - social and ecological - and so finds itself plugged directly into fundamental thermodynamics, the most general and mindless constraint that can't be avoided. — apokrisis
In fact I care a lot about animal suffering and ecology generally. The difference is that I don't have to invent the facts that would support a simple-minded absolutism. I've studied the science and that informs my ethical position. — apokrisis
You however argue in terms of absolutes. And when the evidence is not there, you invent it - like these forlorn suicidal penguins deciding to die by trekking inlands rather than just stepping off the beach into the waiting jaws of the local orca pack. — apokrisis
If lab rats are being used to cure cancer, and this is only way to do it, then I'll support the effort. — darthbarracuda
It's when we start talking about hunting animals for fun, eating the flesh of a dead animal for enjoyment, and ignoring the plight of predation and the infirm of the animal world, that I start to have problems with your and others' worldview. It's inconsistent. — darthbarracuda
It's not clear how science should be the ultimate guide to morality. — darthbarracuda
...ants behave as though they can recognize themselves in the mirror, — darthbarracuda
Not having the stomach to dissect animals isn't the issue here: the issue is dissecting the animals in the first place when there's no good reason to. — darthbarracuda
You're rather frothing at the mouth there, Schop. I'll wait until you've had a chance to calm down. — apokrisis
1) We should work socially (like some Star Trek fashion..at least moderate environmentalist) to preserve nature/the planet, specifically to do away with the dependency on fossil fuels so that humans can exist farther into the future so that they can... — schopenhauer1
it might also be true that it needs more "willpower" by the nations/actors involved — schopenhauer1
THAT needs justification other than circular reasoning. — schopenhauer1
Flourishing, happiness, tranquility and the like are so vague as to be useless unless expanded on in detail. — schopenhauer1
Or we could seek to construct a lifestyle that is sustainable - one based on renewable energy. That is a conservative and homeostatic ambition - although one that could still be high growth depending on the realities of what we can achieve technologically.
And then more than that, I am saying there are reasons why fossil fuels are winning and not renewables. It is inevitable - usually - that the more urgent desire rules. But hey, we're supersmart humans. So maybe we do have a choice in the matter after all. So let's get talking about that in ways which are realistic. — apokrisis
That's the trouble. Its like allowing McDonalds to exist and hoping a nation exercises its willpower. As soon as you frame the collective problem in this classically romantic fashion - one in which "individual will" is at the centre of everything - then the battle is already lost. A faulty philosophy is going to be the reason you fail. — apokrisis
Its hierarchical reasoning, not circular reasoning. There's no point fussing about the details if the general structure is not right. And life on earth being a thermodynamic equation - a proton gradient - that balance is the one 7 billion homo sapiens most urgently need to attend to.
You know Maslow's hierarchy of needs right? That is hardly circular is it? More triangular. :) — apokrisis
Did you ever check out positive psychology? What they mean in practice is hardly a secret. Although no-one is going to promise you that you can have it all. That's what Romaticism promises you - and why your life consequently feels like shit because you are so far from what is being promised. — apokrisis
So it IS justified that they suffer for our benefit? We should shut them in horrible little cages, give them a disease and also drugs, just to see what happens? Or even just give them enough of the drug to discover for a start what is the lethal dose?
This seems confusingly at odds with what you have been saying. — apokrisis
It is hardly inconsistent that I would weigh up the trade-offs of curing cancer in the same way as anything else. But it is inconsistent that you seem to think inflicting suffering in the name of cancer research is OK for some reason that does not apply to the other cases you cite. — apokrisis
My position is that nature constitutes existence. Science is our best inquiry into the character of that existence. Morality should be based on a proper understand of nature as morality is about our actions in the world. — apokrisis
OMG. Here we go again! You must be punking me. Congrats. — apokrisis
But my point is that doing so is a complicated ethical business. And right at the beginning I highlighted at least two key issues - human cognition and social proximity - that you left out in your simplistic OP. — apokrisis
You got the last part right, but you got the first part wrong partly. Science can help inform our decisions. But to say that what science discovers is what is moral is the naturalistic fallacy. — darthbarracuda
But to say that what science discovers is what is moral is the naturalistic fallacy. — darthbarracuda
??? It's known that ants have sometimes reacted in such a way as to warrant the consideration of them having at least a rudimentary sense of self, when they scrape off the paint on their heads. — darthbarracuda
I disagree. I know science gets the blame for Scientism, but science is perfectly capable of understanding organisms as organisms. And a capacity for creativity and autonomy fits quite happily into the organic perspective. — apokrisis
Now I'm laughing even harder now. Your solution to all the other species committing "specieism" is to commit genocide against them. Do you even think about what you type before you type it?The fact is that even if you eradicated speciesm from humans you have only made a small dent in specieism as a whole. How are you going to change the minds of all those other animals and if you don't think it is necessary to do so, then you really aren't against specieism - just as Black Lives Matter isn't about all black lives - only about black lives ended by cops. — Harry Hindu
This is a pragmatic argument that does not affect the legitimacy of the OP.
In any case, we would presumably change the minds of predators by eliminating them from the population and restructuring ecosystems so predators cannot exist en masse. A good way of doing this would be to limit the amount of foliage available for herbivores to eat. Thus the population of herbivores would decrease, and the population of carnivores would follow. — darthbarracuda
'??? It's known that ants have sometimes reacted in such a way as to warrant the consideration of them having at least a rudimentary sense of self, when they scrape off the paint on their heads. — darthbarracuda'
After looking in the mirror? References please. — apokrisis
Even if our results suggest a certain degree
of self recognition in ants, they do not explain how ants
take and use such information, how then functions the
underlying cognitive processes, and if ants detain some
self awareness. For many animals, such an assumption is
not unanimous [39, 17]; for ants, we are conscious that it
might even be less plausible.
What is interesting is that every conceivable argument against racism, sexism, or homophobia can be applied to speciesism. Appeals to nature are ad hoc assertions that use the naturalistic fallacy. Appeals to divine law either fail to resolve Euthyphro's dilemma or conflict with independent moral intuitions. Might=right arguments are straight up totalitarianism, as are appeals to cognitive abilities or any other sort of "fitness". Speciesism cannot be held up without leading to a slippery slope. — darthbarracuda
I think where we are going to disagree is in regard to the meaning of autonomy....
...Kant had the right idea, although I don't entirely agree with his method of thinking. He separates reality into the empirical, which is rigidly determined by causality, and the noumenal, which is not. The noumenal leaves room for Kant to believe in God, freedom and immortality. — John
There is actually some evidence on this front: — mcdoodle
Good job I don't say that then. — apokrisis
Getting back to what I did say, why should I treat any notion of the good as something transcendentally abstracted from existence? — apokrisis
After looking in the mirror? References please. — apokrisis
Now I'm laughing even harder now. Your solution to all the other species committing "specieism" is to commit genocide against them. Do you even think about what you type before you type it? — Harry Hindu
The problem I have is that I am unable to see how anything more than an illusion of freedom could result from a semiotic process; if it is understood as entirely materially based. — John
The Enlightenment was about recognising humans as natural creations with a natural logic. We could consider the basis of human flourishing and create the social, political and ethical institutions to foster that. And recognising the continuity between humans and other animals was a big part of the new thinking. — Apokrisis
in the semiotic view, autonomy results from the separation of material cause and symbolic cause - the modelling or sign relation. Life is self-determining because it can use remembered/encoded constraints to regulate material/energetic processes.
But this is freedom constructed from "inside" the material flow - arising immanently - and not sourced from without. So it leaves no room for souls, gods, immortality or freedom in some transcendent sense. — Apokrisis
Thus the actual point of ethical importance is agential well-being. — darthbarracuda
But again, how we focus on welfare is more of a practical and applied ethical issue than a purely normative ethical issue. For you need to have normative ethics before you can even start applying them. — darthbarracuda
Well, in my opinion (which I've said before), you shouldn't. Goodness is such a queer property that it would be quite difficult to actually find goodness "out there". Hence why I'm an anti-realist: our mental states define and encompass all that is moral. — darthbarracuda
Ants, admittedly, are probably more of a fluke than anything. But the fact that they scratched off the paint means that, potentially, they are able to recognize what is "normal" in their colonies, and recognize that there are "others" - the recognition of the "other" requires a separation between the other and the self.
Denying this possibility is speciesism, or the disregard of others' rights just because you doubt they have sentience (since it's neither proven nor disproven that they have sentience). It is an unethical leap of faith. — darthbarracuda
I would rather believe that the mythos of transcendent freedom and immortality, actually represents a culmination of the evoluionary process - that (like the view of 'evolutionary enlightenment') we are evolving towards a higher state, one which doesn't solely define itself in economic or biological terms. — Wayfarer
And furthermore even within the developed economies, where we are supposed to enjoy the benefits of that progress, there is widespread dissillusionment and unhappiness, as evidenced by rates of suicide, mental illness and substance abuse. — Wayfarer
The modern world's endless quest for economic growth is, quite literally, the mythos of freedom and immortality transplanted into the world — Willow
The idea inherent in all idealistic metaphysics–that the world is in some sense a product of the mind–is thus turned into its opposite: the mind is a product of the world, of the processes of nature. Hence, according to popular Darwinism, nature does not need philosophy to speak for her: nature, a powerful and venerable deity, is ruler rather than ruled. Darwinism ultimately comes to the aid of rebellious nature in undermining any doctrine, theological or philosophical, that regards nature itself as expressing a truth that reason must try to recognize. The equating of reason with nature, by which reason is debased and raw nature exalted, is a typical fallacy of the era of rationalization. Instrumentalized subjective reason either eulogizes nature as pure vitality or disparages it as brute force, instead of treating it as a text to be interpreted by philosophy that, if rightly read, will unfold a tale of infinite suffering. Without committing the fallacy of equating nature and reason, mankind must try to reconcile the two.
In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature–even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man–frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy. — Horkheimer
What the ^&$# is humanitarian about letting animals starve to death? You're making no sense at all! — Barry Etheridge
I watched an ABC documentary last night on suicide prevention amongst tradesmen in Australia. — Wayfarer
The problem is, that nature is now valorised - 'being natural ' is now another form of faux spirituality. — Wayfarer
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