This is high order sophistry! One is never required to prove a negative. It is the plaintiff that must prove his case, something which you have singularly failed to do in my opinion. The defendant is not required to prove anything. — Barry Etheridge
It is an inescapable truth that human rights (if such a concept has any meaning anyway) are the distillation of ethical arguments by humans, about humans, and for humans. There is no rational or logical argument by which the qualifier 'human' may be erased. They do not, by definition, apply to any species other than humans. For any other species to have these rights they must not simply resemble humans they must be humans or identical to humans. — Barry Etheridge
If part of the reason that we treat people better than we treat animals is that people are human then it's not inconsistent or irrational to treat people better than we treat animals. — Michael
What reasons do you have for believing that all things (and only those things?) which can suffer deserve equal ethical consideration? You keep asserting it and demanding that others prove you wrong, but that's shifting the burden of proof. — Michael
It's not my job to argue against your claim. It's your job to defend your claim. — Michael
Or to put it another way, you can't go from "all humans ought be treated equally" to "all things which can suffer ought be treated equally". And there's nothing arbitrary, irrational, or inconsistent about the former. — Michael
What those that criticise speciesism would say about this is that the question is why does people being human cause us to treat them better than other animals? I believe the reason is simply tribalism - because humans are our group and cows are not. If defenders of speciesism would just agree to that then there would be no incoherence in their position.If part of the reason that we treat people better than we treat animals is that people are human then it's not inconsistent or irrational to treat people better than we treat animals. — Michael
What those that criticise speciesism would say about this is that the question is why does people being human cause us to treat them better than other animals? I believe the reason is simply tribalism - because humans are our group and cows are not. — andrewk
So it is about the group dynamic - the give and take of mutual interests. But to simply give rights without reasons is arbitrary and irrational, unless you can argue for some further transcendent principle at work. — apokrisis
That is beside the point. The discussion was about ethical justifications for treating humans better than animals. Those reasons have nothing to do with ethics. They are simple transactional considerations.It is hardly so arbitrary. Humans treat each other well in the hope and expectation they will get the same treatment in return. That is basic rational behaviour.
You're conflating hypothetical imperatives with categorical imperatives. — darthbarracuda
Yet I think it is clear that morality, as it is being discussed here, is about the categorical imperatives. — darthbarracuda
The fact that animals cannot really "give back" to you is seen as evidence by yourself that they are not worthy of ethical consideration, as helping them would be irrational (against our own interests). — darthbarracuda
Are we not better than that? Can we not move on from these beastly behaviors? Can we not recognize that there is a difference between rationality and ethicality? Can we not recognize that, if we existed in a different world, we might not have to espouse these ancient, oppressive traditions? — darthbarracuda
By calling these traditions "oppressive", "tribalistic", "totalitarian", "unequal", etc., I am identifying an actual quality of these traditions. — darthbarracuda
You could accuse me of putting everyone on a guilt-trip; yet this guilt is precisely why I think we ought to abandon these traditions. After all, I am only pointing out facts. Whether or not we are able to act ethically is entirely irrelevant to the discussion. — darthbarracuda
No I'm not. I'm taking the view that talk about categorical imperatives is transcendent bunk. As a Pragmatist, I can only support reasoned approaches to morality - ones that are natural. And I've said that all along, so I hardly have to come out of the closet about it. — apokrisis
I said in practice we do care about animals to the degree they "give back to us". And this is natural as morality is all about the practical business of organising social relations. We are social creatures and ethical frameworks exist to optimise that. As social creatures, we now have extended that to the realm of domesticated animals. We treat domestic animals differently from wild animals or good reason. We do things like pay their vet bills because we accept their welfare as our responsibility. — apokrisis
Not only can we do these things, but we do do these things. However the best argument is going to be that it is rational self-interest to do so. — apokrisis
Or rather you are trying to win an argument by using emotionally loaded terms. I prefer reason and evidence myself. — apokrisis
This gets very weird. You want to cause us the suffering that is to feel guilt even if there is then nothing we could do to assuage that guilt you have created?
Is that ethical in your book? — apokrisis
Right, so you are under the framework that what has been done, and what we currently do, is what we ought to continue to do because it's natural and rational, or in our own self-interest.
In other words, comfort is evidence of moral value. If we aren't comfortable with the prospect of giving up our dominion over animals, then by golly it's not important. — darthbarracuda
Yet this is false because we hold many moral beliefs that are not in our best-interest. — darthbarracuda
As if ethics is entirely disconnected from emotion. Because self-interest isn't emotional at its core...? — darthbarracuda
It's not that I want you to feel guilt, I want to you act more ethically. — darthbarracuda
In your case, this reason seems to be rational self-interest. Yet this does not satisfy the open ended question very well, and especially conflicts with our intuitions that maybe we should focus on the welfare of people instead of merely seeing them as a means to an end for our own purposes. Because that is what rational self-interest egoism entails: that we care for others so long as we ourselves benefit from this. — darthbarracuda
Today of course we can develop morality based on a proper understanding of natural systems. — Apokrisis
Today of course we can develop morality based on a proper understanding of natural systems. Which is where we can start to criticise much of how modern society might be organised from a credible basis.
That means I have no patience for your fact-lite PC guilt-tripping. If you want to make credible arguments, establish a proper basis for them. — apokrisis
The argument is that morality reflects the communal best interest. — apokrisis
So the bleeding point of it is to transcend your personal feelings about what ought to the case because the very idea of suffering causes you unendurable suffering. — apokrisis
Personally I find cats delightful and dogs repulsive. Emotionally, the idea of vivisectionists experimenting on kittens is appalling, but beagles don't move me the same way. — apokrisis
I'll say it again. The systems view is explicit that society is a balance between competitive and co-operative imperatives. We need both to make society work. So there is self-interest in getting my own selfish way, alongside the self-interest in my community flourishing. — apokrisis
I can't see how that can be anything other than a utilitarian ethos - 'greatest good for the greatest number'. Nor can I see any 'intrinsic good' in naturalism, that compares to (for example) the higher truths in Buddhism, towards which ethical actions are directed. — Wayfarer
Yes, but why should we consider communal best interest to be more important than a global community's best interest? — darthbarracuda
No, it's because no triumph or something silly like that can phenomenally compare to suffering as it is experienced in sentient organisms. — darthbarracuda
My argument is that we must treat animals with respect because they deserve it. — darthbarracuda
Oh, certainly we have to have these in place for a certain kind of society to work. But why should this constrain the possibilities? — darthbarracuda
Why do they deserve it? I give the natural reasons. You talk about your emotions. — apokrisis
Systems have a logic based on constraints and the freedoms they shape (which are the freedoms needed to energetically reconstruct that prevailing state of constraint).
So the reasons why society has to be that way - global cooperation and local competition - is that it is what works. Marxism, anarchy, flower power, dictatorships, communes - there are plenty of examples of alternatives that didn't work because they did not strike the right balance. — apokrisis
that's the assumption that any naturalistic account will provide, but it is reductionist. 'Everything in service of survival' is what it amounts to. — Wayfarer
No, you also give emotional arguments because you have placed value upon the "natural" state, — darthbarracuda
You have jumped the is-ought gap here by implicitly assuming a standard that these reasons uphold. — darthbarracuda
This is getting very silly. — apokrisis
My argument is that morality is simply an encoding of the organisation by which a social system can persist. And to pretend it is anything more high-falutin' than that is a damaging romantic delusion. — apokrisis
Please respond with an argument — darthbarracuda
You are merely asserting that the anthropological history of morality defines what morality currently is or could be in the future, thus limiting its prospects. — darthbarracuda
Hence why I am repeatedly said before that your position is inherently affirmative - affirmative of society, affirmative of progress, affirmative of life. — darthbarracuda
But that's not what I've argued. I began by talking about flourishing rather than surviving for good reason. — Apokrisis
Looks like we're even then! — andrewk
Probably because we are able to conceive of realities that are not. — darthbarracuda
So, what if we're in a situation where resources are seriously scarce - which collectively, I think our culture is going to inevitably face - do we let some people perish, so that others might flourish? — Wayfarer
A utilitarian might convincingly argue that the healthy will benefit a lot more, if freed from the drain of supporting the elderly or disabled. Of course we see that, rightly, as an abhorrent argument. But that is really for reasons of conscience. — Wayfarer
We can easily conceive of things that don't work. I mentioned marxism and flower power as examples. So that doesn't help your case. — apokrisis
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