Because it's the chemicals causing the feeling, not the thing. — Darkneos

I still don't see what you mean.

Firstly, I think it is quite arguable that the chemical reactions that cause our feelings are often themselves caused by external events, like the love I feel when I'm petting my dog. So I think my dog plays a causal role in my feelings of love towards him.

Secondly, once again, I don't see the jump. For example, my visual experience of watching my computer screen typing this reply is caused by my brain's neurochemistry and my optical system, but I don't see why that would mean that my visual experience is not about my computer screen. If one accepts that visual experiences could be about external things even if caused by our brains and optical systems, I don't see why my meaningful experiences of loving my dog that are caused by my brain and sensory systems as I interact with my dog, can't be about my dog.

That could be due to status quo bias, emotions seem to be getting in the way when the result in the end would be the same. — Darkneos

And:

That's status quo bias. — Darkneos

Status quo bias is a fair worry, particularly in the experience machine example. Still, it is less clear in the example with my dog.

Even if the results of our intuitions are biased to some extent concerning the experience machine, that is not enough to conclude that they are biased to the extent that these judgments are invalid. Status quo bias seems to influence how people respond to the thought experiment to some degree, but that does not mean it is only bias. Magnus Carlsen may have self-interest bias if he judges himself the best human chess-player in the world, but that judgment would still be valid.

Furthermore, your phrasing makes it seem like it is only bias that prevents people from accepting pure hedonism. That could be the case, but I don't think that has been established by experimental philosophy yet.

Reasoning isn't really due to chemicals. — Darkneos

Sure, that could solve the dilemma by pointing out a difference between emotions and reasoning. However, this fix seems a bit ad hoc to me. Our reasoning is dependent on our brains, no?

However, it seems to me that the obvious reason why a "genocide of infants" would be fully a "genocide" is because human infants have the potential to become human adults. They are the living continuation of families and cultures. And the destruction of this potential, even if you accept Singer's framing, represents a much greater damage to families and cultures than the killing of livestock. Yet this would also seem to undermine Singer's conclusion, in that an organism's potential seems relevant to its "moral worth," for lack of a better term. Otherwise, infant genocide would just be the same thing as an aggressive livestock culling, except that "it perhaps offends the victims' sentiment more." — Count Timothy von Icarus

Does the following argument somewhat capture your objection to Singer?

(A) If infants are non-persons akin to livestock and the infants potential personhood is not intrinsic to the infant's moral worth, then infant genocide and aggressive livestock culling would be morally equivalent as long as all extrinsic factors are equal (offense to families, etc.).
(B) Infant genocide and aggressive livestock culling are not morally equivalent when all extrinsic factors are equal.
(C) Infants are either not non-persons akin to livestock or the infants potential is intrinsic to the infants moral worth, or both.

Edit: conclusion was too strong before. Fixed for sake of validity.


I think such an argument has force if one accepts Moorean arguments. Many hold (B) with such certainty that one could argue it outweighs the plausibility of Singer's theoretical case. I'm not sure if this is exactly how you meant for your argument to be taken. Please correct me if it is incorrect.

Now, here is how Singer, or a Singer defender, could try to lower the force of your argument:

Bias. Singer would likely give debunking explanations and counter-examples for the intuitions that support (B). (B) is, in this view, without rational support. Rather, it is due to cultural and evolutionary influences that should not be trusted.

Extrinsic potential. As a utilitarian, Singer does value potential states of affairs. Preventing persons from coming into existence on a large scale as with genocide would not maximize utility. The reason why infanticide and abortion are sometimes justified fits this view. A parent may choose to delay bringing a person about via abortion or infanticide, but they are not lowering the amount of persons that would exist. In cases of genocide, this is different, and this is a relevant difference from livestock most of the time.

Emphasis. The comparison with livestock seems worse when one does not consider Singer's wider view that the treatment of non-human animals should be significantly improved. Even if Singer argues for the lower moral status of infants, which is highly counter-intuitive, it should not be taken as being meant to be a comparison to our current treatment of non-human animals which Singer vehemently opposes.

With this in mind, I think there are ways forward for those following Singer to at least temper the effect of your argument. Still, as noted before, I think your argument has force.

"Famously?" No wonder I've never heard of the guy. The underlined random assertion simply doesn't logically follow the preceding factual statement. It doesn't even seem to attempt to. So, at least for me, it doesn't ever actually reach the threshold of what constitutes "an argument". Basically, there is no "therefore" as the logic falls apart at that point so anything that comes after and is based on that non-logical assertion is akin to opinionated rambling. Yet, you seem to entertain it, which suggests perhaps I'm simply missing something. A baby does in fact have the status of personhood, legally, and socially. It's a baby person. Any disagreement of that is like saying a different ethnicity of humanity isn't a person because "I say so", at least to me. It's just another opinion. Do you disagree? — Outlander

That is an understandable reaction to Peter Singer, yet, I think you're missing some context. Singer provides far more than mere random assertions. In Practical Ethics (2011), he spends multiple chapters building the case that leads to his views on abortion and infanticide. Personhood, as he defines it, is not synonymous with species membership, legal status, or social status. Rather, it is about moral status, and, according to Singer, species membership, legal status, and social status, are not what gives a being its moral status. Moral status is about what morally relevant capacities the individual possesses.

Also, Singer actually gives a response to the sleep-killing scenario you describe. In Practical Ethics he writes:

To have a right to life, one must have, or at least at one time have had, the concept of having a continuing existence. Note that this formulation avoids any problems in dealing with sleeping or unconscious people; it is enough that they, at one time, have had the concept of continued life may be in their interests. (Singer, 2011, p. 83)

Singer further justifies this by noting that we can have desires without them being at the front of our mind (Ibid.). I might want to buy a house, but I will only have this desire at the front of my mind when reminded of it in some way. Yet, according to Singer, I still possess that desire while unaware of it. It does not apply to a being if that being has never had a concept of having a continued existence, as Singer argues is the case for, for instance, a fetus.

The intellectual version of a cookie-cutter shock jock. Can't be insightful? Be controversial. — Outlander

He is certainly shocking and even offensive. But, rather than only caring about shock-value, I think Singer is most likely just a genuinely committed utilitarian that follows his arguments to their end, even when it sharply differs from what is deemed acceptable. I disagree with Singer on many things, but I think that he is a serious philosopher.

References
Singer, P. (2011). Practical ethics (3rd ed.). Cambridge University Press.

Meaningful experiences don't tend to be about something else, it only seems that way due to the chemicals in us. You don't actually have love for your dog or anyone else, that's only the chemical flashes happening. Your love is already not accurate. — Darkneos

I don't understand the jump you're making. Let us say I accept that my affection is constituted by chemical flashes in my brain. Why does that imply my affection cannot be about another being, place or object? I don't see how that follows.

It's not striking widely, it's referring to pleasure which appears to be the main motivation behind us doing anything. And if that good feeling can be replicated there is no reason to partake in life. — Darkneos

I'm not sure that is true. Pleasure can often be a strong motivator, but I think it fails to be the main one in many important cases.

To illustrate my point, let us imagine that my dog is about to be put down due to illness. The veterinarian gives me an offer: their daughter wants to practice vivisection and my dog is perfect for this. They know it would be very upsetting for me to live with this fact, so they offer to use a hypnotist to make me forget the ordeal and make me instead believe that my dog died peacefully in my arms as a comforting memory. Furthermore, they will also pay me 100 dollars for me to spend on whatever pleases me.

I would arguably get more pleasure from taking the deal, but I would not be motivated to take it, nor do I suspect most would. I think this is due to us being motivated to care about what actually happens to the being, in this case, my dog, not just our own pleasurable sensations.

Thinking that it has anything to do with beliefs or reasoning is a strawman and dodging the question. — Darkneos

No, I disagree. I extended what seems to be the underlying assumption of your argument to other mental phenomena. This is not doing a strawman. I'm testing your assumption. I think your assumption faces a dilemma. Either, (A) accept that reasoning, which I guess would also be chemical flashes in your view, can refer to the world and be more or less accurate, but then you need to provide a reason for why other mental phenomena, like our meaningful experiences, cannot have such a reference; or (B) use the same underlying reasoning to reject reasoning itself as chemical flashes but thus ending up in a self-defeating position because your argument relies on the accuracy of reasoning.

This is not a strawman. If we were discussing act-utilitarianism and you used the trolley problem to justify your position, it would not be a strawman to bring up the transplant-surgeon case, or the utility-monster to test the position. If the underlying assumption has problems, that spells problems for the specific argument too.

Even if we did grant your point it would only serve to reinforce the argument, not undermine it. — Darkneos

Does it? How?

Also no one is talking about accuracy here. — Darkneos

Is this not one of the most important aspects of the experience machine thought experiment? People seem to care about their meaningful experiences being accurate to reality. I get that you reject this, but I think this is what is under debate and should not be dismissed.

The idea does bug me, the thought that if it's all just chemicals then there would be no real reason to not plug into it. What difference is there if we can just replicate everything? — Darkneos

And:

If everything we take to be meaningful is just the result of chemicals that can be replicated then there is nothing special about what we take to be meaningful. Treasured relationships can be replaced with a machine that just gives you the chemical rewards that having them would, it would render everyone, every thing, and every experience replaceable via a machine that can do the same. — Darkneos

From the above, your argument seems to be something like the following formalization:

(1) If something can be physically replicated in the brain, then that thing is not special.
(2) Chemical compositions can be physically replicated in the brain.
(3) Meaningful experiences are just chemical compositions.
(4) Thus, meaningful experiences are not special (from 1-3)
(5) If meaningful experiences are not special, then one has no reason to not plug into the experience machine.
(6) Thus, one has no reason to not plug into the experience machine (from 4 & 5).

Please correct any inaccuracy. Anyway, I think this is a valid argument, but ultimately I'm skeptical that it is sound. Here are two worries, targeting (1) and (3) in particular:

Aboutness. Meaningful experiences tend to be about something else. For instance, meaningful bonds seem to refer to some other being, place or object. There is an accuracy condition due to this aboutness. My love for my dog is about that existing being, and without that being existing, as it is in the case of living inside the experience machine, my love is not accurate, because the being my love refers to does not exist. If this is correct, it seems like our meaningful experiences are either more than chemical compositions, or chemical compositions can be about something else, and then there is a potential reason to opt out of a life in the experience machine.

Self-defeat. The underlying assumptions of the argument risks striking too widely. Our beliefs, justifications, reasoning, use of logic, would arguably from this perspective be chemical compositions in the brain as well. Yet, they seem to have an accuracy condition, like the one mentioned above. One can accept this accuracy condition as an emergent property of chemical compositions, but then that leaves one with a tension: Why could not meaningful experiences have this accuracy condition if other chemical compositions can? If one rather denies the accuracy condition for reasoning as well, it seems to leave us in self-defeat. Our reasoning could be manipulated to make us think anything is the case so it is not special, it does not matter if it is accurate or not, thus risking to undermine almost all of our thinking, and even the argument itself.