That antinatalism doesn't entail pessimism or thanklessness. — Hanover

So what I said but in a condescending kind of way towards antinatalists?

Perhaps they celebrate their gains should they see more people converting to their cause. They are not necessarily atheist, so perhaps they thank their heavenly father for each person who swears off procreation.

It would not be the stupidest religion out there, and it might just provide our sullen antinatalists with feelings of awe and inspiration. — Hanover

So what's the point of your comment? Comedic effect?

I wonder if the Wampanoag people celebrate thanksgiving. Things did not work out all that well for them. — Banno

I remember reading that something like 80% of the Native Americans in that area were already wiped out from disease (like small pox) brought by explorers and some settlers BEFORE the Pilgrims even landed in 1620. But yeah, not so auspicious for them. Then they lost King Phillip's War

I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving. The turkey never asked to be hatched either, let alone being beheaded, gutted, stuffed, and cooked. Do cranberries resent their blooming parents? Pity the plants! They have had to endure unauthorized existence for many more millions of years than animals.

Maybe the Earth itself resents being formed out of cosmic dust, and then having to orbit a star for eternity? How does the Universe itself feel about its unrequested existence?

All Creation is peevish and resentful? — Bitter Crank

I never got your mention, but saw the title so luckily caught your post. Happy Thanksgiving to you as well, thanks. It's interesting you mention the planet orbiting the earth endlessly, and plants, and animals. The biggest problem with humans is that we have self-awareness AND knowing we can't do otherwise than surviving, staying comfortable, and such.

Would the appropriate celebration be one in which we give thanks that there aren't more of us? Should our guests on that day be only those who haven't given birth? That would mean our parents would be excluded in any case, and grandparents (which some may be thankful for, it's true). — Ciceronianus

Schopenhauer had his poodle and violin. I'm sure he was thankful for it, despite the suffering world he wished wasn't the case. He saw compassion as a way to de-personalize one's own will (ego?). I am sure he was thankful for that. Same with art and artists. This didn't mean however, THUS "isn't it great we are all born to experience this?". Rather, it was more of a consolation to, not a reason for life. So I guess I question the premise that an antinatalist or pessimist can't be thankful. It is more about how these things are used and contextualized. If thankfulness is used to say, "Thus we should keep adding more people into the world", then clearly an antinatalist would disagree with this. And no one said the thankfulness has to be about "being born". Nor have any antinatalists ever said no source of positive feelings and thankfulness for at least those things can exist. That would simply be false characterization- a straw man.

However, at the end of the day, we are put into an intractable situation of complying with the limits/harms of the world, cannot safely transfer to a more utopian one, and thus of course, it is never good to impose this situation onto others.

Not consenting to live is like not consenting that gravity keeps my feet on the ground. — I like sushi

Just wrong/error in thinking because this isn’t addressing that consent cannot be had. That doesn’t negate this fact. Just because it’s post facto also doesn’t negate it. It is the non ANs that have to address the issue. it’s not simply handwave it away as inevitable. Someone ELSE made the decision on behalf of someone. That is the fact of the matter.

To argue not to have have children is an action that may or may not reduce ‘suffering’. We are in no position to say with any real authority what is ‘better’ only to make personal judgements that sit well with us as an individual among other individuals. — I like sushi

This is not addressing the argument from imposition that @Tzeentch and I have been presenting.

It just does not make sense to use that term here. I can understand why you can, with some force, make it appear as wholly applicable to ‘living’ but it is just a term used loosely and no matter how hard it is forced it does not hold up for me. — I like sushi

Comply means here, having to do the actions necessary to survive in a social setting. You cannot live by simply being, you must do certain things you might otherwise not have wanted to do. Your only recourse if you don’t like ANY of the options is to kill your self- hence comply or die.

Clearly there is a wide area of middle ground that for some reason is difficult for us to realise and explore. — I like sushi

Depends on a lot more than you are saying. First off, many arguments being made here are ones about impositions. What kind of impositions are acceptable if at all? Procreation is problematic as it isn’t just a gift but comes with many burdens and can never be consented. One cannot get out of this universe’s setup to some better one, and even if one thinks they’d rather not comply with this world’s standards, limited choices of how to survive, and harms one must endure, self-harm/suicide is still a big enough fear that it’s not a realistic option as just a casual and accessible alternative. It would be gaslighting to and wrong to even use that as an excuse for why life “must be good then”.

At the end of the day, is it acceptable to create impositions onto others unnecessarily that are significant and not easily escaped? The only way out is ITSELF a significant traumatic harm to the person (death) or the only way out is to comply. Comply or die seems to then be the only two alternatives.

If this world always ended up being a utopia, individualized for every individual- where even the “boredom” of everything being good was not in the equation, we’d perhaps be having a different argument. Then truly it was purely a gift with no burdens or other agendas. But life isn’t just that and so there’s always some excuse as to why someone else needs to be burdened.

Antinatalism is certainly an idea worthy of contemplation. As a doctrine to be applied to a humanitarian lived life it has no foundation. Believing that procreation is not the best idea is fine too. Trying to provide ‘ethical’ evidence for it is complete nonsense though. — I like sushi

Antinatalism IS an ethical idea that that is what is being contemplated. There are many arguments of various takes on the matter. Why wouldn't it be any different than other human behavior in its evaluation as an ethical question?

The antinatalist viewpoint is a weak jelly, in comparison with such people. Past, present and future. — universeness

That doesn't even mean anything.

I will always be in awe of such people: applying their intelligence and talents to revolutionising our fight against suffering. I will always commend them, their courage and persistence. Long live the good amongst us. — Benj96

That's not @Tzeentch argument at all in this current argument. In fact, it wouldn't matter what people do or don't do in terms of technological breakthroughs with his argument about impositions.

To me, this suggests that human behavior beyond just acquisition of language is motivated by instinct modified and expanded by learning and experience. — T Clark

The problem is isolating what would be instinct. Instinct to me, seems like a drive you cannot but help. So an instinct to eat perhaps, go to the bathroom, prefer that which is physically pleasurable or raises levels of oxyctocin, dopamine, and serotonin. However, those are so broad to not really be helpful to consider how they are motivating. For example, reading a book might be pleasurable, but to say that the pleasure of reading the book is instinct, is a bit more than a stretch as far as I'm concerned.

and feel good about it so long as we have the intention to improve things/help sufferers — Benj96

You cannot just do anything in the name above. Having "good intentions" isn't license to do what you want to someone else. You probably know this though.

Imagine my defense being "good intentions" to do any X act that causes someone else an imposition of harms and limitations.

What if I force someone into a game that they enjoy? They have a great time and vibe despite the fact I gave them no choice but to play? What would you say then? — Benj96

A good state of affairs, but the result of a bad moral choice. — Tzeentch

This.

But I have some more to add, and I'm wondering what Tzeentch thinks of these ideas.

First off, I think that life is way more nuanced than the binary "Good life, bad life". It is much more analog than digital. The problem is a "gift" as you are implying here about life, is not a gift if it comes with burdens one would have not asked for or wanted. If I gave you a "gift" that lasted a lifetime, you could not get rid of unless you kill yourself, is pervasive, and has many burdensome impositions that you would have not wanted, BUT it comes with some good stuff too.. You have every right to say that this is not a gift, this is an imposition DESPITE any good aspects that go along with it. Again, just because I like a game, doesn't mean OTHERS must play it and like it too. Liking it "enough" isn't an EXCUSE to go ahead and force others to play it. It was NOT NECESSARY to start yet another contestant.

You would only have a point if the life you are starting is perfectly aligned with what the contestant wanted.. it was easy to move to a different option if you didn't like the game, etc. That is not the case.. It is comply with the already set-up universe we have (go to work to survive, go homeless, live off others, consume, find entertainment, find relationships, etc.) or kill yourself.

So my point is saying that the game is "good enough" is not enough reason to go ahead and impose on others because YOU deem it to be good enough. It is the disconnect between what you like and what others SHOULD like. Do not PRESUME for others regarding an inescapable imposition. That is aggressively paternalistic.

If anything about my posts on Pessimism, they are to reveal what are pervasive and intractable negatives that go along with life. You can look back on any of my previous posts on the matter. Overlooking this with a simple line of "But what if they say life is good!" is wishful folly that doesn't take into account the full story. One does not have a right to impose such significant things on another. One is perpetuating suffering needlessly for another. Saying that life is a statistical phenomena of degrees of good and bad doesn't negate that there are negative aspects to life that are not what people would have wanted and are entailed with life. It is not unnecessarily starting THESE negatives for another that is the problem. This is what is being overlooked.

This is where our agreement departs. We are assuming the rules of such a game are fixed. Those rules being that the game cannot be changed, we must then flounder helplessly, a — Benj96

I CANNOT in good conscience FORCE you to start a game because I think there is some chance you can change the rules (which is extremely hard), and this doesn't address the point that the rules are already in place, and they are simply ACCEPTED (or kill yourself.. a shitty bargain).

I think any game player can change the status quo if they want to. Not an easy pursuit by any means but a possible one — Benj96

Not good enough to FORCE OTHERS into a game because YOU like it.. Still not fair. Not just. Not right. Etc. I realize that isn't how people understand things because they never had it framed that way. Re-framing perhaps is most what I am after. Perhaps that's what @Down The Rabbit Hole found intriguing.

Otherwise why bother with politics or accruing any power whatsoever - If that power cannot change circumstances in any meaningful? — Benj96

Politics is not what I am talking about. It is the very foundational needs and wants of the angst-human being.

Naturally a player will ask "well in such a game is it possible to navigate away from climate doom". If the answer is "Np" then the game is pretty pointless isn't it? — Benj96

I'm not talking about climate change or things such as that, though it is an example of a greater understanding that there are only a LIMITED amount of choices this universe allows for the human. The parent thinks that these choices are "good" and thus must be lived out by yet another person as well. That's what I am speaking to.

So the actual rules of the gameplay of humanity are not as rigid as you believe. Just as the gameplay was previously changed from combating infectious diseases without antibiotics/vaccines to one where they are permissible in the game.

Fundamentally it reduces to pessimism vs. Optimism. You're free to choose which game format you choose. But you're not allowed to choose on behalf of other players. — Benj96

Yeah, I am not talking about the onward march of scientific phenomena.

A lack of perfection perhaps (whatever that entails for the individual), motivated by a need to improve circumstances from the imperfect towards to perfect, addressing flaws - in science, in philosophical thinking, in politics, economics etc one by one as they arise? — Benj96

Nah man, it doesn't go away. That is the point of the perennialism of Schopenhauer. it's a reason he was very opposed to Hegel's upward spiral notion.

There is always angst to survival I think. Very apt/poignant of you to point out. We have instincts - built in searching and evaluation of threats to our survival, "critical thinking" in a sense. Perhaps this is what society takes advantage of, to pursue improvement as a collective, each having a role in maintaining the stability of society. — Benj96

It starts with two people who decide on behalf of someone else, that a new person needs to deal with the world and deal with survival, comfort-seeking, and entertainment. They are creating another source of angst, in other words. The social institutions are like a pyramid scheme.. It can't be gotten rid of or changed easily as it's all the society has to allow the forced contestants to survive, find comfort, and entertainment.

What angst we cannot ameliorate through productivity in society we project/invest into entertainment. A sort of escapism so it were, to entertain catastrophe and the ongoing battle against adversity conceptually through media: film, literature, music, art etc it's an outlet for personal angst. — Benj96

People used to call some of that sublimation. But basically I consider entertainment anything that isn't survival or comfort seeking. Meditation and reading philosophy for pleasure can be entertainment. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's something you are doing outside of working to survive or finding ways to get more comfortable with your environment.

That being said, I think we are doing an alright job, we have the institutions in place to combat existential angst and each one is usually undergoing constant revision, ammendments and improvement. — Benj96

But YOUR preference for X institutions shouldn't become someone else's burden to bear, simply because YOU think this is the case.

It may not be perfect, far from it, but it certainly is motoring on towards a slow steady progress towards a future idealised as getter than the past we came from. — Benj96

We are far from a utopia. Rather, we are a mediocre universe doing mediocre things. The main problem is we keep putting more contestants in the game, and thinking we are doing them a favor. It's just starting yet another game on behalf of someone else, because YOU like something. I never heard of something where MY preference requires OTHERS to be forced into a game that cannot be changed. Where MY preference for what choices are meaningful or good (e.g. working to survive apparently people must love because they keep putting more laboring units into the workforce and shoving the drivel that work is meaningful so don't despair) are what OTHER people should experience.. Somehow the limited choices that life offers of survival and comfort, somehow the intendant harms of existing are what OTHERS should experience. OR, guess what they can do if they don't like it? You know (kill themselves!)...Real gaslighting if you ask me.

do you think it's really the pain/the anguish/the suffering/the agony (dukkha) that's our enemy #1? — Agent Smith

I think yes, there is an inherent kind suffering (like dukkha) that is very much the heart of the whole enterprise of life. There is a sort of lack-of-something that motivates. The goal (trick) of societies is to try to harness this motivation for "productive" purposes. I simply see it as not "being" and succumbing to becoming. We can't help it. It is self-aware angst, projected as "reasons" in the name of survival, comfort, and entertainment.

Which of course suggests that suffering is all that is on offer for newborns or any joys will be irrelevent because of the sufferings you will experience. Again, totally irrational thinking. — universeness

Not addressing his argument.

So is asexual reproduction, in your mind, irrational, as well as 'unfortunate?' — universeness

Red herring. Applying morality to things that by definition can't be moral is a category error, including most animals. Not only is it a category error, it is simply besides the point he is making.

So, you have no interest in consequentials then? Even if those consequentials mean that the original goal of your protest remains unfulfilled and the issue is never solved because it returns again and again, ad infinitum? — universeness

Yes, that is part of his central ethical argument. It's deontological, not consequential. Unnecessarily imposing on others for X reason, is wrong he is saying. Thus, obviously, imposing on many people EVEN in the hopes of preventing unnecessary impositions would by logic, also be wrong.

I have no idea what is in your head that connects the natural imperative to reproduce with the word 'magic.' — universeness

That's because there is no "natural imperative to reproduce" in HUMANS. We are a creature that has "reasons" that are shaped by a multitude of things, and are generally shaped by the general culture around us and simply personal preferences- anything from not wanting to miss out, to simply boredom with life, loneliness, and a host of other non-instinctual reasons.

In what way is the human potential for random, controllable, suppressible, immoral thought an aspect of humanity that warrants antinatalism and the extinction of our species? — universeness

Huh? Not even the argument. Another red herring.

I find the very few, different flavours of antinatalism, typed about on this thread to be equal only in how irrational they are. — universeness

Assertion that adds nothing to the argument. Rhetorical filler.

You choose to ignore the fact that obtaining such consent is not possible and that simply means, by default, we must not reproduce and anything that reproduces asexually now or after our extinction is just unfortunate. It that basically you position? Is that the antinatalism you want to sell to everyone? Which includes people like me? What estimate do you place on your chances of success?
Do you in fact need the buzz you get from the incredulity you receive? — universeness

A truth isn't how successful it sells to an audience. People often don't see "truth" at all, and certainly not right away.

The attention I am paying to 'his argument,' is simply shaking your little room. If you want to help him then make your points or concentrate on wiping the slabbers from your own mouth. — universeness

Not at all. You’re simply missing his points and/or ignoring them. He’s doing a fine job. Can’t help if you’re like a child with fingers in his ears.

Where is your evidence that if antinatalism was applied, it would be successful in the extinction of the immorality it is supposed to prevent? Intelligent life would simply continue elsewhere or reform elsewhere. You can't guarantee your fake immorality concern wont return again, and again and again. Your invalid immorality excuse is just your poor reasoning for a solution which won't work and is futile and is just based on your own ability to find balance in your own life. — universeness

You’re not even paying attention to his argument at this point. Frothing at mouth.

Perhaps the lure is the provocative nature of this absurd idea. — ssu

You realize anything can by fiat be called absurd right?

If I impose something on you, with the intention of "helping you through it", that doesn't suddenly make my act of imposing any less immoral. — Tzeentch

Yep

The baby bears no blame, of course. The parents do. To me, antinatalism is about the choice to have children, not about what to do when the child is already there. — Tzeentch

Yep

But they have a choice in that case dont they. To improve or worsen the situation. — Benj96

Not the AN issue.

And a good physically world is an acceptable reason to want to exist. Its our choice whether we do that. — Benj96

Your reasons shouldn’t become another’s issue/problem/burden to overcome/imposition.

Re-emergence of species is well documented by biologists. So the argument would just be postponed until next time wouldnt it — Benj96

As you say, I’m not responsible for what I can’t know. I do know how birth is a major imposition and can be prevented so moot point.

Impositions, even small ones, are generally regarded as immoral. Birth is one giant imposition.

Does it matter whether the imposition is made with the individual's best interest at heart? I don't think so. — Tzeentch

Exactly!

No one gets to experience anything good then either do they? — Benj96

Not a problem for anyone, literally, is it?

Would you be satisfied taking away all the people in love (with eachother, with their kids, with their jobs, with food, entertainment friends etc, people living their life the best they can and enjoying it) just for the sake of not existing at all? — Benj96

I’m not taking away anything from anyone. But if you explore that implication you would be facing problems of using peoples suffering for personal gains. That’s your arguments problem though, not ANs.

Sounds super boring tbh. — Benj96

Boring universes aren’t a reason to this make them less boring by introducing X negative unnecessarily.

I also dislike antinatalism. I did a whole discussion with someone earlier not sure which thread where I expressly disagreed with it.
What I do believe though us that it's not going anywhere. That's why I said no beliefs are BS, in the sense that they exist for a reason - even if the only reason is to stand as an unreasonable thing to think. Just as evil isn't going anywhere as a concept. As without it we don't really have free will and good woukd be meaningless.

People drift towards antinatalism and people drift away from it again based on the persuasion of others. — Benj96

Casually associating AN with evil, whilst ironically, no one has to experience evil in the first place with AN. It’s a political position with ANs against paternalistic assumptions about unnecessarily creating unnecessary harms for others, and assuming for others that they must like this game or kill themsemves (a hard thing to go through with).

If the antinatalism argument can be said to be boring, it is only because it's an open and shut case. — Tzeentch

:up:

Because it's a kind of constant complaint it delights those who love to constantly complain, — Janus

When the world stops becoming something to complain about…

and attracts others who love to call the complainers out for being whimps and whingers. — Janus

These I don’t get.

Mr. X does not believe this principal. Mr. X is an atheist and he does not incorporate any definition of any imaginary entity or entities into his beliefs. — EricH

I don’t get Bartricks using god as some thought experiment. I think a good analogy is rather a game that I think is good enough that I force other people to play it. I gaslight them and say, well now that I forced you into this game, if you don’t like ir, you can’t escape to a better game with different setup and initial conditions you can only play in the confines of this game. You can only imagine a different game but you can’t play it. However, if you are ungrateful for being exposed to this game, you can always kill yourself! If this sounds outrageously unfair as a game analogy, it really is not much different than procreation.

The problem is people will defend by appeals to majority practice and tradition which justifies only itself and not morality which in almost every other situation outside of procreation we’d consider unethical. This becomes special pleading due to long held cultural pressures and preferences.

Fair enough. I simply liken it to a game players are forced to play lest they kill themselves. Seems like such a bargain is prime facie unfair.

Your argument is that if problem of evil is unfair, then so are the billions of instances of procreations humans enact everyday bringing humans into what can be an evil world (and in my view always is).

We cannot alter how the sensible world operates so that it does not visit horrendous evils on any innocents we plan on introducing into it (not P) — Bartricks

Does it have to be even as far as horrendous evil? I’d think any non-individualized version of a person’s utopia would do. If it’s a god, you’d think this could at least be in consideration of one of the avenues he could have chosen for his creation.

Another thing to consider is, the parent is only thinking about their child, not all children , like a god presumably would. The parents think their child will live a “good enough” life and find something like 95% of it just peachy and fine. This is why some of my recent AN arguments revolve around the notion of aggressive paternalism. You shouldn’t assume for another that this life’s set of limited choices is what another would want. You shouldn’t assume others would want to deal with this life’s known, foreseeable harms (foreseeable from the parents experiences and predictions), and you shouldn’t assume to expose others to harms that are extreme that you may not even have expected but are known that it could happen. All these assumptions on behalf of others amounts to an aggressively paternalistic mindset and actions.

This is a strange and difficult world we live in. — god must be atheist

We are self aware and so we can’t escape that aspect of our nature. Hence objectifying highly sentient animals is a way we cope with the situation. This goes for any lifestyle- hunting or farming. However, with farming comes factory farming and now you have a whole other level of animal misery that you have to simply try to ignore.

Mind there is not at a subservient level to matter as in science, but transcends actuality to create nothing. This is the spirit that I favor in antinatalism. — introbert

Existence before essence is the case for humans in many ways that human pretend isn’t. Bad faith. :up:.

Thoughts can occur to any of us, but only in an insignificant number will thinking interfere with basic functions like eating (animals), procreating, and working. — introbert

The desire for sexual pleasure doesn’t seem the same as procreation, as we have divorced the two. Therefore, I consider procreation not a basic instinct. It is simply a culturally reinforced preference to want to reproduce. It could be out of any number of things including ones as banal as boredom, fear of missing out and a host of other complex socially derived, non instinctual reasons that have no discernible basis in an instinctual drive to “procreate”.

I don't think there is anything to gain by saying: If you can't be perfect, you shouldn't try at all. — Vera Mont

I think that is a good response.

Personally, I don't think there is a moral difference.

By the same logic, would it be more acceptable to harm a less sentient human than a more sentient one? — Tzeentch

I again see this as a relations things. Since we do have self-awareness, we can see that this person is still someone like us and thus we should treat them with dignity as we would want to be treated if we were in their position. If a minimal standard to strive for is not unnecessarily harming anyone/beings why would we unnecessarily put animals with lesser self-awareness/sentience through unnecessary harms when it can be prevented? Surely, there are alternatives, no? Is it only simply, "It feels good, so it is right"? That seems off too. If you simply can't stand not eating beans and vegetables because it's less tasty, I am not sure how that is living up to that standard. If you don't agree that unnecessary harm is something to live by, then it may be questionable standards. However, if it is simply that there is no consideration of unnecessary harms for other animals, we must ask why this is the case.

I am wary of trying to corner the argument into a slippery slope fallacy.. Why stop at "higher" sentient beings, etc. Well, then I would agree with an earlier sentiment you have that it's a tragedy of life that some beings will be grist for the mill in the name of "cycle of life". However, this can be posed the other way, of why NOT prevent the higher sentience from that suffering?

Vegetarianism or limited meat consumption seems like the most balanced way humans could prevent interfering with nature's balance. In a vegetarian world animals would live and die in balance while always producing useful products - dairy eggs etc - good sources of protein. And only killed for essential reasons - things that can only be practically made from leather instead of plastic, for social festivities, and perhaps transplantations in medicine. Not only would we minimise the carbon emissions from the meat industry but we would stave off the illnesses that come with high intensity farming and the lack of hygiene and easy transmissibility of disease that comes with it. — Benj96

For what it's worth, I am more on board with this than any veganism or extreme veganism. As someone was stating earlier, it's mainly about the conditions of the animals, though I think there is something odd about going up to an animal and killing it when there are alternatives. Although I understand that we can't let the farm animals breeding forever, it may simply be a solution like not introducing males and females together or something like that. Stop it at the breeding part so it doesn't have to get to the killing part. They would still have to be domesticated though. Just how they are now and that can't be factored out. We are inextricably tied with these domesticated species for good or bad. The problem though is so systemic and consuming it is more of a feel good way of dealing with it for oneself rather than actually getting much done consequentially.. But as a deontological point, it makes sense.. do no harm unnecessarily if you can help it.

Because they are in order of what is most different (spider) to what is most similar (ape) - close to self? If self preservation is your motto is it not the same instinct as all of these animals: spiders, rats, cows and apes?

And if so, if they all have the same will to survive and reproduce who are we to determine which do and which don't? Is it balanced to only consider what is in it for us (humans)? Is all of nature (us included) not mutually dependent on one another for the skills, the niches, we offer in service to a greater good - an ecosystem? — Benj96

A lot to unpack.

So I consider it similar to a Trolley Problem. If you were to either save a close relative/friend or several strangers, what would you do? I think it quite sociopathic to ignore the relations you have with someone, so I wouldn't blame someone for not wanting to choose someone who was close to them. Similarly, I think there is something about not wanting to hurt those which we can identify with more as closer to us and which we can at least estimate by behavior is closer to how we react to pain, fear, harm, etc.. I see it as maybe part of some moral sense, or sense of some kind we seem to react to regarding relations and harm.

As for the ecosystem, etc. That is more abstract, but that is the difference between killing a spider and completely eradicating a species that might be integrated into an ecosystem.

It's a tragedy of life, and veganism or vegetarianism does not seem like a cut and dry solution at all to me. — Tzeentch

Agreed but can there be a recognition of a spectrum of sentience and obligations to harm become more pronounced as sentience increases? I think there’s a real difference between harming spiders, rats, cows, and apes. And no doubt, I’m not an animal egalitarian. Humans then become the most important to not unnecessarily harm if faced between human and animal. If not because of sentience then from ties of relations.

Yes, completely. But the schizophrenic person is mentally ill, so I think he derserves a more "neutral" trial if you put a lawsuit on him. He needs being supervised by psychologists or professionals. I mean he is not a normal person with ordinary capacities and then, he should not be convicted as a killer or criminal but as a sick man. — javi2541997

Yes, I was just trying to show the analogy of an attacking animal to those who might say.. well wouldn't you kill X animal who might kill you? There are some people who have an odd, "If you don't eat them, they will eat you" kind of thing. Clearly not the case with most animals we eat, and part of the reason we do kill certain animals that harm us unintentionally (rats, spiders, etc.).

It would seem there is a difference in defense against disease and defending your home/city from invasion from a small rodent compared to killing for consumption of a larger grazing animal that is not invading your city, and one can avoid harming them, especially if they are quite sentient beings (at the level of domestic pets we'll say). And I don't think the other extreme of not categorizing animals in terms of sentient capacity is good either. Extreme vegans that killing a spider and a cow are on the same level, have no nuance in context and perhaps reality.

Then, when a mental sick person commits a crime, probably he was not really aware about what he was doing. — javi2541997

So if a mentally ill person comes at me with a knife and I harm him in self-defense, seems an obvious case of self-defense. Same with an animal who comes at me or even unintentionally is very harmful to me (like the schizophrenic attacking me).

I even think that there animals who are more aware of their actions than some humans. — javi2541997

Possibly. Seems to be making the case for vegetarianism stronger if that were the case. At least if you respect that aspect.

Are vegans and carnivores that don't kill for themselves not both trying to avoid/running away from the same fear - that we are natural predators (in part ofc - omnivores) — Benj96

We are the only animal that knows what we are doing while we are doing it. Existence is prior to essence. Saying we have an essence that is natural predators in that case is putting cart before horse. We can be what we want to be.

if instead of a butcher you had to go to a slaughterhouse and kill what you need for your family, would you respect animals more? Would you eat meat less frequently? Would you be grateful for it? — Benj96

Pre-modern cultures learn to treat animals as more like objects to detach. I’m sure slaughterhouses do the same. Is this process a sociopathic trait that we cultivate at a cultural level? Militaries must do this to soldiers. It’s depersonalizing. I see it as a kind of cultural learning and not an instinct per se.

You can argue that animals aren't like "persons" so the same things don't apply to them. They aren't capable of being self-aware. There is nothing about them that makes them particularly distinct as an individual that has goals other than to follow instincts to survive. However, it is still putting cart before horse. The onus is still on us, because we know them as at least sentient beings who most likely feel pain, fear, and do we want to be in the business of othering something of the point of extreme aggression towards them? We can't use the excuse it's either them or us, because it is not in self-defense, unlike say a predatory animal attacking us. We obviously can live without eating meat.

It's a naturalistic fallacy to use things like canine teeth and tastiness of meats to affirm that this is the right course of action.