Moral illusions and wild animal suffering

[Stijn]

Hi,
as a rational ethicist I try to avoid moral illusions (https://stijnbruers.wordpress.com/2016/09/05/what-is-a-rational-ethicist/). Moral illusions are spontaneous, intuitive moral judgments that are very persistent, but they violate our deepest moral values. They distract us away from a rational, authentic ethic. To avoid moral illusions, we have to avoid unwanted arbitrariness. As a result, I came up with a new moral theory: the minimum complaint theory (https://stijnbruers.wordpress.com/2016/10/28/the-minimum-complaint-theory-the-strongest-moral-theory-short-summary/). It states that we should choose the options that generate the least amount of valid complaints. It is probably the strongest moral theory in the sense that it can be most preferred by everyone and is the easiest to defend against objections and complaints.
As a result of this ethical theory, we not only have to abolish human-caused suffering to animals, but we also have to look for ways to intervene in nature to decrease wild animal suffering and increase the well-being of all sentient beings. However, even many animal rights activist, including me a few years ago, are very reluctant to this idea of intervention in nature, due to a cluster of moral illusions. See: https://stijnbruers.wordpress.com/2016/07/20/moral-illusions-and-wild-animal-suffering-neglect/

[DarlBundren]

Hey there Stijn, welcome to the forum! You should make an intro post. Let us know something about you.

I have yet to read your blog posts, but I would like to ask you a couple of questions.

Moral illusions are spontaneous, intuitive moral judgments that are very persistent, but they violate our deepest moral values.

Why 'moral illusions'? I don't think that our intuitions are illusions. Actually, in the past they must have been extremelly succesful biological mechanisms enabling co-operation and reproduction. If they are not useful anymore, it's not because they violate our 'deepest moral values', but because they are not rationally defensible anymore.

It states that we should choose the options that generate the least amount of valid complaints.

How do you define complaint? What is the main difference between this theory and preference utilitarianism?

I hope you like it here.

[miniboes]

Welkom, Stijn!

I don't have time to read all the articles right now, but it seems like an interesting theory.
I second what Darl asked, since I was writing pretty much the same thing and he beat me to it.

[Stijn]

Why 'moral illusions'? I don't think that our intuitions are illusions. Actually, in the past they must have been extremelly succesful biological mechanisms enabling co-operation and reproduction. If they are not useful anymore, it's not because they violate our 'deepest moral values', but because they are not rationally defensible anymore.

You can compare moral illusions with optical illusions (or more generally; perceptual illusions, because all senses create illusions). Of course our eyes are adapted by evolution, but still our sense perceptions cannot always be trusted. The same with our spontaneous moral judgments. Moral illusions are cognitive biases. Our cognition is also adapted enabling reproduction, but psychologists are discovering many cognitive biases.
'Violating our deepest moral values' means not being rationally defensible, where 'rational' means 'accurate in beliefs, effective in means, consistent in ends'. The ends refer to our deepest moral values.

How do you define complaint? What is the main difference between this theory and preference utilitarianism?

Preference utilitarianism wants to maximize the total preference satisfaction, the sum of everyone's utilities. A complaint is a bit different from a utility or preference. The complaint that you have in your current state is the difference between the utility or preference you would have in your most prefered possible state (your most prefered situation amongst all feasible situations) and the preference you have for your current state. I think the minimum complaint theory avoids some serious problems in population ethics that undermine preference utilitarianism. For example, preference utilitarianism would say a state where 1000 people are maximally happy is worse than the state where those same people are maximally miserable if in this second state there are many many extra people who have lives barely worth living (i.e. a slight positive preference). The total preference in the second situation can be bigger if the number of extra people is big enough (their preferences can outcompete the strong negative preferences of the 1000 miserable people). My minimum complaint theory avoids this conclusion, because in the second situation the 1000 miserable people have strong complaints whereas in the first situation no-one complains (the non-existing people cannot complain if they don't exist).

[NonZeroSum]

Hi,
as a rational ethicist I try to avoid moral illusions (https://stijnbruers.wordpress.com/2016/09/05/what-is-a-rational-ethicist/). Moral illusions are spontaneous, intuitive moral judgments that are very persistent, but they violate our deepest moral values. They distract us away from a rational, authentic ethic. . .

As a result of this ethical theory, we not only have to abolish human-caused suffering to animals, but we also have to look for ways to intervene in nature to decrease wild animal suffering and increase the well-being of all sentient beings. However, even many animal rights activist, including me a few years ago, are very reluctant to this idea of intervention in nature, due to a cluster of moral illusions. See: https://stijnbruers.wordpress.com/2016/07/20/moral-illusions-and-wild-animal-suffering-neglect/

. . .My minimum complaint theory avoids this conclusion, because in the second situation the 1000 miserable people have strong complaints whereas in the first situation no-one complains (the non-existing people cannot complain if they don't exist).

Very interesting, have you thought about making YouTube videos to include the speeches you gave when you presented those slides at conferences? I would be particularly interested in "Predation versus transplantation. Is the animal rights ethic consistent?"

Would you consider my evolutionary philosophy [1] as falling into the appeal to nature fallacy/illusion because I support maximum biodiversity for the observations those evolving systems lend us? So just as I wouldn't accept accelerating predation because it is only one dynamic within a interdependent biosphere, I wouldn't accept harming the interests of a predator to breed that keeps the monkey in the tree etc etc.

I guess you'd say at the point we can successfully game theory, computer model, gene map every perceivable timeline for evolution, we can decide the real predators are no longer needed. At that point I would fall back on some authentic beauty in this Gaia model that could just as easily be wiped out by a comet, who are you to say all the prey would be happier being more slothful and inattentive to their instincts, they don't need the spare time to be advancing philosophy and complex mathematical equations aha.

As to your 1000 person example it is very convincing as everyone would desire living in happyville, but I'd have to ask why would such a permanent situation exist in which 2 perfectly capable members of the same species existed where 1 lives in misery and the other barely worth living. If you had to blow up one of these worlds and A) could only sustain less life but was happier I'd have to go for A) because B) is potentially more interesting with more variables.

Nice to make your acquaintance anyways

P.S. I agree with culling and euthanizing wild animals so they don't have to suffer starving needlessly and am open to more abstractly preventing death through freak accidents happening right in front of you and more generally disease prevention as part of conservation efforts to turn back the tide of human ecocide.

1. Evolutionairy ethics
— http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2896&start=10
— http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2944&start=20

[Stijn]

Very interesting, have you thought about making YouTube videos to include the speeches you gave when you presented those slides at conferences? I would be particularly interested in "Predation versus transplantation. Is the animal rights ethic consistent?"

I don't have much on YouTube, but this presentation summarizes my older ideas, including the one about predation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_yHQqsNGjA
In that presentation I defended predation and neglected wild animal suffering, but I've recently changed my mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtjKP42MkWY&index=10&list=PLqPXWQAGKrla8wXF-Axy74rGvHLIlqnvF

Would you consider my evolutionary philosophy [1] as falling into the appeal to nature fallacy/illusion because I support maximum biodiversity for the observations those evolving systems lend us? So just as I wouldn't accept accelerating predation because it is only one dynamic within a interdependent biosphere, I wouldn't accept harming the interests of a predator to breed that keeps the monkey in the tree etc etc.

I don't think it's an appeal to nature fallacy, but I do see a weakness with your idea to value biodiversity: nature itself doesn't care about anything and isn't aware of biodiversity, so it doesn't care about maximizing biodiversity. Nature doesn't value biodiversity, you do. It's like a painting: you value the beauty of the painting, but the painting itself doesn't care. In contrast, when I value your well-being, there is always someone else, namely you, who also values your well-being. So valuing someone else's well-being is more altruistic than valuing biodiversity of ecosystems or beauty of paintings. That is why I changed my mind about wild animal suffering and predation.

I guess you'd say at the point we can successfully game theory, computer model, gene map every perceivable timeline for evolution, we can decide the real predators are no longer needed. At that point I would fall back on some authentic beauty in this Gaia model that could just as easily be wiped out by a comet

But the problem is that Gaia itself has no consciousness, cannot experience or subjectively value anything and hence doesn't care about authentic beauty. You are the one who values your preferred kind of beauty. And if your valuation means that prey animals have to suffer, you are putting your own preferences for authentic beauty above the stronger preferences of prey animals to stay alive. That also means you are using those prey animals as merely a means to satisfy your preference for beauty. That is a violation of the basic right of those animals.

, who are you to say all the prey would be happier being more slothful and inattentive to their instincts, they don't need the spare time to be advancing philosophy and complex mathematical equations aha.

I'm no-one to say such things. I'm just listening to what the prey prefer.

As to your 1000 person example it is very convincing as everyone would desire living in happyville, but I'd have to ask why would such a permanent situation exist in which 2 perfectly capable members of the same species existed where 1 lives in misery and the other barely worth living. If you had to blow up one of these worlds and A) could only sustain less life but was happier I'd have to go for A) because B) is potentially more interesting with more variables.

this I don't understand

[DarlBundren]

Stijn wrote:Of course our eyes are adapted by evolution, but still our sense perceptions cannot always be trusted. The same with our spontaneous moral judgments. Moral illusions are cognitive biases. Our cognition is also adapted enabling reproduction, but psychologists are discovering many cognitive biases. 

I agree that (many of) our intuitions cannot be trusted, but you seem to be implying that under those biases there's true morality. Hence what you call our 'deepest moral values'. The idea is intriguing (if I am not mistaken, Chomsky entertains a similar belief), but I am not sure if it's true. It seems more plausible to me that those biases are simply there because they didn't get us killed in the past and that there's nothing to be found under them. Do we have any reasons to believe otherwise?

Stijn wrote: For example, preference utilitarianism would say a state where 1000 people are maximally happy is worse than the state where those same people are maximally miserable if in this second state there are many many extra people who have lives barely worth living (i.e. a slight positive preference).

Yes, the repugnant conclusion.

Stijnwrote: The total preference in the second situation can be bigger if the number of extra people is big enough (their preferences can outcompete the strong negative preferences of the 1000 miserable people

You are talking about the 1000 people withing the bigger, more miserable group, right?

Stijnwrote: My minimum complaint theory avoids this conclusion, because in the second situation the 1000 miserable people have strong complaints whereas in the first situation no-one complains (the non-existing people cannot complain if they don't exist).

How do you deal with killing? Would killing someone reduce the number of people who can complain?

[Stijn]

Stijn wrote:Of course our eyes are adapted by evolution, but still our sense perceptions cannot always be trusted. The same with our spontaneous moral judgments. Moral illusions are cognitive biases. Our cognition is also adapted enabling reproduction, but psychologists are discovering many cognitive biases. 

I agree that (many of) our intuitions cannot be trusted, but you seem to be implying that under those biases there's true morality. Hence what you call our 'deepest moral values'. The idea is intriguing (if I am not mistaken, Chomsky entertains a similar belief), but I am not sure if it's true. It seems more plausible to me that those biases are simply there because they didn't get us killed in the past and that there's nothing to be found under them. Do we have any reasons to believe otherwise?

Every moral person believes that they have moral values, and that some of them are stronger or 'deeper' than others. The idea is to put all your moral values (including judgments, intuitions) on the table and construct a coherent ethical system with them, throwing away the weakest values that are inconsistent with the rest. That coherent system is your 'true morality', so to speak. This procedure is always possible. Of course I can construct a different coherent ethical system based on my values. It is comparable to the situation in mathematics where people can construct different mathematical systems (e.g. in number theory or geometry). No geometrical system is 'true' in the absolute sense. Still, our optical illusions violate all our coherent geometrical systems that we can create: euclidean geometry,... The same goes for our moral illusions.

Stijnwrote: The total preference in the second situation can be bigger if the number of extra people is big enough (their preferences can outcompete the strong negative preferences of the 1000 miserable people

You are talking about the 1000 people withing the bigger, more miserable group, right?

The situation contained 1000 miserable people plus a big number of slightly happy people (lives barely worth living, but not miserable or negative); I was talking about those 1000 miserable people.

Stijnwrote: My minimum complaint theory avoids this conclusion, because in the second situation the 1000 miserable people have strong complaints whereas in the first situation no-one complains (the non-existing people cannot complain if they don't exist).

How do you deal with killing? Would killing someone reduce the number of people who can complain?

If those people do not want to be killed, they can complain against being killed. At this moment you do not want that you will be killed tonight (even if it is painless in your sleep and even if your preference at this moment was implicit instead of being explicit in your consciousness). You strongly prefer the situation where you are not killed above the situation where you will be killed. That means you have a very strong complaint that might be stronger than all your future complaints when you are not killed.

[brimstoneSalad]

Hi Stijn, how does this differ from negative preference Utilitarianism?

Have you read this thread?
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2215

[Stijn]

Hi Stijn, how does this differ from negative preference Utilitarianism?

you could say that antifrustrationism or negative utilitarianism are rough versions of the minimum complaint theory, where the goal of antifrustrationism is to minimize complaints (or preference frustrations) instead of minimizing valid complaints as in my theory. Minimizing the total of valid complaints avoids the existence problem that antifrustrationism faces: would it be good if no-one was born? As long as people exist, their will be at least one person who could complain; the only situation with no complaints (i.e. that minimizes complaints) is a situation where no-one exists. However, if the complaining person has a positive preference for the situation where he exists (i.e. prefers existence above non-existence), taking his complaint into account and minimizing complaints would result in choosing the situation where that person does not exist. So that person could decide not to complain, or we can say that his complaint is invalid. So a complaint becomes invalid if the complainer is in a situation in which the complainer has a positive preference (i.e. prefers existence above non-existence) and if all other possible situations that have a smaller total complaint are situations in which the complainer does not exist.