Great comments on new #namethetrait video

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Margaret Hayek
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by Margaret Hayek »

@Irrationalogic Thanks for the feedback.

The point of laying out an argument like NTT 2.0 or NTJ is not to foreclose all further possibility of discussion about whether the conclusion is true or justified. Some interlocutors might well find the premises immediately compelling and be convinced by the argument simply as stated. But much of the action is of course in arguing about whether the premises are true, and much of the point of laying out the arguments is to clarify the various ways in which one might get off-board with the reasoning leading to the conclusion, and to organize discussion on whether there are actually good reasons to get off board with the reasoning in those various ways.

You can see a bit of what we've been discussing on defending / arguing in favour of the premises in the philosophical vegan entry on NTT 2.0 (wiki/index.php/NameTheTrait_2.0), although this is still in its very early stages.

I don't know all of the details of Destiny or JF's views, although as I understand Destiny argued in favour of a version of Contractarianism much like that of the philosopher David Gauthier on much the same grounds (that it could show how being moral is something like in one's self interest or instrumentally rational whatever one's preferences). There is a big philosophical literature on why this sort of view fails in its own terms, see for instance Holly Smith's paper "Deriving Morality from Rationality" (https://philpapers.org/archive/SMIDMF.pdf). We intend to have an accessible and general summary of this in our planned entry on moral patiency (and perhaps a related entry / entries on social contract theories; morality and rationality / self-interest; and / or error theory about morality, reform, and animals).

I really don't know what JF's view is, although I think I heard that it had something to do with population ethics and the argument that animal agriculture is actually better for farmed animals because they wouldn't have existed without it. That can get into interesting ethical issues about population ethics (about which we have planned entries), but the main problem is that even if one took the view that it's just as morally important to create new beings as it is to not harm existing beings it is still a bad idea to consume animal products. This is because, since animal agriculture uses so many more environmental inputs (thus taking away habitat from wild animals - which in virtue of the much greater richness of wild vs. farmed habitat are much more plentiful per unit land or water than farmed animals, even weighted by likely level of sentience / capacity for well-being) and causes so much more environmental damage (thus so many killing wild animals, destroying their habitat, and ensuring that many fewer exist in the future - and again there are many more sentient wild animals per unit habitat than farmed ones, and in virtue of lack of confinement and other factors their quality of life is higher) that veganism results in many more animals leading much better lives.
Frank Quasar
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by Frank Quasar »

not sure if you're aware of this, but the link below is to a video by Destiny where he features a discord user (woopboop) onto his stream to have a debate on veganism. this girl did a really good job at getting through to Destiny and actually defeating him on the arguments, or making him uphold absurd positions. she did a far greater job than Ask Yourself or anyone else before him (vegan gains), Destiny actually had to reconsider his arguments and even take some time to formulate his thoughts critically about it.

i think you should probably watch this in one of your free times if you get the chance, it's worthwhile and interesting considering she's a nobody.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkunG1jfEl0&t=66s
Frank Quasar
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by Frank Quasar »

Image
Irrationalogic
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by Irrationalogic »

Frank Quasar wrote:not sure if you're aware of this, but the link below is to a video by Destiny where he features a discord user (woopboop) onto his stream to have a debate on veganism. this girl did a really good job at getting through to Destiny and actually defeating him on the arguments, or making him uphold absurd positions. she did a far greater job than Ask Yourself or anyone else before him (vegan gains), Destiny actually had to reconsider his arguments and even take some time to formulate his thoughts critically about it.

i think you should probably watch this in one of your free times if you get the chance, it's worthwhile and interesting considering she's a nobody.
I watched this some time ago trying to have clarity on destiny viewpoint on veganism.

I agree with you she did a far better job than ask yourself or vegan gains, but again those two figures are mainly appealing to intuition and emotion. They often overload their hypotheticals with emotional statements.

The problem I see with Destiny is that he wants to consume meat because he likes it, and with any argument you will throw at him, he will try to reverse engineer his system of morals to invalidate it. The good in all of this is that if he doesn't manage to do it this time what would he do ? Turn to veganism because he doesn't have an argument for it ? Or keep his lifestyle because he still hasn't found his true set of justifications ?

Anyhow, this girl conceded too much during this discussion, pushing ultimatums, reconsidering lifestyle changes like having his chef cook vegan meal whenever possible. This is all based in convenience and is not a true investment.

Someone should sit down and draft why Destiny viewpoint on veganism is not something desirable in society with the set of morals he already holds. And to do this he will need the full picture, and I don't think we have it at the moment because veganism is not Destiny's priority in life.
mkm
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by mkm »

Frank Quasar wrote: Fri Jun 08, 2018 1:56 pm Image
Weird, you can answer all 3 positively and still it doesn't mean a lot. Even FriendEd would get away with his arguments. For example, if one claims that morality is not universal, but relative. AY would have to argue that relative morality sucks, but he thinks, AFAIK, that actually NTT works just fine against relativists too. He doesn't realise that they don't necessarily make the contradiction as in Q1.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: Great comments on new #namethetrait video

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Frank Quasar wrote: Fri Jun 08, 2018 1:56 pm Image
You can certainly show that people's claims are inconsistent, NTT just doesn't do that.

I agree with some of what NTT is trying to do in principle, it just goes about it very poorly and creates confusion by confusing things like simple double standards (which are not contradictions because the subject is different) with logical inconsistency.

Avi's fix also does not solve this issue, since a grandfather clause style system still proves it logically invalid:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4034
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