Ethical treatment of animal arguments for vegan-ism?

[AsmodesReynolds]

I don't see why you would treat the situation any different than with humans. If domesticated animals did evolve or learn behaviors specifically for human interaction, i don't see how that's different than the behaviors humans evolved or learned through living with each other. Assuming it's a trap or the animals are just tricking you seems sort of paranoid. Given how remarkably similar almost all mammals are biologically, making a significant distinction between humans and other mammals when it comes to something as primitive as emotions doesn't seem warranted.

first off I would like to say thank you for commenting. Mr. purple,

Yes, we are biologically similar to other mammals , we share something like over 95% percent of our genetic structure with other mammals, but we also share over 90% of genetic structure with every living thing on this planet from a single celled organism too long dead dinosaurs, to your sister, Our closest animal relatives are the great apes: chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas. About 98% of the DNA in your genes is exactly the same as in chimpanzees, making you as closely related to a chimp as horses are to zebras. All humans are about 99.9 percent the same genetically speaking, and look at the diversity between us and the way we think. Within families genetics be as close as 99.9996 percent, the same. Is likely there's only a few hundred genetic differences between you and your siblings.

what I meant by trap was a trap for thought, we as humans are patterned finders, it's how we have evolved within our social structures, because of that we tend to see the same patterns in creatures that are not human, however those creatures of all the different social, biological and neurological structures that do not allow for the same behaviors , granted domesticated animals have evolves behaviors in order to get along, and communicate/socialize with humans, and some are even tried to mimic our behaviors, but that does not mean there doing those behaviors for the same reasons that we do or even understand the meaning of the behaviors or copying. There have been testing done to confirm or deny this. Like I said in my post above, but not many of them have been peer-reviewed to the point of irrefutable. There is a high probability that they do have something like emotions may be more primitive, maybe just different, but we can't know for sure ,

Without sufficient evidence would be the same sort of logical leap that religious people make about God. they see a bunch of things that look like they were intelligent designed, Therefore they must have been intelligently designed by God. just because it looks like it was intelligently designed by God, doesn't mean it was.

the average person sees something that looks like emotions. therefore, it must be emotions. just because something looks like emotions does not necessarily mean that it is.

[garrethdsouza]

If you want to know about the ethical aspects of veganism, a necessary prerequisite IMO is EARTHLINGS https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ce4DJh-L7Ys

You can also check Peter Singer's the ethics of what we eat https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UHzwqf_JkrA

Are you familiar with dawkins/harris:, here's an article that's related
http://veganstrategist.org/2014/02/09/o ... am-harris/
It also links to the singer Dawkins dialogue

If you want to know about the environmental aspect you can watch Cowspiracy, though I don't think it's available for free.

IMO this is a settled topic without any ambiguity in what the correct moral and rational position is; being a nonvegan is ethically acceptable only in certain exceptional cases where individuals have a lack of options. All other cases are individuals making excuses, and there's no two ways about that.

If you can only take one thing from this comment if nothing else, I'd strongly encourage you to watch earthlings. Imo there's *no point* debating this (settled) topic without having watched that first.

[garrethdsouza]

granted I have a brain deformity that renders unable to perceive physical pain, temperature, and other sensations the same way a normally functioning human does.

Can you elaborate what is this exactly if you don't mind?

[bobo0100]

Personally through my job, the Internet, and my life experience, I have spent too much time analyzing and manipulating the underbelly of the human psyche ever make such an idealistic statement. A more accurate statement my viewpoint would be “an action is only not bad if and only if, acting this way would not make the world worse.”

I don't think the human psyche has direct correlations to the study or nature of ethics, other than "as the only known rational beings humans are the only beings known to be capable of ethical reasoning." If ethical reasoning is to be a reflection of the human psyche we end with a moral system similar to that of Hobbes's natural state. As you said compassion is unfortunately too little in this world. In face mortality is often in contradiction with individuals interest's, such as the soldier who throws himself on a bomb to save the rest of the persons in the room, (I don't know army terminology).

I too have a negative utilitarian swing to my "philosophy", but not so extreme.

The only thing missing from your methodology is determining moral patients and moral agents.

I can’t really answer this one without straying a little bit from moral philosophy. I agree with you and premise. However, since they can’t survive without us. If we stop eating/using them. We have no reason to spend our time and resources on maintaining them, besides compassion. Which unfortunately compassion is in very short supply in this world. So effectively my previous statement is true. It may not be moral, but it is the reality.

Biodiversity (the variety of different types of life found on earth) is not the most important thing to maximise. By vegan logic there is a full admission that the numbers of animals we farm would be decreased massively, in fact its almost in the mission statement. Have you heard the videos in which TVA talks about the basic market theory? Something like "quantity follows demand"? An increase in vegans leads to a decrease in market demand, so farmers bread less animals. This is an admission that veganism will decrease the biodiversity of animals that are farmed. Given that these animals are almost completely abstracted out of the food chain, regarding all other members thereof, except humans, which will be largely unaffected assuming a slow gradient towards veganism, there is little reason to care about this. Who is the victim of this specific decrease in biodiversity? TVA addresses this quite well in his response to the amazing atheist. I see the argument from biodiversity as weak.

Anthropomorphizing animals is a logical trap that most people fall,

The example you gave misses the point somewhat as the animals in question are not always modified in ways that amount from interactions with humans. Never the less I see your point. There are members of this forum who have studied animals at the university, and he is perhaps more qualified to talk about this.

Anyway this works well when talking only about experiences more abstract like distinguishing oneself from there surroundings (more on that later), however when applied to things like feeling pain the science is far more solid. "Animals with a backbone are highly likely to be able to feel pain" is not a controversial statement. Although misinformation exists regarding fish, the scientific consensus largely agrees with me. Furthermore I would argue that being able to feel pain qualifies animals to a degree of sapience.

No, nothing besides anecdotal, that’s why I weekend, my claim with “I believe” I realize that is the weakest part of my argument.

When talking about objective mortality it is important to remain objective. As you can probably tell I care very little about subjective ideals. I think Christopher Hitchens would have something to say about this, mainly "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." I do not see anecdote's as evidence, to any degree.

See mirror self-recognition test (MSR): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

I know of this test, In fact I was going to mention it in my previous post, but I don't think its as simple as you, and this test make out. If we are to define sapience as knowledge about one's self, than this test only test one very specific aspect of sapience, the ability to distinguish one's self from ones environment, and this test only tests for extreme examples of this. Lower degrees of sapience would be harder to test for.

As stated before I believe feeling pain proves a lower degree of sapience. my logic is below:

P) A being can feel pain.
P) Feeling pain necessitates knowledge of the state of the part of the being (itself) in pain.
P) Knowledge of the part of the being in pain is knowledge of the being.
C) A being that can feel pain MUST if to a lower extent, poses the quality of sapience (knowing of itself).

This site 100% agree with you on. I myself has moral issues with owning pets.

I don't think this site has a consensus on anything. I think from my own perspective, hence the emphasis on moral philosophy. Are your problems the ones you have pointed out, because I don't think I would be able to affirm all/most of them.
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bobo0100, I really appreciate you discussing this with me and helping me understand, your point of view. But I’m kind of disappointed that you’re the only has really engaged in the conversation with me. When there are some obvious trolls like Tostrong4you, get 7 people responding to their nonsense. Why? I realize that 1000 to 1300 word posts sets the bar pretty high. You’ve been in this community longer than I have. Do you have any suggestions on how to posts to get a more representative sample of the vegans on the site? This section is called vegan versus non-vegan debates, I figured I’d ask a provocative question to provoke debate. It doesn’t seem to have worked as well as I planned. Any help would be really appreciated.

Different members of the forum have different personalities (surprise, surprise). BrimstoneSalad for example is a lover of logic and science, he or she is knowledgeable about a vast range of things. However There love of reason makes them intolerant of unreasonable people, and there criticisms are only as harsh as they are true. However a complement or affirmation from Brim is heart felt as a result.

Many of the members of the forum have a life to live, and cannot spend too much time on the forum, hence shorter post's from people like minibee (I may have spelt there name wrong.)

Many members of the forum also have a love of literature, and a correct use of the English language. The only solid suggestion I can give to you is to proof read your comments, as they can be almost completely abstract or ambiguous. Make sure you use the correct word at the correct time. This is a criticism many have held against me, and perhaps still do. This is in my eyes a minor thing, but worth looking at.

P.S. I was kinda rushed while writing this if I missed anything don't be afraid to repeat it.

[Mr. Purple]

Without sufficient evidence would be the same sort of logical leap that religious people make about God. they see a bunch of things that look like they were intelligent designed, Therefore they must have been intelligently designed by God. just because it looks like it was intelligently designed by God, doesn't mean it was.

the average person sees something that looks like emotions. therefore, it must be emotions. just because something looks like emotions does not necessarily mean that it is.

I feel like you are being sort of silly about how rigorous you have decided to be towards non human animals specifically. Empathy for other humans uses the exact same logical justifications as what a vegan would propose for animals. We look at the outward similarities and expressions between ourselves and the other being and then draw conclusions about what the other is feeling based on that. We have never needed to scan every human's brain to verify it wasn't a "Trap" when they expressed emotion. The logic may be a difference in degree depending on how similar the animal is, but its not a difference in kind.

[miniboes]

Many of the members of the forum have a life to live, and cannot spend too much time on the forum, hence shorter post's from people like minibee (I may have spelt there name wrong.).

minibee is also working on a bit of a project right now, preferring to work on that rather than being on the forum. I replied to OP's introduction post with another, more general reason for me not participating in discussions like these much anymore.

[brimstoneSalad]

It is ethical, to farm thousands of plants...
But,
It is unethical, to farm thousands of animals...
Why?

What is ethical or not depends on consequences.
What matters in terms of consequences is if the will of a sentient being is being violated.

Plants are not sentient. Most animals are sentient.
Some worms, oysters, jellyfish, and other very simple animals may not be sentient. You could have a strong case for farming them if it were environmentally sustainable.

It's also not always ethical to farm plants in any way possible -- not because it's wrong to the plants, but because it may harm others. E.g. palm oil farming practices.

Why doesiit matter if your food had a face? Or it if it can feel pain? Or suffering?

It doesn't matter if it has a face or not. Fetuses have faces, and before a certain point they are not sentient either.
People who are truly brain dead also have faces, but are not sentient anymore.

You misunderstand pain and suffering. In sentient organisms, it matters if they feel pain or suffering because they do not want to feel these things. Pain is not the only thing that matters.
Not all sentient beings feel pain. And not all sentient beings that feel pain want not to feel it (although this is a very safe bet on average).

If you were of such a disposition as a masochist and wanted to feel pain, then that might be fine. However, this is an uncommon situation. You can not assume another wants to feel pain, due to the statistical improbability of that being true. It's much safer (and the only ethical course) to assume others do not want to feel pain unless they clearly indicate otherwise.

Even if an organism feels no pain, there are still other pleasant and unpleasant experiences; still other wants, desires, and fears.

We cannot know for sure, that plants do not feel some sort of pain or suffering, science can tell us probably not, but our perceptions of reality/scientific theories are not always true, & are constantly being overturned.

This is a complete misunderstanding of science. They are not being completely "overturned". The precision is being improved, by improving the underlying theory, along with the range of accuracy, but the experimental and predicted results are still basically the same as the original predictions in the original conditions.

Try to understand the difference between accuracy and precision, and how they can vary in different conditions.

Newtonian physics is still essentially true (and accurate) within the limited reference frames that we use it in. It's just less precise, and at non-Newtonian velocities less accurate, and grows less so the more extreme the velocities.

Einstein didn't overturn that, he improved upon it, by providing for the ability to do physics at extreme energies.

This kind of anti-scientific propaganda is common, like the myth that "according to science bees can't fly" and other nonsense. It's deceptive, and untrue.

When you understand the difference between Newtonian physics and Relativity, you'll understand scientific progress much more clearly. Until that point, please don't spread these misunderstandings of science, OK?

Would you feel as guilty and stopped eating plants, if science discovered that they could feel some semblance of suffering from our farming practices?

First, please read this: http://www.skepdic.com/plants.html

What if math discovered that 1+1=3?
What would you do?
Can you imagine such a world, or the implications of that?

I have discussed this elsewhere, but you can not fathom the implications of plants "feeling".
Plants lack the basic biological hardware to process information in the way that is needed to produce sentience.

Discovering that typical plants (beyond borderline cases) "feel" would completely destroy materialism, and be equivalent to the discovery of souls and a spirit dimension -- because whatever mechanism plants used to feel, it would be non-physical, and non-biological in nature (plants feeling would be in violation of the principles of evolution).

Discovering that typical plants "feel" would be equivalent to discovering that homeopathy is true, that stones think, that the alignment of the planets actually affects people's personalities and can predict the future, that Santaclause is real, faeries, ghosts, angels, god.

It's like discovering 1+1=3. It would destroy math, it would destroy science.
The notion is not a world you could hope to comprehend or understand with either.

What would you do?

Being a rational person, I would seek psychiatric help, because in such a case clearly I was hallucinating, and needed to be institutionalized, because "math" can not and will not discover that "1+1=3", and "science" will not discover that plants "feel" in any significant or meaningful sense.
It just doesn't reflect reality, and any "what ifs" on the matter are predicated on anti-scientific beliefs and superstitions that disregard all logic.

To me, if even non-self-aware life form is bred to be food, then it should be done in the most efficient, safest (for the humans ) way possible. Whether that be physically unpleasant for the life form does not matter to me; it was bred to be food, we took care of it in order to feed us, and it’s death will nourish us as it completes its purpose in life, whether it’s a plant, animal, fish, or bird.

1. "Purpose" is a superstitious construct; you can not magically assert a purpose you imagine onto something or somebody else.
Should blacks be slaves to whites, if whites imagine that's their purpose, and bring them and breed them for that purpose?

When can I assert my own bias as the purpose of your life?

Unless you think you can rationally substantiate what "purpose" means in an objective sense, and how it's acquired in a way that doesn't conflict with your other beliefs, stop talking about "purpose", it's just a superstitious red herring.

2. Efficiency: Yes, if we are going to do something by necessity, we should do it efficiently.
The most efficient way to raise food is to raise plants, not raise plants and then feed them to animals until the animals are fat and then kill them to eat. Get a grasp of basic thermodynamics, and hopefully you can understand why this is so.
It is inefficient and unnecessary to raise animals for food; it's just wasteful in terms of production, and this waste is also dangerous in itself because it may contribute to the recourse paucity the yields war.

3. Safety: Yes, if we are going to do something by necessity, we should do it safely.
The safest things to raise for food are plants. Animal introduce many pathogens into our systems, including prions and new viruses, and the agricultural practices have promoted antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria. Beyond that, these products also promote heart disease and cancer. Plants share much less of our DNA, so have a much lower risk of spreading viruses, don't need antibiotics, and for the most part prevent heart disease and are much less prone to causing cancer.

4. Caring: It doesn't matter if you care or not about animals. If you are a rational person -- if you care at all about being rational, or healthy, or internally consistent -- you should be able to recognize the problems in animal agriculture. Even a complete psychopath can see animal agriculture is irrational, and so supporting rational human progress, can choose not to support animal agriculture.

Logically speaking, there’s not much difference between the two situations except that animals can feel pain and suffering, and plants may not. Other than that it’s the same situation.

There are huge differences practically. See my points on safety and efficiency above.

At least from my perspective, the Vegan moral line is arbitrary

When people draw lines, those lines are usually arbitrary. It's not so much a line, as a gradation.
An insect is higher than a worm, a fish is higher than an insect. a mouse is higher than a fish, a cow is higher than a mouse, a human is higher than a cow. It's about relative value.

Some things are better or worse than others. We should aspire to do less of the bad, harmful, inefficient, dangerous things, and more of the good, helpful, efficient, and safe things.

granted I have a brain deformity that renders unable to perceive physical pain, temperature, and other sensations the same way a normally functioning human does.

This is relevant to feeling literal pain, but it is not relevant to sentience. You are a sentient being, and you have wants and interests.
Vegans who arbitrarily claim pain is important and nothing else is are misunderstanding the issue at hand.

Pain is important because most animals don't want to feel pain. Pain in and of itself is not important. It's just one of many possible sensations, all of which are important.

If I understand your vegan logic correctly, it would be would not be ethically wrong to use/farm an animal like me as food? Is this consistent with your worldview? If not, why?

It would be ethically wrong because you are sentient. You have wants, fears, and you experience and process sensation from the world around you; some sensations you find agreeable, and some you don't. The window that you see through may be cloudy, or smaller, but the mind inside -- which is sentient -- is what matters.

Pain is one of many things that matters, and only matters because organisms don't want to experience it.
Being restrained matters (even painlessly), when organisms don't want to be restrained.
Being in a noisy or scary environment matters, being bored or entertained matters.

What matters to you as the one being done unto -- or to the organism being done unto -- is what matters.

If you don't feel pain, then forget about pain. If you LIKE pain, well then that's a good thing for you. It's matters what matters to you.

Do onto others as they would have done by.

The vast majority of animals we are farming do not like what we are doing to them; it would be very reasonable to suppose that approaches unanimity.

Whether we're physically torturing them when they don't enjoy being tortured, or playing them jazz music when they really really hate jazz, it's wrong.
It sounds silly to compare the two, but if you don't feel pain normally, you need to understand what it is: It's something that we are essentially genetically hardwired to feel is unpleasant.

And remember: Waterboarding isn't painful.

FYI, I do have problems with the way factory farms; farm livestock. Mostly because the overuse of antibiotics in livestock production, is breeding potentially dangerous superbugs, that could easily jump to humans, and lack of regulation/enforcement against selling meat/products from sick/cancerous animals. Not to mention the nonexistent/not enforce sanitary/hygiene requirements in slaughtering houses.

So you did know that.
Are you aware of the inefficiency too?
Are you aware that eating meat isn't healthy?

There's no reason to do these things, even if you don't care about the ethics of it. Animal agriculture is up there among the most irrational things we do today.

[brimstoneSalad]

I'm going to be jumping around a bit here, and only replying to bits and pieces. IF anybody thinks I have missed anything important from any posts, please let me know. I'm just skimming some parts.

To clarify my position. I set the ethical patient as any creature that modern scientific consensus currently agrees is self-aware. And I personally think those creatures should be given the same practical rights as humans (practical rights being defined as that the creature could actually use -this is not include the civil rights such as property rights, voting rights, etc.)

Thanks for that.

I think you're in a very rational place in terms of "rights", thank you for not making a straw man argument like Dillahunty does and think animal rights means giving animals the right to vote.

That said, you are unfortunately choosing very non-rigorous metrics. "Self-aware" is a really terrible term to use, because it begs the question: Self aware in what way? Self aware of what exactly?

Christians aren't self aware, are they? They think they're magical souls sitting on some spirit plane and piloting the body with some kind of magical free will power and making all of the choices. Is it self awareness if all you're aware of is a delusion?

Consider the common quote:
“You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body”

This does not represent true self awareness. So, what is "self awareness"?
That's a philosophical question. What is "self", what is "awareness", and what does it mean to be "aware" of the "self"?
There are a range of potential answers to those questions, and definitions that would make your head spin.

"Conscious" is also a horrible word to use in such discussions.

You can't use such non-rigorous terms like that, and expect your claims to carry any weight.


It may be very useful for you to look into Dennett's creatures. A few results off the top of a search:

http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2006/07/d ... tures.html
https://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/dennett
https://headbirths.wordpress.com/2012/1 ... elligence/

Darwinian Creatures
Skinnerian creatures
Popperian creatures
Gregorian creatures
Scientific creatures

These are much more rigorous classifications in that they involve more thought and a clearer definition about what these ideas mean (self awareness is really so terrible a term), but also are not typically hard lines. There are animals that occupy all of these, and everything in between.
A creature isn't necessarily Skinnerian and then suddenly Popperian when it's hit by a lightning strike of insight.

As I have said before, it's all a big blurry gradient. There are some modes of thought that may be more essential or involve a certain degree of feedback, but most of these just blur right into each other.
We are not fundamentally different from other animals, and neither are we fundamentally the same as other humans; we are alike and different in matters of degree, in different respects.


What I usually talk about is sentience. Sentience is reception and processing of sense experience in meaningful terms (not just reflex; that is not sentience).
Sentience involves a basic level of intelligence, and "self awareness" in the sense that the intelligence is responsive in respect to the organism in the environment, and requires the most rudimentary and essential form of self awareness.

Sentience can be proved with responsiveness to operant conditioning.

If an animal changes its behavior in a deliberate and intelligent way in order to "get" something, or "avoid" something, it's expressing inherent primitive understanding of itself, that thing, and the situation, and the most primitive and essential form of "wanting".
This does not include merely moving toward or away from something as might be a reflex.
Read about operant conditioning to understand more.

Please try to talk about "sentience", since it's a more rigorous notion. But bear in mind it is also a matter of degree.
You're also welcome to explore Dennett's creatures, which could be insightful, but remember, these aren't essential or binary properties.

Is this particular species animal domesticated?

(Domestication being defined as bred specifically/ /genetically modified serve a purpose to humans)

I'm disappointed to hear that you agree with the racist notion that black people should be slaves to whites, since they were bought, brought, and bred for that purpose, including weeding out the weak and for many owners practicing an early form of human eugenics.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave_bre ... ted_States

If you accept that idea, then we can discuss it further. If you reject that notion, then I hope this is the LAST I will ever hear from you about the absurd proposition of "purpose" having any moral relevance.

If the answer this question is yes, then it has no more ethical concern to me than a tool, a car, a computer, my home. All of these things you should take care of and ensure they are in the best possible condition to serve the job they are intended to fulfill.

Again, I'm sorry to hear that you feel that way about African Americans. I do not share your racism.
I hope I can talk you out of this disgusting belief that white men should keep blacks as slaves, and that blacks have no more moral value than a car or tool.

Or did you not know that black slaves were bred at one point?
Or do you, perhaps, want to change your claim here, and revoke this absurd notion of one intelligent life form being able to arbitrarily define the purpose of another through exacting some measure of control over the latter's genetics?

Then you have a duty to treat no differently than its role in the food chain.

This is the appeal to nature fallacy.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-nature
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature

Just because something is such a way, doesn't mean it should be, or that such way is right.
Morality is what transcends the default, not an epitomization of it.

Since humans are arguably on the top. (This is because we have the use of technology and tools).

No, humans are not on the "top", and you can not use tools as an excuse.

If it's true that what is natural is right, then the development of tools to overcome nature would be wrong.
You don't get it have it both ways.

Viruses and other parasites are on top. Do you see the development of medicine as morally wrong, since it's interfering with the natural order of disease over humans?

We have a responsibility to treat wild animals the same way they would treat us. Only hunting/kill them. Only we need something from them, i.e. food/materials or for our safety. Not for our pleasure/trophies! Hunting/fishing should always be done in very small, quantities that are sustainable.

That kind of unethical thinking is responsible for pretty much every conflict and war in human history. What you are describing is not morality.

You disavow the notion of "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"
And instead advance "Do unto others as they would do unto you"

In the former case, we put forth ethical behavior even when it is not already owed or given to us from others.
In the latter, we put forth violence and cruelty if that's what we would expect from the other; and we'll get the same in return.

Are you familiar with game theory? Or notions like the prisoner's dilemma?
Can you figure out which is better practice?

I am an atheist, because the Bible is inconsistent, lacks evidence, does not logically consistent what we know about reality, and was clearly written by man.

Bad answer. How do you know that, if not through science? Why do you believe science, rather than the bible?

This is an important question, relevant to the foundation of ethics.

But how do you define suffering? Physical and emotional? Only physical?
Everything expressed in this thread so far seems to imply both physical and mental mistreatment.

What matters is violation of the will; not experiential suffering itself (I've covered this elsewhere, as related to Peter Singer's position in the abortion thread here: https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... f=17&t=510 [see the link at the end of page 1, and the discussion on page 2] ).
The ability to suffer, want, and learn (as physically evident through the capacity for operant conditioning) only proves there is a will.
These things only have value because of the will.

We can demonstrate an exchange rate between different items of desire in terms of knowledgeable choice.

E.g.
I may choose a lesser amount of physical suffering to avoid a greater amount of emotional suffering.
I may choose a lesser about of emotional suffering to avoid a greater amount of physical suffering.
I may choose a quite substantial amount of physical and emotional suffering to avoid death which is another thing I do not want even though it involves no experience at all.
I may even choose death to avoid the suffering of another, or the damage of something I love or believe in.

What we're talking about is a hierarchy of values, to which respect will may be defined.

We can dynamically determine a clear exchange rate in value between two or more prospects.

We can also determine how much enjoyment offsets suffering or any other violation of will by the same mechanisms. Just observe informed behavior, and you can determine what the sentient being prefers.

If that is the case I can poke several holes in this argument, big enough to drive a Mack truck through. In that case it would be just personal choice, not an ethical imperative.

This suggests you have a fundamental misunderstanding of the concepts at hand.

But please don't just say you can poke holes in an argument, you need to present what you believe to be the flaws. (which you may have already done in another post).

[brimstoneSalad]

Where I differ from Harris is simple. I draw the line at self-aware creatures

I have explained why this is incoherent.
For all the rigor this has, you might as well say you draw the line at creatures that have souls according to the bible. It's morally meaningless, because it's scientifically and philosophically meaningless.

I also explained why your domesticated/wild categories are flawed.
These have no inherent moral value as categories of being, and they don't really even exist.
Your claims about domesticated animals are also empirically false, but even if they weren't, that doesn't necessitate breeding more of them.

An unborn animal does not want to be born. It doesn't exist yet to have formulated wants.

You mentioned that my categories seem to be arbitrary, to a certain extent they are. So are Harris, Mill's and Bentham lines. The lines have to be drawn somewhere is because we can’t be Breatharians (that has to be the most ridiculous religion/diet, I’ve ever heard of it).

No, you do not have to draw lines. Just see gradients (which is correct). Most human beings are intellectually capable of comprehending gradation of moral value, just as we are cable of understanding gradation of others things like weight or velocity.

If my understanding of vegan logic is correct. It also should be immoral to own Pets

Your understanding is incorrect.

Support of binary animal rights involves some often irrational assumptions.
Look at consequences, not "rights".

See this thread for a discussion on dogs: https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... 1677#p1293

“an action is only not bad if and only if, acting this way would not make the world worse.”

Worse, compared to what? Better and worse are relative terms; you have said nothing without defining them.

Compared to your not existing?
Compared to your engaging in a minimally harmful lifestyle that still sustains your life?

Because eating tetrapod meat makes the world worse compared to both of these.

Anthropomorphizing animals is a logical trap that most people fall, providing that they have not studied some amount of animal psychology, and behavior . We extrapolate the emotions based on the animal’s actions and our own perception of the situation. Humans from our perspective, don’t have the ability to truly understand if/what a particular animal is feeling. The behavior being displayed could be a genuine emotion or merely just a learned behavior displayed to elicit a particular response from us.

You can say the same thing about humans.
How do you know that others experience qualia in the same way you do? What if red to you is green to another, or smiling and laughing means another is in a state of suffering, and just different areas of the brain light up to handle suffering compared to you?

Are you a hard solipsist? If not, you have made certain reasonable assumptions. Assumptions that should also be made to a significant degree for animals unless demonstrations prove otherwise. There is going too far, but basic emotions are function driven.
If a big clock has big gears in it, it's reasonable to assume a small clock will probably have small gear in it; the gears drive the clock as emotions drive behavior.

However, I have already spent some time in explaining how horribly non-rigorous these kinds of topics are. Look back to my explanation of sentience; that's based on hard observable abilities. Everything else is a matter of degrees.

If we could avoid all of these non-rigorous notions like "self awareness" and qualia, that would be really nice.
I will not be pleased if I'm forced to deconstruct these fluffy topics.

Other forum members will tell you I'm constantly pestering them to stop using the word "conscious".

No, nothing besides anecdotal, that’s why I weekend, my claim with “I believe” I realize that is the weakest part of my argument.

As mentioned several times, your notion of "self awareness" is incoherent. However, in the most crude sense, all sentient beings (who can demonstrate operant conditioning) have a basic necessary sense of self awareness to complete those tasks.

See mirror self-recognition test (MSR): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

This did not answer Bobo's question. You're completely wrong here; the mirror test only indicates positive results, never negative ones, and only for certain highly visual animals.

Guess what: Blind people fail the mirror test. Is it OK to kill them?
The mirror test is a joke; if you'd read more into that, you'd realize why. IIRC, the criticism section of the very page you linked to is pretty good.

I find it somewhat insulting that you would actually reference it as evidence.

All organisms that can engage in operant conditioning have a rudimentary sense of self and environment. It's a basic job requirement.
Look into operant conditioning, and ponder carefully on what that entails.
You really need to open your mind to the notion that the world is not composed of blacks and whites and hard arbitrary lines everywhere. Properties come in manners of degrees, in non-human animals as in man.

Yes, we are biologically similar to other mammals ,

Genes don't matter very much.
Behavioral similarity is more important. Biological relation in terms of percent doesn't tell us that much. Look at octopus, which are likely more sentient than many of our closest relatives.

The most important tests are objective analysis of learning ability; operant conditioning being the one I talk about most.
If you have determined an organism can learn at a basic level (as even many insects can), you have demonstrated a basic will, and the most rudimentary 'self awareness'. Everything after that is a matter of degree.

what I meant by trap was a trap for thought, we as humans are patterned finders,

You don't have to look for patterns like somebody seeing shapes in clouds, you just have to compare behavior metrics. Learning itself is highly evident.
After that, determining degree and kinds of experience are fuzzier topics.

Just seeing something learn should be enough to understand that it's sentient. If it isn't, there's something wrong with your thought process.

People make some silly assumptions sometimes, like if a dog is watching TV, we're actually not sure what the dog thinks he's looking at. We can only be reasonably sure that the dog finds it interesting in some sense, without fully understanding why.

What you fail to appreciate is a distinction between general accuracy and precision of comparisons.

Anybody trying to make precise comparisons, even between two humans, is setting his or herself up for failure.
However, making very general comparisons can be very accurate, even across species.

however those creatures of all the different social, biological and neurological structures that do not allow for the same behaviors

This is your ignorance of neuroscience talking. There's a little something called neural plasticity. Blind humans can learn to use echolocation; making any bold claims about what a brain categorically can not do on account of structure or evolution (as long as there are enough neurons there to get the job done) is foolish.

granted domesticated animals have evolves behaviors in order to get along,

A large part of behavior is learned, not strictly genetic. You have an extreme degree of misunderstanding here that you need to correct.
You can't even make assumptions between human beings who are genetically similar but grew up in drastically different environments.

There is a high probability that they do have something like emotions may be more primitive, maybe just different, but we can't know for sure ,

The fact that you're saying this at all displays your ignorance as to what "emotions" are.
Emotions are primitive motivational drives; it is our reasoning and metacognition that is more advanced. Non-human animals are closer to pure emotion (untempered by reason and impulse control) than humans.

It's not just a "high probability"; it is absolute. It's unreasonable to the highest degree to even suspect other intelligent animals might not have emotions.
It's illogical; if they act intelligently at all, in any way (display true learning and adaptation, as by operant conditioning), it is because they are driven by emotions.

Robots with adaptive neural networks have emotion; they're afraid of things, they like or want other things. Very, very primitive. But nothing has true volition without emotion.

You have to understand that emotion IS what emotion DOES. It is a concept of function.
The claims you're making are just absurd if you understand what you're saying, and what "emotion" means.

Look at the behavior, and how the animal is functioning. Look specifically at operant conditioning.

the average person sees something that looks like emotions. therefore, it must be emotions. just because something looks like emotions does not necessarily mean that it is.

That's true. But if something acts like it has emotions, it does. Emotions are not simply aesthetics, they are FUNCTION.
Function can be easily proved.

We know they experience the emotions of fear, desire, lust, and some other basic ones.
It's the more complicated and interdependent emotions where we have to start asking questions.

For example:
Jealousy. What is jealousy?

Jealousy derives from a concept of possession. An animal merely acting aggressive is not jealous, even acting aggressive in chasing another away from something. We may see it and assume it's jealousy, but that's because we assume the animal has a concept of possession.
Prove a concept of possession, and link it to the behavior, and you have proved jealousy. Emotions ARE what they do.

Anything beyond that is speculative 'qualia' nonsense, whereby you have no basis to not be a solipsist in all respects.

Without sufficient evidence would be the same sort of logical leap that religious people make about God. they see a bunch of things that look like they were intelligent designed, Therefore they must have been intelligently designed by God. just because it looks like it was intelligently designed by God, doesn't mean it was.

NO, it wouldn't be. 'God' is logically incoherent. It's apparently entirely 'possible' for these things, based on empirical data, to have whatever qualities we assume them to given the black box at hand. One is consistent with reason, another is not.

There is not actually such a thing as "looking like it was intelligently designed by God". There is such a thing as having emotions, or expressing behavior that resembles those emotions.

The notion of "god" is not just a logical leap, it's logically false. Assuming a trait based on limited observational data is an empirical leap -- and not even a very big empirical leap; more like a awkwardly large step at most, and that's only for the most outrageous assumptions (like assuming an animal is jealous, not that it's frightened or loves its babies or something more primitive and less dependent on other concepts).

Assuming primitive emotions is only the most reasonable thing to do. Failing to assume them is completely irrational, and succumbing to your own biases of wanting them to be "mindless" to avoid a sense of moral culpability.

[AsmodesReynolds]

brimstoneSalad, I appreciate the time and care, You obviously put into your posts, but I do not, and will not tolerate straw-manning, the positions of other people in arguments. I try to avoid strawmening in someone else’s point of view, the best of my ability. In fact, numerous times during this thread I stopped, and explicitly pointed out my understanding of what the vegan moral patent and waited, for confirmation. To demonstrate this, I will quote the first two instances

So, in an attempt to not strawman your position . I’m going to summarize how I perceive your argument can you tell me if this is correct before I post my problems with it:

Of the people that are vegan because of ethical reasons, most of them are that way because of the suffering it causes to the animals being eaten/used in farms, or hunted.
Therefore, they strive not to cause suffering to all the sentient lifeforms that that are high enough on the moral scale to matter.
But how do you define suffering? Physical and emotional? Only physical?
Everything expressed in this thread so far seems to imply both physical and mental mistreatment.
If that is the case I can poke several holes in this argument, big enough to drive a Mack truck through. In that case it would be just personal choice, not an ethical imperative.

If I have strawman/misunderstood. Anyone of your arguments. Please explain, explain further
I’m trying to understand your point of view, because being in your own belief bubble only leads to radicalism, and lack of diversity of thought.

If my understanding of vegan logic is correct. It also should be immoral to own Pets …

I wish to have a civilized debate, my understanding of moral patent that some begin to use to justify their dietary choices, is limited . I came here to figure out, (moral patent used to come to the conclusion) with the help of rationally and scientifically minded individuals such as yourself, who had make these choices because they are educated, not because “the smart person I saw on TV(the Internet/etc) told me so.

If I wanted to be purposely strawmaned and called a racist, I what have post on SJW forums or tumbler. Before you, that wasn’t the case with this community. Don’t even pretend you didn’t do it on pinurpose, knowing it was a strawman you quoted my position before making an accusation. Here:

I'm just skimming some parts.

To clarify my position. I set the ethical patient as any creature that modern scientific consensus currently agrees is self-aware. And I personally think those creatures should be given the same practical rights as humans (practical rights being defined as that the creature could actually use -this is not include the civil rights such as property rights, voting rights, etc.)

Thanks for that

Last time, I checked African-Americans are human, and humans obviously are self-aware or you and I wouldn’t about this on the Internet right now. Implying I’m a racist is dishonest and nothing but strawman. (unless you don’t believe that African-Americans are human) The closest thing to racism, you can accurately accuse me of speciesism.

I do not and will not tolerate purposeful strawman in my debates. If you are unsure of my feelings/understanding about/of Something simply asked me. The posts in this thread are long enough, without people going off on tangents that are not representative of my feelings. If it continues, I will simply stop responding to you. And if most of the community here is the same sort of reactions as you do when their ideas are being challenged , then I’m not sure I want to be a part of it. you should always give someone, the benefit of the doubt until they proven otherwise. Or as I like to say “giving them enough rope to hang themselves”

Even if an organism feels no pain, there are still other pleasant and unpleasant experiences; still other wants, desires, and fears.

We cannot know for sure, that plants do not feel some sort of pain or suffering, science can tell us probably not, but our perceptions of reality/scientific theories are not always true, & are constantly being overturned.

This is a complete misunderstanding of science.

This is a misunderstanding of nothing, like I said in my original response to bobo0100

The question was posed only to test the intellectual consistency of your argument, I do this a lot on the Internet, mostly to avoid feeding trolls, and to avoid arguing with people that do not have a rational argument. There is three other questions, similarly posed that you either explained consistently or didn’t cover.
If by doing this I offended you in any way, I apologize and I will attempt to not do it in such an offensive way again.

As far as the rest of the unanswered questions which there are many I don’t have time to answer the moment, I have class to get to. And brimstonesaladin has given me a lot to think about (thank you, by the way) . Even though was not done in the most pleasant way. What did I do to offend you so much that you lash out like that?

I will answer it all the questions that I disagree with people on probably by next Wednesday, I’m going to spend the weekend familiarizing myself with the concepts brought up by brimstone in this thread before responding to anyone.

For the record, I am not against veganism. There are many good arguments for veganism. I agree wholeheartedly with all of them , with the exception moralistic ones, but that may change by next Wednesday in till then , if there’s any links that you believe may help to you haven’t already given me, please post them below.