Great comments on new #namethetrait video

[Gregor Samsa]

I think POC applies here. P1 is not something I personally have an issue with as I can easily interpret it as a vagueish statement. Sure, if he wants to formalize the argument he should include 'sentient', but for the purposes of youtube videos I don't see it as a big deal.

As an informal argument it's probably fine, the problem is he's claiming it as a formal argument and using the terminology of philosophy very incorrectly.
There are a number of additional premises you'd need to give his P2 teeth (like that such a trait is needed to justify moral value), beyond the "sentience" issue in P1.

Oh I agree. I just don't think the main problem is with P1, it's with P2 + missing premise. I could be wrong though.

[Gregor Samsa]

It would still be an issue, since it would most likely be interpreted as 'all sentient humans have moral value' or 'a sentient human can never be valueless'. In which case, again, P2 would directly follow from P1.

Which P2 are you refering to?

p1 Sentient humans have moral value
p2 there's no trait absent in sentient animals which if absent in sentient humans would cause us to deem ourselves valueless
C stop contradicting yourself!!!


p2 is insufficient on its own, it probably needs an additional premise (human value is based on a trait or set of traits. Maybe human moral value is arbitrary).

Perhaps one could scrap p1 altogether seeing as I'm not really sure if it adds anything. Also the double negations in p2 seem a bit grandiloquent. How about this:

p1. Moral value needs to be justified by having a trait or a set of traits (conversely "moral value ought not to be given/refused on an arbitrary basis")

p2. sentient animals have all the traits that, if present in a human, would cause us to consider that human to have at least some moral value

C Since sentient animals have all the traits that, if present in a human, would cause us to consider that human to have at least some moral value, anyone who grants moral value to one but not the other is guilty of a double standard

[DrSinger]

I was essentially referring to P2 as you have it there. AY's argument is structured as P1 'x can never be valueless', P2 'no trait/absent trait can make x valueless', which makes P2 follow from P1. So I agree with scrapping it.

I think any revision of NTT would end up being very similar to this version of the argument from marginal cases.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/anim-eth/#SSH3ai

So far as I can tell yours would be fine, but it would be better if the argument didn't result in just a double standard, perhaps there could be a premise that rejects double standards somehow.

[PhilRisk]

I think any revision of NTT would end up being very similar to this version of the argument from marginal cases.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/anim-eth/#SSH3ai

What I think is very important in the linked argument is premise 2. Because some properties, like "having a certain type of genome" might otherwise work, as well as the property "being a human". What kind of properties can ground moral status? I have to admit that I am not sure whether or not this can be defines thoroughly and easily.

Maybe it could be something like: "Property P need to be a capacity." But having a certain genome would be hard to exclude by this, because this brings with it a capacity to synthesize a certain set of proteins. One might then add, that the capacity need to be of an intellectual or sensual type. This would then already be very normatively loaded. I would have to state what kind of properties are morally relevant.
What I wanted to highlight is, that simple looking arguments could bring with them the need to specify a theory of what kinds of properties could grant moral status.

[brimstoneSalad]

What I think is very important in the linked argument is premise 2. Because some properties, like "having a certain type of genome" might otherwise work,

A certain genome wouldn't work for most people, but in theory it could for some.

That's why the "consistency test" is in there, to catch the majority.

A thought experiment of giving somebody gene therapy which would remove moral value without otherwise changing the person would reveal, for most people, that a certain genome isn't the issue in itself.

What kind of properties can ground moral status? I have to admit that I am not sure whether or not this can be defines thoroughly and easily.

That's what the argument attempts to identify, but fails to do by not giving P2 any teeth.

The implicit claim in the argument is that a property can ground moral status if, subjectively, you would consider humans to have no moral value if they lacked that property.

One problem (of many) is that there's no premise in the argument to say that you need such a property to ground moral value. It just says there's isn't such a property... which is logically useless on its own to the aims of the argument.

Maybe it could be something like: "Property P need to be a capacity." But having a certain genome would be hard to exclude by this, because this brings with it a capacity to synthesize a certain set of proteins.

If one developed with a certain genome it makes a big difference.

Your genes could be changed pretty radically in adulthood, though, since most of what makes you YOU is structural in nature and it wouldn't do much (as long as the basic genes that regulate metabolism are there).

One might then add, that the capacity need to be of an intellectual or sensual type. This would then already be very normatively loaded. I would have to state what kind of properties are morally relevant.
What I wanted to highlight is, that simple looking arguments could bring with them the need to specify a theory of what kinds of properties could grant moral status.

Precisely.

That's what the correction tries to address:

namethetraitcorrection3.png

Ultimately, in order to have any prescriptive force a number of normative and meta-ethical assumptions need to be made and included in the argument.

Isaac, aka Ask Yourself, who formulated the argument disagrees: he thinks this argument works on subjectivists (and he identifies as a subjectivist himself while using this argument, which is ridiculous) and anybody, and that it shows logical contradictions without any additional meta-ethical assumptions.

[Nightcell001]

Hi everyone. I just stumbled in this thread and I have been following closely the AY name the trait argument.
I just wanted to give my 2 cents in this forum and I created an account just for this.
It is very clear that AY is not a logician. He wrote he’s argument in an informal way and can’t be bothered by people telling him that his argument is mostly not even an argument.

• P2 is a tautology if we consider P1. So the mention of P2 in the list of premises is redundant

• There are no mention of deduction system that allow AY to deduce C from P1 and P2

.
I would like to emphasis that without mentioning the system, we can easily deduce wrong statements and get confused with English translation. Years of paradoxes have tough us to be as formal as we can. I actually worked a few hours on Namethetrait argument to formalize it in predicate logic using natural deduction and the premises look daunting for the unfamiliar eye. AY shine in debate because his opponents have even less training in formal argumentation.

I am afraid to report that philosophicalvegan correction doesn’t do the trick either. By looking quickly through it, it suffer of the same tautological P2 considering P1.
Also P4 is a definition which is not acceptable as a premise. A premise or axiom should be a statement formulated in the language. A definition is not a statement unless I misinterpreted P4.

[brimstoneSalad]

I am afraid to report that philosophicalvegan correction doesn’t do the trick either. By looking quickly through it, it suffer of the same tautological P2 considering P1.

Please explain.

Also P4 is a definition which is not acceptable as a premise.

What's a definition, and why is it not acceptable as a premise if it's not commonly understood?
Please provide a source for this if you can.

I can rephrase it, if you want.

P4 - A trait is only relevant if lacking it would cause us to deem ourselves valueless.

Is that better?
It's a statement about what makes a trait relevant.

[Nightcell001]

I don’t know how to do these fancy quotes but I will try to explain without quoting.
For P4 I think I misunderstood. Your reformulation seems fine even though we should try to base our premises on statement that are not easily refutable. Anyone can reject P4 quite easily making the argument not valid anymore.

If we consider a system where P1 is an axiom, P2 is tautological, meaning adding P2 to the list of axioms doesn’t bring new information for any derivation. More concretely human can’t be valueless because of P1, so the absence of no trait would cause us to deem ourselves valueless, so the last conjunction of P2 is always false, meaning the negation makes P2 always true. So P2 is a throw away statement.

[brimstoneSalad]

For P4 I think I misunderstood. Your reformulation seems fine even though we should try to base our premises on statement that are not easily refutable.

Sure, that's just a stronger argument.

Anyone can reject P4 quite easily making the argument not valid anymore.

It would still be valid, but it would no longer be sound if a premise was deemed false.
See validity vs. soundness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundness#Validation_vs._Soundness

If we consider a system where P1 is an axiom, P2 is tautological, meaning adding P2 to the list of axioms doesn’t bring new information for any derivation.

Oh, you mean because it's impossible for a human to be valueless?
If the trait was "humanity", then we would no longer be humans, so P1 would no longer apply. There could be such a trait.
Also, it's a hypothetical, so even empirically untrue cases could fit, like just "moral value" as a trait even if all humans happen to have moral value in the case of this premise.

The way it's corrected, there probably couldn't be any such trait.
That said, I don't know that it's necessarily a problem to include a tautology as a premise.
Not that useful, but not necessarily a problem for the argument. Of course it was only included because it was in the original argument, in attempt to salvage as much as possible.

To make a good argument, you'd really have to start from scratch.

[Nightcell001]

Let me start with what I agree with.
The tautology is indeed not needed for the argument and it doesn’t hurt to put it as an axiom. On the other hand there is a countable infinite amount of tautology that could all be put as axioms. Even though this is possible the purpose of NTT is to present an argument easily readable for non vegans ( I would think so )

Concerning the validity, Yes I don’t know how much technical one can get to express his thoughts in this forum, but I was talking about soundness so we are on the same page.

I don’t agree with your last comment. “We” is supposed to represent the humans as I understand. Otherwise how would you define “we”. The addition or removal of any traits shouldn’t alter the definition of “we” because it is included in a premise. There can be no free variables in an axiom.

I agree that to make a good argument you need to start from scratch, the logic laid down by AY is terribly informal.