Why do animals have moral worth?

[teo123]

See, @DaBankasDaBonuses, I think ethics is like economics in this regard: more schools of ethics, starting with different premises, agree on some conclusion, more certain that conclusion is. All schools of economics agree tariffs are a bad thing, so it is almost certainly true. The reason tariffs are bad is because of the slightly-counter-intuitive law in economics called the law of comparative advantage, on which all schools of economics agree. Most schools of economics, that is, if I am not mistaken, all except the Marxist school of economics, agree minimum wage is bad. So, it is probably true, but is not as certain. However, only the Monetarist School of Economics (Milton Friedman) maintains a free market would suffer from harmful deflation and that the government needs to keep a slow and steady rate of inflation to compensate for that. Therefore, since other schools of economics do not agree on that, it is probably false. Similarly, only the Keynesian School of Economics maintains government spending should increase during recessions, so that is probably false as well. Some things in ethics are true no matter which reasonable premises you choose as a starting point, some are true only for some premises, and some are not true under any reasonable premise.

[DaBankasDaBonuses]

Very convenient once you have made the assumption that the golden rule is a moral fact.

It's not "convenient", it's a question of what words actually mean regarding the concepts they refer to.

I was claiming you have made the assumption that the golden rule is a moral fact - if your justification for animal rights rests on it. In order words, you have assumed we are morally obliged to follow it.
If you claim there is only one internally consistent form of the golden rule, I'm happy to accept that in this discussion. By offering a selection of alternatives, I was implying the choice of this particular rule (when there are many other possible rules) was arbitrary. The golden rule is not the only candidate that exists. Equally, no moral rules could exist also.

[DaBankasDaBonuses]

This doesn't mean these people believe animals have inherent rights.

I am sure just about any current or former pet owner would agree animals have inherent rights.

The studies you have selectively chosen do not go far enough to be able to make this conclusion about human nature

No, it is just that the vast majority of people do not agree with what you consider to be common sense.

This discussion was about whether humans are innately considerate of animal welfare. This does not prove anything about human nature.

One does not need to believe in utilitarianism to think animals should have rights.
Try explaining why slavery is wrong without implying factory farming is as well...

I could theoretically believe in Catholicism so that I may have my cake and eat it.
In this forum we are discussing the philosophy of ethics. Making emotional pleas does not prove anything.

[teo123]

This does not prove anything about human nature.

Honestly, I hate those discussions about human nature. They never lead anywhere. Just a few centuries ago, just about everybody thought slavery was a part of human nature against which it is pointless to fight. As we now see, it is not.

I could theoretically believe in Catholicism so that I may have my cake and eat it.

What do you mean?

Making emotional pleas does not prove anything.

Again, I do not understand what you mean.

[DaBankasDaBonuses]

This does not prove anything about human nature.

Honestly, I hate those discussions about human nature. They never lead anywhere. Just a few centuries ago, just about everybody thought slavery was a part of human nature against which it is pointless to fight. As we now see, it is not.

I could theoretically believe in Catholicism so that I may have my cake and eat it.

What do you mean?

Making emotional pleas does not prove anything.

Again, I do not understand what you mean.

If you don't care about the human nature discussion, your point about a view being popular is worthless to the debate here.

The eating cake thing is an expression. Basically I meant if I was a Catholic, I could be against slavery and think eating meat is fine at the same time.
As no moral system has been successfully argued to me at this point, religion or utilitarianism or the golden rule etc are all leaps of faith I could choose.

My last point was concerning the fact you brought up slavery to weaponise an emotional issue. If you believe you can prove a moral system from first principles, I'm all ears.

[brimstoneSalad]

Trajectory is much more relevant than history: as a society and particularly with regards to science, we have a tendency to advance and correct past mistakes, and knowledge slowly spreads to overcome superstition.

If you subscribe to some Hegelian view on morality then surely we should be doing more vigorous analysis than simply looking at opinion polls in the West.

I don't know what Hegel would have to do with it. My point is that lacking any other information or formal argument, the null hypothesis would tend to favor that to which we are trending. If morality is an objective thing, then along with science and other objective pursuits we would expect a correlation with the trend of educated society.

Are you implying you think it's plausible that the most relevantly educated segments of humanity are indeed trending to believe non-humans are without moral value and should be used however we wish without any ethical consideration?

Opinion polls among philosophers have been more clear at indicating the majority think eating meat is a moral problem.

It is a small minority of CEOs of factory farm and lobbyist who might arguably be trending in the opposite direction; those with clear financial biases for devaluing non-human animals.

Your link showed a majority believe legal consideration should be given to animals. This doesn't mean these people believe animals have inherent rights.

People don't tend to know the difference between legal and inherent rights. The latter pretty obviously being magic to anybody who does.

You can still argue for animal 'rights' from a pro-human angle. For instance torturing animals for fun may lead to a warped mind. This can harm the human himself and the rest of society.

You think the average person is really thinking that much into it to rationalize an animal protection stance?

Philosophers are, but that's not what they indicate. Here's a survey specifically about food, which is less likely to be influenced by the character-associated animal abuse argument:
https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/ ... thics.html
60%-(more likely)64% believe ethics favors vegetarianism or veganism, 31% think it's not an ethical issue, 5% somehow think it's good to eat meat.

This is despite the strong cognitive biases many of these people faced from being meat eaters, and prior to more recent publications against animal agriculture for climate change reasons.

The reason we were discussing public opinion was in an attempt to determine if regard for animals was a common feeling that is inherent among man.

I'm talking about moral progress, nothing inherently to do with human nature except emergently from reason and empathy with an expanding moral circle.

Notice the asymmetry in your assessment. On the one hand you wantonly disregard the meat eaters as captives of some addiction,

I don't know where you're getting that, addiction is an excuse given by many who morally sympathize with veganism but who "can not go vegan" themselves.

while not even considering that first world people have been born into a culture of hedonism (thereby making the pleasure/pain analysis so tantalizing).

This has nothing to do with the issue. The question is the trajectory of moral thought against careless hedonism.

[brimstoneSalad]

Very convenient once you have made the assumption that the golden rule is a moral fact.

It's not "convenient", it's a question of what words actually mean regarding the concepts they refer to.

I was claiming you have made the assumption that the golden rule is a moral fact - if your justification for animal rights rests on it. In order words, you have assumed we are morally obliged to follow it.

I'm not a deontologist, I'm skeptical of rights based arguments.

The golden rule is involved in the definition of what it is to behave morally. We can say in some sense that you are morally obligated to be moral (that would seem to be a tautology), but the argument for some kind of inherent imperative to be moral is a more complicated argument.

Via a hypothetical imperative, it's easy to say "If we are to be moral we ought to act morally", but the question "Ought we be moral?" is an important one. Whether there exists any real binding force to morality, or a categorical imperative of some kind, to compel people to follow it is a different issue all together.

The golden rule is not the only candidate that exists.

If you're an error theorist, the issue that there are many claimants to the title of objective morality may be your principle concern, but not all claimants are equally credible. For example, claims that rest on supernatural authority have logical epistemological problems deriving from that flaw. Virtue ethics is subsumed into consequentialism and deontology, and deontological claims have their own contradictions that have thus far not been resolved by the many philosophers who have been working on it for the past couple hundred years. Others can pretty easily be shown to be arbitrary (which is a serious issue for any objective claimant).

Equally, no moral rules could exist also.

Clearly there are candidates, unless you demonstrate a contradiction in all of them.
If you can not demonstrate a contradiction in a morality based on consideration for the interests of others (the golden rule), then it is inappropriate to dismiss it. It's one of the small handful of moral claims with non-arbitrary derivations (I believe I already shared one).

[DaBankasDaBonuses]

If morality is an objective thing, then along with science and other objective pursuits we would expect a correlation with the trend of educated society.

Science is only a tool to steer ethics. You need metaphysical axioms which the scientific method can use to expand moral knowledge.

Are you implying you think it's plausible that the most relevantly educated segments of humanity are indeed trending to believe non-humans are without moral value and should be used however we wish without any ethical consideration?

No, I'm saying it's not particularly relevant.

Opinion polls among philosophers have been more clear at indicating the majority think eating meat is a moral problem.

This trend makes more sense, but then it begs the question, "what are these philosophical reasons for believing animal killing is wrong?"

You can still argue for animal 'rights' from a pro-human angle. For instance torturing animals for fun may lead to a warped mind. This can harm the human himself and the rest of society.

You think the average person is really thinking that much into it to rationalize an animal protection stance?

No, I think its more credible that they have an instinctual aversion to sadism.

The reason we were discussing public opinion was in an attempt to determine if regard for animals was a common feeling that is inherent among man.

I'm talking about moral progress, nothing inherently to do with human nature except emergently from reason and empathy with an expanding moral circle.
...
This has nothing to do with the issue. The question is the trajectory of moral thought against careless hedonism.

This moral 'trajectory' is a moral shift, so far. If we are to determine whether this will inescapably lead to the unshakeable belief in ethical veganism, we ought to look more into the underlying factors which are causing this change. If it's simply a generational thing that is peculiar to our age then it's not important, if it's because the philosophers have reasons why veganism is derived from moral truths, I wish to hear those reasons rather than opinion polls.

[DaBankasDaBonuses]

I'm not a deontologist, I'm skeptical of rights based arguments.

Then I apologise, I must have misunderstood your beliefs earlier in the thread.

The golden rule is involved in the definition of what it is to behave morally. We can say in some sense that you are morally obligated to be moral (that would seem to be a tautology), but the argument for some kind of inherent imperative to be moral is a more complicated argument.

I agree the golden rule concerns morality by definition. I would argue its not inherently true though. Why is it that the golden rule is a moral fact that we ought to follow?

If you're an error theorist, the issue that there are many claimants to the title of objective morality may be your principle concern, but not all claimants are equally credible. For example, claims that rest on supernatural authority have logical epistemological problems deriving from that flaw. Virtue ethics is subsumed into consequentialism and deontology, and deontological claims have their own contradictions that have thus far not been resolved by the many philosophers who have been working on it for the past couple hundred years. Others can pretty easily be shown to be arbitrary (which is a serious issue for any objective claimant).

This is a much more convincing route for determining which ethical systems are more likely. Of course, that there may be no objective ethical systems is still just as convincing as the alternatives (of which there are many). 'How many of these proposed systems necessitate veganism?' is a good question. The question I would ask myself is: should I change my ethical worldview on a probabilistic hunch? And: if I did change my worldview in this way, would I be reasonable in separating the righteous from the not in the same way a deontologist or even a utilitarian would? I.e would I be 'compelled' to follow this hypothetical game of hedging my bets - rather than simply holding veganism as a virtue.

If you can not demonstrate a contradiction in a morality based on consideration for the interests of others (the golden rule), then it is inappropriate to dismiss it.

I won't dismiss it. It is of course possible that the golden rule is real and binding. I just haven't encountered any reason to suggest it's more likely than no moral system or the cumulative weight of the net probability of non-vegan ethical theories.

[teo123]

This does not prove anything about human nature.

Honestly, I hate those discussions about human nature. They never lead anywhere. Just a few centuries ago, just about everybody thought slavery was a part of human nature against which it is pointless to fight. As we now see, it is not.

I could theoretically believe in Catholicism so that I may have my cake and eat it.

What do you mean?

Making emotional pleas does not prove anything.

Again, I do not understand what you mean.

If you don't care about the human nature discussion, your point about a view being popular is worthless to the debate here.

The eating cake thing is an expression. Basically I meant if I was a Catholic, I could be against slavery and think eating meat is fine at the same time.
As no moral system has been successfully argued to me at this point, religion or utilitarianism or the golden rule etc are all leaps of faith I could choose.

My last point was concerning the fact you brought up slavery to weaponise an emotional issue. If you believe you can prove a moral system from first principles, I'm all ears.

How would being a Catholic imply slavery is wrong but eating meat is fine? Jesus said literally nothing against slavery. The Old Testament at least objected to the mistreatment of slaves, although not to slavery itself, Jesus did not even do that.

No, I did not bring up slavery as a way to trigger your emotions. The point I was making is that it is probably impossible to explain why slavery is wrong without also implying factory farming is.