An open invitation to stop your misinformed fad and start making an actual difference in the world.

[brimstoneSalad]

Am I experiencing a brainfart or was the title of this topic something else originally, and has it changed twice since then?

The title didn't change, unless you edited it?
Look at the first page, you can see the replies to the posts are Re: *original title*
When titles change, it shows up there (if somebody replied).

I have some things to do, so you may have to wait a day or two for my reply (sorry for the delay).

In the meantime, please read the debate here, which is similar:
https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... f=17&t=510

This may help clarify my views.

Make sure to watch the debate Volenta links to in that thread for context on the discussion that follows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qfiq18DMYk

Your philosophy seems to be more in line with that of Peter Singer (am I right?), whose arguments I debate against in that thread.

The deontology thread may also help clarify things (particularly toward the end).

There are a couple misunderstandings in your post above (like about weighing interests; you missed my point entirely) which you may want to post an update on (and you might want to reference my arguments in those threads that you find you disagree with, since that could be helpful to this discussion).

[inator]

And aside from that: no, there is no need to wait till the animal reaches its natural lifespan, nor to give it complete freedom in taking care of its offspring. Thats just you moving from your deficient framework again.

Why is it deficient, what are the contradictions or descriptive limitations? How does your framework correct them?

And I said interests are only meaningful because having them met induces pleasure and seeing them fail induces suffering.

Would raping an unconscious person be wrong according to your framework?

You choose to view it from your own human perspective, where you are aware of time. You have future plans, dreams,... A cow and an antelope dont share those abilities.

There's some research suggesting that at least some animals do possess chronesthesia:

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/ ... abstract-1

http://www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v4/n8 ... n1180.html
http://www.eebweb.arizona.edu/Courses/E ... anning.pdf

Infants (< 4 years old) have worse mental time travel abilities than some animals. Do you think it would be ok to unnecessarily kill an infant if that didn't go against the parents' interests?

Im also very curious to see those supposed population studies where they compare no meat to very small amounts of meat. Particularly interested in how they controlled for quantity in ingested meat for a large enough population sample of subjects over a large enough time scale.

Here are some of those studies (my list is far from exhaustive). The ones in bold also address differences between 'no meat' and 'a little meat', though the term "flexitarian" in those studies often means significantly less meat than what you are recommending (twice a week, right?)
Let me know in case you have any trouble spotting where they deal with the veg*an/flexitarian differences.

Meat intake and mortality: a prospective study of over half a million people
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2803089/

Higher Diet Quality Is Associated with Decreased Risk of All-Cause, Cardiovascular Disease, and Cancer Mortality among Older Adults
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/144/6/881.long

Ten Years of Life - Is It a Matter of Choice?
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article ... eid=648593

A provegetarian food pattern and reduction in total mortality in the Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea (PREDIMED) study
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/100/S ... /320S.long

Type of Vegetarian Diet, Body Weight, and Prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2671114/

Does a vegetarian diet reduce the occurrence of diabetes?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646264/

Vegetarian diets and incidence of diabetes in the Adventist Health Study-2
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3638849/

Taiwanese Vegetarians and Omnivores: Dietary Composition, Prevalence of Diabetes and IFG
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0088547

Associations between meat consumption and the prevalence of degenerative arthritis and soft tissue disorders in the adventist health study, California U.S.A.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16453052

[Red]

Hey EquALLity, if you wanna post a link at a certain time, right click the video at the time you want, then click the copy URL at current time option XDD

[EquALLity]

Not very much? Give me a break.
http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgem ... urces.html
http://www.livescience.com/4297-studies ... ution.html

"The top three biggest polluters, according to the study:

Transportation, especially cars and planes
Food production, meat and dairy in particular--was another.
Energy production for heating, cooling and running household appliances"

Transportation- There's not that much you can do about using a car in certain areas, because of lack of public transportation/sidewalks. But if you do have the ability to barely use a car, then yeah, you should try not to use one.
Food production- It's mainly about meat and dairy.
Energy production- Like ovens and stuff? That's unavoidable.

As for electricity, don't leave your lights on.

There aren't any majorly bad things most vegans (at least on here) are supporting that are practical (for many people) to avoid.

The difference in contribution to suffering between someone living in a self-sustaining community where they farm meat conscientiously and a vegan living a "normal" life in the western world is orders of magnitude greater than the difference in contribution between a vegan in the western world and someone who eats meat (conscientiously farmed or not).

Well, what you mean by 'normal'?

Not describing someone who supports less harm, describing someone who advocates MINIMIZING harm.

What?

Vegans support less harm than meat-eaters. Therefore, they can advocate that meat-eaters minimize their harm by going vegan.
A person who supports less immoral acts than another person is consistent in advocating for that other person to reduce harm.

I cant. This entire argument is based on the assumption (more like: fact)that the overwhelming majority already condems factory farming. If they didnt my system would be as irrational and inconsistent as yours (i.e veganism).

(though not exactly, I could still condemn factory farming from this position, as I elaborated on in my expansion on john rawls' theory of justice, in my debate with brimstonesalad, but for the sake of this argument Im willing to call it inconsistent in the case an overwhelming majority wouldnt condemn factory farming)

The overwhelming majority of people actively support factory farming.
How can you condemn them for doing something wrong, using your logic, if you are doing something wrong too?

You can't, and it's crazy. By your logic, nobody at all can condemn anybody for doing anything ever.
That logic isn't just fallacious (because lesser of two evils), but it encourages humanity to never improve.

When you are talking about brutal crimes committed for no reason other than someone's pleasure/comfort/convenience/..., then yes. Just like I think the holocaust is equally abhorrent as the genocide in rwanda, even though the holocaust had an order of magnitude more victims.

What you are doing if you condemn conscientious meat eating from your position, is the same as the Hutu leader calling Hitler and saying:
"Hey dude, what you are doing is messed up. You should just stick to killing Tutsis. The jews and homosexuals shouldnt have to die. And to be honest, you're also killing too many Tutsi's in your quest of killing jews and gays. K Thanks Bye!!! Love you! <3"

Well, that's just wrong. Lesser of two evils.

If x is wrong, and y is wrong, then x+y is more wrong than just x or y alone.

We are not talking about a murderer who kills one person vs a murderer who kills 100 people. We are talking about a murderer who kills 100 people A YEAR vs a murderer that kills 10000 A YEAR and I cant say I have more disgust for the latter compared to the former, despite having it in the case of 1 vs 100.
Do YOU feel less disgust for the one who kills 100 than for the one that kills 10000?

Um, yes. One is way worse than the other.
I feel as much disgust towards the person who kills one person in relation to the person who kills one-hundred people as I do towards the person who kills one-hundred people in relation to the one who kills ten-thousand.

1x100=100.
100x100=10,000.
1:100 = 100:10,000.

What it basically comes down to in our debate is this. Vegans are murderers who are motivated by luxury, comfort and convenience, motivations that are achievable by killing 100 people a year.
Meat eaters on the other hand also have those motivations plus they have the added motivation that they want a certain taste in their meals. And to achieve that they have to kill 10000 people a year.

You just explained exactly why vegans are much more moral than meat-eaters.

Suppose now for a second my brother fell victim to a murderer with the first set of motivations, and my sister fell victim to the a murder holding the second set of motivations.
Someone shows me a video of an interaction between the two murderers, in which they explain their motivations to each other and the number of people they killed. The murderer who killed my brother is outraged and disgusted by the murderer who killed my sister when he hears he killed 9900 more people than him and he killed this number "just to enjoy a certain taste in his meals". Then defends his position when he gets called out on his bullshit with "yeah but less harm is better than more harm, so I CAN condemn you"
Now someone puts a gun in my hand with one bullet and puts me in a room with those two people. I am shooting that delusional, hypocritical, self-righteous prick that is actually convinced that his reasons are somewhat acceptable and actually feels good about the fact that he only killed that "small" amount of people for the reasons in his motivationset.
And Im fairly certain the large majority of people in the world would share my sentiment. Maybe even you? (although thats an appeal to the masses fallacy, so feel free to ignore this last part)

That person is not delusional; that person is just more moral, and therefore can condemn the other person.

Why shoot either of them?

I would but an animal doesn't have a concept of time.

What do you mean by a 'concept of time'? Why does that matter?

Animals might not realize how long they've been alive, but a longer life gives them more happiness (if they have happy lives), because they were happier for longer.

See the debate about a framework from an original position of ignorance in this topic.

I'm not sure what argument you are referring to, but my point is just that saying that animals are killed inhumanely in the wild is irrelevant to whether or not you have justification for killing cows.
Cows don't live in the wild... We breed them.

Packing up your shit and moving into a completely different environment is very easy for some people (including me and every person I have ever met backpacking).
If its that difficult for you that you are not willing to do this to save the LIVES of innocent animals, then I think you should be able to appreciate that something you find easy to give up, especially for a "noble" goal (with is giving up meat), other people might find extremely difficult and drastic.

Are you seriously trying to argue that it's as easy to move to a self-sustaining community as it is to just change your eating habits?
Come on. People can't just get up and move like that.

And ofcourse you dont agree with the having kids part, i never expected you to to see past the borders of your own little selfrighteous vegan box.

Having kids isn't like the other things you listed. Having kids isn't something hard to avoid; it's hard to do.

You cant however disagree that the choice of having a kid will have a much bigger environmental impact than eating meat conscientiously will, all other things equal. Because that kid will waste a hell of a lot more resources with negative environmental impact over the course of his lifetime than were wasted in putting a steak on my plate twice a week for the rest of my lifetime.

It depends on the kid. If the kid supports factory farming, then yeah, totally.

ps: are you even aware that with the "buying things" argument I am referring to the enormous carbon emissions and other types of pollution and resource depletion that are needed to produce and transport all common western luxuries? And that includes everything, from the vegan meat alternatives in the supermarket to the dressing on your salad, while you could just be eating homegrown potatoes every day, to the plastic/aluminum in your sodacontainer that you drink from instead of healthy western tapwater (at least where im from), to the clothes you buy while your old ones still have their function of keeping you warm, to your iphone and television you dont need, and to you putting up the thermostat in winter instead of just putting on a sweater and wearing gloves. And yeah... even the 15 minute shower you had this morning!
To say they are "much less harmful" is incredibly ignorant. Eating meat on top of doing those things is just a miniscule blip of suffering in the vast array of animal suffering caused by the combination of all those "minor", "harmless" things. That is why I keep saying you have no valid basis for judging a conscientious meat eater if you are not someone who lives in a self-sustaining community without western luxuries.
Its not just about the bunnies that get sucked up into the combine (even though that argument SHOULDVE been sufficient, but apparently you live in denial and have the same cognitive dissonances issues as most meat eaters do)

Just because two systems produce a significant amount of harm (that can be made up for via activism) doesn't mean that they are basically the same. You're throwing logic out the window.

"Vegans and 'conscientious' meat-eaters both cause a lot of harm. Vegans kill 100 people a year, and 'conscientious' meat-eaters kill 10,000. Those numbers are both big, so whatever, they're pretty much the same."

What?

And FYI, before you start knitpicking on irrelevant little details again instead of addressing the main point. I am not saying you own an iphone, I am not saying you drink things other than tapwater. I am using "you" in the general sense. These specific things might not all apply to you specifically, but Im sure you can fill in the blanks yourself and find a vast array of things that do...

When was I not addressing your main 'point'?

[brimstoneSalad]

And then started a new sentence "Killing in and of itself is not wrong and does not need to be justified" and elaborated a little bit on why I think so with those "bald assertions".

Claiming a thing (rather than uncertainty) gives you the burden of proof.
That nobody has convinced you that killing is wrong is irrelevant though; not sure what the point of saying that was.

Those axioms dont come out of nowhere

Where do you think mathematical axioms come from? How about those of logic, where do they come from?

Is math or logic something we just "decide"?
They are deduced, not simply decided (as in something people just made up).

Morality itself isn't just something people randomly decide, it's a principle of behavior, in contrast to principles like selfishness or sadism.
People can decide TO BE moral, as in deciding upon actions that reflect the principle, but they can't just decide what's moral or what isn't. There is a necessary foundation and consistency to any axiomatic system people can't just redefine on a whim.

I know that is what I was doing, and I meant not absolute in the sense of "it is in fact wrong and you cannot disagree with it", I meant not absolute as in the sense that you can reject this axiom if you so choose and live by other values, such as saying "in my opinion suffering is right and pleasure is wrong".

That would not be living by morality, but by a principle of immorality. A person can choose to value evil instead of good, but not to at whim redefine evil as good and good as evil.

An anti-capitalist can aspire to be poor instead of aspiring to be rich, but that doesn't make money into empty pockets or empty pockets into money.

But then I would say (assuming they share my definition of what constitutes suffering) "Ok then, if you truly believe that, can I cut off your balls? Why not?"

Assuming they desire maximal suffering in the world, because those people would want to maximize suffering in the world using rational calculus. They could better maximize suffering by leaving each other alone in the short term and working together (because cutting off each other's balls would interfere with their ability to cause even greater suffering to many more). Once all other suffering in the world was maximized, they could then begin cutting off each others balls or doing even more sustainable nasty things to each other to finish the process.

You have no means to argue against that, except by acknowledging that these people are valuing some arbitrary form of evil, and not good -- but you can't make that argument very effectively when the "good" you're advocating is just as arbitrary.

I didnt say "killing is not wrong", I said "killing in and of itself is not wrong", which implies "killing is not always wrong".

If you're clear that violation of will is one of the potential consequences you aren't regarding as part of the killing alone, then as far as you are implying "killing is not always wrong" you are right, but you still have to substantiate how you came to that conclusion.

And I totally agree that it depends on the consequences, but I do not agree that violation of the interest of "will to live" is a bad consequence. I am of the opinion that only if suffering is induced by the action of killing, it is wrong.

Because you're only considering physiological consequences.
You have no means to assert that physiological processes have inherent value, though, so the assertion is still problematic since you can't support it.

Did you just basically use the "its natural therefor its good" argument, or am I misinterpreting it?

You misinterpreted it. I pretty explicitly said that wasn't what I was saying in the segment you quoted when I said evolution was philosophically irrelevant.

And no, that example of footstomping vs painless death is absurd as I have demonstrated multiple times.

It isn't, if you don't know it's coming. Again, people can agree in principle on something they "would prefer" in concept without having any fear of it happening, thus giving us a clear indication of their interests and preferences.

A more practical example occurs when we examine people who want to be lied to when they're dying (told they will get better or that everything will be OK), and people who would prefer to be told the truth, despite the suffering it will cause them.

If you were dying, would you rather be lied to so it happens without your knowledge, or told the truth?
Some people say "yes, lie to me, I don't want to know", other say "tell me the truth, I always want to know the truth even if it hurts".

Some people, in principle, want to know the truth even if it hurts them and they have no means to act on that truth.

If you lie to those people in that scenario, they'll have no way to know you lied to them because they'll be dead, you'll save them suffering, and yet you will have violated their wills to be told the truth -- you will have done wrong.

You will, of course, assert that it is RIGHT to lie to those people, since they have no way of knowing and it will prevent suffering. This goes to show you have no respect for the wills of others, only some notion of "suffering", even when others choose to suffer you ignore their preferences and irrationally superimpose your own over theirs.

No I am not proving that I have interests that transcend my awareness and experience. You are asking me if I think its wrong in principle. Aka if it is an acceptable action for anyone to take in my ethical framework.

No, I'm asking if you actually care about it -- if you care about principle itself, or you only care about your experiences.

Either you don't actually care about morality -- you just don't want to know about immoral things -- or you really do care about principles that go beyond your own experience. It's not that hard.

That is a property of the framework, not my subjective experience.
What about this is difficult to understand?

It's very easy to understand -- wrong, but easy to understand -- however, it's not the question I'm asking.

You're misunderstanding the question entirely. How else can I word it?

Ah so its a temporal sequence as in I get posed the question and afterwards my memory is erased? Odd that you asked me if I care "in principle", kinda made it seem like it wasnt a temporal sequence.

It matters in principle, because you never actually have the experience of dying.

Principle vs. Experience.

If you care about principle in and of itself without having the experience in any way, then you have values that transcend your personal experiences as other human beings and animals do.

If you don't care, in principle, about dying but only care about the experience of it, then you should answer (hypothetically) that you wouldn't mind if somebody killed you without your experiencing pain and without you knowing it's coming.

We can say your memory is erased.
We can say you're given a drug that prevents you from experiencing fear or panic.
We can say we ask the hypothetical question (and assure you that you won't actually be killed) and then kill you (breaking our promise not to kill you).

There are many ways around this seeming paradox of consent and fear/experience from the act of consenting.

But the bottom line is that you're contradicting yourself when you say you have values that transcend your own personal experiences and yet claim only experiences have value.

How do you derive that? Ofcourse I care about my dog in principle. Im just saying me caring about her shouldnt hold any weight to anyone outside my subjective experience.

Why? Can you substantiate this "should"?

The artist cares about his painting, you care about your dog.

You die, and the artist takes care of your dog for you rather than letting it starve to death -- in principle, don't you appreciate that idea despite your being dead in this scenario?
The artist dies, and you hang up his painting so people can see it instead of burning it -- in principle, can't you understand that he would appreciate that idea despite him being dead in this scenario?

What's hard to understand about this? It's not that hard to hang the poor guy's painting up for him since he died. It's not that hard for him to keep your dog from starving for you since you're dead and unable to feed the dog.

You may say it's different, because the dog "suffers". Well, that means jack shit, because you can't substantiate that as having any value. The artist doesn't give a shit about your dog suffering -- he doesn't value suffering, he values art. Your arbitrarily valuing suffering is no different from the artist arbitrarily valuing art. He values art, you value suffering, same random shit -- neither of you can substantiate these values.

He should feed your dog for YOU because you valued it, just as you should hang up his painting for HIM because he valued it.

Value comes from ones interests (values being a form of interest), not from any arbitrary thing alone like art, suffering, life, death, fear, chaos, or randomly pickling things.
This infinite possible plurality of values is why in legitimate objective morality, it's interests themselves that matter, not any single arbitrary thing somebody like you might have an interest in and declare it (due to being short slighted) THE ultimate metric of moral worth.

No, thats just the way it is in your framework. In my framework both are acceptable.

Me: 2 + 2 = 4, not 6
You: No, that's just the way it is in your math. In my math both are acceptable.

Your framework is wrong.

This is the problem with all of the pseudo-philosophy and new-age nonsense today: people want to declare that everybody is right in his or her own way. That's just not how reality works.

This point has been well addressed by now.

One you misunderstood.

Build an actual argument with me saying its ok to destroy the painting as the premise and me lacking empathy as the conclusion, because Im having trouble making the connection.

If you empathized with the artist, you'd understand how he values his art in the same way you value preventing the suffering of your dog -- a value that transcends your actual experience, and moves into principle.

Thats only if you have an ethical framework revolving around interests, which I dont agree with, as Ive stated repeatedly.

I'm trying to explain why you are wrong, I'm not sure how else to word it.

Just for the record... if he feels that strongly about it and it would induce that much suffering in him, it is incredibly wrong for someone (with this knowledge) to destroy it while he is alive, or to tell him they will destroy it the moment he draws his last canvas so to speak.

Of course, and I would expect no less since you say you value experience. There's no miscommunication there. I understand what you think you believe, but you fail to understand what I do.

And I said interests are only meaningful because having them met induces pleasure and seeing them fail induces suffering. (never pain by the way, suffering and pain are two very distinct things)

I have shown why this is incorrect: Interests can transcend personal experience. Even you say your interest in your dog's well being transcends your observations and knowledge of it. Why are you unwilling to recognize this?

Why should they? There's an unanswerable question if I ever saw one

Then why arbitrarily value things like happiness or suffering, rather than art, if you can not answer the question of why one instead of the other?
How can you place your value of happiness/suffering over the artists' value of art/no art?

I am totally aware of the fact that I have no such objective basis for judgement. There is no objective basis for any kind of value judgement.

The latter point is a false assertion. You don't understand or believe in one, but that doesn't mean one doesn't exist.
I am presenting one here, but you have yet to understand it.

The way you create an objective system of value is to ask the subject what it values, and respect that.

If you ask Bob "Bob, what do you value for yourself?" and Bob answers "I'd like not to suffer is all", then there you have it -- but only for Bob, and Bob alone.
It is wrong to make Bob suffer, because he'd like not to.

If you ask Tom the artist "Tom, what do you value for yourself?" and Tom answers "I don't mind suffering for my art, I just want it to survive me and be seen by others rather than destroyed on my death", then there you have it -- for Tom.
It's wrong to destroy Tom's art after he's dead. But probably fine to destroy Bob's art. And Tom doesn't all together mind suffering if it means his art will survive.

It's just like taste. Is Chocolate delicious? Well, perhaps to Bob, but not to Tom. Tom is an odd one, he doesn't like it. Even if 99.999% of people agree with Bob, Chocolate still is not objectively delicious. What is delicious is what is delicious to an individual. What holds objective value -- and what you should or should not do to a person -- depends on that individual too.

When people say "you are an idiot with a fucked up sense of values", subjectivity is implied even though the words "in my opinion" are not present.

It's not my opinion. You're just wrong. Logically and empirically. There are objective values -- they just are not both static across all people and objective. What we should value for each individual depends on what the individual actually wants.

Would end most of the things in the world 99% of people consider to be horrible

And yet as I said 99% of people agreeing that chocolate is delicious does not make it objectively so. Do you understand that?

Jup that is why I get to decide to not prioritize interests over suffering in forming an ethical framework and therefor not being morally obligated to look after the well being of a painting someone else really wanted to live on after his/her death.

You don't get to decide the Earth is a flat and 5,000 years old. You don't get to decide 2+2=6. When you make claims about science, mathematics, or morality, you are making claims about reality. These are claims about things that have objective truth or falseness to them that your personal perceptions and opinions can not overwrite. Your assertions that morality is not objective are as meaningless as the same assertions made about math or any scientific fact. You have only claimed it, not substantiated it. And you are simply wrong.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euPiKKMsR8E

If you are prioritizing some arbitrary value system and pretending it's an ethical framework, you're behaving like a child who changes the rules to a card game as he or she is playing in order to always win. You basically just do whatever you feel like, and invent post-hoc rationalizations to define it as "good". It's not how reality works, and it's not how philosophy works.

The way it actually works is that every person's personal interests vary -- so do yours. If you personally don't care about your interests beyond experience, and only care about your own suffering, then for you I should only value your avoiding suffering, and I should have no qualms in killing YOU on your island because you don't care.
I agree, and never disagreed, that it could be moral to kill YOU on your island without you knowing it's coming, painlessly, since I'm not violating anything you claim to value. But that only applies to you.
For others who DO care about their lives in principle and value things beyond their own experiences, it would be immoral for me to kill them (island or not) because they want to not die at that time (although it could be moral in sum to kill them for a much greater good, that's another matter).

This is a problem of you being so caught up in your own values, and not empathizing with others who do value their own lives and don't even want to be killed painlessly or in ignorance. You fail to acknowledge that others value things beyond experience.

Nope, its important because a majority agrees its important AND it is a cumulative system, as you can see in the increased prevalance of delinquent behavior (suffering inducing) in people having experienced a lot of suffering (abuse) in childhood.

The majority do not agree with human flourishing as good (we are outnumbered by cows and chickens in factory farms, who clearly do not benefit from it and wouldn't agree), but even if they did: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/bandwagon

It's irrelevant if 99.99% of people want it. That doesn't make it good.

While the interests framework has both these things going for it aswell, the fact that it has elements that a lot of people wouldnt agree with makes it a worse choice imo.

So? If most people wouldn't agree that 2+2=4, that doesn't make it wrong.

A large number of people commonly (intuitively) disagree that 0.999... = 1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/0.999...

Here are a few more common statistical puzzles that most people get wrong:
http://hubpages.com/education/Counterin ... Statistics

People are, broadly, idiots who do not understand basic logic or mathematics.
Is a new mathematics that is more intuitive so that more people agree with it and yet significantly less useful and accurate preferable?

Why should the whim of the ignorant majority dictate philosophy any more? How about science? Is the Earth only a few thousand years old and made by god because most people think it is? Is that how you think science should work too?

There are good reasons why it's called the bandwagon fallacy and not the bandwagon argument.

The interests framework is objective and logically consistent -- not arbitrary like a framework based on suffering, or art, or life, or death, or chaos, or pickling things. Your framework, like a hypothetical mathematical framework that would respect the general mathematical ignorance of the public, is simply wrong.

A significant amount of people, maybe even a majority, dont give a shit about trivial interests of dead people if they have no emotional connection to the person.

I'm not arguing this. It's irrelevant. You are making a bandwagon fallacy.

So maintaining interests is not as universally valued as an aversion to suffering is, so to use it as an axiomatic framework for ethics over suffering is absurd.

What you think is absurd is irrelevant. Read that page on counter intuitive statistics. Is it absurd for mathematics and statistics to veer from public perception and be accurate and prescriptive of reality instead of simply descriptive of people's misconceptions and useless?

Morality is only useful as philosophy when it can tell us things that we weren't already predisposed to assume of prefer on a crude basis of emotional bias. Same with mathematics. We learn things from the study of it, and the application of logic and reason.

If the careful study of morality couldn't teach you something new you didn't already intuitively feel to be true, it would be useless.

No Im being neutral. Selfishness in my framework is doing something that gives you pleasure while inducing suffering in another.

Your framework is wrong.

Indeed, in your framework you have that obligation. Good luck with it!

It's not that difficult.

You dont seem to understand what Im saying. Im critisizing your framework for bringing forth a moral dilemma where there would be none in mine.

Your framework is wrong. All you are doing is ignoring a REAL moral dilemma, and pretending it doesn't exist. This is about as useful as AIDS denialism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV/AIDS_denialism
Pretending a problem doesn't exist and inventing an arbitrary ad-hoc system to rationalize that pretense does not solve the problem.

Weighing happens in terms of interests. You said that interests are derived from asking the person. Bob has a bigger interest in not having that needle in his body than surviving the supervirus, all of his other interests combined thus.

And other people have an interest in not catching the supervirus from Bob. It's not just about Bob. The good of the many in stopping this virus outweighs Bob's interest in not getting a shot.
If Bob were on an island, then I'd agree with you; he can die if he would genuinely rather catch the virus than get pricked with a vaccine. However, if Bob's hesitancy is based on misinformation, we should inform him first.

So unless Bob has a wife and 3 children that depend on him for their survival, which he doesnt, being the dazzling single familyless bachelor we know Bob to be, in your framework you cannot justify giving Bob the vaccine.

Maybe you don't understand pathology. Without the vaccine, Bob becomes a disease vector, and may infect others. Vaccines work on herd immunity, but viruses can evolve if given hosts.

You dont get it. This is pretty much the exactly the same problem as your question of "would you mind if i swapped and killed your dog, provided you didnt know".

I get it, and it is the same issue I'm getting at. See earlier where I explained further. Your reply here doesn't make sense to me in context; please rephrase it if you think it makes a point relevant to that.

And exactly what objective measuring rule do you employ in weighing those interests? And what happens if the interest of person A in raping person B is all encompassing (all they care about in life is raping person B), whereas person B has other things in life they care about.

That's a good question, and you'll see extensive discussion about that in the deontology thread along with the utility monster.
You should probably read that first.

That would be an interest based utility monster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_monster

There are two very crucial points to understand here:

1. This applies to any consequential axiom in a direct comparison like this (by no means does it apply to interests more than anything else).
"What happens if the suffering person A experiences by not raping B is all encompassing, whereas the suffering of person B in being raped is only moderate?"
It applies to "utility", it applies to interests, it applies to suffering, happiness, etc.
You can always frame a hypothetical monster who will demand something apparently abominable to satiate its desires/happiness/utility, etc, no matter what terms those are framed in.

2. This tends to be resolved with altruistic framing (which you can see more of in the other thread, although it's irrelevant to the basis of moral value we're discussing here).

Another reason why suffering is a better framework is because you cannot measure the severity of interests in an objective way. You can measure suffering by objective standards (all kinds of measureable stress indicators such as cortisol levels, blood pressure,...). Granted its relatively limited today, but it will only get better and better as technology improves.

You can measure them, actually, although it's not always simple. If I explain how, will you agree that interest based consideration is preferable?
What would be required to convince you? This post is already very long.

No I wasnt. All I said was from an initial position of ignorance to which animal you would be you would not have a problem with a world where there is conscientious farming, because it wouldnt change your prospects in life. In no way whatsoever does this imply I wanna make every animal on the planet a farm animal.

If you got to choose which world you would live in, being randomly assigned, which would it be?

1. All humans, equally well off (and reasonably happy and with good lives)
2. Some humans, as above, and nonhuman animals in sanctuaries and as pets with medical care, who live their natural lives, the humans slightly less well off due to the resources needed to care for those animals.
3. Some humans, as in #1, and a substantial number of animals on farms living short lives with only as much medical care as is economically beneficial, and where the humans are much less well off due to the consequences of global warming and a waste of resources on animal agriculture, and the increase in heart disease and other chronic diseases cultural acceptance of meat consumption yields.
4. Some humans as in #1, with some animals being wild with whatever that entails, and the humans being only slightly less well off due to the loss of resources by leaving wild land in tact.

How would you rank them?

I'd take #1, then #2, then #4 (take my chances of being wild, for the chance of being better off as a human than in #3), then the last choice would be #3.

A reduction in animal population is always environmentally preferable to a mere translation in animal population to a farmed context; farming is the worst of evils.
We need to use that farmland to feed our human population, and a waste of energy and resources on additional farming to raise livestock is not beneficial.

Except for the parts in bold, I totally agree with everything you said.

Why do you think being farmed (#3) is worse than being wild (#4)?

The average overall well being for humans and animals is lower in the farming scenario, since human well being is dragged down, and there's a much higher density of animals (higher chance of being a non-human animal rather than a human).

Even if you believe that living as a wild animal is worse than living on a farm (which it probably isn't), why would you choose the world with farming?
And why do you think we don't need to farm more efficiently to feed the growing number of humans on Earth?

The amount of meat human beings would have to eat in order for it to be actually sustainable would seem comically small to a Westerner. I believe you've talked about multiple steaks a week, which is an absurdly large amount of meat for seven billion people to be eating.

We could switch to something like insects, worms, or oysters. But steaks are not a realistic option.

This supposed rational mind would also have to be ignorant of thermodynamics and biology.

Bald assertion

What do you not understand about thermodynamics and biology that you think meat is an efficient food source to feed the world on?

Or if this society had unlimited resources so they could all afford to be so wasteful, they wouldn't allow farming of the animals at all; they'd just make sanctuaries.

Bald assertion

No it isn't, it's obvious. If you have unlimited resources, you don't take the chance of being a cow who will be fattened up and killed upon reaching maturity, you will at most take the chance of being a well cared for pet or animal on a sanctuary.

You're just ignorant if you think people don't mind being killed. Maybe you don't care about living, but others have an interest in it. Again: lack of empathy on your part. You need to put yourself in others' shoes and understand their interests.

So let me ask again: Judged solely on the personal experience of pleasure and suffering from the points of view of an antilope in the african savanna and a cow on a conscientious farm, would you be indifferent to being either one?

First, your value judgment is simply wrong. Value is not judged by experience alone. I would rather not die at two years old, and most people would agree even if they don't know it's coming. You are the odd one out on that.

In terms of mere experience, I would rather be the antilope. But that's also irrelevant to the overall chance of experience. In that thought experiment, I also have a chance of being human, so I want the highest overall odds of happiness.

I'd rather take a 1% risk of being a little less happy and get a 99% chance of being substantially more happy. Those are good odds to gamble on.

Its all about how you judge "worse off". You choose to view it from your own human perspective, where you are aware of time. You have future plans, dreams,... A cow and an antelope dont share those abilities.

Another false assertion from you. Animal behavioral science proves a notion of time in these highly sentient animals (it varies based on the type of animal and intelligence). Inator covered that a little. They show learning and planning (not as far out as some humans, but then some humans also only plan for the immediate future too).
Now if you were talking about something like krill, or some insects, only then you might be right.

Your notion of mammal cognition is more applicable to insects. Most large land mammals are closer to young human children in cognitive ability.

I think inator already addressed your faulty health claims pretty well. If you have any outstanding concerns on that, let me know. I'll just address this general issue of causality:

No its really not (necessarily) the same. There are many substances that you can ingest safely in some quantities per certain time interval without it showing any negative effect in longevity/health, whereas larger amounts per certain timeinterval might go as far as to kill you instantly.

Some substances can be ingested harmlessly in smaller amounts. These kinds of substances are those with a systemic or cumulative effect.
Saturated fat, and its effect on heart disease, is an example of something you can eat a little of. That's something that has to build up over time. Cyanide, and its effect on blocking your cells from using oxygen, is another: you have to have enough of it to substantially reduce oxygenation of your nerves to cause death, and a small amount will be diffused in the body and nominally affect other cells or be bound up with serum B-12 or in other compounds.

Carcinogens are something else, and act on individual cells: it only takes one rogue cell with a small number of mutations to grow and to ultimately become cancer. It only takes one molecule to raise your risk of that (or one high energy particle/photon [radiation] or one virus).
Read up on cancer, how it's caused and formed and how it proliferates. It's not something to toy around with and advocate "moderate" exposure to.

I advise you to read the last part in my next to last reply to EquaLlity earlier in this topic. (the one before the one where I taunt her with me crying about her not addressing my points)

I'll try to find it.
[found it] I don't see how what you said to her is relevant here.

Completely agree, that is why Im advocating for a movement that spreads awareness of everything. A movement that tries to get people to think of their entire impact/contribution to suffering, and isn't just hung up on eating meat.
Advocate eat less meat over eat no meat.

Advocating less meat over no meat is not being honest, if no meat is better.
We should be clear that no meat is best, but that less meat is better than eating more meat (if a person is not willing to give up meat). That achieves the best effect (for those who will give it up, give it up, and keep working to improve other things too, and for those who won't give it up, become "reducitarians" instead, and keep working on other areas too).

Like I told EquaLlity, me eating steak twice a week wastes less resources and has less of an environmental impact than her bringing a child into this world, all other things equal. (provided that child has what is to be considered a normal western vegan lifestyle, the vegan part not even being guaranteed despite how EquaLlity tries to raise it)

Depends. Steak twice a week is pretty wasteful, and IF her child is vegan, that child may encourage others to reduce meat consumption too, and have a larger positive effect by existing than not. Despite the thought experiment, no man is an Island, and we have influence on our fellow man for better or worse through our own behavior. An expressed idea can be almost as powerful as a silent action, or sometimes more so since it influences others' actions.

There are too many unknowns to make declarations like that about a child.

How are you eliminating all the carnivores? (or if you are keeping them as pets or in sanctuaries, how are you feeding them?)

First, don't breed them beyond the number needed for pets or sanctuaries for educational purposes (for the good of humanity).
If kept as pets and in sanctuaries, for those who can eat vegan feed them formulated diets (this is easy for dogs and wolves), for those who can't easily eat vegan like cats, feed them on worms and things that are not sentient (or barely sentient). Oysters are a good option, and probably non-sentient (although need to be fortified like most food).

Already talked about the problems with labels such as the bio-label in europe.

I don't know what you said about that, I just read what was addressed to me. But there are a lot of problems with organic agriculture, and anything you've mentioned is probably just the tip of the iceberg.

Are you familiar with the antibiotic dilemma?

Aside from that I also advocate lowering demand tremendously by limiting meat intake to twice a week at the most. Those things are an intrinsic part of my solution being environmentally sustainable.

I understand, but that's not enough reduction. People would need to eat much less than that to make it really sustainable. Our population is still growing, and we're running out of farmland.
And why not switch meats instead, to more sustainable and less-sentient sources, like oysters (probably non-sentient), worms, or bugs?

And aside from that: no, there is no need to wait till the animal reaches its natural lifespan, nor to give it complete freedom in taking care of its offspring. Thats just you moving from your deficient framework again.

I have shown why your framework is false. That's probably a discussion that needs to be resolved before it's possible to move on to how to fix things.

[Ángel Malavé]

Rofl. What a condescending individual for no good reason. No, meat eaters are not even close to being as ethical as vegans, no, you don't get to be a "good person" by ensuring the animal you ate had a good life before dying. Because that animal most likely lived under a humans leash and by the same human's standard, gets to live a certain amount of time. *That is slavery, and I woudn't wish it upon my worst enemy*

[vegan81vzla]

However, being a vegan does not imply you are a person that lives by this moral code.
100% of all of the children you have brought into this world, 99% of everything you have ever bought, 99% of every shower you have ever taken, 99% of every meal in which rice was your carb source instead of potatoes, 99% of times you went anywhere in a motorized vehicle, in doing all of these things you have unnecessarily contributed to the suffering of sentient beings for what is ultimately just for pleasure.
So unless you are a person who is living in a self sustaining community that is dedicated to using only the bare minimum of resources and grows only the most water efficient foods (in which case you wouldn't be reading this post, because you would not be using electricity for no purpose other than for your pleasure and probably wouldnt even have a justifiable reason for owning a computer in the first place), you are NOT a person that does not unnecessarily contribute to the suffering of sentient beings for what is ultimately just for pleasure.
You are EXACTLY the same as a meat eater, you are just willing to forgo 1 more contribution to animal suffering than that meat eater, and that is eating meat.

I agree with yoo 100%. The issue here is that you've been listening to the mainstream vegan propaganda, spread by most vegans. Those are just arguments for veganism, that is not what veganism is in it by itself. I recommend you read this thread first. "unnecesary suffering", "new moral standard", "animal sentience" is not veganism. Veganism is a philosophy, and there are more and better arguments for veganism.

Comments on the vegan definition - https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... 677#p10677
Irrefutable Vegan Postulate - https://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewt ... 850#p17850

What I propose is just starting an anti-factory farming movement different from veganism and vegetarianism where everyone just eats the way they have always eaten 2 days a week, eat like a pescatarian 2 days a week, and eat like a vegan the remaining 3 days a week. If animal products you like have a version with an "animal-friendly" label on it, buy that one, if not, buy the normal one and wait for one with a label to come out. That way people don't have to make that drastic a change and give up things they are not willing to give up and still work toward the common goal of reaching a world where only intelligent "animal-friendly" farming is allowed.

The problem is that human depending on animals is a bad idea. period. As stated in the "irrefutable vegan postulate" post, once you as a person, or as a society, stablish that you have to depend on an animal to survive, you will favor that animal over the interests of your own species, your society, even your own's and you won't notice it, or even disregard any adversities that sustaining such a relationship will bring. That is why breaking away from the animals is the smarter thing to do. Not to "liberate" the animals, but to liberate ourselves from such a burden. We don't have anything to give to animals. They have nothing to give to us.

[Mr. Purple]

Brimstone and IslandMorality, you guys are clearly very intelligent, but why do I get such strong douche vibes from you guys? IslandMorality is clearly more douchey, but you both are pretty bad. As enlightening as it is to learn from your perspectives, The blatant arrogance is almost painful sometimes.

Brimstone, I agree with 95% of what you are saying, but I can't see how interests can be more objective or foundational than suffering. Why couldn't interest and value in a moral context be synonymous with maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering? I can't imagine an interest where the outcome of that interest wasn't tied to some form of joy or suffering. An individual feeling completely indifferent(on a scale of suffering and joy) towards a specific outcome, yet still being interested in that outcome, doesn't make sense to me. For example, the artist valuing his art more than dying in a fire is really about avoiding the suffering that knowing his painting would be destroyed would cause. He is acting to avoid that mental pain in favor of the physical. It's a suffering cost benefit analysis. What would it even mean for him to not think it would cause him any amount suffering if it was destroyed, yet still have enough interest in saving it to be willing to die?

IslandMorality, There is moral reason to hang that painting on the wall after the artist dies even if all you care about is suffering. It obviously doesn't matter for the dead person, but living in a society where you know your dying wish will be honored brings everyone who is alive happiness and security in knowing that.

[brimstoneSalad]

Brimstone and IslandMorality, you guys are clearly very intelligent, but why do I get such strong douche vibes from you guys?

Many people find the precision of intellectual conversations douchey because they focus on small disagreements and seem not to say much. To some, it seems "rude" to disagree over small things, but you have to understand that these issues underpin much broader ones.

IslandMorality, There is moral reason to hang that painting on the wall after the artist dies even if all you care about is suffering. It obviously doesn't matter for the dead person, but living in a society where you know your dying wish will be honored brings everyone who is alive happiness and security in knowing that.

This is true, but misses the point of the analogy which was to be extensible to non-human animals, or humans who are not aware of this social paradigm. So, while in some contexts that might help the painter, it isn't helpful to the cow.

I can't see how interests can be more objective or foundational than suffering. Why couldn't interest and value in a moral context be synonymous with maximizing happiness and minimizing suffering?

Because we care about things that happen after we die, or that we don't know about, that can neither cause us suffering when they happen nor happiness.
Suffering and happiness are important because we have interest in those things. It all comes back to interests as the fundamental currency of morality.

I can't imagine an interest where the outcome of that interest wasn't tied to some form of joy or suffering.

Did you read my examples?
Which did you have problems with?

An individual feeling completely indifferent(on a scale of suffering and joy) towards a specific outcome, yet still being interested in that outcome, doesn't make sense to me.

It may cause you suffering to think of your dog being abandoned after you die, it may cause you happiness to think of your dog being cared for. If it's all the same to you in terms of what you would actually experience, would you rather somebody lie to you (a convincing lie) and tell you that your dog will be taken care of, and then let your dog starve to death without you ever knowing about it (because you are dead), or actually take care of your dog?

For example, the artist valuing his art more than dying in a fire is really about avoiding the suffering that knowing his painting would be destroyed would cause. He is acting to avoid that mental pain in favor of the physical.

He's not thinking about any of that, we aren't that metacognitive. He's thinking he doesn't want his life's work destroyed. If he just wanted to avoid the suffering, he could save himself the trouble and take some pills instead of running into a fire.

He's panicking because something that he values more than his life is in danger, and he's willing to trade his life for its survival.

It's a suffering cost benefit analysis. What would it even mean for him to not think it would cause him any amount suffering if it was destroyed, yet still have enough interest in saving it to be willing to die?

Again, he's not thinking about any of that. He simply knows he values the painting. Like a mother knows she values her child when she stands between it and a threat. She isn't thinking "Hmm... if this baby dies, it will cause me a lot of suffering. I had better not let that happen!"

[Mr. Purple]

Many people find the precision of intellectual conversations douchey because they focus on small disagreements and seem not to say much. To some, it seems "rude" to disagree over small things, but you have to understand that these issues underpin much broader ones.

I'm actually not like that at all. I love disagreement and find it healthy, and i don't view these points as small. I'm talking about quotes like this:

And Ill be sure to cry over you not addressing my actual points, its not like i'm expecting something fruitful to come from having a discussion with someone like you

I seriously doubt the issue here is me misinterpreting precision of intellectual conversation. Comments like these are pretty toxic and they exemplify the arrogant atheist stereotype.

Because we care about things that happen after we die, or that we don't know about, that can neither cause us suffering when they happen nor happiness.Suffering and happiness are important because we have interest in those things. It all comes back to interests as the fundamental currency of morality.

You aren't making a convincing argument that having an interest in suffering\joy is actually giving that suffering\joy value, rather than having interests generated in response to potential suffering\joy. I would like what you are saying to be true, so im trying here, but unless you are just not explaining well enough, the dots don't line up as well as you think they do. I don't see how caring about things that happen after we die, or that we don't know about, proves that suffering isn't the core of our values. When we hear bad things could happen after we die, our biology causes us to suffer\not be happy about it, which compels us to takes steps to arrange assurances against it like asking a person to hang our painting on their wall. A person assuring their interests after death could still easily be motivated by the suffering it would cause him while he was alive. I know you have reiterated this isn't the case multiple times, but you need to come at it from a different angle because It's not convincing yet.

Pleasure and pain are only meaningful because we have interests in experiencing pleasure and avoiding pain; but other interests can surpass those, and it's not your place to say "that's wrong"; it's to each individual to decide which interests take precedent.

But why do we have interests in experiencing pleasure and avoiding pain? It could easily be said that this interest is created because pleasure and pain are what matters to us. Interest is never independent of pleasure and pain(or joy\suffering). Saying you have an interest in achieving or avoiding X to me seems synonymous with saying X causes you joy or suffering. You haven't made a good case why that can't be true.

The answer is that interests are the ONLY non-arbitrary thing to define ethics in terms of.

Biology \ Natural Selection and it's reward and punishment systems seem like the more fundamental non-arbitrary basis of ethics.

He's not thinking about any of that, we aren't that metacognitive. He's thinking he doesn't want his life's work destroyed. If he just wanted to avoid the suffering, he could save himself the trouble and take some pills instead of running into a fire.

He's panicking because something that he values more than his life is in danger, and he's willing to trade his life for its survival.

Of course he isn't consciously thinking in the same way we are talking about it now, But he obviously would still know on some level it would cause him immense suffering if it were to burn(generating the interest to save it). Some people do choose the pills route, and this artist might if he was had a knowledge that this would be the route with the least suffering and the most happiness. Most people don't view that as a sustainable source for happiness though.

Maybe giving a more detailed definition of what you mean by interests and values would help?