Philosophical Vegan Forum

In his book called, 'Universally Preferable Behaviour' Stefan has a short comment on animal rights (page 91, bottom)

http://cdn.media.freedomainradio.com/fe ... ux_PDF.pdf




To be honest, it's hard for me to make sense of his position, but here's my take on it anyway. He wrongly assumes that free will exists, and that morality is contingent on the existence of it. In his view, humans have moral worth because they are rational beings capable of avoidance, whereas animals have no worth because they are basically 'eating machines'. This seems like an unjustified, reductionistic and Cartesian view of animals. Finally, if moral consideration should only apply to "rational consciousness" , what about children and mentally retarded people? He doesn't mention this, but in order for his position to be consistent, he would basically have to permit killing children and retards.

What do you think?


Also, I have some additional questions:
1) What does 'rational consciousness' actually mean, and why would only humans possess it?
2) How can we better prove that morality exists independently of the concept of 'free wil'?

IIRC, Molyneux is an "objectivist", and takes his cues mostly from Ayn Rand and ideological libertarianism (which is deontological).

It's pseudophilosophy, none of it should make sense because it's not logically coherent.

It's like trying to understand how god is supposed to be timeless, and yet does thing, or omniscient and omnipotent at the same time, or omniscient and yet humans have "free will", or what any of that's even supposed to mean.

If you ever think you understand that stuff and it makes sense to you, then there's something wrong. Not understanding it -- because it is not logically coherent, thus not possible to understand it since there's nothing to understand -- is normal.

Animus wrote:1) What does 'rational consciousness' actually mean, and why would only humans possess it?

He made it up as an arbitrary quality, like a "soul" in Christianity, and then ascribed it to humans for the purpose of giving humans moral value and denying it to non-human animals.
It's completely ad hoc, and irrational.

But a more important question: Given his irrationality, does that mean it's OK to eat Molyneux?

Animus wrote:2) How can we better prove that morality exists independently of the concept of 'free wil'?

The concept of a will is all that's important. The idea of it being free -- and what it's free from -- is irrelevant.
We demonstrate will/sentience/desire empirically, as proved by associative learning.

Animus wrote:In his view, humans have moral worth because they are rational beings capable of avoidance, whereas animals have no worth because they are basically 'eating machines'. This seems like an unjustified, reductionistic and Cartesian view of animals.

It is as empirically false as the notion that the Earth is only a few thousand years old.

Animus wrote:Finally, if moral consideration should only apply to "rational consciousness" , what about children and mentally retarded people? He doesn't mention this, but in order for his position to be consistent, he would basically have to permit killing children and retards.

He would have to do a lot more than that to make his position consistent. It's flawed on many levels.

That makes sense. Thanks for explaining

But a more important question: Given his irrationality, does that mean it's OK to eat Molyneux?

Hehe, good question. A paradox!