Intelligence and Food Animals

[Knife]

[

When we are talking about non-human sentients, and in case you have not forgotten, we are... YES!'

Sweet, explain then why? How does intelligence change the equation from nourishment=natural to nourishment+intelligence=genocide and stands side by side with rape and slavery.

You're using 'intelligence' as a variable that changes everything without explaining why unless it does make us and those with it, special which you've explicitly stated is NOT the case.

If morality is the rules put in place by a society to help society thrive and thus the individual members, and eating is a fundamental part of a thriving person and thus society, how can NOT eating be immoral? And how does intelligence change that?

Ah, so what you're saying is you have a understanding of how the world works, but you have a personal model of how you think it should work. And you base this model upon your personal idea of morality and ethics, correct?

So why not simply jump to the meat of the matter and explain to people why your personal idea of how the world should work is superior to anything else?

Oh snap!

[Alyrium Denryle]

As non special animals, its hard to visualize the ethical system you want to put in place to stop us from eating other 'intelligent' non special animals without making us 'special' which is pretty much an underpinning of your argument.

We can get into a metaethical discussion about why we have ethics at all then. After-all your argument does extend to more than food. It does in fact extend to rape, genocide, etc. We evolved to do all those things to maximize the fitness of us as individuals, or groups. But we also, and for the same reason, evolved a sense of empathy, upon which ethics developed as a decision-making guide, because we are a social species.

The empathy that most people feel makes us different. Not special. But different, conflating the two is fallacious and either a strawman on your part or some form of equivocation.

At first, we did not even empathize with humans outside of our social groups... let alone animals. Then we realized that the things from the tribe down the river were also people. They integrated, and eventually you get agriculture and city states... Even now the best way to get people to kill is to dehumanize the enemy and get them to think of them as beings that cannot be empathized with. You were in the military yes? A good part of your training IIRC is specifically designed to do this. It is terrible, but it makes the military more effective and causes slightly less PTSD, unfortunately it also causes more war crimes (which your broken ethics also justify).

We used to not think we could empathize with animals. But lo and behold we managed to teach chimps and other apes languages... same with dolphins and to a degree elephants (and dolphins probably had their own). It turns out that we can empathize, and even communicate meaningfully with a lot of other organisms. Hell we even co-evolved with dogs specifically to be able to empathize and communicate with them. These animals feel most of the same things we do. The screams of orca that are being taken for a marine park (read: kidnapped and enslaved) off the coast of Japan, those are actually screams of pain, loss, and stark terror (all but one of the whales died in captivity from grief). Rhesus monkeys in a lab that know when their brother is being taken away and that they will never see him again, and showing visible grief. Hell, when we had to euthanize one of our dogs (blood clot in his spine that paralyzed him) our other dog waited by the door for days. Elephants ritualistically mourn their dead.

Most normal people when they learn of this think something along the lines of "Oh...shit...." and feel really guilty about that ivory ornament they have on their mantle. They accept that suffering is bad and dont need to have it explained to them that suffering is bad, and that because these animals feel the same suffering we do, making them suffer is therefore bad.

You're using 'intelligence' as a variable that changes everything without explaining why unless it does make us and those with it, special which you've explicitly stated is NOT the case.

I had thought I mentioned this when I said "intelligence and everything that derives from it, like the capacity to suffer" but apparently it didnt hit you hard enough.

A lot of things derive from intelligence. Like the capacity to suffer, self-awareness, the ability to make and hold preferences, etc.

I am going to hold off on the Preference component of my composite utilitarianism for now. And stick to the suffering angle.

I am pretty sure we can agree that suffering is bad. At least, I am pretty sure you and I agree, Bubbleboy I am pretty sure is either a Randroid or a Sociopath, not that there is much difference. So while I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, I dont think I can to him.

If suffering is bad, we should minimize suffering to the largest degree that is feasible. So, if we are going to eat animals, we should eat the ones that are the least intelligent (and thus have the lowest capacity for suffering) For example, a chicken, provided you dont torture it while it is alive (why I eat cage free chickens...) can ethically be eaten because you kill it instantly. A more intelligent animal (like a chimp) on the other hand, even if you kill it instantly knows what you are going to do with it, and experiences fear, among other emotions that equate to suffering. Moreover, they feel things like grief, so you cause suffering to its fellows.

Non-human aliens, same thing.

We need to eat. Duh. We even need to eat animal protein. However that does not mean that we should eat indiscriminately.

In a survival situation I wont begrudge someone making the choice to live rather than die. But in your every day eating habits, you have a choice, and that choice is an ethical one.

The way your position equates to things like rape and murder is as follows.

What does more powerful and successful have to do with ethical behaviour towards others? So if humans are more powerful than an alien species, that means you can do as you please to them?

It's pretty much what we do isn't it?

Because a hypothetical alien species is equivalent to us, if you are more powerful than another human, you can do what you please to them.

Do not strawman me or try to twist my argument. Eating has nothing to do with it, because the logic train you used to justify eating sapient aliens also applies to doing other things to them as well as people.

[Ender]

I don't have to. Intelligence has as much bearing as skin colour to my decision whether it can be on my plate. Its closeness to human, however, would give me qualms.

So you would be fine say, eating an intelligent alien species so long as it had no relation to humans?

Yes.

Do you see how broken that is?

No.


Why make up a hypothetical species for this discussion when we have real examples here on earth?

source 1
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Octopi are very intelligent, and there is a growing opinion that they are conscious beings as well. They are not given equality with human intelligence because they are so radically different from us we can barely recognize it.

Yet we still eat it. Grilled, deep-fried, stewed, sauteed, pickled, BBQed, with fennel and wine. And it is fantastic.

[Singular Intellect]

I am going to hold off on the Preference component of my composite utilitarianism for now. And stick to the suffering angle.

I am pretty sure we can agree that suffering is bad. At least, I am pretty sure you and I agree, Bubbleboy I am pretty sure is either a Randroid or a Sociopath, not that there is much difference. So while I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, I dont think I can to him.

Actually, AD, I quite agree that suffering is generally considered bad and that is it a humane and morally correct goal to minimize this aspect of existence. So kindly fuck off and don't assert what my position on the issue is.

My beef with your arguement is your arbitrary and arrogant assertion that is this how the world 'should' work as opposed to merely how we want the world to work.

You, I nor anyone else can claim to know how the world 'should' work, and your self proclaimed knowledge of how the world actually works should be an obvious indicator of that. Our viewpoints are subjective.

Your preference for your world model is something I agree with, except I'm not going to assert this is how the world 'should' work or appeal to popularity on subjective morality, regardless if I actually agree with it.

You're confusing the two when there is a very obvious distinction.

If suffering is bad, we should minimize suffering to the largest degree that is feasible. So, if we are going to eat animals, we should eat the ones that are the least intelligent (and thus have the lowest capacity for suffering) For example, a chicken, provided you dont torture it while it is alive (why I eat cage free chickens...) can ethically be eaten because you kill it instantly. A more intelligent animal (like a chimp) on the other hand, even if you kill it instantly knows what you are going to do with it, and experiences fear, among other emotions that equate to suffering. Moreover, they feel things like grief, so you cause suffering to its fellows.

Non-human aliens, same thing.

We need to eat. Duh. We even need to eat animal protein. However that does not mean that we should eat indiscriminately.

Which is fine and dandy and I can agree with, but don't confuse yours and my personal desire for a particular world model as some objective greater scheme of the way things 'should' be. That smells of fundie arrogance and ignorance.

The universe is a immoral, nasty fucking place where life brutally struggles to survive, has done so long before we existed, and will likely do long after we're gone. The fact that we're successful and lucky enough to quibble over morality regarding our own methods of surviving is just quirk of our existence, not a necessity.

It's great that people like us can have particular goals based upon certain criteria (ie: minimal suffering), but don't arrogantly assert this is how the world 'should' work. It's how you want it to work.

Quite frankly, as offensive as you might find the idea, the fact you and I have visions of how we want the world to work is no different than Gandhi or fucking Adolf Hitler. Just be smarter about it and remember your viewpoint is just as subjective as theirs.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

My beef with your arguement is your arbitrary and arrogant assertion that is this how the world 'should' work as opposed to merely how we want the world to work.

Of course he's saying that's how the world should work. That's normative ethics. It says how the world ought to be. You do understand what is and the point of ethics, right? It's an ought prescription.

The group membership argument is just stupid. It rests on itself and nothing actually about that group. Anyone can make it for any group, given there's no criterion other than group membership! It's fundamentally the same as racists discriminating against people who aren't of the same race just because they aren't of the same race. The fact that both are human is just as irrelevant to them as the fact that two species could be equally as intelligent, feeling is to some here. Would you also approve of that?
The problem with their argument is that they're simply basing their ethics on group membership, and not on anything important, like suffering or the ability to have interests.

The fact that something's not human does not justify killing and eating it any more than the fact that blacks aren't white justified enslaving them. That's fine, of course, as long as you don't pass that off as remotely ethical behaviour and admit it for what it is: douchebaggery.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Edit: intelligence is an important criterion indirectly because it impacts interests available and how much you have to lose. Generally, the more intelligent the species, the more complex it's ability to form preferences, desires, and experience is. Humans usually are of greater moral consideration because we have far more complex interests and ability to suffer than say, an ant. This concept's personhood. It's not wrong to kill your wife because she's human.

Some animals don't have the capacity to form long-term interests, don't have similar capacity for suffering, or any conception of the self or a future. They don't know they exist as beings. Some can. If they can, they ought to have moral consideration when increasing proximity to our own cognitive level.

It's worse to kill something that knows you are doing it, what it means, what it has to lose than it is to kill something that doesn't have that capacity. Intelligence can amplify losses and suffering.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Boyish-Tigerlilly responded for me perfectly... absolutely perfectly.

*kisses him*

So kindly fuck off and don't assert what my position on the issue is.

I cant help it if your posts in this thread have come off as ghoulish or sociopathic.

Your preference for your world model is something I agree with, except I'm not going to assert this is how the world 'should' work or appeal to popularity on subjective morality, regardless if I actually agree with it.

I am not talking about a world-model that is suffering free. I am not an idiot. I know damn well that no matter what suffering will always exist. hence the feasibility argument. I am talking about a model for how humans should behave if we are to be A) logically consistent and B) consistent with our own natures.

Now, if you dont think prescriptive, normative ethics are a valid pursuit, say so now. All you have to do is admit that you can never, ever say that a person should behave a certain way. You can never accuse someone of being a terrible person, or propose that we punish someone. Your point of view, which seems to be attacking the idea that we can make moral judgements about the actions of others, leads directly to that conclusion.

I just want you to be fucking consistent.

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

According to him, you're arrogantly pushing your subjective wants on him if you tell him it's wrong to rape and beat the shit out of women. After all, I am dictating how the world ought to be, and that's a no-no!

[Singular Intellect]

I am not talking about a world-model that is suffering free. I am not an idiot. I know damn well that no matter what suffering will always exist. hence the feasibility argument. I am talking about a model for how humans should behave if we are to be A) logically consistent and B) consistent with our own natures.

You do realize that a person/culture could be logically consistent and subscribe to the more negative and violent aspects of human nature, right?

You do realize that twisted and evil morality by yours and my standards can still yield a very workable and liveable society, right?

The problem is you seem to be proclaiming your morality as the superior choice. Of course it is, but only based upon certain criteria you agree with (for one example that we both agree with, minimal harm possible). But then specific criteria could make Adolf Hitler's morality a superior choice.

Now, if you dont think prescriptive, normative ethics are a valid pursuit, say so now. All you have to do is admit that you can never, ever say that a person should behave a certain way.

Of course I can. So can you, so can Gandhi, so can Adolf Hitler. What's your point? Any of these individuals could argue their morality is superior to the others, and all of them could be convinced they are right and the others are wrong.

This is no different than religious indviduals proclaiming their particular belief superior to another slightly altered belief system.

You can never accuse someone of being a terrible person, or propose that we punish someone.

Of course I can. I just acknowledge that my viewpoint is a subjective one. I can certainly defend it with objective based premises, but there is no 'supreme right or wrong' concept that you are seemingly trying to push forth. The nature of the universe as we know it is immoral, thus your arguement that your morality is the only way things 'should be' is absurd.

Your point of view, which seems to be attacking the idea that we can make moral judgements about the actions of others, leads directly to that conclusion.

I just want you to be fucking consistent.

I am being consistent. It's just from what I'm gathering, you honestly seem to think that your idea of morality is superior to others beyond the subjective criteria upon which it is based.

[Singular Intellect]

According to him, you're arrogantly pushing your subjective wants on him if you tell him it's wrong to rape and beat the shit out of women.

Actually, that's true. The only problem is he couldn't 'push' that particular behavior on my because I already personally agree with it.

After all, I am dictating how the world ought to be, and that's a no-no!

At what point did I say that it's a 'no-no' to attempt to dictate what is morally correct or not?

I'm pointing out that morality is subjective, and it is only as valid as the premises upon which it is based. There is no 'supreme' or 'ideal' morality because it is by it's very nature subjective.

[Junghalli]

So Bubble Boy, how would you have society determine what is and is not permissable behavior? I really am quite curious.

[Singular Intellect]

So Bubble Boy, how would you have society determine what is and is not permissable behavior? I really am quite curious.

Your question is pointless because it assumes that any particular society's morality is a static system rather than a dynamic one.

[Junghalli]

Your question is pointless because it assumes that any particular society's morality is a static system rather than a dynamic one.

So whatever is considered moral by the majority of people at the time is good?

[Alyrium Denryle]

You do realize that a person/culture could be logically consistent and subscribe to the more negative and violent aspects of human nature, right?

They will collapse in upon themselves or get out-competed by other groups.

A society has to actively prop up the idea that the tribe down the road is not worthy of moral consideration. It has to do this in order to deal with the massive cognitive dissonance that arises as a result if they do otherwise.

You do realize that twisted and evil morality by yours and my standards can still yield a very workable and liveable society, right?

Only in your twisted little world.

Morality is a functional character just like foot webbing in frogs or parental care in crocodiles. It is needed for social groups of any size to function. But once you have it, because of the constraints upon which it was evolved, you can either go along with it and accept some strictures on your behavior, or you can accept cognitive dissonance, or if you are using a codified system, logical and functional inconsistency.

Of course I can. So can you, so can Gandhi, so can Adolf Hitler. What's your point? Any of these individuals could argue their morality is superior to the others, and all of them could be convinced they are right and the others are wrong.

And that does not mean one of them is incorrect.

but there is no 'supreme right or wrong' concept that you are seemingly trying to push forth. The nature of the universe as we know it is immoral, thus your arguement that your morality is the only way things 'should be' is absurd.

What a lovely little strawman you have gotten yourself into. When did I say that the universe gave a shit? Last I checked I did not.

There are any number of ethical systems which meet the goal of being logically consistent and functionally consistent (with the nature of humanity the do a good job prescribing our behavior toward the world around us in a way we can actually follow)

But there are also a number that fail this test. A system based upon group-membership (IE. human vs not human) is one of them. So BTW are hitlers ethics. But what can you expect from someone with syphilis?

[Boyish-Tigerlilly]

Actually, that's true. The only problem is he couldn't 'push' that particular behavior on my because I already personally agree with it.

What I mean is I don't see how its arrogant to indicate a conclusion of an ethical theory.

[Singular Intellect]

Your question is pointless because it assumes that any particular society's morality is a static system rather than a dynamic one.

So whatever is considered moral by the majority of people at the time is good?

Obviously, unless you seriously think you can define good or bad without appealing to morality or subjective criteria.

To put it in perspective using an example, the extinction of the entire human race can be argued as either positive or negative. It's entirely subjective.

*snip*

AD, I suspect we agree quite a bit on what we seemingly are arguing about. I suspect I'm just not conveying my point across clearly, so I'm going to try to do so now with the assumption you agree with all of the following:

1) Morality is subjective. What is 'right' or 'wrong' to one person isn't necessarily right to another.
2) Morality is a dynamic system, not a static one. History has proven this.
3) The universe as we understand it is an immoral system.
4) Any one version of morality is not a requirement for survival.
5) Declaration of any moral system as superior to another is dependent enirely upon subjective criteria.

Ergo, declaring one's morality 'the best one' or 'only one' is a useless exercise. Hence why I disagree with the "this is how it should be' and instead think it should be worded 'this is how I/we currently want it to be'.

[Block]

Your question is pointless because it assumes that any particular society's morality is a static system rather than a dynamic one.

So whatever is considered moral by the majority of people at the time is good?

That's pretty much the current system is it not?

[Junghalli]

That's pretty much the current system is it not?

Yeah, in practice it's usually either that or what's good is what the people in power think it is. That's fairly inevitable: it's pretty much impossible to enforce your own standards on society if you lack the power to do so.

Yes, morality is subjective, but there is a point to be made for choosing a moral code, working toward it, and sticking with it. Otherwise it becomes impossible to condemn anything and you end up in a giant swamp of subjectivity. You couldn't condemn Adolph Hitler, for instance, because he was acting correctly according to his own moral code and that of his culture (the Nazi party). Ditto for Stalin and every other jerkass with the power to enforce his own views on society.

I think perhaps there is something to be said for what somebody on another board once suggested. Treat society as a competing series of interests, and try to serve as many as possible. Of course, that's basically utilitarian humanism described in different language...

[Elfdart]

If these animals were as intelligent as you claim, they would have the good sense to not be so tasty.

Only baby sheep taste good though; mutton's tough and gamy. So, obviously, they're born stupid, then they wise up.

Don't know where chickens went wrong, though.

The toughest mutton and venison can easily be cubed and slow cooked for a stew that will make a grown man cry.

[Knife]

As non special animals, its hard to visualize the ethical system you want to put in place to stop us from eating other 'intelligent' non special animals without making us 'special' which is pretty much an underpinning of your argument.

We can get into a metaethical discussion about why we have ethics at all then. After-all your argument does extend to more than food. It does in fact extend to rape, genocide, etc.

You keep saying this as if repeating it will explain it away. Let me help you, it won't. If morals are rules for society for those in society to help society and the individuals in it survive, then not eating and thus starving is immoral and unethical.

How you jump from this to rape and genocide is both a red herring and poisoning the well. Either explain this or retract it.

We evolved to do all those things to maximize the fitness of us as individuals, or groups. But we also, and for the same reason, evolved a sense of empathy, upon which ethics developed as a decision-making guide, because we are a social species.

Err, empathy is a defense mechinism. Eating is a basic physiological need. Ethics are rules for society and the individuals inside society to prosper. If you don't eat you don't live there is no individual and protracted, no society. Where the fuck you got the notion that empathy is the basis of ethics is beyond me. I thought you were supposed to be smart?

The empathy that most people feel makes us different. Not special. But different, conflating the two is fallacious and either a strawman on your part or some form of equivocation.

So we're different, but not special. Intelligent aliens are intelligent but not special. We get it, nobody is special just different.

At first, we did not even empathize with humans outside of our social groups... let alone animals. Then we realized that the things from the tribe down the river were also people. They integrated, and eventually you get agriculture and city states... Even now the best way to get people to kill is to dehumanize the enemy and get them to think of them as beings that cannot be empathized with. You were in the military yes? A good part of your training IIRC is specifically designed to do this. It is terrible, but it makes the military more effective and causes slightly less PTSD, unfortunately it also causes more war crimes (which your broken ethics also justify).

You know as much as you like to actually accuse others of strawmen and red herrings you sure as fuck like to use them. So far, because people have to eat, I obviously like rape, genocide and now war crimes.

Reign your ego in a bit kiddo.

We used to not think we could empathize with animals. But lo and behold we managed to teach chimps and other apes languages... same with dolphins and to a degree elephants (and dolphins probably had their own).

Bwhahahahahahaha! What tripe. We've always empathized with certain animals (usually the cute fuzzy ones with big eyes) that displayed the same survival strategy and defense mechanism our own young do, namely being cute and cuddly looking.

If you think it took teaching chimps sign language to learn to empathize with cute and cuddly critters, you need to stop working in your lab and go outside.

It turns out that we can empathize, and even communicate meaningfully with a lot of other organisms. Hell we even co-evolved with dogs specifically to be able to empathize and communicate with them.

More tripe. We co-evolved with dogs to suit our needs and the dogs co-evolved with us for their needs. If you think we did it specifically to empathize and communicate your grossly wrong and/or over simplifying it to suit your needs.

snip long winded bullshit about agony that no one is disputing

Thanks for the appeal to emotion.

I had thought I mentioned this when I said "intelligence and everything that derives from it, like the capacity to suffer" but apparently it didnt hit you hard enough.

So, an ant can't suffer? Your linking suffering to intelligence? I'd like to see you justify that.

A lot of things derive from intelligence. Like the capacity to suffer, self-awareness, the ability to make and hold preferences, etc.

Repeating it won't make it true. Explain how intelligence is linked to suffering.

I am going to hold off on the Preference component of my composite utilitarianism for now. And stick to the suffering angle.

I am pretty sure we can agree that suffering is bad. At least, I am pretty sure you and I agree, Bubbleboy I am pretty sure is either a Randroid or a Sociopath, not that there is much difference. So while I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, I dont think I can to him.

If suffering is bad, we should minimize suffering to the largest degree that is feasible. So, if we are going to eat animals, we should eat the ones that are the least intelligent (and thus have the lowest capacity for suffering) For example, a chicken, provided you dont torture it while it is alive (why I eat cage free chickens...) can ethically be eaten because you kill it instantly.

You made several leaps in logic there. One, yes suffering is bad, which is why I don't start nibbling on a live cow and instead eat steak from a dead one.

Second, you went right back to intelligence and suffering are directly connected, which you haven't substantiated yet.

A more intelligent animal (like a chimp) on the other hand, even if you kill it instantly knows what you are going to do with it, and experiences fear, among other emotions that equate to suffering.

Ah, so you finally make something that makes sense, congratulations though I suspect you did it accidentally. It's not intelligence connected to suffering, rather intelligence connected to perceiving onces doom.

Except we all, as intelligent beings perceive our doom, whether by predator or car accident. That has no bearing on suffering unless you actually do torture the animal with that knowledge, which I never propose in my simple statement of consuming an intelligent animal for nourishment.

Moreover, they feel things like grief, so you cause suffering to its fellows.

I know, it would be horrible to know that an animal died for food, almost as much as it would be to tell someone their loved one died of STARVATION.

We need to eat. Duh. We even need to eat animal protein. However that does not mean that we should eat indiscriminately.

Never said we should. Your the poster jumping to conclusions and throwing out verbose statements with straw men and red herrings all the while decrying your opponents of them.

In a survival situation I wont begrudge someone making the choice to live rather than die. But in your every day eating habits, you have a choice, and that choice is an ethical one.

Oh bullshit, clearing habitat to grow your soybeans and lettuce is just as damaging to an animal as it is to fucking eat it you hypocrite.

The way your position equates to things like rape and murder is as follows.

Because a hypothetical alien species is equivalent to us, if you are more powerful than another human, you can do what you please to them.

No, because regardless of all your preening, an alien being would not be equivalent to us by the very reason they are an alien. Having an equivalent intelligence to us does not automatically make them equal to us since in nature there is no such thing. We would then be two competing species fighting for the same nitch.

Do not strawman me or try to twist my argument.

I've figured it out. I now know why you scream strawman and red herring so much, you're projecting.

How cute.

Eating has nothing to do with it,

Let me get this straight, eating has nothing to do with the fact that if we don't eat we die and if we eat an alien with intelligence it is still nourishment that would make us live and perpetuate society and out species.

because the logic train you used to justify eating sapient aliens also applies to doing other things to them as well as people.

Uhm, no it doesn't and you haven't even remotely established this at all except to screech about it as if it's true.

[Alyrium Denryle]

How you jump from this to rape and genocide is both a red herring and poisoning the well. Either explain this or retract it.

You are a fucking moron for starters. Here, let me show you.

WHen you said this:

What does more powerful and successful have to do with ethical behaviour towards others? So if humans are more powerful than an alien species, that means you can do as you please to them?

It's pretty much what we do isn't it?

You basically were taking a "might makes right" approach to ethics. Justifying everything based upon that premise. It is irrelevant that you were referring to eating things, because the argument's logic extends itself beyond that. So dont bitch at me because you could not be arsed to think your argument through to its logical conclusions. Do you want me to explain it to you in tiny tiny fucking words?

Err, empathy is a defense mechinism. Eating is a basic physiological need. Ethics are rules for society and the individuals inside society to prosper. If you don't eat you don't live there is no individual and protracted, no society. Where the fuck you got the notion that empathy is the basis of ethics is beyond me. I thought you were supposed to be smart?

When the fuck did I say one should not eat? Hell, when the fuck did I say one should not eat animal protein? I didnt. Only that non-humans have moral worth because the very basis of pretty much every successful ethical system the world has ever seen has been built. The conclusion of this train of thought being, you idiot, that if you have a choice (namely the day to day living you engage in, rather than tribal situations or survival in the wilderness) you should fulfill your needs in such a way so as to minimize suffering. IE. Dont eat intelligent animals that are capable of broader range of suffering than animals that are not! You ignoramus. I will get into the explanation for why eating intelligent animals is bad in a moment.

Now for empathy. I am going to assume you are not a sociopath and that you actually have the ability to relate to someone that is in pain.

Why is it wrong to hurt someone? Beyond the fact that you are punished if you do. Now, we might have different responses to this. But if you boil it down, every successful ethical system (read: the ones that dont crash and burn in the population like Objectivism) are build upon the fundamental premise that you should treat people as you would have them treat you.

Utilitarianism in its various forms is a case study in this. As is Kantian deontology and a slew of others. Hedonistic Utilitarianism trades directly in a calculus of pleasure/pain which is what I have been using for the sake of simplicity (though I use a composite of it and preference utilitarianism which trades in the satisfaction of held interests), kantian deontology uses the categorical imperative, one of the primary maxims of which is that you treat others as an end unto themselves, IE. uphold their dignity. Etc.

The details change, but the motivations dont. They are all driven by empathy and theory of mind (the ability to ascribe what we feel to others, and do so accurately) to guide our behavior.

Do you need this explained to you further?

You know as much as you like to actually accuse others of strawmen and red herrings you sure as fuck like to use them. So far, because people have to eat, I obviously like rape, genocide and now war crimes.

Way to take an illustrative point and incorporate it into a persecution complex.

My point was that some societal systems have to break the ability of individuals to empathize with others. It is harder to kill someone who you view as being a person just like you. Holding two conflicting viewpoints like "Killing the enemy is good" and "the enemy is human, it is wrong to kill humans" (to use a bit of an abstraction) causes a problem in your mind called cognitive dissonance (look it up, or take social psych) having this problem makes soldiers less effective and leads to higher rates of psychological problems like PTSD. If you get rid of this (by say, training soldiers to think that X is subhuman, or that they themselves are superhuman, either one works) you use a cognitive trick to get them to suspend their normal ethical thoughts(you make it so they dont empathize with their enemy anymore). FOr a good example of this, look up the stanford prison experiment, slightly different context, same trick.

Bwhahahahahahaha! What tripe. We've always empathized with certain animals (usually the cute fuzzy ones with big eyes) that displayed the same survival strategy and defense mechanism our own young do, namely being cute and cuddly looking.

If you think it took teaching chimps sign language to learn to empathize with cute and cuddly critters, you need to stop working in your lab and go outside.

Ok. If you dont know what a term means or have a question about usage, look it up. Empathy in this context is Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives.(answers.com if you demand a dictionary) It is not:

"Awwww look at the baby seal"

it is:

"Hark. Steven just broke up with his boyfriend and is obviously feeling glum as a result, I feel motivated to cheer him up"

More tripe. We co-evolved with dogs to suit our needs and the dogs co-evolved with us for their needs. If you think we did it specifically to empathize and communicate your grossly wrong and/or over simplifying it to suit your needs.

Good job stripping something of its context and building a strawman with the husk.

I was illustrating the depth to which we are capable of understanding a non-human, and how that understanding gives us the ability to ascribe to a non-human moral worth.

Thanks for the appeal to emotion.

It is not an appeal to emotion when your entire point is as follows

1.Empathy, the Identification with and understanding of another's situation, feelings, and motives. forms the cognitive basis for our ethics.

2. Humans and animals are not metaphysically different

3. It is inconsistent to only count the emotions and feelings, motives and interests of humans.

4. therefore to the extent that we can Identify with the situation, feelings and motives of a non-human, they should be included in our ethical considerations.

In fact, demonstrating that we can, in fact, identify with the feeling, situation, motives, etc of a non-human is rather integral to the fucking point.

Demonstrating the an animal mourns for the dead, or experiences loss when a conspecific is removed is damn well relevant.

So, an ant can't suffer? Your linking suffering to intelligence? I'd like to see you justify that.

An ant can suffer, but to a much more limited extent than say, a Chimp.

Ants have a very very small number of pain receptors. And if they can anticipate the future at all it is with very very basic and difficult to train pavlovian conditioning and only if say, the puff of air and the unpleasant stimulus are delivered a few miliseconds apart.

But suffering is more than just pain. The more intelligent an animal the greater variety and scope of suffering they are capable of experiencing.

The afformentioned chimp for example has sufficient brain power to have sense of itself as an individual (self awareness) they are capable of experiencing grief (have a concept of death) and have a concept of the future which they can be concerned about or feel fear regarding.

ANd there is a big 'ol gradient in between

Feeling fear is a type of suffering, worry is a type of suffering, grief is a type of suffering. I am sorry I did not make that clear before, I had a certain amount of trust in your competency and thought you would understand that.

Except we all, as intelligent beings perceive our doom, whether by predator or car accident. That has no bearing on suffering unless you actually do torture the animal with that knowledge, which I never propose in my simple statement of consuming an intelligent animal for nourishment.

Have you felt fear lately? Unpleasant yes? One can indeed think of it as a type of suffering. The knowledge itself should an animal possess it causes releases of IIRC cortisol and other stress hormones that are perceived as being unpleasant. You dont have to torture the animal, it will torture itself

I know, it would be horrible to know that an animal died for food, almost as much as it would be to tell someone their loved one died of STARVATION.

If it didn't piss me off so much, I would marvel at your capacity to be disingenuous. You are committing a strawman I have never said anything about starvation situations other than saying I wouldnt begrudge someone their lives. So dont paint me with that brush, I am not a member of PETA.

But in your every day life (which is what this thread is specifically about) you dont HAVE to eat intelligent animals to be healthy and happy. You can easily eat the ones that dont suffer before they die, like free range chicken. (the reason I dont eat beef is that free range cattle overgraze and I find that unacceptable for other reasons) Or you can reduce the suffering you cause further by not eating mammals and birds at all, and restricting yourself to fish and invertebrates (octopus excluded due to their cognitive abilities of course)

You can go further and not eat animal flesh at all (I have not gone this far) and be perfectly healthy, hell you dont even have to give up some of your favorite foods. Veggie burgers are actually better then regular burgers IMO.

So dont give me that line of bullshit and posit the false dichotmy that says "Either my eating is unrestricted or I starve" fuck that. It is a false choice.

Oh bullshit, clearing habitat to grow your soybeans and lettuce is just as damaging to an animal as it is to fucking eat it you hypocrite.

Actually no, it does not, you idiot. It takes 8 kilograms of plant material to produce 1 kilogram of beef. By eating beef you not only have to clear the land for the beef, but also for the cow's food.

If we no longer ate beef we reduce the suffering of every creature that would otherwise be killed or displaced by the land clearage. And if we use responsible farming practices, like the use of genetically modified plants to increase crop yield and reduce reliance on chemical pesticides, we further reduce the suffering we cause. (weren't expecting me to plug genetic engineering did you?)

And lettuce is a terrible food anyway, low in nutrients, spinach or collard greens are better.

No, because regardless of all your preening, an alien being would not be equivalent to us by the very reason they are an alien. Having an equivalent intelligence to us does not automatically make them equal to us since in nature there is no such thing. We would then be two competing species fighting for the same nitch.

first off, evolution does not operate at the species level. It operates at the individual and population level, which is somewhat different. Species effects are an epiphenomenon that result from the aggregate effects of competition between individuals populations.

(Explanation: Selection acts upon the phenotypes of individuals within a population. Their inclusive reproductive success<them and relatives> as a result of selection is called their fitness. Differential fitness changes allele frequencies within a population. In competition with other populations, mutations that increase the fitness of an individual will spread in the population. If this helps in the competition, the population gets a leg up)

Second, very rarely does competition lead to actual extinction, it leads to niche partitioning and specialization to reduce competition(because competition is harmful to both groups selection favors mutations that caiuse reductions in the need to compete. Two lizards will occupy different parts of the same tree or be active at different times) and an alien species exists, presumably, on a different planet. There is no competition there unless sad and pathetic tribalism compels you to create it. So, your argument is a pathetic non-starter. If you wanted to continue to try to use evolution to justify your moral bankruptcy (speaking of which, you just butchered your attempt at a naturalistic fallacy) then you are forced to deal at the population level, which means that we should immediately dehumanize the chinese because they are competing with us! Open season in chicoms, lets get em! FOR DINNER!

But I am pretty sure you dont actually want to go there and are just operating on a shitty understanding of how evolution actually works. So you might want to rethink that.

As it stands now though... your logic justifies racism and other various forms of tribalism. To change a noun or three and maybe a few definite articles to make the grammar right...

No, because regardless of all your preening, a Chinese communist would not be equivalent to us by the very reason they are foreign. Having an equivalent intelligence to us does not automatically make them equal to us since in nature there is no such thing. We would then be two competing nations fighting for the same resources.

But dont let me get in the way of your xenophobia.

Uhm, no it doesn't and you haven't even remotely established this at all except to screech about it as if it's true.

You know, it isnt just me. Tigerlilly has noticed it too.

We cant help it if you cant see the gaping holes in your own logic. What you just said, the part I just dissected, justifies more than eating.

saying "X is not equivalent to us because they are in competition with us" justifies a whole lot of terrible shit. If you need that explained to you in tiny fucking words, then I suggest you seek professional help. It is not as if I am the only one who noticed. Tigerlilly called you on it to. I dont think you actually HOLD these terrible positions. I just dont think your argument is well thought out.

Let me get this straight, eating has nothing to do with the fact that if we don't eat we die and if we eat an alien with intelligence it is still nourishment that would make us live and perpetuate society and out species.

Hmm... butchering for food an alien child as it screams for you to stop and wanting its mother (not that you would understand its language) is ethical... you realize you are justifying that? You realize that you are justifying that over the alternative which is eating plant material or even less intelligent animal species for the same nutrients.

Am I the only one that thinks Knife is a sick person that needs professional help?

[Alyrium Denryle]

That's pretty much the current system is it not?

Yeah, in practice it's usually either that or what's good is what the people in power think it is. That's fairly inevitable: it's pretty much impossible to enforce your own standards on society if you lack the power to do so.

Yes, morality is subjective, but there is a point to be made for choosing a moral code, working toward it, and sticking with it. Otherwise it becomes impossible to condemn anything and you end up in a giant swamp of subjectivity. You couldn't condemn Adolph Hitler, for instance, because he was acting correctly according to his own moral code and that of his culture (the Nazi party). Ditto for Stalin and every other jerkass with the power to enforce his own views on society.

I think perhaps there is something to be said for what somebody on another board once suggested. Treat society as a competing series of interests, and try to serve as many as possible. Of course, that's basically utilitarian humanism described in different language...

That is actually the basis for Preference Utilitarianism. As for morality being subjective... the ethical system you use might be (within limits, some are clearly incorrect) but the goal orientated nature of them is not. The end goal of any ethical system is to maximize good. What that good is? Well, the best way to put it is the satisfaction of held interests, as it encompases every value that humans have that are used to build other ethical systems.

[Akhlut]

So you would be fine say, eating an intelligent alien species so long as it had no relation to humans?

Yes.

[snip]

Why make up a hypothetical species for this discussion when we have real examples here on earth?

source 1
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source 4

Octopi are very intelligent, and there is a growing opinion that they are conscious beings as well. They are not given equality with human intelligence because they are so radically different from us we can barely recognize it.

Yet we still eat it. Grilled, deep-fried, stewed, sauteed, pickled, BBQed, with fennel and wine. And it is fantastic.

So, you are cool with other species eating humans then, right? Especially should those species show a great deal of intelligence, like great white sharks, larger cephalopods, or most mammalian predators, right?

[Alyrium Denryle]

I don't have to. Intelligence has as much bearing as skin colour to my decision whether it can be on my plate. Its closeness to human, however, would give me qualms.

So you would be fine say, eating an intelligent alien species so long as it had no relation to humans?

Yes.

Do you see how broken that is?

No.


Why make up a hypothetical species for this discussion when we have real examples here on earth?

source 1
source 2
source 3
source 4

Octopi are very intelligent, and there is a growing opinion that they are conscious beings as well. They are not given equality with human intelligence because they are so radically different from us we can barely recognize it.

Yet we still eat it. Grilled, deep-fried, stewed, sauteed, pickled, BBQed, with fennel and wine. And it is fantastic.

Appeal to common practice.

I dont eat octopus for that reason.

[Singular Intellect]

So, you are cool with other species eating humans then, right? Especially should those species show a great deal of intelligence, like great white sharks, larger cephalopods, or most mammalian predators, right?

For the record, I've already stated that I'm perfectly fine with that. I won't begrudge a shark or bear intent on eating me, it is simply following it's nature to eat. This doesn't mean I wouldn't try to fight if that situation came up. Or much more likely, use my intelligence to ensure I'm in a superior position and relatively safe from harm.

The problem for other species, like the ones you listed, is humans as a species are much more intelligent and powerful than these other species, and we will viciously destroy or actively remove any percieved threat to ourselves.

The fact we're so much better at it is not something we should apologize for. If someone genuinely wants a scapegoat, go scream at evolution for producing us.

The fact we are such a successful species is being proven right now, whereas individuals like Alyrium Denryle can sit behind a comfortable computer desk and argue/ponder the morality of eating specific species; as opposed to the vast majority of all other species who couldn't afford that luxury even if they were capable of it.