PETA's idea: Call fish 'Sea Kittens'

[Kanastrous]

There's no biological mechanism that induces members of a given species to perceive one another as part of a unique category?

[Alyrium Denryle]

There's no biological mechanism that induces members of a given species to perceive one another as part of a unique category?

There are. But the perception does not entail that the suffering is or is not any worse.

[Kanastrous]

And the suffering standard trumps the inbuilt-perception standard because...?

[Darth Wong]

Because everyone hates suffering. Are you saying that you enjoy suffering?

Not everyone agrees about this "inbuilt perception" bullshit.

[Kanastrous]

Not everyone agrees about this "inbuilt perception" bullshit.

I get the impression from Aly that he doesn't regard the idea as bullshit, and he's in the biological sciences. For whatever that's worth.

[Darth Wong]

Not everyone agrees about this "inbuilt perception" bullshit.

I get the impression from Aly that he doesn't regard the idea as bullshit, and he's in the biological sciences. For whatever that's worth.

He doesn't regard the existence of instinctive race and species preference as bullshit, but he does regard the assignment of ethical value to it as bullshit. Need I remind you that racism is also based on the same "inbuilt perception"?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Not everyone agrees about this "inbuilt perception" bullshit.

I get the impression from Aly that he doesn't regard the idea as bullshit, and he's in the biological sciences. For whatever that's worth.

He doesn't regard the existence of instinctive race and species preference as bullshit, but he does regard the assignment of ethical value to it as bullshit. Need I remind you that racism is also based on the same "inbuilt perception"?

You pretty much hit the nail on the head...

[Kanastrous]

Not everyone agrees about this "inbuilt perception" bullshit.

I get the impression from Aly that he doesn't regard the idea as bullshit, and he's in the biological sciences. For whatever that's worth.

He doesn't regard the existence of instinctive race and species preference as bullshit, but he does regard the assignment of ethical value to it as bullshit. Need I remind you that racism is also based on the same "inbuilt perception"?

Racism is based upon a mis-application of that perception, if 'species' (or the currently preferred term) is the dividing line. At the genetic level the difference between 'races' of human being is less than the difference between breeds of dog, isn't it?

[General Zod]

Racism is based upon a mis-application of that perception, if 'species' (or the currently preferred term) is the dividing line. At the genetic level the difference between 'races' of human being is less than the difference between breeds of dog, isn't it?

How much of a difference do you want? The difference between human and monkey DNA is something around 6%.

[Kanastrous]

Enough to permit interfertility, seems reasonable. Which means one has to make allowances for ligers, tigons, etc, I guess. I wonder what the % of genetic difference is, between those species.

[Graeme Dice]

Now if you arguing conscious perception of value (something akin to economic value), that I will concede.

That is what I'm arguing. An entity has no intrinsic value other than the value that other thinking entities give it. The duck has moral worth, not because it intrinsically has moral worth, but because other thinking entities give it a moral worth. And this moral worth ascribed to the duck needs to be taken into account because it will cause suffering in the entity that values the duck.

No. It is just logical consistency. If pain and suffering are bad then it is bad no matter what is experiencing it. Unless you have a reason why a turtle's pain should count for nothing while the pain experience by a human infant should... Because all I am doing is arguing against that sort of ridiculousness.

Oh it should be taken into account. I think I was reading your argument wrong. I was thinking that you placed a much lower value on intelligence than you apparently do.

And of course, intelligence is far more rare and useful in the vast majority of situations than webbed feet.

That does not make it special.

I would argue that the rarity of something, does in fact tend to make it special or unique. That for something to be special it must be unique or rare in some way. Otherwise you have a word that doesn't indicate what its definition says that it does.

And define usfullness. A duck does not need a high IQ in order to function as a duck.

A high IQ allows you to replicate webbed feet when you need them (flippers), and remove them when you don't need them.

All a human intellect would do is create an energy expenditure it does not need. As for rareness, rareness being of value is an artifact of human economic systems not of nature and not in ethics. If that were the case, we would become extra upset when someone killed someone with blue eyes vs brown, because blue eyes are comparatively rare.

We do, however, become more upset when an endangered species is killed instead of a common one, and I believe that this is an appropriate emotional response. I'm not certain what the best argument for this would be.

We are dealing with a teleological argument (or in my case and anti-teleological argument) .

Which is probably why I tend to react badly to this sort of discussion.

I dont know what empirical data can be collected that would show anything one way or the other. I will try to give a reasoned argument though.

Thanks. I enjoyed your discussion. I would place a much higher value on intelligence than you would. This is mostly because intelligence is what is required for "value" to be measured.

As I explained later, it is not what is valued. It is a proxy measure for the capacity of an organism to experience what is. Namely pleasure, and pain.

That makes more sense. Though it still runs into the issue that the capacity for an organism to experience suffering is dependent on it having a certain phenotype that is, according to what you've written, no different than having a phenotype for webbed feet.

I apologize. I took my frustration with dealing with Thunder's thick headedness out on you. I should not have done that.

Thanks for the apology. On my part, I am also frustrated at how poor his arguments are.

[Ryan Thunder]

What Ryan Thunder does not seem to get is that he's saying humans are the only beings who deserve consideration, and we're asking WHY. You can't answer the question "why" by simply repeating the statement over and over.

Alyrium says that suffering is bad. I could ask him why, but why should I bother, when I know that it's just as arbitrarily chosen as my own premise?

Besides that, his system is impractical. We'd end up spending money to assuage a ridiculous conscience, in some cases with zero gain for it.

Alyrium also has a built-in premise, which is that suffering is bad. Ryan seems to think that this makes Aly's position just as circular as his own, but nobody has asked him to justify the premise that suffering is bad, because it is largely universally accepted.

This is an appeal to popularity, however. It's no less arbitrary to state "Suffering is bad" than it is to state that "Humans are special," even if I agree that suffering is bad.

Which is why I didn't say anything about his premise; there's no point.

Once one accepts the premise that suffering is bad, then all sorts of other conclusions can be drawn from it; suffering is, after all, a mental state, hence a function of intelligence. A creature needs a certain amount of intelligence in order to experience pain and fear, hence it follows that intelligence is a critical factor.

Ryan's position contains no such universally accepted premise (the mere fact that it's been challenged repeatedly by many different people shows that it is not so accepted), and no logical deductions from that premise; his premise is exactly the same as his conclusion.

My basic premise is that humans are special. Because humans are special, it is human suffering that is most important. Asking why humans are special is about as pointless an exercise as asking somebody to explain the concept of the colour blue using nothing but words.

In my system, I don't have to worry about how the cow that the beef I had for dinner last night was cut from was treated before it died, because unless it actually affects the quality of the meat, it is irrelevant to me; I eat meat for its nutritional value, and, as such, shouldn't have to feel bad about what led up to my consuming that meat.

This doesn't open the door for the sort of massive ecological damage for short term gain that some people seem to envision that it would, either, because that would be bad for us in the long run. That would lead to needless human death and suffering. Over-hunting and fishing and what have you would end up being unethical under this system.

Overpopulation is unethical as well, because it puts other people at risk. Murder is unethical. Torture is unethical. Theft is unethical, and so on.

Also, an organization like PETA is unethical, because the animals they're trying to save are obviously considerably less important than the humans living on the streets that they could be trying to help instead.

[Alyrium Denryle]

That is what I'm arguing. An entity has no intrinsic value other than the value that other thinking entities give it. The duck has moral worth, not because it intrinsically has moral worth, but because other thinking entities give it a moral worth. And this moral worth ascribed to the duck needs to be taken into account because it will cause suffering in the entity that values the duck.

That is probably our fundamental difference. I think the suffering of the duck matters directly to the duck, even if it cannot exactly quantify the suffering like we can. While your position is that it harms people who value the duck.

My argument here is a question.

Why does the duck's suffering in and of itself not matter? The duck has a brain. It perceives pain, and it has interests. Why does its pain not matter, but ours does?

Just because we are capable of abstract reasoning, we are certainly able to evaluate the suffering that the duck feels, and weigh options. But that only gives us the ability to make moral

This is an appeal to popularity, however. It's no less arbitrary to state "Suffering is bad" than it is to state that "Humans are special," even if I agree that suffering is bad.

I would argue that the rarity of something, does in fact tend to make it special or unique. That for something to be special it must be unique or rare in some way. Otherwise you have a word that doesn't indicate what its definition says that it does.

When I use the word special, I dont mean in the sense that it is rare and nifty. I mean it in the sense that it is invested with a certain metaphysical property that gives it a particular significance that extends beyond functional attributes.

A high IQ allows you to replicate webbed feet when you need them (flippers), and remove them when you don't need them.

Yes. But from an evolutionary standpoint that does not set us apart from other organisms any more than any other species particular unique traits set them apart. IE. it does not set us apart in a morally significant way, other than in matters where quantification becomes necessary for decision making.

We do, however, become more upset when an endangered species is killed instead of a common one, and I believe that this is an appropriate emotional response. I'm not certain what the best argument for this would be.

I would argue that it is appropriate, not because of some sort of quasi economic argument, but because the marginal loss in utility for a larger system is greater for the killing of an endangered species vs a common one. If a species disappears, its function in an ecosystem goes unfulfilled, leading to cascading effects throughout said system. This causes suffering. Suffering is bad. Therefore it is bad for a species to disappear. A common species is farther away from this than an endangered one.

That makes more sense. Though it still runs into the issue that the capacity for an organism to experience suffering is dependent on it having a certain phenotype that is, according to what you've written, no different than having a phenotype for webbed feet.

It is a functional characteristic essentially. Useful for different things certainly, but we are not dealing with a situation where the god-lights come down, and angels sing declaring that as a matter of cosmic importance, human intelligence and the human capacity to suffer are somehow favored by the universe and are of special value.

In this case they are just quantifiable characters that we measure in order to determine the relative weight of something that is of moral value.

Enough to permit infertility, seems reasonable. Which means one has to make allowances for ligers, tigons, etc, I guess. I wonder what the % of genetic difference is, between those species.

You will be amazed at exactly how rarely that measure works...

My basic premise is that humans are special. Because humans are special, it is human suffering that is most important. Asking why humans are special is about as pointless an exercise as asking somebody to explain the concept of the colour blue using nothing but words.

Um... No. Are you from Alberta or something? The level of stupidity I read in your posts is something I would expect from an Albertan redneck... (not to insult everyone from alberta. I am sure there are some nice intelligent people there. But it is from what I hear the canadian version of texas...)

The premise "suffering is bad" is self-evidently true to anything that has...a nervous system. It is valid prima facia, or on its face. The only way you can viably challenge this premise is to go Solipsist on me, and claim that you (as opposed to me) are the only entity that really exists. It is a premise that is either implicit or explicit in pretty much all ethics. if you would like to challenge me on this, feel free.

Your premise is not a basic premise, it is in fact the conclusion of what must necessarily be a much larger argument. As I have already gone over, that humans are special is not valid on its face. There are serious problems with this premise relating to metaphysics and many many teleological arguments for why it is not true, not the least being that for it to be true, there essentially has to be a god. Otherwise we spawned from the same process everything else did, and thus cannot be special in the way your position requires.

The rest of your pathetic argument falls apart from there.

[Graeme Dice]

That is probably our fundamental difference. I think the suffering of the duck matters directly to the duck, even if it cannot exactly quantify the suffering like we can. While your position is that it harms people who value the duck.

I think that's a reasonable summation. Though I would say that while the suffering still matters to the duck, the only entities who can quantify the relative suffering are humans. And thus, the weight we place on the suffering is determined by human thoughts on the matter. Does that make any sense?

Why does the duck's suffering in and of itself not matter? The duck has a brain. It perceives pain, and it has interests. Why does its pain not matter, but ours does?

I think that we are approaching the same effect from different angles. I think that it is a stronger argument to say "other humans place value on the duck, so you must also to minimize suffering" (where duck is a stand-in for non-sapient entities), than to say "the duck values itself, and thus you must also to minimize suffering." The end result should be the same.

Just because we are capable of abstract reasoning, we are certainly able to evaluate the suffering that the duck feels, and weigh options. But that only gives us the ability to make moral

I think that you are trying to say something along the lines of "ability to make moral judgments, not a metaphysical nature that makes us most important"? Is that close to correct?

When I use the word special, I dont mean in the sense that it is rare and nifty. I mean it in the sense that it is invested with a certain metaphysical property that gives it a particular significance that extends beyond functional attributes.

Okay. That makes sense.

Yes. But from an evolutionary standpoint that does not set us apart from other organisms any more than any other species particular unique traits set them apart. IE. it does not set us apart in a morally significant way, other than in matters where quantification becomes necessary for decision making.

I would argue that it sets us apart in a morally significant way because it enables us to make moral judgments in the first place. And thus it also gives us the responsibility to make _correct_ moral judgments.

I would argue that it is appropriate, not because of some sort of quasi economic argument, but because the marginal loss in utility for a larger system is greater for the killing of an endangered species vs a common one. If a species disappears, its function in an ecosystem goes unfulfilled, leading to cascading effects throughout said system. This causes suffering. Suffering is bad. Therefore it is bad for a species to disappear. A common species is farther away from this than an endangered one.

This is a good argument. I can see one tactic that people would use against it. What would you say to those people who would point out the endangered species who have functions that can be replaced by other species? While rare, these situations do exist in some ecosystems. I would prefer an ironclad way of arguing against this type of statement.

It is a functional characteristic essentially. Useful for different things certainly, but we are not dealing with a situation where the god-lights come down, and angels sing declaring that as a matter of cosmic importance, human intelligence and the human capacity to suffer are somehow favored by the universe and are of special value.

In this case they are just quantifiable characters that we measure in order to determine the relative weight of something that is of moral value.

I think I understand where you are coming from now. I didn't realize at first that you were referring to some kind of metaphysical nature when you were comparing intelligence to webbed feet.

[Kanastrous]

Enough to permit infertility, seems reasonable. Which means one has to make allowances for ligers, tigons, etc, I guess. I wonder what the % of genetic difference is, between those species.

You will be amazed at exactly how rarely that measure works...

Meaning that there are large numbers of animal species that are interfertile, or that interfertility is very rare?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Enough to permit infertility, seems reasonable. Which means one has to make allowances for ligers, tigons, etc, I guess. I wonder what the % of genetic difference is, between those species.

You will be amazed at exactly how rarely that measure works...

Meaning that there are large numbers of animal species that are interfertile, or that interfertility is very rare?

That there is a LOT of interfertility.

[Kanastrous]

Does that interfertility occur more in any particular orders or genii of organism, than others? How common is it among mammals?

[Alyrium Denryle]

Does that interfertility occur more in any particular orders or genii of organism, than others? How common is it among mammals?

Put it this way. It is not common among birds, which is what Ernst Mayr studied when he came up with the idea. But in amphibians and from personal experience, turtles... yeah...

I cant necessarily speak for other things.

[Kanastrous]

So if you happen to be living your life as a mammal, interfertility as a demarcating line doesn't necessarily sound like such a bad choice.

[Alyrium Denryle]

So if you happen to be living your life as a mammal, interfertility as a demarcating line doesn't necessarily sound like such a bad choice.

For species status, no. For ethics... Well species is not a morally relevant characteristic. The capacity for suffering is... so if you had some sort of hyper-intelligent pigeon that could experience existential distress...

[Kanastrous]

So if you happen to be living your life as a mammal, interfertility as a demarcating line doesn't necessarily sound like such a bad choice.

For species status, no. For ethics... Well species is not a morally relevant characteristic.

I'm still not seeing why that's true. At the basic level of what we eat, there is a virtually uniform distinction drawn between human meat and every other kind of meat - even societies that practice cannibalism mostly do it as ritual, rather than basic diet. Even people who eat people (cue Barbara Streisand) recognize that practice as having a distinct character that sets it aside from eating members of other species.

[Alyrium Denryle]

So if you happen to be living your life as a mammal, interfertility as a demarcating line doesn't necessarily sound like such a bad choice.

For species status, no. For ethics... Well species is not a morally relevant characteristic.

I'm still not seeing why that's true. At the basic level of what we eat, there is a virtually uniform distinction drawn between human meat and every other kind of meat - even societies that practice cannibalism mostly do it as ritual, rather than basic diet. Even people who eat people (cue Barbara Streisand) recognize that practice as having a distinct character that sets it aside from eating members of other species.

That is because eating people has a lot of issues associated with it that exist independently of other ethical concerns. Such as the possibility for disease, and religious connotations.

[General Zod]

I'm still not seeing why that's true. At the basic level of what we eat, there is a virtually uniform distinction drawn between human meat and every other kind of meat - even societies that practice cannibalism mostly do it as ritual, rather than basic diet. Even people who eat people (cue Barbara Streisand) recognize that practice as having a distinct character that sets it aside from eating members of other species.

That is because eating people has a lot of issues associated with it that exist independently of other ethical concerns. Such as the possibility for disease, and religious connotations.

Not to mention a severe diminishing return as far as nutrients go. Plus there's all kinds of meat that people just won't eat for any variety of reasons; a sizable majority of people in westernized countries find dog or horse meat just as repulsive as eating humans.

[Knife]

Plus there's all kinds of meat that people just won't eat for any variety of reasons; a sizable majority of people in westernized countries find dog or horse meat just as repulsive as eating humans.

That's more to do with psychology than with physiology.

[General Zod]

Plus there's all kinds of meat that people just won't eat for any variety of reasons; a sizable majority of people in westernized countries find dog or horse meat just as repulsive as eating humans.

That's more to do with psychology than with physiology.

Right, it was more to illustrate the point that people don't distinguish this purely on genetic similarity and that it's hardly uniform.