Speciesism
The right to equality is a fundamental concept in modern ethical theory and liberal political theory. Equality is not to be defined as having the exact same abilities - a woman can have an abortion but a man cannot. Rather, it is to be defined as the equal treatment of one person to the next.
Blacks and other minorities fought, and continue to fight, for their right to be treated equally. Feminists (at least the rational ones) continue to fight for the right to be treated equally. LGBT groups continue to fight for the right to be treated equally. There's even a burgeoning movement called "childism" that is advocating child rights of equality.
Non-human animals cannot fight for their right to be treated equally. They lack the ability to communicate to other animals, such as ourselves. They may or may not lack the ability of higher-order thought, depending on what species we're talking about. More and more empirical research, however, is supporting the theory that a vast amount of vertebrates, and even invertebrates, have a phenomenal consciousness and sentience. Our close cousins, the primates, undeniably have consciousness and a sense of self, as do agricultural animals, perhaps birds, and even fish. As more and more species' members are being theorized as having a phenomenal consciousness, it is actually up to the skeptic to provide good evidence as to why these animals don't have consciousness (mechanomorphia). After all, it was Darwin who argued that evolution does not jump, and it was Voltaire who criticized Descartes for the same reason (albeit without Darwinian theory).
Speciesism is therefore the equivalent to racism, sexism, and homophobia, but in terms of species of organism. It is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species (Singer). It is not a term used by animal-lovers exclusively - one does not need to love another person in order to recognize their right to equality.
What is interesting is that every conceivable argument against racism, sexism, or homophobia can be applied to speciesism. Appeals to nature are ad hoc assertions that use the naturalistic fallacy. Appeals to divine law either fail to resolve Euthyphro's dilemma or conflict with independent moral intuitions. Might=right arguments are straight up totalitarianism, as are appeals to cognitive abilities or any other sort of "fitness". Speciesism cannot be held up without leading to a slippery slope.
In other words, speciesism, just like its relatives, is a form of oppression; it is the disregard and domination of the animal kingdom simply because we can, and because it benefits us. Man is the pinnacle of existence - endowed by God himself as the image of himself, or endowed by the universe as the perfect machine of efficiency. In any case, this makes God or the universe particularly sinister in nature.
No, I cannot see any justification for speciesism. The exploitation of animals for profit (slavery) or consumption (murder), under some of the most inhumane conditions (abuse), is disgusting. This is not only an emotional argument, but a rational one - it is, under our modern concepts of equality, disgusting that animals are treated this way. The unnecessary hunting of animals for entertainment (murder), the experimentation of animals for "scientific progress" (torture), the disregard of the plight of wild animals (neglect) from disease, predation, or natural disaster, the ownership of animals for entertainment (slavery), etc - all of these result from an inability to empathize with animals of different species.
That is my position on this: speciesism is wrong and should be abolished in the same way racism, sexism, and homophobia have/should be. It is inconsistent to support the abolishment of the latter while ignoring the former. As Jeremy Bentham said:
"...But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can the reason?, nor Can they talk?, but, Can they suffer?"
Blacks and other minorities fought, and continue to fight, for their right to be treated equally. Feminists (at least the rational ones) continue to fight for the right to be treated equally. LGBT groups continue to fight for the right to be treated equally. There's even a burgeoning movement called "childism" that is advocating child rights of equality.
Non-human animals cannot fight for their right to be treated equally. They lack the ability to communicate to other animals, such as ourselves. They may or may not lack the ability of higher-order thought, depending on what species we're talking about. More and more empirical research, however, is supporting the theory that a vast amount of vertebrates, and even invertebrates, have a phenomenal consciousness and sentience. Our close cousins, the primates, undeniably have consciousness and a sense of self, as do agricultural animals, perhaps birds, and even fish. As more and more species' members are being theorized as having a phenomenal consciousness, it is actually up to the skeptic to provide good evidence as to why these animals don't have consciousness (mechanomorphia). After all, it was Darwin who argued that evolution does not jump, and it was Voltaire who criticized Descartes for the same reason (albeit without Darwinian theory).
Speciesism is therefore the equivalent to racism, sexism, and homophobia, but in terms of species of organism. It is a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one's own species and against those of members of other species (Singer). It is not a term used by animal-lovers exclusively - one does not need to love another person in order to recognize their right to equality.
What is interesting is that every conceivable argument against racism, sexism, or homophobia can be applied to speciesism. Appeals to nature are ad hoc assertions that use the naturalistic fallacy. Appeals to divine law either fail to resolve Euthyphro's dilemma or conflict with independent moral intuitions. Might=right arguments are straight up totalitarianism, as are appeals to cognitive abilities or any other sort of "fitness". Speciesism cannot be held up without leading to a slippery slope.
In other words, speciesism, just like its relatives, is a form of oppression; it is the disregard and domination of the animal kingdom simply because we can, and because it benefits us. Man is the pinnacle of existence - endowed by God himself as the image of himself, or endowed by the universe as the perfect machine of efficiency. In any case, this makes God or the universe particularly sinister in nature.
No, I cannot see any justification for speciesism. The exploitation of animals for profit (slavery) or consumption (murder), under some of the most inhumane conditions (abuse), is disgusting. This is not only an emotional argument, but a rational one - it is, under our modern concepts of equality, disgusting that animals are treated this way. The unnecessary hunting of animals for entertainment (murder), the experimentation of animals for "scientific progress" (torture), the disregard of the plight of wild animals (neglect) from disease, predation, or natural disaster, the ownership of animals for entertainment (slavery), etc - all of these result from an inability to empathize with animals of different species.
That is my position on this: speciesism is wrong and should be abolished in the same way racism, sexism, and homophobia have/should be. It is inconsistent to support the abolishment of the latter while ignoring the former. As Jeremy Bentham said:
"...But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can the reason?, nor Can they talk?, but, Can they suffer?"
Comments (210)
But only humans have articulate speech and so a capacity to master the habits of thought that we would associate with being self-conscious. For instance, we can fear our death. We can even fear the death of those animals particularly dear to us. So in reality there is a discontinuity there that would make a difference.
And then there is also a proximity argument. You may not like it, but it seems quite rational to be most concerned with everything that is closest to us. If a plane crashes in a foreign land, it is natural to care most about any tourists from our home country. And this is because it is only sensible to care the most about what we most directly can affect (or be affected by). It is irrational to just have a free-floating abstract empathy, regardless of differences in proximity.
So your starting point is a presumption of a world without gradations. And yet gradations exist. Any rational ethics would take account of the fact we are actually people embedded in a complex world, not souls living in moral Platonia.
There is not. You are asserting that propositional mental content is required for self-consciousness, or any sort of experience at all for that matter, when this is quite a big issue and actually has a lot going against it. Furthermore, humans are not the only ones with language - look at birds, dolphins, whales, primates, etc. They may not be as refined or poetic (capable of metaphors) as ours, but they act as a complex signalling device that offers the hypothesis that they realize who they are and that others like them exist.
In any case, it is clear from the behavior of animals that many, if not most, fear death, which is why suicide is almost unheard of outside of human civilization. It is clear that animals react to painful stimuli in similar ways that we do. It is clear they nurture their young and care about the pack. And until we have good evidence that animals aren't conscious in some sense (evidence is leaning the other way), it would be wise to act as if they do have consciousness.
Quoting apokrisis
I disagree. Hume pointed out how proximity matters in empathy, but he failed to recognize economic proximity. The super rich ignore the super poor right outside their doorstep. It's only natural to care for one's family - but tell that to Marx and see how he reacts.
Bottom line here is that appeals to proximity or emotional support groups (like nationalism) is tribalism, a worn-out doctrine that can and should be replaced by a cosmopolitanism.
Quoting apokrisis
I'm not really sure what you're saying here, but from what I can tell you are associating comfort with morality. So long as we follow the rules of the universe and obey our instinctual programming, we're being moral. Moral conventionalism, i.e. common-sense morality, rife with contradictions and arbitrary constraints on action.
What 'rules of the Universe' are you referring to? Scientific law? And 'being moral' requires deliberation, to the extent one 'obeys instinctual programming' then you're no different to animals, and there's no morality involved. Indeed the fact tha we can reflect on and amend our course of action, is one of the fundamental ways we differ from animals.
Richard Polt, Anything but Human.
No. On the basis of the science, I say that animals of course have experiences and can suffer (or enjoy). But also that it is clear that self-consciousness is a socially-evolved linguistic habit. So only humans can worry about things in an abstract fashion, viewing their own existence through a culturally-constructed lens.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Humans are the only ones with articulate language, as I say. The difference is in the capacity for grammatical structure and hence actually "rational" or abstracted trains of thought.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Nonsense. Animals don't contemplate suicide because they are not equipped for that kind of (socially constructed) kind of thinking about the fact of their own existence.
They don't "fear death", even if of course they are biologically wired to act in ways that promote their own survival.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Again, I am the first to say animals are aware. But it is a plugged into the moment or extrospective awareness. Humans have grammatical speech and so a new level of abstract symbolic thought.
Quoting darthbarracuda
That's not so hard if they live in a gated community with security and are tightly connected to a super rich view of life in which the poor only have themselves to blame for their poverty.
So I would hardly condone what you describe, but it is not a good example of why proximity is a relevant fact.
Quoting darthbarracuda
You got it. And from there, your extended family, your neighbours, your town, your nation. Or however else your social existence is in fact hierarchically organised in terms of co-dependent interactions.
It is not a bad thing. It would be irrational not to be most interested in those with whom there is the most common interests. Its normal social organisation.
Quoting darthbarracuda
That's my point. The loss of social cohesion is one of modern society's moral problems. Once people start caring more about highly abstracted wrongs than the wrongs they can see right under their nose, then things get out of kilter.
Cosmopolitanism presents no issue here as the proximity principle does not stop you have some generic views about humanity as a whole. Given that we are 7 billion people now crowded onto one small planet, cosmopolitanism is indeed a clear necessity.
Yet still, it matters that we live in structured fashion - that's what morality is all about. And it is the nature of that structure which I am addressing.
Quoting darthbarracuda
No need to jump ahead to any goals. I'm just talking about the fact that there are discontinuities that mark the continuity of the moral landscape.
I take the naturalistic view and so "it is all one cosmos". But then there is also a clear structure - an emergent hierarchical organisation, a self-balancing complexity - that is also part of this naturalness. And it would thus be only natural for that ontology to inform any moral reasoning.
We know what is natural. The debate then is whether to remain consistent with that or to strike off in a different direction because it is "reasonable" ... then supplying a good reason for deviating from nature.
This drift suggests to me that we find it hard to focus our rationality on the issue in question. We eat, experiment on and use for work and pet-loving leisure non-human animals. How shall we speak with any clear-sightedness about our attitude to them? We find it hard to imagine a commonality between 'us' and 'them', even if we theorise since Darwin that we abstractly accept there is a continuity.
I don't subscribe to an -ism like the op's - I'm not even sure that 'species' is that well-defined - but I completely agree on the benefits of rethinking our role in the ecology of where we live, and what respect we give to other creatures and the wider world we're in. We find it hard to imagine a finitude to the resources we exploit (and this includes other animals), so the Economics we live by imagines ravenous appetites and endless alternative sources of supply. But there are limits to appetites and souorces of supply, our Economics is mistaken in the long run. A shift in mindset would enable us to live more harmoniously with the earth . Greater respect for fellow animals would be one part of such a shift.
Yes, I find it odd that even those who super-anthropomorphise animals to the extent that they regard them as a sort of nobler human (thinking of many pet owners here, and even some scientists) rarely, if ever, admonish them for immoral behaviour, or for eating meat.
I couldn't help but laugh when I read this. It's no surprise that the white privilege mentality drives ideas like this. What is labeled as a fight against racism becomes racist itself as it paints a certain majority group with a broad brush - labeling all whites as racist.
Now all humans are speciests. All humans are at fault for being speciests while not acknowledging that all other animals are also speciests. Those damn speciests lions are always hunting down and eating those poor antelopes and those speciests bees won't have anything to do with those spiders. And why won't that armadillo have sex with me - a human? - it only has sex with other armadillos. It must be a speciest.
The fact is that even if you eradicated speciesm from humans you have only made a small dent in specieism as a whole. How are you going to change the minds of all those other animals and if you don't think it is necessary to do so, then you really aren't against specieism - just as Black Lives Matter isn't about all black lives - only about black lives ended by cops.
Disgust is an emotion, as is empathy. So how is it a rational argument?
There is very strong evidence to the effect that disgust is entirely a learned behaviour. We are disgusted by what we are taught to be disgusted by. Hence, the lack of disgust demonstrated by infants, and the huge differences in what is found disgusting across the world. So it is not unreasonable to see this as rational matter. That doesn't, of course, mean that the conclusions reached are right! Personally I find the argument to be a load of dingo's kidneys (mmmmm, kidneys - this calls for a fry-up tonight!)
Notably, it was also money behind the adoption of human rights with the industrial north merely taking advantage of another opportunity to exploit the cotton farmers of the south. Something like 80% of Americans at the time were against freeing the slaves and when the constitution was changed to grant them equal rights as citizens the first thing those with money did was to insist it be interpreted as meaning corporations are people.
The idea that sexism, racism, etc. have been eliminated is laughable. In fact, there are an estimated 350 million slaves in the world today and even in the state of Louisiana women are still making 66c on the dollar for the same work as men. Nor has communism provided any sort of viable alternative to the problem of money and power doing all driving and, until it is resolved, progress will remain piecemeal at best.
Perhaps the best argument today against speciesism and allowing money to continue to do all the driving is the simple fact that within twenty years commercial fishing will become impossible due to their no longer being enough wild fish left in the oceans while, within fifty, every wild land animal larger than dog is projected to become either extinct or only exist in zoos. Humanity is killing itself and ranting and raving about morality or whatever has proven to be all but totally useless. What we require is something that can compete better against the mindless practice of merely following the money wherever it leads.
I don't have a problem assuming that some non-human animals have consciousness. I definitely assume that.
But I don't consider non-human animals persons on the same level as human animals. That's not a factual matter. It's an issue of how I think about non-human animals versus human animals and what I require to consider animals persons in the way that I consider humans persons.
Of course, I'm a subjectivist/an individual-oriented relativist on ethics anyway. I don't have any ethical problem with keeping animals as pets, keeping them in zoos, having them perform in circuses, using them for meat, etc.
One of the points of abolishing speciesism is becoming an active role in the ecosystem - i.e. intervening and eliminating predation, helping diseased animals, etc.
Quoting apokrisis
Non-human animals are not capable of higher level thought process at the tier of humans, so they cannot be seriously expected to be moral agents. They can't even vote.
Yet they can suffer, and that's what matters. Many non-human animals have intellectual abilities on par or superior to babies, toddlers, and the mentally infirm. Yet these animals are often not seen as morally important.
Quoting apokrisis
This is not correct. Many animals are capable of experiencing depression. Look at dogs who lose their owners, they mope about and are unable to be cheered up. Or a mother sheep who loses her offspring.
Penguins actually have been recorded to kill themselves. If they cannot find a mate, they walk into the ice desert of Antarctica and die.
So to mitigate the suffering of non-human animals because they lack socially constructed propositional language is, as I see it, dogmatic and narrow-minded.
Quoting apokrisis
Right, but there's a difference between rational egoism and ethical altruism. Shelly spends an entire book debunking the notion that rational egoistic constraints can be rationally (in the non-egoistic way) applied to ethics. They're arbitrary.
Our abilities and our biases do not constrain morality. Morality need not be possible to attain for it to be so.
Quoting apokrisis
How so? Singer actually argues that if we adopted vegetarianism or something like this, we could solve a lot of the world's hunger problems.
But in any case, how does extending one's care for another being outside of one's neighborhood make the whole thing topple? I mean, there's an entire movement, Effective Altruism, dedicated to figuring out how people can still enjoy their lives while doing the most they can.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes, and I am advocating a moral non-naturalism. Nature is not inherently good, in fact many times it comes across as entirely indifferent or perhaps even sinister.
So yes, it is all "one cosmos" - yet we are also part of the cosmos, and we can feel, we can suffer. So any emergent, local phenomenon like morality is still going to be under the "one cosmos", but in a specific location. Applying holistic habits of thermodynamics to acute problems in morality obscures the identity of morality.
Quoting Wayfarer
For the record, I'm not advocating evolutionary ethics.
Quoting Michael
We need certain basic intuitions to get discussion off the ground. In terms of ethics, one of these intuitions is empathy. From there we can create rough logical syllogisms. In fact we don't even have to call anything (im)moral to get a point across. We can show how inconsistent our behavior is: for example, we would help a child who is drowning in a lake, so why wouldn't we help the child in Africa who is dying from malaria? We would help our dog if it was injured, so why wouldn't we help the rodent in the Amazonian jungle who is injured? We wouldn't experiment on humans, so why should we be allowed to experiment on animals?
Common-sense morality is filled with contradictions and arbitrary constraints, like I said.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Correct.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I wonder how you can be alright with this if you assume non-human animals have consciousness without lacking empathy or suffering cognitive dissonance.
Quoting Harry Hindu
This is a pragmatic argument that does not affect the legitimacy of the OP.
In any case, we would presumably change the minds of predators by eliminating them from the population and restructuring ecosystems so predators cannot exist en masse. A good way of doing this would be to limit the amount of foliage available for herbivores to eat. Thus the population of herbivores would decrease, and the population of carnivores would follow.
Quoting mcdoodle
Singer points this out in his book Animal Liberation and argues that the use of "animals" instead of "non-human animals" is merely for pragmatic efficiency, not to demean them in any way.
I don't see why it's inconsistent. Am I inconsistent if I eat a burger but not a hot dog? I don't think so. So why am I inconsistent if I help one person but not another?
Where has this "should" come from? You were just talking about what we actually do (and don't do).
Sure. But as you've already said, some people don't have empathy for (certain) non-human animals. So where do you go from there? Argue that people ought to have empathy for non-human animals? On what grounds would you justify such a claim?
In the case of burgers and hot dogs, no, you are not being consistent, but that's acceptable. You like burgers more than hot dogs.
But apply this reasoning to helping people. You would have to say that you like people of your own species more than people of different species, i.e. other people of different species don't matter.
This, I think, produces a feeling that adequately satisfies the open-ended question and shows how it is inconsistent to believe the latter but not the former, because the latter is a distinctively moral claim. I need not tell you that speciesism is immoral for you to come to your conclusion that speciesism is immoral.
Quoting Michael
Switch "wouldn't" to "shouldn't". Or vice versa.
That doesn't follow. Rather you should say "i.e. other people (?) of different species don't matter as much to you". And that's true, they don't. Humans matter to me more than frogs.
Believe what? That humans matter to me more than frogs? I don't understand how that's an inconsistent belief. There's no contradiction that I can see. Furthermore, it's a true belief. Humans really do matter to me more than frogs.
Then one can argue that the things that make it the case that one shouldn't experiment on humans don't make it the case that one shouldn't experiment on non-human animals.
For example, if as you say empathy is the starting point, and if it's immoral to experiment on things with which you empathise, then if you empathise with humans but not with non-human animals then it's immoral to experiment on humans but not immoral to experiment on non-human animals.
In two short paragraphs you completely undermine your own case. You simply cannot have your cake and eat it. Either animals are different to humans in which case the application of human ethical systems is a category error or they are identical in which case the application of human ethical systems is justified but must include all the consequent responsibilities and potential for forfeiture it entails.
Moreover you imply that humans have a right to be spared suffering of which there appears to be no evidence at all. So you're actually arguing for animals not to be treated equally with humans at all but to be given privileges far in excess of them. It simply won't wash.
If your barn's on fire and trapped within it are your wife, a complete stranger who just happened to be visiting, and a pig and you can only save two of them before the roof collapses which are the lucky two?
And you say you're not a specieist? Yeah, right!
First, remember that I do not consider non-human animals persons anywhere near the level of humans. Some I don't consider persons at all. The animals where we have better reasons to guess that they'd have anything like human consciousness and so be closest to us in terms of personhood are apes. We don't eat apes for meat, though. Most of the animals we commonly eat for meat are much further down the personhood scale.
If you're also asking about zoos, circuses, pets, etc., my opinion of those is quite positive--if I were most non-human animals I'd much rather live in a place where I'm constantly fed and kept safe from predators, natural disasters, etc.
Also, re your other comments, I don't base any ethical views on the concept of suffering. I don't do that for humans, either. The reason for that is that I think that suffering tends to be incredibly vague, and I don't at all agree that it's necessarily negative. I think that a lot of things that commonly fall under (those vague definitions of) suffering are rather positive instead if not neutral, including positive upshots but not just limited to that.
Eliminating predation? What by euthanasing all predators? Teaching spiders to be vegan? What are you even talking about?
Quoting darthbarracuda
Occam's razor says it is rational to seek the least complicated explanation of natural phenomena. I happened to be in Antarctica with penguin researchers a few years ago. And in fact a little group of penguins waddled right past the base heading in the wrong direction. They didn't look unhappy, just determined. The researchers said they get lost like that all the time as they seek out new living space. We headed them off and pointed them back where they came. But the researchers said most likely they would resume their trek after we had gone.
It's nature at work. If penguins never wandered, they'd never find new places to live.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Or the rational answer.
The conflict here is between the Enlightenment and the Romantic point of view.
The Enlightenment was about recognising humans as natural creations with a natural logic. We could consider the basis of human flourishing and create the social, political and ethical institutions to foster that. And recognising the continuity between humans and other animals was a big part of the new thinking.
So it is Enlightenment values that have steadily changed our treatment of animals (and races, and sexes, and the infirm/mentally ill/infantile) to reflect what we actually know about their capacity to suffer. That is what rationality looks like - consistent decisions based on accurate information.
Unfortunately you appear to be backing Romanticism instead. Every individual is a special creation. Absolute rights apply because something "is a mind" or "has a soul" in black and white fashion. Romanticism rejects shades of grey. A papercut is as bad as the Holocaust. Any flicker of suffering at all becomes a reason to say life in any form simply should not exist.
Romanticism is the ontology of choice for facists for good reason. Absolutism justifies irrationality in absolute fashion. That is why politically correct thinking - enlightened attitudes born out of rational realism - becomes something far more dangerous and unreasoning in the hands of those with romantically absolute habits of thought.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Again this just betrays the monotonic absolutism which gives you the answers you want to hear.
Back in the real world, complexity is the result of complexly (hierarchically) organised states of constraint. So there is never a single target to be shot for. Instead, we seek to organise our world so that it is separated into its more general constraints and its more particular constraints. So generally we might not want to cause suffering. But then many particular circumstances can rationally justify that.
Rational morality is all about having this well-integrated variety in our behavioural responses. We act in a way that is a negotiated balance of all the circumstances, both general and particular. That is why it takes quite a lot of time, training and effort to produce morally mature humans. Functional humans have to find complex decision-making to be second nature.
This is the reason for being impatient with simplistic romantic thinking. It is patently unadapted to the real world where moral action actually matters.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Sure, we could all eat powered seaweed and the planet might then support 20 billion people. But rather than one dimensional thinking like this, it would be more moral to recognise the huge complexity of the ecological disaster we are so busy manufacturing.
And that starts with understanding the fact that fossil fuels have been dictating human moral behaviour for the past 300 years in ways we only dimly perceive. There is a reason why climate deniers thrive.
So there is no point discussing morality in an abstracted absolutist fashion - especially in terms of what we would all hope for, but already believe could never be achieved.
We have real problems in the world which we need to solve. Your romanticism becomes Nero fiddling while Rome burns in that context. Veganism or anti-natalism is dangerously distracting - immoral behaviour - to the degree it degrades contemporary moral debate.
Quoting darthbarracuda
As I say, it is quite the opposite. Your promotion of fluffy irrealism is a dangerous distraction when there is a real debate that needs to be had.
In exaggerating the agency of the sentient individual, you are playing right into the hands of fossil fuel's desire for entropification. Removing social and cultural constraints on biologically-wired desires is exactly why rampant entropification is winning despite our own human long term interests.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Who was talking about "good" in some abstract absolutist sense?
Again you betray your Romantic ontology in worrying about what might "inhere" in material reality as if it might exist "elsewhere" in Platonically ideal fashion. If you understood Naturalism, you would see this couldn't even be the issue.
You point to the indifference of Nature - even its sinister character - as a way to sustain the standard mind/body dualism of Romanticism. You have to "other" the world in a way that justifies your absolute privileging of the self - the individual and his mind, his soul, his inalienable being.
But absolutism of this kinds works both ways - which is what historically makes it so philosophically dangerous.
In removing all moral determination from "the world" - and society and culture are the principle target there - the Romantic reserves all moral determination for "the self". So it suddenly becomes all right if you are a vegan or anti-natalist "like me". You don't actually need a reason. You get an automatic high five as a kindred spirit. Morality becomes reduced to a personal preference - the preferences the Romantic knows to be true because of the certitude of his feelings about these things.
I'm talking about radical restructuring of the ecosystems of the world in the same way first world countries restructure the political and economic structures of developing nations.
As I've explained before, as has been affirmed elsewhere (see the Foundational Research Institute), constraining the amount of foliage results in less herbivores and even less predators. Decrease the amount of foliage so that the herbivore population is manageable and the carnivore population is eliminated.
But this is merely pragmatic issues, not on the level of theoretical normative ethics.
Quoting apokrisis
No, it's recorded that penguins remove themselves from their society and die in the middle of nowhere. They are tracked and found to die miles away from the ocean. There is video evidence of penguins looking back at their clan as if they are looking back in forlorn. They know exactly what they're doing.
In the wake of uncertainty, we should opt for the most inclusive position - that of assuming animals can suffer, and not jumping to conclusions that inevitably marginalize potential sufferers.
Quoting apokrisis
Absolutely not. It was the Enlightenment after all that produced the Cartesian view of animals as simply "machines" that has persisted for centuries.
I'm not sure why you keep trying to reduce my arguments to the binary Enlightenment/Romantic view.
Quoting apokrisis
Straw man.
Quoting apokrisis
No, it's not, because there's a difference between normative ethics and practical applied ethics. I am under no delusion that veganism will be adopted worldwide. This does not change the truth of my claims, though.
You're operating under the assumption that what we can fix is all we ought to fix. This limits the content of our theories.
Quoting apokrisis
Maybe it's time to realize that entropy will always dominate our future interests. Hence why I said that the universe can sometimes seem almost sinister.
Quoting apokrisis
No, I really don't, stop telling me what my views are.
Quoting apokrisis
And you seem content with diminishing this perceived rift between the self and the rest of the world as if it's not important at all, thus shifting the focus of ethics from people as they perceive themselves as people to some abstract universal concept of entropy. We are part of the world, yes, but we also seem apart of the world as well. There is a larger picture at play, thermodynamic entropification, that we don't easily identify with. This is the "other" in which I speak, not in an ontological manner but a phenomenological manner.
Quoting apokrisis
Well, I mean I am a consequentialist. I would prefer if you were vegetarian and antinatalist for good reasons, but what matters ultimately is how your actions are affected by your views regardless of their justification.
There is another angle from which to think of "speciesism" which is to say that thinking about an individual in terms of being a member of a species is a denial of personhood. So, whether in relation to humans or non-humans, to think of them in terms of 'species' is a rejection of the idea that they can be persons.
The question then becomes; Is it necessary for individuals to be capable of conceiving of themselves as 'person' for them to qualify as a person?
Quoting John
Personhood brings so much to the table. To be a person would seem to mean you should have bodily autonomy, the ability to participate in politics, pursue your dreams, etc.
But personhood is not necessary for an organism to suffer. So the ability to conceive of oneself as a person is not identical to ethical importance.
I don't think you saw the direction or relevance of what I said judging from your first couple sentences.
It is only in the context of personhood that ethics becomes thinkable. Of course we, as ethically thinking persons can consider the ethics of our behavior towards non-persons, even towards the whole impersonal world.
Do we have good reasons to believe that animals practice ethics? Even highly intelligent ones? Chimpanzees band together to kill fellow chimpanzees.
See here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPznMbNcfO8
Bottlenose dolphins slaughter porpoises and apparently even their own young.
See here: http://scribol.com/environment/animals-environment/bottlenose-dolphin-the-only-marine-animal-that-kills-for-fun/
For such behavior to be considered unethical the ability to think ethically must be imputed.
The species of speciesism that bothers me the most is that which reduces the person to being a mere member of a species, utterly determined by nature, genetics, culture and so on; because this is a denial of the real sense and possibility of ethics, and a denial of personality itself.
Anthropomorphic nonsense. And dangerous for the reasons I've outlined.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I think Descartes produced that Cartesian view as part of sustaining the transcendental self of theism.
Science certainly promotes popular notions about reality being a mechanism. But scientists - especially if they biologists - know that the reality is in fact organic. So bodies are not simply machines, but complexly/semiotically machines, and thus not really machines at all.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I'm seeking to limit theorising to what is rational. Your OP claimed to want rational thinking. I have shown how your views are actually informed by the irrationalism, the dualism, the transcendence, the absolutism, that are all the hallmarks of Romanticism.
We can't even talk about the fixing until we have a proper understanding of the thing we might claim to be broken in some fashion.
Quoting darthbarracuda
My point is that Romanticism gets in the very way of the problems that it might want to solve. If folk see themselves apart from the world, then they are not going to act in ways that could improve things.
If you spend all your time worrying about the pain lions inflict on zebra, you are never going to contribute in useful fashion to the real moral consequences of collective human behaviour for both lions and zebra.
Quoting darthbarracuda
You lost me there. How can the justification not be basic?
The problem is that if people see themselves in terms of the world they will inevitably come to deny their own freedom and responsibility; their selfhood, This may already be seen in the way the scienitfc image of the human as being just another species leads to an inability to see humans as anything other than completely determined by nature, genetics and/or culture.
No, it's not anthropomorphic nonsense. These penguins are acting in what we perceive to be distinctly human. We should view them as capable of sentience (until proven wrong), just as we don't throw out SETI transmissions as just pulsating stars, despite the likelihood of them being just pulsating stars. In the case of animals, there is no defined and systematic definition of sentience, and the scale is tipped towards sentience anyway.
Furthermore I fail to see how this is dangerous. Identifying and empathizing with another animal? How horrible! I should obviously be focused on my species...cause my species is da best. :-}
Quoting apokrisis
To quote Voltaire, then, if animals cannot feel or have no sentience - then why are their bodies structured and their behaviors so as if they do feel and have sentience?
Quoting apokrisis
No, you claim that my views are irrational. They are not. They are informed by science, informed by ethical theory.
Put yourself in the shoes of a lab mouse. Do you really think it would be alright for the scientists to experiment on you just because they think you're not actually "there"?
What could possibly be so important as to warrant the ignoring of the suffering of other beings?
Quoting apokrisis
I'm not spending all my time worrying about it - I'm doing something about it by contributing to Effective Altruism programs (the most significant and effective means to help others currently under the Sun). What you see as complaining is me attempting to convince others.
Do you think there is a problem or not in regards to animal suffering? How am I wasting time by pointing out what I see to be problems? Essentially your position comes down to "I don't quite agree with what OP is saying, therefore he is wasting is time." Nonsense.
Quoting apokrisis
Because I'm not a deontologist. Intentions don't matter to me. As long as the best possible state of affairs acquires, justification doesn't matter. The best possible state of affairs is going to be the best because of right reasons. though. It's the same reasoning behind a political party - lots of different viewpoints, but somehow they all come together to support a single candidate. Each person believes the candidate to be the best, despite having differing reasons, and these differing reasons don't concern them so long as the candidate is elected.
I disagree. I know science gets the blame for Scientism, but science is perfectly capable of understanding organisms as organisms. And a capacity for creativity and autonomy fits quite happily into the organic perspective. This is why biologists think computer scientists are a little nuts when they talk about artificial this and that.
So yes, there is definitely the widespread notion that reality is a machine, deterministic in its detail and meaningless as a whole. But this is a caricature of the relevant science, not a view that the science supports.
My question then is to whose advantage is it that a mechanical disposition has become wired in to much of modern culture? And how does that wrong view coexist so happily with what should seem its exact opposite - the Romantic view of life?
My argument is that scientists (in the relevant fields) don't really believe that nature is "just a simple machine". The scientist would instead be the first to stress the intimate interconnectedness of individuals and their cultures, human social systems and planetary ecologies.
But a belief that the world is just a bunch of mindless material to be exploited, coupled to the belief that the individual mind has transcendent importance, goes together as the moral justification for the way our politics and economies have become structured.
Even though the two things seem to be speaking in opposite ways, in both privileging the most self-centred possible view of life, they both act to remove social and cultural constraints on individual action. And thus - even in their conflict - they co-exist and thrive.
So you can't oppose Scientism with Romanticism. They are both riding the same wave of entropification.
Only Naturalism can see this is the case and so perhaps do something about it. But what hope is there in a world where people can pass off forlorn suicidal penguins as empirical evidence of something? That romanticism is just the flipside of thinking of penguins as disposable flesh automata.
I'm watching Westworld. Consider the co-dependency of these memes there. The machine that comes alive - has a soul. Scientism and Romanticism need each other as thesis and antithesis. Meanwhile the extravagant desires of fossil fuel slip past unnoticed. Whichever way you think you go - mechanistic exploitation or maximal individual autonomy - you are endorsing the one grander entropic scheme as in practice they amount to the same thing.
Individualism wants to shed all constraints - social and ecological - and so finds itself plugged directly into fundamental thermodynamics, the most general and mindless constraint that can't be avoided.
You are welcome to present the scientific evidence then. As I say, I've seen what you are talking about first hand and talked to the researchers who live with the colonies.
Quoting darthbarracuda
It is probably pointless repeating myself here but I am the last to claim animals lack experience or phenomenology. Jumping spiders are one of my favourite cases.
But my argument is that we then have to define sentience or consciousness in ways that aren't anthropomorphic. We have to talk about the neuroscientific reality rather than just projecting some image of consciousness we have developed onto animals universally.
Having studied the comparative neurology of critters like jumping spiders and avians, I think I am well placed to do just that.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Well yeah. One of the reasons for not actually doing that kind of research myself was that in the end I could not stomach it. After cutting up bodies for biology, shocking rats and frogs for psychology, and then discovering what really goes on in neuroscience animal laboratories, it became too much to continue going down that line.
But that was the 70s. The ethics is not perfect these days, but they have been hugely cleaned up. In terms of these kinds of issues, I have seen immense and continuing change on all fronts.
However it has been achieved on a rational basis, one capable of understanding the notion of reasonable trade-offs.
You however argue in terms of absolutes. And when the evidence is not there, you invent it - like these forlorn suicidal penguins deciding to die by trekking inlands rather than just stepping off the beach into the waiting jaws of the local orca pack.
Quoting darthbarracuda
In fact I care a lot about animal suffering and ecology generally. The difference is that I don't have to invent the facts that would support a simple-minded absolutism. I've studied the science and that informs my ethical position.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I still don't follow you. But doesn't simply mentioning Trump and Clinton create a problem here?
You would make a good science fiction writer... The problem is that you yourself, apokrisis, WANT a goal to happen- that of humans working together to achieve some sort of stability. To do this, we must put on the proper constraints to do so. Apparently humans are around to put on the appropriate constraints so that we "fix" some sort of over-entropification. For what reason we must fix things, is not stated other than the generic "flourishing" which, to be frank, seems quite Romantic of you. Flourishing of what? The arts? The sciences? The mind's ability to work out problems and create X stuff that YOU, Mr. Apokrisis find to be worthy? This all sounds quite individualistic (by this I mean Apokrisistic).. But you will wrap this in terms of the idea that Apokrisis speaks for the holy Naturalism which apparently you intuit and spread work of through your pontifications regarding it.. thus It cannot be refuted like a mere mortal tries to disprove a the prophet (but this time of Naturalism).. The universe speaks to Apokrisis about recruiting US the humans into making sure we balance things out (entropically speaking)...
Apokrisis, lay it out less obtusely in bullet points, what is it that humans "should" do? There is a certitude of "objectivity" of the human "should" that you really never get at other than "overusing oil sucks because it leads to ruining the planet so let's stop that" and "humans can flourish and there is some kind of vague thing (insert preferred study of some psychological preferences)". Why humans need to be around to fulfill preferences that may or may not be true (which can be it's own debate) is not explained other than circular reasoning.. But I'd like to see you try.
It's not absolutism. If lab rats are being used to cure cancer, and this is only way to do it, then I'll support the effort. After all, I am a consequentialist. Conseqentialists tend to be rule-breakers and non-conformists, although the ends justify the means.
It's when we start talking about hunting animals for fun, eating the flesh of a dead animal for enjoyment, and ignoring the plight of predation and the infirm of the animal world, that I start to have problems with your and others' worldview. It's inconsistent.
Lab rats can suffer, but they aren't to be seen as ethically important, despite you yourself saying you don't have the stomach to deal with them in the lab?
It's not clear how science should be the ultimate guide to morality. Given that we can see that lab rats behave as though they suffer, that pigeons behave as though they can learn, and that ants behave as though they can recognize themselves in the mirror, shouldn't we give them the benefit of the doubt? Shouldn't we believe them to be sentient and thus ethically important before dismissing their lives? Don't you think an sentient shouldn't have to pass some test in order to qualify for ethical treatment?
Not having the stomach to dissect animals isn't the issue here: the issue is dissecting the animals in the first place when there's no good reason to.
Quoting apokrisis
That's like saying a suicidal person should've just shot themselves instead of CO2 poisoning themselves. Animals can feel fear too.
So it IS justified that they suffer for our benefit? We should shut them in horrible little cages, give them a disease and also drugs, just to see what happens? Or even just give them enough of the drug to discover for a start what is the lethal dose?
This seems confusingly at odds with what you have been saying.
Quoting darthbarracuda
It is hardly inconsistent that I would weigh up the trade-offs of curing cancer in the same way as anything else. But it is inconsistent that you seem to think inflicting suffering in the name of cancer research is OK for some reason that does not apply to the other cases you cite.
Quoting darthbarracuda
My position is that nature constitutes existence. Science is our best inquiry into the character of that existence. Morality should be based on a proper understand of nature as morality is about our actions in the world.
So science doesn't tell you the answer in some way that is different to what we already would do in exercising rationality. It just is the method of inquiry which provides the picture of what is the case regarding the world, the context of our behavioural actions.
Quoting darthbarracuda
OMG. Here we go again! You must be punking me. Congrats.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Well you keep making the presumption about me being the blithe vivisectionist. I'm quite willing to draw my own lines in life.
But my point is that doing so is a complicated ethical business. And right at the beginning I highlighted at least two key issues - human cognition and social proximity - that you left out in your simplistic OP.
And the issue matters to me as you are representing attitudes which claim the status of rational argument but are essentially wishful romantic absolutism.
I still think I made a fine point regarding your ethical stances.. Your claims are simply hypothetical imperatives that you have somehow found more pressing or dominant than others.. The only two I really fathom if I was to put all the "positive" (meaning not criticisms but stances you advocate) are the following:
1) We should work socially (like some Star Trek fashion..at least moderate environmentalist) to preserve nature/the planet, specifically to do away with the dependency on fossil fuels so that humans can exist farther into the future so that they can...
2) Flourish
Claim 1 is simply a truism in modern political (albeit "liberal") aims. It's true that it is not a priority as it could be, and it might also be true that it needs more "willpower" by the nations/actors involved in lessening greenhouse gasses and overuse of fuels for various industrial goods.. BUT
It is also just a hypothetical imperative... One can just as easily go for and to all wars and conflicts, a more robust education system on the sciences, a more equitable distribution of goods, etc. etc. All are just as social and just as pressing in certain areas of the world.
These kind of vague social actions that we all must "work together" towards are not justifications in themselves, but simply asserted goals... "If one wants X outcome.. one would do X thing..". Putting aside the real life challenges of implementing any effort to get a lot of people to put forth effort to achieve an outcome, the real issue is why one assertion matters over another.. THAT needs justification other than circular reasoning. This means it needs more than just arguing "Well don't YOU want this too!! It's so evident..because I see it... I mean, come on people!!" Yeah, that's not much of a justification. Common sense or "it just makes sense" is speaking as if facts just lead to conclusions on their own.. That the universe just speaks to us through common sense.. If that is your position, then fine, but you REALLY have to hone in that whole common sense being the language of the universe thing...
And onto Claim 2.. Flourishing.. What does that mean?
Why do we have to flourish?
What is it about existing that flourishing MUST take place? What NECESSITATES flourishing as having to be done in the first place?
Flourishing, happiness, tranquility and the like are so vague as to be useless unless expanded on in detail.
My point is that there is a choice - both choices natural in themselves.
So we could create a lifestyle that is predicated on the exponential liberation of fossil fuel. And that's fine in itself. It is not unnatural. Just a rather "live fast, die young" collective strategy.
Or we could seek to construct a lifestyle that is sustainable - one based on renewable energy. That is a conservative and homeostatic ambition - although one that could still be high growth depending on the realities of what we can achieve technologically.
And then more than that, I am saying there are reasons why fossil fuels are winning and not renewables. It is inevitable - usually - that the more urgent desire rules. But hey, we're supersmart humans. So maybe we do have a choice in the matter after all. So let's get talking about that in ways which are realistic.
Quoting schopenhauer1
That's the trouble. Its like allowing McDonalds to exist and hoping a nation exercises its willpower. As soon as you frame the collective problem in this classically romantic fashion - one in which "individual will" is at the centre of everything - then the battle is already lost. A faulty philosophy is going to be the reason you fail.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Its hierarchical reasoning, not circular reasoning. There's no point fussing about the details if the general structure is not right. And life on earth being a thermodynamic equation - a proton gradient - that balance is the one 7 billion homo sapiens most urgently need to attend to.
You know Maslow's hierarchy of needs right? That is hardly circular is it? More triangular. :)
Quoting schopenhauer1
Did you ever check out positive psychology? What they mean in practice is hardly a secret. Although no-one is going to promise you that you can have it all. That's what Romaticism promises you - and why your life consequently feels like shit because you are so far from what is being promised.
Where does this crazy idea of its "perfection or nothing" come from? Mostly from being conned by a modern individualist and consumerist culture.
Pessimist philosophy in that context is then learnt helplessness - seeking escape from the game as if there is no other alternative.
Yet it is just a game. The rules can be rewritten.
Well up to a point, the ultimate limits being that it still has to be a thermodynamic game. Even suicide only recycles the parts, advances the dissipation, a little ahead of time. There are no perpetual motion machines in this existence.
Again, hypothetical imperative.
Quoting apokrisis
Why this "romantic fashion" stuff? I was just discussing the willingness to follow your hypothetical imperative. Nothing about individual wills.. I would assume the legislatures and executive branches would or whatever governments would have to agree and follow through with it.. call that what you will...but your tendency for being dismissive at all costs.. prevents you from actually elaborating on much of your own detail. That seems reasonable being that you are more vulnerable for criticism if you actually have something to claim versus simply taking the critical stance.
Quoting apokrisis
So it does go back to Maslow's hierarchy, eh? So what makes it hierarchical? What does that even mean in any sense that is not simply a hypothetical imperative? There is nothing of necessity, only of unjustified assertions that X is our goal...but don't ask why.
Quoting apokrisis
Yep..pretty much where I thought you were going. So the goal to have humans is to have them practice positive psychology? Hmm. Why? Also, sounds like instrumentality is still an issue.
Benefit, in this case, is defined as the minimization of harm - harm that is more significant than the harm being applied to the lab rats. The doing/allowing harm distinction does not apply very well in consequentialist ethics.
Quoting apokrisis
Because we don't need a burger to survive. We don't need to go to the circus to have fun. All of these are examples of exploitation without reason.
If you had the choice between synthetic meat and natural meat - why would you choose the natural meat? The difference between them is that an animal suffered/was killed for your enjoyment.
Quoting apokrisis
You got the last part right, but you got the first part wrong partly. Science can help inform our decisions. But to say that what science discovers is what is moral is the naturalistic fallacy.
For every naturalistic claim you present, we can always ask "but is it really moral?" because it does not satisfy the open-ended question.
Quoting apokrisis
??? It's known that ants have sometimes reacted in such a way as to warrant the consideration of them having at least a rudimentary sense of self, when they scrape off the paint on their heads. The same applies to birds, dolphins, etc.
Given that neuroscience is in such a baby state right now, we really ought to not be surprised if it actually turns out that different animals can have different ways of experiencing the world, or can attain self-hood in different manners.
At this point you're just ignoring evidence. There is a much higher need for rigorous evidence to show that we ought to not treat something ethically, while if there's any doubt in our mind that they might be sentient, we have an ethical imperative to treat them equally, or at least with basic respect.
Quoting apokrisis
Because these don't matter to morality. They may matter to the pragmatic application of morality but this changes nothing about the theoretical aspects of morality.
Good point.. and what seems to be a theme.
Good job I don't say that then.
Getting back to what I did say, why should I treat any notion of the good as something transcendentally abstracted from existence? So naturalism can't be a fallacy in that light. Any rational definition of the good can only make sense within the context of that which exists.
You ought to recognise this from the argument you wanted to make about the irreality of nothingness.
Quoting darthbarracuda
After looking in the mirror? References please.
I think where we are going to disagree is in regard to the meaning of autonomy. For me autonomy consists in the possibility of self-determination in the fullest sense. To be fully self-determined is to not be determined by ego at all. We must be capable of some degree of self-determination to even begin, or to be morally responsible for our actions. This is what it means to be a person, and a person cannot be reduced to a mechanism or even to an organism, for that matter, in my view.
Kant had the right idea, although I don't entirely agree with his method of thinking. He separates reality into the empirical, which is rigidly determined by causality, and the noumenal, which is not. The noumenal leaves room for Kant to believe in God, freedom and immortality.
It might rightly be said that the mechanistic paradigm is no longer relevant, but I can't see how the probabilistic paradigm offers any more hope for a coherent account of autonomy in the fullest sense than the mechanistic paradigm did.
So, for me the way forward is to accept that we cannot give an account, in terms of the world, in terms of biology, genetics and sociology, of radical freedom and responsibility, and the selfhood that is constituted by them. Any account we give will merely be of a watered down faux-freedom, faux-responsibility and faux-selfhood. There is a very important place for mystery, after all. I'm pretty sure this won't be to your taste, though. :)
There is actually some evidence on this front: http://www.journalofscience.net/File_Folder/521-532%28jos%29.pdf
Evidence of what, though, even the authors do not appear to know.
It's one giant leap to employ this 'evidence' as it has been in this thread.
The slippery slope is in assuming that because we believe racism, sexism, and homophobia wrong that we cannot discriminate against anything ever. Why can we eat vegetables, use rocks to build buildings, imprison murderers, own pets, kills roaches in our house, etc.? The difference between rocks, roaches, pigs, and people relates to degrees (or lack of) consciousness, ability to comprehend, and intellectual capacity.
Naturalism says something pretty similar and also exactly opposite based on Peircean semiotics.
So in the semiotic view, autonomy results from the separation of material cause and symbolic cause - the modelling or sign relation. Life is self-determining because it can use remembered/encoded constraints to regulate material/energetic processes.
But this is freedom constructed from "inside" the material flow - arising immanently - and not sourced from without. So it leaves no room for souls, gods, immortality or freedom in some transcendent sense.
So naturalism has an empirical model of what it is talking about - one that can be concretely tested and measured.
Autonomy in the real world is all about turning the accidental - the world's material degrees of freedom - into a useful habit.
The problem I have is that I am unable to see how anything more than an illusion of freedom could result from a semiotic process; if it is understood as entirely materially based. Real freedom cannot be explained for the reason that to do so would make it determinable; which is a contradiction. So I would say it is only a purported freedom (which could never be more than a cognitive illusion of freedom) that can be discursively explained.
Yep. I googled and found that. So what is your assessment of its credibility?
The researchers do look credible and their university is reputable. But the paper is published in a rubbish journal and has attracted zero comment. This is a red flag given the result should have really made waves.
For instance, it should have got a reaction like the finding that wasps can learn to recognise the faces of nest mates - http://www.nature.com/news/wasps-clock-faces-like-humans-1.9533
And also the authors make some rather weird comments such as " It is logical that ants try to clean themselves if they see such a strange marking on their head".
It hardly seems logical that such a behaviour could have evolved given when in history has any ant ever before seen itself? Ants don't live in a world of mirrors.
Also, even if the finding holds up, there is other evidence that would argue that the behaviour is not the result of an integrated state of consciousness - the ant brain being too small to support that - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/weve-been-looking-at-ant-intelligence-the-wrong-way/
But the experiment as described seems robustly designed. It builds on other work from the same authors. So if it can be replicated, I'm sure it will create a stir.
It is the sort of result I can't believe can be true. Or if it is, it must have a simpler explanation. Yet even that simpler explanation - as with all recent work on arthropod cognition - is going to be surprising.
And surprising because we do project a mechanistic/robotic notion of how brains should work on to neurology. But we are only starting to get to grips with brains in terms of organic or semiotic theories of "computation".
We underestimate insects because we think of them as mindless automatons.
Yet also, like DC, we also underestimate the gap that a new level of semiosis - articulate language - then opens up between humans and all other animals.
So if this ant finding holds up, I would say it makes the mirror test an even less credible test of "self consciousness" than it already was.
You literally just said that our morality should be based on scientific discoveries. Doesn't get any more naturalistic than this.
But why? Why should we entropify? Why should we breed and sustain a manageable population and energy output?
The answer to this is that we should do so, not because that is what the universe does, but because doing so presumably will make us happy, comfortable, etc.
Thus the actual point of ethical importance is agential well-being. If you want to argue that the best way of doing this is by following the march of entropy, then fine. But that's just scientifically-informed utilitarianism.
But again, how we focus on welfare is more of a practical and applied ethical issue than a purely normative ethical issue. For you need to have normative ethics before you can even start applying them. Without defining your normative ethical priorities, you end up prescribing action without reason.
Quoting apokrisis
Well, in my opinion (which I've said before), you shouldn't. Goodness is such a queer property that it would be quite difficult to actually find goodness "out there". Hence why I'm an anti-realist: our mental states define and encompass all that is moral. None of this changes anything substantial.
Quoting apokrisis
https://www.sciencedaily.com/terms/mirror_test.htm
http://www.animalcognition.org/2015/04/15/list-of-animals-that-have-passed-the-mirror-test/
Ants, admittedly, are probably more of a fluke than anything. But the fact that they scratched off the paint means that, potentially, they are able to recognize what is "normal" in their colonies, and recognize that there are "others" - the recognition of the "other" requires a separation between the other and the self.
Denying this possibility is speciesism, or the disregard of others' rights just because you doubt they have sentience (since it's neither proven nor disproven that they have sentience). It is an unethical leap of faith.
No, it's not genocide. It's humanitarianism. Animals cannot take care or advocate for themselves in the way humans can. They live more on instinct than rationality - yet they can suffer all the same. All non-agents are free of responsibility - ethically innocent.
What the ^&$# is humanitarian about letting animals starve to death? You're making no sense at all!
First, Peircean semiotics takes spontaneity as fundamental. So it already rejects a deterministic ontology even at the cosmological level. In this fashion, it foresaw the shocks of quantum mechanics and complexity theory. It starts with a probabilistic worldview in which chance is inherent.
So there is the raw material - a built-in spontaneity. And then complex systems arise by the regulation of this spontaneity. A complex system can bend chance to its will, harness material accidents so that they achieved desired outcomes.
A Newtonian view of material existence of course makes all spontaneity a paradox. But Newtonianism just describes the Universe as it is in a highly dissipated state - within a degree or two of its final heat death. In talking about life, we are talking about existence that is 300 degrees C hotter, sitting in that heat sink which is 300 degrees C cooler. So there is a huge gradient to exploit - given also the solar radiation arriving at a temperature of about 5000 degrees.
Chance is thus taken for granted. And life sits in the middle of a flow of chance - solar radiation bouncing its way quantumly towards cosmic background radiation. So all life has to do is organise that chance using semiotic machinery.
This is physically what happens. Life is based on respiratory chains - complex proteins that take the energy off an excited election in seven or so steps by setting up a chain of quantum tunelling events. The chain is a sequence of sub-units set apart by precise distances that organises the milking of the electron's energy as a series of discrete and habitual "accidents".
So the underlying quantum behaviour is pure probability. But proteins are coded structures that then give cosmic accidents no choice but to bounce down life's carefully arranged flight of stairs.
So self-determination can be explained now in terms of the biophysics where it first arises. Biology has made contact with the quantum ground of being - via semiotic explanation.
Of course, it is then all "materially based". But it is nothing like materiality as would be traditionally conceived - the Newtonian description of a basically dead and dissipated cosmos. It is materiality regulated by symbol systems.
Which is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't encompass any over-arching goal, purpose or telos. It might be more equitable for animals, but less so for the 'rational animal'.
It is often said that 'human flourshing' is now a worthwhile goal in its own right, but what constitutes 'flourishing' in the absence of any over-arching good? It easily becomes a matter of opinion and then collapses into relativism.
Endless economic growth seems to be the motive force behind liberal economic theory, however we are rapidly running into absolute constraints as the population rapidly reaches Malthusian limits. And furthermore even within the developed economies, where we are supposed to enjoy the benefits of that progress, there is widespread dissillusionment and unhappiness, as evidenced by rates of suicide, mental illness and substance abuse.
I don't know if that was Peirce's view - he after all remained Christian in some sense, and presumably believed in Heaven.
I would rather believe that the mythos of transcendent freedom and immortality, actually represents a culmination of the evolutionary process - that (like the view of 'evolutionary enlightenment') we are evolving towards a higher state, one which doesn't solely define itself in economic or biological terms.
But without it, what does freedom amount to, if it's not simply economic choice? I think this is the perceived lack that drives the idea of the conquest of space. Having dispensed with the spiritual notion of heaven, we wish to 'conquer the heavens' instead, using advanced technologies as a way of indefinitely expanding the domain of the natural. There's 'transcendence' - albeit expressed in terms that scientists and engineers can relate to.
Sorry but that is precisely the kind of presumption that I would be willing to question. I wouldn't use it as a starting point.
So what I would say is that flourishing and well-being are widely felt to be important as the basis for any ethical system. It reflects what would seem to be inescapably our own self-interest.
But I would then step back from the phenomenological justification to inquire about the natural basis. Why would humans have evolved (both biologically and culturally) to feel this way? And that is where we can see that it makes sense thermodynamically. Life exists as negentropy, or little pockets of organisation, so as to assist the Cosmos in its general entropic flow.
So stepping back to the bigger physical picture - as best we so far understand it through the systematic inquiry of science - we can see that human ethical systems do have a naturalistic logic. They are rational in terms of the rationality of the Cosmos.
You just want to start with "how it feels to me". I am interested in the hypothesis that "how it feels" is always going to be naturally rational. And the hypothesis is holding up pretty good.
As I say, many might be puzzled by climate denial, rampant consumerism, neo-liberalism, gated communities, McDonalds. These seem unnatural and unethical behaviours - according to PC romantic notions that are widespread.
Yet a shift in the entropic basis of the species now can make those behaviours "ethical" and natural. If we endorse the desires of fossil fuels, the things we might object to are in fact morally right.
And if we still feel they are wrong (which I tend to) then we have to dig into just why. And that is where the alternative of a slow burn sustainable entropification can be considered. We can now argue objectively why this is a better moral paradigm.
So my approach to ethical systems presumes nothing except that the Cosmos is rational. Nature has an over-arching self-organising logic. And that then presents us with the choice of either living within that logic or acting counter to it. And in fact, we can't act counter to it in any fundamental sense. But that still gives us a range of choices about the level of "harmony" we opt for.
And again I stress the empirical nature of all this. After making the broadest of presumptions - existence makes its own sense - it then becomes a matter of discovering what the fundamental nature of nature actually is.
Science has the advantage it is an open-ended process of learning. So we can get as close to the truth of things as we feel it matters. The answers one might have given 300 years ago would be much less informed than the ones we can give today.
Quoting darthbarracuda
As I have argued, I would always seek to begin with the fewest presumptions about what might be the case. So the guiding norm would be the expectation that the Cosmos is rational. Nature lies there waiting to be discovered. Morality grows out of nature and so it would be questionable to hold to any ethical systems that go against nature. That would be - by definition - irrational and unsustainable (from a personal phenomenological point of view).
Quoting darthbarracuda
Your "out there" is my immanent nature. And your phenomenological "in here" is my hearing you assert transcendent dualism. You treat the mind as if it could exist without a body, without a world.
Sorry, but we should've all moved beyond this kind of atavistic belief.
Quoting darthbarracuda
As I say, I have no problem with self~other distinction being as basic as it gets in the definition of life. Cell membranes can do it. Gut digestion and immune systems can do it.
And science shows that social wasps can discriminate the faces of nest mates so as to organise their interactions according to complexly hierarchical ranking.
So science continues to surprise our preconceptions about "sentience".
But that cuts both ways. We can't just cherry-pick the findings that support our preconceptions while not listening to the others that question them.
So I am very surprised by this ant finding - even if I already have no trouble believing other recent findings regarding arthropod cognition.
However the evidence that only humans have articulate speech, and thus only humans can evolve culturally encoded habits of "self-conscious introspective awareness", is just as scientific.
You are trying to talk about "sentience" as some generic property - a mind stuff abstracted from the world. This, as I say, is a Romantic hang-over - a dualistic belief in the mental as causally something apart from the world.
Now we all know that there is a Hard Problem when it comes to connecting mind and body. But how much of that problem is due simply to its ontological framing - a belief in the kind of materiality that arose out of a Newtonian model of physical causality? The advantage of a semiotic understanding of physical causality is that it offers now a causal bridge to span the gap.
So my approach is based on naturalising explanations - turning dualistic notions like "sentience" into measurable hypotheses.
The issue it can only ever define itself in biological and economic terms. In the mythos of transcendent freedom and immortality, the culmination is a seeking of biology and economics; if only we had the resources, the biology, to exist forever and ever and ever.
I don't mean this in the crass sense of our bodies or earthly possessions, but rather in the sense of our presence. If only we existed in a way that gave us more and more all the time into perpetuity. Endless resources such that our existence would extend into perpetuity without cost or hitting limits.
The modern world's endless quest for economic growth is, quite literally, the mythos of freedom and immortality transplanted into the world. Like it pre-modern counterparts, it views the goal of existence to endless get more, to live forever, to be free of any Malthusian limits. In neither transcendent camp does anyone have the respect or self-awareness to say: "That's enough. I've obtained all I need. It's okay for me end."
You say widespread, but have you measured it?
I'm not disagreeing that there is much that seems far from optimal. But also, it is easy to exaggerate what the majority actually feel.
Also there may be other things going on. The easier you make life for people, the more numerous become the many tiny things that might now get noticed as sources of annoyance, anxiety, etc.
When life is lived in more brute survival mode, you would either have the straightforward alternatives of an unhappy starving belly, or a satisfied full one after the kill.
But as modern developed life removes all the basic sources of unpredictability, the tiny stuff now becomes the focus in all its trivial, unresolvable, multiplicity.
If you have OCD about a neat house, there are just any number of crooked hanging pictures or mismatched cushions you can obsess about. If you fear strangers or spiders, you have the luxury of indulging such existence-irrelevant phobias to an irrational extreme.
So how much of the problems that the pessimists and anti-natalists complain about are problems that exist because all the bigger, simpler, problems have been removed from their lives?
You have to understand the psychology of why people might feel the way they do rather than just take their explanations - life sucks - at face value.
At last! Five years of useless wrangling, and finally we agree on something!
You say widespread, but have you measured it?
I watched an ABC documentary last night on suicide prevention amongst tradesmen in Australia. 'Anecdotal evidence' - I get that. But I think it is a cultural issue, or an issue with a cultural dimension. I think our culture doesn't equip us with a sense of purpose. Of course a lot of people are quite capable of creating their own, but for others, that sense of being alone living a pointless existence is a very widespread condition. (That is what Nietzsche foresaw - the collapse of values, leading to widespread nihilism. I think he was right, but not his proposed 'solution'.)
But to try and focus on the OP - the unique thing about h. sapiens is to be able to discuss and consider these things. I think some animals are aware of mortality - elephants come to mind - but I'm sure that humans are unique in regards to this kind of abstract self-awareness.
So when The Enlightenment rejected 'the supernatural' they sure threw the baby out with the bathwater. The problem is, that nature is now valorised - 'being natural ' is now another form of faux spirituality.
The Eclipse of Reason
Way to misrepresent my position. Animal starvation is a prime example of what we ought to NOT allow. The only way to cut down on this, and other sorts of suffering, is by making compromises. Animals don't need to starve to lower the population anyway.
I mean, it would be rather interesting to see how a particular plant or fungi (specifically those two branches of organisms) would take root and flourish without any interference from organisms that would destroy their nourishing environment or cause some sort of mutation within their families...
What are your thoughts on this? O:)
There is no doubt there is a problem. And yet ethnologists find high levels of happiness in villagers living very basic lives in large parts of the world.
So it is a question that has to be studied systematically if you want to draw strong conclusions.
Are the tradies unhappy because they are no longer craftsmen but simply hammer hands of various description? Are they unhappy because masculinity itself is now problematic for tradesmen?
DC and Schop would have us believe the tradies are unhappy because they have discovered life is an existential charade with no true meaning. But I would doubt that. I would inquire first after their particular social circumstances and its distance from the kind of "village scale life" that is the most natural psychic state of being arguably.
Quoting Wayfarer
Yes and no. I don't see nature as being "spiritual" in some traditional ontological sense. That is a Romantic notion of nature - one in which humans and their messy social lives is exactly what is missing. The Romantic just wants the fluffy kittens and the starkly beautiful mountain ranges. Humanity is the ugly bit.
But in terms of an emotional connection, I think "nature" is what makes existence meaningful. And it is that messy nature - that mix of competition and co-operation, that cycle of life and death - which is then what I would feel like celebrating. The best cities are like the best countryside - organic.
Quoting apokrisis
Yet a scientific ethics does not necessarily satisfy what we perceive to be moral.
Tell a person whom you're helping that you're helping them because they can go on and make more entropy, and not because they're a person who is valuable because they can suffer, and they might just shake you off and tell you to buzz off.
We don't "assist" the universe in its entropic flow. WE ARE the universe, at least part of it. A better term to be used is "forced" by the universe. i.e. instrumentalized as me and schop1 and others have repetitively said. The universe has an agenda - thermodyanamic equilibrium - and it uses us as means to this end.
From the universe's dormant perspective, the ends justify the means. Yet surely these ends do not match with what we want - and surely what we want is more important than what any anthropomorphized universe "wants".
There is no ethics in the void.
Quoting apokrisis
No, no, no. This is where you intuitively find this behavior wrong, and then justify them as wrong by appealing to science in an ad hoc manner.
These behaviors are not wrong because of some entropic principle. They're wrong because we find them wrong, and then apparently some of us try to ignore this and shoehorn science in.
Quoting apokrisis
Query: what if the universe was malignant to us? What if, no matter what we did, we could never manage to escape its malevolent grasp? Would it still be "good"?
Hardly.
Quoting apokrisis
You claim that goodness is not some abstract principle yet are claiming there is also a truth to ethical claims that resides in the external world. Pick one.
Quoting apokrisis
And yet it is intuitive that we should give non-human animals the benefit of the doubt despite this being a presumption. It's not necessarily rational, it is ethical.
Quoting apokrisis
Because of the inherent harm to welfare it is to go against the cosmos' agenda...?
Once again, welfare is the identifier of the moral. If the universe went against our wishes, we would not find it moral. A tornado is not moral. It is destructive, albeit amoral. So why call entropy moral?
Quoting apokrisis
And we can't just ignore the possibility that we might be wrong in our prescription, or that we'll never know something. Don't play dice when we're ignorant.
Quoting apokrisis
No. Yet a body without a mind (specifically a rational and capable self) has no sense of morality.
Quoting apokrisis
Yet is the theory that articulate speech corresponds to ethical importance scientific? Nope.
Quoting apokrisis
No, I'm talking about the ability to suffer, however that manifests. Sentience is just a placeholder.
Integration and differentiation are both part of the same game. So it is completely natural that everything is all part of the one ecosystem, and yet ecosystems also tend towards complex richness - a hierarchy of divisions.
To talk about "interference" is to think about this unbiologically. If there were no competition or boundary drawing, there could be no co-operation that acts across those boundaries.
Prey needs predators to keep their numbers in check. Otherwise growth is unregulated. the prey consumes its environment, the whole system collapses of starvation.
But that's just you pushing your personal wheelbarrow again and claiming it to be the everyman view.
Quoting darthbarracuda
There's no point replying to nonsense like this. It is just a sign of desperation on your part.
Quoting darthbarracuda
You are getting it half right in accepting that there is a thermodynamic framework at play. But I've already said that then itself creates our "free" choice about what we then do about things once we have that accurate picture.
We could go with the flow or instead swim against the tide. That's the choice.
And the choice becomes rational to the degree it is both possible and has some agreed goal.
Is the goal to make DC blissfully happy? Is the goal to remove the very possibility of psychic suffering? You might very well say so. I don't feel particularly moved to agree.
Quoting darthbarracuda
You keep talking about this "we". I realise you mean the many like yourself brought up on a steady cultural diet of vague romantic notions.
Quoting darthbarracuda
That is an adequate answer to your own strange question. But it is irrelevant to anything I've been saying.
Quoting darthbarracuda
It is rational to give the benefit of the doubt when faced with uncertainty. But there is far less uncertainty about things like grades of sentience than you pretend.
So what we have here is only your weakly informed "intuitions" (ie: prejudices) against readily available scientific knowledge.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Why doesn't it surprise me that you not only abstract the object but even its properties? Your approach is Platonic and dualistic in classic romantic unbounded fashion.
How psychoanalytic of you... :-}
Calling people desperate, it seems to me, is a sign of desperation.
Quoting apokrisis
Right. The goal is what we're arguing out.
Quoting apokrisis
And I wonder why this is so.
Quoting apokrisis
You keep using this word "romantic" as a cop-out.
Quoting apokrisis
With stakes as high as they are, uncertainty is practically unacceptable.
Quoting apokrisis
As if your scientism isn't a prejudice itself.
You said we have freedom. So why are you opposed to going against the entropic goal of the universe? Essentially you're advocating a scientific taoism - just be one with nature and it'll all be cool.
Quoting apokrisis
How can you abstract an object without abstracting its properties?
No, I am not abstracting anything apart from recognizing suffering as a distinct mental phenomenon of negative value.
I would suggest it's relationship, or, more precisely, 'relatedness'. But, out of scope, please carry on.
You mean exasperation. Quoting darthbarracuda
No, I'm describing the cop out. But you are never going to address this confused dualism of yours no matter how often I point back to its familiar cultural basis.
It's been amusing as always.
Then it's mutual.
Quoting apokrisis
Because I see no problem with it. Maybe you should actually make a post on this instead of having a assert it every single time.
Don't just be a dick. I've explained plenty. For example....
Part of the reason everyone has so much difficulty discussing stuff with you is because you present a historical narrative of philosophy as fact, and then go on to rip on one half of this binary debate while promoting the other half, when nobody really understands the justification you have for seeing history in this way, nor why the romantic notions are just automatic dead-ends. In fact, as far as I can tell, there's no good reason to see history in this binary fashion anyway! You just assert that this is the way it is and glaze over the important details that would otherwise potentially help us understand what the hell you are even talking about. It may make sense to you, but for everyone else who doesn't understand it looks like a biased fiction.
Explain to us all what Romanticism entails, what Enlightened thinking entails, so that we can stop beating around the bush every time you use these terms. I don't understand what the essential characteristics of Romantic or Enlightened thinking even is to grasp when something is Romantic or Enlightened according to your binary view. And every time I think I get something you're saying you end up denying it. Just put it all out in the open once and for all.
In any case, I disagree with a lot of what you said in the last reply, so if you make a specific thread on this I'll post there so we don't keep derailing all these threads unnecessarily. Keep the threads on topic, not hijacked by some meta-level question. I would enjoy actually reading a thread started by you instead of just posts where you try debunking everyone else.
Apo is ignoring what the "Romantic reaction" entails. It's actually description of the individual within a social context or environment. The individual who is hurt, in pain or treated worse than another. What he describes as the "Enlightenment" tradition is profoundly dishonest about the world. It tells us people (or animals) don't "really hurt" or aren't treated lesser, so long as "nature" is respected.
He's also confusing the "Romantic reaction" with anti-natalism. Just because there is a wide range of unavoidable suffering, paper cuts and Hitlers, which is terrible for respective individuals, it doesn't amount to an argument the suffering makes existence not worth living. Many people have the "Romantic reaction" which is aware of the suffering of the individual, yet argue life is worth continuing.
Indeed.. Romanticism vs. Enlightenment is another of his themes mixed in with Naturalism and Semiotics.. It's like a jigsaw that you have to put together through the various criticisms. Any "positive" explanation he has to put forth (as opposed to being inserted after a criticism) makes it more exposed to its own criticism so, its best couched in terms of criticism. I'm not saying its intentional but it certainly is a result.
As I can piece his theories together (separated from the criticism) is that he believes that semiotics as propounded first by Peirce and probably a dozen or so "modern" semiotic proponents, is a field that explains nature and metaphysics. Its inherently emergent and thus from biology leads to semiotics in language leads to semiotics to society, etc. At the human ethical/value level of emergence, semiotics informs ethics/values through social/anthropological/psychological empirical research. The social level of organization can be described in semiotic terms which essentially involves some combination of group/individual sign, interpretant, object, (or more elaborate/jargony version thereof).
Anywho, despite the inherent problems of emergence (especially from biology into the linguistic realm.. shades of old mind/body problems).. Semiotics is somehow trumpeted as a continuation of the Enlightenment (with the assumption that the Enlightenment is a purposeful movement rather than a collection of varying ideas). Anyways, its at least trumpeted as part of the empirical, and thus Scientific Image (though semiotics itself does not seem empirical as much as a speculative interpretation of the scientific findings.. but I that is another issue).
Anywho, somehow now, apokrisis takes a leap into the world of values as social/individual interaction.. I have not seen as much semiotic talk in this realm, so I am not sure where that fits in, but I'm sure he might pull some semiotics articles on anthropology, sociology, and/or psychology to prove some point using semiotics as a basis. What I am sure of is that he tries to use empirical findings to try to justify what humans should strive for. So he claims entropy, being the basis of universal teleology (and in the background of the semiotic process I guess) is a big deal, and that at the self-conscious social level that we humans experience, we can actually slow down or speed up entropy, at least as it pertains to our little organizational part of the universe. So somehow this hypothetical imperative (which itself may be speculative) is deemed as a necessity rather than a preference (I don't know how though other than simple assertion based on its supposed existence). Also included in what we should strive for is flourishing, which apparently is not much else except tenets and research from the Positive Psychology movement. So apparently humans can/should know what makes them happy through research made from positive psychology research and strive for this. Again, how this hypothetical imperative is deemed as a necessity rather than a preference is not explained.
So to give a summary of nested concepts Enlightenment = Scientific Image > Semiotics > Semiotics as applied to physics/chemistry/biology > Semiotics as applied to linguistics/anthropology/sociology/psychology > All this semiotics from the social level somehow leads to a necessity in the imperative to slow entropy in our part of the universe (specifically through being less dependent on fossil fuels) and pursue the recommendations that come from findings for what makes happiness or a more self-actualized human through the research found in the Positive Psychology movement.
Addition: So the top part there was a summary of how I interpret apokrisis based on piecing together what I have seen him write. Additionally, in classic binary fashion, he juxtaposes Enlightenment with what he claims to be its opposite, Romanticism. Romanticism here seems like an accusation of Communist in the 50's for him.. wrong thought.. should report to philosophical detention..
Anwywho, unlike the Enlightenment point of view (which I attempted to explain his version above) which supposedly takes into account the individual in the context of the group/social, Romanticism supposedly does not take this into view (how he can paint someone's philosophy as not taking into account the social when that account had not actually discounted the social and thus may be misreading the other person's view is another issue). Anyways, Romanticism puts the individual experience on a pedestal (which is a base characterization and not a comprehensive understanding of most of what these Romantic proponents are saying).. and thus are limited in their narrow, merely phenomenological interpretations of personalized experience.. He also claims that the Romantics do not take into account group dynamics and how the group shapes the human. Despite the fact that he may be taking the Romantic's argument out of context to bolster a false characterization and thus a false juxtaposition with his "superior" account. Finally , this leads to several odd conclusions that he seems to make which may or may not be connected with either semiotics or group/individual dynamics:
1) Suffering of the individual is not a problem because at least partial solutions may exist, and the individual must try their best to find these solutions
Of course, why someone needs to be brought into a world where suffering exists, only to try to constantly find solutions to the suffering is not explained other than a majority of people think it is good.. And here we have a weird fallacy of the is-ought.. an odd mixing of two concepts.. If the majority agrees this is true.. somehow the group knows best and the individual must conform to this because it has collectively gathered wisdom from passed individual/group dynamics and thus cannot be changed by the mere whims and idealistic visions of an individual who does not like what is going on.
Also, individual/social dynamics aside, the fact that I am shaped by social means and that solutions may be attained, suffering for individuals is not shared. I can share my experiences through language and make a sort of empathetic understanding through intersubjectivity, but this is not the same as actually living and experiencing the pain of the individual. There may be similar experiences, but the actual pain that is being experienced is by the individual.
2) Somehow continuing the group is important.. the individual must help continue and contribute to the group in order to keep it sustained in some way..
Of course, why someone needs to keep the group going merely to keep the group going is not really explained. It is just assumed that because it is the group, it somehow is self-evident that it should continue and the individual should know his place in continuing it. Besides the fact that it is a truism that we are shaped by the group no matter what we do (even living as a hermit), it does not provide much of anything to say that we must contribute to the group for no reason other than to just continue things to continue them. My criticism of instrumentality applies here. Why humans have to continue upkeep, institutions, and goal-seeking to continue upkeep, institutions, and goal-seeking becomes absurd. We have no choice if we are alive, have a linguistic (yes thus environmentally and socially shaped) brain that must put forth energy to keep going in order to keep going in order to keep going. However, the fact that we are social and use social means to survive does not justify any position for doing this or that action.
Quoting apokrisis
Oh, they're "familiar", just not in the way you're using them.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, which is why I asked him to make a thread on this that would resolve any uncertainty once and for all. It may not be his intention but it certainly feels like he dodges all our attacks by presenting new clouded information that we had no access to before. He's speaking Chinese and getting mad that everyone else doesn't speak Chinese, nor accepts that Chinese is the one true language of the world.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's also trumpeted that ancient philosophers, with no scientific background nor methodology, somehow are part of this historic pragmatic movement and are vindicated by modern science. If science is the best guide to truth here, then you can't be appealing to philosophers who weren't scientific!
Quoting schopenhauer1
Indeed, we have practically no influence on the overall entropic heat death.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Additionally some of these so-called "romantic" philosophers weren't even interested in pursuing what apo's metaphysics supposedly does. It's a category error to expect them to align with physics when this just wasn't their intention - see Heidegger and his "tool analysis" - consistent with physics, but not attempting to answer what physics tries to.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Indeed.
Yes, but that doesn't negate the transcendent, it is merely a comment on the manifest world we inhabit. The transcendent nature of humanity is such that people who realise it will work towards the gradual direction, or husbandry of manifest material, or biology, in the direction of the physical circumstances in which,what are now, transcendent ideals become manifest in the world. A process which will continue in an ongoing process of elevating( in terms of density, or concrete state) the emanation of vibrational state of matter. Thus we have an overarching mythos encompassing the whole of creation in an ethos of progress toward the divine. A deeply subtle, enriching philosophy of life which provides the psychological sustenance for a healthy society(I am well aware of the issues presented by organised religion).
This is merely the response in our being of being confined within the rigid parameters of the material world we find ourselves in. A condition which is accentuated by the restlessness of human behaviour. If we found ourselves in a less rigid and more fluid, or ethereal world things would be quite different.
Along with Wayfarer, I agree with the first two sentences in this paragraph. But your comment on the "transcendent camp", is incorrect. I know this, because I have personally affirmed "That's enough. I've obtained all I need. it's okay for me end". Many people who have embraced and embodied the transcendent have made this affirmation in their own way. One is made whole, repleat and is in the right frame of mind to act constructively in the progress of the humanity and the biosphere.
Without such insight all humanity is going to produce is a race of mindless Donald Trumps gallivanting around the universe, self destructing at any opportunity. And we would be back to square one. The transcendent allows and enables real progress.
I would say though, that I am not in favour of personal attacks, we are all entitled to our personal view.
That's the group's need clearly. It doesn't have to be the individual's. It is just likely to be the individual's as logically the group would need to be able to make that kind of individual as the way it has managed historically to persist.
So sure, you the individual could suddenly rebel. You could top yourself. And if enough others felt the same way, then there would be no society eventually.
Of course your problem there is even if only a few individuals did not want to drink the Kool aid with you, they would survive, breed, and pass on their habits of thought. All you would prove is something about your own mental quirks. The circumstances which produced a persistent social entity in the past would roll on probably better adapted for its self perpetuation in the future.
So it doesn't matter if individuals opt out. But it shouldn't be surprising that the collective expresses a different opinion, and not necessarily a very patient one.
Stepping back, are you thinking that existence itself must have a meaning, and so your realisation that it doesn't have a meaning is then a meaningful lack?
My argument only needs to be that meaning is what a system constructs. Goals are emergent regularities that exist because they foster their own persistence. That's the basic difference between taking the immanent view vs the transcendent view.
So in that light, a social system is free to form its own goals, it's own identity - and do so via the particular kinds of individuals it creates. That is as high as we need to shoot in finding a meaning in existence, or equally, as far as we can go in making some complaint about a lack of meaning.
That still leaves the individual free to construct his own life meaning, or equally, construct a notion of his own cosmic meaninglessness. Maybe the individual can even start up his own small movement - like antinatalism - as a gesture that appears to imbue his existence with the meaningful lack of meaning which he seeks. That is a lack of meaning of suitably trans-social, trans-historic, cosmically-absolute scale.
Such a moral construction - an anti-goal - can be proclaimed. On rarer occasions, it might even be acted upon. But as I say, it is unlikely to impact the collective system if that system already has up a head of steam and will simply end up reproducing via the kind of thought habits which are in fact functional in regard to its persistent being.
You can't stand in the way of natural selection anymore than natural selection can stand in the way of thermodynamics.
And again I say that from the point of view of pansemiotics - reality's own construction of meanings or habits of interpretance. It doesn't matter that goals don't pre-exist and are only found as whatever are the habits which permit persistence. The claim is never that meaning could have a transcendent status such as what instead exists counts as some kind of cosmic failure.
I wonder if you see this yet? The very basis on which you want to mount your fundamental criticism doesn't even exist from my point of view. There is no standing outside existence that could count as meaningful here.
Animals have been taking care of themselves for billions of years before humans came around and not one ever charged sexism, racism, or specieism against another.
Because they weren't capable of doing so. But now humans have entered the stage, and I'm arguing that it's time we put down the mirror of narcissism and start acting more productive and responsible.
In any case it is clear that non-human animals have not been taking care of one another. Look at predation, social rejection from disease/disability, and r-selection.
We didn't "enter the stage", we have always been on stage -- along with the rest of the evolving species. Around 40 million years ago, the Infraorder of Simiiformes, "Higher" primates (Simians): apes and monkeys started the evolutionary path that eventually produced the modern primates, including homo sapiens.
We, like all the other animals, must pursue our essential nature. We didn't intrude hugely on other species until we mastered tool making and became hunter gatherers. We were doing no more than meeting our basic survival needs, and being what our essential nature made possible. Granted: Once we got ourselves organized, around 12,000 years ago, we did start being a bigger problem to other species.
The worst things any of our species can say about us are only outcomes of our nature -- which we, mind you, were not in charge of forming, any more than geese were in charge of their evolution. Evolution has no long-term plan. It didn't intend us, any more than it intended a goose.
Here we are, victims of blind fate. Now we are a problem not only to ourselves, but the other species as well. Do we really have the wherewithal to see ourselves in context so clearly that we can shift gears from our forward superdrive into ecological neutral? I don't think so. Just about everyone here (a few excepted) recognizes that we have huge problems. That doesn't mean that we insightful ones are also able to climb off our technological bandwagon. This conversation requires the technological bandwagon to be in excellent working order.
We are screwed, the plant species are screwed, and our furry little friends that are not extinct yet are screwed too. Blame it on evolution's lack of foresight. Step by step a bigger brain seemed like such a good idea at the time--and it probably was. Fast forward a few million years, and you have a disaster resulting from overspecialization.
I'd just like to comment that the fact that you focused on one sentence from a very large summary and criticism of your views is pretty illustrative of your way of obfuscating and trying to dodge criticism so as to only be on the attack and not defense. I'm not even sure I should dignify you with a rebuttal of this last post seeing that you managed to skip over all the parts that were critical of your philosophy to go straight back on the attack on the very last sentence of a very long post.
I focused on the most salient point, or at least what I felt worth pursuing. I appreciate your only desire now is to get at me in whatever way you can.
So continue with your little psychodramas if you can't respond to the substance of my post. It's all good entertainment to distract us while we wait to die, heh?
I'd go a step further than that. Plenty who consider the transcendent means "going forever," and are attracted to the idea because of its endless resources, end-up saying they've got enough. Our actions are different to our myths. If humanity has shown us anything, it's that greed occurs whether one's philosophy says life is about constantly possessing more or not. Some people who disavowal transcendent beliefs (whether they be pre-modern or modern) end-up having a life driven by possessing more and more, often under the guise of "just being themselves."
My point about the "transcendent camps" (whether pre-modern religions and traditions or modern consumerism) is to do with the motivations and understanding of the word. What I'm talking about here here is not a "magic pill" of myth or philosophy which will save our world from resource depletion (that requires actions, no matter one's myth, traditions or view of meaning), but a reflective inquiry into what the "transcendent" says about the world and its people.
In either the pre-modern or modern sense, transcendent philosophy is defined by an inherent meaningless to the world and humanity. We need to believe, else we are meaningless heathens or irresponsible hippies. It's is to scoff at everyone else. An understanding that only believers are the only ones with appropriate meaning, with a superior life, with a special insight which makes them so much more wonderful than everyone else.
Believe--follow this tradition, buy this latest watch, then your life will be better than anyone else's. You'll be worth more and a more meaningful life than any of those who are content in themselves. The transcendent is defined by saying other people (nonbelievers) are worthless. It's a move of hierarchy, performed to initiate and win an immediate conflict, a way of getting more people follow your tradition rather than any other. An act to, for example, make some people Christian (rather than say atheist, Muslim, Jedi, etc., etc.) or to buy a your car, rather them be content without the car or have them purchasing a competitor's product.
It's more than that. Far more. It's a dissatisfaction with the limits of our material nature. Within the context of knowledge and myth, it means we want more then we ever are. So worthless is our material existence, that we must go to the transcendent to approximate something worthwhile, else suffer the ignominy of meaninglessness.
No doubt it's a response to the burden of rigid parameters of the world. In the transcendent there is the promise of a world free of the worldly restrictions which, but the idea entails "wanting more and more." In such an idea a person is not content with what they have. The motivation is to avoid having a limit in the material world.
In this way, any instance of transcendent philosophy is about wanting more and more. It's motivation is to "superior" to whatever exists at any point in time. Many with transcendent beliefs are content in their lives, but the philosophy itself never is. It's always saying we need more than the world. Even the pluralistic mysticism is defined by thinking how much better and more meaningful their life is for having transcendent beliefs. Such a mystic is considered to have insight which makes their point of view more meaningful than anyone else's. The joy and awe of the transcendent is great enough to qualify for meaning, unlike the joy and awe of that shallow (and material) artwork, sports game or rock concert which isn't really meaning at all.
The thing about "transcendent experiences" is they're worldly. Moments of awe, joy and meaning we experience. They are instances where meaning is extended beyond the mere question of information of an object. It's us all along. We aren't delivered from the limitation of the material world. Our ideas, meanings and fictions just mean there something more than a mortal body in space.
"Transcendent" generated out of the notion of impossible meaning. Whether we are talking afterlives, resolution of sin, having meaningful lives, tripping or creating a Trumpless world, we describe experiences as "transcendent" because in our everyday lives, we think the meaning is impossible. It's "mysterious" because we think, in expressed meaning of our experience, there's meaning which the world just can't do--i.e. "Oh wow... look out at there at creation.... there's simply no way the world could do something that meaningful. For the world to express that on it's own is just inconceivable. God must have done it. It couldn't just an expression of the fluctuations of the finite world itself."
Within the post-modern culture, this "mystery" collapses. People have learnt meaning is an expression of the world. Myths and narratives are generated out of us. There is no "constraint" on meaning. We understand the world may express any meaning, no matter how contradictory or seemingly absurd. Any combination of idea, thought, meaning and sensation makes sense.
Someone who comes out of a drug trip saying everyone else is them and they have seen how they are immortal has an experience that makes sense. What they are saying might be wrong and incoherent, but it is something the world can express. In their experience, they haven't gone beyond the expression of world and logic.
The hierarchal nature of the "transcendent" is laid bare. "Meaningless" is recognised as a local power play, a way of saying that other way of thinking and feeling aren't even possible. It's a means of making an idea dominate though denying the world can express any other meaning. The concern is not honesty about meaning, but ensuring people stick to a particular transcendent tradition-- you will follow God, else be a meaningless wretch.
With respect to "making the world better" this sort of argument has a powerful hold. Ethical improvement and meaning well becomes necessarily attached to a transcendental condition. We even see it in your argument here, despite your more pluralistic outlook. Supposedly, the world needs a transcendental outlook to avoid an abundance of Trumps. Unless we believe the transcendent, we are doomed.
This is not true. What matters is our actions and our ethics. We could put forward and enact a policy regarding a more harmonious use of resources without mentioning the transcendent at all. If we are to avoid calamity, it is the world which will do it, whether we have transcendent beliefs or not. What matters is our actions, the way we use resources and how much damage this causes to the wider world.
This is what brings me into conflict with Wayfarer all the time, despite our occasional agreements and shared interest in the importance on meaning. He thinks meaning must be granted by the transcendent. I say there is no meaninglessness, so there is no work for the transcendent to do. There are those who are depressed, anxious or despairing, but those are instances of meaningful lives, who find themselves in some unethical situation. A worldly change is what they need (it could even be a belief the transcendent), so they realise their meaning/end the horrible state that's haunting them.
Yes; I agree. All our experience and meaning is housed in this world, and there is no other world, transcendent or merely more of the same. What is, is; what is not, is not, and "transcendent" is not.
Other people are not having transcendent experiences whether they think so, or not. The may have been transported, transformed, transfixed, transplanted, and so on but they did not transcend. I hate to say that because two of my heroes, Flannery O'Connor and Dorothy Day, seemed to have transcendent experiences. But these two Roman Catholic ladies also had very dry, flinty views of the world; their feet were firmly planted in terra firma. Angels would have had to twist both their arms and necks to get them to let go of material reality.
Day's biography (A Harsh and Dreadful Love) is taken from a quote by Dostoyevsky, one of her favorite writers: “Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams.”
But just as antinatalism does not sound appealing to some, telling people that they are here to keep the group going would probably not get much fanfare either. So your own claim would not pass your own "appeal to the majority" test, oddly enough.
Quoting apokrisis
Whether the group persists, there would be less people that suffered that could have otherwise. The harm prevented from preventing one birth does not get nullified by someone having a child. If you saved someone from getting hurt and someone in the town over does get hurt, that other person's pain does not nullify that the person you saved did not get hurt.
Quoting apokrisis
Oh boy, I don't want to upset the sensibilities of the social system.. This is too vague to even criticize so I have to deduce what you are saying by inference. So individuals who presumably want the goals of survival and pretty much the status quo of the current society create an institution that makes more individuals that want these goals.. and the goals of status quo are the meaning..
Again, even if this was true, "knowing" that people are created by social institutions that want to ensure survival for individuals and the institution itself, does not negate the absurdity one may feel if one self-reflected on the fact that we are keeping our own individual upkeep going, the group going, and pursuing more goals simply to keep it going.. Hence the instrumentality of things. One thing you seem to do is think that describing a (purported) fact about something makes it valuable because it exists. This is where you make the category error. Humans do not just exist with no internal reflection and simply take in information and output actions... They have emotions, reactions, attitudes, etc.. Reflecting on the "fact" that we are just doing to do to do, can lead to an understanding of the absurdity of this situation. We must keep moving forward to keep moving forward as there is no other choice.
This may be the case that it is not suitable for survival obviously.. but I am not sure what you are trying to say. Is it that "most" people will not agree? Most likely not, but that does not mean that it is not correct. Maybe its futile, but that does not mean it is wrong. You are making the is-ought fallacy.. just because something is a certain way, does not mean that this is what someone ought to do. This implies a hypothetical imperative that one must follow what has always been the case.
Quoting apokrisis
Again, I am fine with this.. So it's futile.. that doesn't mean much to me. What it does mean though is that we have no obligation to make the current aim of the group's persistence keep continuing. There is no reason to keep anything going. Because we have the ability to self-reflect to the point of not following some survival imperative, that shows that we are not necessarily bound by it. Social enculturation via historical developments may help compensate from more instinctual ways to keep the species going, we can still think beyond merely survival.
Quoting apokrisis
There is no cosmic failure.. rather we have the ability to self-reflect on the situation and have emotions, attitudes, and such on the human condition itself.. something that is not merely there to keep the group surviving.
Quoting apokrisis
And like I just said, we have the ability to self-reflect on the situation and have emotions attitudes, and such on the human condition itself...something that is not merely there to keep the group surviving.
Finally, something I agree with.
This is nuts as there is hardly a crying need to protect the human population from the dangers of cultish antinatalists.
With 2.5 billion people in 1950, 6.5 billion in 2005, and 9 billion by 2050, there just ain't a problem in that regard.
Antinatalism is as meaningless as a possum throwing itself under a passing truck and trailer.
Quoting schopenhauer1
More crazy arithmetic.
The way societies actually think is that small global changes can improve the average lot of the many. You only have to focus on shifting the mean a small degree to make a large difference for the many.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yeah. But you hardly invented this idea yourself, did you? You are simply repeating what you heard others say. So you speak for a familiar vein of thought - the romanticism that became existentialism that has become pessimism. And you are looking around on this forum for moral support for this stance, along with seeking to "other" me so as to confirm the social validity of that way of thinking.
You can't escape the very game you pretend to reject. If you could, you wouldn't even bother coming on a forum like this to argue with someone like me.
Quoting schopenhauer1
And humans only have such capacities due to social evolution.
There is a reason why you might be a dissatisfied, questioning, quarrelsome, social-approval seeking, kind of critter. That is the kind of individual that perpetuates the social system that produced it.
And if in fact you happen to have some collection of dysfunctional traits, then you will disappear from the meme pool in the not so distant future.
I'm presuming you have parents. Well they had at least one kid. And if you have siblings, are they breeders? Or is it dead-end for your lineage?
Even if it is, it would be less than a drop in the ocean. There are over 7 billion people on the planet. Even a billion antinatalists could only slow the increase.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I've already pointed out your fallacious reasoning in demanding that existence have transcendent meaning. So I know that is-ought is classically a big deal. But that's only a hangover from Platonism and theism. It doesn't apply to my position.
Quoting schopenhauer1
So you say. But to the degree it matters to the survival of the group, an attitude that is actually socially dysfunctional will simply be erased by time.
The group doesn't even have to worry about that. Question all you like. See ya latter buddy. Life goes on.
Yes I am aware of these misgivings, I did point out that I am aware of the problems brought about by religions. I don't really want to get into a discussion of religion because that is a different issue than what is being discussed here. But it is partly relevant in that it has supplied us with a tradition of the transcendent to work with.
Your criticisms are relevant concerns, but merely point out the social and political issues around any product or goal which is to be desired in the human condition, but which can be restricted and controlled by an elite. Also if it, the transcendent, as the desired goal were absent, then it would be replaced by something else, because as I pointed out, this is an issue about politics and control of the society. This also applies in regard of the personal self and personal greed, or desires. The goal of transcendent here is simply a tool employed in ones life to control, or passify greed and desires, or to act as an excuse to indulge them and if it were absent, it would be replaced by something else.
To address the transcendent absent religion one should consider humanity before religion, or the origin in society of ascetics and their teaching, which resulted in the origin of religions. Simply, people on the event of the development of intellect began to think philosophically about their predicament. Naturally this brought them to questions of our origin, purpose and whether there are agencies behind the appearance of this world. Thus the birth of mysticism and philosophy. These are contemplations and can be carried on in isolation of ones physical life. However they can be used as an philosophy of action in the world and in the case of the ascetic Jesus, can be viewed as teachings in practical and constructive strategies in lifestyles.
It is a mistake to consider that transcendent insight is in any way in opposition or conflict with pragmatic, scientific, or down to earth practical living. It is not and it's message is simply to enable one to extend ones view of our directions and goals a little further and provide a value in seeking to follow that course. For example, for humanity to seek to live in harmony with the biosphere, manage the ecosystem and develop long term stable cultures within humanity to secure our long term survival and gradual expansion beyond the planet(which is vulnerable to meteorite destruction).
Now if you imagine one of the first early humans to really contemplate their predicament, to really do some philosophising. I would not be surprised if they had come up with a conclusion similar to this example I have just given. It is not mysterious, profound, unattainable. But it does require an effective cooperation between the members of our society at large.
There is no necessity for a conflict here, as I said transcendent insight is in alignment with constructive practical living. I do not see Wayfarer falling into the religious cliches regarding the transcendent, although his stance is towards the other end of the spectrum from your own.
I am harking back to the evidential: ants appear to recognise themselves in mirrors, and this is a surprise to us.
To me the research looks robust but I agree, it makes me think that 'the mirror test' may not be telling us what we thought it told us. I watch my cat prowl behind the mirror looking for the cat it just saw in the glass and am unconvinced that there is some step-change up to the ant; rather, they have different ways of seeing because of (the genealogy of) their different ecologies.
Nevertheless, apo, I am more sympathetic to the op than you are. I read you as presenting a kind of naturalistic ethics. I think that culturally we have developed our 'natural' relationship to other creatures into a cruelly exploitative one. The lives of the chickens we subsequently eat, for instance, are horrible; once someone becomes aware of that, I'm surprised they can ever tuck into kfc with anything other than a heavy heart (to go with the bloated stomach). 'Disgust' as an emotion points to something ethical in this instance. We treat these animals as our instruments and in doing so we show a lack of respect, in our sophisticated culture, for the nature of which we are a part. We industrialize their lives and slaughter, insulate ourselves from how it happens, and protect ourselves from the ethical dilemma that face-to-face knowledge would involve.
It's in this vein that I suspect our science about human and other animals is itself corrupted by our instrumental view of our fellow-creatures. It is in our interests to imagine that other animals 'are instinctual' or 'don't feel what we feel' or 'can't possibly be conscious in the way we are conscious'. All these propositions may be true but I suspect them because I suspect that we taint the evidence by our very approach. Historically most of our research has been on captive creatures, and studying the same creatures in the wild has shown us in some cases how wrong we were. In the present, perfectly decent people argue that we must experiment on other animals 'or we wouldn't understand human heart disease'; that needs the ethical counter-weight of saying, there is another viewpoint from which such a purportedly ethical statement is unethical, for it cannot imagine that other animals deserve respect, it can only seem to place value on human lives. The natural world itself has value, and when we eat factory chickens, experiment on rats or monkeys, use other animals as our pets or for our sport we make a value judgment which we should at the least acknowledge, and attempt to weigh.
Right. So we start putting down the mirror of narcissism and start acting productive and responsibleby eradicating all other species except human. *
Animals have been taking care of each other. If they didn't then how is it that they exist at all? Mothers must care for her offspring or else a species would be extinct.
The ability of humans to be rational (and I'd argue that most humans aren't rational - just look at all the humans who can't mesh their political, metaphysical, religious, and ethical ideas into a consistent whole. Dividing things up into separate forums doesn't mean that they aren't linked or don't have an effect on each other. Everyone is a hypocrite. If you don't believe me, then read Robert Kurzban's book, "Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite".) then that is simply a survival strategy that we developed. We use our big brains to survive. Elephants use their big trunks. This doesn't make us better than other animals. It just makes us different. You want to use this difference to commit genocide and to contradict yourself - just like it's explained in Robert Kurzban's book.
There's this other quality of nature that you are forgetting - balance. Nature has achieved a balance among organisms where prey need to have their population limited by predators in order for them to not over populate and eat all their food to extinction and then they become extinct.
The most important aspect of life is competition. Without it life would never evolve into the variety of forms and behaviors that we see today.
Except that it hasn't done any such thing. 99.9% of the species that have existed on Earth are now extinct and that ratio will at best remain constant although as nature has failed to find a predator to keep the human species which is doing a bang up job of exhausting its food sources that's pretty unlikely.
Quoting Harry Hindu
Somebody's been drinking a little too heavily at the Dawkins trough. Symbiotic and co-operative relationships between species are far more effective at preserving diversity than competition. Competition, by definition, results in a winner and a lot of losers. Co-operation results in a lot of winners. Evolutionary theory tends to fixate on higher order animals as single organisms when in fact they are a co-operative colonies of thousands of species constantly constantly interacting with thousands of other such colonies.
I think you misread what I was trying to say. I'm saying that you tend to use the appeal to majority as a way to substantiate your point- because it must be "true" in its historical development of the group to be considered appealing. However, even if this is the case, I doubt many want to hear that they are solely existing to keep institutions alive simply because that is what the institution wants. Whether its true or not, the lack of autonomy that implies is as unappealing to most individuals as the fact that by preventing the creation of another person, they are preventing the harm that would be experienced by that person. Both may be true (and so I am even granting you the point for argument's sake), but both are unpopular. Thus, as I said, your point could make sense but it does so in a way that does not pass your own test which again, is an appeal to the majority.
Quoting apokrisis
First of all, societies do not think.. You mean the way social conventions have developed.. Whether that's true or not, it is not really refuting my claim. Actually, it strengthens it. So even if the family down the street has 20 kids, the fact that any number (at least 1) was prevented still made a difference.
Quoting apokrisis
I never claimed that I am some lone figure that has come up with the most innovative new idea. In fact, I usually go out of my to reference past philosophers on the points I am making. That is not to say I think every thought they had was accurate though. You are aiming your attack at the wrong target. It's not that I think the pessimistic outlook is some transcendent notion that goes beyond the group (which by the way, you apparently at least admit can be a part of the group, even if it is a minority position), but rather it is a conclusion that only a self-reflecting species such as ours can have. You fail to understand that our species' ability to self-reflect means that we not only follow the group-individual dynamics that you describe, but we can make judgements, evaluations, and conclusions on our species' activity as we are participating in them. This self-reflecting ability to understand that we are simply keeping the group going to keep it going (what I call instrumentality) and to evaluate it as absurd, is an example of this. I believe that was part of the point Zapffe was making. We have this general-processor brain capable of not only solving immediate problems but understanding our very own human condition. The very process of individual-group dynamics which shaped our human brain, also created a situation where we can see our own situation.
However, rather than staying in this angsty place, we have mechanisms to ensure we don't dwell on it much. Now, here is where I can finally start finding common ground because those mechanisms are probably a part of the group dynamics as well. We cannot get beyond our own habits at all times. Even though this is the case, we can have sustained periods of reflection, and even just a background notion while we distract ourselves and find some sort of "flow" activities to involve ourselves in, that the situation of keeping things gong for the sake of it is absurd, exhausting, and neverending, and strains us. Sure it can be no other way, but we can still recognize this situation.
Also, you seem to be underplaying the role of the uniqueness of individual experiences. Though language and give us a common understanding and natural feedback loop to strengthen certain individual/group aims, the individual point of view is still unique to each individual. I can perhaps convey in an intersubjective way a sense of what I am experiencing, but it can never be completely replicated or understood. There is an interior world which others are not privy and can never fully be privy to. There is an aloneness to each individual's ego alongside the connectedness with the group and environment.
You also do not seem to take into account contingent circumstances. This group dynamic thing you promote has to work on statistics rather than necessities. What this means is that all the learned experiences that have been collected by the group can be taught and sometimes the application of this "wisdom" works out for people but other times it does not. Circumstances can be very different for very different people. On average it has to work well for most people, but it does not have to work for everyone.
In any case, apo's appeal to the majority doesn't even make sense because it fails to account for other majority views that contradict his own.
A cursory glance at culture reveals a deep sense of cynicism about life. You have Shakespeare alluding to this in many of his plays. You have Monty Python's Life of Brian mocking organized religion and pointing out the flaws of life while the actors are being crucified, as well as shows like Rick and Morty or True Detective that are heavily based off existentialist literature. You have everyday comedians making money off of social criticism. You have organized religion all over the place - various ways of venerating the "perfect hero". Everyone of us has gone through, or is currently going through, the developmental years between childhood and full-fledged adulthood - and everyone of us can attest to the teenage disillusionment with the world and the subsequent need to repress this and "move on" to "more important things", and the aforementioned cultural items are popular and memorable ways of releasing this tension. None of these things would have existed had they not acted as some kind of relatable catharsis for the audience. The reason they are popular is because they speak a bit of refreshing truth in a sea of madness.
Another cursory glance at history reveals a deep fear of death, from the massive Pyramids at Giza to the ancient Chinese Terracotta Army, to the rise of fascism in 20th century Europe and the decay of the western world into decadence and materialism. It also shows how many great civilizations rose and fell because of a single relationship or a megalomaniac leader. The historical artifacts can be beautiful - but the motivation behind these artifacts is usually anything but impressive.
So when we look at the Big Picture™, civilization looks almost like a 90s-00s strategy game - build your empire, gather resources, advance to the next age, build unique structures, harness the power of nature, and lead your little society to greatness! The civilization functions like a well-oiled machine. Everyone is doing their part, everyone follows "natural law", everyone gets married at age 25, has three children, a dog, and a white picket fence. The future is bright - soon we'll be level 50 platinum! - and nothing can stand in our way, and certainly not those pesky pessimists and antinatalists...
But this is just not reality, or at least not the Full Picture. Individual lives tend to look almost like an MMO - you start out interested with the surroundings, gameplay, and story. But pretty soon you start to get bored. It's just the same thing over and over again, grinding mobs, grinding crafting, grinding character traits...and you've devoted so much time to this character that you don't want to leave and lose it all. Sometimes there's updates that keep you entertained for a few hours; then it's back to the grind. The infinite grind, with no real end goal, just some arbitrary achievement and a stupid little costume or stronghold decoration. Wooooo! Sometimes you distinguish yourself from the rest of the grinding herd by owning a guild, or selling enhancements, or pwning everyone else in multiplayer. Yet this status is only a status when compared to other players. What use is a platinum membership if there's no-one there to worship you? Then there's server crashes and accidental character deletions - oops! All that work, down the drain...
At the metaphysical level, uniqueness is rare - thanks to universals, we have the same goddamn shit everywhere we go. There's only so much you can build with a limited set of LEGOs.
Civilization may prosper but only at the expense of those supporting it.
I'm afraid that crusaders in this field tend to have little time for fairness.
So you agree I'm right but now make up this weird claim that I think most people would straightforwardly agree? And yet I've said the majority - in this romanticised, individualist, existentialist modern culture of ours - have been brought up to have a different set of beliefs. So to agree with my rational and empirically supported position would be to go against the general social brainwashing.
My point was that people like you and DC have swallowed the idea that personal autonomy is paramount - which is why the discovered lack of it becomes a bitter disappointment. Romanticism promised you something, then took it away. But you still fundamentally believe in it.
The Cosmos was meant to be enchanted. It is merely prosaic. So you wish it would all just fuck off and die.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You talk about rational self-reflection as some "big brained" biological capacity which we should take for granted. But it's a linguistic and cultural habit that has evolved socially and so is tightly wedded to a social level of action. Our societies shape the kind of "self" reflection (and regulation) which suits their purposes.
So again, you are just expressing the particular romantic individualism promoted as a social asset at a particular stage of human social evolution - a time when fossil fuel wants to be burnt as fast as possible. It really helps that unlimited growth agenda to produce generations of individuals who want to get off their arses and find ever more creative methods of increasing their ability to consume.
Quoting schopenhauer1
If we must use computer analogies, then again look to the culture that writes the current generation of software and the story of the "human condition" it finds functional to tell.
And sure, it is a necessary part of the evolutionary process that there is dissent. You have to have failure to find the winners. You need variety to maintain adaptive capacity.
So there is absolutely nothing unnatural about anti-natalism being out there as a meme. But while we are on the sugar-rush of a fossil fuel bonanza, global population growth won't halt until it hits some harder limit than that.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Romanticism in a nutshell.
Of course I understand that I'm not you and you are not me. We are all separate lives in that sense. But humans are highly constrained by their shared biological, social and cultural histories. The actual individuality becomes fractional by comparison.
So I'm not about denying anything. I'm just about empirical accuracy. If you want to claim that everyone is an individual, let's quantify that. Society seems to need both poets and soldiers. It has cultural institutions to produce both. But what would you guess the ratio of professional poets to professional soldiers to be? And what would the answer tell you?
Quoting schopenhauer1
But that's just the definition of a natural system. Nature works by developing the constraints that shape its local degrees of freedom. Existence is probabilistic - or rather, a story about the rational development of propensities.
Tendencies can tolerate exceptions and still be tendencies. This is why the organic is so powerful and persistent, not brittle like the mechanical (where tendencies must be necessities for the machine to work more than once).
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yep. And natural selection needs its failures. That is how it can continue to track success.
Yep. Romanticism tells the story of what it is to be the heroic individual, the legend of your own lunchhour.
And in a fossil fuel age, where there is abundant resources to be wasted, it makes sense to construct a mentality that wants to rip up its own past so as to free itself to invent a new future.
All the traditional constraints on growth - the kind of conservative wisdom that traditional societies build in because they have been bumping into various growth constraints - can be trampled into the dust, leaving the individual unfettered to be part of the new fast changing lifestyle predicated on a new level of entropic possibility.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yep, rebel without a cause still sums it up. It's the hep cats against the squares. Anti-natalism is just the latest self-tragic pose - the floppy Emo fringe being drapped across the murder porn of shows like True Detective to give them a little counter-culture chic.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Well that's been my point. Modern civilisation has developed in unreflective fashion, re-organising itself so as to dissipate fossil fuels in the most mechanical fashion. Thus if you want to focus on the actual issue, this is the issue.
But there is no point bleating about cosmic insignificance or the fact that the majority are going blindly with the entropic flow. This is simply given voice to the very Romanticism, the Individualism, that modern civilisation has used to rip up its past, free itself to consume its own future with unconstrained haste.
To talk about the virtues of veganism or antinatalism is just pointless displacement activity. It is to accept the disconnect between the social and individual sphere which modern civilisation is using to do its thing. It is to exist in a world that is actually eating ever greater quantities of meat and breeding with exponential zest, and simply want to do "the opposite" without actually dealing with the core mythology that makes that society what it is.
The fact is that entropification is natural. That's who we are. That's what life is. But also there is a choice. We can see that a sustainable lifestyle requires one mentality - a highly socially constrained one. While a fossil fuel lifestyle promotes another - one in which romantic individuality prevails, where the social past can freely be rewritten in whatever way "you" believe right.
That is what life produces in copious amounts: irony, the comedic aspect of tragedy. You can talk of entropy production but life adds such insignificant amount of entropy to the overall state of the universe that this makes it rather unimportant. Irony can only exist when there are conscious beings, and in fact it is produced quite liberally. Where there is sentient life, there is irony.
Life is an accident, it's a thing that just "happened". We shouldn't expect it to be purpose-filled and comfortable.
Quoting apokrisis
No. It is an understanding of what constitutes organic life, and a rejection of this as much as we can while continuing to live. It is the realization that life is a family of suffering, and the subsequent denial of cannibalism. Veganism was practiced thousands of years ago - every problem that modern society has in which pessimism and veganism responds to, was in existence millennia ago. Modern society just tends to have a way of amplifying them.
Quoting apokrisis
But not moral.
What's ironic is that the Life of Brian was accurate as satire in being so squarely aimed at the narcissism of small differences. The laugh was at all the various beetle-browed self-rule factions that were utterly ineffectual.
Remember how the film ends. The crack suicide squad from the Judean People's Front charges to save Brian on the cross and then commits mass suicide in front of the Roman troops in a political protest.
The modern equivalent is proclaiming oneself to be a Vegan, or a Pessimist. Cue the furious social boundary marking discussions about whether you can be a "real vegan" living on chips and chocolate. Or a "true pessimist" if you don't follow through and top yourself, or if you keep a cat, dog or pet rat.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I enjoyed True Detective (the first one at least) at the level of well-acted murder porn. But let's not pretend it had any philosophical merit. Or even artistic merit. It was a soap with glossy pretensions.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Humans are warming a whole planet. That's quite impressive historically speaking.
It takes a gallon of petrol to produce a modern cheeseburger. A gallon of petrol represents the geologically-reduced remnants of 98 tons of ancient planktonic biomass dug out of a deep hole.
I think you can only call the ecological footprint of the typical Westerner "insignificant" because you haven't really ever checked out the numbers involved.
And irony is not that prevalent in human culture. Sarcasm might seem universal these days due to the internet, but I remember when the Germans, French and Americans certainly did not get Monty Python.
And even then, the primary job of irony/sarcasm/mocking and "a sense of humour" generally is as a sophisticated tool of social constraint. Laughter is the group's way of bringing individuals into line with a collective point of view.
So to the degree that irony exists, it is evidence of the value we all place on a capacity to exert social control. Laughter is the clever way we now draw sharp boundaries so as to define a group identity - even when that laughter is aimed at the very fact that this is the kind of social trick we are always pulling, as in a very fine comedy like the Life of Brian.
Quoting darthbarracuda
For something so accidental, life managed to happen rather easily. It appeared pretty much immediately once the biophysics allowed the semiotic phase transition involved. So from a biological perspective, it is about as "accidental" as steam condensing to water once the temperature has sufficiently cooled.
If we are going to talk about purpose, then it doesn't seem a problem to me that that is only meaningful in an ultimately thermodynamic sense. I'm all about the naturalism.
As for comfort, who ordered that? Thermodynamics justifies talk about balance or equilibrium. And you need two to tango. So if there is satisfaction, there must be unease. If there is comfort, there must be striving. It's yin and yang. Your monotonic notions have no value in nature.
Quoting darthbarracuda
So should I be a vegan because I believe animals have souls and in the truth of reincarnation?
Cannibalism was practiced until a few hundred years ago. And with a similar theistic logic. You ate the dead so as to make something of them also something of yourself.
So let's stop pretending that there is a fixed morality at work here. Rationality is not enough as a guide to what is right. You also need an accurate empirical picture from which to draw those rational conclusions.
And this is what I've been saying you lack. You just make up the facts to fit the particular cultural prejudices which are symptomatic of your cultural miillieu. You have picked up various ideas that are fashionable for the moment and sticking to them like glue.
They may well be functional ideas. They may indeed be a better way to think. But you haven't yet managed to argue that case in terms of naturalism. You have just appealed to the kind of romantic and dualistic mysticism which deserves the kind of ridicule it gets.
Oh sure, I agree, it was cliche. But it talked about relevant pessimistic themes that people ordinarily would not look into.
Quoting apokrisis
Ooooo, a whole planet.....in a universe of countless planets...such majesty...
Being proud of our entropic production is akin to a toddler being proud of a little LEGO tower he made in ten minutes.
Quoting apokrisis
That is just an example of how utterly wasteful action tends to be. How the output never matches the input.
Quoting apokrisis
It's also a way of relieving tension when things get a bit too difficult to handle. Just look at the Greek tragedies followed by comedies.
Quoting apokrisis
And from a metaphysical perspective, life and the universe in general is absurd and accidental. Given the timeline of the universe, life is but an irrelevant blip.
Quoting apokrisis
Unfortunately this equivocates natural telos with psychological affirmation of importance.
Quoting apokrisis
Yup, basically scientific taoism. You would have liked Nietzsche, he put emphasis on the "healthy" life as a way of "calming us down" after the storm of disillusionment and nihilism. I don't think he succeeded but whatever.
Quoting apokrisis
Uhh, no.
Quoting apokrisis
Okay.
Quoting apokrisis
Right, but again I'm not a moral realist, so I'm not under any illusions that there is a "fixed" morality here. Only realizations about our state and the relations we have with others.
Quoting apokrisis
What facts do I make up? Animal suffering? That is fact!
Yes, of course.
Has anyone actually disagreed with this position in this thread? There's big piles of seemingly dissenting words but they all seem to be about metaethics.
Yes. Several times on the basis that the whole nonsense is a massive category error. I described it as a load of dingo's kidneys at one point. I understand that it might be difficult to spot in this exchange of largely meaningless verbiage which other posters are prone to but my colours are firmly nailed to the mast!
Quoting Barry Etheridge
Maybe you didn't know Dawkins wrote "The Selfish Gene" where he explains how cooperation can evolve as a means of social organisms achieving their own personal goals and where cheaters within a group of intelligent members with long memories won't do so well. Take a look at the part where he talks about the game theory and the Prisoner's Dilemma.
There are many reasons why 99.9% of the species that existed are extinct. When the environment changes those balances are disrupted, but once the environment settles down and becomes stable, those balances re-occur.
I won't disagree that humans have changed the environment, but then so do many other organisms and other processes, like the sun, and the internal forces of the Earth, which have a much larger impact on the environment than humans do presently. Change is the name of the game. Change occurs - sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly - and when it does those balances and cooperative relationships are disrupted.
Competition is the process where an organism becomes acclimated to the new environment - competing for the resources with other species thereby creating an almost perfect balance between organism and environment. When the species becomes so perfectly tuned to it's environment it won't change, like how the shark hasn't changed for millions of years because it has evolved to the point of being an almost perfect killing machine in the water. The reason why it can never be the perfect killing machine is because it would end up killing all it's prey to the point where the species that is the prey will be eaten to extinction and then the shark starve and die. There will always be a competition between prey and predator. As the prey evolves new abilities to evade the predator, the predator will be forced to evolved a counter or die off.
Apo, I didn't mean to paint you as an advocate of factory farming, quite the contrary, I think of you as an eco-friendly poster, indeed I'm intrigued that, as I read you, you think something like factory farming is indeed a symptom of how we as human creatures are going wrong. I just can't get to that via naturalism; I have to approach it from a different angle.
Crusading, Barry: I'm an old git who stands for elections, knocks on doors, discusses ecology and the plight of fossil fuels with strangers on behalf of the Greens. I have a point of view, and I'm a fair man: these two things are possible in the same person. It seems an odd idea to me that to campaign is somehow to be unfair: how will the polis survive without a lot of pavement-pounders like me? Let's all be polite.
:-}
In any rate, pessimism is an argument for pessimism, so it's not too surprising to myself that there exist people who are discontent with the system. The whole picture takes this phenomenon into account and doesn't pretend like it's some alien from a different universe.
Quoting zookeeper
For some reason these debates tend to devolve into metaethics. I'm still waiting for a decent argument against the OP that doesn't reek of subjugation and question-begging naturalistic fallacy bullshit.
I gave one a few days ago that you haven't yet addressed:
"Then one can argue that the things that make it the case that one shouldn't experiment on humans don't make it the case that one shouldn't experiment on non-human animals.
For example, if as you say empathy is the starting point, and if it's immoral to experiment on things with which you empathise, then if you empathise with humans but not with non-human animals then it's immoral to experiment on humans but not immoral to experiment on non-human animals."
When I say empathy is a starting point, I mean that empathy gives us an initial motivation to help another person. We need no extra justification to help someone if we feel empathetic to them.
Yet this is surely not the only motivation for ethics. We can see how rights are applied to humans that are explicitly non-rational, like toddlers, or the mentally disabled. We can see how non-human animals are sentient. We can notice how our empathy is inherently tribe-like. And we can piece these together to come to the conclusion that our application of rights is completely arbitrary - thus motivating us to create a new schema, one that includes non-human animals in its domain.
So it would go like this:
1.) The ability to suffer is a prime candidate for ethical priority (plausible)
2.) Non-human animals can suffer (highly likely)
3.) Non-human animals therefore have ethical priority (from 1 and 2)
Like I said before, we need not care for non-human animals to realize that they deserve to be treated equally.
And I appealed to the other forms of -isms like sexism and racism to show how any arbitrary exclusion of non-human animals from the domain of ethics can equally be applied to the exclusion of females or blacks from the domain of politics or society in general. Thus this is an ad absurdum argument which is meant to show the inconsistency and arbitrary-ness of speciesism.
It's only arbitrary if sentience is the only relevant factor. Given that we also give rights to the dead would suggest that this isn't the case. Rather it seems that humanity is a relevant factor. And given that non-human animals aren't human, it's not inconsistent to not give them the same rights as us.
I don't quite understand the implication of this. What exact rights are you proposing we give to non-human animals? The right to marriage and to run for President? What does treating animals with equality actually entail?
In which case, I would urge us to reconsider our prior beliefs. Ancestor worship is irrational, the deceased are no more and cannot be harmed. Only the memory of them can be tarnished. So we aren't giving rights to the dead as much as we are preserving a legacy of this person.
Quoting Michael
Right, so animals can't vote. They can't write dissertations defending their right to not be abused. They can't collectively come together and petition for change.
Equality in this sense does not register as equal "everything", just as equality between the sexes does not mean men can get abortions (it doesn't make sense). Rather, equality means equal treatment - if we treat humans with respect, then we ought to treat animals with respect. If we wouldn't murder a human, then we ought not murder an animal. If we wouldn't enslave a human (anymore at least...), then we ought not enslave an animal.
Administering rights to humans but not to non-human animals requires a justification, which will take the form of an ethical constraint. Yet, as I have argued, there are no constraints that aren't arbitrary, contradictory, or irrational.
I think I see your problem....
So? Clearly our moral considerations do not just take into account harm done, which is exactly why it is not sufficient to argue that animals ought be treated with equality simply because they can be harmed.
Administering rights at all requires justification (if it requires justification at all). And it might be that part of the justification for administering rights to humans is that they are human – i.e. humans have rights not because they can suffer but because they are human – and given that non-human animals are not human it is not arbitrary, contradictory, or irrational to administer rights to humans but not to non-human animals.
I don't see how you get from "animals can suffer" to "we ought not kill animals". I'm guessing the implicit premise is "we ought not kill things which can suffer". Clearly this isn't a premise that many agree with. So if you want to argue that we ought not kill animals then the burden is on you to defend the premise "we ought not kill things which can suffer". Simply saying "we ought not kill humans" doesn't do this. The latter doesn't entail the former.
Or rather, you should see this as your problem and look into why the constraints of common sense morality are largely arbitrary and defenseless.
Yet we can refine our moral considerations and reject the notions of common sense morality that make no sense.
Quoting Michael
But why should we limit these rights to only humans? As I've shown there's really no justification to not give these rights to non-human animals.
Quoting Michael
I disagree. A lot of people see animals as "lesser" creatures, of a "lesser" intellect and thus "logically" (?) "lesser" emotional capacity. They don't disagree with the notion that we ought not kill or harm things which can suffer. They just think that non-human animals are more akin to machines than feeling creatures.
It says something about the arbitrariness of common-sense morality when we look at how a hunter might own a pet dog to help sniff out the game, and has an emotional connection to this animal and cares about its welfare, while simultaneously failing to attribute these same rights to the elk it murders. It's cherry-picking bullshit, through and through.
What do you mean by it not making sense?
Quoting darthbarracuda
Why limit rights to only those things which can suffer? And why do we need justification to not give them rights?
If you want to argue that things can deserve rights even if we don't give them rights, and if a thing deserving rights is independent of whatever rights we actually give (or not give), then if humans deserve rights but non-human animals don't then this is all the justification we need to give rights to humans but not to non-human animals.
Why must our application of moral rights not be arbitrary? If I choose to give some people cake but not others then I'm being arbitrary. Am I obligated to give everyone else cake? Of course not. So that we choose to give some things rights but not others is arbitrary. Are we obligated to give everything else rights? Prima facie, no. A case needs to be made for other things deserving rights. And maybe non-human animals don't deserve the same rights as us, either because they can't suffer or because a capacity to suffer is not sufficient.
I mean that it is not consistent or rational.
Quoting Michael
Well, because having a feeling mind carries with it certain liabilities, like the capacity to suffer. And I see no good reason to posit alternative capacities that makes something worthy of ethical consideration. They don't fulfill the open-ended question.
Quoting Michael
Again, if we apply the concept of equality universally, then we'll see how giving some people cake but not others is not advisable - is this not the basis of socialism?
I am coming from a perspective that affirms the concept of equality and the ethical importance of suffering. In order to argue against my claim, then, you will need to argue that equality shouldn't be applied universally (and thus not be equality in any meaningful sense), and that suffering is not the only ethically important notion - and from my view, the former would depend on arbitrary moral constraints, and the latter fails to fulfill the open-ended question.
Or we could just ask you to support any claim you might wish to make, having explained why it is in fact arbitrary in mandating universality where even commonsense says differences exist.
If animals, for instance, can't imagine their own extinction by death and so experience existential dread, then do we get to take that distinction into account, or not?
You are taking an all or nothing approach to sentience. And where are the facts that would justify such an arbitrary stance on your part?
Well, sure, but we'll have to have solid evidence to show that they can't feel dread. In any case the murder of a non-human sentient would be similar to the murder of a human - you are taking away the chance to experience potential good in the future, or the freedom to do so. Ignoring this just makes them out to be machines with no purpose or goal, which just isn't true (or, at the least, should not be assumed)
Quoting apokrisis
No, I am taking an all-or-nothing approach to ethics about sentience. I understand how minds exist in a gradience. This does little to the ethics of sentience, however.
This is high order sophistry! One is never required to prove a negative. It is the plaintiff that must prove his case, something which you have singularly failed to do in my opinion. The defendant is not required to prove anything.
Yes it would if the non-human sentient was human! You've continually failed to (or more likely refused to) address this simple fatal flaw in your argument long enough. It is an inescapable truth that human rights (if such a concept has any meaning anyway) are the distillation of ethical arguments by humans, about humans, and for humans. There is no rational or logical argument by which the qualifier 'human' may be erased. They do not, by definition, apply to any species other than humans. For any other species to have these rights they must not simply resemble humans they must be humans or identical to humans.
The whole basis of your argument is that every ethical principle which applies in defining human rights is transferable without modification to other animals and that is simply not the case for the simple reason that every ethical principle which applies in the definition of human rights is predicated on the uniquely human.
If part of the reason that we treat people better than we treat animals is that people are human then it's not inconsistent or irrational to treat people better than we treat animals.
Just as if part of the reason that we treat things which can suffer better than we treat things which can't is that things which can suffer can feel pain then it's not inconsistent or irrational to treat things which can suffer better than we treat things which can't.
There's a reason behind our treatment (either "they're human" or "it can suffer") and we're applying that reason consistently.
Others disagree. Others say that being human makes something worthy of (special) ethical consideration. Others say that even things which can't suffer can be worthy of ethical consideration (e.g. the dead). What reasons do you have for believing that all things (and only those things?) which can suffer deserve equal ethical consideration? You keep asserting it and demanding that others prove you wrong, but that's shifting the burden of proof.
It's not my job to argue against your claim. It's your job to defend your claim.
Furthermore, you keep using this term "arbitrary" which doesn't actually apply here. A thing is arbitrary if it is done without a reason, but there is a reason why we treat people better than we treat non-human animals; that reason being that the former are human, and so deserving of special ethical treatment. It may also be the case that non-human animals deserve this same kind of special ethical treatment, but we can't simply assume that they do. You can't go from "humans deserve special ethical treatment" to "non-human animals deserve special ethical treatment".
Or to put it another way, you can't go from "all humans ought be treated equally" to "all things which can suffer ought be treated equally". And there's nothing arbitrary, irrational, or inconsistent about the former.
Quite the contrary. If there is any doubt in our mind that an organism is capable of suffering, then it is the skeptic that must provide evidence that they cannot feel suffering.
So you're appealing to the historic application of rights to argue that we ought not to apply these rights to other creatures.
"Human", in the case, can be replaced with "sentient". Indeed that's what our arrogance had us believe was the case: that humans were the only sentients on earth. But we know better now. Not giving animals rights is akin to not giving blacks rights because they're "sub-human".
But there needs to be a justification for why humans are special.
Perhaps we're special because we can vote or do philosophy. In which case, yes, we shouldn't give voting rights to animals because they can't vote! Yet they can suffer (as can we). They fulfill some standard necessary for a right to be applied.
Quoting Michael
Well, because I think all value comes down to a balance of pain and pleasure.
But anyway this misses the point. I'm not arguing that only things that can suffer are worthy of consideration (although I do agree with this), I'm arguing that things that can suffer are worthy of consideration (among other possible things), and that animals can suffer. No matter what else you believe, I take it as a common value that if you can suffer, you are ethically relevant.
Quoting Michael
I have, by appealing to our sense of equality. I have offered a reductionist approach to this issue: there is no good reason to not apply equality to animals.
Quoting Michael
But I can, because I have argued that humans ought to be treated equally not because they are humans, but because they can suffer. I have pointed out how any other justification is inherently tribalism.
You know what. I really don't care any more. You carry on spouting you're error strewn nonsense and I'll get back to my bacon sandwich with a clear conscience. My involvement in this thread is finito.
What those that criticise speciesism would say about this is that the question is why does people being human cause us to treat them better than other animals? I believe the reason is simply tribalism - because humans are our group and cows are not. If defenders of speciesism would just agree to that then there would be no incoherence in their position.
Cognitive dissonance arises when people do not want to admit that, so they try to come up with all sorts of contorted arguments as to why there are good ethical reasons to treat humans better, that have nothing to do with kinship. Peter Singer has done a marvellous job of pulling these arguments apart and showing their inconsistencies. Even Bernard Williams, who disagreed with most of what Singer wrote, said that he favoured people over other animals because they were like him and he thought that was just fine.
We've seen several threads on here trying to argue that humans are somehow 'special', and not just by virtue of kinship. I didn't see a single good argument in any of those threads.
It's like Jim Jeffries' marvellous rant against gun culture. If pro-gun people would just be honest and say the reason they don't want guns controlled is 'I like guns! F*** Off!' then we could respect them for their logical coherence. But instead they come up with ridiculous arguments about 'protection' and 'safety', which have no logical coherence at all.
There's nothing logically incoherent in somebody saying 'I like bacon! F*** off!', or 'I'm kinder to humans than other animals because I'm more closely related to them'. IMHO neither is an attractive argument, since the latter can be used just as well to justify racial discrimination. But they have a certain integrity.
It is hardly so arbitrary. Humans treat each other well in the hope and expectation they will get the same treatment in return. That is basic rational behaviour.
Pet owners and farmers do the same thing with their animals because in reciprocal fashion they get personal goods like pets that comfort and protect them, or farm animals that are easier to handle and more productive.
So it is about the group dynamic - the give and take of mutual interests. But to simply give rights without reasons is arbitrary and irrational, unless you can argue for some further transcendent principle at work.
You're conflating hypothetical imperatives with categorical imperatives. You use "rational" (i.e. self-interest) as the motivating reason to adopt a moral scheme. This is all fair and good, if you're a moral egoist or an anti-realist non-cognitivist who rejects categorical imperatives. But then just come out and say so, and admit that the categorical imperative is really just self-interest.
Yet I think it is clear that morality, as it is being discussed here, is about the categorical imperatives. We are talking about morality as if there is some non-selfish reason to follow these rules. We are talking about a morality that clearly goes beyond self-centered behavior. Which is why I have relied upon appeals to the more "transcendent" moral principles, like equality, to defend my claim.
The fact that animals cannot really "give back" to you is seen as evidence by yourself that they are not worthy of ethical consideration, as helping them would be irrational (against our own interests). Yet I hope that you agree that this strikes a chord in some sense - that despite being "irrational" (altruistic), we still feel compelled to act this way.
Indeed, it is inherent to hypothetical imperatives that they seem to not settle the open-ended question.
So what I am advocating here then is an abandonment of conventional, historical morality. So humans tended to other humans who were part of their small clan in the past...so what? So humans have historically abused and instrumentalized animals in the past...so what? So humans have systematically discriminated against each other based on race, sex, or any other means...so what? Should we continue to espouse tribalistic behavior? Should we continue to abuse animals? Should we continue to discriminate against members of our own species simply because they have different shades of skin or different genitals? Are we not better than that? Can we not move on from these beastly behaviors? Can we not recognize that there is a difference between rationality and ethicality? Can we not recognize that, if we existed in a different world, we might not have to espouse these ancient, oppressive traditions?
By calling these traditions "oppressive", "tribalistic", "totalitarian", "unequal", etc., I am identifying an actual quality of these traditions. They really are oppressive, tribalistic, totalitarian, and unequal, whether you like to admit it or not. And my hope is that, once you admit this fact, your sense of morality will fire up and you will reject these prior traditions in virtue of the fact that they are oppressive, tribalistic, totalitarian, and unequal.
You could accuse me of putting everyone on a guilt-trip; yet this guilt is precisely why I think we ought to abandon these traditions. After all, I am only pointing out facts. Whether or not we are able to act ethically is entirely irrelevant to the discussion.
No I'm not. I'm taking the view that talk about categorical imperatives is transcendent bunk. As a Pragmatist, I can only support reasoned approaches to morality - ones that are natural. And I've said that all along, so I hardly have to come out of the closet about it.
Quoting darthbarracuda
That's your claim. I've repeatedly asked you to justify it.
You don't make an appeal to god, or maths, or anything. So what justifies your transcendental ontology apart from a dualistic, reality-denying, approach to "sentience"?
You say that '"equality" is your transcendent principle, and yet you reject any reasonable approaches to measuring that equality. If anyone points out that humans and animals are not equal in terms of any sensible definition of sentience, you simply claim not to believe the science which tells us that as a measureable fact. Your position is defended by sticking your fingers in your ears and refusing to talk about equality realistically.
Quoting darthbarracuda
As usual, you distort what people argue.
I said in practice we do care about animals to the degree they "give back to us". And this is natural as morality is all about the practical business of organising social relations. We are social creatures and ethical frameworks exist to optimise that. As social creatures, we now have extended that to the realm of domesticated animals. We treat domestic animals differently from wild animals or good reason. We do things like pay their vet bills because we accept their welfare as our responsibility.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Not only can we do these things, but we do do these things. However the best argument is going to be that it is rational self-interest to do so.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Or rather you are trying to win an argument by using emotionally loaded terms. I prefer reason and evidence myself.
Quoting darthbarracuda
This gets very weird. You want to cause us the suffering that is to feel guilt even if there is then nothing we could do to assuage that guilt you have created?
Is that ethical in your book?
Sorry, I can't make any sense of what you want to say here.
Quoting apokrisis
Right, so you are under the framework that what has been done, and what we currently do, is what we ought to continue to do because it's natural and rational, or in our own self-interest.
In other words, comfort is evidence of moral value. If we aren't comfortable with the prospect of giving up our dominion over animals, then by golly it's not important.
Quoting apokrisis
Yet this is false because we hold many moral beliefs that are not in our best-interest. Perhaps we hold that lying is wrong, even if we could get away with it. It may be in our best-interests to lie, but perhaps we just don't think it's right to lie. Or perhaps we realize how our money would be better spent on aiding those in need, instead of buying that new video game that we want.
Quoting apokrisis
As if ethics is entirely disconnected from emotion. Because self-interest isn't emotional at its core...?
Quoting apokrisis
Well, yes, it is appropriate, since your guilt is insignificant compared to the suffering of wild animals, which we do indeed have an ability to minimize. It's not that I want you to feel guilt, I want to you act more ethically. It does no good by proclaiming something moral or immoral if everyone is coming from different metaethical perspectives. So I resort to appealing to universal ethical concepts and asking people to consider why they constrain these concepts to a select few.
I really don't have much use for moral condemnation. I'm interested in presenting an ethical position that I feel should be pursued, by presenting facts and allowing others to come to the same conclusion that I have. This takes the form of an if-then counterfactual. If you abide by equality, then you ought to treat animals with respect (unless you have a good reason, i.e. a constraint, not to).
In your case, this reason seems to be rational self-interest. Yet this does not satisfy the open ended question very well, and especially conflicts with our intuitions that maybe we should focus on the welfare of people instead of merely seeing them as a means to an end for our own purposes. Because that is what rational self-interest egoism entails: that we care for others so long as we ourselves benefit from this. And I cannot be the only one who finds this to be troubling.
So I will say something along the lines of: if you care about suffering, then you will do something about it. This, I take it, is a fact - if you care about something, then you will do something relevant to it. If you don't want to do something about suffering, then you must not care about suffering. And I'll let you figure the rest out for yourself, and come to terms with this. If you don't care about suffering, then so be it. Likewise, if you don't care about equality, then so be it. Just don't pretend you do.
You just won't deal with my actual arguments, will you?
What we did in the past was often based on flimsy reasoning. Morality was something God told you about. I say that examine some of that closely - in the light of a modern scientific understanding of the principles of natural systems - and you can see why some of those traditional habits were functional, even if they couldn't account for themselves in naturalistic terms.
Today of course we can develop morality based on a proper understanding of natural systems. Which is where we can start to criticise much of how modern society might be organised from a credible basis.
That means I have no patience for your fact-lite PC guilt-tripping. If you want to make credible arguments, establish a proper basis for them.
Quoting darthbarracuda
The argument is that morality reflects the communal best interest.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Again, the argument is that morality reflects the communal best interest.
So the bleeding point of it is to transcend your personal feelings about what ought to the case because the very idea of suffering causes you unendurable suffering.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Then give me appropriate reasons.
Personally I find cats delightful and dogs repulsive. Emotionally, the idea of vivisectionists experimenting on kittens is appalling, but beagles don't move me the same way.
And yet I myself say it would be ridiculous to support one rule for kittens, another for beagles, in this regard.
The ability to make this kind of distinction between my emotional preferences and rationally held communal beliefs seems basic to any worthwhile morality.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I'll say it again. The systems view is explicit that society is a balance between competitive and co-operative imperatives. We need both to make society work. So there is self-interest in getting my own selfish way, alongside the self-interest in my community flourishing.
Trade-offs are already at the heart of morality. Which is why your black and white thinking seems so hopelessly romantic and out of date.
I can't see how that can be anything other than a utilitarian ethos - 'greatest good for the greatest number'. Nor can I see any 'intrinsic good' in naturalism, that compares to (for example) the higher truths in Buddhism, towards which ethical actions are directed.
Yes, but you still have to argue for what the standard should be that we should attempt to strive for.
Quoting apokrisis
Yes, but why should we consider communal best interest to be more important than a global community's best interest?
Quoting apokrisis
No, it's because no triumph or something silly like that can phenomenally compare to suffering as it is experienced in sentient organisms.
Quoting apokrisis
This is not my argument. My argument is not that we must personally love animals. My argument is that we must treat animals with respect because they deserve it. I've said this many times before, we don't actually have to be animal lovers to recognize this.
Ethics is not about being comfortable or justifying our inherent animalistic dispositions.
Quoting apokrisis
Oh, certainly we have to have these in place for a certain kind of society to work. But why should this constrain the possibilities?
We obviously have different views as to what constitutes the "good". I am willing to accept this, so long as you are willing to accept that the flourishing of society is not on my list of priorities for reasons I have already stated.
And?
My position is that tradititional wisdoms endured precisely because they were utilitarian in this regard. They might invent gods or categorical imperatives of various kind, but this was just post-hoc rationalisation.
I made that proximity argument at the beginning of this thread.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Stuck. Record.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Why do they deserve it? I give the natural reasons. You talk about your emotions.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Systems have a logic based on constraints and the freedoms they shape (which are the freedoms needed to energetically reconstruct that prevailing state of constraint).
So the reasons why society has to be that way - global cooperation and local competition - is that it is what works. Marxism, anarchy, flower power, dictatorships, communes - there are plenty of examples of alternatives that didn't work because they did not strike the right balance.
No, you also give emotional arguments because you have placed value upon the "natural" state, thus making it susceptible to moral discussion. Nothing discovered under the microscope is inherently moral or valuable - in the absence of any transcendental Good, value comes from the person.
These natural reasons are valuable because you think they are valuable because you have placed value on whatever it is that these reasons uphold.
Quoting apokrisis
Right...so because it works, therefore it's moral?
You have jumped the is-ought gap here by implicitly assuming a standard that these reasons uphold. A standard that does not ring true to me at all as being obviously moral.
But your claim that it reduces to "survival" is taking a "survival of the fittest" rhetoric overly seriously.
Ecologists and other systems thinkers talk about resilience, richness, flourishing, and even ascendancy, for a reason.
Remember that German natural philosophy (as a precursor to a modern ecological view) was seen as an idealist exercise. And holism and systems science have been more than sympathetic to eastern religion - indeed they fueled transhumanism and other new age cults.
So you are trying to peg me as a scientistic Darwinist. But that's not what I've argued. I began by talking about flourishing rather than surviving for good reason.
This is getting very silly.
Quoting darthbarracuda
The is-ought fallacy is your hang-up, not mine.
My argument is that morality is simply an encoding of the organisation by which a social system can persist. And to pretend it is anything more high-falutin' than that is a damaging romantic delusion.
Please respond with an argument and not just a handwave. I have clearly shown to you how your emphasis on "natural-ness" is derived from a prior appropriation of value to a certain standard.
Quoting apokrisis
You are merely asserting that the anthropological history of morality defines what morality currently is or could be in the future, thus limiting its prospects.
Hence why I am repeatedly said before that your position is inherently affirmative - affirmative of society, affirmative of progress, affirmative of life. While I am coming from a non-affirmative, perhaps negative, perspective, in which morality is not a tool to be used to enhance our ability to survive but rather a truly reflective enterprise meant to overthrow past assumptions based upon a critical analysis of the world we live in.
Respond to the argument already made. Don't be a dick.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Or rather I show why its future prospects would be self-limited for the same reasons.
As usual, you just ignore any actual argument I make. For instance, I've said often enough that living within the solar flux vs living off a fossil fuel explosion has produced a historical disjunction in terms of "morality". So the critical question becomes, well, do we like what that results in?
Quoting darthbarracuda
I talk about how things actually are. You talk about what you wish them to be.
Sorry I didn't intend to do that. I'm trying to make a more general point about naturalistic ethics. Think about this point. What is the origin of the idea that all humans are of equal worth, that the life of the poor and disabled, is of equal worth to the life of the healthy and productive? Historically that idea originated in the Christian ethos. It might seem natural to us now, but it could be questioned from a utilitarian viewpoint. Furthermore there have been cultures where such an idea does not seem at all natural.
So, what if we're in a situation where resources are seriously scarce - which collectively, I think our culture is going to inevitably face - do we let some people perish, so that others might flourish?
Now I'm not proposing any answer to that question. Nor am I suggesting that making such a drastic decision is an entailment of a naturalist ethos. All I am saying is that the rationale for treating all lives as equal, is not obvious from a utilitarian or naturalist point of view. A utilitarian might convincingly argue that the healthy will benefit a lot more, if freed from the drain of supporting the elderly or disabled. Of course we see that, rightly, as an abhorrent argument. But that is really for reasons of conscience.
And speaking of 'species-ism', surely the fact that we can make such choices is one of the ways in which we differ from other species.
Probably because we are able to conceive of realities that are not.
Not really as what you wrote was self-contradicting and so made no sense to me.
You said: "The discussion was about ethical justifications for treating humans better than animals." And then "Those reasons have nothing to do with ethics."
So I'm baffled what you might mean.
Your comment: "They are simple transactional considerations," did not help explain.
We can easily conceive of things that don't work. I mentioned marxism and flower power as examples. So that doesn't help your case.
I doubt that "we" would get the choice. And we know the answer. If things get tight, fairness doesn't have a hope.
So the best ethical response is to act in ways that reduce the chance of things getting tight. Then also to start building up resilience in our local communities.
Quoting Wayfarer
But is it abhorrent or is that just the way you currently look at things from a fairly privileged position?
I don't think moral philosophy has any value if it simply takes whatever current PC view of life happens to prevail and then tries to project that on "everyone" at "all times" as the categorial norm. If your morality has no reasoned justification - its simply an endorsement of what one feels - then why even bother with philosophical discussion at all. It is merely propaganda.
Just because they don't work doesn't mean they aren't candidates for morality. They don't work, not because they aren't good, but because there's something limiting its instantiation.
Why can't the good be unattainable? Why must we be able to attain the good? Why must the good be constrained to be compatible with our own limitations?
So once again your pragmatism, although being useful for practical, applied ethics, is getting in the way when we talk about theoretical normative ethics. There is no need for the good to correspond to our abilities, because we are able to conceive of scenarios in which there is nothing stopping the instantiation of the good.
Whereas you start out with the assumption that a prosperous civilization is good, I go deeper and ask whether or not a prosperous civilization even is good, and if so, when. Thus your ethics is second-order and assumptively affirmative whereas my ethics is first-order in that it questions the ethics of existence (as it is currently practiced) itself.
You tell me. Is the protection of the poor based on a reasoned analysis of the comparative value of individual lives?
I think that's only part of it. The part that I was discussing was darthbarracuda's claim that it's inconsistent to argue against homophobia, sexism, and racism, but not "speciesism". But as I said earlier, you can't go from "all humans ought be treated equally" to "all things which can suffer ought be treated equally". It may very well be that non-human animals ought be treated as equal to humans, but you can't get to this simply by arguing that blacks, whites, men, women, heterosexuals, and homosexuals ought be treated equally.
Also, what you say above seems a little misleading. It's not quite as simple as arguing that humans deserve better treatment than animals; it starts simply as the claim that humans deserve this kind of ethical treatment, for whatever reason that is (e.g. we're intelligent). Such a claim doesn't prima facie say that non-human animals don't deserve this kind of ethical treatment. It's just that the reason we have for giving humans this kind of ethical treatment doesn't apply in the case of non-human animals. That's not to say that there isn't some other reason to give them this, of course. Intelligence, in this case, is a sufficient reason but not necessarily a necessary one.
So we might all accept that our level of intelligence is a sufficient reason to consider us deserving of special ethical treatment. But if one wants to argue that there are other sufficient reasons – i.e. ones that apply to non-human animals – then such an argument needs to be given. Absent any such argument, there is no reason to accept that non-human animals deserve the same kind of ethical treatment as us. We can't assume that they do and demand that others prove a negative. That would be to shift the burden of proof.
Quoting andrewk
What kind of reason would count as an ethical reason? Is darthbarracuda's claim that animals can suffer an ethical reason? What makes a capacity to suffer (or whatever) an ethical reason but not a biological and cultural likeness to oneself?
What makes a hero a hero (or more pertinently, a villain a villain)? If you say that villains are villains because they "casually and opportunistically use other free agents just because [they] can" and heroes don't then your reasoning is circular.
I wasn't defining what a hero nor villain is. Point one out.
I know, which is why I asked you what makes a hero a hero and a villain a villain. I was then just pre-empting a possible response.
You serious don't know? You can't tell the difference? At a convenient time like this, and probably others I'm sure the difference seems vague, but you know that it isn't.
Having anti-heroes, troubled heroes, heroes with vices, or that are "just human" just show that all fall short of the goal, but that doesn't mean that there isn't one. Don't pretend that there's no such thing as better or worse, good and evil.
I want you to explain the difference so that I can examine your claim that "you ought not casually and opportunistically use other free agents just because you can, because that's not what heroes do, that's what villains do."
As I already pointed out, one such explanation is that villains are villains because they "casually and opportunistically use other free agents just because [they] can" and heroes are heroes because they don't, but then your claim is circular.
But if villains are villains for some other unrelated reason then your claim is the claim that one ought not casually and opportunistically use other free agents just because you can because people who do terrible thing X [the thing that makes a person a villain] are the only people who casually and opportunistically use other free agents just because they can, but then your claim is a non sequitur. That only terrible people do X does not necessarily entail that X is terrible.
Quoting Wosret
I don't know where this has come from.
Well this thread was about the latter. You seem to persistently be trying to use the former to argue against it.
Your continuing objection to darthbarracuda's claim that "speciesism is wrong" seems to basically be "no, because the definition of morality is what a group considers right/wrong and currently most people don't consider speciesism wrong so you're wrong by definition".
Do I think it's inconsistent to argue against racism etc but not against speciesism? Not necessarily. It depends on the reason given. Usually the reasons given are inconsistent. If somebody argues against racism because we should treat all humans equally then the question arises 'what about non-humans?' The answer to that can range from Descartes' answer that they merit no consideration whatsoever, to Gary Francione's 'animal abolitionist' answer that it is never acceptable to use animals any way, even when they don't seem to mind being used. Francione is so far along the spectrum that he seems to regard Peter Singer as pretty close to a battery poultry farm operator.
Some religions proclaim that humans merit special consideration, in fact so much so that a single-cell fertilised human ovum is accorded greater consideration than a chimpanzee or other advanced non-human mammal that clearly has personality, preferences and an sophisticated ability to communicate. The justification given is 'God says so'. I find nothing inconsistent in that. It's just that I don't believe God (if there is one) does say so, so I respectfully disagree with the holders of such beliefs.
Bernard Williams' ethical perspective, elucidated in a thought experiment involving super-advanced aliens taking over the Earth, is that it is ethically defensible for humans to favour members of the human species because it isour species. Such an approach may or may not be inconsistent depending on the approach taken. It depends on the response to the question 'Why is it OK to favour animals of the same species as you over other species, but not OK to favour animals that have the same species and ancestral homeland over animals that have the same species but a different ancestral homeland?' An answer which avoids inconsistency, at the cost of embracing arbitrariness, is 'Because in my ethical framework, species is all that matters in determining the circle of concern'. Bernard Williams was happy to (in fact often seemed to relish) taking on defiantly arbitrary-seeming positions like that, and his position is unassailable. But most people are not comfortable withthat position. I think most people would instead try to argue that the level of concern 'owed' to others drops off gradually with distance, rather than dropping from everything to nothing at the border of a species. That's fine, but it does have the uncomfortable consequence that, since people of African ancestry and people of Northern European ancestry are less closely related to those in the other group than to those in their own group, it ethically justifies a small, but perhaps measurable, discrimination by a member of one of those groups against members of the other. Most people are not comfortable with that. I know I'm not.
Another possible argument is that what matters is things like awareness, ability to communicate or being able to think about other people's thoughts. That would be fine if people really believed it, but my impression is that they don't. A newborn baby scores much lower on those considerations than do most mature members of the higher mammal species, yet most humans would accord greater consideration to a baby than to an adult chimpanzee.
It seems to me that, to avoid inconsistency, an argument for giving all humans greater consideration than all animals either has to just declare as axiom that species is what matters (or some other arbitrary factor, like 'potential personhood', which is an issue sometimes raised by religious people that feel embarrassed to explain their human-preference just by 'God said so'), whether for religious reasons or out of feisty Williamsesque defiance, or accept that the approach implies lesser consideration for humans with whom we share fewer ancestors. But that may just be my lack of imagination about the types of arguments that can be offered. I'd certainly be interested to hear of possible alternatives.
You also asked 'what [I think] counts as an ethical reason?[/i] Well that's a huge question, and I think many different types of answers would be offered by different people. I suspect that 'ethics' may be one of those concepts that can only be characterised by Wittgenstein's 'family resemblance', eluding attempts to agree a generally accepted definition. But one thing that I think most people would agree on is that ethical decisions form only a small part of all the decisions we make. So any attempt to characterise ethical considerations that includes considerations that would drive a majority of decisions would fail to meet most people's idea of what ethics is.
I think that ?????????????'s suggestion of 'a practical organising of our relations' would fail on that score. Such a phrase encompasses making allocations in a Christmas Kringle, making introductions at a cocktail party, writing emails, letters and forum posts, applying for jobs... In fact nearly all the things we do seem to fall under that heading, leaving aside only those items that involve only one person - playing patience or working on a maths problem perhaps.
Of course there's never any point in arguing over definitions. If somebody wants to adopt a definition of ethics that includes deciding who to get to run the anchor leg in the 4 x 100m relay, I wish them joy of it. But their idea of ethics will be so far removed from mine (and I believe also from that of most other people) that it would be pointless to attempt to discuss any purportedly ethical issue with them.
For me, and this may be just me, the domain of ethics seems to be delineated by the simple consideration that it is about making decisions that I expect to have an impact on the feelings of other beings that I believe to be sentient.
In fact I said DC was wrong in claiming that human suffering and animal suffering ought to be presumed to be equal as we have good reason to believe that animals don't suffer from existential dread, for instance.
And then morality in general has no transcendent or Platonic basis. It is simply the wisdom by which human societies live. So it could only be a group thing.
And being naturalistic in that fashion, it would be no surprise if morality evolves in step with lifestyle evolution. So what we do currently, or previously, can be examined in terms of why it worked - and by definition it has worked because here we are. However we are free to make a new kind of sense of the world, as encoded by our new moral codes.
But then, the anthropological examination of what has worked does throw up general and obvious "rules" - such as the ones that establish trade-offs between competitive and cooperative behaviours in any social group.
Again, I don't think it's as simple as "humans deserve greater consideration than all animals". I think it's more a case of "humans deserve special consideration because of X", where X is something that non-human animals don't have. It doesn't follow from this that non-human animals don't deserve special consideration (as that would be to deny the antecedent), but neither can we assume that non-human animals do deserve special consideration. So, with only this in mind, there's nothing inconsistent in giving humans special consideration but not non-human animals.
Compare with "I deserve a cake because I did my homework". It doesn't follow from this that my brother doesn't deserve a cake because he didn't do his homework, but neither can we assume that he does deserve a cake. So, with only this in mind, there's nothing inconsistent in giving me a cake but not my brother.
It might be that instead my brother did his chores, and so does deserve a cake. And so it might be that non-human animals have something else (e.g. a capacity to suffer), and so deserve special treatment. But then these are additional claims that need to be supported, and are not entailed by the original claims regarding humans deserving special consideration and me deserving a cake.
So when we say "all humans ought be treated equally" we don't need to say anything about non-human animals. The question about non-humans might arise as a matter of interest, but that's all. It's not inconsistent to say that all humans ought be treated as equal but that we have no reason to believe that non-human animals ought be treated as equal to humans (unless the reason all humans ought be treated equally also applies to non-human animals).
You switched your example for some reason. But I'm not seeing a problem with coming up with rational arguments for why human societies ought to protect their poor.
What is this "good" that you keep harking on about? I'm sure you must have a clear definition of it as you talk about it so much. But what is it in terms of the real world?
And so if there are degrees of sentience, then there can be degrees of impact?
I don't think there is a natural warrant for it. It seems natural to us, but it is a cultural standard, ultimately grounded in Christian ethical theory.
Right - there's the rub. Humans are differentiated by 'existential dread' - which is precisely a consequence of self-awareness and the sense of separateness from nature that humans have but that animals do not. Much of what goes under the name 'philosophy' comes from the contemplation of the source of that dread - 'who am I? What is the meaning of it all?' But then, you say, that it is something that can by understood in evolutionist terms. See the sleight of hand there?
Gloria Origgi, The Humanities are not your Enemy! A reply to Steven Pinker
What I'm saying is that your pragmatic naturalism is very good - as far as it goes. But it doesn't serve as the basis for a moral code. Given a moral code, a pragmatic approach may well be best, but that code can't necessarily be derived from or justified on the basis of naturalism.
The good is sentient welfare, as viewed through the eyes of sentients themselves.
It's hard to know how to answer questions like that. 'Why' questions are so hard to pin down and determine exactly what would constitute a satisfactory response. Why does one care about anything? Caring is an emotion and in my view emotions are fundamental - the starting point for all mental activity. I reject most 'ism' and 'ist' labels but meta-ethically I'm pretty comfortable about accepting the label 'Emotivist'.
If I move on to ask 'How did I come to have such emotions?' I think I'd conclude it's a combination of genes and upbringing - probably more the former than the latter. Some people make evolutionary-based arguments about why a strong sense of empathy can be a genetic advantage for a species, and they sound plausible to me. But I wouldn't be fazed if they were supplanted by some other more-plausible explanation that I have not encountered before.
That doesn't make the claim wrong. Obviously when someone says that "human suffering and animal suffering are equal" they're not claiming that the forms of suffering that animals can experience are the exact same ones as the ones humans can (or vice versa), but that one unit of suffering is intrinsically just as bad regardless of what kind of being experiences it.
Are you seriously claiming that you thought that DC's claim that "human and animal suffering ought to be presumed to be equal" was meant in such a way that "animals don't suffer from existential dread so no they're not equal" is a valid logical counterargument?
Quoting apokrisis
I don't know why you're writing a description of morality to me. I just pointed out that you're trying to argue against a prescriptive ethical claim by using descriptive claims about definitions of morality.
My best guess would have to be that you think prescriptive claims are inherently nonsensical, useless or something along those lines, and that's why you insist on treating them as descriptive claims. Is that right at all, or even close?
If the reason is an axiomatic declaration that humans must be treated as superior to all other life forms but equal to one another, then there is no discussion to have. One either accepts the axiom or one doesn't. I don't.
Often this is sidestepped by instead making the axiom 'All beings that have property X deserve greater consideration than beings that lack it, and equal consideration to each other'. That then leads to an inquiry as to 'why property X? What's so special about that?' If the primacy of property X is eventually just asserted as axiom, the discussion can make no further progress. This strategy also faces the difficulty of explaining whether humans that lack property X deserve equal consideration, and if so why.
The reason that I see most commonly though is of the 'If you prick us, do we not bleed' variety - the argument from sentience. If one is going to argue for equality on the grounds of sentience, one either needs to take Descartes' approach of denying sentience in non-human animals, or else deal with the question of what that concern for sentient beings implies for the treatment of non-human animals.
Great. Then we agree and it is the qualification that DC [Darthbarracuda] has been denying.
It is natural behaviour in the sense that the group benefits from all its members having equal opportunity. That maximises the group's degrees of freedom. All individuals start on the same level when it comes to being able to pursue the group's goals and so the role of historical contingencies - such as a family history of poverty or wealth - is minimised.
In other words, social democracy and its call for level playing fields makes obvious good sense even in an economic growth situation. It maximises the group potential for creativity and adaptivity.
So the rationale for Christian social behaviour is quite naturalistic - the reason it endures. It is only the claimed ontological basis that appeals to supernatural forces. And who believes in God anymore? (Not Anglicans.)
However the trick that organised religion pulled was to convince enough people that there were beliefs and powers that transcended their existing social structure. There was one God who ruled over all kings and tyrants. So getting people to act in the name of rational abstractions required religion as a stepping stone.
So yes. You can say Christian moral philosophy identified the smart way to organise human societies once they started building cities and building up trading networks. But that came out of an identification of rational social principles, not because of what God had to say about "Christian feelings".
Quoting Wayfarer
Well first let's dispose of the OP. And accepting that sentience has these sharp discontinuties as well as its underlying continuities is the start of beginning a sensible conversation on "specieism".
If you now want to discuss something else - morality as the wise habits of social organisation - then what I would say about existential dread is that sensible folk accept life for what it is and get on with making the most of it in rational fashion.
If you find yourself stuck in a loop asking "who am I?", you are not listening to the natural philosophy that says you are primarily an actor within a community. There isn't really "a you" that is distinct from the pattern of relations that is your social engagements. So "you" have the best hope of finding "yourself" by looking outwards to the world you are helping to co-create rather than inwards in search of some mysterious essence - a soul or will or anything else so disconnected from reality.
Quoting Wayfarer
Again, as I always have to keep saying, my naturalism is constraints-based. So it already says that we will only find broad limits shaping our personal actions. Thus morality is about constructing a hierarchy of constraint that runs from the broad and inescapable necessities (we need food, shelter, etc) to the very personal (I must get rich, get smart, get contented, etc).
So the point is to be able to fix the biological constraints at the correct distance from the other constraints, such as the cultural or the personal. I have never said biology ought to dictate anything. I only say it sets the scene in a basic way. And we need to understand what "it" wants of us if we are going to be able to fix those constraints at the right distance in terms of living our lives.
This hierarchically organised approach is in sharp contrast of course to regular moral thinking which wants to tie our actions to overly concrete abstractions. Things are good and bad in a black and white fashion. But a constraints-based approach is naturalistic because it only ever talks about fostering propensities to "do the right thing" and so tolerates exceptions, either accidental or deliberate, to a reasonable degree.
This is an evolutionary logic - and one that places positive value on individual competitiveness or local degrees of freedom. So I can choose to be vegan, or a Nazi, as my personal moral choice. On a small scale, as a local experiment, it is not particular immoral in terms of even cultural norms, let alone the much more distant naturalism of our biological history. It is only as veganism or Nazism becomes an organising idea - a constraint - at a larger social or biological scale that it starts to be judged by the forces of natural selection.
So if you are going to go the natural philosophy route, it is much more Pragmatic in this fashion. It is all about constructing an appropriately organised landscape across which our behaviour adapts. Like an onion, we have to be able to place biology at its best distance from our moment to moment decision making.
But it is this notion of "one unit of suffering" that is in question. It relies on the creaking philosophical apparatus of mind/body dualism.
Quoting zookeeper
As I say, what I "seriously claim" is that DB's position relies on dualism and the treatment of suffering as quantifiable qualia. So I attack his position at its ontological roots.
But that is more about how he has argued in other threads. In this thread on specieism, it is the inability of his dualism to deal with obvious psychological discontinuities between speechless animals and language using humans that has been the particular focus.
Quoting zookeeper
Has it been a secret that of course I take prescriptive claims (based on transcendent ontologies) to lack any good basis?
But at the same time - as I don't want to be misunderstood now as just a moral relativist - I have argued that naturalism supplies its own natural prescriptions. For systems to exist (for any length of time), they must be capable of persisting - dynamically reconstructing the conditions of their own being. And to do that means being ruled by some dynamical optimisation principle - like the social systems imperative of balancing local competition and global co-operation.
So naturalism is going to talk prescriptively about what has to be the case when it comes to anything even being the case. And that starts with the impossibility of even talking about morality in the absence of a social system that works well enough to last long enough for its moral organisation to be a topic worthy of mention.
In order for there to be survival, there does not just have to be conservation of what has worked, but outliers that lead to a better survival equilibrium and thus become the new survival equilibrium for the group.
It is fundamental to organicism that history only acts as a (historical) constraint and so spontaneity or degrees of freedom are required to allow actual adaptation to the future.
It is a familiar problem with Darwinism that natural selection - as understood mechanistically - can only remove variety. This is the problem that a constraints-based view of systems overcomes as it says natural variety can in fact only be constrained, not eliminated. So now the production of variety becomes a non-problem as ontically it is always going to be generated. Natural selection is always going to have variety to work on.
And it is this organic principle that I have elevated to the level of morality or models of fruitful social organisation.
Freewill, for example, is our ability to produce various arguments and various action choices due to the focusing constraints of our socialisation. Society gives us a social framework of ideas that can impinge on our rather unpredictable individual journeys through life.
We always know just where we are in regard to social norms and so can negotiate what looks to be the most fruitful personal responses in terms of that dynamical balance we have to strike between the good of the self and the good of the group (in whatever extended sense the notion of group-hood happens to be in play in our culture at a particular place and time).
So yes. In arguing for naturalism - natural philosophy, the systems perspective - I am arguing for organicism against mechanicalism, as well as for immanence against transcendence. We thus agree that history is not prescriptive - a desire to eliminate variety - but serves simply as a constraint on the continuing production of variety.
But my point refutes what you seem to be saying in regards to the idea that new ideas of morals cannot work if it is not something in the repertoire of what worked before. Perhaps it is an idea so new that it has not been tested to see if it works out for the group. Or perhaps it is not so much a new idea as much as a variation of an old idea that has not really been looked at. This has happened with ideas in the past.. They were forgotten until they became useful.. So you seem to only give credit to something AFTER it has become the dominant theme, but refute it when it is just starting out, thus making it a circular argument because even current trends started out somewhere.
Which is naturalistic fallacy in a nutshell. The world must work the way it has been because... well it just must okay.
To contextualise it to this discussion, who exactly says human life must be part of the nature which works out. Perhaps, as the anti-natalist argues, that's the part of working nature which ought to end.
Embedded within Apo's postion is a position of not nature as it functions, but ethics that it ought to function a particular way it does at the moment.
I actually agree with you I think.
But I didn't argue that.
What I have argued is that we can expect that in a successful organism, the historical constraints will be well organised. That is, they will reflect the hierarchical structure, the proximity principle, that I have mentioned often enough now.
So the most general constraints will be the ones that are the most resistant to change. While the kinds of things which are most local or personal - like whether I have some standard rule about eating vanilla or chocolate icecream - will be the most susceptible to variation.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Circularity is a standard problem in mechanical thought. But in organic thought, it gets fixed by hierarchical organisation - a systems logic of constraints and spontaneity.
So it is not a problem if a system spawns local variety while tracking global continuity. It can do both at the same time. If the local variety proves to have value, then its own influence will grow such that it becomes itself an appropriate level of generalised constraint.
But what actual novelty did you have in mind here? Veganism? Antinatalism? What?
My argument is that it is unlikely to be a winner to the degree it tries to swim against the general tide. If it is ill-designed in terms of system fundamentals, it would be given little hope of emerging as a success. So the organic view would never say something was impossible, but it can with reason say why a possibility is vanishingly unlikely.
I've already given that kind of argument against antinatalism. It is simple maths that even if 99 out of 100 couples decided to be childless, it only takes one couple - for whatever transmissible reasons - to start breeding and your antinatalism is toast. Selection acts as a filter to find what works. And what works will replace what doesn't.
So I have no problem with starting out with your "tiny experiments". Organicism take growth/entropification as fundamental. Everything else then follows with natural logic.
So the anti-natalist suffers from the ought-isn't fallacy, Nice. :)
Fortunately my own argument is something quite different. I say it is obvious that nature has to "work out". It would be irrational to think otherwise.
And I say morality exists to encode wisdom about the nature of that working out - its generic social-level principles. Morality thus is naturally aligned with nature. By definition it is what persists as what can survive the test of time.
So moral philosophy that doesn't seek to align itself with nature in that fashion is irrational. Or would have to be argued for on the basis of some form of anti-naturalism, like the commandments of a supernatural being, or the preferences of romantic feeling.
Ok, so this is exactly what I said but using your particular preference for lingo like "global/local" and "variety/constraint". It still amounts to admitting what I said has truth to it- varieties can become the dominant, even if it starts out small/unpopular.
Quoting apokrisis
So those are things which apokrisis does not agree with himself... and what of it these ideas?
Quoting apokrisis
Now, you are just asserting the opposite what you admitted to briefly above- that local variants can eventually BECOME the general trend.
Quoting apokrisis
Eh, I'm sure that was said about a lot of things that no one thought would occur at the time. What it does seem to show is that you may be using your own theories of organic thinking as a way to predict outcomes that are not assured. Again, things have to start somewhere and as Schopenhauer stated: "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
Quoting apokrisis
Now, this isn't even refuting the actual claim of the antinatalist. The antinatalist's end goal (usually) is not to end human existence, but rather preventing harm. So, rather it is the other way around.. even if one person does not have a kid when they could have, one instance of harm is prevented.
Quoting apokrisis
What works may be what remains, but what works best is not always the path taken. Contingencies may lead to outcomes which are useful, but not maximally useful. Not all possibilities that have become actualities are the best actualities, they are just the ones that worked out based on the contingencies at that time. While indeed a certain historical projection incrementally may lead certain outcomes to take place, those incremental changes may not have been the most optimal or effective at that time- other routes may have been cut off by events that transpired that could have been otherwise (I guess they would be considered "counterfactual" events as you like to say).
Also, not only are there incremental changes, but there are large contingencies which may effect outcomes greatly, making the counterfactual gap of what could have been much larger.
Quoting apokrisis
I guess I have nothing to argue with this one. I can kind of agree with a lot of caveats from the other stuff you seem to attach to this (i.e. naturalistic fallacies and the like).
It does sometimes. Shallow anti-natalist arguments which life ought to end because suffering exists make this mistake. Other ones, which argue life out to end because suffering of life is unethical, do not.
Your argument is nothing more than the naturalistic fallacy. You think because the world ends up "working" a certain way, that it's moral. Often you speak of circular arguments of "romantic feelings," but that's really what you have here. To you, the survival of present relationships in nature "feels" right, it won't just continue, but it ought to continue,which is why we must avoid doing anything new or differently.
By definition what survives the test of time, survives. It's not a measure of who can survive. Many others could have survived, if only people had acted differently. If a number of people had made better decisions over the years, many who've died in the Syrian war would have survived, for example. Ethics are about the immanent value of the world which stands regardless of whether people respect it. The bulwark against essentialism and delusions of superiority by mere existence.
All coherent ethics are argued on an anti-naturalism: ethics themselves. Just becasue the world does something or acts in a particular way, it doesn't mean it ought to be. That's why the occurrence of behaviour (e.g. murder, stealing, et.c, etc. ) cannot be used to morally excuse it, even when it only has a negative impact on a few or the inferior (why not kill all those pesky homeless people? No-one would miss them..., Why not enslave those black people? They're only savages..., etc.,etc.). In the end the are based on nothing. Not feelings, nor orders God, nor the (present order) of nature, but an expression of the world itself. Ethical knowledge.
I hardly need to admit what I already say is basic to my position.
Of course, the further notions of hierarchical constraint and propensity are then also basic - indeed more so, in explaining why the small/unpopular must exist, even merely as a fluctuation.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Do you not yet understand the difference between the possible and the likely?
Quoting schopenhauer1
And I've nothing against this as a rational judgement. Indeed, it seems to me a responsibility to think of whether the world is going to be a good enough place before you do in fact bring children into it these days.
If enough people were collectively making a rational assessment of the state of the world and acting by refusing to breed, then it would quite fast become a political issue. Governments would have to react with policy changes that started to deal with the realistic fears potential parents might have.
But to claim that life is generally "too much suffering" just by being life is - for me, for reasons I've outlined - an irrational line of thought.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, but over time water finds its way to the lowest level. And the contingent story of how the trickles became the river fade into history. So you are raising objections which are irrelevant.
What actually matters if we are talking about recent human history is that it has now become a far more complex situation where humans themselves are changing the evolutionary landscape. We are affecting the environment so dramatically that it does count as a general phase transition. We are kicking the eco-sphere into a new age - the anthropocene. And to the degree we are actually smart primates, we can get to shape the outcome in some self-conscious fashion.
So it is not my point that nothing is changing or that we have no say in the changes. Instead - in highlighting the thermodynamic imperative of fossil fuels - I seek to focus attention on the deep drivers. Being conscious of the game is really the only way to actually have some control of its direction.
It "feels right" because rational/empirical investigation supports that. So the feeling of which you speak is called a reasoned belief - a demonstrable constraint on uncertainty.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
As usual you give the impression of typing without thinking.
If it can make a difference that people acted differently, then there was something they were doing wrong.
And what I am doing is focusing on what "doing right" actually looks like. I'm asking the question of what generic principles can we identify that would be useful in redesigning our current moral codes so as to consciously achieve the future outcomes we might prefer.
Rational/empirical investigation into what? Survival as it is now... but what says that our world ought to be seeking such a thing? In terms of your ethical analysis, only your "feelings." And this is no more a "a demonstrable constraint on uncertainty" than anyone else's "feeling." The anti-natalist is a state to nature too.
And you a flying blind because you demonstrate no ethical position others than saying: "Nature (as it survives now) is ethical." You don't have any ethic for which a code would support. All you have are ad hoc assertions of the necessity of survival, of the present direction of entropy, without any sort of analysis of their ethical value. What are these preferred future outcomes? To rationally survive? Survive as what? Bombing civilians in Syria? Ethics are not "general." They are specific. Which outcomes do we prefer? And more importunely, what about when we prefer something that's ethically abhorrent? Your naturalistic fallacies to not address these questions.
I'm not sure if I follow what you are saying here, Willow.
Why call material arguments for antinatalism shallow? If suffering exists, and we apply a value to suffering (bad), and we see that the prevalence of suffering, on average, vastly outweighs any genuinely positive experiences, we can see how it just is not rational to have children, for their own sake.
This is, from what I can tell, the position held by people like Schopenhauer. They had little use of ethical denouncement.
Configuring the issue as an ethical one, however, forces us to see value not just as good or bad but with the additional imperative aspect - i.e. rules. We go from the purely descriptive to the prescriptive. But I don't see how it is necessary per se to describe birth as immoral to see it as, all things considered, a bad thing, since we could be error theorists and believe morality doesn't even exist to begin with, or non-cognitivists and believe morality is just disguised approval or commands.
In any case it seems strange, to me at least, to say that the suffering of life is unethical, despite being a consequentialist myself. I would instead hold that a state of affairs or a phenomenal experience of suffering is bad, and the action that was most responsible for bringing about this state was unethical. Otherwise it seems like this would lead us to the sinister position that somehow suffering is an offense to a higher power or something like that which makes it unethical, and not merely bad.
Again, just because it is resistant to change, does not mean it cannot be overcome. For example, in American history, the British had a relatively hands-off policy towards American government from 1640s-1763. Then Britain enacted a series of taxes and laws reacting to the subsequent American dissent which created the situation where Americans were forming militias, protesting in the press, petitioning England, and rioting in general.. committees of correspondence formed state legislatures which sent representatives to Edit: not Washington but Philadelphia!! and thus formed the beginnings of an American counter-government to Britain's rule. This did not take very long to go from relatively stable American colonies, to a full revolt. Much of America was opposed to this revolt however. Some say only 1/3 of Americans at the time supported completely separating from English rule. A small group dominated eventually and won out over time.
Quoting apokrisis
Do you not yet understand the difference between projected trends and contingencies which divert these trends? Was the Mongol invasion of China and the Middle East inevitable, if Genghis Khan did not cobble together certain tribal leaders and an identity? Possibly not.. It was pretty quick the rise of the Mongols from pesky barbarians to the world's largest empire. Was the Black Plague a major contributing factor for the rise of wages contributed to the rise of a merchant class? Possibly...
If Abraham Lincoln was not elected but Stephen Douglas perhaps, would the Civil War happen the way it did? Perhaps not..
History is full of events being diverted by contingencies.. so the line of possibility of likelihood and mere possibility (whatever definition you want to give between these two concepts) becomes blurred. More importantly, because things went one way and not another, a whole variety of things were opened up and a whole variety of things were closed off.. Perhaps antinatalism becomes the trend because of such and such, and so and so event.. it is not the trend now.. but not but a handful of people in 1762 would have guessed that a counter-American government would have declared itself a completely separate country by 1776.
And yet the domestication of the planet, the curve of fossil fuel exploitation, and the overall human population, ride right over all that.
You are telling me that the forest is made up of many trees. I can only nod and say yes, while reminding that you are avoiding the point.
I say it shallow because one is making an ethical argument if value is involved. One is not merely describing the suffering people will encounter nor just pointing out people will hate it. The suffering is bad-- something which ought to be avoided. It means the creation of future life unethical. Our material world expesses value that this suffering ought not be. To insist it's just a question of being "rational" is utterly dishonest. The anti-natalist is making an ethical claim. We are bound to stop creating life, to prevent the horror of future suffering. One is not just trying to stop people to have children. They are attempting to minimising and wipe out human suffering. It not some uncaring postion of rational description.
And during a large sequence in the former half of the twentieth century, it looked as though fascism was to become the dominant form of government on the planet.
You are identifying power as the good without justification. What works, works, in virtue of the fact that it is powerful, given the context of its environment. Yet this surely does not mean fascism is good. And surely, if we had the ability to stop the entropic heat death, many of us would do so. But we don't have power over the universe like that, so we accept this. But we typically don't pull a 180 and start calling it moral just because we're personally not powerful enough ourselves.
I think I hit the point clearly on the head about contingencies creating new outcomes that change the projected trend and thus open up new counterfactuals.. but if YOUR point is about fossil fuel exploitation and human population, so be it. You cannot square that circle, however, by doing what Willow is suggesting you are in fact doing- making your own ethical preferences an ought by trying to divine the trend of human activities.
I see three things wrong with this:
1) Even if we are to focus on species-wide survival (which is itself flawed), you focus so narrowly on lessening fossil fuels that it is almost comical.. how about world peace, genocide, gang warfare, police brutality, domestic violence, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, economic disparity, and any other issue that affects survival? You seem to focus on one thing simply because it is related to this very impersonal idea of entropy, which is even more crazy because now you are reifying the concept of entropy into an ethical argument!?! Hell, the "general trend" (as you like to refer to) may be heading to the point where we blow ourselves up way before we die from climate change. I say it is comical not because it is a single issue, but seems like if you wanted to focus on survival, it is one out of many issues that you can choose from, all pretty pertinent.. some still remaining even if climate change was not a threat.
2) What makes survival of the species for its own sake so important? You confuse the outcome of people's general interests for an actual goal.. Most people are not living to keep the species going.. rather the species is going because people choose certain activities. You are reifying survival itself as a goal, but was never even people's actual goal if you are following your "general trend" argument. Rather, more "closer to home" reasons are given such as pleasure, entertainment, relationships, and any number of personal preferences.
3) Taking on a global issue seems more of a political policy argument than an ethical guideline. If this problem is solved, there are other ethical issues that don't go away. It is simply applied ethics.. your metaethics of "general trend" also does not say much because again, that itself has to be justified...What makes survival..and in your bizarre world.. survival "as it has generally been chugging along in the recent past" an ethical guideline? It is not- it is a preference taken from supposed projections based on what we already value... Except for demonstrating that you happen to prefer conservative views on change because (in your world) change only happens incrementally.. it really says nothing
Not my problem if you can't understand the argument.
If we're just animals like them, we shouldn't.
But if we do so "because we can" then the raison d'etre for ethics seems shaky.
I'm going with rights of equality by the way and argue that I'm allowed to eat meat because other animals are allowed too.
I care about rock formations, and see no need to destroy them just because I can, and feel more and more repelled by the notion the further up the ladder of self-determination and consciousness. Why do you have that destructive impulse in the first place? What are you sublimating?
Really? Equal rights are ridiculous? Simply stating it isn't about that doesn't quite convince me either.
BTW, I eat meat once a week and consider myself a flexitarian.
Do what you want, I just said what I did, and why.
I didn't just state it, as Kant suggested, "ought" implies "can". When you think about "equality" you think of it in an idealized general kingdom of heaven that is never actualized by angels, but corruptible humans, none of which individually treat people equally, so it cannot reasonably be suggested that it somehow emerges to be so on the macro scale...
They also rape and kill their own species without repercussions, and often rewards -- are they then cool too? Everyone's got a Trump.
So we are different from animals then?
Everything is different, that's what make them different things. Some things are qualitatively different, as it is to break a rock is different than breaking a squirrel. The adrenaline that the predator feels and the fear that the prey does are qualitatively identical, even they know more about what they're doing than the cold, slaughter of billions and billions a year from such a distance.
So much for the OP.
What are the right reasons though?
From virtue ethicism that's not very hard to argue; compassion and empathy where it concerns eating animals.
A utilitarian though? What reason does he have to include the happiness of animals in his calculus?