Well, this is the crux of it, isn’t it. The principles you establish an ethical system with are indeed arbitrary (not exactly “subjective”) but the actual answers you derive from any such system have a remarkable way of showing that basic recognition of rights we afford to humans (FOR SOME REASON) also extend to animals. E.g., right to life, some basic degree of bodily autonomy, consideration of wellbeing, etc. Basically the only way to construct an “ethical system” that actually “justifies” animal agriculture beyond actual life or death scenarios is one that’s oriented purely around one individuals’ selfish desires (commonly called “evil”) or one that just axiomatically presupposes human supremacy. If you base it on something actually reasonable like, beings experiencing joy is an ideal and beings experiencing suffering is to be avoided (to be brief), you rapidly end up with an incongruency between what’s right and what’s happening in the world today. Even for the purely selfish case, you hit issues with health and the massively negative experience of life without the capacity for empathy. Believe me when I say I’ve gone over this with a fine tooth comb.
You don’t axiomatically presuppose human supremacy? I don’t understand how that moral position works, and I want to hear more.
In general, we empathize more with creatures that are more similar to ourselves, and creatures that are cute. Given that, human supremacy follows logically for me. Humans are top of the heirachy, followed by similar mammals, then birds, then fish, then insects. It’s sad that’s there’s a heirachy, but the alternative is considering the life of an insect equal in value to the life of a human. I think that’s a less moral position, but it would also drive you insane because we murder so many insects in our lives.
I don’t believe it’s possible to have a consistent and non-hypocrytical ethical system, and if it was that wouldn’t be desirable. Every meat eater I’ve ever met agrees that agriculture kinda sucks, but they have other priorities.
Experience, joy, suffering etc. are based in actual physical realities, neurological structure, electrical impulses, neurotransmitters, learning, etc. That’s how. It’s based on the actual demonstrable fact of animal experience.
That’s an arbitrary line too though. Insects experience some form of emotion, but it appears not as complex as a mammal. If you’re going to define value of life by (estimated)complexity of experience, then we’re both agreed on a similar heirachy with humans at the top.
My point is that there’s nuance. Everyone has their own opinion and none of us are right or wrong.
not very hard to do. All it requires is a factor that excludes almost all animals and voila. For example: only being capable of communicating abstract concepts (for example: crafting) should be afforded these rights. Since the list of animals we have observed that in is also pretty much the list of animals we don’t eat there is no moral dilemma anymore.
Granted I’m an unapologetic human supremacist so this is a biased take but concluding some sort of human supremacy in the animal kingdom is not hard given that we pretty much rule earth. There is undeniable proof that by simply being present humans influence biospheres harder than an apex predator suddenly showing up, so we have some form of elevation above other animals pretty much proven (whether that influence is “good” is another discussion). All that’s needed then is to find anything that separates humans from animals and you have your human supremacist theory. Given our rather distinct evolutionary path that is not really a difficult exercise.
Without deeper thought I agree with the rest of your statement though.
Well, choosing an arbitrary ethical system because it happens to jive with your own selfish aims, for all intents and purposes that’s basically the same as having no ethical system at all. This is why you get the analogies to things like human slavery, because the same logic was used to arbitrary exclude some from consideration (e.g., supposedly biblically-founded theories that purported to show black people were on a lower plane of existence than white people as ordained by a god). Again, we don’t even apply these sort of arbitrary criteria to humans (a person who’s in a coma with no end in sight, a person with a severe learning disability…). It’s just rolling the dice and creating some arbitrarily high criteria for deciding animals don’t deserve rights.
Well, this is the crux of it, isn’t it. The principles you establish an ethical system with are indeed arbitrary (not exactly “subjective”) but the actual answers you derive from any such system have a remarkable way of showing that basic recognition of rights we afford to humans (FOR SOME REASON) also extend to animals. E.g., right to life, some basic degree of bodily autonomy, consideration of wellbeing, etc. Basically the only way to construct an “ethical system” that actually “justifies” animal agriculture beyond actual life or death scenarios is one that’s oriented purely around one individuals’ selfish desires (commonly called “evil”) or one that just axiomatically presupposes human supremacy. If you base it on something actually reasonable like, beings experiencing joy is an ideal and beings experiencing suffering is to be avoided (to be brief), you rapidly end up with an incongruency between what’s right and what’s happening in the world today. Even for the purely selfish case, you hit issues with health and the massively negative experience of life without the capacity for empathy. Believe me when I say I’ve gone over this with a fine tooth comb.
You don’t axiomatically presuppose human supremacy? I don’t understand how that moral position works, and I want to hear more.
In general, we empathize more with creatures that are more similar to ourselves, and creatures that are cute. Given that, human supremacy follows logically for me. Humans are top of the heirachy, followed by similar mammals, then birds, then fish, then insects. It’s sad that’s there’s a heirachy, but the alternative is considering the life of an insect equal in value to the life of a human. I think that’s a less moral position, but it would also drive you insane because we murder so many insects in our lives.
I don’t believe it’s possible to have a consistent and non-hypocrytical ethical system, and if it was that wouldn’t be desirable. Every meat eater I’ve ever met agrees that agriculture kinda sucks, but they have other priorities.
Experience, joy, suffering etc. are based in actual physical realities, neurological structure, electrical impulses, neurotransmitters, learning, etc. That’s how. It’s based on the actual demonstrable fact of animal experience.
That’s an arbitrary line too though. Insects experience some form of emotion, but it appears not as complex as a mammal. If you’re going to define value of life by (estimated)complexity of experience, then we’re both agreed on a similar heirachy with humans at the top.
My point is that there’s nuance. Everyone has their own opinion and none of us are right or wrong.
not very hard to do. All it requires is a factor that excludes almost all animals and voila. For example: only being capable of communicating abstract concepts (for example: crafting) should be afforded these rights. Since the list of animals we have observed that in is also pretty much the list of animals we don’t eat there is no moral dilemma anymore.
Granted I’m an unapologetic human supremacist so this is a biased take but concluding some sort of human supremacy in the animal kingdom is not hard given that we pretty much rule earth. There is undeniable proof that by simply being present humans influence biospheres harder than an apex predator suddenly showing up, so we have some form of elevation above other animals pretty much proven (whether that influence is “good” is another discussion). All that’s needed then is to find anything that separates humans from animals and you have your human supremacist theory. Given our rather distinct evolutionary path that is not really a difficult exercise.
Without deeper thought I agree with the rest of your statement though.
Well, choosing an arbitrary ethical system because it happens to jive with your own selfish aims, for all intents and purposes that’s basically the same as having no ethical system at all. This is why you get the analogies to things like human slavery, because the same logic was used to arbitrary exclude some from consideration (e.g., supposedly biblically-founded theories that purported to show black people were on a lower plane of existence than white people as ordained by a god). Again, we don’t even apply these sort of arbitrary criteria to humans (a person who’s in a coma with no end in sight, a person with a severe learning disability…). It’s just rolling the dice and creating some arbitrarily high criteria for deciding animals don’t deserve rights.
comparing people with learning disabilities to animals is gross and you should feel bad.
That’s it, you’re blocked.
oh thank god.