Mad Kally

Well, I guess you told me. I could have just skipped my 4 year university degree if I had only known you at the time..

This is the statement I was talking about:
Who are all of these elderly people and their doctors? That's quite a blanket statement.

[ March 12, 2002: Message edited by: Mad Kally ]</p>

hinduwoman

I believe that vegetarianism is morally better than eating meat. The trees and plants want you to eat their fruits and crops so that the seeds can be scattered. The animals on the other hand object very much to being eaten.

That said however, I am not going to give up eating meat. What I can and do insist on is that the animals be treated well and killed painlessly.

tronvillain

I find that strange - if I actually thought vegetarianism was morally better than eating meat I'd be a vegetarian.

[ March 12, 2002: Message edited by: tronvillain ]</p>

spin

tronvillian says:

punkersluta:

quote:
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Ah, the voice of reason and compassion!
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Actually, that post was a fairly concise summary of my position:

1) You compared me to racists and sexists. Fuck you.

2) You want me to assign animals a higher value because of their "consciousness", but the value I assign already takes that into account.

"Anyway, fuck your plea for vegitarianism. I see no reason to care more about animals than I already do."

------------------

I must say you have a way with words, though not one that I would advocate anyone, including yourself, using.

You may see no reason to care more about animals than you already do, but, if you eat them, you say that you don't care much about them at all.

You mustn't feel any problems with the acts of Jeffrey Dalmer. Have you tried that diet? If not, why not? Is it because it is against the law to eat human meat? If you eat other meat then you can't really see any problems with Dalmer eating the meat of his preference.

Every time you eat meat it means that an animal has died for your stomach, though your stomach doesn't need meat. This indicates that you have some other reason than necessity for eating meat. Your intestines are too long meaning that meat starts decaying and becoming foetid whereas in true carnivores the intestines are relatively much shorter and the meat remains are gone before the deterioration sets in.

Human evolution should show you that eating meat was pure opportunism, when the diet that our distant ancestors had slowly disappeared with the change in climate. (Chimpanzees today will sink to eating meat opportunistically as well.) But they ate meat more out of necessity due to lack of alternatives. However, this is not your case.

How do you justify eating meat without justifying Dalmer?

x-member

I'd involve myself in the debate, but single 20 page posts when I'm trying to relax after work just don't get me excited.

Jon

Pomp

spin,

How do you justify eating meat without justifying Dalmer?

Not everyone uses the same rules of justification that you do. Is this concept really all that difficult? Watch me justify the slaughter of those animals we use for food without justifying Dahmer's actions, using contract theory:

Rights do not exist as "things in the world." They are the result of an actual (in the case of legal rights) or hypothetical (in the case of moral or "natural" rights) negotiation process, as a result of which each negotiater agrees to grant a right to all other participants, in return for which, those participants agree to grant that right to him/her.

Cows/pigs/sheep/chickens/etc., being fundamentally incapable of participating in such negotitations, or even agreeing to abide by the otucome of those negotitations, do not get to take part in the agreement. Thus, no one is obliged to grant them rights. Dahmer's victims, on the other hand, were capable of engaging in such negitiations, and of agreeing to abide by the outcomes. Thus, other participants in the negotiation were obliged to grant them rights.

I do not want to discuss the merits of contract theory here. I merely want to demonstrate the invalidity of the notion that we are somehow unable to simultaneously condemn Dahmer and eat meat without hypocrisy.

PJPSYCO

A second point to be made is that on to hinduwomans argument is that it only works for plants with certain types of fruits. Their seeds should have a secondary wrapping(like apple, orange tomato seeds). The problem here is we can't get all of the nutrients we need from only this limited number of plants. Vegatarians consume large numbers of seeds to get their nutrition. These seed are broken open and the plants young is consumed. This is actually the reason that corn plants produce so many young. They have evolved with the fact that animals will kill so many of the offfspring that they have to produce an exesive amount or go extinct.

Pomp

Jon Up North,

I'd involve myself in the debate, but single 20 page posts when I'm trying to relax after work just don't get me excited.

Lazy bastard.

punkersluta

Sorry for the long post, however, a large segment of it is simply health information to the one individual who thought that Vegetarianism was unhealthy.

Christopher Lord...

Observe that a gun is made for shooting and killing. It is useless for anything else, therefore, it should only be used for shooting and killing: humans or non-humans. As you can see, utility or design are completely useless when it comes to justifications.

kctan...

[quote]How can we know that plants does not possess a brain ?

The fact that plants do not have a brain resembling that of animals doesn't meant that plants do not possess a "brain".

I've heard this argument before, but not from the same perspective. Someone told me that rocks and mountains were conscious beings, that they had brains, but because they were not animals, their brains did not resemble the brains of animals. Of course, the fact is that an animal brain is the only type of brain there is and the only mechanism known to produce consciousness. As far as "plant brains," there is no organ within their body which even slightly resembles the sophistication of the animal brain.

I would not know. Obviously if it has superior technology and thus is capable of inventing things, I would think he was conscious.

Pompous Bastard...

Singer is a Utilitarian. I am not. Although Utilitarians have traditionally based moral agents as individuals capable of consciousness, I hold this position as well, yet I am not a Utilitarian. As far as this word problem of "sentience" or "consciousness" -- there have been dogmatists who would make rather unbecoming posts against my philosophy, based on the word, whichever word I chose. Consciousness means conscious, capable of thought and aware. Sentience, I believe, is a bit higher, somewhere around self-awareness. Singer also said that sentience and consciousness was quite different things, sentience being something only higher mammals are capable of.

Yes, I understand how this BB is home to many Subjective Moralists. However, the individual who questioned my original post did not point this out at all. Simply they said I was "making assumptions." They made no reference to Objective or Subjective Morality. If they said that my argument was flawed because of the fact that morality is subjective, then it would have been reasonable. However, on to Subjective Morality versus Objective Morality...

Since the subject itself could fill volumes of books, I am sure, and since it often and easily gets complicated with the various ethical systems of philosophers, I will restrict my comments on Subjective and Objective Moralities to a small amount.

It is true that morality seems to change with culture to culture. Slavery was acceptable in the United States in the early 1800's yet now it is no longer acceptable. What brought about this change? Surely, it was not the slaves themselves. Although politically Lincoln may have opposed slavery for the grounds that he wanted to keep the nation united, the Abolitionists which caused such fervent hatred of slavery are the reason why the North eventually despised slavery. Why did these reformers hate slavery, though? Well, like any conscious being, they had suffered. From suffering, we all learn to detest it. So, when individuals saw scenes of slavery, of masters beating their slaves to a pulp and seeing the tragedies wrought by this horrible institution, they were bent merciless to the torments of the slave. The pains that were inherent in the slave's life became inherent in the life of the Abolitionist. It is for this same reason that many Jews from the Holocaust became Humanitarians and despised any sort of suffering. However, although this is a brief explanation of Objective Morality, of how suffering ourselves makes us hate it when others suffer, it is all that this time may permit me to write upon the subject.

Robert Green Ingersoll, God In The Constitution, date unknown...

So, you see in this previous quote, Ingersoll makes an appeal. He states that "Between him and those who suffer, there is no impassable gulf." As you can clearly see, Ingersoll made an appeal for consideration of the interests of conscious beings.

William Shakespeare also made an appeal...

A Merchant in Venice, by William Shakespeare, Act 3, Scene 1....

So, you see, even Shakespeare's plays have a reference to holding a certain affection towards other conscious beings. The Jew in this short exerpt makes appeals to his righst by showing the similarities between Jews and Christians. A direct quote: "If you prick us, do we not bleed?" -- This can be simplified as, "Do we not also suffer?" By making this appeal to equality, he was making an appeal on the grounds that all humans are conscious beings, despite religious background.

Finally, one more quote (as I am informed that BB posters have a small patience)...

Henry Stephens Salt, quoted from The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, edited by James Hastings....

So, you see, there certainly is a sort of "kinship" among all creatures capable of suffering. I can understand anyone's skepticism of such a theory of Objective Morality, even after that brief presentation of reasoning and evidence -- there are quite a few objections to it, all of which even if I addressed at this BB, would most likely go unread due to their massive size. However, I hope that there is at least a bit more "open-ness" to such a theory.

Perhaps at its current stage, but not all humans are capable of rationality or practicality, either. However, if a method of making them smarter, more mentally ept, then I would be all for such a method.

Mageth...

Your knowledge of the concept of an argument is astounding. Please, dear sir, pay close attention to my posts. When I said that the word "soul" was used as Lucretius used it, in NO CONCEIVABLE WAY was it at all an argument. "I am a Vegetarian" is about as much of an argument as that. I was stating HOW something was implied, yet you automatically see it as an "argument"?

"I am killing the dead man," "I am punching the punched child," etc., etc., etc.. These are not logical statements. I could expound on this more, but I refrain for it would not be quite useful.

There are NUMEROUS evidences to suggest that the brain produces consciousness.

Scientific American, July, 2001...

Collier's Encyclopedia, under "Brain,"...

Consider the numerous experiments done by doctors during the French revolution, how they observed that a head decapitated from a body can still react to its environment for a brief period of time yet the body remained lifeless -- that the only major organ in the head was the brain. Further, consider how reactions to the body and changes in mood can be DIRECTLY correlated with the brain, signifying that pain and pleasure are things entirely from the brain. Furthermore, consider how scientists have identified the chemicals that produce happiness, and sadness, such as dopamine, among others. Also, consider how your body works: when you want to move a part of your body, your brain sends an electrical signal to the muscle to contract. Also notice how when something happens to your body, it sends a signal RIGHT TO your brain! If you could produce evidence that the brain is insignificant when it comes to producing consciousness, I would be all ears to hearing it. (These are the times when I wish a scientific mind would moderate BBs.)

Intriguing remark.

Absolutely not. A rock has no concept of itself, yet it is still a rock. Furthermore, whether or not it is true that lizards rape each other, my point is made -- if copying what other animals do is a great method for forming morality, then would it be acceptable to follow lizards that raped each other? You have not even commented on this.

Also, amusing that you can copy and paste what I said about you.

In concernment to TeeVee and eating meat being equal...

Furthermore, I did not say that you believed they well equal -- I said that they were not equal. Please, refrain from copying and pasting what I say.

rofl -- scientists from all over the world come to similar conclusions about the disease and cancers caused by eating meat, and yet you have a differing interpetation of evidence! Cute!

le sigh... Perhaps you assume it to be part of an argument. Unfortunate that you make so many assumptions, my dear lad.

Finally, Mageth... Please, produce for me evidence that the brain does not produce consciousness.

PJPSYCO...

I made a relatively brief presentation of why I believe in an Objective Morality before.

tronvillain...

I beg my pardon! You are so much better. If only we could all inhibit the same reason, compassion, and warmth that you do in your posts, I'm sure this world would be a lot worse.

alek0...

Incorrect. I never made the claim that any human being was "morally higher" than any lower animal. I did not even slightly insinuate that.

The argument "Pig is a sentient being and it is just as good as we are, but you must not eat a pig even though pig would eat you just given a chance if you are wounded and cannot defend yourself," can be reduced to, "You may kill and slaughter whomever you desire, as among the various species and races and kingdoms of this earth, there will always be one who would slaughter you without consideration." Tantament to racial profiling.

For Mageth!

"Nevertheless the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind. We have seen that the senses and intuitions, the various emotions and faculties, such as love, memory, attention, curiosity, imitation, reason, &c., of which man boasts, may be found in an incipient, or even sometimes in a well-developed condition, in the lower animals." - Charles Darwin [The Descent of Man, by Charles Darwin, part 1, chapter 4.]

"The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognised that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for the abandoning of a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? 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 they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" - Jeremy Bentham [Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, chapter 17, by Jeremy Bentham. Quoted from Animal Liberation by Peter Singer and Animals' Rights Considered In Relation To Social Progress, by Henry S. Salt, chapter 1, 1894.]


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Kachana

Punker, thanks for the reply, it obviously took you some time and effort. Can't reply now as it's 2am here, but will see what I can do tomorrow.