99Percent

spin: If you feel no responsibility to the other animals in the world, then you will feel no responsibility toward the human animals in the world.

Please define "animal".

Corwin

Young children have the responsiblity to do what they're told under most circumstances and to learn, grow, and mature.

Now.... animals?

Pomp

spin,

Pompous: You didn't answer any of my questions.

spin: I think a number of your questions have been irrelevant.

I’m trying to get a handle on how, exactly, your proposed moral system works. You haven’t exactly been forthcoming with the details. Forgive me if I ask the occasional irrelevant question as I attempt to drag them out of you.

You switch between trying to impose my moral statement and asserting your own views so I find you are rather incoherent.

I’ve tried to clearly indicate when I have been speaking as myself and when I have been speaking as though I were a person who adhered to your moral system. Forgive me if I have been unclear. As someone who answers direct questions with rambling analogies and personal insults, it could be argued that it takes quite a bit of gall for you to accuse someone else of incoherence.

You want some value judgement by me on your question regarding the lives of 1000 sentient beings to save 10000 sentient beings, yet at the same time you would make the difference between which type of sentient being, such that instead of humans, you'd have no qualms at killing 1000 baboons, though you would 1000 humans. Sorry, do you get the ridiculousness of that question? Let's apply spin's morality over the top of mine.

Perhaps I have been unclear. I am done arguing with you regarding the merit of your moral system as compared to my moral system. Perhaps you will recall a post, several pages back, where I stated that the civil course of action would be to agree to disagree. I am now attempting to examine your moral system critically, without reference to mine. I am, in no sense, attempting to apply your moral system “over the top of mine.” I am attempting to drag a complete, concise description of your moral system out of you. In that spirit, could you please give me direct answers to my two numbered questions, which you have sidestepped repeatedly since this exchange began?

The use of 1000 animals for the supposed benefit of 10000 would be a violation of the first part of the statement I made,

I don’t understand your reasoning. How is letting the 10,000 die compatible with “the benefit and protection of the most possible sentient beings?”

…requiring us to go to the second part. You need to justify the aggression against the 1000 animals. You cannot simply assume the supposed benefit and you cannot simply use arbitrary preferences which give the indication of being ineffectual.

I assumed that showing the “aggression” to be the course that would benefit the most sentient beings was justification enough. Do I need to show some other justification under your system? Regarding my assuming the supposed benefit, I am deliberately setting up a hypothetical situation in which the benefit is a given to see how your system handles it. Apparently, your system handles it by avoiding it.

Answer these questions:

Certainly. Answer mine.

1) Are you aggressing against the 1000 animals, ie taking away their protection and benefits?

Technically, yes.

2) Does this put you in violation of the first section of my morality?

As noted, I don’t think that it does, as my “aggression” will benefit more sentient beings than it harms.

3) Is the easiest resolution to the imbalance you created in #1 & #2 to terminate your activities?

What imbalance? I don’t understand your use of the word in this context.

Is stopping my supposed aggression the easiest course of action? Probably. Is allowing the 10,000 to die the most moral course of action? I don’t see how it is, as it preserves the lives of the least possible sentient beings.

4) Considering your alleged motivations, are the 1000 animals that you choose, better suited for the task of saving the lives of the 10000 than members of the same species?

5) Wouldn't a better solution be 1000 human animals rather than 1000 baboons whose utility is questionable for the purpose (and whose consent is not gained)?

Irrelevant. If you read my question carefully, you’ll notice that I said you should choose the species of both the 10,000 and the 1,000 and that you could make them the same species if you so desired.

You seem to have some fixation on the notion of consent, which is a simple idea in which an individual may give permission to allow him/herself to undergo things that one would not normally choose to do.

I understand what the word means, thank you. My “fixation” is rooted in the facts that, first, you make no mention of consent in your two-sentence moral theory and, second, that you nevertheless treat consent as an important moral factor in discussion. Sorry, but I don’t like discussing theories that have hidden axioms. I’d like to know exactly how consent figures into your moral thinking. If you’ll give me a clear statement in this regard, I will add it to the “theory of morality according to spin” that I’m posting at the top of each of responses to you.

This permission may justify acts that one might normally not do.

An act that would normally be considered immoral under your theory would be considered moral (or neutral) if the object of the act is consenting?

Protection may involve not permitting things to be done to a sentient being that they would not consent to have done.

Does these two statements reflect the role of consent in your theory accurately and precisely enough to warrant my including them in the quote at the top of my posts?

How do you handle consent for beings that are unable to grant or deny it? (Cows, rabbits, human babies, comatose humans, etc.?) Are they automatically assumed to deny all consent, or are they assumed to grant consent to actions which would be beneficial to them (in which case, how do you decide which actions they would consider beneficial) and deny consent to other actions, or what?

Try and show statistics to make this sweeping generalization meaningful, showing how many animal experiments actually yielded useful results and how many didn't.

I’m not particularly concerned with making this point to you. Perhaps one of our several research scientists might have some data they could give you. I might add, at this point, that any data is better than no data.

As you are prepared to concede that humans would probably be better subjects, I don't see why you are waffling on.

I’m not “waffling.” Let me state it clearly for you: I fully support any and all medical experimentation on non-human animals, even if superior results could possibly attained by using human subjects. Having said that, I am assuming, for the purposes of this discussion, that you are correct, and that human test subjects would produce better results. Perhaps you interpret my granting specific points for the sake of the discussion as “waffling.” If so, then I can only suggest that you attempt to read my posts a bit more charitably.

The use of other animals for food and for subjects of experiments that people would never do on humans is simply an abuse of power, which you seem consistently willing to defend.

One paragraph ago, I was "waffling." Now I’m consistent. Make up your mind.

spin

99%
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Please define "animal".
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Shorter Oxford English Dictionary:

A living organism having sensation and voluntary motion, without rigid cell walls, and dependent on organic substances for food

spin

Corwin:
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Young children have the responsiblity to do what they're told under most circumstances and to learn, grow, and mature.

Now.... animals?
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It is really hard to get you to think independently. Young children, you know, ones that don't respond yet to voice commands, etc.
The specification "young" you mightn't have liked but with a little mental elasticity you could get the basic idea that was being proposed to you. To be as helpful as I can under the circumstances, "what responsibilities do BABIES have?"

Think before you post, huh?

Corwin

Again, survival and growth. All other rights they have are an extention of the rights of their parents.

Now..... animals?

99Percent

spin: A living organism having sensation and voluntary motion, without rigid cell walls, and dependent on organic substances for food

Don't you admit this definition is maybe a bit too broad? I mean, this could mean mosquitoes, sea sponges, ants, sharks, rats, even cockroaches. Where do you really draw the line and under what objective rule?

Queen of Swords

Originally posted by 99Percent:
<strong>
Don't you admit this definition is maybe a bit too broad?</strong>

There are even some bacteria without "rigid cell walls".

Corwin

Amoebas don't have a rigid cell wall either.

Humans have billions of them.

spin

Sorry, I've just lost the full response in the *ucking edit box going back to get the context of what you had said because you only use bold to separate the two voices which disappears in copying, PB, and I'm in no mood to go through it all so,

You are confusing the two parts of the statement. You are attempting to do everything in the first part, which is the primary directive part saying that the aim is to protect and benefit sentient life. Your desire to get 1000 whatevers killed is a clear violation of the first part (we don't consider the motivation yet), so we pass to the second part and attempt to resolve the conflict and it is here where your motivation comes into the story, as it is weighed with other considerations.

On consent, a life can consciously waive their protection and benefit. The result of that waiving may not be either moral or immoral.