tronvillain

The last sentence appears to be correct to me. What do you think it means?

Bill Snedden

You are correct in your assessment of my thinking on this issue. However, I should add that while I agree that it is possible, I do not think it likely.

At any rate, I don't think that the bar is quite as high as you seem to think. In all likelihood, the great majority of individuals (subjectivists or objectivists) would agree on some number of moral judgements. For example, I wager that most people would agree that killing another human being for sexual pleasure or beating a child to death for crying are acts that we would all consider "wrong". Such judgements are, IMHO, reflections of an intersubjective value (the "right of self-determination" or "right of life" or something similar).

The challenge for the subjectivist ethical vegetarian is to supply a value that could rightly be called intersubjective and that precludes the ethical consumption of meat.

Interestingly, I think that Adam Who's argument could be a compelling one for subjectivists. Especially for ethical egoists like myself who believe that value derives from enlightened self-interest.

For example, if it could be proved that the consumption of meat were, in fact, detrimental to long-term survival due to the inefficient consumption of scarce resources, it could be argued that eating meat is counter to self-interest and therefore immoral.

It does seem, however, that such an argument would be necessarily constrained by the abundance (or lack thereof) of resources in a particular area. For example, in the first world, grain and other meat-animal feed is not relatively scarce and therefore no conflict would seem to exist. Further, such an argument doesn't really touch the immorality of eating meat per se, but rather the underlying conditions under which meat is consumed. If those conditions were to be brought under control (ie, the scarcity of resources alleviated) the original question would still remain.

Incidentally, the same is true of the "pain and suffering" arguments advanced by other vegetarians. If non-human animals were to be raised in ideal conditions (free-range possibly?) and captured & dispatched without any pain, would it still be immoral to consume them? Under the "pain and suffering" argument, the answer would appear to be "no", so this really doesn't touch the moral status of meat-eating at all.

But, I digress. Thanks for your thoughts...

Regards,

Bill Snedden

[ April 01, 2002: Message edited by: Bill Snedden ]</p>

The AntiChris

Bill Snedden

I had a sneaking suspicion this might be the case!

This is the question that's been nagging at me for some while.

Disapproval of unnecessary animal cruelty/suffering seems to me to be the crucial "intersubjective" value (I hope I'm using the term correctly) that unites vegetarians and meat-eaters. The fact that most countries have laws which protect animals from abuse and the apparent absence of any popular desire to repeal these laws would seem to support this.

However, I suspect that subjectivist theory, when applied to this relatively uncontentious issue, would not support the general premise that "animal cruelty is immoral".

Chris

Detached9

If non-human animals were to be raised in ideal conditions (free-range possibly?) and captured & dispatched without any pain, would it still be immoral to consume them? Under the "pain and suffering" argument, the answer would appear to be "no", so this really doesn't touch the moral status of meat-eating at all.

That's a pretty big if. If the ideal conditions were met, I may very well not be a vegetarian. I can't say for sure, but when/if the ideal conditions are met, I'll get back to you.

Tom Piper

Malaclypse,

As I understand your post, you have sketched a scheme in which it is permissible to eat any/all members of species that have no sapient members (no members 'capable of adult human-like thought). Hence it will be, on this scheme, permissible to eat cows because no cows reach the level of thought of adult humans. It will be, on this scheme, impermissible to eat any members of species that have some sapient members. Hence, it will be impermissible to eat any humans and impermissible to eat any vulcans, because, even though the infant humans and vulcans don't have the abilities of thought of adult humans, they are members of species which have some members that are capable of thought at the appropriate level.

But, you have said that 'Singer's argument is flawed, because it is not "different species" that is the criterion used to determine eatability'. You go on to say that 'the rather obvious objective difference between humans and animals is one of quality and quantity of thought; we will arbitrarily label human-like quality and quantity of thought as "sapience".'

However, in the example schema that you have created the factor that differentiates between human and vulcan infants on the one hand and cows on the other is not the sapience of the infants (there is no sapience in the infants). Human infants and Vulcan infants are in the ~E set only because of their species, and cows are kept out not because of absence of sapience but because of their species (If absence of sapience was the measure, then the human and Vulcan infants wouldn't be in ~E).

I asked the following question once before: What is the criterion by which you allow non-human, non-sapient vulcans and non-sapient humans in to the 'don't-eat' set but not non-sapient cows. The only difference is a difference of species. It is true that you are not excluding all species that are non-human, but it is nevertheless only a difference of species that separates those that can be eaten and (some of ) those that cannot.


Singer's view argument can be put in the following form

1.Principle of Equality: It is unjust to treat beings differently unless there is a relevant difference between them that justifies the differential treatment.


2.There is no relevant difference between many non-human inhabitants and many human inhabitants of this planet. (species- difference is not a relevant difference)
------------

3.One must either refrain from eating (some ) non-humans or allow that it is permissible to eat (some) humans (and vulcans).

You claim that Singer's argument is unsound, but I can't see where anything that you have said shows that it is unsound.

Tom

[ April 02, 2002: Message edited by: Tom Piper ]</p>

KJELLMUSIC

Hmmmm, if eating meat were about morality then would it be "immoral" for a herbivore to eat meat...or would it be "immoral" for a carnivore to eat meat? And since people who subscribe to "morality" usually have punishments in mind for breaking "moral" laws/rules, what sort of punishments need to be brought to bear on herbivores and carnivores that do so much as taste flesh.
Do worms and bugs qualify as meat or does it have to be muscle tissue...and would it have to be the whole live subject that is consumed or would being left alive but partially consumed be enough?

The AntiChris

I don't think it's quite that easy,

Chris

YHWH666

as a moral objectivist and a vegetarian my moral system goes like this:
the quality "happiness" has intrinsic value. therefore the most moral thing to do in any situation would be to maximise the amount of happiness in the universe. kinda like spock's "the needs of the many outmeasure the needs of the few are the one." supporting this view is the fact that even egoists are willing to suffer for their future brain states. why else would you go to work each day? because you get a pay check obviously. but the problem is "you" never get the pay check.at any given time "you" are a set of brain states. once these brain states are replaced by new ones the "self" that was "you" no longer exists. this is why egoists are inconsistent with their worldview.

animals can feel happiness and they can also feel suffering. therefore it is as immoral to kill an animal as it is to kill a human of the same intelligence.


i think most people here (including the subjectivists) would consider it immoral to kill a severly mentally retarded person for pleasure (at least for the pleasure equivelent of a hamburger). why, then, do they make the seemingly arbitrary distinction when it comes to animals? the moral subjectivist responses
here have been along the lines of "the pleasure that the meat brings me is greater than the empathy i feel for the animals." the reason we feel empathy is because we identify with other's suffering. but because animals are less like us we empithise with them less.they are unable to describe suffering. their facial expressions are diffrent (most people i know empithise more with mammals than they do with birds because mammals display their emotions in ways more similar to human beings). people will often say that they only care animals they care about are their pets. they personaly wittness the animals and their emotions so they identify with them. thye care about their dogs and cats but still eat pork even after i explain that pigs are smarter than dogs. they don't have to see the pigs they eat suffer , so they don't care.
since it's rather hard to convince some one with words to have empathy for something i say procede <a href="http://stream.realimpact.org/rihurl.ram?file=realimpact/peta/video_general/pigfarminvestigation_176x132.rm" target="_blank">here</a> and see the outrageous torture and murder first hand in a streaming video.

also eating animals is bad for humans too. We feed so much grain to animals in order to fatten them up for consumption that if we all became vegetarians, we could produce enough food to feed the entire world. In the U.S., animals are fed more than 80 percent of the corn we grow and more than 95 percent of the oats. The world's cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people—more than the entire human population on Earth. vegetarianisim could easily solve world hunger.

vixstile

my answer to the question of "Is it immoral to eat meat?" is NO.

YHWH666

an argument for objective ethics that also deals with animal rights can be found <a href="http://members.aol.com/okhutor/essay/morals.html" target="_blank">here</a>
it's a pretty good argument, it has me convinced.