Pomp

spin,

You didn't answer any of my questions. Allow me to restate them as clearly as I am able:

<ol type="1">[*]Please describe, in detail and without introducing irrelevencies, how your moral system works in practice. As a practical example, I would like you to address the following question: we know with a fair degree of certainty that at least 10,000 sentient beings (they can be any species you wish) will die in ten years unless a medical procedure is developed to save them. For the sake of argument, assume that this is statistical knowledge; we don't know exactly which individuals will die. We can do the research, but it will require the death of 1,000 sentient beings (again, any species you desire, the same as the other group or different). Please outline, step by step, the deliberation you would use to determine the moral course of action. Further, please base this deliberation entirely on the axioms of your moral system, as represented by the two sentence description of your system that I am quoting at the top of my posts, or else clearly indicate when you are introducing additional axioms. Thank you.
[*]Please describe, clearly and without the use of analogies or "word association football," the role of consent in your moral system. No mention of consent appears in the two sentence description of that system that you have presented and that I am quoting, but I assume that there is an additional axiom dealing with consent from the manner in which you have used it. Please clarify. Thank you.[/list=a]

Pompous: ...would you have an ethical problem with a system in which an annual lottery was held to determine which citizens were to be used for medical testing? Why or why not?

spin: What would happen of course is that researchers would have to rethink what monstrosities they could perform, as they wouldn't be able to get away with your lottery idea.

Perhaps you could apply your detailed deliberation process to this question as well. I see no way that performing "monstrosities"on small number human beings in order to save a large number of human beings does not protect and benefit the most possible sentient beings.

If the animal texted could give consent or withhold it, do you have any doubt in the world that the animal would not give consent to be a guinea pig for something that has nothing to do with it?

No, I highly doubt that, were non-human animals capable of giving or withholding consent, many of them would give consent to be used for medical research. However, your two sentence moral system, as presented, makes no mention of consent. You either need to add an axiom to your system, or else stop playing the consent card.

You have proposed using animals for experiments regarding humans. You realise that the results of such experiments are not particularly reflective of humans.

The success of modern medical research stands as testimony to the factual error of this statement.

Human guinea pigs would be much more relevant.

Perhaps. As I've said, I'm willing to grant this for the sake of argument.

Please address my questions.

[ March 28, 2002: Message edited by: Pompous Bastard ]

[ March 28, 2002: Message edited by: Pompous Bastard ]</p>

Tom Piper

Malaclypse,

A few more questions, if you don't mind. I am having some difficulty making out your position here-- please bear with me!

If I understand you here you mean,

It is premissible to eat it -&gt; it is nonsapient.

The (logically equivalent) contrapositive of this is

It is sapient -&gt; it is not permissible to eat it.

Does this mean that if we take human neo-nates as the model of sapience, then it is impermissible to eat anything that is as sapient as the neo-nates.


What about chimps, which if the research is accurate, are sapients if three-year old humans are. Presumably if new research indicates that other non-human inhabitants of this planet are as sapient as three year olds (or two year olds, or one year olds,), then it will be impermissible to do things to these non-humans that we wouldn’t do to humans.

And the criterion for including their non-sapient, non-human children in the class of those-that-may-be-eaten would be what?

Tom

[ March 28, 2002: Message edited by: Tom Piper ]</p>

Bokonon

I'll admit, I only skimmed through the messages in this thread, so this may have been mentioned already. I'm doing my best to read every thread that interests me in a reasonable time frame, so I am rushing a bit.

The analogy of saving 10,000 humans for sacrificing 1,000 baboons is rather flawed.

1. Such numbers cannot be ascertained before any given experiment has begun. If scientists could say from the beginning, "We need X amount of animals to find a cure to Y disease", then we'd have a cure to every disease in existence.

2. Quite often, the animal experimentation proves misleading and may in fact set back research. A rat, rabbit, dog, etc. etc., have rather different physiologies than the human. How many legitimate cures have been thrown aside because they didn't work on a rat? One good example is that of aspirin. When a rat ingests aspirin, lesions form. It is lethal in many cases. Had scientists relied on studying rats, aspirin wouldn't exist. Of course, one could argue then that experiments should be done on all animals, but what does that prove? Many compounds in existence will have a positive effect on some animal somewhere.

I'll of course admit that the baboon has a far closer physiology than that of a rat or rabbit, but it seems to me, most of the same arguments used against involuntary human experimentation could also be used for the baboon.

I would advocate experimentation on voluntary prisoners in exchange for far greater rights in prison.

spin

Corwin insists on this question:
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If there's no objective difference between animals and humans, if both are 'conscious,' thus making it somehow wrong to eat animals.... is it or is it not 'ok' to have sex with them?
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Sex between consenting adults is fine by me. I can't see any other options. If you can get consent out of another animal, umm, go for it, I guess. Now say three hail marys and don't whip the dripping too much.

Bokonon

In reference to what this topic was initially about...

I am an ethical vegan (meaning, the primary motivation to veganism is my ethics).

"I hereby challenge anyone who advocates the ethical necessity of vegetarianism to a formal debate."

Define necessity for the purposes of this debate. I'd argue it is more moral to abstain from meat, though I'd further concede that is not always possible. Under normal circumstances in the "1st world", it is.

Where does my argument stem from?

There are 3 main ethical arguments. I'm going to generalize them very quickly...

1. The most obvious. Purchasing meat directly supports an industry that profits on the exploitation of animals. I don't think anyone could argue the animals don't suffer. You're response will be "Why is that immoral?" And you're right, there is no subjective way to say that it IS immoral. But then, subjectively, I don't think one can say anything is immoral.

2. Human rights. Meat requires an excessive amount of water, grains, and vegetables. Reshifting those grains, vegetables and water to human concerns would essentially wipe out starvation (ignoring starvation caused by corrupted governments of course).

3. Environment. Fresh water resources are wasted en masse to support the cattle and other animal industries. They are further wasted by run-off. A primary source of rainforest deforestation is the cattle industry too.

I only touched the surface with those arguments. I can expand the arguments further as people begin questioning them.

But for now, I must depart. Adieu.

(To those wondering, NO, I'm not a one trick pony. I fully plan on posting in non-vegetarian topics. I'm only up to post 3 ).

spin

PB:
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You didn't answer any of my questions.
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I think a number of your questions have been irrelevant. You switch between trying to impose my moral statement and asserting your own views so I find you are rather incoherent. 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.

I don't agree with animal experiments. It gives the experimenters licence for animal sadism in the name of science, when such experiments would never be used on humans (unless one were in a Nazi prisoner of war camp).

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

Answer these questions:

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

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

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

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)?

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. This permission may justify acts that one might normally not do. Protection may involve not permitting things to be done to a sentient being that they would not consent to have done.


Pompous:
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...would you have an ethical problem with a system in which an annual lottery was held to determine which citizens were to be used for medical testing? Why or why not?
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spin:
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What would happen of course is that researchers would have to rethink what monstrosities they could perform, as they wouldn't be able to get away with your lottery idea.
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Pompous:
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Perhaps you could apply your detailed deliberation process to this question as well. I see no way that performing "monstrosities"on small number human beings in order to save a large number of human beings does not protect and benefit the most possible sentient beings.
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I have no problem if someone wanted to subject themselves to the testing carried out on animals today. They might find out just how awful such experiments are and their relatives might not be so willing to allow any sentient being to be subjected to such torture.

spin:
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If the animal tested could give consent or withhold it, do you have any doubt in the world that the animal would not give consent to be a guinea pig for something that has nothing to do with it?
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Pompous:
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No, I highly doubt that, were non-human animals capable of giving or withholding consent, many of them would give consent to be used for medical research. However, your two sentence moral system, as presented, makes no mention of consent. You either need to add an axiom to your system, or else stop playing the consent card.
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I think you are being wilful. And I think consent is partly involved in the notion of protection. If someone doesn't consent to do something the present laws of the country will normally protect them, would they not? Protection is an operative word in my moral system. If someone doesn't consent (regarding themselves), then they should be protected.

spin:
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You have proposed using animals for experiments regarding humans. You realise that the results of such experiments are not particularly reflective of humans.
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Pompous:
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The success of modern medical research stands as testimony to the factual error of this statement.
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Try and show statistics to make this sweeping generalization meaningful, showing how many animal experiments actually yielded useful results and how many didn't.

The astronomical system of Claudius Ptolemy is not particularly reflective of our solar system, but it did yield some useful results until Copernicus came along and abolished it.

I was talking about quality of results. As you are prepared to concede that humans would probably be better subjects, I don't see why you are waffling on. All you are apparently doing is being argumentative for argument's sake. 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.

Corwin

**ZING**

Dodged it again....

The AntiChris

emphryio

Thanks!

Chris

spin

Corwin, I thought I had answered your question (saying if the parties involved consented then I saw no problem), but if you can't express yourself clearly enough to elicit the sort of response to an apparently stupid question you insist upon that would please you would you like to get your crayons to work on a clearer statement of your sex with animals question?

Corwin

Well.... since Spin won't answer my sex question... (gee... I wonder why?) Let me post another point.

And therin lieth the problem....

You've never BEEN around animals, have you spin? If you think a rabbit posesses anything even remotely approaching the beginnings of sentience, you're delusional.

Rabbits are morons. So are most domesticated animals. Most are also damn tasty. Hence, they end up as dinner.