Freedomain Radio

I'm personally a vegetarian trying to consume less and less dairy and eggs. Philosophically I guess I'd be arguing for veganism. But to me stealing a cows milk is a far lower offense than murdering the cow. And I'm not trying to argue that humans and animals have the same moral value, so I don't think the logical consistency thing applies. If anything, I'm arguing for a gradient scale of sentience level in which I think moral value should be placed. The more sentient your species is, the more value your species should have.

I think this discussion is fascinating.  Jakob has a point imo.

But I would add that arguments from conflation (gradations of sentience) don't necessarily prove that vegetarianism is correct.

There are plenty of things that don't have clearly defined boundries that we still recognize as different.  Night/day, healthy/sick, low/high.

We could just say that UPB is an ethical theory that is species specific.

I think we need to first get people to admit that using violence against their own species is wrong.  Upon that success, we could widen the sphere to other species.

From a strictly strategic approach, if vegetarianism were a necessary component of anarchism it could turn alot of people off.  That doesn't make it wrong, but it could hamstring the movement.

But that argument cuts both ways.  Perhaps we could attract the tens of thousands (millions?) of people who are vegetarians to the anarcist movement.  Hmm.

JacobSpinney:

If anything, I'm arguing for a gradient scale of sentience level in which I think moral value should be placed. The more sentient your species is, the more value your species should have.

I support you in your contemplation of this, but this 'gradient scale' is not the direction to take.

This link between "morality" and "sentience of victim" is analogous to saying: "gravity only applies to pink rocks," or "it is wrong to murder on thursdays."

Animals however are not sapient. When a cow can come up with a syllogism on why we should not kill them, that shall be the day that we should not kill them. Any sapient species not given strongly to predation or violence can be integrated in the the division of labor and legal protection of society.

Do we have any evidence a cow (or any animal) would be hurt either physically or emotionally by rape?

JacobSpinney:

I'm personally a vegetarian trying to consume less and less dairy and eggs. Philosophically I guess I'd be arguing for veganism. But to me stealing a cows milk is a far lower offense than murdering the cow. And I'm not trying to argue that humans and animals have the same moral value, so I don't think the logical consistency thing applies. If anything, I'm arguing for a gradient scale of sentience level in which I think moral value should be placed. The more sentient your species is, the more value your species should have.

OK, so it's all relative to one's "value".   Who decides value?  Given that value is subjective, does this mean that everyone needs to build their own graduated scale?   Are there animals so low on the scale that eating their meat is OK?

You've said before that you don't consider bugs to have the same value as animals, but does that include lobster and crab?   How about boiling them alive?    It would seem to me that butchering an animal is far more humane than being thrown in a pot of boiling water.  

The non aggression principle by definition applies to social organizations and individuals that have the potential to understand the logic and rationality of the position.  Personally I think cruelty towards animals is wrong but I don't think talking about it in terms of all life makes sense.  By simply living all living things kill and/or are killed.  This has no application to social cohesion of humans however.

I agree with Jacob.

If we're going to strive for consistency, we should strive for it in all areas of life. And if we're not being consistent, we should at least be honest and not use moral relativism as a defense for imperfection. The NAP is by definition universal and applies to everything

I personally believe - and there is evidence - that a diet lower on the food-chain is cheaper and healthier, besides being more ethical. It doesn't mean you should go full vegan (I don't) but you're (a) on a healthier diet and (b) not funding the cruelty of factory farming.

Anyways, commercial dairy/eggs/meat are usually poor quality and associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (read 'The China Study'). Eat at your own risk.

I would really love to see what Stef has to say about this, I don't recall him talking about it besides with Tom(?) a long time ago but that was more about animal cruelty and the psychological implications, I think

yurface:

The non aggression principle by definition applies to individuals that have the potential to understand the logic and rationality of the position.

I don't agree.

A retarded person, a baby and those in a coma don't have the ability to understand the logic of the position.

I'm not sure if the dividing line should be IQ points.

This is Stef's take on vegetarism from another thread, but maybe it can be useful for someone here:

To me, there are some practical considerations to questions of vegetarianism that I think are important to remember, outside of the moral arguments that are put forward in my book.

It is true that a highly retarded human being may not be a whole lot more intelligent than a chimpanzee, but the reality is that very few people want to eat either apes or people, so I don't consider that to be a highly pressing issue, to say the least.

Secondly, I do think that it is a slippery slope to say that eating plants is "better" than eating animals -- plants certainly seem capable of feeling pain, and I'm not sure where the clear demarcation is between, say, lizards and plants -- if we are going to say that it is okay to eat the category "plants" but not "lizards" - then we are already saying that a category called "less intelligent/less aware" is okay to eat, which also would include "humans" versus "animals/plants."

Thirdly, I think it's also important to remember that if we stop eating animals, we will not treat the ones we have better -- which certainly would be great of course -- but all that will happen is that we will have fewer animals. It seems quite possible that cows would become extinct -- or close to it -- and perhaps chickens and pigs as well, so I'm not sure that would be a better solution for them.

Fourthly, one of the reasons I think that animals are treated quite badly in domestication -- and why we eat them in such quantities -- is because the true cost of meat is obscured by near-universal government subsidies. Of course we are all aware of the fact that it takes 7 pounds of grain to create 1 pound of meat -- as well as a prodigious amount of extra water -- and yet grain does not cost a tiny percentage of meat -- that is because of government subsidies, which of course should be -- and would be -- eliminated in a voluntary society. This would result in vastly increased prices of meat, relative to vegetables and grains, which would reduce demand, and thus reduce the number of domesticated animals designated for slaughter.

Fifthly, if we do have the goal of raising our empathy towards animals -- which I think is a fine idea -- then I think that we face the requirements to first raise people's empathy towards human beings, which seems far easier, although still terrifically difficult.

For instance, it seems impossible to imagine that Americans would become more empathetic towards animals before they become more empathetic to the victims of US imperialism, such as the innocent Iraqi civilians who are murdered by the tens of thousands.

Thus the goal of raising empathy towards animals has to go through the requirement of raising empathy towards humans. And of course there is no way to raise empathy towards others without raising empathy towards oneself, which is the great challenge of self-knowledge and gentleness with the self.

The elimination of cruelty towards animals would seem to me to be only achievable after the elimination of cruelty towards the self, and cruelty towards other human beings, particularly children -- thus I think that the goals of this philosophy conversation arenecessary prerequisites for the goals of animal rights activists, and so I am sure that we can work together to achieve the necessary empathy within the human race that serve both of our goals of elevating the moral sentiments of mankind.

threebobs:

yurface:

The non aggression principle by definition applies to individuals that have the potential to understand the logic and rationality of the position.

I don't agree.

A retarded person, a baby and those in a coma don't have the ability to understand the logic of the position.

I'm not sure if the dividing line should be IQ points.

 

So you see no difference between human life and non-human life?

I may not have the intellectual ability to present a logical argument for stopping animal cruelty. But my gut tells me that there is something massively wrong with torturing and killing sentient beings capable of feeling pain and emotions, not because we need to, but because it's a personal food preference that we have. I find it amazing that others don't feel this same feeling in their gut. And it's laughably hypocritical to the non-aggression principle; a parent telling their children that violence is wrong and in the same breath paying for the murder of a cow to satisfy a food preference. 

Youtube "factory farming" and tell me that you don't feel a visceral reaction against what you are seeing.

The ethical arguments here are very interesting. However, I'd like to deal with a couple of the dietary myths relevant to this thread.

First from Jacob's original post:

JacobSpinney:

... There is no longer any nutritional need for consuming animals in todays society ...

 

I'm aware that the essential animal-source vitamin can now be produced artificially. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that what scientists have been able to determine in their laboratories about human nutritiion is only the tip of the iceburg. There is an incredible amount of value in getting one's nutrients from food rather than simply taking a pill that supplies the recommended daily requirements of the vitamins and minerals scientist have identified. If this were not the case, then all our food could be created atificially.

Second, a couple of people have mentioned the health benefits of a vegetarian diet. These supposed benefits appear to be the result of the media's selective publication of studies that support this view, while ignoring studies that oppose it. I read quite a bit about The China Study on this issue. My conclusion was that the researchers involved where looking for support for their hypothesis that vegan was better -- a hypothesis they developed by doing research on rats not humans. From what I could see they fudged the data to support this conclusion.

The bottom line for me is that over the past million or more years, people have eaten a mix of animals and vegetables. Hence, this is what people should be eating if they wish to maintain optimal health. I realize this means killing animals (and plants) in order for us to survive. (As well, no doubt, as uncounted numbers of lower lifeforms -- both animal and plant.) That's just the way it is.

The alternative for me is to kill off all life on earth.(If you take the arguments of most environmentalists to their logical conclusion, that what they're recommending. So, hey, a lot of people support that alternative.) I mean if we should refrain from killing animals for food, doesn't it follow that we should stop other animals from doing so as well. And of course there's still the question of where you draw the line -- how much do plants feel. It all just snowballs from there. (Sorry, I couldn't resist a little bit of philosophy.)