You’re assuming the falsity of thing you’re trying to disprove, Metacom. Check your reasoning.
This doesn’t make any sense at all. Please explain what you’re trying to say.
Here we go. Crux of the argument.
Right to a life
Freedom from pain
Autonomy.
What do these rights mean? Certainly, any living animal has a right to be alive… but not, apparently, to live a full lifetime and die of old age, at the moment. Right to a life what?
Freedom from pain. Well, I don’t know. I wouldn’t agree to that, either. Simply because it’s a bit vauge. Everyone, everyone human and animal is in pain every moment of their life, somehow, slightly. Right now, I’ve got a broken tooth, a few stretched muscles, and my shoes pinch. What I’d go for is freedom from cruelty. That, I’d certainly agree to. Every animal has a right to freedom from cruelty. When we kill something, we must do it humanely. When we raise something, we must also do it humanely. This doesn’t mean ‘free range’, but I do think that raising chickens in boxes and debeaked is a bit on the cruel side.
Autonomy. What the heck does that mean? No locking the dog in the house or he’ll wander off and get hit by a car? Free range only animals? We don’t allow teenagers autonomy. Why would we allow animals? Do they get to decide if they get shots or not?
If you want to be snarky about it, I’m getting pretty sick of your straw men, too–but I’ve been trying to debate you honestly, treating your silly, flip answers as if they’re serious responses, and ignoring your false accusations of straw men. Now, do you want to treat each others’ arguments as if they’re made sincerely, or do you prefer taking pot-shots?
Okay, I’ll take this for what it’s worth; you’ll not that I have previously agreed with the idea that a right not to be killed is NOT a right that I extend to animals, so to that extent, you’re arguing with nobody by putting this forward.
I proffered the “suffering” clause just in case you were offering an argument instead of stating something that nobody in the thread was disagreeing with.
A question: do you eat steaks raised in conditions that lead to significant suffering for the cows (e.g., steaks from cows slaughtered at inhumane slaughterhouses)? If so, do you consider your acts to be ethical?
Another question: do you think that a one-year-old’s right to live is outweighed by my desire for a tasty baby-steak?
You can go off on your accusations of “straw men,” if showing that you don’t know what that term means makes you feel better; but I’d prefer you just respond to the argument honestly.
Daniel
Rights can be interpreted as negative duties. That is, if I have a right to life, this doesn’t mean that lightning striking me down has violated my right. Lightning is not a moral agent, an entity capable of making moral decisions; lightning therefore has no moral duties.
My right to life simply imposes a prima facie duty on you not to kill me. You’re a moral agent; you can make moral decisions. All things being equal, it is immoral for you to make decisions that violate my rights.
Daniel
They’re not false. Twice in this thread you’ve rebutted me with a question that implied I was taking a position radically different from the one I was arguing. That’s the definition of a strawman.
Are you calling Zhao Daoli a nobody?
So you didn’t know if I was arguing that cows should live a life of suffering or not, but you went ahead and added the “suffering clause” despite the fact that I’d not made such an argument either explicitly or implicitly. I believe that is a textbook example of a strawman. 
I think current US standards of slaughter are humane. I buy meat at the supermarket and restaurants.
I’ve already explained why I think cows and human babies are different in posts #49.
I think it’s pretty clear that you’ve attacked an argument different from that which I was making in several of your replies. Rather then condescendingly stating that I’m using the term incorrectly I would appreciate it if you would explain how I was using the term incorrectly the two times I’ve used it in this thread.
I have responded to all of the arguments honestly, and I would appreciate it if you would refrain from implying that I’m not being honest. It’s insulting.
No. A statement, “This is what you’re arguing!” is a strawman. A question, “Is this what you’re arguing?” is a question. I don’t ask those questions to make you look stupid, or to make my arguing against you easier; I ask them precisely so that I do not argue against a strawman position. Is that clear?
Daniel
The first: Well, I might. I hope I don’t, and I think enough outcry is made that I notice, but, truthfully, I don’t know where all the places I go get their food from.
The second: This really is the key, when you get down to it. I think we can agree that animals deserve a life free of cruelty. I think that’s a good first step. There are reasons and arguments for that, and I can make them if you so choose. But if we did not eat cows, we would not breed them. If we did not want animals as companions, we would not breed dogs, either. Dogs have their autonomy limited by what we give them, and cows, generally, have a set lifespan limited by our desire to eat their tasty flesh.
So, the difference in general societal opinion between humans and animals is that society feels there is a right to terminate the life of an animal for the convienence of a human, as long as it is not cruel in nature. (I assume, for the sake of this argument, that a ‘bolt’ in a slaughterhouse kills a steer instantly. I know that, in implementation, there are issues, but let’s assume that it is humane)
Society feels that there is no right to terminate the life of a human for the convienence of a human. (Assuming, for the moment, the human has been born. And has not been convicted of a death penalty crime)
Is this the ethical area we should explore, here?
Or should we go for autonomy first? It would seem to have fewer hot buttons.
Do you agree with my “freedom from cruelty” substitute for “freedom from pain”?
Sorry, I missed this post originally; I thought you’d not responded to the question.
A two-hour-old blastocyte will grow into an adult human. To kill one is to prevent that from being realized Do you believe that the birth control pill should be neither legal or morally acceptable?
For myself, I reject any sort of potentiality argument. We deal with what’s happened, what’s happening, and what will happen, not with what might have happened if we’d made different choices. One cannot commit an injustice against an entity that never exists; if we kill a toddler, the adult she would have become never exists.
Daniel
Yes, but I disagree with it. A strawman doesn’t have to be a statement, it can be an implication made with a question.
For example:
Metacom: I think it’s OK to kill cows for food.
Someone Else: So you’re saying that it’s OK for cows to suffer while they’re alive, is that correct?
The argument that you’re “asking” about is radically different from any argument I’ve made in the thread and it’s flat-out contradicted by my very first post; a reasonable person reading the thread might read such a question and assume that I was making an argument that was similiar to that, and you were trying to clarify a detail. That inference would be false.
I think that a toddler is a child–it’s already a person, and in the process of becoming a more aware person. I don’t believe a two-hour-old blastocyte is a person yet.
You’re not comitting an injustice against the adult that never existed, you’re comitting an injustice against the toddler because you prevented it from becoming an adult. If I win the lottery and you steal the ticket before I cash it in, you’ll be punished far more then if you simply stole a worthless piece of paper, because the lottery ticket had the potential to do a lot of good in my life. Likewise, the toddler possesses a soul that has the potential to be something wonderful, and when you kill it for a toddlersteak you’re robbing it of that potential.
I think that’s a great ethical area for us to explore. And as long as “cruelty” doesn’t refer specifically to acts done with an intention to cause suffering, I think I can agree with that substitution.
Metacom, the reason I rephrased things in the way I did was because your post was a response to me; more specifically, it was a post in which I was talking about a prima facie right to be free from pain. I assumed you were carrying on the thread of that conversation to which you responded. Your post read literally–in which you substituted a “prima facie right to life” for the prima facie right to freedom from pain–was a complete non sequitur. My rephrasing was a hope that you’d been sloppy in your phrasing, not an effort to weaken your argument.
Daniel
I see two different things here, and please sweet Jesus forebear from telling me it’s a straw man; I’m honestly trying to restate your argument to see if I understand it.
- The toddler should be protected becaues it’s already a person. Do you mean by this that it’s already a being that has rights that deserve being protected, based on its current (not its future) self?
- The toddler has the potential for becoming a more aware person.
Again, I reject the latter, for the reasons given above. And I suspect that the second reason doesn’t hold as much sway as you suggest. Imagine, for example, that John is convicted of killing Sally, a healthy 2-year-old kid. Frank is convicted of killing Ruth, a 2-year-old kid with severe cancer who had less than a year to live. (Assume for the moment that you know for certain that Ruth had less than a year to live). Would you advocate giving Frank a lighter sentence, since Ruth did not have the potential to become a more aware being?
I would not. I would sentence them both equally.
I’m punished for the lottery ticket because, at the moment when it’s revealed to be the winning ticket, its actual value skyrocketed. It’s not a question of whether or not that ticket was worth millions: that ticket was worth millions, and i took millions from you.
If I kill a toddler, that toddler had the potential to be something wonderful–but it had exactly the same potential as the aforementioned blastocyte. The difference between the blastocyte and the toddler, as I see it, is that the toddler currently has features that are worthy of protection. The blastocyte does not. Neither one should get protection based on what it might become.
Daniel
[sub]who might become president and therefore demands a security detail[/sub]
Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan in their 1992 book Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, pages 371 and 372 (paperback edition) say this: “The limbic system in the human brain, known to be responsible for much of the richness of our emotional life, is prominent throughout the mammals. The same drugs that alleviate suffering in humans mitigate the cries and other signs of pain in many other animals. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so unfeelingly toward other animals, to contend that only humans can suffer.”
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, page 117: “In a laboratory setting, macaques were fed if they were willing to pull a chain and electrically shock an unrelated macaque whose agony was in plain view through a one-way mirror. Otherwise, they starved. After learning the ropes, the monkeys frequently refused to pull the chain; in one experiment only 13% would do so—87% preferred to go hungry. One macaque went without food for nearly two weeks rather than hurt its fellow. Macaques who had themselves been shocked in previous experiments were even less willing to pull the chain. The relative social status or gender of the macaques had little bearing on their reluctance to hurt others.”
The final sentence in the first excerpt is an editorial, but it is out of context here.
The second excerpt does not mean that humans should hold the monkeys responsible, of course, especially given that the humans were the source of the torture and hunger. I included it only to show that the concepts of right and wrong are not restricted to humans, according to the results of this experiment.
Toddlers are different then cows and blastocytes in ways which make them unethical to kill for food.
Toddlers are different then cows because toddlers are human; the reason it’s ethical to kill a cow for food but not a toddler is because the toddler posseses the potential to become a fully self-aware and intelligent being. The reason it’s wrong to destroy that potential is because that potential has value and is possessed by the toddler; it’s a property of his existence. That the toddler isn’t yet aware of that potential doesn’t change anything: Stealing or destroying that which belongs to someone else is wrong even if they don’t know that you’re doing it.
Toddlers are different then blastocytes because a toddler is a living human being and a blastocyte isn’t. The blastocyte is incapable of existing independently, it’s incapable of even rudamentary thinking and reasoning; it’s not yet conscious life. Even though it possesses the same potential has a toddler, it’s not yet a living being, so taking that potential away isn’t wrong.
If the probability of a toddler becoming a conscious, intelligent being was less then or equal to the probability of you (Left Hand of Dorkness) becoming president, I’d have no problem with them being dunked in chocolate and deep-fried as a treat at carnivals.
Hi all - found this debate very interesting so far, and if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to say my piece…
So?
As has already been pointed out, I think, intelligence doesn’t have a direct correlation to what we allow to happen to them (ie. its just as wrong to eat Monroe as it is to eat Einstein ) - but, in any case, I don’t think thats what you’re arguing.
You’re saying that the possibility for intelligence is important I believe because you don’t think its impossible to experience meaningful pain without it. Which is an argument all itself - but it would be good to get some clarification as if thats to what you’re implying.
Monroe and Einstein both have the self-awareness and intelligence to experience human suffering, so for the purposes of my argument any other differences in their intelligence are irrelevant.
Once again, my first post in this thread explains where I’m arguing from. I believe intelligence and self-awareness are both necessary to suffer as humans do. Without the two traits certain kinds of suffering are impossible to experience or greatly diminished and overall suffering is reduced.
Okay, now to get into my own thoughts.
Firstly, I think that of the premises suggested I really feel that the only one that one that is really crucial in many ways is whether ‘Animals can experience pain’. Once that question is decided the rest follows, and it just becomes just as unreasonable it would be to deny them to Africans or the French or whatever.
That said, I think the question doesn’t entirely encompass the problem, for there are rights that we generally give to humanity, which don’t concern pain. For example, it has been suggested that animals have no expectation of death, so its okay to farm and slaughter them. However, presumably most would deny that it would be okay to do the same to humanity, even if we controlled their lives from birth and made sure they never knew they would be killed. We think freedom and the opportunity to seek for pleasure are as importance as the absence of pain.
Thus, I could see a case developing where one might wish to say farming and so on were wrong in analogy, and while I can appreciate that desire, I don’t find it as strong a case as that we should minimise pain, or at the very least pain caused by ourselves. I can see as equally a compelling case that as long as we don’t cause animals pain, then we can do with them pretty much what we like. They have no innate dignity in themselves.
(This is a complete and utter tangent, not particularly serious and very OT, so please do ignore it :), but I do find something seriosuly disturbed in the culture that teaches children to idolize and anthromorphosise animals in Disney movies or cuddly toys or pets or whatever, and then teaches them its okay to eat their new friends. I really, really don’t like the message there…)
Okay, so while I think the granting of all basic human rights to be a matter of choice, I find it very diffcult to find a compelling moral case while one could un-hypocritically be able to cause unnecessary pain to animals.
Which brings me back to the if question. I think its fairly clear that the quality of pain won’t be identical to human pain, but thats really not the point. And the problem with this question is that its completely biological in nature, and depends on the science, a subject which I am hopelessly out of my depth in. From the sounds of if it in this thread so far, even this subject is relatively contraversial, but if anyone could point to a basic briefing in this area I would be very grateful.
In my lay opinion, I do find it very hard to believe that all animals experience no pain. From my own personal experience I have just as much evidence that, say, my pet dog goes through emotions as I do that the rest of humanity has. If she is faking it, she’s faking it extraordinarily well. Evolutionarily speaking, I just don’t see why this thing would only appear in humans. Of course, there’s a difference between just the basic reaction of pain, and being able to properly comprehend it, but then again I should imagine many mammals would have this level of intelligence.
So, uh, yeah, to summarise I would personally take a very pragmatic decision, wanting to take in as much scientific evidence as possible. My gut instinct is that there probably is very little problem with eating fish, but that torturing primates seems very, very wrong. Again, I confess though, I have little evidence for that however.
Again, I reject the idea that it’s the potential that gives the toddler value greater than the cow. Do you believe that if a toddler has a disease with 100% fatality, I might justifiably kill and eat the toddler?
I’m still very confused. Before I proceed, do you feel that the argument you’re putting forward is a strong, straightforward one? It really looks tacked together to me, two different arguments that you’re trying to combine. I’m interested in knowing whether it feels that way to you.
The blastocyte certainly is a living being. While it’s not capable of existing independently, neither is a toddler–in worst case scenarios, the toddler needs to be found by a friendly she-wolf who will nurse it along. It’s true taht it’s not capable of rudimentary thinking, but it’s got the potential to be capable of that at some point.
Are you suggesting that a being must have the following two traits in order to deserve rights?
- Be, or have the potential to become a self-aware being roughly on par with your average adult human; AND
- Be currently capable of rudimentary thinking and conscious life.
If so, can you explain what makes this particular combination of traits deserving of rights, where the lack of either of them means No Rights For You?
If not, can you lay down a clear set of criteria for granting rights that is linked to the rights being granted?
Daniel
Okay, I went back and read #39 - a lot of which I agreed with. However…
I presume your sentence would work just as well without the word ‘human’ in it? In other words, that they both have enough intelligence to experience suffering. What then is important is to show that nothing else but humanity does have this level of intelligence.
Again, I’m not sure why you feel the need to throw the use of human in again. Of course, an animal by defintion won’t suffer in the same way as a human. (Which isn’t saying much - presumably every species, and perhaps individual, will differ in the way it suffers).
I agree with when you say that animals probably have simpler pains. More physical (not least because we’ve become clever at avoiding it), less emotional. However to say that they don’t have any emotional pain at all, or so little that it can normally be safely ignored seems a bit stranger to me. Being lonely, being frightened, mourning - all these are not complicated emotions. They don’t take a great deal of abstraction.
Surely we can’t just sweep that under the carpet? And if they do suffer that sort of pain, doesn’t that have some sort of implication to what we can fairly do to them?