Saw...

The Rebirth wrote:Just as most people say bulldozing over Palestinian homes and salting the land is wrong, but it still continues TO THIS DAY. The Zionists living there certainly don't believe what they're doing is wrong, just as the United States doesn't see it as being wrong, but myself and other do think it is wrong.

Like I said though, who is to say slavery is wrong, it's all perspective. I certainly think slavery is wrong but it's because of my own guiding morals and principles, but there are people out there that do not share my own morals and values thereby making it wrong of me to infringe upon them my personal beliefs.

Maybe being passive about the alteration of the world is the thing that will ultimately change the world while actively trying to alter the world will be the thing which ultimately changes it, which doesn't necessarily mean its going to change for better or worse because still, its all perspective.

When the universe decides I am to be a pigeon, as I am not a pigeon at this time, I will be even more passive in my attitude towards the universe.

So you're a nihilist?

I do probably lean towards moral nihilism.

The Rebirth wrote:The world is not meaningless it is simply too full of meaning. There are so many interpretations of what is right and wrong, good and bad that it is almost impossible to determine what is collectively good and collectively bad.

I love this passage too. though I did want to say that as far as our core moral intuitions go, we really do have enormous consensus.

if you ask someone in the world, anywhere, if they believe the implications of special relativity or evolutionary theory, they will overwhelmingly reject those claims, partly because they're just not intuitive, partly out of ideological commitment. but if you ask "is it wrong to steal," "is it wrong to hurt children," you get virtual unanimity. so we actually have less distance to travel when it comes to the important stuff, in my view.

big problems with universalizing ideas of "the good," off the top of my head:

an in-group/out-group mentality where people mistakenly privilege arbitrary characteristics as morally relevant, or where people carry vendetta across generations. this is human -- we want to be part of a tribe -- but a serious moral sphere has to include everything with a nervous system.

the second, and its a doozy, is just this pervasive failure to recognize that words like "morality" and "ethics" are archaic, carry a tremendous amount of baggage, and that once we start talking instead about "psychological and social flourishment" (or something like that), and how to maximize it, then we'll have begun a wholly open-ended conversation where everything is on the table, and it'll be clear that some cultural, economic, political, etc arrangements are less suited to go about this process than others.

ATTN: thread moved to Pol/Phil board!

KCLU wrote:if you ask someone in the world, anywhere, if they believe the implications of special relativity or evolutionary theory, they will overwhelmingly reject those claims, partly because they're just not intuitive

this offends me. these theories are INCREDIBLY intuitive if they're explained properly.

KCLU wrote:the second, and its a doozy, is just this pervasive failure to recognize that words like "morality" and "ethics" are archaic, carry a tremendous amount of baggage, and that once we start talking instead about "psychological and social flourishment" (or something like that), and how to maximize it, then we'll have begun a wholly open-ended conversation where everything is on the table, and it'll be clear that some cultural, economic, political, etc arrangements are less suited to go about this process than others.

yes, again, this is why i was talking about framing the problem in terms of competing aesthetic visions for the future. i think its a far more interesting conversation when seen in this way.

I find it intuitive too, but I was fortunate enough to have parents who read to me and fostered this idea that learning stuff is good; I'm in a country with internet access, which enables and encourages learning even more; I trust in science; I'm personally unencumbered by religion, etc.. and that is fertile ground for the idea of evolution.

but my life experience is radically different than that of most people, and those notions are a hard sell given where they're coming from. most people are not a hundred pages of The Selfish Gene away from believing in evolution!

i doubt anyone who doesn't believe in evolution would read The Selfish Gene, but anyway, i was sort of just being facetious. i get where you're coming from and its an interesting point about morality and it having a more universal emotional basis. i do think, though, if taught well and you don't already have ideological hang-ups, evolution and special relativity are incredibly intuitive.

if you ask someone in the world, anywhere, if they believe the implications of special relativity or evolutionary theory, they will overwhelmingly reject those claims, partly because they're just not intuitive, partly out of ideological commitment.

I think an overwhelming rejection of this is mostly due to a previous ideological commitment. I think these theories can be explained eloquently enough to make it intuitive to most people. I do think it takes a good amount of skill to be able to explain things like this in a way that would be intuitive to most people, though.

Yes but even the "moral consensus" can be disregarded, if not completely ignored, if certain elements fall into place a certain way.
Perspective. War is probably something that is considered universally "bad", but put two planes into a building and most of a nation suddenly has no problem with it. Stealing is universally considered "bad", but then ask the same question when someone is starving. A moral consensus may exist, but ultimately its' interpretation is up to the individual and in the face of chaos the interpretation is situational.

but the consensus in both those cases do, I think, admit of exceptions.. I don't think that people are war- or stealing-extremists. I don't know any, at least.

can I get a copy of this consensus so I can make a better argument?

haha, I'm just sayin'.

I think there are war extremists if you search the pages of history and as far as stealing extremists I think its more clearly defined as being a Kleptomaniac.

The Rebirth wrote:Yes but even the "moral consensus" can be disregarded, if not completely ignored, if certain elements fall into place a certain way.
Perspective. War is probably something that is considered universally "bad", but put two planes into a building and most of a nation suddenly has no problem with it. Stealing is universally considered "bad", but then ask the same question when someone is starving. A moral consensus may exist, but ultimately its' interpretation is up to the individual and in the face of chaos the interpretation is situational.

Moral perspectives are not like team sports. They're not arbitrary and equally valued. The decisions of an individual are contextualized, effecting varying amounts of beings to varying degrees. If you think in a utilitarian sense, the superior notions are those which result in the most pleasure/least pain for a maximum amount of beings.

Out of the unlimited possibilities of systems that could be in place in which people can live, you might be able to imagine there being an ideal which results in a vast majority of living beings living in maximum physical and psychological health. If you can envision the mere possibility such a thing, then you have an idea of my vision of "progress".

So when it comes down to our meat industry, I think in 50-100 years people will look back upon it not unlike the holocaust. Or slavery. Just something that humanity has done which was extremely backwards and horrible. As a result, the world will be a "better" place.

I don't think we're going to look back at the meat industry like the Holocaust or slavery no matter how you slice it. Get it? Slice it? Haha. In fact, I think it might be worse, well worse in your opinion, with the growth of cloning and biological manipulation. What are the genetic rights of an animal created by human science?

Also, in the utilitarian sense, what if the society was comprised heavily of sadists, what ends would have to be met to reach their highest level of psychological and physical well-being?

It's almost sick of you to place the meat industry side by side with the Holocaust or slavery. Is that the value you place on human life? They're fucking animals...

we'll decide it through a poll!

with the growth of cloning and biological manipulation. What are the genetic rights of an animal created by human science?

As of right now genes are patentable but this is a different debate for a different time.

I'd have to agree with Nick that the meat industry is not even in the same galaxy of evil as the holocaust is.
I see the point kyle is trying to make though. I think he is trying to say what makes human life so much more valuable than a cows life? Just because the cow is born of a different species it is not entitled to the same rights to life as a human? This is a tough argument. As of right now, my argument is that the cow is doing fairly well from an evolutionary stand point. It may be a brutal existence but they are not in danger of going extinct. To be part of the meat industry IS to evolve into a new niche.

The Rebirth wrote:I don't think we're going to look back at the meat industry like the Holocaust or slavery no matter how you slice it. Get it? Slice it? Haha. In fact, I think it might be worse, well worse in your opinion, with the growth of cloning and biological manipulation. What are the genetic rights of an animal created by human science?

Cloned or otherwise, if we can avoid it, we have a responsibility to not cause harm to sentient creatures. Same goes for the animals we breed to kill.

Heard of this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat

The Rebirth wrote:Also, in the utilitarian sense, what if the society was comprised heavily of sadists, what ends would have to be met to reach their highest level of psychological and physical well-being?

Okay, let's go with your silly hypothetical:

The best thing to do would be that which causes the greatest pleasure/least pain to the most beings.

The Rebirth wrote:It's almost sick of you to place the meat industry side by side with the Holocaust or slavery. Is that the value you place on human life? They're fucking animals...

I'm not saying that there aren't potential conflicts of value, but the scale of terror the meat industry incurs is massive. Billions of deaths. Millions more from stress, suffocation, injuries, disease. Average meat eater is responsible for approx. 2,400 animals.

If you're going to start associating the value of life to intelligence, consider that pigs are very intelligent creatures.

Cloned or otherwise, if we can avoid it, we have a responsibility to not cause harm to sentient creatures. Same goes for the animals we breed to kill.

Why do we have that responsibility? That seems pretty altruistic to me.

And who is to say that plants are not sentient? maybe we just don't know what to look for... they grow, adapt to their environment, reproduce, have a metabolism and by all definitions they are alive.

Just because they are farther away from us on the evolutionary tree its okay to kill them? Use them for garnish and for paper? I think if your going to say we have a responsibility to protect life then you can't rule out any form of life

DopeMasterJFlow wrote:And who is to say that plants are not sentient? maybe we just don't know what to look for... they grow, adapt to their environment, reproduce, have a metabolism and by all definitions they are alive.

Just because they are farther away from us on the evolutionary tree its okay to kill them? Use them for garnish and for paper? I think if your going to say we have a responsibility to protect life then you can't rule out any form of life

duh havent you seen trigun

David McSingleton wrote:

DopeMasterJFlow wrote:And who is to say that plants are not sentient? maybe we just don't know what to look for... they grow, adapt to their environment, reproduce, have a metabolism and by all definitions they are alive.

Just because they are farther away from us on the evolutionary tree its okay to kill them? Use them for garnish and for paper? I think if your going to say we have a responsibility to protect life then you can't rule out any form of life

duh havent you seen trigun

No i haven't. Is it worth watching?

DopeMasterJFlow wrote:

David McSingleton wrote:

DopeMasterJFlow wrote:And who is to say that plants are not sentient? maybe we just don't know what to look for... they grow, adapt to their environment, reproduce, have a metabolism and by all definitions they are alive.

Just because they are farther away from us on the evolutionary tree its okay to kill them? Use them for garnish and for paper? I think if your going to say we have a responsibility to protect life then you can't rule out any form of life

duh havent you seen trigun

No i haven't. Is it worth watching?

well it started as a joke, but its actually one of the best animes around, if you can sit through 26 episodes you will prob like it. and since you will prob never watch it....the character is basically a super being because you eventually find out he is a plant.

Well then, I feel terrible for the future of livestock if we're growing meat out of text tubes. Thanks for that link! You understand that there will be no reason to keep non-dairy cattle, pigs, chickens, etc around if we're not using them for meat. So I pose this question, who will continue to care for livestock animals when they no longer serve a purpose? Vegans? Ha, good luck, they all live in trendy sections of large cities.

Also, agree with Jeff, who's to say plants aren't sentient beings? Why should we rape them of their fruits? Have you ever seen the atrocities the logging industry has committed?

Also, how is that a silly hypothetical? Have you seen the way our world is going? Posing a society full of sadists is not nearly as out there as saying the meat industry is in the same category as the Holocaust.

Wait, my bad guys, I forgot we're arguing with someone who strongly backs a company that leases out manufacturing to a company whose employees jump out of buildings to their deaths.