Philosophy: Should we eat meat?

[Dissident Dan]

Are there any relevant differences that affect the kind of or extent of those rights?

Yes. In our Bill of Rights, there is listed the right to own a firearm. This obviously would not apply to a chicken.

However, the concept that we are to be free from harm as possible applies equally well to a variety of species.

 

[hitssquad]

Relevance of deservingness of consideration and protection

I said relevant and I meant relevant. There are no differences between human animals and many other species that are relevant to whether or not a particular animal deserves consideration and protection.

Was the relevance of deservingness of consideration and protection established?

 

[russ_watters]

Yes. In our Bill of Rights, there is listed the right to own a firearm. This obviously would not apply to a chicken.

However, the concept that we are to be free from harm as possible applies equally well to a variety of species.

So there are differences in rights depending on the animal. Have you put any effort into defining precisely what rights apply to what animals and why (and perhaps when)?

 

[honestrosewater]

What this all boils down to is that I do not see any significant or relevant difference to the different types of pains and pleasures. They are all subjective experiences that have (positive and/or negative) values, and there is no apparent use in dividing among "physical"/"psychological", complex/simple, or anything of the nature, except to note that it is harder to decipher some experiences than it is to decipher others through observation.

Are you opposed to vaccinations? I ask for two reasons. First, I think that "pain and pleasure" could be better characterized as "the pain/pleasure scale" or something similar. I think that sensations can be qualitatively ordered; I perceive a difference between a needle prick and a debilitating disease.
Second, there is something that seems to have been overlooked- foresight. Because I percieve a difference between a needle prick and a debilitating disease, and consider the disease to be worse, I would suffer the needle to avoid the disease. Thus I think the qualitative ordering is significant and relevant.
You have already mentioned the subjectivity of pain and pleasure, and the difficulty in inferring them objectively. But I think this difficulty is not a matter of human and nonhuman animals, or of only strict "physical" observation. Animals can have psychological and social reasons for intentionally hiding their pain and pleasure; to avoid embarrasment or save face, for instance. There is also the problem of actually making the observation. Like asking, "Can I ask you a question?", the observation itself may cause pain- how are you to discover? Living is an interaction with your environment, and, if your environment includes other nervous systems, any interaction is possibly a painful one. I don't think a person can live without running the risk of causing pain- their own or another's- that's life. (Don't you hate it when people say that? ;) However, minimizing pain is still an option, and, to me, it is the right option. But what does eating meat have to do with causing pain?
Happy thoughts
Rachel

 

[turin]

There are no differences between human animals and many other species that are relevant to whether or not a particular animal deserves consideration and protection.

This seems to be the popular quote of the day. I will come right out and say that I disagree with this. I will initially coment on the fact that the body delegating such rights happens to be exclusively of the human animal species (as far as I can tell, though I may be a bit suspicious of some of the veggie-eaters on this board ). That, in itself, I hold to be of the utmost relevance.

I do not allow cockroaches to roam my apartment freely; I have not problem squashing them whenever I see them; I feel no moral confliction; they are not human, and, as most humans, I do not deem them appropriate for apartment life. Perhaps someday the tables will turn and the cockroaches will be squashing people who live in their garbage cans. Or perhaps even the Earth is a giant intergalactic garbage can for a superior alien race who will return some day and decide that we have infested it. I don't believe that we could make a good argument to the superior race that we have the right to live in their garbage can. I've never heard a good argument from a cockroach. I would make similar arguments for other "bugs," weeds, and such.

This begs the question (at least in my mind): which other species, then, besides humans, are deserving of indistinquishable rights from humans? All of them? If there are species of life excluded from the list, then there must be a criterion.

 

[Dissident Dan]

Was the relevance of deservingness of consideration and protection established?

Yes. It was established through establishing that they are sentient (having subjective experiences).

The most basic protections apply to every sentient creature:
Except in cases where one's actions would be harmful to others, and must thus be restricted, or in which a somewhat harmful action yields stronger benefits, freedom from bodily and psycholigical harm and inflicted death. These entail in highly mobile or communicative creatures freedom of action.

Rather than sit down and draw out a list of rights for each individual creatures, the most reasonable way to go is to understand that creatures deserve consideration, realize a basic set of interests (and the related considerations) of all or most sentient creatures, and then from there take things on a case-by-case basis where complications arise.

Are you opposed to vaccinations?

Of course not, for the very reason that you said that you would suffer the needle prick. It would be dumb to only consider the immediate or first effects of an action, but all the effects, including those 125 years down the road. This is consistent with treating pleasure and pain as the values--pleasure and pain not just now, but also in the future.

This seems to be the popular quote of the day. I will come right out and say that I disagree with this. I will initially coment on the fact that the body delegating such rights happens to be exclusively of the human animal species (as far as I can tell, though I may be a bit suspicious of some of the veggie-eaters on this board ). That, in itself, I hold to be of the utmost relevance.

All that shows is that we are of superior intelligence and communicating ability, which are irrelevant. The relevant criterion to whether or not an organism deserves protection is whether or not it can experience.

It doesn't matter that we are smarter. Should the Einsteins and Da Vincis be allowed to tread all over those of normal intelligence? No. Should a normal person be allowed to tread all over a mentally-handicapped person? No.

 

[russ_watters]

It doesn't matter that we are smarter. Should the Einsteins and Da Vincis be allowed to tread all over those of normal intelligence? No. Should a normal person be allowed to tread all over a mentally-handicapped person? No.

Whoa, back up a sec: does a menally handicapped person have the same rights as a person who isn't? Think about that for a minute.

And that's even setting aside the issue of how do we know what animals (or, say, a person in a coma) experience if we can't communicate with them...

 

[turin]

Dissident Dan,
I did not imply anything regarding the intelligence of the delegating body. The implication was more to the point of immediacy. For instance, I do not hold the members of the US congress to be more intelligent than the members of some Polynesian tribe (and probably I would hold to the contrary, but that's beside the point). However, one could argue that the members of the US congress should be more concerned with American affairs than with Polynesian afairs. For one thing, the members of the US congress are in fact American, so it just seems more appropriate to me. For another thing, the Polynesian tribe has organized itself for its own governmental purposes.

Why am I discussing politics? Because this is where I categorize the issue of whether or not to eat meat. I believe that humanity is a relevant issue for the basis of moral descrimination in the same sense that American citizenship is a relevant issue for the basis of protection under the law, taxation and such.

 

[Dissident Dan]

Whoa, back up a sec: does a menally handicapped person have the same rights as a person who isn't? Think about that for a minute.

And that's even setting aside the issue of how do we know what animals (or, say, a person in a coma) experience if we can't communicate with them...

The smarter ones are afforded different rights and privileges, but that is not to say that the mentally-handicapped have none at all. What I was saying that intelligence doesn't matter in the yes or no question of whether we have rights, not the extent to which those rights exist. Obviously, you do not let a person with the intelligence of a dog drive a car.

I communicate with my dogs often throughout the day. I didn't say that we can't communicate with them. I said that we have greater communication skills.

 

[turin]

Should the Einsteins and Da Vincis be allowed to tread all over those of normal intelligence? No. Should a normal person be allowed to tread all over a mentally-handicapped person? No.

Why not? That's your opinion. The only reason that I believe those opinions have ever held up is the strength in numbers, and lesser intelligent beings tend to greatly out-number and thus physically overpower those of greater intelligence.

 

[russ_watters]

The smarter ones are afforded different rights and privileges, but that is not to say that the mentally-handicapped have none at all. What I was saying that intelligence doesn't matter in the yes or no question of whether we have rights, not the extent to which those rights exist. Obviously, you do not let a person with the intelligence of a dog drive a car.

So clearly, what rights we and the animals get is a complicated question. Have you worked out yet specifically what rights which animals get and why?

And backing up again...

The relevant criterion to whether or not an organism deserves protection is whether or not it can experience.

If I kill an animal by shooting it in the head, it will experience nothing out of the ordinary right up until the instant of death. If I give an animal an OD of morphine it will experience intense pleasure until it loses consciousness and dies.

So therefore, giving an animal an OD of morphine is a good thing to do morally and shooting one in the head has no moral implications, positive or negative, whatsoever. Right?

 

[turin]

russ_waters,
Even if what you do to an organism does not cause negative experience, I believe one could make a swift argument that, by terminating the existence of an entity, and thus probably terminating its ability to experience, you are eliminating any potential future good experience, and that should be weighed together with life-expectancy and such.

 

[hitssquad]

Global hedonics redux

Was the relevance of deservingness of consideration and protection established?

Yes. It was established through establishing that they are sentient (having subjective experiences).

The concept of deservingness (meritoriousness, worthiness) does not have anything intrinsically to do with sentience. This thread revolves around the concept of inalienable deservingness. Was the relevance of the concept of inalienable deservingness established?

 

[Averagesupernova]

russ_waters,
Even if what you do to an organism does not cause negative experience, I believe one could make a swift argument that, by terminating the existence of an entity, and thus probably terminating its ability to experience, you are eliminating any potential future good experience, and that should be weighed together with life-expectancy and such.

Turin, I am not necessarily singling you out, just want to make a point. Isn't it a little rediculous to use the argument of possibly elimintating a potential future good experience here? First of all, 'good experience' is a matter of opinion. And if we all thought that way we wouldn't lock people in prison because we might eliminate a possilbe future 'good experience'.

I place a certain amount of value on life in general, but when we all start thinking like dissident dan we will have to change the laws so that given a choice of hitting a dog or a pedestrian with a vehicle in an accident (it HAS happened) we could choose to hit the human being and save the dog with no consequences.

 

[Dissident Dan]

So clearly, what rights we and the animals get is a complicated question. Have you worked out yet specifically what rights which animals get and why?

So therefore, giving an animal an OD of morphine is a good thing to do morally and shooting one in the head has no moral implications, positive or negative, whatsoever. Right?

Read turin's response.

The concept of deservingness (meritoriousness, worthiness) does not have anything intrinsically to do with sentience. This thread revolves around the concept of inalienable deservingness. Was the relevance of the concept of inalienable deservingness established?

Well, experience is the only the of instrinsic value. To be ethical, one should give consideration to things of value. Because sentient creatures have intrinsic value (indeed, the only intrinsic value), if anything deserves consideration, they do.

If these creatures deserve consideration, then, ethically, we should give them that consideration. If we give them due consideration, we will see that it is unjustified to eat them under normal circumstances.

 

[hitssquad]

Sentience quantity or quality

Well, experience is the only [thing] of instrinsic value.

It seems that we have yet to establish that anything can be intrinsically valuable.

But if sentience (as the readiness to experience) is to be taken as our most valued thing, as with any valued thing in general, we must then decide what balance of quantity and quality of sentience we wish to strive for. To maximize quantity, at one extreme we might maximize the total population of sentient fundaments (individual sentient creatures) without consideration as to quality of that sentience. To do this, we would have to decide where sentience begins and ends. As this author pointed out before, we have yet to establish that a threshold for sentience exists below which plants must surely fall. And if plants instead turn out to possesses some rudimentary level of sentience (that cannot be discretely separated from that of animals), then perhaps rocks and astronomical objects also possesses some even-more rudimentary -- but, importantly, still existent and not discretely separable from those of plants and animals -- levels of sentience.

And if, at the other extreme, we decided to maximize quality, to effect this we might rank sentience (again, capacity to experience) among classes of sentient fundaments (creatures). For ranking purposes, we might equate sentience with general intelligence, or with the psychological construct known as field independence, or with some general factor of sentience that might be a distillation of intelligence and field independence, the latter two perhaps being its next-most-important primary factors. Maximizing quality of sentience might then involve launching a sentience-amplification campaign, of which Raymond Cattell's Beyondism might be viewed as an appropriate example. Population strategy would then ultimately follow from the primary goal of producing creatures sentiently higher.


But, on this note, as the philosopher James R. Flynn has observed:

• If all that matters is producing a higher species, one a quantum leap beyond our own in terms of intelligence and scientific expertise, it should make no difference who they are, or what they are, or where they are. Cattell says we should liquidate our own species in favor of a higher one. If a higher species visited Earth and needed our space, would he [Cattell] say we ought to conspire in our own demise? There would be no biological continuity between humanity and them, but surely that is morally irrelevant. They would have done us the favor of providing a short cut to our goal: we could make way for them now rather than wait thousands of years to evolve into something like them.

 

[turin]

Isn't it a little rediculous to use the argument of possibly elimintating a potential future good experience here?

No.

... 'good experience' is a matter of opinion.

I disagree. There is a difference between opinion and introspection. Good experience is a matter of introspection. There is no distinction between subjectivity and objectivity in this case because it is inherently self-contained and not subject to empiricism of any kind that I can think of.

And if we all thought that way we wouldn't lock people in prison because we might eliminate a possilbe future 'good experience'.

You are oversimplifying. I believe incarceration supports the argument that I posted. It may eliminate a certain amount of future good experience for the prisoner, but the idea is to prevent future bad experience for the rest of society. It's a trade-off, and that is the basis for the system.

... when we all start thinking like dissident dan we will have to change the laws so that given a choice of hitting a dog or a pedestrian with a vehicle in an accident (it HAS happened) we could choose to hit the human being and save the dog with no consequences.

I'm not so sure this should be linked to Dissident Dan, but, at any rate, so what? Why should a human always receive preferential treatment? I don't think that I would ever chose to hit a person with my car for the simple reason of avoiding a dog, but I can think of reasons that I would want to hit a person with my car. I don't believe I would ever want to hit a dog with my car.

 

[pace]

Jeremy Bentham, Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, 1823 :

The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor.* It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

Also animals have to eat 21kg(42 pounds) of proteins to get 1kg proteins in their meat. So 90% of the world's protein are lost in this way. (from Frances Moore's Diet for a small planet p. 4-11)

The cruelty are admitted only when the profitability is over. - Ruth Harrison

 

[russ_watters]

Read turin's response.

russ_waters,
Even if what you do to an organism does not cause negative experience, I believe one could make a swift argument that, by terminating the existence of an entity, and thus probably terminating its ability to experience, you are eliminating any potential future good experience, and that should be weighed together with life-expectancy and such.

So in order to decide if a living thing has a right to life, we have to weigh the potential for good/bad experiences? Well, ok - in the animal kingdom, animals typically have short lives with brutal deaths...

For humans, Americans and westerners have far and away a higher standard of living than those in Africa, middle east, and Asia. So you're saying that an American has more of a right to life than an African?

Heck, even if you want to argue the nebulous concept of "experiences," humans far and away have more/better than the animals for obvious reasons (my cat will never earn enough money to buy a decent car, nor even get to read Shakespeare).

Dan, this is the theory of rights you buy into? That's pretty sick. You guys think that giving rights to animals brings them up to the level of humans. In reality, your line of reasoning is reducing humans to the level of animals. We are better and you guys (even if you don't want to admit it) know it.

Guys, you really need to read some theory of rights. Humans don't have rights subjectively based on the value others measure in their lives (actually, Dan, now I'm starting to realize why you think slavery is relevant here: that's part of its justification).

Humans have rights because they are human.

That's the fundamental axiom on which human rights are based.

Good experience is a matter of introspection.

Which animals have this capacity? I thought we already covered the fact that a housecat does not have the capacity to understand that an immunization is a good thing. Children don't have the same rights as adults for precisely this reason.

Why should a human always receive preferential treatment? I don't think that I would ever chose to hit a person with my car for the simple reason of avoiding a dog, but I can think of reasons that I would want to hit a person with my car. I don't believe I would ever want to hit a dog with my car.

Wow. That's pretty sick. Now you're saying that animals are better than humans. Again, humans are different/better than animals and you guys know it.

This question remains unanswered:

Have you worked out yet specifically what rights which animals get and why?

You have directly acknowledged that different humans get different rights: Extend it to animals.

For example, would any animals get the right to vote? (btw, driving is a privelege, not a right). A dolphin can punch a ballot sheet and a chimp can do sign language. Should they get the right to vote? Why or why not?

 

[russ_watters]

Its much needed, so I'm going to start linking this thread to the philosophy of rights as seen by those who created our modern version. Its important and I don't think you guys have ever seen it (and I need a refresher).

What you guys are describing is actually very similar to Hobbes idea in Leviathan, the first major, modern, western work on rights (1651). http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/ebarnes/242/242-sup-hobbes.htm is a synopsis.

Everyone in the state of nature has the right to anything that they take to be beneficial to them.

This sounds like it is the driving concept behind the ideas expressed in this thread. Problem: the "state of nature" is anarchy. From Leviathan:

...the life of man [in the state of nature would be] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

As a matter of fact, that is very much like life in the animal kingdom is and very much the way life was for humans before civilizations arose.

Hobbes believed that the way to get out of the "state of nature" was through a "social contract" - constitutions of democratic nations are a form of this. Here's where Hobbes starts to differ from more modern interpretations - he says natural rights only exist in the "state of nature" -

When people entered into a social contract, they gave up almost all natural rights in exchange for the security offered by the sovereign [ruler].

To some extent, rights are given up in exchange for security in modern goverments, however what Hobbes doesn't include is the responsibility of the government to protect the rights of the citizens or that humans fundamentally have rights. The only right he identifies as a requirement to keep is the right to defend your life (notice: that is not the same as the right to life itself).

Again, Hobbes is the earliest form of modern rights and our theories have evolved somewhat since then, but I think this is enough for now.

 

[Dissident Dan]

I have read enough Hobbes, Locke, and the like. I am challenging the traditional view, so why would I necessarily accept what some prejudiced person from centuries ago said?

I do not buy into the "Humans have rights because they are human." line. It is still subject to the question, "Why?", as I mentioned in a previous post.

Not only would it be cumbersome to determine the value of individuals' lives, but in most cases impossible, and it would inevitably result in resentment. The only viable solution is to afford equality of treatment when the differences are not too great or not known or when acknowledging differences would result in resentment or other negative consequences.

Equality of consideration is key.

 

[russ_watters]

I have read enough Hobbes, Locke, and the like. I am challenging the traditional view, so why would I necessarily accept what some prejudiced person from centuries ago said?

Fair enough. In that case you really have a whole ton of work to do if you want to invent a new branch of philosophy. If you ever write a book though, I'll buy it.

I do not buy into the "Humans have rights because they are human." line. It is still subject to the question, "Why?", as I mentioned in a previous post.

I tend to agree, but...

Not only would it be cumbersome to determine the value of individuals' lives, but in most cases impossible...

The only viable solution is to afford equality of treatment when the differences are not too great or not known or when acknowledging differences would result in resentment or other negative consequences.

You just answered your own question: Since clearly we cannot judge quality of life, we must assume that life itself is sacrosanct. That is precisely why "humans have rights because they are human." The U.S. Declaration of Independence (more a philosophical statement than anything else) says:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

"Self-evident."

What I am trying to impress upon you is that the differences between animals and humans make it not self-evident that the same rights should apply to them. Just saying the differences are irrelevant isn't enough: you could seriously fill a book with an analysis of the differences between humans and chimps that affect the way rights could be applied assuming we wanted to apply them.

 

[jimmy p]

I'm voting yes to meat. Handy now that in today's society it is such a big debate. The only reason we don't eat meat is because we have developed substitutes. Take technology back 150 years or so and I doubt anyone would debate this. We should eat meat because there are some chemicals that substitutes won't provide. Besides, our ancestors ate meat, they HUNTED for meat. But yes they also ate their greens as well, basically anything they can find. We arent omnivores because we don't eat detritus and stuff. I just think that meat IS an important part of the diet. If not then we would be herbivorous.

 

[Dissident Dan]

You just answered your own question: Since clearly we cannot judge quality of life, we must assume that life itself is sacrosanct. That is precisely why "humans have rights because they are human."

But being alive does not mean anything of moral significance. A bacterium is alive, but there is no moral signficance to what happens to it, precisely because it is not sentient. If we are going to make generalizations, it should be at the level of sentience, not life.

You made no justification for your leap from life being the criterion to being human being the criterion.

What I am trying to impress upon you is that the differences between animals and humans make it not self-evident that the same rights should apply to them. Just saying the differences are irrelevant isn't enough: you could seriously fill a book with an analysis of the differences between humans and chimps that affect the way rights could be applied assuming we wanted to apply them.

And you can fill a book with the differences between a man and his father. I have made my point several times. While the rights deemed appropriate for humans and chimpanzees might differ, the most basic protections--right to not have suffering unnecessarily inflicted or pleasure unnecessarily restricted--apply to both. As both have the ability to experience, both should have these protections.

 

[Dissident Dan]

Even without the idea of rights, the ethical argument against eating meat is sound.

1. Animals have the capacities for joy and for suffering
2. Modern animal production causes the animals great suffering
3. Suffering has negative value which is in proportion to the degree of suffering
4. Ethically, one should not knowingly cause conditions of large negative value
5. Therefore, it is not ethical to eat meat.

 

[hitssquad]

Tautologies and sound syllogisms

3. Suffering has negative value which is in proportion to the degree of suffering

This might be the case in a given system of ethics. Since any given thing might be commanded to have negative value in any given system of ethics, commanding it so, as part of a syllogism, does not make that syllogism a sound ethical argument for anything -- it just makes it a tautology.

4. Ethically, one should not knowingly cause conditions of large negative value

Negative ethical value, within any given system of ethics, is -- by definition -- unethical. Therefore, #4 is a tautology by itself.

 

[Dissident Dan]

This might be the case in a given system of ethics. Since any given thing might be commanded to have negative value in any given system of ethics, commanding it so, as part of a syllogism, does not make that syllogism a sound ethical argument for anything -- it just makes it a tautology.

Perhaps you hadn't joined the threat when I earlier made the case:

From post #228 on page 12
Why can we say that something is good or bad? On what basis? For pretty much everything you say, one can always ask, "Why?" with no end in sight. For example

-"Because they're human"-> "Why does that matter? (So?)"
-"It's not honorable"-> "Why not?"
-"Because it's your own kind"->"Why does that matter?"
-"Because we can reason"->"Why is that relevenat? (So?)"
-"Because god said so"->"Why does that matter?" or "Why did god?" (this is also based on pure faith)

However, there is one stopping point: Experience (pain and pleasure). We all know the goodness of the experience of pleasure and the badness of the experience of pain through experiencing them. This goodness and badness cannot be explained in words, because of the limits on language. Experience cannot be explained; we can only accept or assume a common experience and assign a label to it.

This is not to say that one can know that an event or action is good or bad because an experience "told me so." The experience cannot directly tell you external facts. What you can learn from the experience is the quality of the experience itself. The goodness of pleasure and the badness of pain are qualities of experience. Thus, you can know their goodness and badness.

This is not to say, "Seek out your own pleasure, and worry about nothing else". There is no reason to say that there is necessarily any more value in myself having an experience than some other being having the experience. Therefore, we must, if we are to be ethical (seeking to maximize goodness and minimize badness), consider the interests of all (sentient) beings. This only lays the basis of ethics, and leaves wide open the question of how to consider, protect, or optimize the interests of all, other than the fact that it must be consequentialist (which you could form a deontology with the understanding that the establishment of these deontological rules has positive consequences [how's that for a kick in the pants?]).

Negative ethical value, within any given system of ethics, is -- by definition -- unethical. Therefore, #4 is a tautology by itself.

I was just trying to be pretty explicit and clear. Having a million tautologies doesn't make an argument unsound (it would just make it exceedingly long).

 

[hitssquad]

Interspecies hedonics redux and rationally-derived global ethics laws

This might be the case in a given system of ethics.

Perhaps you hadn't joined the threat

I have read the entire thread.

when I earlier made the case:

What you made sounded like the Utilitarian hypothesis. That is why I labelled one of my posts (and it was one you replied to; #263) Interspecies hedonics.

From post #228 on page 12

Which page it is on depends upon the posts-per-page display settings in your user control panel. Post #228 of this thread is on page 6, for me.

Why can we say that something is good or bad?... there is one stopping point: Experience (pain and pleasure).

And if you could not think of any other answers, the one answer you thought of must be the one, universal Right Answer. There are world-class puzzle inventors who have been regularly shown alternate solutions to puzzles they had previously advertized as having only one solution. I have spent some time reading through the classic puzzle books, and have noticed quite a few of these "a reader informs me that in fact" cases.

Therefore, we must, if we are to be ethical

You failed to demonstrate that within the science of Ethics -- as opposed to within all other hard sciences -- there can be only one viable system in all possible milieus. Does the following make sense?:

• "Therefore, we must, if we are to be physical, assume that acceleration from gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared in all places and at all times."

Or

• "Therefore, we must, if we are to be chemical, assume that hydrogen dioxide is a liquid in all places and at all times."

 

[Dissident Dan]

What you made sounded like the Utilitarian hypothesis. That is why I labelled one of my posts (and it was one you replied to; #263) Interspecies hedonics.

My case was to establish what real values are, not to establish an entire framework within which to protect those values (which is where utilitarianism, deontology, and non-utilitarian consequentialism fall). As specific as I got was to say that the system must be consequentialist, which may be utilitarian or not. Utilitarian rests on the ability to trade values. I made no claim regarding whether trading should be done. I also don't see the close relationship between utilitarianism and hedonism that your post relies on.

And if you could not think of any other answers, the one answer you thought of must be the one, universal Right Answer. There are world-class puzzle inventors who have been regularly shown alternate solutions to puzzles they had previously advertized as having only one solution.

My claim was not just that there is no known other value, but that there cannot be, because anything other than relying on knowledge of experience logically leads to an ad infinitum, which means that there is no basis upon which the truth of the claim could rest.

At the very least, even if one doesn't accept experience as the sole value, accepting it as a value should be enough to warrant not eating meat. The intense negative experience inflicted upon billions of animals at any given time is unjustifiable, ethically.

You failed to demonstrate that within the science of Ethics -- as opposed to within all other hard sciences -- there can be only one viable system in all possible milieus.

What I said follows from the definition of ethics and the establishment of the value of experience.

 

[jimmy p]

i read somewhere that cows enjoy being slaughtered.