In practice, not really. If there’s an emergency, people will value the lives of children as much higher than the lives of the elderly, for example. Of course that doesn’t justify killing the elderly for personal gain.
Would you deem someone who swats a fly equal to a murderer? Probably not. Because the value of flies, if any, is irrelevant.
Well, yeah. A pig has roughly the mental capacity of a 3 year old child, though. Now, of course the child won’t stay at that level and will have a longer and more fulfilling life than the pig. But even if that weren’t the case, if the child has a disease so that it stays on the mental level of the pig and has the same lifespan, if someone murdered that child that would be murder to me. If we’re honest, the only difference for pigs is that we treat them as inferior to such childs because of their species, similar to how humans were deemed inferior because of their race to justify their exploitation and mistreatment.
In my morale (and in the morale of many others) all humans are of equal value. I won’t claim to always act 100% morally. But the morale thing would always be to deem all humans equal.
That is the basis on why discrimination is considered bad. All humans are equal, simple as that.
Do you know why it is not the same for animals? Because animals are not all equal. You just confirmed, you don’t care about flies. You don’t deem flies equal. You don’t deem all animals equal.
So why do you deem the adult pig equal to the three years old child? Because of its mental capacity?
My (and many others’) morale does not make someone’s value dependant on their mental capacities.
A human with higher mental capacity is not of more value than a human with lower mental capacity.
I will repeat myself again: All humans are equal.
By making this distinction, you apparently deem a human with less mental capacity as of lesser value.
Do you honestly believe that a perfectly moral person would have a hard time deciding whether to give an donated heart to a sick 90 year old or to an otherwise healthy 30 year old? Doctors have to make decisions like these all the time.
If you think this somehow doesn’t count as a valid counterexample, please explain why.
I’d assign value in order of sentience, consciousness, comprehension of the world, others and self. How intense do they experience the world? Can they feel pain and suffer? How social are they? Is it really like something to be that animal / does it have a subjective experience? Does it want to live?
Yes, we know every animal, even insects, feels pain and fear.
How social are they?
That depends a lot. Most felines and reptiles are not social, neither are sharks or hummingbirds. Canines, equines, bovines, chicken, ants, termites and bees are very social
Is it really like something to be that animal / does it have a subjective experience?
This question didn’t make much sense. Are you supposed to compare, say, how a jellyfish experiences life with an octopus?
Does it want to live?
Pretty much everything in this earth “wants” to live, including microbes. This “want” is not a right, however. No animals, not even humans, has any sort of “right” to live. Rights are a human invention.
Of those questions, seems only one actually leads to different answers (how social it is), and whatever comes out of the subjective experience one.
I don’t think anybody called pigs or cows morally inferior?
Our farming practices were arrived at mostly through utilitarianism. What was easy to raise, what tasted good, what animals had food readily available for them nearby, what would sell, etc.
I don’t think anybody called pigs or cows morally inferior?
Many, many people say or think “they’re just animals, so it’s not wrong to kill them”, which is the same argument.
Our farming practices were arrived at mostly through utilitarianism.
Maybe you meant pragmatically? Utilitarianism would include the suffering of the victim, but 99% of meat eaters I met (also my former self) buy meat from supermarkets and restaurants with no regard or even thought of the living conditions that the animals had to endure.
Our farming practices were arrived at by the free market. Farmers have to continually lower production costs to stay cost-competetive, because most customers buy the cheapest products available. If two restaurants had the same meal, one at 12$ and the other 10$, almost everyone will choose the cheaper option of course, no questions asked.
Cost reduction had been the main driving factor for our farming practices in the last few decades. Suffering is irrelevant for capitalism.
Many, many people say or think “they’re just animals, so it’s not wrong to kill them”, which is the same argument.
Morally inferior would be “they have a differing belief structure that is lesser than mine”. Like how most religions on the planet see each other, for example. To speak broadly, animals do not have morals because they do not have beliefs unless you broaden the word heavily.
Maybe you meant pragmatically?
No, farmers / people who raised their own livestock all across the world independently did what was convenient for them at the time and most arrived at similar practices. To look at your examples, you may be meaning post-industrialization. I was meaning the most of the rest of human history. Although after industrialization, I could argue they were both both pragmatic and utilitarian. Suffering does not factor into either of those things. It’s a byproduct, not a goal.
Morally inferior would be “they have a differing belief structure that is lesser than mine”.
Oh, that’s the misunderstanding. I meant morally inferior in terms of their moral value (how much their lives are worth to us).
To speak broadly, animals do not have morals because they do not have beliefs unless you broaden the word heavily.
I agree that they don’t have moral systems. When we save people from burning buildings or oppose murder, thats because we see them as having moral value, their beliefs have nothing to do with that.
To look at your examples, you may be meaning post-industrialization.
Yes, our farming practices changed a lot after the industrialization, and current practices are what’s relevant now. In the past people just scrambled not to starve or be malnourished in the winter, which fortunately isn’t a concern in most societies anymore. Almost everyone has access to supermarkets and can live a healthy life without meat, which wasn’t possible in the past.
If some people have to steal food to survive, that doesn’t justify stealing when it’s not a necessity anymore. So talking about historic situations is besides the point here.
Although after industrialization, I could argue they were both both pragmatic and utilitarian. Suffering does not factor into either of those things.
That literally goes against the definition of utilitarianism:
In ethical philosophy, utilitarianism is a family of normative ethical theories that prescribe actions that maximize happiness and well-being for all affected individuals.
If you take the negative effects on affected individuals out of the equation, that’s not utilitarianism, that’s egoism. Putting animals on miserable factory farms for their whole life to get a few minutes of taste pleasure doesn’t maximize utility, it minimizes utility. Not to speak of the resource cost and environmental destruction which is a huge negative for human society.
It’s odd to me that definition is the primary one on Wikipedia as it doesn’t match with the definition I knew of. I have never seen the word
“happiness” used in conjunction with the definition of that word in my entire literary history, but it seems to be a viable definition.
The definitions I knew of are:
“Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that asserts that right and wrong are best determined by focusing on outcomes of actions and choices.”
Or to use the dictionary definition, “the doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority.”
To use the primary definition for the moment - for the farmer, raising the animals, slaughtering them in an efficient manner, and getting them to market is utilitarian. Doubly so if you don’t consider animals on the same level as the humans (which many, including the animals themselves due to a lack of broad thought, do not).
If you factor in that plants can also feel pain, you’re left with a real moral quandary if your primary reason to be vegan is to not harm living things.
Not understanding the pain or finding a way to measure the pain does not mean there is no pain.
Even if plants could feel pain, we could reduce suffering by skipping the inefficient middleman that endures suffering and causes “suffering” to many more plants than what is needed for anyone’s sustenance.
Not baseless. There are many sources and studies claiming the opposite of yours, and as someone who worked in forestry (and lived on a non-corporate farm that produced mostly alfalfa), it’s somewhat more apparent once you’re there and present in that world.
Do not make the mistake of ignoring the evidence because you don’t like the outcome. You not understanding the pain does not mean there is no pain. Life for some means death for others. Period. You can not avoid it on a micro or macro scale, all you can do is change WHAT you kill.
Of course not. Most people are happy to accept that humans are intellectually superior to animals but conveniently ignore that extra intellectual ability when it comes to applying empathy towards them.
Using racism to attempt to promote your comment is disgusting because it flies in the face of awareness of the inequality and discrimination from racism itself
You are disgusting and I’d hope your behavior wouldn’t migrate over from reddit, yet here you are unfortunately
There is also the possibility that your comment is a bait comment
How so? If I were to compare racism and sexism to argue that sexism is bad, that doesn’t play down racism in any way, to the contrary. The same is true for comparing the ideological basis of racism and speciesism. Please explain why that’s disgusting.
Removed by mod
All humans are of equal value.
Not all animals are of equal value. A cow is not of the same value as a fly and a fly is not the same value as a human.
Would you deem someone who swats a fly equal to a murderer? Probably not. Because the value of flies, if any, is irrelevant.
All humans, including vegans, deem animals as of lesser value.
You will never protect a fly to the same level that you protect a human.
There’s a distinction to be made, and to deem only humans to be of value, is one such distinction.
In practice, not really. If there’s an emergency, people will value the lives of children as much higher than the lives of the elderly, for example. Of course that doesn’t justify killing the elderly for personal gain.
Well, yeah. A pig has roughly the mental capacity of a 3 year old child, though. Now, of course the child won’t stay at that level and will have a longer and more fulfilling life than the pig. But even if that weren’t the case, if the child has a disease so that it stays on the mental level of the pig and has the same lifespan, if someone murdered that child that would be murder to me. If we’re honest, the only difference for pigs is that we treat them as inferior to such childs because of their species, similar to how humans were deemed inferior because of their race to justify their exploitation and mistreatment.
Everyone can choose their own moral values.
In my morale (and in the morale of many others) all humans are of equal value. I won’t claim to always act 100% morally. But the morale thing would always be to deem all humans equal.
That is the basis on why discrimination is considered bad. All humans are equal, simple as that.
Do you know why it is not the same for animals? Because animals are not all equal. You just confirmed, you don’t care about flies. You don’t deem flies equal. You don’t deem all animals equal.
So why do you deem the adult pig equal to the three years old child? Because of its mental capacity?
My (and many others’) morale does not make someone’s value dependant on their mental capacities.
A human with higher mental capacity is not of more value than a human with lower mental capacity.
I will repeat myself again: All humans are equal.
By making this distinction, you apparently deem a human with less mental capacity as of lesser value.
That is horrible. Your morale is horrible.
All humans are equal. Not all animals are.
Do you honestly believe that a perfectly moral person would have a hard time deciding whether to give an donated heart to a sick 90 year old or to an otherwise healthy 30 year old? Doctors have to make decisions like these all the time.
If you think this somehow doesn’t count as a valid counterexample, please explain why.
I’d assign value in order of sentience, consciousness, comprehension of the world, others and self. How intense do they experience the world? Can they feel pain and suffer? How social are they? Is it really like something to be that animal / does it have a subjective experience? Does it want to live?
Would you generally agree?
Hard to say for any animal.
Yes, we know every animal, even insects, feels pain and fear.
That depends a lot. Most felines and reptiles are not social, neither are sharks or hummingbirds. Canines, equines, bovines, chicken, ants, termites and bees are very social
This question didn’t make much sense. Are you supposed to compare, say, how a jellyfish experiences life with an octopus?
Pretty much everything in this earth “wants” to live, including microbes. This “want” is not a right, however. No animals, not even humans, has any sort of “right” to live. Rights are a human invention.
Of those questions, seems only one actually leads to different answers (how social it is), and whatever comes out of the subjective experience one.
I don’t think anybody called pigs or cows morally inferior?
Our farming practices were arrived at mostly through utilitarianism. What was easy to raise, what tasted good, what animals had food readily available for them nearby, what would sell, etc.
Many, many people say or think “they’re just animals, so it’s not wrong to kill them”, which is the same argument.
Maybe you meant pragmatically? Utilitarianism would include the suffering of the victim, but 99% of meat eaters I met (also my former self) buy meat from supermarkets and restaurants with no regard or even thought of the living conditions that the animals had to endure.
Our farming practices were arrived at by the free market. Farmers have to continually lower production costs to stay cost-competetive, because most customers buy the cheapest products available. If two restaurants had the same meal, one at 12$ and the other 10$, almost everyone will choose the cheaper option of course, no questions asked.
Cost reduction had been the main driving factor for our farming practices in the last few decades. Suffering is irrelevant for capitalism.
Morally inferior would be “they have a differing belief structure that is lesser than mine”. Like how most religions on the planet see each other, for example. To speak broadly, animals do not have morals because they do not have beliefs unless you broaden the word heavily.
No, farmers / people who raised their own livestock all across the world independently did what was convenient for them at the time and most arrived at similar practices. To look at your examples, you may be meaning post-industrialization. I was meaning the most of the rest of human history. Although after industrialization, I could argue they were both both pragmatic and utilitarian. Suffering does not factor into either of those things. It’s a byproduct, not a goal.
Oh, that’s the misunderstanding. I meant morally inferior in terms of their moral value (how much their lives are worth to us).
I agree that they don’t have moral systems. When we save people from burning buildings or oppose murder, thats because we see them as having moral value, their beliefs have nothing to do with that.
Yes, our farming practices changed a lot after the industrialization, and current practices are what’s relevant now. In the past people just scrambled not to starve or be malnourished in the winter, which fortunately isn’t a concern in most societies anymore. Almost everyone has access to supermarkets and can live a healthy life without meat, which wasn’t possible in the past.
If some people have to steal food to survive, that doesn’t justify stealing when it’s not a necessity anymore. So talking about historic situations is besides the point here.
That literally goes against the definition of utilitarianism:
If you take the negative effects on affected individuals out of the equation, that’s not utilitarianism, that’s egoism. Putting animals on miserable factory farms for their whole life to get a few minutes of taste pleasure doesn’t maximize utility, it minimizes utility. Not to speak of the resource cost and environmental destruction which is a huge negative for human society.
It’s odd to me that definition is the primary one on Wikipedia as it doesn’t match with the definition I knew of. I have never seen the word “happiness” used in conjunction with the definition of that word in my entire literary history, but it seems to be a viable definition.
The definitions I knew of are: “Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that asserts that right and wrong are best determined by focusing on outcomes of actions and choices.”
Or to use the dictionary definition, “the doctrine that actions are right if they are useful or for the benefit of a majority.”
To use the primary definition for the moment - for the farmer, raising the animals, slaughtering them in an efficient manner, and getting them to market is utilitarian. Doubly so if you don’t consider animals on the same level as the humans (which many, including the animals themselves due to a lack of broad thought, do not).
If you factor in that plants can also feel pain, you’re left with a real moral quandary if your primary reason to be vegan is to not harm living things.
Not understanding the pain or finding a way to measure the pain does not mean there is no pain.
Seems like a baseless claim, we have a pretty good understanding of plant experience.
Mallatt, J., Blatt, M.R., Draguhn, A. et al. Debunking a myth: plant consciousness. Protoplasma 258, 459–476 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w
Hamilton, Adam & McBrayer, Justin. (2020). Do Plants Feel Pain?. Disputatio. 12. 71-98. 10.2478/disp-2020-0003.
Even if plants could feel pain, we could reduce suffering by skipping the inefficient middleman that endures suffering and causes “suffering” to many more plants than what is needed for anyone’s sustenance.
Not baseless. There are many sources and studies claiming the opposite of yours, and as someone who worked in forestry (and lived on a non-corporate farm that produced mostly alfalfa), it’s somewhat more apparent once you’re there and present in that world.
To quote myself on another thread:
I trust you know how to use search, but: https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/24473/20191218/a-group-of-scientists-suggest-that-plants-feel-pain.htm You can find many more if you look. We’ve known for a while that trees do this, and fungi are absolutely notorious for this. Plants respond to warnings from their peers about dangers, brace for pain, and signal pain to others.
Do not make the mistake of ignoring the evidence because you don’t like the outcome. You not understanding the pain does not mean there is no pain. Life for some means death for others. Period. You can not avoid it on a micro or macro scale, all you can do is change WHAT you kill.
Yeah. I don’t eat bacon because pigs are racists. I eat it because I can, and I like it
bro animals eat animals, it’s kind of a thing if you haven’t noticed
Animals also rape other animals of its same species or kill their own children. Not sure we should take animals as inspiration for our own decisions
Of course not. Most people are happy to accept that humans are intellectually superior to animals but conveniently ignore that extra intellectual ability when it comes to applying empathy towards them.
There are even humans that eat other humans. Therefore eating humans is fine?
Animals also commit infanticide, so lets all kill some children I guess.
false equivalency dude, meat is a normal part of life and your absurd ass arguments aren’t gonna change that
Racists say racism is a normal part of life too. If you can’t argue why it’s a false equivalency that isn’t an argument at all.
appeal to nature fallacy
Using racism to attempt to promote your comment is disgusting because it flies in the face of awareness of the inequality and discrimination from racism itself
You are disgusting and I’d hope your behavior wouldn’t migrate over from reddit, yet here you are unfortunately
There is also the possibility that your comment is a bait comment
How so? If I were to compare racism and sexism to argue that sexism is bad, that doesn’t play down racism in any way, to the contrary. The same is true for comparing the ideological basis of racism and speciesism. Please explain why that’s disgusting.