RE: Animal Slavery
March 29, 2014 at 12:09 pm
(This post was last modified: March 29, 2014 at 12:20 pm by Angrboda.)
(March 28, 2014 at 10:21 pm)bennyboy Wrote:You need to look up what the word "intrinsically" means because all your examples fail. These groups may have 'thought' they were intrinsically valuable to themselves, but that doesn't mean they were. However, humans, by virtue of a shared biology which is interdependent on itself, are intrinsically special to other humans.(March 28, 2014 at 7:29 pm)rasetsu Wrote: There is something intrinsically special to being human for humans. This has already been explained to you.Your condescending tone notwithstanding, there's a problem with this idea. White people were intrinsically special to German nazis. But this is not a sufficient moral ground for genocide or slavery. European Christians considered themselves intrinsically superior to Africans; yet we do not consider this reasoning sufficient to establish a right to enslave others.
(March 28, 2014 at 10:21 pm)bennyboy Wrote:"That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." ~ Christopher Hitchens(March 28, 2014 at 7:29 pm)rasetsu Wrote:Wow. What a withering, insightful argument.(March 28, 2014 at 6:27 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Where has Western culture developed the idea that people are special, and deserve to dominate all of nature just because we can? That's right. The Bible.This is bullshit.
(March 28, 2014 at 10:21 pm)bennyboy Wrote:It wasn't an appeal to authority or a meta comment, dumbass, it was pointing out that you were being intellectually dishonest.(March 28, 2014 at 7:29 pm)rasetsu Wrote:... I recommend you stop using metacommentary words like "You've been shown" or "has already been explained to you." You and the other posters here aren't a definitive authority on the subjects of morality or slavery, so your implied appeal to authority is a poor substitute for actual arguments.(March 28, 2014 at 6:27 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Without the Bible, there is no real argument which supports the use and abuse of non-humans. And since the Bible is bullshit, there is no real argument which supports the use and abuse of non-humans.Which means that so is this. You've already been shown alternative arguments. Which means this is a willful falsehood; you are a liar.
(March 28, 2014 at 10:21 pm)bennyboy Wrote: None of them is a good basis for a moral argument. For the most part, they amount to the "We are special, so we can do what we want" variety, or naturalistic arguments. Naturalistic arguments fail because we don't apply them to other aspects of our lives-- special pleading is a kind of hypocrisy. "We are special" arguments fail because anyone/anything can be considered special, making the argument meaningless in establishing or defining a sensible morality.And here, without my mentioning those other arguments, you admit to awareness of them, implicitly acknowledging your intellectual dishonesty.
We aren't special to ourselves as a species as a case of special privilege; we are special to ourselves because of the way biological evolution works. Because there is a rational explanation as to why we matter to ourselves, it is not a case of special pleading. Special pleading only applies if there is no reason to treat one case differently than the others, and in this case there is such a reason. We may not 'self-consciously' apply them to other areas of our life, but biological explanations don't require self-consciousness of their existence for them to be real.
Honestly, sometimes I get the impression that you're like Drich, you don't actually understand the nature of the fallacies, so you just liberally sprinkle accusations of such throughout your text wherever you see a word match.
/meta-comment