RE: Do you agree with Richard Dawkins?
April 17, 2012 at 4:50 pm
(This post was last modified: April 17, 2012 at 5:04 pm by The Grand Nudger.)
Suffering? That would be the observed or perceived effect of adverse conditions on any given organism would it not?
You can observe plants suffering anytime you like. Maybe it's the "perceived" bit that lends the weight? Well, not everyone who "suffers" perceives it as such. There are many folks in third world shit-holes who figure they've got a good life set up for themselves, content, happy, but by our definitions "suffering".
"By our definition" is troubling for the same reason that "meaningful suffering" is troubling, mostly because you were just talking about speciesism (which does not cease to be speciesism simply because you've invoked "sentience", a concept which itself has been heavily criticized by the very same notion) each reflect only a particular bias, no rock solid justifications.
You don't eat meat, I do. We're likely to have wildly divergent reasons for our respective decisions (and it's likely that neither of us reached these decisions by means of logic). Many of us eat more meat then we need to (or should, and here I'm speaking only of overall health no morality involved) and it is expensive, oftentimes wasteful, sometimes exploitative. Human condition. I absolutely love animals (and plants), I care greatly for the well-being of both, I am also an avid hunter, a lover of bacon, and I don't shy away from pesticides and nasty, nasty fertilizers that "completely rape the earth". I extend "morality" to other human beings only because I am a human being (and not because I have any rock solid justification for this, or any sort of objective "morality" at all), this has it's upsides and downsides. You won't find me campaigning for the lowly chicken's freedom or prosecuting a chimp for murder. I can only repeat what has already been said many times over. I like eating meat, I can eat meat, I'm not extending or revoking any consideration that any other animal would grant (or deny) me. It's completely neutral in that regard (as it likely is for every other animal that eats meat-there is no predator that could not be a vegetarian btw, not a single one- why are they exempt while I am being taken to task? Do you imagine ourselves to be so different? Speciesism ftw!).
You can observe plants suffering anytime you like. Maybe it's the "perceived" bit that lends the weight? Well, not everyone who "suffers" perceives it as such. There are many folks in third world shit-holes who figure they've got a good life set up for themselves, content, happy, but by our definitions "suffering".
"By our definition" is troubling for the same reason that "meaningful suffering" is troubling, mostly because you were just talking about speciesism (which does not cease to be speciesism simply because you've invoked "sentience", a concept which itself has been heavily criticized by the very same notion) each reflect only a particular bias, no rock solid justifications.
You don't eat meat, I do. We're likely to have wildly divergent reasons for our respective decisions (and it's likely that neither of us reached these decisions by means of logic). Many of us eat more meat then we need to (or should, and here I'm speaking only of overall health no morality involved) and it is expensive, oftentimes wasteful, sometimes exploitative. Human condition. I absolutely love animals (and plants), I care greatly for the well-being of both, I am also an avid hunter, a lover of bacon, and I don't shy away from pesticides and nasty, nasty fertilizers that "completely rape the earth". I extend "morality" to other human beings only because I am a human being (and not because I have any rock solid justification for this, or any sort of objective "morality" at all), this has it's upsides and downsides. You won't find me campaigning for the lowly chicken's freedom or prosecuting a chimp for murder. I can only repeat what has already been said many times over. I like eating meat, I can eat meat, I'm not extending or revoking any consideration that any other animal would grant (or deny) me. It's completely neutral in that regard (as it likely is for every other animal that eats meat-there is no predator that could not be a vegetarian btw, not a single one- why are they exempt while I am being taken to task? Do you imagine ourselves to be so different? Speciesism ftw!).
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