Animal Slavery

[bennyboy]

(context restored)

Hair: "Stop splitting me! The preposition 'to' is often used to express the opinions of a person or group of people!"

Now I'm going to go back to ignoring your idiotic ravings, which is what I should have done originally.

. . . aaaaand the nazi Germans believed that there was something special about white people "belonging to the essential nature of a thing: occuring as a natural part of something." See? Ideas about intrinsic value and actual intrinsic value are not the same thing. The first are real, and the latter cannot be. So when people say humans are intrinsically special, they are expressing an idea which is intrinsically false.

[Rampant.A.I.]

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.

Hair: "Stop splitting me! The preposition 'to' is often used to express the opinions of a person or group of people!"

However, humans, by virtue of a shared biology which is interdependent on itself, are intrinsically special to other humans.

Apparently not, since the nazis murdered millions of Jews, and since Europeans enslaved millions of Africans, treating them much like. . . cattle.

It wasn't an appeal to authority or a meta comment, dumbass, it was pointing out that you were being intellectually dishonest.

Another way of saying, "You stubbornly refuse to disagree with my position." Here, I'll help you: replace "real" with "objective." When you keep talking about things being intrinsically special, this cannot include subjective or arbitrary evaluations of worth.

At best, you can say that common evalutions are rooted in instinct. However, so are the desire to rape, the instinct to murder and maim, tendencies toward selfishness, shortsighted misuse of resources, and every other thing we consider bad or wrong about humanity. This is still not a good basis on which to form a moral code.

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.

I think you're going to have to explain what "special" means to you, and in what sense our evalutions of people vs. animals are non-arbitrary.

Goodwin's Law.

Congrats Raetsu! BennyBoy has just forfeited a rational debate, and gone straight to Hitler!

[LastPoet]

I can attest to that, Its a Godwin, kudos, Apo.

[LastPoet]

Would you take a clever chimp over a severely retarded person?

Right now, I'd pick either a 'rertarded' person and a chimp over you. First things first.

[bennyboy]

Goodwin's Law.

Congrats Raetsu! BennyBoy has just forfeited a rational debate, and gone straight to Hitler!

Yeah, because there's no connection between WWII genocide, the slavery of Africans, and the discussion of how moral systems should be/are formed? GODWIN's Law states that someone will bring up Hitler REGARDLESS OF TOPIC OR SCOPE, not that it's not okay to discuss nazi moral ideas in the context of a discussion about how moral ideas should and shouldn't be formed.

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Would you take a clever chimp over a severely retarded person?

Right now, I'd pick either a 'rertarded' person and a chimp over you. First things first.

I'd start with spelling.

Okay, so you said it is a person's capacity to think which places them above the animals. What if a person's capacity to think is less than that of some animals? Is this not a valid question?

[sven]

On no... It's springtime for Hitler! Thread abandoned.

[Angrboda]

Another way of saying, "You stubbornly refuse to disagree with my position." Here, I'll help you: replace "real" with "objective." When you keep talking about things being intrinsically special, this cannot include subjective or arbitrary evaluations of worth.

At best, you can say that common evalutions are rooted in instinct. However, so are the desire to rape, the instinct to murder and maim, tendencies toward selfishness, shortsighted misuse of resources, and every other thing we consider bad or wrong about humanity. This is still not a good basis on which to form a moral code.

I would suggest that species-centrism and evolutionary psychology are the proper backbone for a generic, scientific concept of ethics. Obviously, more goes into it than this, and at present, we can't reductively explain all our moral judgements and in what way they differ from our other instincts, for that we'll have to rely on intuition and philosophy for some time to come. You can't simply derive ethics from biology at this time. However, to my mind, it seems to form a reasonable "guard rail" explanation for why we have moral intuitions, and thus can provide a way of excluding certain explanations of morals as rational and correct. Saying, I feel empathy towards animals, therefore I'm going to base my ethics on that feeling, while admirable, does not provide a rational foundation for those desires. (I'd argue that "empathy" is a crude guide to moral behavior among humans and that extending it to animals is a misapplication of it, and my evolutionary rationale justifies this interpretation, but that's another discussion.) Placing ethics on the back of evolutionary biology, a) provides a rational basis for our species-centrism, b) explains the origin of "moral behaviors," and c) is extensible to behaviors of other species (it's biologically a sound framework). As noted, we can't reason from "it evolved" directly to "it's moral," but we can backstop in the other direction, that, if it is counter-productive to our species survival, nature will select against it. (And so should we.)

[bennyboy]

On no... It's springtime for Hitler! Thread abandoned.

I didn't know Sven was a French name!

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At best, you can say that common evalutions are rooted in instinct. However, so are the desire to rape, the instinct to murder and maim, tendencies toward selfishness, shortsighted misuse of resources, and every other thing we consider bad or wrong about humanity. This is still not a good basis on which to form a moral code.

I would suggest that species-centrism and evolutionary psychology are the proper backbone for a generic, scientific concept of ethics. Obviously, more goes into it than this, and at present, we can't reductively explain all our moral judgements and in what way they differ from our other instincts, for that we'll have to rely on intuition and philosophy for some time to come. You can't simply derive ethics from biology at this time. However, to my mind, it seems to form a reasonable "guard rail" explanation for why we have moral intuitions, and thus can provide a way of excluding certain explanations of morals as rational and correct. Saying, I feel empathy towards animals, therefore I'm going to base my ethics on that feeling, while admirable, does not provide a rational foundation for those desires. (I'd argue that "empathy" is a crude guide to moral behavior among humans and that extending it to animals is a misapplication of it, and my evolutionary rationale justifies this interpretation, but that's another discussion.) Placing ethics on the back of evolutionary biology, a) provides a rational basis for our species-centrism, b) explains the origin of "moral behaviors," and c) is extensible to behaviors of other species (it's biologically a sound framework). As noted, we can't reason from "it evolved" directly to "it's moral," but we can backstop in the other direction, that, if it is counter-productive to our species survival, nature will select against it. (And so should we.)

That 'Rampant.A.I.' person is saying some very clever stuff here. +1 to him/her.

I do like the idea of finding new ideas around which to build moral ideas, and evolutionary biology is certainly a viable candidate. With regard to evolutionary biology, I'd wonder this: what can you give to the species that already has it all? It seems to me that we are too well-adapted in a sense, and that we are eating up the Earth's resources like bacteria in a petri dish.

What moral choices should we make in the face of our ongoing expansion? Is it immoral to create more humans, adding an unnecessary burden on shared resources? Is it immoral to eat meat, given that sun--plant--human energy conversion is more efficient and results in less pollution than sun--plant--animal--human conversion? Or is it, on the other hand, immoral to prevent humans from acting on their already-evolved impulses, and letting our evolution play out "naturally"? Should we just let things play out to their (possibly unpleasant) ends, or should we impose ideas about a perfect world and GUIDE our evolution as a species deliberately through gene modification, selective breeding programs, etc? Perhaps we should arrange for most members of the species to be half the height (i.e. 1/8th as big), with a natural fondness for seaweed wafers and Soylent Green.

All of these positions can be rooted in ideas about our evolution, but there is still that arbitrary evaluation at work. How can we arrive at a scientific decision about how to use science as a basis for morality, so to speak?

[John V]

Whether it is adequate justification or not is not the point. You are attempting to mount an argument about god on an invalid premise, the aforementioned false dichotomy. This doesn't make it any less a false dichotomy and therefore your conclusions about god based on the dichotomy are non sequiturs.

I don't have a false dichotomy, as I'm not insisting on the initial dichotomy presented at the beginning of Part II. Those two options are what came out of Part I. As I have shifted direction, I'm addressing additional prposed options, such as yours.

If, as your argument goes, it is in our interest as a biological species to maximize the utility of non-human resources to increase our odds of survival, it does not follow that god has an equally rational basis for his behavior because he is not a biological being whose interest is defined by his biological nature.

Valid conclusion, but there are problems with your premise.

It could be argued that human slavery could be structured to increase the odds of survival of humanity. Are you arguing that such slaveru would be ethical?

The existence of species which do not enslave other species indicates that such behavior is not necessary for survival.

The existence of humans who do not enslave other animals indicates that such behavior is not necessary for human survival.

Humans don't act as a whole for the benefit of the species.

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Human slavery is moral according to the bible, including sex slavery. How does it then follow that animal slavery is immoral? According to the bible, animals are playthings for humanity to do with what we like.

It seems alpha male can't advance this argument without denying the truth and accuracy of Genesis:

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

I don't get how a Christian can advance this argument with a straight face, as it seems to invalidate not only the infallibility of the bible, but also invalidate God as the source of morality.

As noted previously:
BTW, note that the OP asked questions, and I've tried to keep my responses in that form as well. I'm exploring the issue. For the record I own pets and eat meat, eggs, and dairy products, so if such use of animals is slavery, I too am a slaver both directly and indirectly.

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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.

When I read his post, it seemed he was implying that they only thought they were intrinsically more valuable. Sometimes such implications don't come across well in the format of an internet post, but I thought that one was pretty clear.

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.

Biological evolution produces slavers and rapists and all the other bad things we see in humanity. Do you really think it's a good source of ethics?

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I would suggest that species-centrism and evolutionary psychology are the proper backbone for a generic, scientific concept of ethics.

What do you base species-centrism on? This seems philosophical, not scientific. Scientific observation shows that in some species, individual members and/or subgroups are fiercely competitive with other individuals/groups. I would suggest that a quick read of the world news shows that biology has produced in humans a tendency to identify more strongly with subgroups than the species as a whole. Ethics based on observable human nature would accept human slavery.

[Tonus]

This was brought up some time ago by sven: "In the end one of the panelists expressed the view that we have the right to exploit animals, because we have assumed the right to do this."

My point is that the Christian concept of god moves this a step further, because god is not constrained by anything or anyone else.

The gnats should be terrified, and the Bible does say that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. However, some are more akin to the pet cats, and no longer have need for fear.

My point is that the pet cats have every reason to fear, because god is not constrained by anyone or anything else, and is not compelled to treat the pet cat any different than a gnat. Most Christians consider all of humankind to be unworthy of god's consideration; they feel that god's mercy and justice are undeserved and that we can never square the debt we owe god.

The story of Job underscores this: god's boastful description of Job is positively glowing: "there is no one on Earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil." Yet god has no qualms about removing his protection from Job and allowing him and his family (to say nothing of dozens, if not hundreds of servants and hired hands) to suffer the most awful torments. And when Job understandably assumes that god would explain all in due time, god chastises him for daring to expect anything from god.

God has no reason to be merciful or good to you-- you don't deserve it, and if he decides that you are to be treated like a gnat, it doesn't matter if you are blameless and shun evil. And unlike the human who mistreats animals, there is no one who can possibly stop him if he decides that he just doesn't like you.