Veganism

[awty]

Begging the question....click...begging the question...click...begging the question...

Jesus Christ AllFriday...use some new words.

[Thumpalumpacus]

If it's fallacious on either side then saying that there is no objective morality because of disagreement is just as problematic as saying that there is objective morality because of agreement.

Which is probably why I wrote "on either side", as the attentive reader will have noticed. You can come out of lecture mode, there's a good lad.

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I had nothing to do with this following exchange at all, but after quoting me first with attribution, you've quoted someone else without attribution, thus courting the possibility that I might be held responsible for someone else's views. Might you please pay a little more attention to detail, out of consideration for others?

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No, I didn't. I'm denying its existence. I said that a long time back when I first said that there was no evidence for 'moral facts'.

Do I have to quote you saying that agreement is just what's fashionable?

If it's so obvious, then I'm certain that you'll have no difficulty providing evidence rather than yet more argument. Kindly try to correct for the fact that the overwhelming majority of moral systems were imposed at gunpoint by a relatively small portion of Western Europe. The only thing that's obvious to me is that we don't follow our own relatively flexible moral precepts.

It's obvious that there is moral agreement because sometimes people agree on morals. Like I said: most people agree that rape is wrong. The question is WHY do you discount that?

With regards to the point about begging the question: When I ask you why you think that there is no moral agreement you effectively just say because there is no moral agreement. That is begging the question. You don't give an independent argument. I keep asking WHY you think that there is no agreement, and you aren't giving a substantive answer.
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[The Grand Nudger]

There will always be somebody who can't fire the bow without somehow hitting their own ear. No explanation will account for the terminally stupid or the criminally insane. What we can be reasonably certain is that if I take a bag that has one rock in it and drop another rock into it, then, barring breakage, the overwhelming majority of people will agree that there are two rocks in the bag. Aliens from other worlds that breathe ammonia and communicate via modulations of scent would be likely to arrive at the same conclusion.

People disagree about facts all the time, but I still think those are good examples.  These are the sorts of moral opinions that moral realism concerns itself with too.  So, for example, when I talk about what's wrong with our food systems I'll refer to things that any person, things that I would expect an alien, even, to be able to comprehend.   

By contrast, let's extract nine other people from all of human history and lock you in a room with them. The topic will be religion. Suitable weapons will be provided to all concerned parties. I doubt that you'd last a single day (honestly, a whole 24 hours is woefully optimistic) before you felt compelled to either lie about your beliefs in self-defense, maim somebody (probably several somebodies) in self-defense, or leave the experiment on account of an acute case of dead. We've had Thou Shalt Not Kill for about three millennia (probably more), and I doubt that in all of that time there has been a single year that we didn't commit mass murder of some form or other.

We're compromised agents, for sure.  Even if we know we shouldn't do a thing we can come up with all sorts of reasons and excuses for doing that thing.  Lay aside metaethics for a moment, because it doesn't really matter what the nature of moral compulsion is in my individual case.  In the example you offered I doubt I'd last 24 minutes...but when I started swinging whatever club you handed me I wouldn't spend any time trying to convince myself that I'm doing a good thing.  In objective terms, whether it's a bow and arrow, how many rocks are in a bag, or moral opinions - failure is a possibility - but a failure to shoot a bow or get the correct sum should not be confused with there being no way to shoot a bow or no correct sum.  Lay aside whether or not people can agree on any given set of moral opinions about a thing...because I don't need agreement to know my mind or justify my own opinions.  Assume it's all entirely subjective and individualized.  I personally think that there's a bunch of cruel shit we do to livestock that I should not be party too - and yet...I do still buy those products.  

The rocks are a fact. There are two of them in the bag, and very few sentients would consider anything else. Facts describe the world as it is. By contrast, 'moral facts' describe what should/ought. They describe what is not, but we feel should be. That makes them dependent on what we feel at this moment, and that makes them not fact. We're a species of conflicting and compromised impulses that give rise to some interesting solutions in game theory. Describing that as 'moral fact' just mystifies the matter.

Moral propositions describe what should or ought be - moral facts are what those statements are premised upon.  Can you tell the difference between the moral proposition that we should not play with our peckers... and we should not assault our SO's?  Is there any difference?  From my pov, they're actually both premised on the same (alleged) moral facts.  Facts of harm.  Where one fails and the other succeeds is in getting those facts right.  I approach arguments for vegetarianism and veganism in the same light, and that's where they very often fail.  They purport to report a fact that would compel me (insomuch as anything does..as above), if it were true, but fail to accurately report on that (or those) facts.  

I thought that we had already discussed this with the various civilizations that felt no compunctions about sacrificing them to the flames, leaving them out on mountaintops, or drowning them in cenotes. Children have been used as cheap sources of expendable labour in our society less than 200 years ago. And then there are modern sweatshops. Where were your sneakers made?

By cheap adult labor...which really isn't better when you think about it.  I think we're not talking about the same thing.  Moral realism isn't the proposition that everything I do is moral, or right.  Or that everything I believe is the right thing to believe.  It's the idea that there are mind independent moral facts in the world and that people can make true and false statements about them.   I think it's true that much of what goes into feeding us is harmful, and electively so.  I think it's false that becoming a vegan or a vegetarian would change those material facts either at all, or to the degree that people so inclined wish they would.  Thus, the ethical argument from suffering fails, because it's proposed solution does not eliminate or reduce suffering, it merely shifts that suffering between buckets.  That I privilege the human bucket is, and I'm pretty good at being open about this...a neverending fountain of real and potential moral failure - it's simply moral failure that I am prepare to accept.   I'll eat less chicken for the sake of the chicken.  I'll lose money..for a time...trying to raise them ethically, even.  I won't starve, or impoverish my kids, for the sake of a chicken.  If in the grand scheme of things there is some mystical hereafter and I find myself staring at a panel of chickens in the afterlife, I'll get a good hearty laugh...and deserve by rights whatever moral condemnation my life's record has earned.

[The Grand Nudger]

Gravity is a fact. The act of killing a person being moral or immoral is not a fact. When you walk off'n a cliff, you will fall down and hit the ground. When you kill someone, you may have committed a crime, or you may have defended yourself.

That's a good objectivist criticism...but ofc, it's not a good criticism if objectivism is false.  If subjectivism or relativism are true and you or your society say that killing a person is immoral that is..very much, the moral fact of the matter. Objective facts do not matter in any other moral schema, they are not the moral facts. The idea that defense modifies moral desert (or moral nature) is referring to a particular fact of the matter, not your opinion or your societies. It either was or wasn't self defense.

Similarly, when it comes to eating animals....that you have to eat, that you are a particular kind of creature on a particular kind of world, that you only have x y or z options available, that all of them are suboptimal....none of this matters outside of an objective understanding. The preists of the almighty chicken do not care about the details of your chicken eating offense. It's death no matter the facts of the matter. You should have committed self righteous suicide rather than eat the chicken, and since you didn't, they're going to correct that mistake.

[Paleophyte]

Moral propositions describe what should or ought be - moral facts are what those statements are premised upon.  Can you tell the difference between the moral proposition that we should not play with our peckers... and we should not assault our SO's?  Is there any difference?  From my pov, they're actually both premised on the same (alleged) moral facts.  Facts of harm.  Where one fails and the other succeeds is in getting those facts right.  I approach arguments for vegetarianism and veganism in the same light, and that's where they very often fail.  They purport to report a fact that would compel me (insomuch as anything does..as above), if it were true, but fail to accurately report on that (or those) facts.

Then what you're talking about isn't a 'moral fact', it's an objective one. Does playing with your pecker cause harm? Not really. Here is a long list of scientific studies. Does beating your spouse? Yes. Here's another long list of scientific studies. What you're talking about isn't moral fact, it's just fact.

[Paleophyte]

People disagree about facts all the time, but I still think those are good examples.

How many people will kill you for 1+1=2? Now, how many will kill you for the 'moral facts' that their chosen deity handed down? One of those is a hard fact that few of us disagree with. The other is a 'moral' stance that has been held by a depressingly large segment of our population, even today.

[The Grand Nudger]

Morals in Western societies come from what people agree to through discussions, human experience, and politicians they choose. By doing that, people are not discovering some universal truths (morals), but what works in some place at a certain timeline with the least amount of damage to everyone. That is a democratic and humanistic way.

But when you have these ideas of moral universalism and/or moral realism, what you really have is a group of people claiming that they know what is moral with all the baggage that comes with it. So, moral universalism and/or moral realism pretty much looks like just another way of trying to shoehorn authoritarianism.

First, universalism and realism are wildly distinct ideas about morality.  Second, no, lol.  Moral realism doesn't tell you "what is moral".  There is no list.  There is no authority.  Moral realism is a way to think about a morality that leans on what is or is not factually true as a guide for ones own behavior. Thus, here I am agreeing that the underlying point that ethical veganism and vegetarianism begin with is a valid one, and is true - but I don't think this puts every meat eater on some bad list - and I continue to eat meat myself.

[The Grand Nudger]

People disagree about facts all the time, but I still think those are good examples.

How many people will kill you for 1+1=2? Now, how many will kill you for the 'moral facts' that their chosen deity handed down? One of those is a hard fact that few of us disagree with. The other is a 'moral' stance that has been held by a depressingly large segment of our population, even today.

The things handed down by a deity may be "moral"...but they are not what moral realism is talking about, so they aren't really a problem that moral realism has to answer for.  They're explicitly subjective.  Handed down by a deity....I don't really care about those sorts of morals and I wouldn't kill anyone for them...but there's probably some number of people I'd harm to prevent their application in our lives. If the reason we shouldn't eat beef was because the cowgod said so, and the cowgod police were going around smacking food out of hungry peoples mouths on account of that...they'd definitely be fair game, imo.

[Paleophyte]

Morals in Western societies come from what people agree to through discussions, human experience, and politicians they choose. By doing that, people are not discovering some universal truths (morals), but what works in some place at a certain timeline with the least amount of damage to everyone. That is a democratic and humanistic way.

But when you have these ideas of moral universalism and/or moral realism, what you really have is a group of people claiming that they know what is moral with all the baggage that comes with it. So, moral universalism and/or moral realism pretty much looks like just another way of trying to shoehorn authoritarianism.

First, universalism and realism are wildly distinct ideas about morality.  Second, no, lol.  Moral realism doesn't tell you "what is moral".  There is no list.  There is no authority.  Moral realism is a way to think about a morality that leans on what is or is not factually true as a guide for ones own behavior.  Thus, here I am agreeing that the underlying point that ethical veganism and vegetarianism begin with is a valid one, and is true - but I don't think this puts every meat eater on some bad list.

There's a system that has moral facts but doesn't tell you what is moral? Sounds screwy to me.

[The Grand Nudger]

Then what you're talking about isn't a 'moral fact', it's an objective one. Does playing with your pecker cause harm? Not really. Here is a long list of scientific studies. Does beating your spouse? Yes. Here's another long list of scientific studies. What you're talking about isn't moral fact, it's just fact.

...hence objective morality...? Moral fact, cat fact, just a fact. It's just a fact that keeping animals in the most cramped possible conditions feeding them literal garbage and then slaughtering them in the least humane way imaginable is harmful to them (and us, fwiw). Here's a long list of scientific studies..right?