Veganism

[The Grand Nudger]

-in the interests of fullness, I see a similar sort of logical mistake in many of the objections to such moral consideration. Where we desire to avoid sme set of conclusions (or their consequences) that would, or we fear would, be engendered if we accepted that people making moral statements and the overwhelming majority of academics from multiple disciplines might be onto something with this whole fact business. The idea was expressed earlier with a reference to authoritarianism. As if, were we to become moral realists, we must then find ourselves under the cruel boot of authoritarian governance. The point of it is to smuggle in authoritarianism, rather than accurately express what our statements purport to express.

I wonder, though, what objections we have to authoritarian governance? Are they themselves completely a-factual? Are we not aware of the long and very compelling history of realist anti-authoritarianism? Back again to ethical veganism. Say some argument for it does succeed. Say that we do apprehend some moral responsibility to avoid consuming animals. How does that lead explicitly or directly or necessarily to setting up a dietary branch of ice that goes around smacking meat out of peoples mouths and or executing people in the streets for failure to comply? Just speaking for myself, there are alot of things I think we should do that I won't and don't feel empowered by that normative sentiment to force people to do (or in this case, not to do). Even if I didn't eat meat for ethical reasons I'm not going to drive down to my vegan livestock producers farm and burn it down. That...would be.....bad.

-objectively speaking

My moral compulsions and sop as a moral realist are to avoid those things I apprehend as bad and, at most, help other people to avoid them as well. Not harm them into avoiding those things. Granted, I'm spotty on this in practice, very human - and I haven't always believed what I do today about moral statements or the factual contents of specific (allegedly) moral contexts. I would not, for example, make it illegal to produce meat or browbeat meat eaters if I wanted there to be less meat production and consumption. I would advocate for farm assistance and nutritional programs that reduced consumer and producer reliance on livestock production.

[Thumpalumpacus]

blah blah blah. I don't do high falutin' specialized philosophical language designed to baffle rather than enlighten. Put it simply: why, if context matters, do you still exclude human judgement as a moral factor? Leave the ten-dollar words aside. Tell me like I flunked out of Phi101 ... which I almost did, given my bullshit allergy.

[The Grand Nudger]

If the question is why I exclude human judgement if context matters as an issue of people having demonstrably spotty judgement...I don't? Moral realism both acknowledges and offers some counterbalance to that very thing. Suggesting that we remember our judgement can be poor when we make moral pronouncements and so we should take care to ensure that those pronouncements do have a basis in facts outside of the fact that we make such judgements. This is what the term mind-independent can refer to in metaethical discussions. The idea that there is something other than the mere presence of that judgement in a mind certifying that the judgement is accurate.

If the question is why I exclude human judgement as a wrong-making fact, as in, can't a thing be wrong because a person thinks it's wrong - then it's a matter of simple mechanics and communication. The wrong making fact, in that case, is not a fact of the thing but a fact of the judgement maker alone. It can be subjectively wrong, in that way, sure? If that's how they communicate that opinion then I accept it for what it is. An objective fact free opinion that properly and accurately refers to something about them, and not the thing itself (I have plenty of them!). Pretty rare that moral opinions (or objections to moral opinions) come to my attention that way, though.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I'm getting off this merry-go-'round, buddy. I find the idea of morality existing without a mind to encompass it to be incoherent.

[The Grand Nudger]

That's us talking about different things, yes. Mind-independence is not the idea that things without minds have moralities or consider moral opinions. It is the possibility that the things which those things that do have minds and can consider moral opinions are discussing and contemplating do have an existence out there in the world somewhere beyond the confines of their skulls. The harm of assault is not solely in the eye of the beholder. It is real, quantifiable, demonstrable, even physical.

Thus "there is no such thing as mind independence, therefore realism is false" - as you understand it...does not even follow - regardless of whether what realism is talking about actually exists. It's not talking about the thing you think it is, the absence of that thing is not indicative of realisms failure.

However, do you think it's possible that the referenced harm to animals and the environment is not an illusion or artifact of the human mind?

[Thumpalumpacus]

Thus "there is no such thing as mind independence, therefore realism is false" - as you understand it...does not even follow - regardless of whether what realism is talking about actually exists.  It's not talking about the thing you think it is, the absence of that thing is not indicative of realisms failure.

However, do you think it's possible that the referenced harm to animals and the environment is not an illusion or artifact of the human mind?

When did I write that only the human mind may consider morality?

[The Grand Nudger]

You just said you found the idea of morality existing without a mind to encompass it incoherent? We're the only known minds so I started there. I could add aliens, and robots, and anything else we want to imagine as having a mind and that detail also doesn't matter to what realism is saying. I could take away all the known (or hypothetical) minds and it still wouldn't matter to what moral realism is saying - because moral realism is talking about mind independence in the sense that the facts which a valid and true moral proposition refers to would be facts regardless of whether or how many minds did apprehend things that way, or even if no minds did.

So, for example, let's say that current livestock management is done the way it is not because of any mind involved, but because some set of great and ancient but truly simple analog machines designed for another thing, whose creators have long since vanished, has gone off kilter through time and wear.... this is the product of it's unthinking unguided actions. Change anything about the harm to animals or the environment, or is that harm still there, unapprehended and unencompassed by any mind?

I would say the harm is still there.

[Thumpalumpacus]

You just said you found the idea of morality existing without a mind to encompass it incoherent?  We're the only known minds so I started there.   I could add aliens, and robots, and anything else we want to imagine as having a mind and that detail also doesn't matter to what realism is saying.  I could take away all the known (or hypothetical) minds and it still wouldn't matter to what moral realism is saying - because moral realism is talking about mind independence in the sense that the facts which a valid and true moral proposition refers to would be facts regardless of whether or how many minds did apprehend things that way, or even if no minds did.

So, for example, let's say that current livestock management is done the way it is not because of any mind involved, but because some set of great and ancient but truly simple analog machines designed for another thing, whose creators have long since vanished, has gone off kilter through time and wear.... this is the product of it's unthinking unguided actions.  Change anything about the harm to animals or the environment, or is that harm still there, unapprehended and unencompassed by any mind?

I would say the harm is still there.

If a tree falls onto a cow and kills it, is that moral, immoral, or morally irrelevant? Why or why not? The cow sure ain't happy. The tree sure ain't happy for being broken. But somehow this has a moral aspect even though none of it is mindful?

[The Grand Nudger]

It's harmful to the cow, we'd agree, regardless of whether or not the tree does or even can think so. Thus, mind independent in the manner intended. A term for that could be a natural evil. Suffering caused by processes or disasters independent of volition, of intent. The understanding there seeming to indicate that a thing is still bad for reasons outside of human (or any) opinion or intent, though we tend not to think of it as immoral in a full consideration because there is no moral agent doing it to be described as such. If deistic subjectivists ever followed through with their bullshit they wouldn't have that excuse, mind you, because we'd be talking about what GOD just did to that cow, man.

I'm open to the idea that alot of what we describe as immoral, implying that there is volitional intent, actually isn't. That it's a natural evil. Some amount of animal suffering and ecological damage is (or may be) the inevitable product of a world full of extremely resource intensive heterotrophs. That's informing my opinion that vegan dietary choices would not or might not actually produce the amount of harm mitigation or avoidance they hope for. You can kill animals because you eat them or you can kill animals and not even eat them.....and you probably already see the buds of a new moral dilemma sprouting up from the exclusively suboptimal ground of existential and ethical options as they present themselves to us.

There is something tragic, imo, in living on this rock as it is, as we are. I'm always calling it a meatgrinder. If we could arrange it so that it were kinder, less cruel, less random, less painful, less high stakes, we (or at least I) probably would. We do that in our own lives and for some animals insomuch as we can. We treat livestock better than just about anything else, we create little worlds for them - that's why humans and livestock combined are something like 96% of the planets remaining mamallian biomass. When you look at it like that, it's not the cattle we ought to be worried about.

If we dove deeper, and considered a possible (and once actual, here...still present and important) autotrophic world these concerns about things eating each other don't even obtain. Let that sink in. If there are moral concerns about things eating each other (and I think there are), there is a possible world in which they don't..we just don't live on that world, and in this way the evil of nature and ourselves is very literally a fact and product of the laws of nature.

[Thumpalumpacus]

It's harmful to the cow, we'd agree, regardless of whether or not the tree does or even can think so.  Thus, mind independent in the manner intended.

My point, since you seem determined to avoid it, is that without a mind to apprehend morality, how is there morality at all? Morality requires thinking. Yet this "moral realism" construct relies upon morality being independent of minds. Without a mind, what is making any judgement?