Veganism

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I’m not convinced that whether or not to eat other people is necessarily a moral question at all.

Boru

But I take it that you think that killing and eating them is a moral question. Right?

Wrong. Whether or not to kill someone isn’t a moral question, either. It’s more situational than moral.

Boru

[Disagreeable]

But I take it that you think that killing and eating them is a moral question. Right?

Wrong. Whether or not to kill someone isn’t a moral question, either. It’s more situational than moral.

Boru

Could you give an example of something that is in fact a moral question, then? Generally the question of whether or not to kill someone is considered a paradigmatic case of a moral question.

[Thumpalumpacus]

[...] and the property of not being human is what makes it acceptable to kill and eat a creature, then this entails that it's acceptable to kill and eat a creature very, very similar to a human that isn't technically of the same species (homo sapiens).

The unspoken assumption here is that this is the only dietary taboo humans hold, which is shown untrue simply by looking at the examples of Judaism and Islam. An anti-cannibalist might well decide that eating H. Neaderthalensis may be taboo in addition to the proscription on H. Sapiens.

As such, I'd hold that the conditional basis of the taboo ought not be essential humanity, but some other quality or set of qualities. I'd include intelligence, self-awareness, capacity for empathy, though I'm sure there are other qualities I'm not thinking of at the moment.

[Nay_Sayer]

Interestingly, this thread popped up while I am having a BMT from Subway

[Disagreeable]

As such, I'd hold that the conditional basis of the taboo ought not be essential humanity, but some other quality or set of qualities. I'd include intelligence, self-awareness, capacity for empathy, though I'm sure there are other qualities I'm not thinking of at the moment.

Thanks for answering the original question!

Is being human still one of the required properties? Because, if not, then what if there was a human without these properties?

[Fake Messiah]

It depends upon whether moral realism is true or not. If moral realism is true then it might be objectively impermissible to do certain things even if everybody in practice permits those things.

Ah yes, what does it ultimately mean to be moral? Does it mean just obeying rules (of morality), or does it mean something else?

Morals are rules that we obey to better get along with other people and nature. Now, sometimes people discover that if they change some rules, they get better with other people and nature.

And so all you mean by it being morally permissible in the past is the fact that people permitted it in the past? So you see 'permissible' and 'permitted' as interchangeable?

I think you are mixing/confusing morals with laws. Morals are not laws, so if you break a moral code usually doesn't mean that you'll face some particularly harsh punishment like prison or a fine, but just that you will let down some close people. But if many people stop caring about morals, the whole society will probably crumble, which can be a good thing if morals were bad.

Or consider that after the WW2, allies judged Germans for things that were moral and legal in Germany during Hitler but not in the United States and UK. So, did they have a right to judge them by their moral standards?

[Disagreeable]

Ah yes, what does it ultimately mean to be moral? Does it mean just obeying rules (of morality), or does it mean something else?

Indeed.

Morals are rules that we obey to better get along with other people and nature. Now, sometimes people discover that if they change some rules, they get better with other people and nature.

That sounds to me like you are saying that morality is basically prosociality? It also sounds a lot like social contract theory would support this definition.

I think you are mixing/confusing morals with laws. Morals are not laws, so if you break a moral code usually doesn't mean that you'll face some particularly harsh punishment like prison or a fine, but just that you will let down some close people. But if many people stop caring about morals, the whole society will probably crumble, which can be a good thing if morals were bad.

Nah I'm only talking about moral permissibility, not legal permissibility. I'm asking if when slavery is morally permitted is that interchangeable with it being morally permissible?

Or consider that after the WW2, allies judged Germans for things that were moral and legal in Germany during Hitler but not in the United States and UK. So, did they have a right to judge them by their moral standards?

Good question! So the question is regardless of the laws, was it permissible or impermissible morally for the Germans to do what they did?

[Angrboda]

I never said that your not abiding by common usage alone necessarily entailed that you are equivocating.  This is a logic fail.

Are you saying that when you said that if I am 'not abiding by common usage' then I am 'equivocating' you didn't in fact mean that my not abiding by common usage was alone enough to mean that I am equivocating?

If so, then I don't see why you even bother pointing it out, if it's not a sufficient reason to believe I'm equivocating, why bother mentioning it but not give any further reasons that do in fact, supposedly, explain it?

Equivocation as a fallacy requires multiple conditions be simultaneously true. If you are claiming that I was asserting that a fallacy which definitionally requires multiple conditions was instantiated because a single condition was true -- necessarily -- then you are being a dipshit and attempting to find some plausible rationale for your stupidity.

 If not abiding by common usage in combination with other things entails that you are equivocating, then not abiding by common usage not necessarily entailing the conclusion on its own does not argue that the conclusion itself is false.  This is a case of ignoratio elenchi.

This is all a red herring because it doesn't apply since I didn't equivocate. To equivocate I'd have to conflate definitions, which I haven't done.

You have repeatedly suggested that we treat things that are not human as human. You even argued that things that are not human be counted as human. A purer example of equivocation is hard to imagine. You wanted to use human in the sense implied by my use of Liebniz's law as 'human' and also suggesting that in some sense organisms which don't satisfy Liebniz's law were also human. That is using human in two different senses, the sense I was using (which is implied by common usage) and a different sense, notably the sense in which the near human would "count" as human. That's two different senses of usage of human, one being complete satisfaction of the requirements of being human and one in which something is termed, treated, or counted as human when it doesn't meet the requirements of the other sense of human, which is all or nothing. That's using two different senses of human in arguing for your conclusion about the ethics of killing humans. Killing humans in the first sense (killing actual humans) is different from arguing the killing of humans in the second sense (humans that aren't actually humans but should be treated as or counted as human). So your initial question was about actual humans, as was the discussion concerning Liebniz's law. You introduced questions about what makes a not actually human human, and thereby subject to moral strictures that only apply to actual humans. That's arguing for a conclusion based on a different sense of the term than had already been stipulated by the question of whether the property of being human alone was the relevant property. You have yet to show that it being the sole property and some other combination of other properties being the case are both the same thing. I'm not categorically ruling that out, but until you demonstrate that being human is a divisible property, you're essentially just changing the subject.

My initial point was that you seem to be assuming that something other than the property of being human was the case regarding the moral significance.

I never said anything that suggested that I was assuming that. In fact, on the contrary, as soon as you wrongly suggested that I was assuming that I immediately responded by saying that the property of being human actually could be what was morally significant.

You have repeatedly implied that some other property besides being human might be relevant. You repeatedly asked me about this or that sub-property of being human and posited a possible significance. If the supervening property is the only one that matters, nothing you do regarding sub-properties is relevant as none have any coin in this realm. That is close to explicit declaration that you are assuming otherwise as to posit some other property as posing possibly a meaningful difference is definitionally inconsistent with being human being the only property capable of making a meaningful difference.

 If that is the sole criterion, and assuming that being human is a legitimate category as implied by usage, then things will fall into one of two categories: things that are human and things that aren't human.  If the property of being human is the criteria for determining the moral significance, then the fact that something is close to being human does not matter as there is nothing that being close grants you as far as the ethics are concerned.

Yes, but the question, then, is whether or not it is actually the case that we ought to revise our standard of what is morally significant.

That is a question. What standards are you talking about? Has anyone thus far introduced any?

Obviously if having the property of being human is what's morally significant then if something doesn't have the property of being human then that is not an objection. But the point is that if we start by saying that having the property of being human is what makes it not okay to eat a creature, but then we discover that there are creatures that it's not okay to eat that don't have the property of being human, then this entails that it's not actually the case that having the property of being human is the sole criterion of what makes it not okay to eat a creature.

Please detail what observations would need to be made to determine that it is not morally permissible to eat something non-human?

 So you can parade an infinite class of close "human-like" beings and their deaths will not acquire moral significance from partially fulfilling the requisites for being human as being human is essentially all or nothing, as is any ethics predicated on that property alone.  Liebniz's law doesn't decalare things that possess some, most, or many, but not all properties the same as being the same thing.  I recognize that you seem inclined to want to argue that human-like creatures be treated the same, but in order to reach that conclusion, you have to either give up the coherence of the category human, or the supposition that being human alone is the relevant moral property.

Yes, that's the whole point, if there are creatures that don't have the property of being human but are morally impermissible to kill and eat then it's not the case that having the property of being human is the sole criterion determining which creatures are morally impermissible to kill and eat.

"If...."

  

As long as the latter holds, possessing or not possessing other properties aside from being human are irrelevant.  This follows from Liebniz' law and those two assumptions.

Obviously if having the property of being human is what's morally significant then having the property of being human is what's morally significant. Yes, Leibniz's law always applies, obviously. The question is whether having the property of being human actually is what's morally significant or not. The problem is that if there are creatures that do not in fact have the property of being human but it's still morally impermissible to kill and eat them then, obviously, it's not in fact the case that having the property of being human is the sole criterion with regards to whether it's impermissible to kill and eat a creature or not.

That's only a problem if that is actually the case. I suspect determining that to be the case is well nigh impossible currrently, so no need to get our undies in a bunch over mere possibility.

 

If you want a different conclusion, you'll need to debate one of the two hypothesized assumptions,

Which is exactly what I've been trying to do but it's been completely going over your head.

What substantive objections have you made to assuming those as postulates?

[Disagreeable]

Equivocation as a fallacy requires multiple conditions be simultaneously true.  If you are claiming that I was asserting that a fallacy which definitionally requires multiple conditions was instantiated because a single condition was true -- necessarily -- then you are being a dipshit and attempting to find some plausible rationale for your stupidity.

Generally, if someone says that if I am doing X then I am doing Y it standardly means that if I am doing X then I am necessarily doing Y. If that is not what you are saying then okay. In that case you are not saying that me going against common usage necessarily means that I'm equivocating. I agree.

You have repeatedly suggested that we treat things that are not human as human.

What I'm saying is that we may need to revise our definition of human, or revise whether having the property of being human is what's morally significant.

 You even argued that things that are not human be counted as human.  A purer example of equivocation is hard to imagine.  You wanted to use human in the sense implied by my use of Liebniz's law as 'human' and also suggesting that in some sense organisms which don't satisfy Liebniz's law were also human.  That is using human in two different senses, the sense I was using (which is implied by common usage) and a different sense, notably the sense in which the near human would "count" as human.  That's two different senses of usage of human, one being complete satisfaction of the requirements of being human and one in which something is termed, treated, or counted as human when it doesn't meet the requirements of the other sense of human, which is all or nothing.  That's using two different senses of human in arguing for your conclusion about the ethics of killing humans.  Killing humans in the first sense (killing actual humans) is different from arguing the killing of humans in the second sense (humans that aren't actually humans but should be treated as or counted as human).  So your initial question was about actual humans, as was the discussion concerning Liebniz's law.  You introduced questions about what makes a not actually human human, and thereby subject to moral strictures that only apply to actual humans.  That's arguing for a conclusion based on a different sense of the term than had already been stipulated by the question of whether the property of being human alone was the relevant property.  You have yet to show that it being the sole property and some other combination of other properties being the case are both the same thing.  I'm not categorically ruling that out, but until you demonstrate that being human is a divisible property, you're essentially just changing the subject.

You are not tracking at all. When I say that it might make sense to treat what we don't consider a human as human then this is because it might make sense to revise what we define as human.

I'm not going to bother addressing all of the repeated misinterpretation of me.

You have repeatedly implied that some other property besides being human might be relevant.

Yes, which doesn't necessarily entail that the property of being human is not morally relevant.

 You repeatedly asked me about this or that sub-property of being human and posited a possible significance.  If the supervening property is the only one that matters, nothing you do regarding sub-properties is relevant as none have any coin in this realm.

And my question is whether the property of being human *is* what's actually relevant or not. I've left both that being the case and that not being the case open to possibility.

 That is close to explicit declaration that you are assuming otherwise as to posit some other property as posing possibly a meaningful difference is definitionally inconsistent with being human being the only property capable of making a meaningful difference.

I've made myself extremely clear, and clarified repeatedly, you're simply not tracking at all.

That is a question.  What standards are you talking about?  Has anyone thus far introduced any?

You pointed out that the property of being human might be what's morally significant. So my question is, is that in fact the case? And, also, is that property the sole criterion for killing and eating a creature being morally impermissible? Because, if that is in fact the case then if there are creatures that it is impermissible to kill and eat that do not in fact have that property then having that property cannot be the sole criterion for what makes it impermissible to kill and eat a creature.

Please detail what observations would need to be made to determine that it is not morally permissible to eat something non-human?

That's a separate question. My question has repeatedly been whether having the property of being human is the sole criterion for determining whether it is impermissible to eat a creature. I don't see why I should answer your questions when you repeatedly ignore mine. You're answering a question with a question.

"If...."

Yes, exactly. If. Which is why I'm leaving many possibilities open right now. And I'm asking what you think. And you're not telling me. Instead you just repeatedly uncharitably fail to track what I very clearly say. How many clarifications and explanations do I have to give before you stop misinterpreting me?

  

That's only a problem if that is actually the case.

Exactly. Which is why I am actually leaving many possibilities open, despite you repeatedly claiming that I'm insisting on specific possibilities when I'm not. I'm asking what you think. And you're not telling me, you're repeatedly misinterpreting me.

 I suspect determining that to be the case is well nigh impossible currrently, so no need to get our undies in a bunch over mere possibility.

This is the first time you've actually given an answer. And, to be clear, are you saying that it's well nigh impossible to determine whether having the property of being human is what's morally significant?

What substantive objections have you made to assuming those as postulates?

I haven't made any. I've asked questions.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Wrong. Whether or not to kill someone isn’t a moral question, either. It’s more situational than moral.

Boru

Could you give an example of something that is in fact a moral question, then? Generally the question of whether or not to kill someone is considered a paradigmatic case of a moral question.

Whether to cheat at cards is a moral question. 

Boru