steve_

If you do not accept that animals have free will, do you believe they cannot commit an act of aggression? I don't think the definition of the word includes anything to do with free will, it just describes an action?

But as I said in my post: to objectify someone you need to not see them as a person with the same rights as yourself. If I admire someone only for their tits, or fishing advice, it doesn't mean I'm willing to violate those rights by treating them as if I thought they deserved the rights of an inanimate object.

Why? But there is choice, it's just not free from the laws of the universe which we observe. No, you cannot predict what will happen since with this knowledge you could change the outcome, so it would be impossible to predict in the first place.

I replied to all the arguments I was given in the 'Meat consumption vs Libertarianism' thread. Well, by 'bacon' I mean that they'd prefer to mould their morality around their current lifestyle, which I'd bet my house includes eating meat. I don't think that's a ridiculous assumption.

I think the word objectification is way overused. Objectification seems a more appropriate label to give to the farmer cattle relationship, or the hitler jew relationship. They view them as objects without applying any idea of 'rights' to them. If I just care about a women for her looks, or care about a guy for his football betting tips, I don't think I'm objectifying them.

I'm still unsure why people think self-ownership applies to humans but not animals. I'm still unsure why people think it's cool by the NAP for me to do anything I please with those incapable of understanding language and thus the NAP. It genuinely seems like a massive cop-out to me to either to keep self-ownership practical for real-world application (even though it might not be) or because bacon. Why can only things covered by the NAP be considered immoral? Anything else for some reason is, by some, not called "immoral" but a mere aesthetic preference... and I'm really not sure why.

"Steve, just because an argument only applies to a narrow domain of things, as long as the domain is valid and universal, the argument is valid." But your reason for the distinction is " We HAVE to draw this distinction, becuse otherwise any number of behaviors which we don't consider unethical (and reasonably so) become problematic." "the NAP only applies to humans, do you feel that is an unreasonable domain?" To me, it's like someone saying a certain person isn't included because it would become problematic for them, though. Sure, that person might not be able to philosophise, but they kinda still have self-ownership as much as we do, right? Is being able to philosophise required to own yourself? "Animals cannot reason. When an animals philosophise, we can talk about this again." Reason != Philosophise, and I'm not sure being able to philosophise is necessary for self-ownership. To what objective level should people meet before they're covered by the NAP? "From wikipidia "In the philosophy of consciousness, sentience can refer to the ability of any entity to have subjective perceptual experiences" Why do you think animals are unable to have these? "I think that fundamentally, NAP can only apply to things which can understand the NAP." We can understand the NAP, therefore we ought follow it? "Otherwise, you're forcing your moral structure on beings which do not, and cannot understand the NAP." But it's sensible to force our moral structure onto them, and we would, in the sense that we'll happily defend ourselves against them.

adjective [*] 1. based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. If I say murder is moral if you dance around on one foot for 3 minutes, what would you call that? ... Why aren't animals as responsible for their actions as we are? Also you're conveniently leaving out the second part "They're as responsible for their actions as we are. It would just be silly to hold them to the same standards as we would a human because they aren't human." ?

They are rational though, just not to the extent that we are. Why does that make them incapable of ownership of any kind and therefore a-okay for us to do to as we please? They're as responsible for their actions as we are. It would just be silly to hold them to the same standards as we would a human because they aren't human. But your reasons for drawing the line are arbitrary. You like bacon, therefore have come up with a reason as to why pigs don't deserve freedom as we do. I don't think there is a right and a wrong, I think I can only show it to be arbitrary and hopefully appeal to people who are against doing things that way. I did address the logic, I said it was an arbitrarily drawn line, which I still think is drawn to absolve you of moral responsibility. If you're a vegan then I'll gladly eat my words without question, but I really really doubt that you are.

Ray, I'm not sure why something that isn't as smart as you doesn't have self-ownership or otherwise isn't deserving of slaughter. If I'm honest you seem to be drawing an arbitrary line so you can eat bacon free of guilt of needlessly murdering something.

Because otherwise: kaboom. Do you mean 'to be able to reason'? You don't believe animals can reason? So it doesn't matter that they lack the necessary biological equipment to feel pain? It's not possible to respond to external stimuli without feeling pain?

Way to ignore all of my points :S Then perhaps the NAP is silly and impractical? I've gone over the difference between animals and plants with SeanBissell earlier in the thread, what do you disagree with?

> Fundamentally what matters is the potential for sentience, which is why children (who may not be sentient at the moment, its hard to tell since they can't talk at birth) are protected by the NAP. I brought up children only because of the machine comparison. > We HAVE to draw this distinction, becuse otherwise any number of behaviors which we don't consider unethical (and reasonably so) become problematic. This is what everyone who rejects deontological ethics and the NAP says. > After all, we can't make non-agression pacts with dogs. You said it didn't need to be reciprocal? > but a line must be drawn to divide humans from animals, because otherwise, the NAP simply becomes a system in which you can't do anything, because everything has rights. pigs having rights gets in the way of BACON, so it cannot be!

> Sentience is defined as the ability to have subjective perceptual experiences Where? Wikipedia, google define, webster, the oxford dictionary all seem to say that animals are sentient since they can feel and perceive. You seem to suggest that the NAP doesn't apply to things that aren't of a certain intellect, but presumably you would want it extended to the mentally ill/retarded, right? What about children? They'll eventually grow up to be sentient, as you define it, but so could those machines or at least their parts. Further more, even if you establish some line where they're too stupid for the NAP to apply to them it strikes me as very weird that when you say that you don't mean that they have no moral responsibility, but instead that we, the people smart enough for the NAP to apply to, don't have to follow it when it comes to them...

Causing pain to someone isn't against the NAP, using aggression towards them is. If you hit someone, you're kinda breaking the NAP. What's your definition of sentient? How have you come to the conclusion that they have no rational actors? Same question for conscience... I'm not sure why the NAP has to be reciprocal, especially in the way you're saying. You're saying that if a chicken could eat you, it would, therefore it's okay to slaughter peaceful chickens. That's even worse than saying "I've been attacked by a human before" therefore it's okay to attack peaceful humans because they're of the same species... In the latter example, at least you've been attacked by a human...