Kevin Jay

The relevant point is that Stefan in his 'Against Me' argument says you shouldn't even engage with people who want to initiate force against you like Chomsky does (since he supports state programs and rejects natural property rights - in his 'anarchy' there would be no DROs or respect from private property whatsoever. Stefan is clearly aware of this from earlier statements, he did not believe Noam was an anarcho-capitalist...) The question is, is Stefan not being inconsistent by saying in the 'Against Me' argument that we not even engage with those who wish to initiate force against us, but at the same time he will not only engage but praise Chomsky? If not, why not? Has his position changed? These are the questions we need answered.

Right, so according to Stefan's moral theory, it is morally permissible to torture animals, rape them, etc. since they do not have self ownership. Nonetheless, some people might not like doing that or find it distasteful, in the same way that they might not like cheese potato chips, or be disgusted by them. But there's nothing objective about that taste. I think we agree! This feels like a cop-out. I made clear points in my last statement that you could respond to, e.g. your claim that by saying 'killing animals to save your life if not doing so would mean immediate death is morally permissible' would mean applying different standards to the rich and poor was false - in fact the standards applied are identical.

I think this response demonstrated how Stefan's theory has big problems making sense of why it is wrong to torture animals. You were unable to appeal to Stefan's moral principles, instead saying things like 'this is my emotional/personal perspective' which is clearly appealing to sentiments and subjectivity that Stefan would not accept and view as silly fallacious reasoning.

"If my life is in danger and purposefully killing another human is the only way to survive, that is, in all circumstances, called self-defense. Or, not immoral, in other words. So I suppose I am being consistent when I say that killing for survival does not violate the NAP." WHAT?!?! That is not self defense! If the only way to stay alive is by murdering some third party who has committed no aggression against me, then murdering him would of course breach his property right in his own body and so be initiating force! How could you think anything else? Erm, I am holding both the rich and the poor to the same moral standard...the principle you suggest claims that killing animals is justified when it is essential for survival to avoid imminent death. You appear to have a flawed conception of what 'universaling' principles entails. E.g. you can universalise the principle 'respect your mother and father' yet it specifies specific classes, which according to you makes it non-universalisable. The rich and poor are being treated according to identical standards, that killing animals to eat them is justified when not doing so would result in serious danger. When you can go down the supermaket and buy courgettes this clearly isn't permissible. 1. Asking me to define 'moral agent', this is just so basic that I can't be bothered to act as your philosophy 101 tutor, especially when you were so passive aggressive and sarcastic in your response. 2. Actually you do think they are being voluntarily murdered, as you say, their consent is assumed. At the end you make a consequentialist argument regarding the importance of keeping humans alive. This seems to make no sense when you are trying to defend Stefan's theory which is anti-consequentialist. "I may be incorrect, but it seems to me that you can't group animals in with human rights if you don't also burden them with responsibility to respect those rights." No, see my point regarding moral agency vs. morally significant being. Google these terms if you are interested. Anyway, the point is, you haven't shown how given the NAP and lack of their self-ownership, torturing animals etc. is wrong. It is only wrong based on consequentialist considerations, thus Stefan's theory is unable to explain why torturing animals for fun is wrong which discredits Stefan's theory.

Ok well your point near the end doesn't work because let's assume it were permissible for the poor people to kill animals since it was their only choice for survival then it would not follow that it were permissible for rich people given that they had other options. You would not be holding two groups to different standards, rather to the same standard. In any case, I don't see why the aspect of survival should matter - that is consequentialist reasoning. It is not permissible to initiate force against some human for survival, since initiating force is immoral, so it similarly would not be permisslble to initiating force against some animal (assuming they owned themselves), since initiating force is immoral. To be consistent surely you'd say that by initiating force the tribe acted immorally. On your point 'animals kill each other so we can kill them' there are a lot of issues.1. Animals may be morally significant beings yet not moral agents. Hence, they don't have the cognitive functions necessary to make moral decisions, nevertheless they are morally significant and it may be wrong to harm them since it causes unneccesary suffering. (This would be a utilitarian argument.)2. Your argument is that the animals are voluntarily murdered. But what contract have they signed that illustrates their consent?3. You would have to presumably ensure that every animal you ate had previously killed other animals for non-survival based eating. This is not possible, particularly given the nature of modern farming, and the fact that some animals are vegetarian.4. Even IF animals were initiating force against each other and acting immorally, it would not make it morally permissible for us to initiate force against them.5. Similarly this argument would not work - Hitler killed people, thus Germans think killing is OK, therefore I can kill Germans morally permissibly. Same with animals, just because some Germans kill people doesn't mean ALL do.6. Your argument with the elk doesn't seem to work. E.g. are these two scenarios morally identical - 1. you kill an intruder who is attempting to kidnap your children. 2. you go to the same person's house (he's done nothing to anyone) and kill and eat him. Clearly in the second case you are initiating force and in the first you are not. Same with the wolf and the elk. That's the key here, the non-aggression-principle.

@AnarchoBenchwarmerWhoa, you said "So we can rationally infer that a dog in no way deserves to be beaten. There's no reason to take my time killing a pig for food." but I don't see how you derived that simply from your not seeing that animals torture others in nature. If animals don't own themselves then they don't have property rights over their bodies, right? So in what way is it immoral to torture them? Ok but you didn't answer my question, rather questioned my motives. You said 'we're part of nature', are you claiming that animals DO have self-ownership? Because that has huge consequences. If they have no property right in their bodies, why is torturing them or treating them like shit wrong? It isn't breaking the NAP. And reasoning from their suffering to it being wrong action would be consequentialist or utilitarian thinking, which Stefan has said is totally wrong and immoral. I am genuinely interested in the purported justification for this principle. I'm asking you why is it that 'us eating animals shouldn't turn in to treating them like shit and torturing them' as you claim, WITHIN the confines of Stefan's normative moral theory of the NAP and natural property rights, considering animals are not self-owners? I hear you Mike but if the bull does not own itself then it has no moral property rights in its body so force is not being initiated against it. So how is the action being taken against it wrong morally? You'd have to use utilitarian reasoning (minimize suffering, maximise happiness) which Stefan has condemned as false and immoral.

Hey guys, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgO89b3ZoiE&feature=c4-overview&list=UUC3L8QaxqEGUiBC252GHy3wAt 32:15 Stefan introduced a new principle, the 'Non-Sadistic-Principle', which says 'torturing animals is bad because it is unnecessary suffering'. But I am confused as to what the philosophical grounding is for this, as it is not covered in Stefan's 'UPB' and to me sounds like utilitarian thinking since it is concerned with minimizing suffering as opposed to honouring the Non-Aggression-Principle. If animals do not have self ownership can't we torture them as we wish (assuming we own them, not someone else.) Anything else would be to claim positive obligations (which as we know from UPB, cannot exist) or suggest the animal had self-ownership, which would mean that full veganism would presumably be imperative, and holding pets being kidnapping. If anyone can help me out with this I'd appreciate it. Can anyone explain to me the proof of this NSP?K