Kevin Jay
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Posts
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Posts posted by Kevin Jay
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My post has nothing to do with Stefan nor is it related to UPB. I'm not even making an argument. I'm attempting to put myself into an application of the theory to see how it feels and trying to make sense of the feelings. If I and other people are hung up on the issue of animals rights because of emotional reasons and most of us are simply coming up with rationalizations to fit our conclusion, then it is vital for animal rights proponents to understand that our arguments are not at the root cause of the belief, and that instead the focus should be on addressing the irrational emotional content. To a large degree this is already being done with all of those videos about slaughterhouses, dogfights, poaching, and more; it engages primarily the emotions as means of bypassing the rationalizations.
I also think it is important for those who claim that animal abuse is a violation of the NAP apply the theory to various situations and scenarios in their head and to see how it feels. Paragraph four of my post gives a good example to use, though put it'd make more sense to put yourself in Joe's shoes and to ask if you'd shoot Steve. Even if you wouldn't, it has no bearing on the validity of animals rights, but it would be something to think about.
In case you're wondering why I am insistent on shooting and murder, it is partly to be dramatic, but more because the threat of murder is always the underlying threat in regard to the application of force. Though I don't feel like it would be as much of a issue with animals because simply getting the person away from animals would suffice. But ultimately the point is still true.
Hope that helps to clarify my intentions.
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!
Look, as much as I love these debates, I would prefer to debate/discuss these issues with somebody who will actually read, comprehend, formulate logical conclusions, and then engage when necessary. You can try again if you like, but I'm not going to bother responding to anything you've written here. You've added nothing to the conversation, you've only reiterated your previous points, which I think I did a good job debunking.
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.
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The main question to ask and to answer is whether it is morally permissible to use force against someone who abuses an animal. Essentially, can you kill someone who tortures and animal? A further question to really provide grounding is "would you yourself pull the trigger".
I really have a difficult time answering the question because I really love animals and hate seeing harm come to them. I'd prefer to live in a society where there was no animal abuse. When I was younger I had a friend who upon seeing an amazing caterpillar picked it up and smashed it against the ground. After seeing this I quickly left the area with tears in my eyes and cried when I got home. But would I pull the trigger on my friend? I'd have to say no.
Perhaps this is reflection of knowing many hunters and having caught a few fish myself in the past. Perhaps this is the result of growing up in a culture where this sort of stuff is permissible. Perhaps it is because I prefer people over animals. I mean if my friend is getting mauled by a moose: I'd shoot the moose, but if the moose is about to get shot by my friend: I wouldn't shoot my friend. Perhaps this is some kind of biological effect where stopping others from killing animals is not really programmed into our DNA because it wouldn't have been evolutionary advantageous. I don't really know, but I do know that someone with the opposite position is unable to use force against me for my inaction. In a large way the question doesn't affect me because I don't abuse animals and there is no positive obligation to stop others from abusing animals.
Where it gets really tough is in asking myself if I'd shoot someone who had shot somebody else for abusing an animal. Let's say my best friend Steve shoots and kills a bear, and Joe sees this and shoots Steve. In the case that killing animals is a violation of the NAP and ignoring the comic book portrayal of the principles, it would be immoral for me to take any form of retribution against Steve. If I were to shoot and kill Joe, I'd be charged with murder, whereas I don't, Steve's actions are completely in the right and he is not changed with anything. Though this isn't an argument, I am quite uncomfortable with this result, which doesn't effect the validity of anything, but it is important to point out I have a large struggle in accepting this consequence.
I hope this is useful. I didn't really take the philosophical approach of making an argument, but I do think that this gives some indication of the emotional and personal component. If you are arguing the position that animal abuse is a violation of the NAP, then a great way to convince me is to make the proposition of shooting my friend who is about to shoot the moose feel right. Of course you can get into "the situation is already tainted because you are friends with someone who you already know commits immoral acts of violence against animals", but I feel like the basic idea is still intact.
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.
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Do rich people have some sort of brain function that prevents them from eating animals to survive? Perhaps their intestines are formed differently because of all that money, and therefore they should be held to a higher moral standard. No, that's not the way morality works. It's either immoral for everybody or it's not inherently immoral. Just because a poor person has no money doesn't mean that person has the moral option to steal in order to survive. If you're going to dismiss the importance of individual survival as "consequentialist", however, you might as well debate that humans don't have the right to move into territory claimed by animals. If killing and eating animals is immoral, then the same can be said of stealing their land from them. Quick question though, how exactly would a human initiate force against another human for survival? 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.
Alright, let's go down the line:
1) I think you'll have to prove two things for your first point to make sense: That animals are morally significant and that their suffering is "unnecessary." Since suffering is impossible to eliminate, so you'll have to define what qualifies as necessary and unnecessary. I suppose I wouldn't mind a clarification of your definition of the term "moral agent" while you're at it.
2) Voluntarily murdered? As in, they line up of their own accord for the slaughter? Of course they don't, I've never argued that. Don't put words in my mouth. I believe my argument is that the consent of sentient beings can be assumed based on the actions of the general population. Similarly, I could hardly blame an advanced alien race for assuming the same about humans (at least until we all get behind the NAP), but that doesn't mean I would volunteer to be their food. I recommend a book called Ender's Game (not the movie) for a good summary of why I wouldn't hold aliens morally accountable for my death, assuming communication could not be established.
3) See Point 2 above. Generalized assumptions are not necessarily incorrect just because they're generalized.
4) Not if we could prove their sapience (which we can't, yet at least). Again, we're free to assume that, on a moral level, a species has no objection to being killed for food. However, if and when the time comes that our food can reason with us, that's when the NAP kicks in.
5) Uh, we can reason with individual humans, including the German populace circa 1939. We can't reason with any animal (as far as I know). This point is irrelevant.
6) I'm not sure what you're getting at here. The NAP allows for the defense of innocent, non-aggressing agents. If the elk are non-aggressing, then there is no violation involved with defending the elk from their wolf aggressors. The point was to imply a question: If you're going to hold humans accountable for killing animals, then is there any reason not to hold animals accountable as well? 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. Indeed, would you not then also have to task animals to defend those rights as well?
I've thought of something else in the meantime, which I'd like to run past everybody here. It's not vital to my argument, but it does support the assertion that eliminating human suffering is indeed more valuable than eliminating animal suffering. Humans are the only species on Earth that has the capacity for any given individual to have direct influence on the overall direction regarding the survival of most (if not all) other species. Individuals, or we as a species, could go so far as to end the world if we wanted or we could bring back other species from the brink of extinction. No other creature has that kind of agency.
Given that fact, would it not be essential to keep as many humans alive as possible, even at the cost of sacrificing individual animals for sustenance? If any one person or group of specific persons could cure cancer, invent A.I., build an interstellar colony ship, develop a method for breeding sapient pigs, or stabilize the Earth's climate, wouldn't it be more beneficial for every creature on Earth if we as humans took the responsibility to take care of our own species first (now, obviously, this end alone wouldn't justify eating animals if eating animals was inherently immoral, but I believe that I've made a pretty good case against that so this is all just frosting)?
"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.
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Happy to clarify, Kevin. I never said that animals don't own themselves. Let me put it this way, expanding while I'm at it on some of what I understand to be Stefan's argument (though I also do not presume to speak for him): Are we agreed that it is impossible to rape a person who has no problem with being forced into sex? Would it be morally wrong to rape such a person? No, it would not be wrong, but the person still owns his/her own body. It is from this point that the rest of my rationale lies. Animals do kill, both within and outside of their own species. The sentient animal may have self-awareness (I think) but practices rational killing for survival. We may infer, as I said, that they must not have any problem with that, or else why would they do it? Therefore we are not immoral in killing animals for food. Since animals don't practice or have any concept of torture, there is no rationalization for torturing them. We can't say, "Well, they torture, so they must not have a problem with it" because of that fact. Neither can we simply ask them if they have a problem with it. We can only make rational guesses based on their own actions.
So that's the bulk of my argument, but I should also point something else out while I'm at it. If we were to practice the NAP towards animals based on the concept of self-ownership alone and never, ever kill them for any reason, then we also have to look at rational human killings. It is not a violation of the NAP to kill another human in self-defense, nor is it a violation to kill another human in defense of another non-aggressor. From that logic, I could appoint myself the guardian of a wild herd of elk and shoot any wolf that comes near for attempting to kill these elk, because it is immoral to kill, no matter the species. So those wolves will die either way. See the problem? How can we claim that it is wrong for us to kill animals for sustenance (ignoring the fact that we have evolved as omnivores) and not hold other animals to the same standard?
Here's another thing I thought of just now: there are many, many people in undeveloped or underdeveloped countries who have no other choice but to kill animals for sustenance and survival. Is that immoral? I submit here that it is not. Are we in the developed world immoral for killing animals to eat? How can we be? How can we be held to a different standard than others within our own species? As we can deduce from philosophical science, what is immoral for one cannot be moral for somebody else. That is the way the politicians think, but it is not justified in any rational way.
I hope that explains it, but more than anything else, I hope that you did not come here attempting to justify some action of your own. I don't know you, and I'm trying really hard not to jump to any conclusions, but I need to say anyway that IF there is anybody out there who thinks that it's okay to torture animals for any reason, then I hope those people read this post and come to the conclusion that they need to seek help.
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.
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@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?
Nature isn't separate from us, we are a part of it. As a part of nature we eat animals and/or plants, same as every other creature in nature. However us eating animals shouldn't turn in to us treating them like shit and torturing them.Doesn't seem like that is all that hard to understand. I would go so far as to say your misunderstanding and need for clarification is intentional and used simply as a vehicle to push your anti capitalist beliefs. So try being more honest in your next post please.
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?
This reminds me of the time I went to see a bull fight in Spain. That is torture in my opinion. For anyone who doesn't know they continually wound the bull until it is on death's door without killing it. Only at the very end do they put it out of it's misery.
To kill an animal as fast as possible in order to obtain the food from it is not the same thing. That doesn't mean I condone all the practices in the meat industry, but I think killing animals for food, and torturing animals are 2 different things.
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.
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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
Stefan's lack of integrity with Chomsky interview
in General Messages
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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.