“But, the phenomenon of animal crackers remains problematic and part of a wider culture of speciesism.”

lots of very left-wing people are very averse to veganism and get upset about it. my favourite one i ever got - and i never, ever proselytized when i was vegan - (obviously from a fucking white person) was some concern about it being a colonialist mindset because first nations peoples' traditional ways of life include hunting and fishing, using the whole animal etc. and the very obvious rejoinder was "you're white lol and I'm not telling indigenous people to stop their very responsible stewardship of their traditional lands i just think you, white person, should maybe consume less animal products"

Jim's rejoinder OTM. I have been a strict vegetarian for about a year and a half, now, for primarily ethical reasons, but the framework of "animal rights" is pretty suspect to me. As it's already been noted, it's not like animals (or humans) have had a guarantee of rights for the vast bulk of history. The only coherent justification is that animals can suffer, and needless suffering is bad, so maybe we should cool it with anything that increases animal suffering, so far as we can. I do think it's possible to farm animals for livestock without unnecessary suffering, but I doubt it's possible to do at the current scale of factory farming.

he believes that almost all moral issues are debatable but the one he thinks has the least credibility is the idea that humans can eat animals.

There are many lines of reasoning that can be applied here, but the one to dig into, based on your representations of his arguments, would be to separate the incidental aspects of eating animals, which are almost all of the aspects alluded to by vegans when claiming a moral position (e.g. oppression or cruelty), from the primary aspects of eating animals (introducing some part of that animal into your digestive system). This also allows a separate inquiry into other vegan tenets, such as not wearing leather.

Once you have unpacked each of the components of our relationship with animals, you can evaluate the morality of each component more clearly and develop a more complete and rational moral philosophy.

btw, I would argue that the concept of "rights" requires mutuality. Animals must respect and agree to observe all fundamental rights in regard to humans and to one another before it is possible to speak of the rights we are required to respect and observe in regard to them. Such 'natural' rights exist, but animal rights activists tend to claim many rights that do not fit this criterion.

btw, I would argue that the concept of "rights" requires mutuality. Animals must respect and agree to observe all fundamental rights in regard to humans and to one another before it is possible to speak of the rights we are required to respect and observe in regard to them. Such 'natural' rights exist, but animal rights activists tend to claim many rights that do not fit this criterion.

Exactly. Animals eat each other - therefore, it's OK for me to eat animals. (And if I do something stupid that winds up with me being eaten by an animal, I have to accept that outcome with relative equanimity.)

Exactly. My own qualm has never been eating animals per se, it's rather the treating them like commodities first and sentient beings far second that gives me moral pause.

btw, I would argue that the concept of "rights" requires mutuality. Animals must respect and agree to observe all fundamental rights in regard to humans and to one another before it is possible to speak of the rights we are required to respect and observe in regard to them. Such 'natural' rights exist, but animal rights activists tend to claim many rights that do not fit this criterion.

― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, December 5, 2018 11:33 AM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you're asking for mutuality from beings not able to understand the concept, that makes no sense

break down into delicious/cute

if both, the ratio comes into play

i think the idea of natural rights is the more suspect bit of this line of thinking

btw, I would argue that the concept of "rights" requires mutuality.

if you read my entire post you'd understand why this is insane being as how it would allow for eating human babies

it also would allow eating any one of us if we had a major brain injury

if you read my entire post you'd understand why this is insane being as how it would allow for eating human babies

And?

I'm not sure rights do require mutuality: partly because we consider babies, the severely disabled etc. to have rights; but also because I don't think that if someone does not return your recognition of a right it would justify your abusing their rights.

And as for 'animals eat each other, so it's OK for me' - that's such a silly argument.

This is maybe tangential, but I think that maybe a useful question in this context is whether all moral obligations necessarily involve (or need to involve) the concept of rights.

I agree I think moral obligation is key rights are a distraction

I think moral obligations and proscriptions can be understood and expressed as rights.

I think your analysis that mutuality would deprive babies of their right not to be eaten is overly hasty and suffers from a shallow evaluation of the merits of that argument. The 'right' not to be eaten is not a 'natural' right of human babies. It is a social right, granted within the human community by mutual assent and accord. It is quite obvious that babies are among the favorite foods in nature.

But don't you then end up believing that people in societies which don't assent to those rights don't have them? It's an acceptable position, of course, but it seems undesirable to say that slaves in the C18th southern US didn't have a right to life and freedom.

there are no moral obligations hows that

I think your analysis that mutuality would deprive babies of their right not to be eaten is overly hasty and suffers from a shallow evaluation of the merits of that argument. The 'right' not to be eaten is not a 'natural' right of human babies. It is a social right, granted within the human community by mutual assent and accord. It is quite obvious that babies are among the favorite foods in nature.

― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, December 5, 2018 11:53 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so if i come across a tribe in the jungle that practices slavery and cannibalism and rape of captives etc. then i can just do that to them?

yes

It's a popular, but wrong, opinion, yes. (x-posts)

"can"

It's a slippery slope from banning animal crackers to banning meatloaf babies

https://i.pinimg.com/474x/b0/96/9e/b0969ece037b90c99394d57150fd5679--cake-wrecks-baby-cakes.jpg

Looks delicious...

it seems undesirable to say that slaves in the C18th southern US didn't have a right to life and freedom.

The rights of slaves to life and freedom were argued into existence. Once the abolitionists succeeded in establishing the grounds for the argument upon whether God's commandments, as conceived by the Christian religion, required its adherents to treat slaves with a love equal to their love for themselves, then it became a theological battle over what God's law required of Christians.

The most acceptable formulation of this would be that the right of slaves in the C18th southern US to life and freedom were unrecognized. Once we emerged from our state of confusion, those rights were recognized and became effective as well as implicit. But that just disguises the theological content of the argument.

I think they had those rights already, but unrecognised. And those rights emerge from reason, in a Kantian manner. They were always there.

I think the lyrics of The Battle Hymn of the Republic reflect a truer image of the abolitionist mindset than the writings of Kant.

I'm not saying Kant was an abolitionist - he got lots wrong in his extention of moral oligations/proscriptions. Korsgaard does really interesting stuff on animal rights from a Kantian perspective.

(Which Kant obviously didn't have in mind)

I'm fairly impressed that a thread which began discussing how problematic animal crackers are managed to go so much downhill. Who'd have thought it could sink so low?

so if i come across a tribe in the jungle that practices slavery and cannibalism and rape of captives etc. then i can just do that to them?

If you have no moral philosophy, then nothing either internal or external would prevent you from enslaving, raping, or eating members of that tribe, if you had it in your power to do so.

If you are a moral philosopher and accept the tribe as being equally as human as those you have granted the right to not be enslaved, raped or eaten, then your philosophy requires you to fall back exclusively on your own right to self-defense so that you may freely resist being enslaved, raped or eaten without imposing those outcomes on this hypothetical tribe.

there are no moral obligations hows that

there are moral obligations to the same extent that there are legal obligations. it's a personal choice to follow them, but if you choose not to the community may punish you. of course the legal community's punishments are stricter and more coercively applied than the moral community's.

FREDERIK OTM

GET IT TOGETHER ILX

Basically I find any suggestion that nonhuman animals are interchangeable with humans as moral subjects to be offensive and also wrong.

I'm stuck on the pure veganism people due to a friend explaining that a local dude who is semi-prominent in some circles, who talks about the morality of veganism, going on about how he shouldn't need health insurance. Because he's not old, vegan, and has a really good motorcycle insurance policy. So there's no chance he'd have a need for a lot of medical spending.

I mean ideally 99% of people with health insurance would have that profile, that's why it's insurance but... mote in my brother's eye etc

just for that i would commit acts of violence against him, but thats just me

lots of very left-wing people are very averse to veganism and get upset about it. my favourite one i ever got - and i never, ever proselytized when i was vegan - (obviously from a fucking white person) was some concern about it being a colonialist mindset because first nations peoples' traditional ways of life include hunting and fishing, using the whole animal etc. and the very obvious rejoinder was "you're white lol and I'm not telling indigenous people to stop their very responsible stewardship of their traditional lands i just think you, white person, should maybe consume less animal products"

look if you're not eating the tongue and the cheeks then kill your children then yourself

xxp but he is vegan, which clears his moral concerns including social interests lol

xp aside: Most of the reason I have health insurance is so that I don't get charged the cash payer price. Emergency rooms in the US, especially, will demand charges drawn from thin air for anyone who doesn't have corporate negotiators working on their behalf.

do any noninsured e.r. bills get paid though?

^^^

the "I'm a very responsible person" argument completely fails when you realize insurance (in the ideal case, admittedly our insurance system is really broken) is there for the cases where you'd really have no way to pay. like, surprise! you're the one 35 year old in hundreds of thousands who has some weird cancer and treating it costs $$$

or you get hit by a car and no one can find the driver, or... really a million possibilities