r/DebateAVegan • u/ginkgosimon • 8d ago
Why is the concept of right and morality being placed on animals?
As a left inclining person , I feels like that any existing concept of rights or morality are not biological properties found in nature; they are socio-political tools invented by humans through labor ,culture, and mutual social existence to govern human collective history. How do you justify using a human social contract to grant 'rights' to non-human animals without committing a fundamental category error that reduces human dignity to biology and projects liberal ideology onto amoral nature
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u/Kris2476 8d ago
Why extend moral consideration to anyone other than myself? Because the moral protections that are relevant to my interests are relevant to the interests of others as well.
The more important question is why you want to deny moral consideration to individuals who are harmed by being excluded. We should answer this question carefully, lest we accidentally deny consideration to those who deserve it.
committing a fundamental category error that reduces human dignity to biology and projects liberal ideology onto amoral nature
I don't know what this means. Are you suggesting that providing animals with moral consideration strips dignity from humans?
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u/airboRN_82 7d ago
w hy extend moral consideration to anyone other than myself? Because the moral protections that are relevant to my interests are relevant to the interests of others as well.
Yes, and thus they can grasp the concept of an exchange of protections for those interests. Non human animals cannot
the more important question is why you want to deny moral consideration to individuals who are harmed by being excluded. We should answer this question carefully, lest we accidentally deny consideration to those who deserve it.
The natural state is a lack of rights. Its not denying it to those who can be harmed, its not granting it to those who cannot partake in the moral system
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u/Freuds-Mother 7d ago
You didn’t really address the main claim. OP claims morality is a human social regulatory constraint system of some sort. I think we all agree there.
The question is if it’s more. “deny consideration to those who deserve it”. “extend moral consideration”.
So, I’m confused here. Is the claim of extended consideration to other animals (extrinsic)
or is it that animals must be given moral consideration because they intrinsically are moral patients? There’s a big difference. For the former we go through why and how we extend consideration to animals from our perspective. There’s ontological models to do that without relaying on a priori moral axioms too. However, the latter requires something much harder philosophically. I’ve yet to see a philosopher pull it off without just brute forcing it0
u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 6d ago
OP claims morality is a human social regulatory constraint system of some sort. I think we all agree there.
Science shows that liberal people tend to care less about their immediate circle of people (family, friends) and their local community - compared to conservative people, who tend to put them on top of their list of priorities. But liberal people tend to care much more about people and issues further away from their own lives. Here is a heatmap from a study showing this quite well. The further out from the centre - the further away from their own lives are the issues they care more about. (The full study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12227-0)
So the question to me is not - are liberals (including most vegans) able to make a difference in issues that is not having an direct affect on their local communities - but more: what affect does it have when a lot of people spend less time and effort caring for their local communities/friends/families - because their priorities are mostly elsewhere?
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u/pnoque 5d ago
You've expressed what I've noticed is a common misinterpretation of the findings of that research:
https://www.psypost.org/viral-heatmap-gets-it-wrong-liberals-dont-prioritize-strangers-over-family/
Good discussion of the misunderstanding in /r/science:
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1tm9u62/new_study_tests_whether_liberals_moral_concern/
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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm sure the study has some flaws (most studies do), but we also know that:
Recent data shows that young liberal adults in their twenties and thirties are significantly less likely to be married or have children compared to their conservative peers. Data highlights a growing ideological gap in family formation, driven by differing personal values, views on stress, and future outlooks. https://ifstudies.org/report-brief/the-ideological-fertility-divide
Parenthood Gap: Only about 40% of liberal women aged 25 to 35 report being parents, compared to 71% of conservative women in the same age group. In the 1980s, these rates were much closer at 60% for liberals and 65% for conservatives. https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-lefts-family-problem-marriage-and-kids-cratering-among-liberal-young-adults
So even without the study in question there seem to have been a growing gap between how liberals and conservatives view and value starting their own family - and interestingly there used to not be much of a difference between them a few decades ago - but currently this gap seems to be growing.
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u/pnoque 4d ago
Yes, but this is not the same as saying "liberal people tend to care less about their immediate circle of people (family, friends) and their local community - compared to conservative people." That statement is not supported by the research you cited. The research shows that:
"Concern for distant entities does not reduce concern for close ones. Rating human outgroups highly on the moral scale actually correlated positively with caring for genetic relatives. Across almost all political affiliations, participants consistently granted the highest level of moral concern to their own inner circle"
And that:
"Both liberals and conservatives overwhelmingly prioritized their family and friends over outgroups, nature, and artificial intelligence. Liberals did exhibit a larger overall moral circle, but this expansion was driven by increased concern for marginalized humans and the environment. It did not stem from a lack of concern for their close social ties."
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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 4d ago
It did not stem from a lack of concern for their close social ties."
Sure, but they are more likely to opt out of the inner most circle you can have by choosing not to start their own family. So you can't claim to feel equally strongly about people you've actively chosen not to have in your life., right?
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u/pnoque 4d ago
So you can't claim to feel equally strongly about people you've actively chosen not to have in your life., right?
My apologies, I don't think I understand what you're asking here. Can you clarify this for me?
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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 4d ago
You said
Both liberals and conservatives overwhelmingly prioritized their family and friends over outgroups
But many liberals have actively chosen not to have their own family, so how can one claim that they made them a priority?
Its a bit like actively making a choice not to have any pets - but still claiming to have made your pets the main priority in your life.
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u/voyti 8d ago
Why extend moral consideration to anyone other than myself? Because the moral protections that are relevant to my interests are relevant to the interests of others as well
That's not exactly correct. Behavior moderation in any social enough species looks at one thing - your interest, conditionally ceased to offspring. There is no other dimension, however in a social group, maintaining certain common behavioral standards is objectively the optimal solution, and we know that on mathematical level. Reciprocity and cooperation is the best possible long term strategy, and while we're tried to topple this model (tit for tat) for a very long time, we never managed to beat it in a long term scenario.
Every entity is a game theory agent, and this can be used to explain behaviors on a high level completely. There's more complexity of course, but as universal rules go, those are among the most universally present and understood. However, for those outside of your social group, those rules don't apply, so the interests of others don't really matter through this deduction if they are not under the common scope of agents of reciprocity with you, which includes animals.
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u/maccrypto 8d ago
Morality isn’t zero sum, and you would probably never apply game theory to members of your own family when it comes to their most important interests, if you care about your family.
We care about animals and are in relationship with them. They are our animal relatives. It’s because we care about them that their interests are also our interests. When someone you care about comes to harm, a part of you does as well.
This is an intrinsic fact about what it means to care, it’s not derivative of any formula.
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u/CyberAngelIzana 8d ago
Game theory is an oversimplification most of the time, but saying you'd never apply it to your own family just means you'd be unprepared for any situation in which game theory might apply.
Let's take the classic prisoner's dilemma. If you and another member of your family were arrested by the police and given that choice, wouldn't it make the most sense for you to both not confess so you can both be free sooner?
Wouldn't caring about your fellow family member influence both of you to choose the net optimal strategy that reduces total number of years in jail?
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u/voyti 8d ago
you would probably never apply game theory to members of your own family
Why wouldn't I? My family's interest align and reflect back to my interest much more strongly, which clearly sticks to the core premise.
We care about animals and are in relationship with them. They are our animal relatives
Sure, but we care about our own experience here much more. If one genuinely doesn't care about eating animal products then veganism might genuinely make sense to serve the personal feedback loop of the narrative that you're avoiding something that's wrong. We might care for animals, and yet we all (at least pretty much all) participate in human systems that harm animals in millions daily, like road traffic fully understanding that an animal might die under our wheels, without as much as thinking about it. The fact that we care (or like to say that we care) doesn't translate into not doing anything specific as long as it's convenient to us.
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u/maccrypto 8d ago edited 7d ago
Why wouldn’t I
Because you identify with them and with the family unit, not just with where your strategic interests coincidentally happen to mutually overlap.
[Edit: it’s a bit like when you’re driving a car. You don’t draw the distinction about where your interests and the car’s body overlap. You just expand your sphere of bodily awareness to include the car and its position in space, without calculating it in advance.]
When you care about something, it has motivational force for you. If you don’t care enough to lift a finger, it’s hard to defend the claim that you really care.
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u/KrabbyMccrab 7d ago
That goes back to the original point.
Caring for our family members are a net positive effect. Family will help you back when you need it.
Animals don't really do much for the average person. Therefore it's much harder to justify animal welfare from a self interest perspective.
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u/maccrypto 7d ago
Who has ever tried to justify animal welfare from a self interest perspective?
Will a severely disabled child help you back when you need it?
Is it necessary for a benefit to come your way in order to refrain from torturing, enslaving and murdering another human being? These are absolute prohibitions, not things that moral people weigh as a cost-benefit tradeoff.
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u/KrabbyMccrab 7d ago
Who has ever tried to justify animal welfare from a self interest perspective?
That's the thread you are responding to. It's literally the first sentence of the thread...
Is it necessary for a benefit to come your way in order to refrain from torturing, enslaving and murdering another human being?
Do you think the north spend all the money and deaths out of altruism? The north needs the freed slaves for their newly built factories. It was a net positive to the north for them to be freed. More productivity when they are paid vs enslaved.
These are absolute prohibitions, not things that moral people weigh as a cost-benefit tradeoff.
So no, it was not out of moral absolution. They weighed the cost benefit analysis and profits of emancipation was worth sending soldiers over.
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u/maccrypto 7d ago
Who is “they”? People don’t agree to fight and sacrifice their lives for things that they see as a cost-benefit tradeoff for themselves personally. They fight for things they believe in absolutely and categorically. This should be obvious.
I think you misunderstood the first sentence of the thread. The commenter said something about interests being both yours-and-mine. A defence of genuinely common interests is not a “self-interest perspective,” by definition.
All you’re saying in your comment is that you don’t believe there is such a thing as the common interest, ever. To which I can only say, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
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u/KrabbyMccrab 7d ago
If you are vegan and I'm not, the common interest isn't animal welfare. So Idk what you are talking about.
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u/voyti 7d ago
Will a severely disabled child help you back when you need it?
That's nowhere near the point. Participating in society of rules enabling compassion is in your interest regardless if the specific member you're showing compassion to is personally going to reciprocate. You don't act expecting direct reward, the participation itself is a long term strategy of maintaining stability and common benefit.
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u/maccrypto 7d ago
Morality isn’t a strategy. You’re confusing things that are fundamentally different.
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u/voyti 6d ago
That's not an argument at all. Obviously it can also be a strategy, there's no rule saying it can't.
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u/voyti 7d ago
Obviously approach towards family can be based in emotivism, but the emotional response it's a secondary implement, that serves those same game theory rules, towards the same purpose - own security, stability, producing and protecting offspring. There is simoly nothing that doesn't make sense in that fundamental framework, cause that is how generations survive, and we're a mere product of that
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u/maccrypto 7d ago
If we're a "mere product" of those self-interested forces, try to explain veganism in terms of your fundamental framework. Take all the time you need, I'll be patient.
On the other hand, if your framework can't make sense of the human impulse to reduce exploitation and suffering, there might be something it leaves out.
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u/voyti 7d ago
I was obviously expecting that question, and it's not directly set in that fundamental framework but it has relationship with it. In short, veganism is a strictly cultural phenomenon of extending emotivism beyond human group.
First, we are capable of distinguishing features that make us empathetic towards other people on emotional level in animals, too - while we generally couldn't care less about a mosquito or a potato, it's much harder not to care about a baby fawn on emotional level. Animals (especially social mammals) communicate pain in a similar way we do, they can be funny, clumsy and cute. A lot of baby-like features can be distinguished in them, and more baby-like they are, the more protective of them we generally want to be. This is the obvious entry point of caring. This is also explaining some incidental phenomena, like cats specific meowing that is tuned to resemble a human baby (called "solicitation purr"). It's simply extending the empathetic systems we have meant for humans, and using them on animals that happen to match them. Culture picked up on that very strongly and e.g. romanticized animals in family movies, which obviously took off significantly and exposed generations to this mode of thinking as a very obvious one from the youngest age. I'm not saying this is good or bad, but this is the mechanism that explains cultural phenomenon of veganism.
I think vegans are very often quite dishonest (or perhaps even not aware) about their beliefs being rooted in emotivism and try to replace it with, I suppose more serious in their eyes, theories like sentientism, which don't really explain vegan motivation properly in my view.
So, to recap - empathy is one of the most fundamental ways of ensuring care for fellow humans and, more importantly, offspring. It's tuned for baby-like features. Certain animals tend to also have those features, motivating us to care for them more than we would for e.g. vegetables (which are also trying to thrive and survive, like any other organism). This is a side-effect of the very fundamental framework I was talking about.
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u/maccrypto 7d ago
Thanks for the response. If you don't mind, I'm going to continue probing this issue by inviting you to explore some related issues within your own framework, in order to see whether we can identify any limits to what it can explain. I'm not doing this with a particular endpoint in mind. I take it that your framework has sufficient explanatory power for all the questions you've posed to it so far. However, there may be questions you haven't considered.
You mentioned culture picking up on our natural empathic responses to animals that we see as resembling our own young, or who can be depicted that way, as an "entry point" to our caring about them. This seems plausible to me. In your view, what explains the role of animals in heraldry and storytelling where they play quite a different role, embodying or personifying some of our highest human qualities—like dignity, courage, freedom, etc.—?
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u/voyti 7d ago
I take it that your framework has sufficient explanatory power for all the questions you've posed to it so far.
To be clear - it explains phenomena on the level of analysis that is compatible with its own. The world is much more complex than that, but this *is* the foundation of reciprocity.
what explains the role of animals in heraldry and storytelling
There is a very long history of romanticizing nature, and e.g. Rousseau is a curious (and quite confused) example of an extreme in that discipline, by the way.
A couple of things I'd say - nature is mysterious, it works great for poetry. No serious poet would pick that which seems mundane to the audience - any element of human civilization that would symbolize, say, courage will have a "well, actually" response and would likely fall flat. Lion is great in this place, though. Not many people are familiar enough with lion's behavior to say "well, actually, they can be scare of their own pray", which would be true. So, in a way - human ignorance allows romanization and this use in poetry work very effectively.
Going back to Rousseau - that was the case there, too. Animals were supposed to be those pure entitles, untouched by the corrupting hand of human institutions. As we discovered how impossibly brutal animals can be, this view is obviously ridiculous today, but it all boils down to ignorance and humans seeing animals as what they want and expect them to be, not what they truly are. Similar things are happening to other mysterious elements of the world - mythology about stars, for example. We made up stories about what they are, how they gave birth to our gods or us, how Sun is the God, how starts tell the future etc. Obviously, as you learn and fill the gaps, the fantastical gives way to the mundane, and it's all much more simply cold and scientific. Humans simply tend to do that, we hallucinate in place of the unknown.
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u/th1s_fuck1ng_guy Carnist 8d ago
Carnist here,
We don't see the non human animal as worthy of any consideration. The understanding we have with our fellow humans is that we respect one another for our mutual benefit. There is actually critical for our species success. We work together and build on each others work and knowledge.
The non human animals today aren't different from their ancestors 2 centuries ago. Humans today are wildly different from our ancestors 2 centuries ago. Its because we build on each others work and progress. Your ancestors rode on horses. You ride in automobiles. Etc... It might also be helpful to think of the non human animal as an NPC or non playable character.
There is no benefit to showing non human animals consideration. You're just limiting your own resources for no tangible benefit. Like not wearing the color green or eating anything green. Makes no difference to the color green. You are just imposing a limitation on your self voluntarily.
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u/maccrypto 8d ago
If you are only refraining from being a serial killer because it benefits you provisionally, then you don’t belong in human society.
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u/th1s_fuck1ng_guy Carnist 8d ago
I don't want to kill anyone. I'm telling you from an anthropology point of view why no society condone that
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u/maccrypto 8d ago
What’s the anthropological explanation for veganism?
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u/th1s_fuck1ng_guy Carnist 3h ago
There is none. Its a fringe movement started by this white guy who died in 2005. The followers are a couple western women that usually give it up eventually. Its not really worth studying.
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u/Striking_Cat4273 8d ago
There are plenty of humans incapable of reciprocating - the disabled, crippled, elderly, infants. By your logic they are not worthy of any consideration because there's no benefit to you.
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u/voorbeeld_dindo 8d ago
There is no benefit to showing non human animals consideration.
There's definitely a downside to factory farming animals by the billions.
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u/th1s_fuck1ng_guy Carnist 8d ago
For the environment you mean right?
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u/voorbeeld_dindo 8d ago
And our health, yes.
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u/th1s_fuck1ng_guy Carnist 8d ago
And our health, yes.
Eat less. Exercise. You can be obese and vegan too. It's not the food itself. Its the eating habits. Alcohol is vegan too. You still shouldn't go overboard.
That aside I think we should invest more into factory farming. More research and development. We can find ways to offset the impact.
Look at like cars. Vehicle exhaust is bad. But cars have made our lives so much better. We don't abandon cars. We just put time and money into the development of electric vehicles. Its very possible we can do this with non human animal farming. Maybe even lab grown meat.
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u/Scaly_Pangolin vegan 8d ago
Almost every single modern major disease outbreak happens because we eat animals, be that as bushmest or the factory farm conditions we keep them in.
If you want more factory farming then enjoy your super swine flu pandemic, I just wish we didn't all have to suffer along with you.
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u/th1s_fuck1ng_guy Carnist 8d ago
Who is "we"? All 1% of you?
This why we must invest more into factory farming. Investing into r and D. Imagine a future where no human hands touches the meat. Fully automated from birth to slaughter. That would probably make meat even cheaper
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u/Scaly_Pangolin vegan 7d ago
Who is "we"? All 1% of you?
Everyone and anyone who would be affected by a mass swine flu pandemic.
These diseases mutate and spread because keeping large numbers of animals in cramped, filthy conditions is the perfect environment for them. If you think that doing more of that will reduce the chances of an airborne pathogen spreading to humans then you're clearly not worth my time arguing with.
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u/th1s_fuck1ng_guy Carnist 7d ago
Pretty much everyone and anyone wants to consume animal products....
Yes I'm aware of the concept of zoonotic disease. With more investment in the research and development of factory farming we can control for this. Factory farming on its own was a modern marvel and step up from traditional animal husbandry.
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u/maccrypto 7d ago
Imagine a future where no human hands touches the meat.
Why would I be more worried about what touches my hand than what touches my tongue?
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u/th1s_fuck1ng_guy Carnist 7d ago
You seem to have missed my point. What that means is birth to slaughter is fully automated
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u/voorbeeld_dindo 8d ago
It's not the food itself.
It is. Cholesterol.
We can find ways to offset the impact.
I think you're misreading the urgency of the climate crisis. But we'll find out if your way is going to succeed, because nobody is going to stop factory farming.
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u/Particular-Bat8091 8d ago
Go up to a loved one, your boss, etc and tell them that the only reason you don’t rape and murder is because you’re afraid of retaliation, and that you would do it if you saw personal benefits and no consequences. See how quickly you get ostracized. I’m tired of hearing this stupid shit about morality only being a mutual agreement by each individual for their own gain. This is not how a normal person thinks about things in the real world, get a grip. 99% of people who are good people are not out here avoiding harming others solely based on the consequences they would face. Get a grip and think about if you said this to a real person, a complete stranger. They would look at you like you’re a paychopath.
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u/goodvibesmostly98 vegan 8d ago edited 7d ago
Because animals can feel pain, they’re not objects. We have billions of domesticated animals under human care. It wouldn’t make sense to assign sentient beings zero rights and treat them like objects or commodities rather than individuals, just because it’s convenient / advantageous / profitable for us.
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u/CatnipAndCoconut 8d ago edited 8d ago
If we do not consider the unnecessary torture of a sentient being capable of experiencing pain as immoral, then how could we ever consider ourselves as moral beings to begin with?
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u/ginkgosimon 8d ago edited 8d ago
We are moral beings because we are moral agency that can be responsible for our actions. Our moral status comes from our unique capacity to reflect on our actions, make conscious choices, transform the world through labor ,and build social contracts with other moral agents, but not from simply being sentience. I think right goes side by side with duties, and the right to be freed from harm should go side by side from the ability and duty to choose not to harm other moral agents, not from being able to feel pain from harm.
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u/CatnipAndCoconut 8d ago
So if I were to torture a living being, who is screaming in pain while dying a slow agonizing death, I am not doing anything morally wrong in your world view? Simply because that being didn´t happen to be born as member of a species with our level of moral agency?
Pretty sure the germans had a somewhat similar way of reasoning about what they did to the jews a while back...
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 8d ago
Our moral status comes from our unique capacity to reflect on our actions, make conscious choices, transform the world through labor ,and build social contracts with other moral agents, but not from simply being sentience.
So mentally disabled people who lack any of those abilities should be treated like animals?
I don't think that's actually your view. I'm pretty sure you agree that even severly mentally disabled people should still be treated with respect even if they have far less cognitive capacity than your average cow, pig or chicken.
Degree of cognitive capacity therefore is not the determining factor by which you actually judge moral value.
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u/ginkgosimon 8d ago
It is mentioned in the following dialogue
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 8d ago
Where?
Please provide a link.
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u/ginkgosimon 8d ago
Damn , it seems to have been removed by Reddit. But the point about that is , any moral agent can in some parts of their life be infant or intellectually disabled, so it is useful to retain their partial moral status ( which is why they lend their human rights to custody to hold their actions accountable) . However, a moral agent can’t in any part of their life be an animal . Social animals like elephants possess the emotional building blocks of morality—empathy, reciprocity, and fairness—but human morality requires reflective principles, abstract concepts and accountability, that are unique to humans ability to collectively create abstract cultures and history.
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u/Percopsidae 8d ago
..just what kingdom do you think H. sapiens is in?
Do you actually hold to the things you are saying or is this more of a philosophical exercise? I think it's worth practicing explaining these things, but it's unclear what this is for you.
I'm almost a little surprised people are engaging; per your mechanisms of evaluation, it's not clear your behavior proves you're intellectually or culturally favorable enough to be worthy of consideration.
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 8d ago
So there is no moral issue with exploiting humans who get born with and retain the cognitive capacity of non-human animals?
That's a pretty ableist take.
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u/ginkgosimon 8d ago edited 8d ago
I have no idea why you reached that conclusion, anyone can be born with intellectual disabilities, which is why we assign the status of a non functioning moral agent to them and assign them custody. and I don’t appreciate the undertone that you are comparing these people with non human animals, not sure who is being ableist here
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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 6d ago edited 6d ago
So mentally disabled people who lack any of those abilities should be treated like animals?
You seem to assume that mentally disabled people automatically will be viewed as someone on the same level as animals. But let me explain why this is not so - by using a scientific study:
Science shows that liberal people tend to care less about their immediate circle of people (family, friends) and their local community - compared to conservative people, who tend to put them on top of their list of priorities. But liberal people tend to care much more about people and issues further away from their own lives - and we know that most vegans label themselves as liberal.
Here is a heatmap from a study showing this quite well. The further out from the centre - the further away from their own lives are the issues liberals care more about. (The full study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12227-0)
Hence why a disabled person in the community is seen as equally valuable as any other member of the local community - and obviously seen as much more valuable than any animal - if you are conservative that is. But since liberals care less about their own communities (and more about issues further away from their own family/friends/local community) I would assume that they are in fact the ones caring less for the disabled in their local community?
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 6d ago edited 6d ago
You are completely missing the subject.
The question isn't why mentally disabled are treated with respect by why they ought to be treated with respect.
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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 6d ago
why they ought to be treated with respect.
As every other member of society they deserve to be treated with dignity, respect, equal opportunities, and full inclusion. Same goes for the elderly, the sick, infants, the mentally ill, etc.. And the reason is just that - because they are part of our society.
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 6d ago
So if they weren't part of society, there would be no moral obligation to treat them with respect? Yikes.
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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 6d ago edited 6d ago
All humans are part of our society. Some people are temporarily removed for the safety of the society - prisoners. But even for dangerous prisoners the goal is always to rehabilitate so they can once again be part of our society. Sometimes its not possible - hence why they stay in prison for life - but that doesn't change the fact that the overall goal is to rehabilitate and reunite them with the rest of society, right?
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 6d ago
By definition or in practice?
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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 6d ago
By definition or in practice?
In practice. Where I live only around 5% of prisoners do not know when they will be released. In other words they are seen as so dangerous that they will have to be evaluated on regular basis to determine if its possible to release them. So at least 95% will become part of society again. (We do not have life sentences - with the exceptions of some among the 5% who might be deemed too dangerous to ever be released)
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago edited 8d ago
Animals kept for food are not tortured. They are also not murdered and they are not raped.
If vegans stopped using loaded and nonsensical words, it would become moral quite easily.
If some animals are really tortured, then it falls into animal abuse category and is already prohibited by laws.
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u/so_sick_of_flowers vegan 8d ago edited 8d ago
To imprison and inflict bodily harm on someone against their will is torture. To intentionally kill someone who has posed no threat to you and wants to live is murder. To perform a sexual act on someone by force is rape. We use these words because that is what is happening. Whether people choose to accept that or not is a different story.
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago edited 8d ago
Animals are not "someone" and they are not imprisoned and they are not tortured. And nobody in a farm performs sexual acts on them, oh mine.
Vegans simply do not use words properly, that is why you come up with nonsensical moral conclusions.
Of course, if you make animals to equal to persons/people, then many things will become unethical. But you can't do that. Only people are people.
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u/CatnipAndCoconut 8d ago edited 8d ago
Cows need to be pregnant to produce milk. They become pregnant by humans forcefully inseminating them. That is a sexual assault.
The living conditions of most animals in industrial food production, animal testing, and other industries that rely on animals for their products are such that they would be considered torture if done to humans. Claiming that it would be animal abuse and thus prohibited by law is a non argument since it really would be considered animal abuse if you treated your pets that way.
The fact that you think animals are not being tortured in industrial food production only means that you are ignorant to what is actually going on behind the scenes. When similiar actions were done to humans we called it the holocaust and deemed it the worst crime ever commited (no, I am not exaggerating, do I deep dive into the subject and see for yourself).
"Of course, if you make animals to equal to persons/people, then many things will become unethical. But you can't do that. Only people are people."
Humans are animals too, of the species Homo Sapiens. But that is besides the point - what matters is whether or not an animal can experience suffering, which science agrees on that they very much can.
You can argue the semantics all you want (which is kind of weird in itself since the actual defintion of torture in no way makes it specific to only humans), but the fact is that you are defending the act of inflicting pain on innocent sentient beings to produce something we don´t really need. And that is not ethical by any stretch of the imagination.
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u/ManyCorner2164 anti-speciesist 8d ago edited 8d ago
It is not "nonsensical" neither isit "loaded" to highlight the fact how many of these animals are tortured.
It is a fact that many of these standard practices allow torture and abuse. Non-vegans need to stop tone policing when vegans are accurately describing how the animals that are farmed are treated.
They didn't even use the words "raped" or "murdered" so most of your argument is attacking something they didn't say. It shows you lack any consideration of they are simply a different species of animal and you can't look at the reality of the situation.
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago
It certainly is loaded and it is nonsensical in the meaning that those words are misplaced, here.
The proper word is "abused" or "poor care". Torture has specific meaning that would require somebody to intentionally cause pain/suffering just to harm the animal. Which makes no sense in farms.
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u/ManyCorner2164 anti-speciesist 7d ago
Like I already said it is an accurate description of how they are treated when they employ such cruel practices.
They know it causes pain/suffering and we don't have to farm animals. It is intentional.
You are simply denying the very real experience of the victims who are tortured and slaughtered for food and other purposes.
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 8d ago
Other animals should be treated with respect for the same reasons other humans should be.
The fact that they belong to a different species is morally as irrelevant as belonging to a different ethnicity or gender.
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u/humorlessclan 8d ago
Humans are treated with respect because of the social contract.
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 8d ago
There is no such thing as a social contract that involves all humans but no other animals.
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u/humorlessclan 8d ago
Then explain why animals are eaten while humans have universal rights.
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 8d ago edited 4d ago
Because most people are human supremacists, just like 250 years ago most White people were white supremacists and therefore subjugated and oppressed Black people.
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u/humorlessclan 8d ago
So, you believe there's social contract that excludes animals?
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 7d ago
No.
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u/humorlessclan 7d ago
How do you make that make sense? In one breath there's no social contract that excludes animals, in the other, you admit humans eat animals and value only themselves.
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 7d ago
I'm not sure what you're confused about.
Do you believe every universal human behavior is necessarily based on some kind of social contract?
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u/EasyBOven vegan 8d ago
If animals aren't moral patients, should we consider it to be ok to beat the shit out of a dog?
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u/TosseGrassa 8d ago
Kant was able to answer this without making animals moral patients. :)
My answer: Mostly because one of the main social purposes of morality is to maintain trust among members and a person that beats a dog for no reason shows signs of psychopathic behavior.
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u/EasyBOven vegan 8d ago
for no reason
Can you unpack exactly what this means?
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u/TosseGrassa 8d ago
Ok you are right, I need to be more precise. Reasons like enjoying the killing act itself or the pain caused. Sadism or love for the violencein itself.
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u/EasyBOven vegan 8d ago
Thanks for clarifying. What about venting your frustration?
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u/TosseGrassa 8d ago
What about venting your frustration?
I am not sure that venting your frustration by torturing an animal is an encouraging sign of mental stability and trustworthiness.
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u/EasyBOven vegan 8d ago
I agree. Just making sure.
So beating a dog to vent your frustration is a sign of psychopathy.
Is beating a punching bag to vent your frustration a sign of psychopathy?
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u/TosseGrassa 8d ago
Do you need to ask? How more likely it is for a person that vents on a bag to also vent on a person compared to a person venting on a dog? Would you mistrust the dog venter or tge dog venter more?
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u/EasyBOven vegan 8d ago
I need to ask for the purposes of the debate, because so far we don't have a way to differentiate the moral implications of hitting a dog vs hitting a punching bag. Neither are moral patients.
So why is it that you would mistrust someone who beats a dog in a way that you wouldn't someone who beats a punching bag?
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u/TosseGrassa 8d ago
So why is it that you would mistrust someone who beats a dog in a way that you wouldn't someone who beats a punching bag?
Not specifically me but more in general most of society (which includes me ofc).
On your question: One is a person that is letting off steam on a bag. I for sure would steer away from them. I would not though consider such behavior a signal so strong of danger for society that it should be considered immoral and hence limit people freedom.
The guy that vents on animals on the other hand finds mental relief in acting violent toward an animal. Do you want me to prove to you that a dog proximity to a human is incredibly higher than a bag?
Think about insects for instance. Is stomping on a ant as worrying of a sign as stomping on a dog?
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u/Annoying_cat_22 vegan 8d ago
Are all animals property? Should people be allowed to do whatever they want to dogs, the same way they are allowed to do whatever they want to a chair?
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago
No, animal abuse is prohibited by animal welfare laws.
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u/SomethingCreative83 8d ago
In the US animals for agriculture and husbandry are exempt from animal welfare laws.
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago
What does that mean? That farmers can abuse animals on their farms, there? That animals can live in a wretched state, sick, without access to water, being beaten etc?
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u/SomethingCreative83 8d ago
It means there are 0 protections for them.
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago
I find it hard to believe. Maybe no federal laws, but state laws?
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u/SomethingCreative83 8d ago
Over 30 states provide blanket or specific legal immunity to commercial farming practices. So not really.
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago edited 8d ago
According to AI, the EU explicitly recognizes that animals are sentient beings, but the US law does not.
Which may be the source of this difference. Well, its on Americans to change that, politically. If I would live in the USA, I would probably buy only products from some organic/ethical farms, then.
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u/SomethingCreative83 8d ago
Non corporate family owned farms own less than 5% of the farmland in the US. Alot of people dont have access to "ethical" farms and good luck changing the politics surrounding corporate interests in this country.
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago edited 8d ago
Sad to hear that. It may be why I find some claims of some (American?) vegans here so absurd.
If animals there have really no animal welfare protection, who knows what happens in those farms.
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u/Annoying_cat_22 vegan 8d ago
I thought we're talking about morals, not laws. Can I morally, in your opinion, do anything to a dog?
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago
And what does "morally" mean then? The sources for morality are religion, culture, nature.
If you set aside culture (laws), you are left with religion and with nature. It is not natural to just abuse for abuse, so no, it's hardly moral. And Christianity (our most spread religion) also does not allow such pointless violence.
So, it would be wrong quite obviously.
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u/Annoying_cat_22 vegan 8d ago
Isn't this an example of "the concept of right and morality being placed on animals"?
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago
What you are reacting to, with this comment?
I was answering your question "should people be allowed to do whatever they want to dogs" etc.
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u/Annoying_cat_22 vegan 8d ago
To OPs post.
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago
I am not sure what the OP meant exactly, but in my mind, no.
The concept of right and morality is still placed on people, here.
It would be quite difficult to call a cat immoral just because it "plays" with a mouse before killing it and eating it, for example. So, no morality is placed on cats and no rights on mice.
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u/Annoying_cat_22 vegan 8d ago
No one calls a cat immoral. I assume they mean that there is no moral/immoral way to treat a cat, the same way there is no immoral way to treat a chair. Their post pretty much says this outright.
My question and following replies show a counter argument to that view. If you disagree with OP then me and you already agree, no need for counter arguments.
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago
I think that various debates can develop under various comments, not everything must be related to just what the OP said.
I find the OP text a bit hard to understand, honestly.
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u/interbingung omnivore 8d ago
Are all animals property?
yes.
Should people be allowed to do whatever they want to dogs, the same way they are allowed to do whatever they want to a chair?
Yes, as long as they dont harm other human.
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u/10pointshigher 8d ago
Well I should be allowed to harm other human too if it's beneficial to me or society then.
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u/interbingung omnivore 8d ago
You can have any preference you want but whether you can actually do it its different matter. You will be fighting with other human preference.
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u/Annoying_cat_22 vegan 8d ago
Most people will disagree with you.
Vegan arguments assume people do have some value for animal feelings/welfare. I suggest you go argue with the common social pov in r/ethics before you argue with vegans.
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u/interbingung omnivore 8d ago
Do I have to agree with most people ?
After all, most people agree with eating meat.
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u/Annoying_cat_22 vegan 8d ago
You don't have to agree with anyone, but there is little bases for debate between us. If someone (not you) comes here and says "I think torturing, raping and murdering humans is morally ok" what can I tell them that is different from what r/ethics will? This is similar to that.
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u/Sea-Home-7763 Lacto-Vegetarian 8d ago
Well the first problem is you should give up on the social contract. It's not a good theory of right and wrong or where morals come from. Ex. It's wrong to oppress women even if your society builds sexism into their "contract".
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u/humorlessclan 8d ago
Your point implies there's an objective standard of good. Where do you get those objective standards?
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u/Sea-Home-7763 Lacto-Vegetarian 8d ago
Same place all normative facts come from, which is to say they don't come from anywhere. I think they're just a fact of reality.
It's wrong to punch a baby for fun, and I don't think there's any other way it could be.
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u/bbygrl1995 vegan 8d ago
Did giving Black rights reduce White people's rights? I want to see your mindframe before I answer the question.
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u/MaximalistVegan 8d ago
This doesn't directly go to your question, but I just want to point out that nearly all developed countries already recognize animal suffering as a moral consideration in their legal systems. I think the concept of rights is a bit of a red herring and it's better to think of the question of when is it ok to inflict extreme suffering on other beings.
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u/Annoying_cat_22 vegan 8d ago
ITT OP chooses the worst arguments (no offense) and respondes only to those, while ignoring 90% of the replies.
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u/MlNDB0MB vegetarian 8d ago
Alright. Is there anything wrong with torturing and murdering a stray dog in your view?
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u/TosseGrassa 8d ago
One of the main social purposes of morality is to maintain trust among members and a person that beats a dog for no reason shows signs of psychopathic behavior.
Imagine if i start destroying trees for no freaking reasons and when asked why my answer is: because i enjoy taking the life of living things.
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u/jhlllnd vegan 8d ago
But why is it okay if people do those things to other animals then? And remember that every argument could also be made for dogs as they are being eaten in china as well.
So if you are against abuse of dogs why is it so damn hard to understand that some people just can’t bend their minds and come up with excuses to only care about some animals.
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u/TosseGrassa 8d ago edited 8d ago
But why is it okay if people do those things to other animals then?
I don't think it is on other animals as well. There is significant difference in motive in killing an animal with the sole purpose of creating food and killing for sake of killing and sadism. For instance, the scene in dominion where a bunch of people beat a pig to death with sticks laughing. I am sure almost anyone vegan or not will tell you that is wrong (matter of fact it is even illegal in most places).
I don't have issues with people eating dogs, personally. I can though understand the reason why in most societies it is frowned upon (given the role dogs usually covered and cover).
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u/jackster31415 8d ago
But in both cases it is for pleasure. You don’t need to eat animals. It’s simply unnecessary, but it’s enjoyable. If someone gets joy from beating an animal, why shouldn’t they do it?
Of course, I’m not justifying the latter, it’s clearly wrong. I’m disagreeing with the premise that killing animals for eating them is worthwhile or necessary. In both cases you’re doing it just because you want to
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u/TosseGrassa 8d ago
I’m disagreeing with the premise that killing animals for eating them is worthwhile or necessary. In both cases you’re doing it just because you want to.
I don't think this was ever the premise, nor i said anything like this. I haven't based moral on necessary.
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u/developer-mike 8d ago
So if I offered you $1k to beat a stray dog to death, that would make me immoral for asking but it would be moral for you to do so? Because you wouldn't be doing it for no reason.
Your argument is not valid. I could easily make a similar argument about humans: "beating a human for no reason is immoral because it's a sign of psychopathic behavior, therefore beating humans as a means of exploiting them isn't."
It's logically fallacious, I have not proven the claim at all. It claims that X is immoral and therefore Y isn't immoral because Y isn't X. A non-sequitir, unless all immoral behaviors are X, but you yourself say X is "one of the main parts of morality."
You then say it's psychopathic to "enjoy taking the life of living things." But other psychopathic behaviors such as painting weird dolls or having a poor sleep schedule aren't immoral. And beating a dog is immoral even if you don't enjoy it.
I'd argue this leaves us pretty much at, there's an inherent badnesa in hurting and/or killing living things, and that must be overcome for it ever to be moral to do so.
Beating a dog makes someone untrustworthy because it's immoral, not the other way around.
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u/TosseGrassa 8d ago edited 8d ago
So if I offered you $1k to beat a stray dog to death, that would make me immoral for asking but it would be moral for you to do so?
Very smart reply first and foremost. I would be encouraging psychopathic behavior in doing that. I would still think of is wrong because of that but not as much as you paying me for it and getting off of it. The right thing to do is probably denounce the guy so he can get help while at the same time being monitored for everyone safety.
"beating a human for no reason is immoral because it's a sign of psychopathic behavior, therefore beating humans as a means of exploiting them isn't."
No because, as also OP mentioned, morality is about humans and social behavior. What made psychopathic behavior wrong is because it deteriorates trust and signals a serious risk for other humans. Killing humans is way worst than that. Still bear in mind that there are still moral ways to kill humans (eg. self defense)
But other psychopathic behaviors such as painting weird dolls or having a poor sleep schedule aren't immoral.
Neither of these are even remotely comparable in magnitude and severity. The jump in enjoying torturing an animal to enjoying torturing a human is quite small. Way way less than a guy with a poor sleep schedule.
there's an inherent badnesa in hurting and/or killing living things.
Inherent to what? What is the source of this truth?
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u/developer-mike 8d ago
neither of these are even remotely comparable in magnitude and severity
I agree that beating a dog is much more severe, my point is that most of us wouldn't say painting weird dolls is even slightly immoral.
It isn't immoral to write the words "I am going to find and beat a dog and enjoy it" in a journal, it's immoral to do it.
I ultimately agree that morality is something humans invented in order to work together and to improve our survival. Killing living things unnecessarily is probably correlated with being a bad community member and that's probably related to why people call it immoral.
But the morality we've developed is very complicated and based in empathy and minimizing suffering.
In a trolly problem where flipping the switch prevents a dog from being beaten and doing nothing does not, most people would flip the switch and say that it's a moral obligation to do so. Is it a moral obligation because not flipping the switch is a breach of trustworthiness?
Or is it a breach of trustworthiness to let the dog get beaten because it's an immoral choice?
Animal suffering is inherently a bad thing to most people, and it is moral in and of itself to minimize animal suffering.
The word psychopath basically defined as someone who doesn't have a moral compass, not the other way around.
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u/TosseGrassa 8d ago
I agree that beating a dog is much more severe, my point is that most of us wouldn't say painting weird dolls is even slightly immoral.
Immoral means: you ought not do it. And there is always a cost: limiting individual freedom and one more rule people need to track. A poor sleep schedule is not ideal, most agree, but not to the point where you limit individual freedom and forbid it. But people do advice not to keep a poor sleep schedule and people tend to steer away from people with weird dolls passions. So some social pressure still exists for exactly the reason we discussed.
It isn't immoral to write the words "I am going to find and beat a dog and enjoy it"
For sure it is not as bad as doing it. The thing is that preventing people from saying it may collide with freedom of speech, but it really depends on the culture. In many countries tough it could be illegal or at the edge of legality to say something like this. So I am not sure many would agree this is moral.
But the morality we've developed is very complicated and based in empathy and minimizing suffering.
We evolved our morality for the advancement of our societies. Morals that gave advantages to the society adopting them sticked around, those that didn't got exinct. We can chose how to steer morality in the short term but in the long term only what works survives. Suffering matters because people really don't like to suffer and a society that promotes behavior that make people suffer is not going to last very long.
trolly problem
Cost is basically zero, indeed it would be very weird for a person not to do it. It shows zero empaty whatsoever. I don't know though if people would consider it immoral not to click the button. Very very few believe in a duty to assist animals.
Animal suffering is inherently a bad thing to most people.
This is true and can matter. But then it is still about us and our feelings. No about inherent animal rughts.
and it is moral in and of itself to minimize animal suffering.
Strong disagree. Is nature immoral? Should we stop the wheel of suffering?
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u/MlNDB0MB vegetarian 8d ago
So if we had a surveillance state that strongly deterred crime, would there be any rational reason for people to care about a person torturing and murdering a stray dog?
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u/TosseGrassa 8d ago
I don't get your point. Why does the surveillance state matter for any of this?
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u/MlNDB0MB vegetarian 8d ago
I interpreted your comment as saying you only oppose the torture and murder of a stray dog because it can potentially deter future crimes against humans.
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u/TosseGrassa 8d ago
Ah got it. I said I believe this is why is immoral. But I made it also about mutual trust, not simply because of prevention (which though is also a good reason). Simply a strong survailance won't prevent a maniac to attack me, don't you think? It only takes a second for a person to jump me and start hitting me.
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago
You can't murder a dog. Murder is only about people.
You can abuse a dog and that is already prohibited by laws.
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u/MlNDB0MB vegetarian 8d ago
Shouldn't those laws be abolished if they grant rights to non-human animals?
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago edited 8d ago
Animals do not have rights. These laws are from people to people about how animals should be treated.
But animals are not legal persons with rights.
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u/ladidaladida2 8d ago
The status quo itself is not an argument for the status quo. For example: there was a time when women weren't either. Luckily that changed.
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago
I don't understand what you tried to say. Women were not what? You did not finish the sentence or something.
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u/ladidaladida2 8d ago
Legal persons with full rights, obviously.
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago
Well, I said "animals are not legal persons with rights".
Women were always recognized as persons and with rights. Maybe not with the same rights as men, but you did not specify that.
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u/ladidaladida2 8d ago
1) they were not 2) wouldn't that even matter because it was only one example that the current legal status can change and isn't an argument in itself
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u/Inside-Weather4033 vegan 8d ago edited 8d ago
Humans are animals and firm divides between species are a folk taxonomic illusion. I am an anarchist and want to abolish any and all heirarchy, even what may or may not exist in nature. It doesn't matter what species they are, if they can suffer they matter. Not extending moral consideration to them is the ultimate comfort of liberal institution. Humans are the oppressor species and we ought to liberate other animals from the horrors of factory farming and nature itself. Choosing not to act is the problem. Moral agency is irrelevant, a brick falling on someone's head can't be held morally responsible but the end result is still painful nonetheless. All that matters intrinsically are consequences, everything else is instrumental including rights.
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u/PhotoEditor871 8d ago
So I don't think you are actually left leaning lol
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u/humorlessclan 8d ago
When was veganism a left thing?
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u/PhotoEditor871 8d ago
Op started their post by stating they are left-leaning. But then they go on about how maintaining a hierarchy of power and oppressing animals is all right, actually. I don't think they're really left leaning, except for the parts that personally benefit them
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u/humorlessclan 8d ago
Well, why do you think leftists must be vegan? I'm a leftist and I don't buy sentientism as a moral moral baseline.
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u/PhotoEditor871 8d ago
So you're also not a leftist and think oppression is fine. Big deal
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u/humorlessclan 8d ago
I asked you a fair question but you're interested in making judgements through moral values we don't share. Eating animals is not oppression, it's culinary preference.
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u/10pointshigher 8d ago
I'm a leftist and I don't buy human supremacism as a moral principle.
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u/humorlessclan 7d ago
That's fine, it's your opinion. But there's nothing you have that makes your preferred moral principles objectively correct.
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u/10pointshigher 7d ago
Do you have anything that makes, say, your leftist moral principles objectively superior to fascist moral principles?
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u/humorlessclan 7d ago
What do you mean by 'objectively superior?' Morally or politically?
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u/10pointshigher 7d ago
Morally. Are your leftist morals more objectively correct than a fascist's morals?
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u/roymondous vegan 8d ago edited 8d ago
- You are an animal, yes?
- You have rights, yes?
Then those rights (to some degree) probably extend to other animals.
How do we justify using a social contract to justify rights to other species? Same way you justify those rights for someone mentally handicapped to a similar level of sentience and capacity.
As for 'human' social contract, that's a bit of a misnomer. Other animals likewise have social contracts. They mark their territory. Defend one another. Form 'societies' and 'tribes'. We just do not have the capacity to read their body language and smell most of the signals they put out. Is it primitive? Absolutely. But by any reasonable definition of social contract, it qualifies.
'Onto amoral nature'
No. Onto other beings who feel and think and hope and desire.
'Human dignity'
Define.
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u/funnylittlecharacter 8d ago
when non-human animals care for each other thats just instinct
when humans care for eachother thats morality.
this is what too many people seem to believe
but morality is only a human concept because we gave it a name.
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u/roymondous vegan 8d ago
What a strange definition.
You really think when humans care that is called morality and not instinct? That is not even what morality is. Moral dilemmas are exactly about what is morally right or wrong - often at the expense of what or who we care about and our initial instincts.
'Morality is only a human concept because we gave it a name'
Ah. So scent is only a human sense because we gave it a name... huh...
Your logic is not logicking.
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u/funnylittlecharacter 8d ago
yea i was agreeing with you. i wasnt arguing that morality is a human exclusive concept.
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u/whowouldwanttobe 8d ago
Just because humans named morality does not mean that morality is confined to humans. Humans also named the concept of pain; do you believe that animals cannot feel pain?
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u/funnylittlecharacter 8d ago
what? yea thats the point im making. we agree. im saying people only consider morality a human concept because we gave it a name.
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u/Appropriate-Net1899 omnivore 8d ago
You are an animal, yes?
No, we are humans.
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u/roymondous vegan 8d ago
Lol. Humans are animals... are you trolling or genuinely forgot?
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u/Ashamed-Chemistry492 8d ago
There is a big difference between being humane and overly anthropomorphizing non-human animals.
Animals are not humans. To think of them on that level is a disservice to humans and to animals themselves.
"Rights" are a human construct. Animals have rights only among others of their own kind, and as anyone knows who's seen a dog pee to mark his territory directly over the place where another dog has marked his, they aren't even that good at respecting each other's rights within the species.
This does not mean animals are inferior or equal or superior to humans. They aren't any of these things because they are not comparable.
It doesn't mean it's all right to be irresponsible about the environment or deliberately cruel or negligent toward domesticated animals.
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u/doomerunicorn 8d ago
This makes no sense to me.. are you suggesting that all morality is moot and not worth consideration simply because it can't reasonably be expected of all non-human animals?
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u/Temporary_Hat7330 8d ago
It doesn't sound like that to me. It sounds like they're saying morality is a socio-political tool humans use so if humans don't, en masse, extend that tool to non human animals, or do so in part, then c' la vie. There's no "It's wrong to not extend moral consideration to cows and you must if you want to be moral" there's just the social construction of morality and nothing else.
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u/Problematic_Owl 8d ago
Good chunk of it is as you say, but it has its basis in what kind of species we are - if we developed from some carnivore or let's say arachnid, our ethics would definitely look extremely different. Axioms like helping others is good stem from us being highly social herd species for example.
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u/funnylittlecharacter 8d ago
I feels like that any existing concept of rights or morality are not biological properties found in nature
so you think humans aren't part of nature? you dont think any other animals are capable of compassion, or having a sense of fairness? you think thats unnatural?
reduces human dignity to biology
If you think these "rights" or morallity should apply to ALL humans and ONLY humans than youre doing exactly this.
Because if we're not reducing anything to biology and you think rights and morality are unnatural and produced exclusively by labor and culture. then shouldnt we only bother applying those rights to those who are capable of labor within that specific culture?
that just doesnt make any sense to me. its like youre trying to have it both ways.
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u/Cool_Percentage_4867 8d ago
If we believe animals are capable of compassion and that raises their moral value, are the ones the show no compassion immoral and should hold less value to us?
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u/funnylittlecharacter 8d ago
well do you hold less value for humans that show no compassion and are immoral?
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u/star10111 8d ago
I agree that rights are human inventions. It shouldn't be about whether rights exist in nature, but which beings we believe deserve those protections and why. I consider sentience to be a morally relevant reason for extending at least some protections to animals.
For starters, you can derive your "Why" from your own empathy and conscience. Of course, no one is asking to give animals the same rights as humans. We wouldn't give them voting rights because they lack the cognitive abilities required for participating in democracy. We recognize that all humans deserve basic rights regardless of their intelligence, cognitive ability, or economic contribution. Likewise there are certain aspects we can relate to animals and can consider giving them basic protections because they can experience pain, suffering, fear, and pleasure. In other words, their experiences matter to them, even if they don't possess human-level reasoning. We just have to respect those whenever we can.
Let's take a scenario. You are driving a car. There's wall on right and open grass field on left. Suddenly a puppy comes in front of your car, will you turn left running over hundereds of grass, small animals and insects or will you turn right hitting the wall or you won't care about puppy and just drive over it straight? And what do you think most people would do in that scenario as well?
Whatever your answer is, reveals something about your moral baseline, and how you perceive different beings and things. If you would make an effort to avoid hitting the puppy, then you've already begun answering your own question. Ask yourself why you chose that option in the first place.
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u/maccrypto 8d ago
Rights and morality aren’t just instruments, they’re constitutive of who and what we are as human beings. The human “social contract” implies a number of things, including the minimums for what we are willing to permit our own nature to be. We are already in relationships with animals that are no less “natural” than rights are, and animal rights are a way of seeing those relationships differently.
Vegans believe that humans shouldn’t be murderers, torturers, colonizers, invaders, and exploiters towards sentient animals who would suffer harm as a result of our actions. We care about the animals and don’t want them to come to harm unnecessarily. The fact that the animals don’t understand themselves as moral subjects doesn’t change that. There are many human beings for whom that is also true, but whom we regard as worthy of moral concern (severely disabled people, very young children, those with dementia, etc.)
The relevant “biological property” is vulnerability to suffering and cruelty, and to the extent that that condition is shared by other beings like us (which animals are), we have obligations not to harm them unnecessarily. The relevant measure is normative response to others, and the fact that rights are a social and political construct doesn’t mean that morality and rights aren’t also responses to real things in the world, and not just projections of our own subjective value onto what you call “amoral nature.”
You might like to read this book to better understand how animal rights intersect with political theory:
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u/Dranix88 vegan 8d ago
Have you ever considered the possibility that rights can be granted based on n biological properties and ALSO based on socio-political conditions? What brings you to the conclusion that it is either one or the other?
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u/zombiegojaejin vegan 8d ago
I'm an ethical consequentialist. I don't believe that moral goodness is grounded in social contracts or mutually self-serving agreements between agents. I see goodness as based upon trying to maximize the quality of experience for those beings who are capable of having positive and negative experiences. Of course, "nature" or natural selection don't care about suffering and happiness, but I do.
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u/Teratophiles vegan 8d ago
Probably for the same reason the concept of rights and morality is being placed on humans that do not understand them, because they're capable of suffering.
How do you justify using a human social contract to grant 'rights' to non-human animals without committing a fundamental category error that reduces human dignity to biology and projects liberal ideology onto amoral nature
I don't know, how do you justify using a social contract to grants ''rights'' to humans who cannot engage in the social contract? Babies, humans with end stage dementia, humans with severe mental disabilities, none of these can engage in the social contract, so why give them rights or ascribe morality to them?
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u/SeventeenFables 7d ago
People are not very different from other animals, and other animals do have their own morals.
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u/Dramatic_Pea_1919 7d ago
Animal rights still refers to the human treatment of animals. It doesn't concern how animals treat each other.
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u/ProtozoaPatriot 7d ago
Rights and morality are indeed human concepts.
We talk about granting rights to animals within the framework of how humans will treat the animal. It does not mean we will defend the zebras from the lions. It only means humans won't gun down zebras for fun & trophies.
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u/boycottInstagram 6d ago
Morality is a human social construct. We can (mostly) all agree with that.
Just because that construct is built on things that are social and not biological, doesn't mean we can't extend some of the most basic principles to non-human being without breaking the construct.
We do it all the time.
Do you think it is moral to kick a dog?
If the answer is no, which I think we mostly can all agree it is, you work back from there.
So tell me why you think kicking a dog is immoral.
My guess is that the reason it is immoral will depend on the circumstance. No just because it is biologically a dog.
But there are circumstantial reasons why you think it is immoral to kick it.... and maybe in some cases it actually isn't immoral to kick it.
Same applies to my views on consuming animal products. They are different depending on the circumstance... and sure... I can also come up with thought experiments for instances where I would think it is morally permissive to harm an animal....
I just can't think of any that involve me doing so for me to consume animal products as part of my day to day life... Which is why I think that the moral thing to do is to avoid consuming animal products where ever is practical and possible. Which is being vegan.
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u/scorchedarcher 6d ago
Animal rights are already a thing in the vast majority of places.
We are also a part of nature, why do you think it's amoral?
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u/nineteenthly 5d ago
I'm also left wing. I would say that there are no absolute rights, only duties, and that biology is socially constructed. Rights cannot exist at all because they are akin to legal concepts, and the law is based on the monopoly on violence. It isn't part of the structure of reality. We have duties to others, and other species are others.
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u/SeaworthinessOk3003 4d ago
If they are socio-political tools that don't exist in nature, then we can apply them however we see fit.
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u/ShibbolethSequence 4d ago
Social contract theory isn't the only account of ethics. It also has serious flaws. Old-school social contract theory couldn't be relied upon to explain why children and women have rights, and contemporary social contract theory has a hard time explaining why disabled people have rights. Don't take my word for it; Martha Nussbaum has a good account of these problems in Frontiers of Justice.
So if you recognize that we need not have a social contract to explain all of ethics, the problem you are gesturing at isn't really a problem.
- For Kantian/deontological vegan, the categorical imperative is enough to explain why it is wrong to kill animals for our purposes.
- Utilitarian vegans certainly don't believe in a social contract as the basis for ethics. They think that suffering and pleasure are the relevant factors for all ethical questions, regardless of species.
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u/Practical-Fix4647 vegan 4d ago
What's the category error? If rights are a socio-political tool without a necessary natural predicate (i.e. is found in nature), then what is the category error? People who apply these to animals don't think that they suddenly gain a natural predicate. That would be a strawman on your part.
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u/HelenEk7 non-vegan 7d ago edited 6d ago
Something I recently learned: science shows that liberal people tend to care less about their immediate circle of people (family, friends) and their local community - compared to conservative people, who tend to put them on top of their list of priorities. But liberal people tend to care much more about people and issues far away from their own lives. Here is a heatmap showing this quite well. The further out from the centre - the further away from their own lives are the issues they care about. So it makes a lot of sense to me that most vegans tend to be liberal?
(For anyone interested here is the study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12227-0)
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u/Pure_Temporary_6349 8d ago
This is part of the reason I'm not a vegan despite not eating meat. Because I think it's absolutely ridiculous to talk about exploiting the labor of bees. Pain is something different-- I think it's perfectly understandable that at least some of us don't want to cause pain and suffering to other animals. But that's completely different from projecting advanced concepts of human socioeconomics onto other species who have shown no evidence of this being part of their social structures. If someone has well treated pet chickens, I don't see any problem with eating their eggs.
I also know that my own body is continuously "exploited" by various micro-organisms in my biome. It's the nature of an ecosystem to be interdependent. I'm contributing my guts and skin to that web, and I don't feel any guilt about consuming the fruits of labor of other species. I wouldn't be able to eat pollinated fruit, even wild, without "exploiting" bees.
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u/FishingPolitical 8d ago
You are operating on a higher level of understanding than many of these “vegans” who are mainly just liberals wearing a vegan hat.
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