Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 8:18 pmYou have an odd argument you are trying to validate.
Not really.
Animal welfare laws are not moral issues. Bein' soft-hearted toward bunnies is not a moral issue. Your squeamishness is not a moral issue. And, bottomline, animal welfare laws are rooted in squeamishness, not morality.
But, as I say, nuthin' I can offer will make you give up on vegetarianism; nuthin' you, or others, have offered will make me give up on bacon.
But what of Fido cut up for fun?
What if it were a squid cut up for fun? Or a earthworm? Or a tapeworm?
You've fallen for the it has a face scam. You're anthropomorphizin'.
henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 6:42 pm
And the lack of agreement has never been greater. Even a casual review of the research shows these folks can't even agree what constitutes consciousness or sentience or intelligence or self-awareness or an interior experience. The best anyone can say about the research and researchers: there are two very broad camps. Those who believe at least some animals have some degree of self-referential experience, and those who believe no animals, other than humans, have self-referencing experiences. Certainly, there's nuthin' at all about the research that's definitive either way.
That idea has long been debunked whether you consider it definitive or not. Also, we don't need to know "what constitutes consciousness." All we need to know is whether an animal reacts much as a human would in response to the same stimulus which has already been firmly established long ago. How can it be so different when the vertebrate nervous system among higher mammals have the same structure as humans, though somewhat less complex, eliciting the same fundamental responses a human normally would. What you're asserting is that there's no grey matter in the mammalian brain other than humans to process information!
Are we ourselves not to be regarded as intelligent, self-aware, etc., simply because we don't know ALL that constitutes consciousness? Clearly, that argument remains bogus. Also, there's very little on the planet that one can truly consider "definitive" which doesn't exclude the probability based on research, experience and observation, that something is nearly so as in the case of animal intelligence. Why can a chimp, cat, or dog be manifestly more intelligent than another chimp, cat, or dog if intelligence is mostly defunct in animals, those differences, in your view, applying to humans only?
henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 9:37 pm
But, as I say, nuthin' I can offer will make you give up on vegetarianism; nuthin' you, or others, have offered will make me give up on bacon.
I am not a vegetarian. But I see the need for the application of ethical principles (applied morality essentially) in the meat production industry.
But most of this recent discussion involves understanding animals as being feeling creatures. Whose feeling and experiencing nature is of the same sort as man. You don’t share that view it seems to me. Snd people seem to be presenting you with sound arguments that challenge your view.
henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 7:03 pm
What I'm sayin', as I define things, and summing up: most of, if not all, life on Earth -- save for man -- are not free wills, do not have natural rights
Free will is not the criterion. If your deist God boomed from the heavens...
"Folks, this is your one and only message from your Creator, letting you know that the universe is wholly deterministic, that mind is merely epiphenomenal, and that the reality I've created is utterly void of free will, despite that you all feel when you introspect that your choices are free. I have deliberately created the illusion of causally efficacious mentality, simply because it pleases me. You are all just cogs in a clockwork machine, as is every element of this clockwork universe. This message, too, is one of those cogs. It was all inevitable and necessitated from the start."
...the wrong way to react would be, "Aw, shucks, I was mistaken: feel free, then, everybody, to thieve from, enslave, and slaughter me, because it turns out that I don't have any natural rights after all."
Clearly, it is not in virtue of your capacity to choose freely (in the sense of free will) that it would be wrong to, for example, brutally and mercilessly torture you; no, that would be wrong because it would cause you incredible suffering, and it is in virtue of your being conscious - having a mind on your terms - that you are capable of suffering.
Similarly, it is in virtue of your being conscious - having a mind - that it is wrong to thieve from and slaughter you, because, having a mind, you have preferences, wants, and desires, including the preference to continue living - a very reasonable one given your capacity to do so satisfyingly - and thus can suffer the harm of deprivation.
It is consciousness (having a mind), then, with its capacity for feeling and preferences, that natural rights are predicated on, and not free will.
Non-human beings obviously are conscious - have minds - too. Recall AJ's post in which he described the reaction of a dog which he bashed with a rock: that dog responded to being hurt which caused it suffering. Now, here's the thing, hq: robots can't be hurt and don't suffer. That dog reacted in the way that it did because it has a mind. A robot which cannot be hurt and cannot suffer would not have reacted in that way unless your deist God had again played a trick on us and deliberately designed robots which mimic beings with minds.
That this is patently obvious is why I've asked you three times already to explain why you believe otherwise. You must at some level know that your view is indefensible given that you've avoided answering on each occasion. Maybe you do believe that your deist God is a trickster who has played that trick of mimicry on us, but if so, on what basis do you believe as much? I don't see one. Moreover, given the consequence if you are wrong - the consequence of denying natural rights to those who are entitled to them - it is by far the more prudent and moral choice to assume that you are wrong.
henry quirk wrote: ↑Sat Jul 22, 2023 7:03 pm
Certainly, you and Dubious have presented nuthin' that'll stop me from eatin' bacon
What I've presented demonstrates that if you won't stop, it is despite that the natural rights - that you accept - extend to non-human beings, and that you have no defensible reason to deny them those rights.
“Recall AJ's post in which he described the reaction of a dog which he bashed with a rock: that dog responded to being hurt which caused it suffering.”
Actually it was the reaction of another dog who observed the hurt dog’s reaction and displayed an empathetic reaction that impressed me. That dog was not himself hurt but *understood* hurt.
Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 11:47 amWhat I've presented demonstrates that if you won't stop, it is despite that the natural rights - that you accept - extend to non-human beings, and that you have no defensible reason to deny them those rights.
It is interesting to think about the entire question of *rights* when one examines the origin of the religious modes that are most influential in our own culture. In the very very early days of civilization, in those times classed as *heathen*, god was conceived of as a private god of a clan. The clan, the extended family, was the most important identification, and god was not conceived in any transcendental sense but solely as a sort of tutelary or protective spirit. The notion of *rights* however was certainly emphasized, but the rights that were recognized were those of clan members. And it was only to clan member that rights were extended.
As the idea of god became transcendental, and god was conceived as universal, the notion of *universal rights* emerged as something that god wanted. This was expressed by the Hebrew prophets who described a god that was not exclusive to a clan or to a people but took the form of an entity interested in, and insisting on, universal human rights and of course of justice, fair treatment, etc.
Whether one *believes in* god or not, still it is not hard to see how it has come about that the idea of *rights* originated.
Curiously, Henry holds to the idea that a god (a divine power) has granted *rights* to human beings. Henry says that divinity (his Deism) has granted rights exclusively to beings who have free will but those beings with free will have no moral obligation to any other beings since, it seems, no other being has the *free will* of the sort that we have. Therefore, all other beings are *automata*.
I do understand the logic of this argument of course, but what interests me is something related to the *god-concept*.
First, the god-concept is simply a protective spirit of a clan. Then it is extended to a wider group of people who are part of a wider political community. Then, later, the *idea of god* becomes genuinely transcendental and as a result *universal*. Not only does the conceived god want justice and *rights* for what are conceived to be *his* people, but is understood to desire rights to extend to all people -- and even those who do not recognize the god (the divine concept) so defined.
It is not hard to recognize in the expansion, as it were, of the domain of rights from a clan-center to a universalized concept that there evolved, one might say *naturally*, an extension of *rights* to all creatures. Not only does one member of a clan, or a clan itself, have divinely protected rights, but a people has rights. Then the notion of *rights* is extended even to adversaries and enemies. Finally, rights are seen as transcendental and universal. And out of that idea comes a far more expanded notion of universal life rights.
The ecological life movement -- that recognizes ecological systems as having *rights* is thus an ethical and moral extension of the concept of rights.
Here is another curious fact: If there is no *divine authority* or, put another way, a metaphysical rule that oversees and in a sense determines how man conceives of rights, and if it is decided that in fact no *rights* actually exist for any man (that the whole idea is made up), then it is pretty obvious that the entire structure of *rights* as it developed in the course of civilization is completely undermined.
At that point no one has rights. Or one has only the *rights* that are available to one in an immediate defense of oneself, as for example in repelling a physical attack. Only in the most immediate sense. But beyond that, in a legal sense (since law is *invented* and *arbitrary*) one in truth has agreed that no one actually has *rights* of any sort.
Therefore in a real sense one is reduced to being in a state similar to that of those animals that are raised up for slaughter in massive commercial farms. An entire population is therefore visualized in a similar manner: as a mass that can he and is exploited. It then will become necessary to keep the *herd* in a state of ignorance and confusion so that it cannot mobilize itself against the exploitive mechanisms.
Naturally you may gather that by stating things in this way I begin to paint a picture rather similar to the imagined dystopian model of the Matrix in which people imagine they live in one world when in reality they live in another.
I am not attempting any conclusive statements here. If I recognize *rights* it is exactly as I say: we have no choice if we live in accord with moral principles to extend some level of *right* to those beasts we raise up for consumption. Those rights have already been generally defined. We also have an obligation I think to respect the right of natural systems -- for example the oceans, the forests.
But overal what interests me is how the *conceptual order* of rights originated.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 2:12 pm
The ecological life movement -- that recognizes ecological systems as having *rights* is thus an ethical and moral extension of the concept of rights.
Here is another curious fact: If there is no *divine authority* or, put another way, a metaphysical rule that oversees and in a sense determines how man conceives of rights, and if it is decided that in fact no *rights* actually exist for any man (that the whole idea is made up), then it is pretty obvious that the entire structure of *rights* as it developed in the course of civilization is completely undermined.
At that point no one has rights. Or one has only the *rights* that are available to one in an immediate defense of oneself, as for example in repelling a physical attack. Only in the most immediate sense. But beyond that, in a legal sense (since law is *invented* and *arbitrary*) one in truth has agreed that no one actually has *rights* of any sort.
Therefore in a real sense one is reduced to being in a state similar to that of those animals that are raised up for slaughter in massive commercial farms. An entire population is therefore visualized in a similar manner: as a mass that can he and is exploited. It then will become necessary to keep the *herd* in a state of ignorance and confusion so that it cannot mobilize itself against the exploitive mechanisms.
Naturally you may gather that by stating things in this way I begin to paint a picture rather similar to the imagined dystopian model of the Matrix in which people imagine they live in one world when in reality they live in another.
I am not attempting any conclusive statements here. If I recognize *rights* it is exactly as I say: we have no choice if we live in accord with moral principles to extend some level of *right* to those beasts we raise up for consumption. Those rights have already been generally defined. We also have an obligation I think to respect the right of natural systems -- for example the oceans, the forests.
But overal what interests me is how the *conceptual order* of rights originated.
In the most 'natural' state, I don't think "rights" are all that necessary. Wanton destruction of life is generally not something that life forms do to each other. For example, predators generally don't hunt and kill unless they are either hungry, threatened or at play (practicing for the hunt or else defense). One might imagine a pack of wolves running around relentlessly killing everything that comes near them just because they have the ability to. But they typically don't. Factory farming on the other hand is methodical and impersonal destruction. Indeed, many aspects of human society have taken on a very impersonal and methodical aspect that sometimes leads to horrible outcomes.
For humans to come together and 'grant' each other "rights", is an interesting act. I don't imagine early tribal societies had much in the way of that sort of thing. They lived off their immediate surroundings and had intimate relationships with each other and with the animals around them, including the ones they hunted for food.
This is not to say that 'natural rights' aren't urgently necessary for larger societies. And it's not to say that tribal societies are ultimately more desirable. There are many good things that mass societies can accomplish that tribal societies can't. (As well as many evil things that mass societies can accomplish that tribal societies can't.) Though, I wonder if mass society is even capable of achieving the kind of intimate relationship with life and every member that tribal societies are able to.
That idea has long been debunked whether you consider it definitive or not.
As I say: Even a casual review of the research shows these folks (the experts) can't even agree what constitutes consciousness or sentience or intelligence or self-awareness or an interior experience.
But I see the need for the application of ethical principles (applied morality essentially) in the meat production industry.
What, in meat production, needs revamping? What is currently unethical about meat production?
But most of this recent discussion involves understanding animals as being feeling creatures. Whose feeling and experiencing nature is of the same sort as man. You don’t share that view it seems to me. Snd people seem to be presenting you with sound arguments that challenge your view.
I'm well aware of your, Harry's, and Dubious's positions. Basically, you three say 'it feels, so it has rights or we have an obligation to it'. As I say: feeling isn't enough. Feeling doesn't make the chicken a person. Morality pertains to a person. The chicken is not a person. You don't owe it diddly squat.
For me: bein' a free will, with all that entails, is the only criteria.
Clearly, it is not in virtue of your capacity to choose freely (in the sense of free will) that it would be wrong to, for example, brutally and mercilessly torture you; no, that would be wrong because it would cause you incredible suffering, and it is in virtue of your being conscious - having a mind on your terms - that you are capable of suffering
It would be wrong to brutally and mercilessly torture me becuz, as a free will, a person, I have a natural, inalienable, exclusive claim to my life, liberty, and property. It ain't about suffering.
Similarly, it is in virtue of your being conscious - having a mind - that it is wrong to thieve from and slaughter you, because, having a mind, you have preferences, wants, and desires, including the preference to continue living - a very reasonable one given your capacity to do so satisfyingly - and thus can suffer the harm of deprivation.
It's wrong to thieve from and slaughter me becuz, as a free will, a person, I have a natural, inalienable, exclusive claim to my life, liberty, and property. It ain't about preferences.
It is consciousness (having a mind), then, with its capacity for feeling and preferences, that natural rights are predicated on, and not free will.
Persons, free wills, have natural rights, not bio-automata with canned responses.
That this is patently obvious is why I've asked you three times already to explain why you believe otherwise.
I've answered as directly and plainly as I can. I've answered again, in this post.
Henry holds to the idea that a god (a divine power) has granted *rights* to human beings. Henry says that divinity (his Deism) has granted rights exclusively to beings who have free will
No, I never said any of that. I say man is a free will with natural rights. A man is whole. The Creator most certainly made man as whole. Not even He can take away natural rights without reducing man to automation, or negate man as free will while preserving natural rights.
As for 'rights': none of you seem able to disentangle yourself from legalisms and the privileges that currently pass for 'rights'.
Natural rights are moral claims. I have an exclusive moral claim to my life, liberty, and property. You have the same exclusive moral claim to your life, liberty, and property.
henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Jul 23, 2023 3:15 pm
Natural rights are moral claims. I have an exclusive moral claim to my life, liberty, and property. You have the same exclusive moral claim to your life, liberty, and property.
This seems to me nothing more than an assertion. No back-up or support of the idea is given or need be given: you say it, it is true. That’s all.
I wonder how many more times I'll have to post things like...
As I say: man, any man, every man, any where or when, has an intuitive understanding that his life, liberty, and property are his and his alone. In a world overflowing with differing cultures and conflicts, differing environments and adaptive tricks for surviving them, this simple intuitive understanding stands coherently when all mores and laws rise and fall away. If this intuitive understanding were simply a kind of survival trait then one would expect, over the long haul, it would have been bred out of at least some populations. It never has been. Even in societies founded on deference to authority, men still take offense at being used as property.
...which I have, in this thread, multiple tines, before I stop bein' told I'm merely assertin' without evidence?
Another...
As I've said across multiple threads (including this one, as I recall), man, any man, every man, any where or when, has an intuitive understanding that his life, liberty, and property are his and his alone. In a world overflowing with differing cultures and conflicts, differing environments and adaptive tricks for surviving them, this simple intuitive understanding stands coherently when all mores and laws rise and fall away. If this intuitive understanding were simply a kind of survival trait then one would expect, over the long haul, it would have been bred out of at least some populations. It never has been. Even in societies founded on deference to authority, men still take offense at being used as property. The consistency of this intuitive understanding, even as attempts are made to squelch it, to mebbe breed it out of mankind, has a lot to do with my being a deist.
Again...
As I say: man, any man, every man, any where or when, has an intuitive understanding that his life, liberty, and property are his and his alone. In a world overflowing with differing cultures and conflicts, differing environments and adaptive tricks for surviving them, this simple intuitive understanding stands coherently when all mores and laws rise and fall away. If this intuitive understanding were simply a kind of survival trait then one would expect, over the long haul, it would have been bred out of at least some populations. It never has been. Even in societies founded on deference to authority, men still take offense at being used as property.
As I say: Even an evil man, one who murders, rapes, slaves, or steals will not consent to being murdered, raped, slaved, or robbed.
One more...
As I say over in the Christianity thread (6/9/23): 'As I've said across multiple threads (including this one, as I recall), man, any man, every man, any where or when, has an intuitive understanding that his life, liberty, and property are his and his alone. In a world overflowing with differing cultures and conflicts, differing environments and adaptive tricks for surviving them, this simple intuitive understanding stands coherently when all mores and laws rise and fall away. If this intuitive understanding were simply a kind of survival trait then one would expect, over the long haul, it would have been bred out of at least some populations. It never has been. Even in societies founded on deference to authority, men still take offense at being used as property. The consistency of this intuitive understanding, even as attempts are made to squelch it, to mebbe breed it out of mankind, has a lot to do with my being a deist. I didn't, as one dumb sob, asserts over and over, 'take a leap of faith'. I deduced from available fact. But, as I've told the dumb sob over and over, I might be wrong. This sense of self-possession, this ownness, this intuitive understanding a man has that his life, liberty, and property are his and no other's may be 'brute fact'. There may be nuthin' (or no one) behind it. If so, if natural rights is simply a kind of deep-seated survival trait, does this negate the universal repugnance we have for murder, rape, slavery, and theft? No, it doesn't. Even an evil man, one who murders, rapes, slaves, or steals, and sez God is a fairy tale, will not consent to being murdered, raped, slaved, or robbed.'
For the road...
"what actual evidence has he ever provided us that the Deist God does in fact exist?"
'As I've said across multiple threads (including this one, as I recall), man, any man, every man, any where or when, has an intuitive understanding that his life, liberty, and property are his and his alone. In a world overflowing with differing cultures and conflicts, differing environments and adaptive tricks for surviving them, this simple intuitive understanding stands coherently when all mores and laws rise and fall away. If this intuitive understanding were simply a kind of survival trait then one would expect, over the long haul, it would have been bred out of at least some populations. It never has been. Even in societies founded on deference to authority, men still take offense at being used as property. *The consistency of this intuitive understanding, even as attempts are made to squelch it, to mebbe breed it out of mankind, has a lot to do with my being a deist. I didn't, as one dumb sob, asserts over and over, 'take a leap of faith'. I deduced from available fact. But, as I've told the dumb sob over and over, I might be wrong. This sense of self-possession, this ownness, this intuitive understanding a man has that his life, liberty, and property are his and no other's may be 'brute fact'. There may be nuthin' (or no one) behind it. If so, if natural rights is simply a kind of deep-seated survival trait, does this negate the universal repugnance we have for murder, rape, slavery, and theft? No, it doesn't. Even an evil man, one who murders, rapes, slaves, or steals, and sez God is a fairy tale, will not consent to being murdered, raped, slaved, or robbed.'
*other evidences: the (becoming hard to ignore) fact that mind is not the product of brain, and the reality of libertarian free will
Shall I repost other iterations and other phrasings? I don't claim I've proved anything. I say I've offered evidence based on facts available to anyone. Counter if you can, dismiss as you like, but don't say I've merely asserted without grounding.
That idea has long been debunked whether you consider it definitive or not.
As I say: Even a casual review of the research shows these folks (the experts) can't even agree what constitutes consciousness or sentience or intelligence or self-awareness or an interior experience.
...and as I say: It isn't necessary to know what constitutes consciousness or sentience to know that you have both or are you in doubt that because you can't explain it that you aren't or may not be sentient?
True sentience requires that recognition in others and not simply pertaining to oneself as some kind of extra creation removed from all others.
Another example; you also don't need to know how your kidneys or bladder work to take a piss! You just do it.
So it doesn't matter what consciousness is or where it comes from: as long as you can anthropomorphize the chicken or dog or flatworm you ought to treat it with respect, extend to it some measure of 'rights'.
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