Philosophy Now Forum

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 8:13 am Summing up: your moral justification for killing animals to eat is based on a denial that they value their lives.

No, it's based on the fact that they don't even comprehend what a 'value of life' is and the fact that I am an omnivore that enjoys eating them.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 8:13 amThis (self-interested) denial seems so intractable that continuing the discussion is pointless.

I'm not denying anything, in fact you are.

Are you going to deny the fact that you have spent more time today fretting over a chicken in a coup about its pending death, than the chicken in the coup did?

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Jul 14, 2023 7:46 pm
A person has natural rights.

Where can one get a copy of these rights?

Harry’s arguments, Atto, have a consistent logic and make good sense when the terms are understood.

Henry’s “natural rights” argument implies a giver of rights. Or do we grant rights to ourself arbitrarily?

If natural rights exist for us, then some level of rights must exist for them. If not, we undermine our own right.

All animals seek to preserve their life. Their very ‘person’ is their physical self. They value themselves — obviously.

Harry’s predicates imply a philosophy of non-harmfulness: ahimsa. Or harming (other life) to the least degree as one can.

ahimsa, (Sanskrit: “noninjury”) in the Indian religions of Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, the ethical principle of not causing harm to other living things.

It involves a specific or developed way of seeing ‘the world’.

Note: Jains and those of the Eastern schools say it is better to kill and eat a creature on a lower rung of consciousness (a chicken) rather than one on a higher rung (a cow). Fish would be very low (and some observant Hindus will eat fish occasionally though mostly vegetarian.)

The philosophical system is based on the recognition of a law of karma. What I do to another will necessarily be done to me (in one way or another — eventually — in an eternal Cosmos.)

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 8:22 am Are you going to deny the fact that you have spent more time today fretting over a chicken in a coup about its pending death, than the chicken in the coup did?

The entire world (of life and beings) does not think of itself. We are the only ones who do or can. Thinking and ‘fretting’ form the base of morality. No thought, no moral sense.

The issue being discussed is one of substantial importance. It is one of the ultimate and emergent ethical and moral questions.

I tend to see, say, a chicken farm as a realm of “created life”. We brought all those beings into existence specially to consume them. They were created for that end. Same with the other animals we cultivate. Without that cultivation billions of animal lives would never have existed. In that sense we “own” them. If they have rights those rights are intuitively obvious: not to be made to suffer unnecessarily.

And any living creature must eventually die. And the creatures physical self is recycled into the system of life.

So it is “life” really that is the murderer.

This goes out especially to Atto.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 2:19 pm This goes out especially to Atto.

LMAO!!

That is amazing, not even CGI. Chicken apocalypse..death by chicken.

I'd hate to be the guy rounding them back up for bed time!

btw looks like Australia is going to phase out caged egg production by 2036. Note to Harry, I always attempt to get my eggs from 'free range' source.

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 4:14 pmI'd hate to be the guy rounding them back up for bed time!

They go back in of their own accord when night come on.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 5:57 pm

attofishpi wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 4:14 pmI'd hate to be the guy rounding them back up for bed time!

They go back in of their own accord when night come on.

Ya, I was kidding.

I'd hate to be the guy that has to read them bed time stories (Harry)


...and they all lived happily ever after.

*Apart from Geraldine who got turned into a delicious pie.

Chaz Bufe
Reasons to Abandon Christianity

Christianity not only reduces, for all practical purposes, the question of morality to that of sexual behavior, but by listing its prohibitions, it encourages an "everything not prohibited is permitted" mentality. So, for instance, medieval inquisitors tortured their victims, while at the same time they went to lengths to avoid spilling the blood of those they tortured—though they thought nothing of burning them alive.

Of course, this is often the case for all objectivist dogmas. Check out the Nazis for example. The whole "the end justifies the means" mentality.

It's just that for Christians the end includes immortality and salvation. So the "infidels" become all the more despised. Still, some Christians might remind us that those ghastly behaviors are now a thing of the past. Christians today rarely torture or set fire to apostates.

On the other hand, what are we to make of Hell then?

Another very relevant example is that until the latter part of the 19th century Christians engaged in the slave trade, and Christian preachers defended it, citing biblical passages, from the pulpit.

Basically, we can "thank" capitalism for that. Why take on the burden and the expense of actually enslaving men, women and children when you can turn them into wage slaves. After they punch out they're on their own.

Today, with the exception of a relatively few liberal churchgoers, Christians ignore the very real evils plaguing our society—poverty; homelessness; hunger; militarism; a grossly unfair distribution of wealth and income; ecological despoliation exacerbated by corporate greed; overpopulation; sexism; racism; homophobia; freedom-denying, invasive drug laws; an inadequate educational system; etc., etc.—unless they're actively working to worsen those evils in the name of Christian morality or "family values."

Still, each and every Christian community will only become more or less a manifestation of this. The bottom line is that, historically, with the Reformation, Christianity and capitalism came more and more into alignment. And now in fact there are any number of preachers around the globe that make "the bottom line" their own.

Or as Frederick opined to Lee:

"You see the whole culture. Nazis, deodorant salesmen, wrestlers, beauty contests, a talk show. Can you imagine the level of a mind that watches wrestling? But the worst are the fundamentalist preachers. Third grade con men telling the poor suckers that watch them that they speak with Jesus, and to please send in money. Money, money, money! If Jesus came back and saw what's going on in his name, he'd never stop throwing up."

Atheists shysters that became preachers (to the super stupid in da flock)

No way dude. None of those cockroaches are intelligent enough to be atheists.

They really do believe in god, but what they do is rationalize how they work, what they do and their role with the church; I'm a professional, this is a job which I should rightfully be paid to do, running a church isn't free and costs money, etc.

I didn't click the link but I can imagine, I've seen enough of the evangelical puke worthy preaching in USA.

Guess they can afford a blender large enough for a camel

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 1:47 amI led with the term "natural rights", which is, unless I'm misunderstanding, one of your preferred terms.

Ah, my mistake then: when you said you challenged me on my terms I assumed you meant on my terms, not my terms.

What I want to know is what it is (on your view) about a person that qualifies him/her for natural rights, and why you think non-human sentient beings lack it (and, if applicable, which non-human sentient beings you do think possess it.

For the purposes of this conversation, I'm interested in personhood only insofar as it pertains to those attributes of a being which qualify that being for moral consideration

*sigh*

Fine.

("natural rights" in your terms, if I understand correctly).

Same page check: what do you think I mean when I talk about natural rights?

My working answer (open to revision), then, to the question as to what those attributes are is:

Sentience, especially the capacity to feel, and most especially the capacity to suffer. This confers on that being the right not to be harmed where that harm can be avoided or minimized.

So, someone afflicted with congenital insensitivity to pain has no such right?

The holding of preferences, wants, and desires. This confers on that being the right to have its preferences, wants, and desires respected where they don't interfere with those of other beings.

This (preferences, wants, and desires) seems to call for sumthin' more than just sentience (being able to perceive or feel).

My working answer: a person is a being naturally and normally capable of and subject to moral judgement. Sorry, I can't just lay out a laundry list of attributes, not without some examination of each. For example, I say only free wills are capable of and subject to moral judgement. What, then, is a free will? From there we go into agent causality vs event causality, the coherence and persistence of identity, the nature of morality, and on and on. But you wanna work backwards...*shrug*...okay, we'll work backwards.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Jul 15, 2023 8:39 am

henry quirk wrote: ↑Fri Jul 14, 2023 7:46 pm
A person has natural rights.

Where can one get a copy of these rights?

Here ya go...

Harbal is a free will with a natural, inalienable right to his, and no other's life, liberty, and property.