I don’t believe this is a straw man argument, I never claim that they believe these conclusions. Quite the opposite, I am showing how their argument, not their conclusion, is not good. As I understand their argument, it is basically this:
(i) If something does not want to be killed, it is morally wrong to kill it. (ii) Animals do not want to be killed. Thus, it is morally wrong to kill animals.
I do not agree with (i), which I try to explain by reductio ad absurdum, arguing that if (i) is true it leads to obviously incorrect conclusions, thus (i) must be false.
AA5B@lemmy.world 1 year ago
So we can all agree that it’s morally ok to eat a carrot, but not to eat a human. The difference is sentience. The hard part is where exactly to draw the line. Which side of the line is a cow on? A fish? A bug?
beeple@slrpnk.net 1 year ago
This guy thought about that question, if you wanted to see that perspective.
reducing-suffering.org/how-much-direct-suffering-…
AA5B@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Yeah, I see he’s thought it through and generated numbers, but it’s counter-intuitive to say we should give up fish for beef, or that milk causes more suffering than beef
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
no. it’s not. the difference is that one of them is human.
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
why should sentience matter?
AA5B@lemmy.world 1 year ago
We could certainly discuss that, but it appears to, regardless of whether there is a good reason.
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 year ago
I disagree that it matters in any obvious sense.
oo1@kbin.social 1 year ago
I'm not a meat eater personally.
But I don't understand why people who like to eat meat don't eat human.
I think there are, or have been, some who do. It's seems cultural, and a bit of a luxury to be wasteful.
I don't think there's any socially agreed line between "good" and "bad".
I reckon people mostly do what their culture prefers or tolerates.
Different cultures have different ranges of acceptable behavior from different people fulfilling different roles within them . Most people are members of many sub-cultures going right down to small family groups , professional associations, work-teams, sports teams and so on. There'll be some sort of consequence for transgression, maybe verbal shaming, spitting in someone's beer, withheld services, exclusion from jobs, or expulsion from the group.
Sometimes people (in power) agree to put in laws and expend resources on enforcement instead of cultural norms; probably because the clashes within or between (sub)cultures and the inconsistent treatment of transgressions becomes too costly or disruptive.
That's when you get a "line" that says "wrong", once its been put into an enforced law. Even then the law, and enforcement, is always still a bit blurry. partial, and biassed so it's really just a formalisation of the process for administering the consequences of transgression.
i think it is possible to find things that look similar in other social animals too like, other apes, wild dogs, things with pecking orders , rats and so on. I wonder if there are even roles similar to " police" in some non-human cultures?