Is Moral Value Primarily Determined by Ability to Suffer?

[Lou]

Totally agree with Jaime but.... (of course you knew there would be a but)

Some of his suggestions are going to be pretty hard (but still worthwhile) to make.

But here is something to keep in mind.

Just 100 companies have been the source of more than 70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions since 1988, according to a new report.

...half of global industrial emissions since 1988 .... can be traced to just 25 corporate and state-owned entities

So normal people can affect GHG production but both our investments (does you mutual fund invest in energy-producing companies?). Even more important we need policy changes. So how we vote might be the most important contribution to climate change we can make.

Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says

A relatively small number of fossil fuel producers and their investors could hold the key to tackling climate change

www.theguardian.com

 

[Poppy]

Probably I'm just splitting hairs, and it probably doesn't make much difference in the long run..... but

"A tree, a daffodil, an oyster has value because it is a valuable part of the ecosystem"

It seems to me to be an environmental reason.

I interpret an "environmental reason" to mean that an action will, in the end, benefit humans - like we're always trying to save the environment so our species can live here longer. The point I'm trying to make, and obviously not doing well, is that a lively and vibrant ecosystem, with or without self-awareness, has value. Life has value whether or not it feels or thinks like we do. I think (hope?) this planet will repair itself and thrive when the age of humans is over.

 

[Lou]

You made your point. I'm just a nitpicker.

an action will, in the end, benefit humans -

is also an ethical reason. there is a school of ethics called Altruism

"Altruism holds that the moral value of an individual's actions depends solely on the impact on other individuals, regardless of the consequences on the individual itself." So recycling and conserving does not benefit YOU but benefits US.

There are also some aspects of Utilitarianism in there. Which brings us full circle. Jeremy Bentham is considered to be the founder of the school of Utilitarianism.

I'm not a very good philosopher. but I do like to dabble.

Altruism (ethics) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Utilitarianism - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Jamie in Chile]

We can't really blame these 100 companies only when we all use their products whenever we do something so simple as fill up our car or turn our heater on. They are just meeting our demand.

More people need to get off fossil fuel by finding a way to avoid or reduce using fossil fuels for heat, electricity and transport in their personal lives and so become better advocates.

 

[Forest Nymph]

The problem with the bolded, is that you start getting people who think it's OK to eat oysters.

Some people do think it's okay to eat bivalves because they're like an evolutionary holding place between a plant and an animal. Not entirely, sea sponges were actually the first animal (according to biology classes I took) but bivalves are right there in the mix somewhere.

Any convincing argument I've seen against eating bivalves is environmental. I do not consider it to be a moral imperative in terms of animal cruelty.

 

[Forest Nymph]

We can't really blame these 100 companies only when we all use their products whenever we do something so simple as fill up our car or turn our heater on. They are just meeting our demand.

More people need to get off fossil fuel by finding a way to avoid or reduce using fossil fuels for heat, electricity and transport in their personal lives and so become better advocates.

Thank you for pointing this out. One thing I hated about switching into Social Science last semester were all the people wanting to blame "the system" for everything, like it was something that they as reasonably comfortable graduate students could excuse themselves for, in terms of eating meat or really not doing xyz for the environment. I've also seen this trash on Twitter. It is the left-wing version of right-wing capitalist non-sense that harms animals and the environment. I find it grotesquely childish, selfish, over-simplified, and pseudo-intellectual.

It's like ...no...you don't do something you know that is wrong if you have a choice. Period. "Some people in food deserts can't be vegan" or "this is racist" is the dumbest excuse I've ever heard to be an asshat in my life. It absolutely infuriates me.

One woman used to interrupt my presentations by clearing her throat loudly, shuffling papers around, whispering to other people, and then repeatedly said to me "why should we care about animals suffering, THERE ARE PEOPLE SUFFERING" like the two things are in any way mutually exclusive. She also looked for Israeli Zionist clues like someone wearing a tin foil hat. I still hate her.

 

[Forest Nymph]

I interpret an "environmental reason" to mean that an action will, in the end, benefit humans - like we're always trying to save the environment so our species can live here longer. The point I'm trying to make, and obviously not doing well, is that a lively and vibrant ecosystem, with or without self-awareness, has value. Life has value whether or not it feels or thinks like we do. I think (hope?) this planet will repair itself and thrive when the age of humans is over.

I disagree with this since we're living in the 6th mass extinction. First I want to congratulate you for understanding things are all connected and helping plants and trees and the ecosystem is helping animals, and that you want to do more. On the other hand it's incorrect to assume that non-human animals are gonna thrive if humans live the way they do right now for even a few more decades. Wildlife is dying. Mammals are endangered. Any vegan who ignores this honestly doesn't seem much like a vegan to me, at least not for animal rights purposes. Maybe you just didn't know this, but if humans die we're taking millions of species with us.

 

[beancounter]

Some people do think it's okay to eat bivalves because they're like an evolutionary holding place between a plant and an animal.

Source?

Any convincing argument I've seen against eating bivalves is environmental. I do not consider it to be a moral imperative in terms of animal cruelty.

I'd say robbing another animal of its existence is cruel, even if that animal is unaware of its existence.

 

[Poppy]

I disagree with this since we're living in the 6th mass extinction. First I want to congratulate you for understanding things are all connected and helping plants and trees and the ecosystem is helping animals, and that you want to do more. On the other hand it's incorrect to assume that non-human animals are gonna thrive if humans live the way they do right now for even a few more decades. Wildlife is dying. Mammals are endangered. Any vegan who ignores this honestly doesn't seem much like a vegan to me, at least not for animal rights purposes. Maybe you just didn't know this, but if humans die we're taking millions of species with us.

Oh I think you're right. Absolutely. But I think that over vast stretches of time, the earth will thrive again and life (who knows in what forms) will come back.

I think the human race will go out in flames and take a whole lot of what is here with us. How having that opinion makes me a rotten vegan escapes me. I'm certainly doing what I can while I can for animal rights, although I'm pretty pessimistic that it will do any good in the long run.

 

[Luis Halson]

Eating oysters is sort-of ethical, because they probably can't suffer, but you shouldn't eat them just in case they can suffer. Plants definetly can't suffer - they have hormones, but not a nervous system.

 

[Lou]

I've become a big fan of Vox.
I subscribe to one of their newsletters and today's included a link to this article.

America’s Covid-19 hot spots shed a light on our moral failures

It’s no accident that prisons and meatpacking plants are hotbeds of Covid-19.

www.vox.com

There were several lines in it that reminded me of this thread. And one of the things I like about it is that it looks at the same stuff we look at but thru the lens of Covid-19.

Definitely worth a read. And some thinking time.
If nothing else, read the first 4 or 5 paragraphs. I think this article should be some good food for thought and help create some interesting conversations.

 

[Jamie in Chile]

I also like Vox, but keep it mind it has liberal bias.

The original 2010 piece referred to by Kwame Anthony Appiah (first link in above article) is excellent. Reccomended.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/24/AR2010092404113.html?sid=ST2010100105284

 

[Hog]

Lou referred to a great Vox article about how Covid-19 reveals social inequality in the United States.

My grandmother died in her own home at around the age of 65. Fortunately, she never had to visit a nursing home. When she died, I felt like I had been disloyal to my grandmother. Thus, I visited a nursing home twice a week for five years in order to show respect for my dead grandmother. From my memory, people did not worry about germs back then as they do now. Nobody discouraged me from visiting the nursing home during the flu season. I could get a kiss from 6 little old ladies in one day. These ladies generally gave out slobbery kisses. Still, spreading germs was not on my radar screen.

Some of the old ladies referred to the flu as their friend. They actually wanted to die sooner rather than later. Some of the ladies wanted to hold on to life for as long as possible. In my opinion, it is an individual decision.

I recently had a discussion with my wife about my final wishes when it is time for me to die. In particular, I would prefer a fast natural death than an extended stay in a nursing home. I will take pain killers that keeps me comfortable even if those pain killers hasten my death.

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Vox left out another important group that experiences social inequality. This group of individuals is students in public school settings. For example, we cram 40 teenagers with raging hormones in small classrooms and wonder why there are so many behavior problems. We also introduce concepts to students far earlier than they are developmentally ready to learn. Many students look at the impossibly difficult work and just give up.

I never taught high school math. Yet, I know far more math than the average high school teacher. Thus, I have a good sense of what is important in math and what is not important. Most of the math that students learn is useless convoluted garbage. Still, federal, state, and local governments create unrealistically high expectations for student achievement. Thus, the teachers feel intense pressure to teach our young students worthless cr@p.

Both of my sons are considered gifted in math. Maybe they are gifted. Maybe they are not. I used a simple strategy to make them look gifted in math. I pulled out a calculus textbook and read the chapter that taught all the prerequisites of calculus. If the math concept was not covered in the chapter of prerequisite skills, then I did not cover the topic.

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Here is the connection back to veganism. Little old ladies should have the ability to make meaningful decisions about how they want there lives to end. I certainly do not want a slow death in an unnatural environment such as a nursing home. Young students do not like participating in meaningless learning activities in a cramped unnatural environment. Nursing homes and high schools remind me of factory farms. No pig wants to live a meaningless life in a cramped farm with his or her face rammed up someone's rear end. Maybe some pigs actually want to sleep in their own feces. But, that should be a personal choice made by the individual pig.

 

[Lou]

I also like Vox, but keep it mind it has liberal bias.

The original 2010 piece referred to by Kwame Anthony Appiah (first link in above article) is excellent. Reccomended.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/24/AR2010092404113.html?sid=ST2010100105284

In my book Liberal bias = smart

And thanks for the link.

 

[Lou]

Vox left out another important group that experiences social inequality. This group of individuals is students in public school settings.

That is a good point. (you made a lot of other good ones as well)

We could add even more to the list - but I think drawing the line at 4 was a pretty good call.

The student population also doesn't show up in the Covid-19 lens, being that schools were one of the first places closed. here in Blue California anyway. Then again when Governor Newsome suggested opening schools in July the PTA and Teachers Union screamed "bloody murder".

Back to social inequities - I have been reading about the situation in public schools in Chicago. Talk about criminal negligence.

 

[Mischief]

I don't see ability to suffer as bestowing moral value. However, I think that whether an action causes suffering can determine in large part whether the action is moral.

 

[Lou]

I don't see ability to suffer as bestowing moral value. However, I think that whether an action causes suffering can determine in large part whether the action is moral.

That is what he meant.

 

[Graeme M]

Hello all. I haven't read previous comments in depth nor did I watch the video, but I did want to offer a thought. The first thing I would observe is that no creature has, in my opinion, a right to life. Right to life, if such a right is to exist, is entirely a human construct and thus humans are the ones that get to decide which creatures have moral value. Secondly, as far as whether sensory experiences/consciousness etc are valid measures, well, I am assuming that Chalmers is saying that sensory experiences excluding pain also have moral value (because pain IS a sensory experience). Francione argues tht only sentience and in particular the ability to suffer counts, and to an extent I think I agree with that. Holding that any animal has the same moral value as any other in terms of our right to utilise them seems arbitrary and at odds with the way things are.

So I would say that yes, life (whether plant, animal, fungi etc) has a moral value in some regards, though quite what that might mean is open to question (for example, a forest might have both an ecological and moral value) and might require a bit of discussion. But the moral value we might be concerned about as vegans I think does rather rest on the capacity for genuine pain and suffering (though even there a lot depends on what we mean, and whether pain and suffering really exist). To be honest, I tend to think that cognitive capacity is at least as important and might b a major distinction between humans and most other animals.

 

[silva]

"Holding that any animal has the same moral value as any other in terms of our right to utilise them seems arbitrary and at odds with the way things are."

The way things are is fluid

 

[Graeme M]

As I said.