Why are animal rights suporters so intolerant?

Of course it's not convincing..

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Have you learned the difference between the concept "pet" and the concept "animal" yet ?

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Trippy, since when does anyone extend human rights to animals?

 

We're looking at it different ways. I don't see what the animal rights activists are doing as extending human rights to animals because a human in bondage would have the right to choose to reproduce and to stay alive. Abolitionists never advocated preventing slaves from reproducing or killing them to save them from suffering. They never hauled away large numbers of them to kill them en masse the way that PETA does. They never advocated separating freed slaves from the rest of human society. They never forcibly removed slaves who wanted to stay. They never declared people who were once slaves to be unfit to live or reproduce, the way that AR does with animals.

AR is not giving animals any rights. It's fighting to death against the basic rights that an animal might have.

I have not just been following the discussion, I have often been leading it. :thumbsup:

 

Which 'AR people'? You're just dealing in generalities and tying yourself up in knots in the process.

 

I know what I am talking about. Do you?

 

Not if you base morality on what can & cant experience pain (which animal rights/welfare activists generally do IME).

No because sponges cant/dont experience pain. As for Hydras, they dont have a brain id imagine theyre able to phenomenally experience anything that we'd typically think of as 'pain', and since theyre practically microscopic to the point where even meat-eaters dont bother eating them, it seems like a bit of non-issue all round.

They have no locus with which to process/experience pain, that's how its different.

Well my point was, if you think morality based upon what we reasonably assume is conscious experience of pain is purely arbitrary, then surely animal welfare acts by extension must be misguided and arbitrary? - i.e. why not give rights to ferns/sponges/hedges as well..

I understand that. What im trying to establish is what foundations you base your moral judgement on if you dont think 'capacity to experience pain' qualifies as one.

No i think this where youre making a huge mistake. There's really is a massive difference between a 'best guess' and something that's completely arbitrary.
Of course we cant know the finite point at which something 'becomes' conscious or able to experience pain, but the process we employ to make a reasonable estimate is far from random.

Of course. And all im trying to do is find out what you think that construct is based upon.

Well im thinking more along the lines of the first philosophers who began challenging humans as 'a means unto themselves and animals as a 'means to an ends'. Of course im sure not all vegetarians will agree with my assessment of the moral causes of vegetarianism, but i think you'll find that there's a strong emphasis on both minimising and removing suffering from anything thats deemed capable of experiencing it.

Well im happy to be proved wrong. If you feel that your original assessment that it's death rather than suffering that motivates people to become vegetarian, then im open to any evidence that supports that view.

Yes, because they are the same as ours. Anthropomorphism is where you project human characteristics or qualities onto animals that dont have the capacity for them. Something entirely different.

Right, so again - if you dont think recognition of an entity to phenomenally experience pain is a sound basis for moral judgement, then please provide another. Im not saying my moral theory is right and yours is wrong, i just want to under what the basis for your own moral behaviour is.

 

"Unnecessary pain" is not the same thing as "no pain."

 

Sorry im not being as clear as i could be here.
The point im attempting to make is that suffering, or the capacity to suffer is the primary basis we have to treat other entities as moral creatures. In other words, when we recognise the capacity to suffer (and by extension experience) exists in another being, then we can start being moral about it. Otherwise we'd be just as busy being moral to rocks, bridges, books, toasters, etc.

This isnt take say that suffering is the be all and end all of moral treatment, obviously there's other stuff to take into account too such as 'autonomy, dignity, treating others as means rather than ends, etc'. But i think the ability to suffer is a pretty sound basis on which to form a argument for moral treatment.

 

I dont think you understand how to form an detailed, coherent argument.

IF you were at school, college or uni and happened to have a professor who agreed with your assertion that animal rights activists are, on the whole, a pretty loathsome lot. S/he would still give you an F for turning in an essay in which you treated animal rights activists as a homogeneous entity, all with the same views, and moral enterprises.

Being specific about what you're taking issue with is the first step in forming a good argument. If you leave this part out then youre not arguing, youre stereotyping and generalising.

 

How do you treat dog breeders?

 

The fact is, Heliocentric, that I am not going to let you quibble with me. Animal rights activism is totally networked by sharing ideas, personnel, and political influence. It is one entity that shows many faces to the world. The idea that an ALF terrorist and an ASPCA screwball have nothing to do with each other is simply wrong. The ALF terrorist makes it a lot easier for the ASPCA/SPCA/RSPCA to get away with dirty deeds.

Another thing that makes the AR and AW people homogeneous is the misuse of terms like "unnecessary suffering." That term is used to mislead people into thinking that normal agricultural use of animals is accepted, and a lot of people don't realize that the term is actually used to undermine use as the activists continually work to narrow what constitutes "necessary." A lot of these organizations use verbal trickery to make it look like they're on the side of the animal owner and when you read the fine print they have something in there that says that they're going to bend people over the rail.

They're one bunch to me and I could give a damn how your liberal professors would grade me.

 

That's not an argument, that's a rant. Goodbye.

 

Don't let it hit ya where the good Lord split ya.

 

I wonder how much pain Heliocentric is willing to inflict on me to prevent me from inflicting pain on animals.

 

Of course, what reason would you have to kill a fly that couldnt be easily solved by opening a door or window.

No its science. The general consensus being that you generally require a brain (and even then sufficient brain mass) to have what wed typically think of conscious experience.

It doesn't have to have a central nervous system, but presence of a central nervous system would usually indicate that you're dealing with something that can experience pain.

Probably not for 10 years or so, and no files have managed to either maim or kill me since then you'll be glad to hear!
Have you ever ridden a spaceship at an amusement park?

Because they cannot experience pain based upon the scientific knowledge we have currently amassed. Hence - reasoning about the world on the basis of empiricism, e.g. - the exact opposite of arbitrariness.

My point was, how do you gauge what has and hasn't the capacity to suffer? Since your moral framework heavily depends on sorting that one out, i assumed you must have some kind of system in place to establish its presence or absence.

How could it be arbitrary if its based upon an understanding of something? I really dont think you know what arbitrary means.

Noone is claiming that recognition of phenomenal experience (particularly pain) is %100 accurate. But we know enough about physiology to hazard a pretty decent guess.
I think what youre really arguing is that we cant be entirely sure what can and cant have consciousness, and of course in that respect i fully agree. But you have to understand that the process we use to determine what has consciousness isnt arbitrary, is fundamentally scientific.

The capacity for empathy existed long before we formed what we'd now recognise as 'civilisation'. In other words we argue and disagree about the extent of moral rules and theories, but the process of moral intuition is ultimately inherent.

My morality is more 'correct' than a african moral system btw, because my moral system is logically consist nt and is based upon a governing rule 'do not harm something that has the capacity to be harmed'.

Most moral systems only take certain types of persons/entities into moral account, while leaving others outside of the moral argument without providing good explanations for why this should be so. I.e. - why should a woman be mutalated without consent whereas for a man this would be deemed immoral? Typical answer: 'Because she's just a woman' (not a good argument, or even an argument atall).

I assumed we were talking about vegetarianism on moral grounds.

Can you please provide a reason for moral action other than recognition of a conscious, experiential being that might have the capacity to suffer.