How much do other animals suffer?

[NickNack]

@teo123
Your moral system is going to brake down pretty fast if you don't value sentience and only souls. Would a non-sentient object with a soul deserve more moral consideration then a creature without a soul that has sentience?

[teo123]

@teo123
Your moral system is going to brake down pretty fast if you don't value sentience and only souls. Would a non-sentient object with a soul deserve more moral consideration then a creature without a soul that has sentience?

Well, I think most people agree "sentient" robots should not have rights, and equate sentience with soul. That is, I think most people believe "sentient without a soul" is impossible.

[NickNack]

@teo123
It doesn't matter if sentience can exist without the soul or not. Its a hypothetical question that is meant to test the consistency of your moral system. But its a very big coincidence that the soul and sentience always need to be interlocked, but you say its the soul that has moral value and not the sentience.

I can tell you why sentience has moral value. Because if you believe in empathy, you should care about what its like to be in others shoes. And if something is sentient, you can imagine what its like to be in their shoes. If you don't believe in empathy, then its pretty pointless to talk to you about morals.

So what is it about the soul that gives it moral value? What qualities does a soul have leading you to respect someone with a soul? And what do you think is wrong with my reasoning leading to sentience having moral value?

[teo123]

@teo123
It doesn't matter if sentience can exist without the soul or not. Its a hypothetical question that is meant to test the consistency of your moral system. But its a very big coincidence that the soul and sentience always need to be interlocked, but you say its the soul that has moral value and not the sentience.

I can tell you why sentience has moral value. Because if you believe in empathy, you should care about what its like to be in others shoes. And if something is sentient, you can imagine what its like to be in their shoes. If you don't believe in empathy, then its pretty pointless to talk to you about morals.

So what is it about the soul that gives it moral value? What qualities does a soul have leading you to respect someone with a soul? And what do you think is wrong with my reasoning leading to sentience having moral value?

If you think that argument is likely to convince people, use it. I think it is not, but I don't have much evidence of that, it is just my intuition.

[NickNack]

@teo123
If its an argument with zero flaws, then it has more to stand on, meaning its more likely to convince people. But are you interested in telling me what you think is logically wrong with my reasoning? If your not, you can just say so and Ill leave you alone.

[teo123]

@teo123
If its an argument with zero flaws, then it has more to stand on, meaning its more likely to convince people. But are you interested in telling me what you think is logically wrong with my reasoning? If your not, you can just say so and Ill leave you alone.

How correct an argument is has little to do with how convincing it is. As Matt Dillahunty says, the problem of evil is a relatively good argument against the existence of God, but it is unlikely to convince people who have their ears filled with a ton of "refutations" of it. The arguments of ships disappearing bottom first as they pass over the horizon is also unlikely to convince a Flat-Earther, even though it is objectively a rather good argument, for the same reason.

[NickNack]

@teo123
I'm just doing the best I can to convince others. If you think you have data on what convinces people more, then be my guest to show me that data. But when I think about it, I would probably lean more towards disagreeing with your statement about how correct an argument is has little to do with how convincing it is. I think there are other things that can get in the way of logic like dogmatism and shit but I still think correctness has a good chunk of convincing power. Correctness is just proper human understanding and all we have is human understanding so we might as well use our human understanding to the maximum capacity we can. Some use less human understanding, and others use more. But its all still human understanding non the less. Its an inescapable thing to not use human understanding because its all we can do. Whenever we experience anything or think of a specific concept, we have to understand what its like to experience that thing or understand that concept, and if we think of the concept or experience the sensation, then we understand something, which is human understanding, since we are a human understanding something. When we use logic or philosophy, all we are doing is diving into our human understanding deeper then normal. So I think its within everyone's nature to use their human understanding to some degree, so I would say its a very natural thing for people to use logic or philosophy since its part of our nature, since all logic and philosophy is simply using our human understanding to a bigger degree.

And Ill ask again, are you going to answer my question about why the soul has moral value? And do you think if something has sentience, then that gives it moral value?

[brimstoneSalad]

But when you bring up the point about how there are benefits to acting like animals suffer even if they don't, I feel like that could only lead people to be plant based and not necessarily vegan, so I think there are certain things that can only be argued through the scope of assuming animals suffer. Plant based eaters might have a steak on very few rare occasions with very little detriment to their health or the environment but vegans have a moral stance and wouldn't actually be vegan if they knowingly ate a steak once a year.

You misunderstood. I'm talking about something akin to Pascal's wager in moral terms.

[NickNack]

@brimstoneSalad
Oh that might work. Id have to think about that. My only question would be where do you draw the line? Do we give plants the benefit of the doubt that they feel pain? What about non living things? I guess my question would be on what things do you say we can use a moral benefit of the doubt type argument and where can we not?

[brimstoneSalad]

@brimstoneSalad
Oh that might work. Id have to think about that. My only question would be where do you draw the line? Do we give plants the benefit of the doubt that they feel pain? What about non living things? I guess my question would be on what things do you say we can use a moral benefit of the doubt type argument and where can we not?

There are two factors:

1. Personal benefit vs detriment
Animal agriculture is comparatively detrimental to the world and not necessary, plant agriculture is at least in some form necessary and there's no less harmful viable option.

2. Qualifiability
We can qualify what generally certain animals want or don't want done to them because they have behavioral signs that, if they have moral value, tell us what is relevant to that. What does it mean to do right by a rock or a plant? There's no indication of what that would be. Even if they are of moral value somehow there's no indication what that means so we're flying completely blind and can not make informed choices with respect to them -- thus it is irrelevant to the analysis.