Help me debate!!!

[Lay Vegan]

There are two issues you'd need to establish. Firstly you'd need to show that "subjective experience" is in fact morally relevant

I’ve explained multiple times in this very thread how and why sentience is relevant to moral consideration, you’re just ignoring it. Not sure if you aren’t capable of understanding it or if you just disagree due to bias. And based on the history of our exchanges, you don’t like to concede any points you personally disagree with.

and secondly you'd need to show that it is the only morally relevant characteristic.

Not sure how asking me about race, gender, etc addresses either of these issues.


By encouraging you to connect factors like race, gender, and sexual orientation to moral value I’m trying to drive home the point the they are all irrelevant. You haven’t even attempted to do this, so you either agree or don’t have a good enough response.

Also its not clear what it would mean to take "interests" into consideration, how do you evaluate the "interests" of an animal?

Taking an individuals interests into consideration means understanding that nonhuman animals can be harmed and benefited, and avoiding actions that cause unnecessary suffering.

The demonstrated interests of nonhuman animals (like a desire not to be harmed) can be evaluated by their related behavior in reaction to positive and negative stimuli (and in their responses to operant conditioning).

http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf

An ability for sentience doesn't tell you how exactly an animal experiences the world and which experiences they may have.

If the animal is sentient then they can be harmed or benefited. Their interests to avoid harm can be violated. This isn’t the same as saying if an animal sentient then it can feel pain. Or that all sentient beings feel the same kind/degree of pain.

You can agree that animals have "intrinsic value" while still denying rights them rights.

I assume you mean "moral value" here. Why? You should justify why sentient non-human animals with intrinsic value should only be given “indirect rights.”

Where do you think rights come from? And again, do you agree with the OP’s friend that children are only to be given rights by virtue of their relationship with "human society" i.e. their parents? If so, why??

[Lay Vegan]

I will read the link.
As a vegan, I don't think I can make a utilitarian argument trying to convince him to be vegan and then say I don't follow the philosophy. This is because I'm trying to explain to him what compels my actions.
I don't understand how that wouldn't disprove my argument? If he believes that utilitarianism is flawed, and I also agree for many reasons, then I can't just say I only agree with consequentialism in this case. He will never agree to this inconsistency. If you agree with a philosophical view, it has to be universal or your argument doesn't hold up. You can't really have a concrete argument and then be inconsistent with your ethical stance. I'm searching for another angle to take.

EDIT:

I think I understand what you mean here. You're asking for a strong deontological argument to convince your friend that animals have rights. Is this correct? If so, I'm not the person who can help you here. But I can advise you to steer clear of deontology, since it's pure nonsense (read my initial response to you for more context).

The best thing you can do is poke holes in his "logic" and use the socratic method to draw out his hidden presumptions regarding moral consideration and animal rights.


I also now understand that you are not a consequentialist. My apologies.

May I ask; why are you a vegan? Do you think it is wrong to cause unnecessary suffering to nonhuman animals? If so, why? Can you ever justify killing or harming animals for food? The

[DAVEWISHENGRAD]

Disregard all comments that someone said that person can be vegan. That's just not true. Live vegan? Yes. Go vegan? Yes
Labeling people as their actions is telling lies. Unfortunately, many people living a vegan lifestyle do not know this. It's a huge problem currently negatively affecting debates about veganism.

Here is how you I suggest you handle the debate. Please keep in mind that I have probably talked with more people (one on one) about not eating the animals for needless reasons than probably anyone alive on earth.

Start with the truth. The most important truth life has. If a person does not agree it is true, they are refusing to care or play fair.
That truth is: "Life is Most Important in Life". Anything that disagree with that truth must be a lie. There is never an exception.
That's why calling someone a vegan is telling lies. We are each most important and thus equal. It is also the one truth all other truths depend on to be true themselves. Without that truth being true, nothing is true.

You can't can "it". Each person is unique and you must work with their capacity to understand.
They must show how the needless killing of the animals is in the best interest of life in general in order that the action to eat the animals is the truthful thing to do. It's up to you to prove they don't need to do it. If they care about the the truth they will choose the truth. if they don't care about the truth that is their choice to make.

[brimstoneSalad]

"I ask him why he thinks that humans without moral agency deserve rights and he doesn't have an argument to refute. But, this obviously isn't enough for him to change his point of view."

To deal with this one can invoke the nation of indirect rights. So its not that a severely mentally retarded human has rights themselves but instead that they derive indirect rights by having a relationship with a human society. Animals can also gain indirect rights by having relationships to people, for example, a pet dog has certain "rights" that a stray dog does not. See here for more information:

http://www.iep.utm.edu/anim-eth/

The same for children. However, you'd have to bite the bullet on that one and say if the parents or guardians of the child/mentally retarded person/etc. want to sell the being into slavery or kill it for meat that's perfectly OK because they inherit protection only from their owners' citizenship status.

Once somebody accepts that there's not much to argue, although the resulting system doesn't resemble what most people are talking about when we discuss morality.

[Lay Vegan]

The same for children. However, you'd have to bite the bullet on that one and say if the parents or guardians of the child/mentally retarded person/etc. want to sell the being into slavery or kill it for meat that's perfectly OK because they inherit protection only from their owners' citizenship status.

Once somebody accepts that there's not much to argue, although the resulting system doesn't resemble what most people are talking about when we discuss morality.

They may bite the bullet for the sake of argument, but most people, including the one's using this argument, would not accept child slavery as moral just because their parental "owners" consent to it, or because the child has no direct relationship to the larger society. I'm aways skeptical when people resort to these kinds of extreme justifications for the sake of consistency.

This reminds me of Destiny's weird ideas of where children's rights come from (potential to grow and respect social contract).

It would be far easier and more honest to accept that children are sentient individuals with interests of their own to be respected. Likewise with (most) nonhuman animals.

[brimstoneSalad]

This reminds me of Destiny's weird ideas of where children's rights come from (potential to grow and respect social contract).

Yes, and the "potential" argument doesn't work because it depends on circumstance.

A child who is denied the opportunity to learn language & socialize will never grow to respect social contract.
And pretty much any intelligent animal could be trained to respect social contract with enough work (whatever simple rules there are: don't bite, don't poop there, etc.).

Not only does this make abortion a no-go, but it makes killing *any* cell a no-go. With no limitations of circumstance, your average skin cell has the same potential (put it into a developing fetus to convert it into a stem cell, grow it into an embryo, implant it into a womb, and eventually it can become a person. This kind of stuff: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/mar/02/cambridge-scientists-create-first-self-developing-embryo-from-stem-cells)

It become very absurd very fast.

It would be far easier and more honest to accept that children are sentient individuals with interests of their own to be respected. Likewise with (most) nonhuman animals.

Not only easier and more honest, it's the only option you have if you want a practicable system of ethics.

[Lay Vegan]

Yes, and the "potential" argument doesn't work because it depends on circumstance.

A child who is denied the opportunity to learn language & socialize will never grow to respect social contract.
And pretty much any intelligent animal could be trained to respect social contract with enough work (whatever simple rules there are: don't bite, don't poop there, etc.).

Not only does this make abortion a no-go, but it makes killing *any* cell a no-go. With no limitations of circumstance, your average skin cell has the same potential (put it into a developing fetus to convert it into a stem cell, grow it into an embryo, implant it into a womb, and eventually it can become a person. This kind of stuff: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/mar/02/cambridge-scientists-create-first-self-developing-embryo-from-stem-cells)

It become very absurd very fast.

Yikes.

Following this, how could such a person morally argue against masturbation? By doing so, you're essentially "killing" your sperm cells. What's worse, intervening on rape means cutting off the potential for an egg to be fertilized with sperm to develop into a child to grow and respect the social contract. Men and women would not have the right to say no.

So masturbation, birth control, consent etc. would all be tossed out the window.

Again, yikes.

[brimstoneSalad]

@Lay Vegan Yep, that's why it's such a terrible argument. People making the "potential" argument either just haven't thought about it, aren't smart enough to understand the implications, or have chosen a path of intellectual (or actual) dishonesty in ignoring those problems.

[Lay Vegan]

A child who is denied the opportunity to learn language & socialize will never grow to respect social contract

Also, I'm glad you mentioned this, because I wanted you to clear this up. If I decide children's rights are founded solely on the ability to grow and respect the social contract, wouldn't abortion technically be justified? By killing the fetus, you are ending it's potential to grow and respect the contract, and thus retroactively taking its rights away (an aborted child has no ability to grow into an adult). I might be confusing actual ability versus potential to grow and respect social contract, but I'd like you to clear that up.

[brimstoneSalad]

Also, I'm glad you mentioned this, because I wanted you to clear this up. If I decide children's rights are founded solely on the ability to grow and respect the social contract, wouldn't abortion technically be justified? By killing the fetus, you are ending it's potential to grow and respect the contract, and thus retroactively taking its rights away (an aborted child has no ability to grow into an adult).

Correct.

There are two ways of looking at potential:

1. Potential due to the actual circumstances, in which case it's fine to kill a child a fraction of a second before he or she realizes respect for social contract, or as I said, prevent it from happening due to abuse (which justifies more abuse).
"A child who is denied the opportunity to learn language & socialize will never grow to respect social contract."

Or:

2. Potential in ideal circumstances, in which case you can't masturbate, you have to respect the equal rights of skin cells, etc. because these could all become beings respecting social contract in the right conditions.

I might be confusing actual ability versus potential to grow and respect social contract, but I'd like you to clear that up.

You're not confusing anything, "potential" is a pretty incoherent concept if you remove it from actual environment/situational context.