Convince me

[James]

If you ate your neighbor's pet, you have only wronged the family and not the pet. Replace pet with daughter (or slave) and you have an all too real, biblical system of morality. That kind of moral system is in effect asking "who has equal or greater leverage than me in society?" and then exploiting everyone or everything who doesn't. If it's not frowned upon then its automatically okay.

For the record, nobody personally convinced me to become vegan, I did so on my own after seeing youtube videos, including interviews and presentations by Yourofsky. So it would be hypocritical of me to really try and convince you. But I will give my 2 cents here and there.

EDIT: From an evolutionary standpoint, its not just OK to harm animals but also to own slaves and rape women, and kill or capture people of different tribes or races.
Good for humans = good
The translation for "humans" never meant all humans, and always meant "whatever closed society or arbitrarily defined group you happen to belong to" which is one that currently excludes animals.
This is evolutionary ethics. It results in people visiting Africa, taking some slaves for themselves and sailing back home.

EDIT: Pleasure is not a compelling argument for justifying harm to others. That is hedonism. Something can't be excused just because you found a lot of pleasure in doing it. And even if it could, the amount of pleasure in meat is nowhere near enough to validate the wrongdoing, because you'd have to buy meat for the rest of life, leaving an endless trail of suffering in your wake,or you buy meat only once and live vegan for the rest of you life, which makes that single act of meat redundant. After you eat a steak, you're just going to be unhappy again, so youll need to keep eating steaks. This is of course ridiculous, because steak does not bring happiness and meat does not bring meaning to life.

I don't fully understand you're first point, I will however qualify it perhaps more radically than before so it may not be fully thought out but to give an analogy, if you broke an object your neighbor had sentimental value for, say an urn, you would only have to justify yourself to the neighbor. This logic is a direct consequence of animals not being included in your system of ethics.

Yes the parallel can be drawn between people did to other people in the past, I however find the distinction between humans and animals very important for the very reason that animals are not capable of understanding our system (I've since shrunk away from the empathy portion)

The argument at the beginning of your second edit was another that caused me a considerable pause. I think however it discounts the minute effect eating animals has on other humans. I was taken aback by the question of whether harming other people was appropriate under any circumstances (sticking with the context of the edit, and still excluding animals.) Unfortunately hedonism under such a lax description as to cause some people emotional damage, or hurt the environment means even writing in this thread, teaching me and giving me pleasure is hedonism. When it's reduced to such a passive term that minuscule environmental damage (just my effect not everyone's) and hurt feelings are the harm hedonism stops being that bad... maybe...

To your third Edit I completely disagree. I have no idea where you got the idea that I don't think that morality should evolve and get better, that's the entire purpose of a subjective morality subject to critical estimation. I just think how good it is has to be based on standards, these standards are not necessarily the system but are guidelines in how to make individual decisions on what is and isn't moral to add to the morality as a whole.

[knot]

I'll keep it short, sorry I don't have the time to address every person thoroughly. First of all, humans really aren't that special, but I am one, and I am particularly invested in making sure they do well. Yes this distinction between humans and, say earthlings is arbitrary, after all I'm an earthling too, but I'm certainly not devoted to my race (i.e. Black, White, Hispanic) against others, I just stick to things that are biologically similar to me. Arbitrary though it may be, it's part of self-preservation and you have to draw the line somewhere between all objects are important and not even yourself, I find the most distinct barrier of entry at humans but that's not an argument regarding my dietary habits.

There's nothing wrong with being committed to one's own species, but if we eat meat we also go against our own species' interests. Animal agriculture is incredibly unsustainable, a huge drain on the planet's resources and a big contributor to climate change. Combine a growing demand for meat with human overpopulation and we have a bleak future ahead of us. So even if someone is just purely egoistical, they should still go vegan for their own health and the future of their DNA! There just aren't any sane reasons to eat meat. The only people who really have a valid excuse to eat meat are those who are completely nihilistic about everything, and addicted to hard drugs that will kill them within a month. I doubt that's you

I wish morality was objective, but where would we get that objective morality from? I do indeed condemn what people consider evil acts, that doesn't mean that they are in fact evil acts or that the character performing said acts is evil. What we want is a gradation of good and evil, but what we have to settle with is our own synthetic gradation of these arbitrary systems. We have no choice but to evaluate systems of morals on what we esteem to be valid values; morality is a social construct but that doesn't make it any weaker, it does however come with the difficult consequence of needing to say "Killing is wrong." is an opinion.

I argue we get objective morality from science, so it's not something that's set in stone (like religion), but something can change as we gain more knowledge. Science helps us understand reality, and moral principles are based on being able to understand the world around us, so the two really go hand in hand. Of course one also needs empathy. It doesn't really matter how much science a psychopath knows, he'll always behave immorally and never be able to see the world from the perspective of another person or animal. But most people aren't psychos, so they don't enjoy watching films like Earthlings, where they are forced to deal with reality.

I'd definitely never say "killing is wrong", since that's way too dependent on the context. You can kill a charging grizzly bear, and no one will have a problem. But I think we can also reach conclusions that should be uncontroversial and not a matter of opinion, but simply moral truisms that are only untrue in some absurdly rare cases. For example, "intentionally killing sentient beings simply for pleasure or habit alone is always bad."

[brimstoneSalad]

I however find the distinction between humans and animals very important for the very reason that animals are not capable of understanding our system (I've since shrunk away from the empathy portion)

What you're articulating here is Randian 'Objectivism', which is deeply flawed.

Young children can not understand our system. Therefore, if children have no parents (are Orphans), you should then be OK with killing and eating them. Or if their parents willingly gave them up, so they would be property of another who then killed and ate them, that should be fine.

Likewise, the mentally retarded have great difficulty understanding the system. Even the severely autistic.

And, contrary to your assertions, non-human animals DO have some understanding of the system. That is, social ones anyway (and even some that aren't conventionally social). Social animals get the idea that we shouldn't hurt each other, even across species boundaries. You can see high degrees of species mutualism in the wild among herbivores. They mostly get along peacefully; even better than with their own species sometimes, because they're not in competition for mates.

I think however it discounts the minute effect eating animals has on other humans.

The effect is note minute. If Global warming, contributed to by six billion people, but mainly by the top billion, kills three billion people, you PERSONALLY are responsible for killing between two and three people (your fair share).

Your effect is small upon any given person, but is applied to many many people. And it's magnified for some people who, through bad luck, bear the brunt of it.

It's like smoking, but to a greater degree of harm.
The average smoker is responsible for killing 1/10th of a person, since for every ten smokers, roughly one non-smoker dies from the effects of second hand smoke.

It's the same as if ten people were to gang up and kill somebody, sharing the blame among themselves, and each considering themselves blameless.

Unfortunately hedonism under such a lax description as to cause some people emotional damage, or hurt the environment means even writing in this thread, teaching me and giving me pleasure is hedonism.

It's a question of cost and benefit. Writing posts on the internet has a very small cost, but could have a benefit if it encourages people to change their behavior. Look to the net effects upon the world as a whole.

When it's reduced to such a passive term that minuscule environmental damage (just my effect not everyone's) and hurt feelings are the harm hedonism stops being that bad... maybe...

Your effect, as I explained, is a part of the whole. You bear the burden of your share of the responsibility for what's coming (and what's already here for some people).
You can't ignore that by the reasoning "well if ONLY I did it, then nobody would be hurt", or "everybody else is doing it anyway, so what I add doesn't make a difference".

So, if Caesar had only been stabbed once, maybe he would have lived. And if you didn't stab him but everybody else did, he almost surely would still have died. That doesn't make any one of those who killed him blameless. People do the most atrocious things in groups, where the poor defense of deflecting personal culpability stands to make them feel better about their actions.
The same applies to gang rapes. "Well she was going to be raped anyway, I didn't make much difference. Being raped by 21 guys isn't really worse than being raped by 20 right?" Every man is telling himself that.

The validity of the argument in-part hinges on the fact that morality is not objective

It is objective; it's a concept. Particularly, the one that involves concern for others beyond the selfish default. Subjective morality is self-defeating, because it does not go beyond the default of selfish behavior; people can arbitrarily choose whatever they happened to want to do anyway to be 'moral' in subjective systems.

or if it is that we do not know definitively the best ethical system to adopt.

THAT is the more meaningful question.

I have covered this a little in my prior post. The major issue is in being consistent, and mapping to objective reality, rather than drawing arbitrary lines.
And mapping to reality means that we have to recognize that there are no hard and fast lines. Reality is full of grey areas. In order to clarify that, it means gaining more knowledge, and exploring the concepts logically.

If we are to assume what I consider to be the humanist qualifier for how we subjectively measure morality then that postulates that what is good for humans is good and what is bad for humans is bad.

The problem is, that's completely arbitrary.

That is why I suggested the two argument paths put simply: Give me a better morality than the humanist or show me that it isn't good for humans anyway, these may not be the only way to argue the issue behind meat-eating's ethics but they seem the most obvious.

I've done the second, and I've hinted at the first. It's about recognizing degrees of moral value, and going where the evidence leads you through consequentialism.

[zeello]

If you prequisite that animals understand our system of ethics, there might be two things wrong with this:
1) by that logic you open up the ability to exploit other humans, for not understanding our specific code or even for having a different code of ethics.
2) it makes your treatment of other living things based on contingency rather than an intrinsic right of the other being. By your system everything is a slave by default and you are entitled to enslave them, until they prove themselves, in the eyes of the oppressors and only the oppressors, worthy of not being enslaved.

"Just my effect not everyone's" No, no, no. You don't get to do this. By commiting the act of environmental damage you are in soldarity with everyone else who does it and therefore you share the blame of the full effect.

Live as you would have others do.

The biggest sin however is the harm caused to the animal, not the environmental effect. Cutting off the sex of a even a single pig, without painkillers, just so you can have a single lunch (or really, just so you can have, in your eyes, a slightly better lunch can you could have otherwise) is excessive. Pleasure in itself is not necessarily hedonistic, it depends on the moral cost. The greater the moral cost, the more hedonistic and self-absorbed is the sinner. However one may have pleasure without moral cost, or maybe even with moral benefit. (To quote VeganAtheist "veganism is about joy")

For the record, I am just one person and don't represent veganism. In the Gary Francione / deontology thread, my basis of morality and approval of the deontological argument for veganism is not widely agreed with in this forum, so don't let my opinions deter you from finding whichever perspective is the right one.

[James]

First of all, humans really aren't that special, but I am one, and I am particularly invested in making sure they do well.

Any religious group can say the same to the exclusion of others. That's how tribalism works. You aren't evolutionarily motivated to help people who aren't closely related to you.
If you came upon a homeless person who wouldn't be missed, and who was "leeching" from society, costing you tax dollars, etc. It would be, according to your theory, a moral prerogative to kill him or her. Cleansing society, creating a master race, etc. There's no room for weakness in a theory like that, no room for empathy for those less fortunate than yourself, or any compassion for those who can not help you in return.

Arbitrary though it may be, it's part of self-preservation and you have to draw the line somewhere between all objects are important and not even yourself,

You don't have to draw any lines. The more accurate approach is a gradient of increasing moral value based on degree of sentience.

I find the most distinct barrier of entry at humans but that's not an argument regarding my dietary habits.

I hope I addressed that above. But, it is when those habits are destructive to humans as well.

Nature doesn't give many shits about climate change. It'll spring back, adapt. Non-human animals can't be much bothered; at least, most of them. They just slowly follow the changing climate zones. They probably barely notice. They don't have houses to get destroyed hurricanes, or cities for Earthquakes to topple. Natural disasters really aren't a big problem for most wild animals. They just mozy on and find somewhere better. Humans do have a problem, but if climate change and the following displacement and plagues wipe out most of our population, that's actually good for nature in many ways.

-Proof that the harm; environmental, health, etc. is too damaging to be offset by the "pleasure" received at the cost of an animal.

You don't seem to understand something about the normalization of experience that's critical here. There is no "pleasure" received at the cost of the animal. There is no "pleasure" received by smoking, or snorting crack either.

Right when somebody starts to snort crack? Sure. That initial hit is amazing. But they get used to it very quickly, and then they only feel normal when they're high, and the rest of life is hell. As a consequence, they're less happy on average.
Vegans do not enjoy their food less than carnists enjoy theirs.
Just like breaking any addiction and getting used to a new normal, carnists may initially feel like they're giving up something by going vegan, but that's just not the typical case. You get used to it, and it takes a couple months (like quitting smoking), and then there's not really anything to miss. For most vegans, meat starts to smell bad (as cigarette smoke can start smelling bad to ex-smokers once they fully kick the habit).

Fried Twinkies are not objectively more delicious than carrots or roasted mushrooms or tempeh or a fresh kale salad with a nice garlic vinaigrette. It's a matter of context. When you don't eat sweet and fatty stuff all of the time to overload your taste buds, normal food starts tasting richer and sweeter.
Experience is highly subjective. Aside from the absolute depths of misery (there is a certain minimum that's required), everything else is normalized.
If you map input vs happiness, It's a curve that reaches a plateau, rather than continuing to increase happiness, after a certain minimum of resource input.

You're not happier living in a mansion than a small apartment. You're not happier with a veal steak and caviar at every meal compared to vegetables. You're just not, not in the scheme of things; you'll usually be more miserable due to the consequences of these things (more stressful job, heart disease, etc.).
Rich people are not happier than the lower middle class. Extremely poor people are miserable, but that comes back to that certain bare-minimum you need. Anything over that presents rapidly diminishing returns.
The only average lifestyle that creates misery is for those who create their own misery by comparing their lives to others, and spending all of their time coveting rather than enjoying the life they have.

This isn't just speculation, this has been repeatedly borne out in psychological studies on happiness. It's something that has been widely known since antiquity, but more recently confirmed through modern science.

This will be the last one I will respond to directly, I will keep reading but I'm spending far too much time responding at the moment.

Wow, this last one gets pretty existential so before I discuss it I feel obliged to point out that age old atheist, and for that matter, sentient being hurdle that comes in the form of meaninglessness. Most of us briefly think about and willfully ignore the whole "Why does it matter?" question, because as far as we can tell it doesn't, but hey, we can't do anything about that.

I'll skip the individual responses and try to keep this both on the topic of diet and the overarching ideological claims. I realize now that it was unreasonable to make the parallel statements "There is no objective morality." and "Give me a better system of morality than pure humanism." I will defend myself however in saying that the claim that "Happiness is not important enough." is logically insufficient to counter the postulate that pleasure can offset the harm. By deliberately limiting the argument to statements regarding morality I accidentally blocked off almost all rational lines of debate.

[As for the above paragraph] I should exempt any of your statements regarding environmental damage etc. I just feel I should clarify there are a number of completely valid points and the escape from our ability to reason comes only around precise claims about where ethical lines should be drawn, (something I encouraged) and dealings with happiness.

You don't seem to understand something about the normalization of experience that's critical here.

On the contrary, I've been thoroughly interested in the psychology of happiness for years now, particularly Dan Gilbert, I understand how happiness works fairly well, and acknowledge that not much can change it in the long term. (I do still vehemently argue for everyone to try!) Normalization is probably a good thing, enough for me to concede that people probably should hedge their bets rather than working off of self-interest (this would in fact include vegan-ism.)

Eh, I don't know maybe happiness and normalizing of experience can be used effectively in discussion, but it should be pointed out that if your system of ethics involves making people feel better, that short term happiness measurement cuts both ways. Furthermore the "bare-minimum," you point out is only for people and animals who have fundamental things necessary for life in jeopardy. You can normalize slavery, poverty, and much of the trauma of the past centuries too. We're only slightly happier than the average person 200 years ago so why keep progressing at all? There's some seriously dark implications that come along with the Nietzsche-an "Fading of the senses."

Thought I could go without addressing the statement following your first quote but I can't. Humans are what my morals are there for, NOT human society. I made claims about the origins of empathy in evolution, I never claimed social-darwinism was a good idea and there was no suggestion about humanity's well being in your quote, only humans deliberately no groupings.

[brimstoneSalad]

This will be the last one I will respond to directly, I will keep reading but I'm spending far too much time responding at the moment.

I know you're probably being totally overwhelmed here. I would say, pick and choose quotes from different people to respond to. You can do that by copying the text out into a text editor.

Add the quote tags around each one, like so:

{quote="James"} {/quote}

Except those {...} should be [...]

That will help save time.

Wherein several of us make the same kind of argument, quote the one who phrased it best from your perspective, and just mention who else made it too, so we know if you misunderstood our arguments and grouped them incorrectly and can correct that (although you probably won't misunderstand them, so far you have understood the arguments made quite well).

Wow, this last one gets pretty existential so before I discuss it I feel obliged to point out that age old atheist, and for that matter, sentient being hurdle that comes in the form of meaninglessness. Most of us briefly think about and willfully ignore the whole "Why does it matter?" question, because as far as we can tell it doesn't, but hey, we can't do anything about that.

Well, yes. It's easy to say "this is moral" or "that is immoral". But the question "Why should I be moral instead of immoral?" is a much more challenging one, and it comes down to what kind of person you choose to be.

We choose to be good people, not because we must, but because we want to. Although I will say, that does give meaning to our lives (a meaning we give ourselves), and while physical goods may not increase happiness, you should know pretty well that a sense of meaning certainly does.

I will defend myself however in saying that the claim that "Happiness is not important enough." is logically insufficient to counter the postulate that pleasure can offset the harm.

I think that was more zeello's claim. He leans deontologist. Pretty much the rest of us are consequentialists. So, you may want to take it in that context.

Happiness is immensely important. My argument was more that eating meat doesn't really make people more happy (it certainly doesn't make non-humans more happy), and it probably causes much more harm and misery all around.

However, I would say that one's personal happiness (rather than the happiness of others) is not relevant to morality (which is the concern for others, rather than the self).
That is not to say that you have to be ascetic to be a generally good person. People can find balance in themselves, between being moral and being selfish, where their selfish acts don't harm others, or they make up for the harm they do in the process.

the escape from our ability to reason comes only around precise claims about where ethical lines should be drawn, (something I encouraged) and dealings with happiness.

Right, but I would clarify that these are more empirical issues than philosophical ones. Our uncertainty derives from our ignorance. As we learn more, those error bars shrink. Which is why science is such a crucial part of any moral pursuit. If you do not have accurate knowledge of reality, you can not respond to it morally.

On the contrary, I've been thoroughly interested in the psychology of happiness for years now, particularly Dan Gilbert, I understand how happiness works fairly well, and acknowledge that not much can change it in the long term. (I do still vehemently argue for everyone to try!) Normalization is probably a good thing, enough for me to concede that people probably should hedge their bets rather than working off of self-interest (this would in fact include vegan-ism.)

Good to hear.
I also agree that we should work towards more happiness, but I think that involves more saving the most miserable among us from those standards that do make them miserable first (human animals and non-human animals alike).
After that, the problem of diminishing returns on happiness is a good one to have.

After we have eliminated suffering, increasing happiness of average people will involve helping people find meaning in life, and increasing the influence of art and self expression (which are deeply fulfilling, and also very cheap and non-harmful to others), as well as the scope of education, and eliminating disease and extending life (more life = more of the good stuff, until such a point as people may get bored of living, but I don't think we're very close to reaching that yet).

but it should be pointed out that if your system of ethics involves making people feel better, that short term happiness measurement cuts both ways.

What do you mean?

Furthermore the "bare-minimum," you point out is only for people and animals who have fundamental things necessary for life in jeopardy. You can normalize slavery, poverty, and much of the trauma of the past centuries too.

Those things don't normalize as easily. But you are right that, removed from suffering, slavery can potentially be a happy state if the slaves are ignorant of their situation (don't inherently pine for freedom).
This is why I do not advocate animal liberation. I don't think non-human animals care or understand that they're not "free". A zoo with a large enough enclosure, for example, that doesn't create stress due to tight confinement, and with stimulation to prevent boredom, could be perfectly happy (to the extent the creature can reasonably be).

This is likely a point that zeello would differ on, so you have to keep in mind the distinction between deontological and consequentialist vegan positions.
It is certainly possible to use animals in a way that would not make them miserable. However, it is wildly impractical to use them in such a way as a food source, because it would be wildly expensive.

We're only slightly happier than the average person 200 years ago so why keep progressing at all? There's some seriously dark implications that come along with the Nietzsche-an "Fading of the senses."

WE may only be slightly happier, in the terms of relatively well off people. But there is great misery in the world where immense strides can be made.

I don't think we need to be much bothered with giving people cheaper iPads to make them ever so slightly happier. But we should be bothered by the great advances we could be making for those who are suffering the most, and could be much happier and less miserable (human and animal alike).
Beyond poverty in the third world, human health is an important point (and one where advocating a plant-based diet is very useful).

Like I said, if we reach a point where nobody is suffering anymore, and we're struggling with the challenge of making people yet even happier against diminishing returns, that's a good problem to have.

Helping people live longer is never a wasted effort though, nor would be colonizing the stars -- for example -- to bring life and relief from misery to the darkest corners of the universe.
There's always somewhere to go.

Thought I could go without addressing the statement following your first quote but I can't. Humans are what my morals are there for, NOT human society. I made claims about the origins of empathy in evolution, I never claimed social-darwinism was a good idea and there was no suggestion about humanity's well being in your quote, only humans deliberately no groupings.

This sounds very much like the creationist's false distinction between "micro" and "macro" evolution.
Maybe I don't understand what you're talking about. Can you please clarify how this differs?
I'm seeing arbitrary lines being drawn.
When you define the value of humans as determined by their engagement with society, how are you then not advocating for society itself?

[zeello]

My argument was more that eating meat doesn't really make people more happy (it certainly doesn't make non-humans more happy), and it probably causes much more harm and misery all around.

I hold this viewpoint as well.

The vegan vs nonvegan conversations keep getting sidetracked to the issue of pleasure and whether pleasure, "is it really that wrong?", but these conversations are just a diversion. The hurdle to veganism is not pleasure, it's the projection of pleasure that is arbitrarily attributed to food that is the most controversial. By admitting that meat is pleasurable or that it contributes to happiness, nonvegans are allowed a moral justification which is not necessarily warranted. If you tell yourself that you can't be happy and you can't ever be full unless you eat meat, then that's what you will believe. The animal's rights seem less important, because you bought into the hype.

To be fair, when I went vegan I was prepared to eat mediocre food for the rest of my life. I was not in it for pleasure. Other people may be harder to persuade, those who care about being able to eat meat. But once you give vegan foods 100 percent of chances to provide these pleasures, then you will see that the switch was not as much of a compromise as it first seemed. Meat is indistinct from other foods.

[garrethdsouza]

I personally wasn't convinced by anybody myself, I had watched documentaries such as earthlings, cowspiracy, brave new ocean (a lecture) and speciesism and read a few articles on it.

Basing on the universal golden and silver rules, viz do unto others as you would have them do to yourself and not doing others what you wouldn't want done to yourself. The exceptions here being if they want/don't want something that you dont want/want done to you, ie they have the opposite preference.

Physically noxious stimuli like decapitation without anaesthesia, being suffocated, boiled or macerated alive and living ones life in abysmal conditions with no access to any medical aid, often subjected to starvation and cannabilism are the most obvious things that no one would want done to themselves. In our treatment of animals we are worse than Nazis.

Now the question is who to define as the group "others".
One issue that arises is that with higher power demands higher responsibilities, not higher abuse of that power. The organisms in question in the meat and dairy/egg industry are among the most powerless groups around but they didn't choose to be born that way, they just happened to be born that way.

Nutritionally all of the nutrients can be got from plant based sources which are much healthier with the exception of vitb12 which was only available from animal sources until through the ingenuity of science is now inexpensively available. Vegan mock meats etc are also increasingly available and tasty vegan meal options are also available so even the taste pleasure component can be got from a plant based diet.

Envitonmentally and regarding its impact on world poverty and food security it is the best.
So why put a sentient organism fairly similar to yourself in its ability to experience pain and is also somewhat intelligent through unnecessary avoidable pain when if you were faced with the same scenario there's no way you would be ok with going through even the tiniest fraction of the pain yourself. I suggest you watch the documentary earthlings to see what they have to go through... And think of the suffering that you spare yourself the sight of. There is complicity in your actions, however far off and well concealed the slaughterhouse is from you.

With respect to plants irrespective of questions of sentience there's no lower we can go to and eating vegan also involves the lowest suffering to plants than feeding a lot of plants to poor conversion ratio animals and then eating the animals.

Your basis of only selecting humans is rather arbitrary, if hyper-intelligent aliens were overlords would it then mean its ok for them to do those things to us? Can you picture yourself as a kid going through a macerator or grinder as is the standard practice for male chicks in the poultry industry?

One part of morality is about pain. Is it ethical to cause unnecessary and completely avoidable pain to others? And that's not even considering how detrimental that choice is to the environmental and poverty angles.

[James]

I know you're probably being totally overwhelmed here. I would say, pick and choose quotes from different people to respond to. You can do that by copying the text out into a text editor.

Add the quote tags around each one, like so:

{quote="James"} {/quote}

Except those {...} should be [...]

That will help save time.

Hey thanks, the reason for my leaving was because I had to sleep. I didn't know if I would come back so I left it open ended. EDIT: I didn't really leave it open ended. Whoops. I'll respond to a few specific posts but I'm going to pull it a little more general again.

but it should be pointed out that if your system of ethics involves making people feel better, that short term happiness measurement cuts both ways.

What do you mean?

I've pressed backspace while not in the text box and deleted several paragraphs by going to the last page I visited, I'll try to represent it again.

If we cannot make people happier by any appreciable amount except by global improvements in our way of life, why then should happiness have any esteem in a system of ethics? If anything you do for another person, including getting them out of situations where their basic rights are in jeopardy can be nullified by the fact that they would not be happier in the long term, then this wide framed ethics becomes a very passive set of guidelines. Not adhered to for the benefit of you and the people around you but for those wide social groups, again neglecting the individual.

A zoo with a large enough enclosure, for example, that doesn't create stress due to tight confinement, and with stimulation to prevent boredom, could be perfectly happy (to the extent the creature can reasonably be).

First of all I know animals behave happier when in open environments, but if we analogize animals in poor environments with prisoners, you get a similar set of qualities. Both are deprived of stimuli, but only in scarce cases is this deprivation to an extent where it imposes on those basic rights, both are bored and frequently tightly confined, both show signs of lethargy, but the human has normalized the situation and is approximately equally happy to his free counterparts. Don't get me wrong I'll argue for better zoo habitats if only for the more natural representation of the animal but you seem to think the plateau of happiness happens much further in than I do.
People getting used to things is the justification for atrocities, and should not factor in to our decision making.

One thing we are arguing, is that even if meat was so pleasurable, this would not necessarily provide necessary moral justification to the act of buying meat

That is indeed what we are arguing one of the tenants of my argument was that the want to eat meat, overcame all issues EXCEPT for the ethical. A position I no longer stand by, though it hasn't lead me to want to abolish all the animal industry, merely to reform it and cut off the more egregious ends, indeed making it a smaller industry.
The other branch of my argument can be represented in the statement: "If we do create our own morals, what system, or evaluation of systems can be used, and why should that system extend to certain groups?" I phrased that "certain groups" because as many of you pointed out, when you are drawing lines between things you care about and things you don't, you quickly move into tribalism. That said, we still have to decide how we treat others, and what we treat well. Objective morality became relevant when people made claims like:

You don't have to draw any lines. The more accurate approach is a gradient of increasing moral value based on degree of sentience.

I could be quick to claim that the gradation is no better than a distinct line. Unfortunately, extreme ideologies also get equal treatment under subjective morality as well, and even nihilistic and religious morality claims hold the same sway, although it seems an easy chore to apply a psuedo-Occam's Razor to the more contradictory or random ideas. (It does not however cleanse complicated systems, for obvious reasons.)

This sounds very much like the creationist's false distinction between "micro" and "macro" evolution.
Maybe I don't understand what you're talking about. Can you please clarify how this differs?
I'm seeing arbitrary lines being drawn.
When you define the value of humans as determined by their engagement with society, how are you then not advocating for society itself?

I can define my morality any way I want so long as it is contradiction free or qualifies the importance of each contradictory value; it is in fact necessary for me to draw arbitrary lines if what I (and I suspect many of you) believe to be true of objective morality. The reason I can make such distinctions is because the media in which I'm defining myself is both philosophical and personal. I cannot add distinctions between real things unless I give a reason, but I can say I like vegetables but not cabbage. I can further define my morality as wanting the best for humanity, without doing anything wrong to individuals or culture in the process. In deals of philosophy you CAN have it both ways so long as your statement is contradiction free. Collections of people should work together as well to have group morality for their civilizations, these ideas both define laws and what is socially acceptable, however they have the added task of defining the values great enough to overcome what they deem immoral. (i.e. freedom of speech covering controversial speech)

[EquALLity]

Again I'll take this step by step.
First to your comment about health being a personal choice: I do completely believe that health should take a back-seat to your freedom of choice, I defend that invariably as a matter of fact, indeed extending it to drug use and suicide. The only issue with all three is how it affects other people, either people who care about you or people having to pay for your treatment. (I hate to make this ad hominem and I am in-fact typecasting you, but are you against drug use? If you are not, then I elect you observe this incongruous aspect of your beliefs.)

What? I wasn't disagreeing with you that it was a personal choice.

I was just highlighting that it's a bad one.

Give me a better morality than the humanist

What? Do you mean better than your form, or something?

Here's a good moral system: Base whether or not something is moral or not based on what comes out of it. If there is more harm produced, it is immoral. If there is more good produced, it is moral, and if there is an equal amount, it is neutral.

And by good and bad, I mean including everyone who has interests and can therefore be harmed (if those interests are harmed). In a discussion about morality, where we are trying to be moral (trying to produce the most good), it makes sense to draw the line where beings can suffer. If they can't suffer, there can be no harm done to factor into this.