Great comments on new #namethetrait video

[brimstoneSalad]

Would others think that this is a better fix-up of NTT than our current NTT 2.0? In some ways it takes greater liberties with the existing logical form, although I think that it is much simpler & less confusing in the ways described above.

It seems like it takes too great of liberties with the logical form for a fix, and while it's simpler I think it's a pretty standard argument (just phrased a bit differently).
E.g. it looks more like what the argument from relevance is trying to do:
http://www.animal-ethics.org/argument-relevance/ (something I've been meaning to start an article on for a long time)

I'd love to know what @DrSinger thinks, but he doesn't seem to be around right now.

[brimstoneSalad]

They've been aware of NTT 2.0, it was recommended to them by somebody and they're in agreement that it's logically valid,

It's a good sign that they understand validity.

however some of them believe that a couple of the premises may be "dubious". I believe this is mentioned in one of the videos that I linked, but I'm not sure about the exact time stamp.

Can you invite them here to talk about it? Not sure if any of them are forum inclined.

And thank you for mentioning this.

[Margaret Hayek]

(P1) If a trait is sufficient for moral value in humans, then it is sufficient for moral value in any being that has the trait.

I think it is too easy to reject this Proposition. We can value a trait to be sufficient for human moral value but not for other animals.

That's very interesting that you don't think that this proposition:

(P1) If a trait is sufficient for moral value in humans, then it is sufficient for moral value in any being that has the trait.

seems initially too easy to reject. Can you elaborate on this? E.g. which traits might seem sufficient for moral value in humans but not sufficient for moral value in other animals?


Also would you think that it's more immediately compelling to claim (as I think it the heart of the idea of NTT) that:

(P1*) If a being doesn't lack any of the traits necessary for moral value in humans, then it has moral value.

?

[Margaret Hayek]

It seems like it takes too great of liberties with the logical form for a fix, and while it's simpler I think it's a pretty standard argument (just phrased a bit differently).
E.g. it looks more like what the argument from relevance is trying to do:
http://www.animal-ethics.org/argument-relevance/ (something I've been meaning to start an article on for a long time)

That link didn't work - did you mean http://www.animal-ethics.org/sentience- ... sentience/?


I agree that talking about sufficient conditions gets farther from the basic idea of NTT, which is really about necessary conditions. How then about this 2 premise way of capturing the idea of NTT in terms of necessary conditions:

(P1) If a being doesn't lack any of the traits necessary for moral value in humans, then it has moral value.
(P2) Non-human animals don't lack any of the traits necessary for moral value in humans.
Therefore
(C) Sentient non-human animals have moral value.

?

The big problem for formalizing these sorts of arguments that deal with necessary conditions (which extends to Isaac's original presentation of NTT and also our current NTT 2.0 [wiki/index.php/NameTheTrait_2.0]) has to do with the issue I PM'd you about regarding the material conditional. The natural way to try to formalize 'A is a necessary condition for B' is as 'if B then A' or 'if not A then not B'. But if we interpret the conditional / 'if...then...' as a material conditional, then it's equivalent to 'either A or not B', which is true as long as A is true, regardless of A's relation to B. Thus, if you try to formalize 'trait t is a necessary condition for moral value in humans' as 'if humans don't have trait t, then they don't have moral value', and this is understood as a material conditional, it comes out equivalent to 'either humans don't have trait t or they don't have moral value'. So if humans all have some trait (like being biologically human), then even if this isn't relevant to moral value, this way of trying to formalize necessary conditions for moral value will count the trait as a necessary condition for moral value.

As I suggested in my PM I can think of two main ways to fix this:

(i) We could understand the conditional instead as a counterfactual conditional and allow it to consider what would happen in the closest possible worlds in which each of the humans had not been human (it's fine if this is metaphysically impossible, counterfactual conditionals with impossible antecedents are arguably very helpful in places like mathematics).

(ii) We just formalize a trait's being necessary for moral value as its own relation, e.g. a three-place relation of the form N(t, x, M) which means 't is necessary for x to have moral value'.

Although I don't think that it will really matter from the perspective of the proof of validity, I actually think that I prefer the counterfactual conditional route - which I think corresponds more closely to what Isaac has said in various place. E.g. if someone suggests that the trait of moral agency or high intellectual ability is necessary for moral value in humans, one can say 'well, what if I was an infant, or severely intellectually disabled? Wouldn't I still have moral value? If so then my being a moral agent or having high intellectual ability can't be necessary to my moral value." Similarly, if someone suggests that being human is necessary to one's moral value, one might respond "well, what if I wasn't human but I had the exact same psychology that I do now - or what if I wasn't human but I was even more sentient and intellectually able? Surely I would still have moral value? Since I'd obviously still have moral value even if I weren't human, membership in the species homo sapiens can't be necessary to my moral value, even though I am indeed a member of the species homo sapiens.'


The standard notation for a counterfactual conditional is a box arrow, which looks very roughly like this '[]-->', where 'A []-->B' means 'if A were the case then B would be the case' (for discussion on trying to get TeX to make one see https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions ... erfactuals). If we want to use the counterfactual conditional can someone see if we can get our wiki fonts to produce it?

[Margaret Hayek]

The big problem for formalizing these sorts of arguments that deal with necessary conditions (which extends to Isaac's original presentation of NTT and also our current NTT 2.0 [http://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/inde ... eTrait_2.0]) has to do with the issue I PM'd you about regarding the material conditional. The natural way to try to formalize 'A is a necessary condition for B' is as 'if B then A' or 'if not A then not B'. But if we interpret the conditional / 'if...then...' as a material conditional, then it's equivalent to 'either A or not B', which is true as long as A is true, regardless of A's relation to B. Thus, if you try to formalize 'trait t is a necessary condition for moral value in humans' as 'if humans don't have trait t, then they don't have moral value', and this is understood as a material conditional, it comes out equivalent to 'either humans don't have trait t or they don't have moral value'. So if humans all have some trait (like being biologically human), then even if this isn't relevant to moral value, this way of trying to formalize necessary conditions for moral value will count the trait as a necessary condition for moral value.

As I suggested in my PM I can think of two main ways to fix this:

(i) We could understand the conditional instead as a counterfactual conditional and allow it to consider what would happen in the closest possible worlds in which each of the humans had not been human (it's fine if this is metaphysically impossible, counterfactual conditionals with impossible antecedents are arguably very helpful in places like mathematics).

(ii) We just formalize a trait's being necessary for moral value as its own relation, e.g. a three-place relation of the form N(t, x, M) which means 't is necessary for x to have moral value'.

Although I don't think that it will really matter from the perspective of the proof of validity, I actually think that I prefer the counterfactual conditional route - which I think corresponds more closely to what Isaac has said in various place. E.g. if someone suggests that the trait of moral agency or high intellectual ability is necessary for moral value in humans, one can say 'well, what if I was an infant, or severely intellectually disabled? Wouldn't I still have moral value? If so then my being a moral agent or having high intellectual ability can't be necessary to my moral value." Similarly, if someone suggests that being human is necessary to one's moral value, one might respond "well, what if I wasn't human but I had the exact same psychology that I do now - or what if I wasn't human but I was even more sentient and intellectually able? Surely I would still have moral value? Since I'd obviously still have moral value even if I weren't human, membership in the species homo sapiens can't be necessary to my moral value, even though I am indeed a member of the species homo sapiens.'


The standard notation for a counterfactual conditional is a box arrow, which looks very roughly like this '[]-->', where 'A []-->B' means 'if A were the case then B would be the case' (for discussion on trying to get TeX to make one see https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions ... erfactuals). If we want to use the counterfactual conditional can someone see if we can get our wiki fonts to produce it?

@brimstoneSalad @DrSinger

Another way to fix this, at least in our existing NTT 2.0, is to make the third premise speak of necessary and sufficient conditions. The third premise is:

(P3) ∀x( SNAx ⇒ ¬∃t ( Tt ∧ ¬Pxt ∧ ∀y ( Hy ⇒ ( ¬Pyt ⇒ ¬Ry ) ) ) )

This again faces the difficulty that because we're understanding the conditional as the material conditional, ¬Pyt ⇒ ¬Ry is equivalent to Pyt v ¬Ry, so P3 comes out as equivalent to:

(P3) ∀x( SNAx ⇒ ¬∃t ( Tt ∧ ¬Pxt ∧ ∀y ( Hy ⇒ ( Pyt v ¬Ry ) ) ) )

But if the trait of being human simply exists and is had by all and only humans even if we don't think this trait isrelevant to moral value / status / whatever, it's going to be true that for the trait of being human, h, Hy ⇒ Pyh is true, so Hy ⇒ ( Pyh v ¬Ry ) is true. So it is false that there does not exist a t such that t is a trait and no non-human animals and for all humans either they have t or they don't have moral value.

What we could do here is talk about non-human animals not lacking a trait that is necessary and sufficient for moral status in humans. That is:

(P3*) ∀x( SNAx ⇒ ¬∃t ( Tt ∧ ¬Pxt ∧ ∀y ( Hy ⇒ ( Pyt ⇔ Ry ) ) ) )

Pyt ⇔ Ry is logically equivalent to Pyt∧Ry v ¬Pyt∧¬Ry, so ∀y ( Hy ⇒ ( Pyt ⇔ Ry ) ) is equivalent to ∀y ( Hy ⇒ ( Pyt∧Ry v ¬Pyt∧¬Ry ) ), or, if y is human then either y has the the trait and has moral status or y lacks the trait and lacks moral status. This isn't made true simply by the trait of being human existing and being had by all and only humans. It is true only if literally all humans have moral status, which, at least if we consider all possible humans, they clearly don't. Most will think that brain-dead humans and human embryos lack moral status (hint: because they aren't sentient and aren't mentally connected to a future of sentience). Even those with pretty fetishistic views, like that biological humanity is special, probably won't think that it's metaphysically necessary or necessary come what may that it's special - e.g. if biological humans were all brain dead and none had ever been intellectually able or sentient, or if God did not exist or resemble biological humans or decree that biological humans are special or what have you, they'd agree that under those circumstances biological humans wouldn't have moral status. So since the mere existence of the trait of being human doesn't make it true that Hy ⇒ ( Pyt ⇔ Ry ), it doesn't make it false that there does not exist a t such that t is a trait and no non-human animals and for all humans either they have t or they don't have moral value. So premise 3 can still be true.

[brimstoneSalad]

@Margaret Hayek I meant to point you here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4034
After that Isaac mobbed a discord server I was in, and I've been responding to questions from some of his fans. Been under water for a few hours.

Thus, if you try to formalize 'trait t is a necessary condition for moral value in humans' as 'if humans don't have trait t, then they don't have moral value', and this is understood as a material conditional, it comes out equivalent to 'either humans don't have trait t or they don't have moral value'.

Do you mean either humans have trait t or they don't have moral value?

(i) We could understand the conditional instead as a counterfactual conditional and allow it to consider what would happen in the closest possible worlds in which each of the humans had not been human (it's fine if this is metaphysically impossible, counterfactual conditionals with impossible antecedents are arguably very helpful in places like mathematics).

If it happens that the closest possible world actually has massive differences due to the implications of that change, it may be unconvincing, but you might be right that it's a better fit.

See Avi's semantic fix above: do you think we might be able to work from that structure instead? Since Avi and Isaac are close, we can presume that has some level of approval as what he meant.

If we want to use the counterfactual conditional can someone see if we can get our wiki fonts to produce it?

That could be very tricky, I'm not sure the user end would support it anyway. Might be easier to upload images:
wiki/index.php/Special:Upload

[Irrationalogic]

That's very interesting that you don't think that this proposition:

(P1) If a trait is sufficient for moral value in humans, then it is sufficient for moral value in any being that has the trait.

seems initially too easy to reject. Can you elaborate on this? E.g. which traits might seem sufficient for moral value in humans but not sufficient for moral value in other animals?

Sure, the trait being human works.

Also would you think that it's more immediately compelling to claim (as I think it the heart of the idea of NTT) that:

(P1*) If a being doesn't lack any of the traits necessary for moral value in humans, then it has moral value.

?

No, I almost feel like this is designed to lose people with no knowledge in the formalism of logic.

[Margaret Hayek]

Thus, if you try to formalize 'trait t is a necessary condition for moral value in humans' as 'if humans don't have trait t, then they don't have moral value', and this is understood as a material conditional, it comes out equivalent to 'either humans don't have trait t or they don't have moral value'.

Do you mean either humans have trait t or they don't have moral value?

Oh, yes, sorry about that (since A --> B is equivalent to ~A or B, 'if humans don't have t then they don't have moral value' is equivalent to 'either it is not the case that humans don't have t, or they don't have moral value', and dropping the double negation that's 'either humans have t, or humans don't have moral value'). That was a really bad typo on my part - I hope it didn't cause too much confusion!

[Margaret Hayek]

That's very interesting that you don't think that this proposition:

(P1) If a trait is sufficient for moral value in humans, then it is sufficient for moral value in any being that has the trait.

seems initially too easy to reject. Can you elaborate on this? E.g. which traits might seem sufficient for moral value in humans but not sufficient for moral value in other animals?

Sure, the trait being human works.

Ha; that's a funny one that gets right to the issues we've been discussing about how to talk about such things as what would happen if humans weren't human or non-human animals were human. It's certainly consistent with thinking that being human is sufficient for moral status in humans that it's sufficient for moral status in any being that has that trait. Then attention could shift to whether non-human animals have other traits that are sufficient for moral status in humans other than being human (it's conceptually possible that moral status is over-determined in humans, e.g. their being human suffices for moral status, and their being sentient also suffices).

That said, I don't think that many will really accept on reflection that simply being / inhabiting a biological human organism is really sufficient for moral status all by itself. Cf. what I said in relation to the necessary and sufficient conditions issue above:

Most will think that brain-dead humans and human embryos lack moral status (hint: because they aren't sentient and aren't mentally connected to a future of sentience). Even those with pretty fetishistic views, like that biological humanity is special, probably won't think that it's metaphysically necessary or necessary come what may that it's special - e.g. if biological humans were all brain dead and none had ever been intellectually able or sentient, or if God did not exist or resemble biological humans or decree that biological humans are special or what have you, they'd agree that under those circumstances biological humans wouldn't have moral status.

After observing this attention could shift to what humans do have moral status and what accounts for this, given that bare biological humanity isn't what's doing it.

Also would you think that it's more immediately compelling to claim (as I think it the heart of the idea of NTT) that:

(P1*) If a being doesn't lack any of the traits necessary for moral value in humans, then it has moral value.

?

No, I almost feel like this is designed to lose people with no knowledge in the formalism of logic.

Thanks; that's very helpful feedback. What might you think of our current presentations of NTT 2.0 (perhaps supplemented to talk in essence but I hope not too technically about necessary and sufficient conditions in P3) and NTJ? Do you think those are too hard for most to follow? Here are the English but not informal presentations:

Name the trait [NTT] 2.0:

(P1) Humans have non-trivial moral status just in case and because they have a certain trait.

(P2) If humans have non-trivial moral status just in case and because they have a certain trait, then all beings have non-trivial moral status just in case and because they have that trait.

(P3) Sentient non-human animals have the trait that gives non-trivial moral status to humans.

Therefore

(C) Sentient non-human animals have non-trivial moral status

Name the Justification [NTJ] (the ALL sentient humans version):

(P1) All sentient humans have non-trivial moral status.

(P2) If all sentient humans have non-trivial moral status but sentient farmed (and wild) animals lack this status, then there must be some morally relevant difference between all sentient humans and sentient farmed (and wild) animals that is important enough to justify this radical difference in moral status.

(P3) There is no morally relevant difference between all sentient humans and sentient farmed (and wild) animals that is important enough to justify this radical difference in moral status.

Therefore

(C) Sentient farmed (and wild) animals have non-trivial moral status.

[Irrationalogic]

That said, I don't think that many will really accept on reflection that simply being / inhabiting a biological human organism is really sufficient for moral status all by itself

I wasn't arguing if people would get onboard with it. My reflexion was purely formal, the trait being human works to reject the proposition. And as long as you can find at least one person willing to reject it that way the argument doesn't fulfill it's purpose ( unless the purpose is to convert "most" people ). You do not want someone arguing for the sake of consistency without being invested in the argument proposed.

Thanks; that's very helpful feedback. What might you think of our current presentations of NTT 2.0 (perhaps supplemented to talk in essence but I hope not too technically about necessary and sufficient conditions in P3) and NTJ? Do you think those are too hard for most to follow?

I would categorize those in the same bucket as the original NTT. Granted they are far less ambiguous and represent a good alternative.
NTT 2.0 => same thing here, P2 is easy to reject.
NTJ => same thing here for P2, why would there be a relevant moral difference to justify different treatments ? You can adopt a system of morals where humans have a certain moral status and other beings have a different moral status without ever having to give a reason why. This is just the way you design your system.

Now having watched some of the debates from Ask yourself, Vegan gains I can see the following pattern emerging:
In some of the debates, the opponents have difficulty understanding the concept of reasoning, consistency and well formed arguments ( rantingMonkeys, NoBullshit ). Arguing with these people is challenging and usually I resort to pen and paper with them, explaining in the most basic words what is going on in their reasoning.

Then you have opponents that understand logic and reason but are driven by intuition.( roamingMillenial, andy warski ). These people represent the majority of persons I am dealing with on a daily basis. usually ignorance in the subject, misinformations of the media and intuition form their arguments that is easy to point the flaws out. I heard Andy warski saying something along the line of :

If we were consistent all the time, we would do the most retarded shit ever

.
I would have loved for Vegan gains to ask him what kind of "retarded shit" he is talking about.

Then you have opponent that are consistent but have position that don't agree with yours.(JF, Destiny). And those are the people that are not reached by any of NTT, NTT 2.0 or NTJ. The only way to deal with those is to find out an inconsistency in their system of morals. Or eventually find an objective human system of morals that nobody can argue against and point out why their system of morals is inconsistent with the already established permises.