Next Open Letter: Penn Jillette

[brimstoneSalad]

Teller and I would personally kill every chimp in the world, with our bare hands, to save one street junkie with AIDS

It's an extreme claim, from a guy we'd never accuse of being reserved about sharing his views.
But where is this coming from?

Every Chimp on Earth; some 200,000 individuals, most with families they love; mothers, fathers, siblings, children. Wipe an entire species from the face of the Earth, one among the most emotional and intelligent on the planet, to save one human.
And it wouldn't matter to Penn if that number were two million, two billion, or two trillion. It wouldn't matter if it were the sum of all other species on this planet that would have to be sacrificed.

Why?
That is a very good question, and one we'll examine here.

This isn't just valuing human life higher than non-human life. That would be completely understandable. Contrary to straw-man criticism coming from vegan haters, even almost all vegans ultimate DO value human life more. And mammal life more than fish. And fish life more than insects. And so on.

This isn't that. It's a complete failure to ascribe any moral worth at all to non-human life.
It's the same extreme, but in the opposite direction, of people who ascribe equal value to humans and insects; these people are lunatics, and it's easy to show that by valuing microscopic insects the same as human beings, one ultimately trivializes the value of all life by equating things that can not be coherently equated.

In fact, and as we will show, this extreme in the other direction that Penn advances does the same kind of thing; it's a failure to coherently ascribe any meaningful worth to any life at all, human or not.
Instead, as a deontologist, Penn values only conceptual ideals and actions, not life, and these unworkable principles have rippling effects through their logical consequences, just as would making meaningful claims to results from the mathematical operator of dividing by zero.

[Lots of quotes needed, and suggestions, and editing]

[Jebus]

There were a lot of dumbass comments in that Bullshit episode. Sure, the worst one was the last one but shouldn't we try to address the irrationality of the whole episode?

[brimstoneSalad]

There were a lot of dumbass comments in that Bullshit episode. Sure, the worst one was the last one but shouldn't we try to address the irrationality of the whole episode?

Yes, and even other things he has said if we can find them.

Unfortunately his ethical premises are so bizarre (the Ayn Rand inspired stuff) that a lot of the letter will probably be tackling that. One important thing is to make sure it's coming directly from him, because I don't know exactly where (if anywhere) he departs from Rand.

[Volenta]

I'm in principle open to making this letter, but how can you reach him? Matt Dillahunty is much closer to the 'YouTube-community'.

By the way: What? Penn & Teller are also environmental "skeptics"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_%26_ ... skepticism

[brimstoneSalad]

Penn vlogs, and has a big following. They will likely inform him.

I doubt Dillahunty saw it on youtube, but rather was informed by somebody, and then checked it out.

By the way: What? Penn & Teller are also environmental "skeptics"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_%26_ ... skepticism

I'll have to see if I can find that one. That would be a good part to add.

[Volenta]

I'll have to see if I can find that one. That would be a good part to add.

Here is the episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlJcKMokUKs

It seems like they are making more bizarre claims on their show: http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Penn_%26_Teller

[EquALLity]

As long as we're doing absurd quotes:

Processing animals for food is not a pretty sight. But isn't that an aesthetic point, and not a moral one? If you're eating meat, you're part of this. We're part of this! If you can't stand the meat, get out of the kitchen. Just don't blow the kitchen up because you don't like my lunch.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzQgfWYwTzg 0:37-0:55.

This is said while playing a clip of factory farming. Penn seriously doesn't even acknowledge the suffering of animals involved in animal agriculture, and just chalks it all up to aesthetics. In the video, there are chickens being dangled in the air, handled roughly, tossed around, and shoved into holes, while clearly in distress, and Penn Jillette is asserting that it's merely an aesthetic issue.

This is even a flattering video of factory farming. Are animals being scalded alive, having their beaks seared, being branded, electrically prodded, beaten, and having their body parts pried off without anesthetic, all just aesthetic issues also?

This is akin (not equivalent) to saying that when violent assault doesn't entail moral issues, but only aesthetic ones.
"Assault is not a pretty sight. But isn't that an aesthetic point, and not a moral one? If you're assaulting people, you're apart of this. We're apart of this! If you can't stand the blood, get out of the way. Just don't condemn me because you don't like my lifestyle."

(Not sure if this is intellectually dishonest or just callous. Does Penn purposely ignore the moral concerns, because knows it is wrong, and doesn't want to change? Or does he just not give a shit?)

Penn then goes on to conclude that the only issue to be had with people funding factory farming is that we just don't like it because it's gross. We just don't like factory farming; it's all simply personal taste and preference. Therefore, we can't legitimately claim it to be immoral.

Of course it is more than an aesthetic issue; it’s also a moral issue. Something that produces more harm than good (in this case, needless abuse to innocent creatures) is wrong. Meat production on factory farms entails horrible abuse to animals. In addition, it promotes global warming, produces products that are bad for your health when weighed with the other options, and wastes our resources. What good does it produce? Food that pleases your taste buds?

That's not even valid justification, but on top of that, there are plenty of delicious vegan foods. There are even very realistic vegan products that mimic the tastes of animal products. So what excuse is there to continue funding these practices?

That was nice to get off my chest.

[brimstoneSalad]

Penn is a deontologist, most specifically an ideological libertarian and Randian-flavored "Objectivist".

So what he's basically talking about is a Blue-Orange morality. To him (putting it simply) morality is equivalent to the minimum possible law it would take to hold society together and keep people from killing each other; anything beyond that is aesthetic. There's more to it than that, but it's hard to explain in a short post.
See my post with the red and blue text here: http://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewto ... 1&start=10

However, he has been inconsistent on these points if he has ever called anything "evil" when it took advantage of people but didn't break the law. Like cold reading or sham medicine.

Those are one of the kinds of quotes we need to look for: Penn making moral judgement against something.

It would be good to also find more on this cigarette smoke business, to show that he's unreasonably stubborn against science, and unreasonably skeptical of rational scientific theory. And then find him criticizing somebody for doing the same (has be ever been critical of creationists?). And bring that back to his denial of climate change and/or its associated problems.

[EquALLity]

I actually already read it.

I had no idea he subscribed to that. Wow.

The host of a show made to expose bullshit is an ethical egoist?

I thought that Randianism was a form of consequentialism (just an evil one), because it basis morals off of the consequence. "Which will benefit you the most personally?"

[brimstoneSalad]

I thought that Randianism was a form of consequentialism (just an evil one), because it basis morals off of the consequence. "Which will benefit you the most personally?"

Nope. It's actually wildly inconsistent. It's just a particularly poorly conceived form of deontology.

A Randian 'objectivist' should not violate social contract, even if it will benefit him or her and nobody will find out about it.
It's very much an arbitrary rules based dogma, since the social contract itself is arbitrary (regarding where it draws lines for inclusive groups -- this is something Randroids don't understand).

Egoism looks very much like 'objectivism', because it's usually in one's interest to agree to and abide by social contract. But unlike an 'objectivist', a true egoist has no obligation to keep up his or her end of the social contract, except for to keep up appearances.