I’m wondering about how you define “suffering”. Certainly any animal with a nervous system (which includes all animals except sponges, AFAIK) will be able to “feel pain”. But what is “pain”, after all? As far as I can tell, it’s really just the urge to avoid (in some way) the stimulus in question. Damage to the body, or part of the body, is definitely a stimulus that organisms very strongly have an urge to avoid. However, even plants, fungi, and single-celled organisms have this urge. They may not have nervous systems, but their cells undoubtedly seek to avoid certain stimuli. By this definition of “pain”, crops that we harvest are likely in pain when we harvest them. Not only that, but we subject untold numbers of microscopic organisms to pain throughout our daily lives.
I am definitely pro-animal rights. The idea that animals are merely tools for us to use for our own pleasure, and we can thus treat them as any other form of property, seems absurd to me. It comes from an absolutist view on rights, where you either have them or you don’t, and if you do have them, they are exactly the same for everyone. This is an inevitable viewpoint of the defenders of limited (as opposed to no) government and natural rights. In reality, rights are not natural. They cannot be found in nature, but are social constructs. Rights are extended to other human being for both moral and practical reasons. A man that grew up alone on an island never lived in a social context and has thus had no need whatsoever to think about morals or rights. For him, all things are merely elements of nature, means to his survival. If he happens to come across a woman he likes and has children, then he may extend “rights” to these people. An implicit understanding that they will not harm eachother, either because it is more practical, or simply because he doesn’t like to see someone that looks so much like him suffer. Social units such as these may eventually grow and form “tribes”, made up of many individuals who agree not to harm each other. To these people, their own tribe members have “rights”, they are not to be harmed. However, everything beyond this social unit, within which mutual non-aggression prevails (this is my definition of a social context), is treated as elements of nature. This includes trees, animals, and human members of other tribes. Now eventually these tribes may include other tribes in their “social sphere” of mutual non-aggression for practical reasons, and eventually all human beingings for moral (and practical?) reasons. This is what I would like to call the process of civilization, the increasing extension of the non-aggression principle (as opposed to Hoppe, who viewed the civilization process as a process of decreasing (psychic) discount rates). Thus, I wouldn’t like to call a cannibalistic tribe “evil” or “immoral”, only uncivilized and primitive. Same goes for animal predators, that are aggressive by nature. They are both doing what they can to survive in the context within which they are placed, given their stage of social evolution. I can judge a human cannibal no more than I can judge a tiger eating an antelope, the desire to live should never be called evil. But the means by which some survive can definitely be called barbaric and uncivilized. A cannibal, just like a tiger, or the state, is nothing more than a hostile element in nature, which we need protect ourselves from. Albeit hostile by nature, both the cannibal and the tiger can be pacified, by extending the non-aggression principle even to them. This should be evident to everyone who has ever had a pet. This is a part of the process of civilization, to minimize aggression even against elements of nature that are inherently aggressive. Note that minimizing aggression does NOT mean not defending oneself against aggression from the cannibal or the tiger.
In a free stateless society, law and order is not imposed from above, by a group of intellectuals attempting to define some “universal rights”. Law and order grows spontaneously and gradually along with this process of civilization. And in this process, the definition of a right, and who is or isn’t granted these rights is constantly changing. We have now come so far on the evolutionary ladder of social interaction that most people (in their personal lives, there is still support for governmental aggression) extend the non-aggression principle to all humans, even to those they have never met before, because it is perceived as the most practical and ethical thing to do. We have luckily more or less outgrown moral tribalism. Most people do not oppose eating animals, but most people do oppose animal torture. They find it immoral and repulsive, but they, particularly when it comes to libertarians, are opposed to any legal sanction against animal torturers because “animals can’t have rights”. I would argue that the next step in our social evolution is (and this has already begun privately, but not when it comes to legal and moral philosophy among libertarians) the extension of rights, a minimization of unecessary aggressive violence against animals.
How could this happen practically though? Law in a stateless society is limited in nature, albeit not geographically. It cannot be imposed on a group of people resisting it, just like the Swedish authorities (which I live under) cannot impose animal rights legislation on the Chinese population. It is simply practically impossible. And animals will continue to be tortured unnecessarily and featured in animal torture porn there for the forseeable future. There’s simply nothing we can do about it, because I doubt anyone cares so strongly about animal rights that they would initiate a military invasion of another country. This is true for both statist and stateless society. So how can we bring about a better treatment of animals? In a stateless society, you effectively aggree to which laws to be bound by. By joining a protection organization (or something of the sort), you will agree to abide by their rules and if you don’t, you agree that you will be tried in a certain court, whose services are purchased by the protection organization in question. Because you consent to the laws you are bound by, practically any laws are permitted, even those limiting you freedom, as the limitation is entirely voluntary. This could include all sorts of limitations, such as the right to smoke on your own property or whatever. It all depends on what the consumer, the client of the protection organization, wants. But if people join protection agencies according to their own values, wouldn’t animal torturers simply join protection organizations that do not limit their right to torture animals? Possibly, but by joining a certain protection organization, you do not buy a single law, such as the law against animal torture, but a collection of laws, as well as a legal system, physical protection and so on. You will weigh the benefits of joining a protection organization against its costs, in this case including the ban on animal torture. If there is a widespread opposition against animal cruelty, most, or at least the most popular protection organizations will regulate their clients’ right to torture animals. And if you wish to live in a social context, there are obvious benefits to join a protection organization with a good reputation, or social standing. Particularly when it comes to legal disputes between clients of different protection organizations. If people in general strongly oppose animal cruelty, it will then pay off to sign a contract stating that you will not torture animals, even if you personally enjoy such activities. Of course, if torturing animals is the most important thing in your life, you would never sign such a thing, but that is only because you weigh the right to torture higher than the benefits from living in a wider social context.
Now, I’m not a vegetarian. I eat meat, and I don’t see myself turning vegetarian in the near future. This means I do not extend the non-aggression principle to animals. But we have to realize that there are different degrees of aggression. Aggressive violence is a means to certain ends. Ends do not justify the means, but certain ends can be rejected in order to minimize non-peaceful means. I do not wish to extend all rights that I extend to humans to animals, but the beauty is that a free society does not require everyone to have the same rights. There are no inalienable rights, that you either have or you don’t. Rights are social, and as such, you yourself can decide which rights you wish to extend to which living beings. I am not yet ready to stop eating meat. I am already skinny as it is, and I am a horrible cook. I choose to place my own needs above those of animals, and violently cause suffering to animals to promote my own wellbeing. But as I recognize this ill, I also am willing to sign a contract saying that i will not harm animals in certain ways or harm animals to attain certain ends. I want to eat animals, but I am willing to sign away my right to unnecessarily cause suffering to them. I am willing to kill animals to eat them, but I am unwilling to harm them for fun, or to use unnecessarily painful ways of killing them, or treat them in unnecessarily bad ways while they are kept in captivity.
The extension of (private) legal rights to animals is a part in the process of civilization, and while I recognize that there are more civilized ways to live (vegetarianism), I am personally not there yet. It is not worth the tradeoff for me, to sacrifice the benefits of eating meat in order to attain the benefits of feeling more civilized or ethical. This is the degree of barbarism that I am comfortable living with at the moment, but we all must recognize that we are killing animals, and we are causing suffering to them. Suffering is an ill no matter to whom it belongs, and should as such be minimized to the extent that we feel is appropriate for ourselves. A right not to be tortured can be granted without granting that same being a right to life, contrary to what some natural rights proponents suggest. I really hope that over time, the social realm will spread and include more and more beings, treating animals and humans better and better.
The other day I found myself very disgusted with my own behavior. I had some leftover pasta with minced beef meat. I heated all of it, and then I noticed that I was significantly less hungry than I had anticipated. And I was really appalled when I saw myself throwing this ground up cow into the trash. The problem wasn’t that someone had killed the animal, or that I was eating a dead animal. I do that every day. It was that someone had killed the animal, only so that I could throw it into the trash. We cannot stop killing animals today, but the least we can do is to treat them with decency and respect, even if we do murder them. If we kill them, we should make sure it wasn’t for nothing (just to throw the corpse in the garbage can). And we should try to treat them as humanely as possible when they are alive and not torture and kill for fun. I do not judge the person who eats meat (I eat meat myself), just as I don’t judge the cannibal who kills humans for food. I simply state that there are more civilized ways of life, and I personally believe they are worth aiming for, to whatever extent we are personally comfortable with. That’s just my take on the whole animal rights issue.
Suffering, as I mean it, is a conscious experience not just a biological repsonse to stimuli. I guess this is purhaps the more contentious area of what I am saying: what is consciousness.
‘It is not worth the tradeoff for me, to sacrifice the benefits of eating meat in order to attain the benefits of feeling more civilized or ethical.’
Everything you said was really interesting, but I don’t understand what benefits there are to eating meat. From a nutritional point of view, we don’t need to eat meat anymore, mycoprotein does the job: 10grams of protein for one average sized meat-free burger. And if it’s the taste, then trust me, you get over it!
Out of curiousity, do you feel that it is equally wrong to kill a conscious being in all circumstances? Do you feel there is a moral difference between:
- Accidently hitting a deer while driving down a country road
- killing a pitbull that is attacking a 4 year old child
- shooting a grizzly to have it mounted in your living room
- going fishing and eating your catch
Also, was it always wrong to kill and eat animals or only in the 21st century when it is relatively easy to be vegan and not die from malnutrtion?
Jrgen:
Well I disagree with your reasoning that civilization is about mutually acceeding to non-agression contracts, my view is that the process of civilization is that of increasing productivity, that is, a more civilized society has more production of wealth. And the way to get there is through lower time preference, which in turn makes us realize the benefits of peaceful cooperation when it comes to maximizing the production of wealth.
No such benefit is attained from extending this contract to animals, who in fact cannot agree or disagree to be bound by the terms of this contract.
On animal torture, the reason most people feel disgusted by it and want to keep animal torturers away, isn’t because they care about the animals so much, but rather because someone who enjoys torturing animals just to see them suffer is likely a danger to society, as it is common for animal torturers to then go on to torture people. That doesn’t happen with people who eat animals.
I do realize that I would come off as (if not hypocritical) uncivilized to you, as a vegetarian. I really would like to take the step to vegetarianism, but it would require a lot of effort. I am a very lazy person highly dependent on preproduced microwaveable food. I am a horrible cook, and I just don’t think I could have any sort of variation when it comes to the food I eat if I were to only eat vegetables. One thing I am considering however, is eating less and less meat gradually. It just seems like a very big (but definitely desireable) step to stop eating food alltogether.
That is merely a matter of semantics. Civilization could mean a great deal of different things to different people, and what I described above is merely my definition of the term. I do not, however, see it as contradicting Hoppe’s definition in any way though. The too go hand in hand, I only consider the process of ethical civilization as significantly more important than the process material civilization. The two, however, fuel each other. I think it is important to make the distinction though. Because even if a system of violent slavery could produce more material wealth than a free system of voluntary exchange, I would never call the former “civilized”.
And this ties directly to the treatment of animals. It is, to be sure, more “economical” to treat animals badly (assuming consumer indifference). But regardless of the material wealth it produces, such a system may not be ethically desireable. And when using the creation of wealth as a standard of for the degree of civilization, one always has to ask “wealth for whom?” A system of slavery obviously creates more material wealth to the slave owner, just as a society characterized by indifference to animal mistreatment is a more lucrative environment for the owner of animals.
Regarding animal torture. If you had a pet cat, and you saw a man torturing your pet cat to death. Would you feel sorry for the cat, or would you be thinking to yourself “this man is clearly a threat to society”?
I assume you live in the US, so I have no idea what kind of food is avaible over there. But If you can find some quorn products (http://www.quorn.co.uk/Home/), then you will have a load more variety. In all honesty, I’m not a huge fan on vegetables, so I mostly eat fruit, pasta and quorn.
The quorn website has some great stuff on it as well, but good luck whatever you choose to do!
Thanks for the tip. I live in Sweden, but I assume it doesn’t make that big a difference, as we do have many vegetarians here. Especially since I’m moving to the city, which I assume has a larger selection of different types of food available (I live on the countryside atm). I might try to cook some vegetarian food and see how it goes.
Asking “What is consciousness?” is futile. If you’re asking what is a particular concept being labeled by “consciousness”, the answer should be obvious: it is itself. Otherwise, if you’re asking what is the meaning (i.e. the correct meaning) of the word “consciousness”, the answer is that there is none. All definitions are arbitrary.
That being said, I’d like to know if you already have a definition for the word “consciousness” and, if so, what it is.
My mind isn’t completely made up on consciousness yet. But I don’t think defining it is arbitary, at the moment I am moving towards Husserl’s view of consciousness, but if I were to try and explain all my thoughts on it I wouldn’t do them justice. But this is a good site to look at for a brief view of consciousness.
I lol’d.
My point was that the word “consciousness” can mean (i.e. point to, or label) anything one wants it to. I can define “consciousness” as “light with a wavelength between 440 and 490 nm” if I want. Since all definitions are arbitrary, any definition put forth for “consciousness” is also arbitrary.
What this means to me is that I think you’re going about things backwards here. The question isn’t “What is consciousness?” but rather “Given a particular definition of ‘consciousness’, which animals can be said to have it?” A related question seems to be “Which animals feel pain the way humans do?”
In that sense you could define any word as anything you want, devoiding all definite meaning from it. For example, I could define ‘chair’ to mean 'some object which is supported by some other object; now if that were accepted, then this pair of glasses are also a ‘chair’ - since they are supported by my face.
So we need to be clear about what we are talking about. So I propose we define ‘consciousness’ as definitely as we can.
I think we would say a thing is self-conscious if it is aware of its own existence. So, it seems that awareness is a part of consciousness. You got any views on a good definiton?
Yeah there is this weird word-Platonism, where people and especially philosophers spend centuries debating what something “is,” without realizing that they’d have to agree on a particular definition before any real debate could start. Though people will often clue in if you point it out, another easy solution for discussions like this is to taboo the word consciousness. (It looks like both of these happened while I was writing this reply.)
@OP, you can see here how everyone has their own reactions of disgust, apathy, or delight about eating animals. What more is there to say? You could say it’s about whether the animal feels pain, or whether it is conscious or sentient, but those are just after-the-fact justifications to explain to others (or to yourself) why you reacted a certain way to a prospect of eating or harming a certain creature.
You are disgusted at the idea of eating a cat, so you search your feelings and decide it is because the cat can feel pain (and it being cute probably also factors in). This is just like if I say I like peanuts because they are salty or I don’t like Julia Roberts because her mouth is too big. It is a crude attempt at intellectualizing a feeling. Later I’ll find salty foods I dislike and girls with big mouths that I do like (Yui Aragaki comes to mind), and I’ll have to refine the justification. What use is it?
Hmm well then how would you define a being that is aware of its own existence?
Look at this video → http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG2tvepHN2A&feature=related
The coral branded shrimp faced with danger cuts off its own arm to give it to the mantis shrimp hoping to exchange it for its life. Would that not be a certain kind of consciousness? Perhaps if you could narrow down your definition a bit more, or explain what you mean?
Completely disagree. I used to eat meat, and enjoyed it. My friend then reasoned with me, and based on that reasoning I became a vegetarian, not because I was disgusted with eating animals; in fact, I wasn’t disgusted, so it wasn’t because of any emotional bias.
Odd, I seem to remember you starting this thread with this:
This idea of morality divorced from emotion is one a curious one. “Hey, it’s not that the suffering bothers me, it’s just that it’s morally wrong.”
This idea of morality divorced from emotion is one a curious one.
It’s odd that Spock’s character might be be moral?
Spock wasn’t emotionless, but anyway the most useful question to ask here is what on earth people are referring to in their experience when they speak of such an emotion-less moral sense.