Are the fight against racism and the fight against "speciesism" moral equivalents?

[ChangeAndChance]

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/animal-rights-cecil-the-lion-peter-singer-speciesism/

That's right: I'm opening this old can of worms again. The Jacobin (a more or less pan-radleft publication) recently published a critique of noted ethical philosopher and utilitarian Peter Singer's concept of "speciesism" - namely the discrimination against a being based on their membership of a species. Naturally, if you consider yourself against discrimination, you cannot rank the moral value of different kinds of discrimination - you must assume there is an equal moral imperative to end all of them. However, the comparison made by many animal rights activists of the conditions of factory farming to the suffering of Jews, homosexuals, Romas, the disabled and Leftists in the Holocaust leaves a sour taste in most people's mouths.

Anyone want to give their take on the subject?

[Ele'ill]

Not directly replying to the article, I'd be far more likely to prioritize humans than other animals because I think we have the capacity as a species to correct a lot of our planetary mistakes that would otherwise continue to destroy the biosphere and those other species and we of course have to continue living too as animals. I think the position taken in a lot of anti-animal liberation discussions is moralizing in that it places humans as sacred when really we experience the same levels of emotional distress and physical pain as a lot of other species. The interconnectivity of species in relation to the biosphere is another reason that the 'why otters and not crabs?' argument doesn't pan out imo.

I see this thread going the direction of every animal liberation thread on the forum.

[Rafiq]

OP, I recommend giving this a read:


So, back to Singer, one cannot dismiss him as a monstrous exaggeration — what Adorno said about psychoanalysis (its truth resides in its very exaggerations)22 fully holds for Singer: he is so traumatic and intolerable because his scandalous “exaggerations” directly renders visible the truth of the so-called postmodern ethics. Is effectively not the ultimate horizon of the postmodern “identity politics” Darwinian — defending the right of some particular species of the humankind within the panoply of their proliferating multitude (gays with AIDS, black single mothers...)? The very opposition between “conservative” and “progressive” politics can be conceived of in the terms of Darwinism: ultimately, conservatives defend the right of those with might (their very success proves that they won in the struggle for survival), while progressives advocate the protection of endangered human species, i.e., of those losing the struggle for survival.23

One of the divisions in the chapter on Reason in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit speaks about “das geistige Tierreich” (the spiritual animal kingdom): the social world which lacks any spiritual substance, so that, in it, individuals effectively interact as “intelligent animals.” They use reason, but only in order to assert their individual interests, to manipulate others into serving their own pleasures.24 Is not a world in which the highest rights are human rights precisely such a “spiritual animal kingdom,” a universe? There is, however, a price to be paid for such liberation — in such a universe, human rights ultimately function as ANIMAL rights. This, then, is the ultimate truth of Singer: our universe of human right is the universe of animal rights.

The obvious counterargument is here: so what? Why should we not reduce humankind to its proper place, that of one of the animal species? What gets lost in this reduction? Jacques-Alain Miller, the main pupil of Jacques Lacan, once commented an uncanny laboratory experiment with rats25: in a labyrinthine set-up, a desired object (a piece of good food or a sexual partner) is first made easily accessible to a rat; then, the set-up is changed in such a way that the rat sees and thereby knows where the desired object is, but cannot gain access to it; in exchange for it, as a kind of consolation prize, a series of similar objects of inferior value is made easily accessible — how does the rat react to it? For some time, it tries to find its way to the “true” object; then, upon ascertaining that this object is definitely out of reach, the rat will renounce it and put up with some of the inferior substitute objects — in short, it will act as a “rational” subject of utilitarianism.

It is only now, however, that the true experiment begins: [...]
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ot/zizek1.htm

I recommend reading the whole thing, at "Of Apes and Men".

In short, it is ridiculous to even speak of animals belonging to the same cateogry as humans, vis a vis "rights". Because it forces us to evaluate what the real foundation of "rights" are: It is not that "some" are more ethically worthy of them then others, it is the simple fact that this pertains to our material and social space: Identity politics is a sham, because what's missing is solidarity. To conceive the oppressed, for example, as merely deserving of our support is vulgar - the oppressed must be able to free themselves, too, elevate themselves above the level of just being the fetishistic object of liberals.

Moreover, the point of Communism is NOT to be the yin of the yang in capitalist society, but to break the logic of Darwinism in general: Those who are truly "of might" are not those who are at top, for this presupposes the existing condition as eternal. Rather, we conceive the proletariat to be the heirs to the world, and those who are "successful" at the mercy of Communism as a force. To be a political subject has nothing to do with "empathy" at all, or the ability to feel pain, but rather its relation to consciousness (which really means the social field, of course). EVEN IF the migrant workers of Dubai are fully content, are not feeling physical pain, this would make little difference for the Communist. Because only humans can feel spiritual (in Hegel's sense) pain, the pain of degradation, the pain of domination and exploitation (IRREDUCIBLE to any kind of "physical" suffering). It is this "suffering", this "misery" that is of prime importance - we don't live in a society free from social antagonism where we're privileged enough to simply focus on something as rudimentary as physical pain. An animal can be complacent so long as certain criteria are met. So even an "exploited" animal can be happy and fully healthy if only a certain criteria is met. But even if workers are fully "healthy" and complacent, the antagonism remains.

So in short - the suffering of humans is irreducible to physical suffering, which has always existed at the same degree. But we have history, we have change.

[Ele'ill]

@Rafiq, how exactly does that text you linked relate to the article in the OP, and similar positions taken in a general defense of animal liberation?

[Hatshepsut]

I can’t speak for Rafiq (above) and don’t wish to tread on etiquette by inserting myself into the conversation of two other users. I will note that the Zizek piece, shortly after the quoted excerpt (above), states that truth is one-sided and therefore partisan. Not to say every question has a true-false answer, but if something is true we must defend it. Peter Singer as an ethicist raises a bevy of points in his defense of approximate moral parity between humans and nonhuman animals which I can’t address here. To be fair, Singer does not equate humans and animals; he only asserts that species alone lacks sufficiency to justify differential treatment.

Grey & Cleffie in the Jacobin (OP cite) bring up an interview with Singer, parts of which appeared in The New York Review of Books (May 21, ’15), and linked as an FAQ list at

Singer: http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/faq.html

One issue for G. & C. was Singer’s consequentialism and how it applies to human situations like babies with serious birth defects and adult Alzheimer’s patients. Here Singer rather arbitrarily claims that a newborn lacks a sense of self existing over time, with the corollary that it may be ethically permissible to kill it, if some other reason for doing so has intervened. Yet Singer rejects a similar killing of the Alzheimer’s patient on grounds that person had had a sense of self in the past.

Thus Singer’s criterion for personhood is possession of self-awareness, although why having had it in past saves one who does not have it now escapes me, unless it’s the viewpoint of the elderly patient’s survivors that matters.

Marxism-Leninism, primarily deontological in outlook even though it rejects fact-value dichotomies, would not countenance extending rights pertaining to human beings to cover other animals as far as I know. I doubt Marxists of the classical or Soviet periods encountered the question. In strict interpretations of Marxism-Leninism, the moral compass is circumscribed by class consciousness and class struggle, which are social phenomena limited to the human world. Indeed, not all human beings enjoy rights under such formulations; class enemies do not for instance. No animal society, except social insects like ants, has a class system.

The question of social discrimination, and whether different forms of discrimination—racism, sexism, heterosexual gender bias, and so on—can be ranked morally is harder than it appears. One may condemn all these biases on considerations of class relations while accepting “speciesism.”

Lastly, I’ll touch on whether Marxism-Leninism should be interpreted only with reference to Marx and Lenin themselves, or whether new understandings can inform it. I take the latter view. If the founders’ opinions become dogma, then we make a religion out of them. Given what Marx thought of religion, I don’t think we should go there. Just because the former Eastern Bloc trashed its environment doesn’t mean future communists should do so. We know a lot more about the biosphere and its importance now, even where it comes to its role in uplifting the spirit of “socialist man.” We may next ponder whether a habit of cavalier attitude toward animals, by psychological transference of concepts within the individual mind, may corrupt us, leading to mistreatment of comrades. I think it can. The needs of the environment and the needs of animals have to be taken into account even by those who assign primacy to the class struggle. Wanton usages have never held a place in communist ideals.

[Hezadukii92]

No, equating the worth of a chicken to that of a black person or a gay person and their oppression is misanthropic nonsense.

[Ele'ill]

No, equating the worth of a chicken to that of a black person or a gay person and their oppression is misanthropic nonsense.

The criticism asks why, not yes or no.

[Hezadukii92]

The criticism asks why

Because morality are social constructs, social constructs were things we created to improve our conditions.

We came up with the construct of murder, a natural act within nature, because outlawing it made society safer for us and increased our chances of passing on our genes, reciprocal altruism etc. Same for other "crimes".

We develop morality and laws and these artificial constructs like "rights" increase our chances of survival and passing on our genes even more. As we evolved we created more and more and society got safer and safer.

We created constructs like races and nations and in turn developed new ways of producing, feudalism, to the revolutionary system of capitalism, the division of labour, the advancement of technology through economic advancement and vice versa.

As technology evolved and production thus evolved and scarcity lowered and lowered we lived comfortable enough lives to develop even more ideas and constructs and moral codes. All furthering our self interest and the mutual advancement and aid of our species.

A materialist outlook tells us what? morals are constructs we developed to survive and advance our species. for self interest. What logical reason would we have, in line with out self interest to apply those artificial man made morals and ethics to animals?

It is in our material interest to enslave and eat chickens. Therefore applying human constructs to animals is illogical and inherently opposed to our self interests, which was what created those moral and social constructs in the first place and keeps erecting them still.

[Quail]

Maybe it isn't in our material interests to enslave and eat animals though... Maybe in a very short-sighted way it might appear to be so, but animal agriculture is destroying the planet and wasting valuable resources, not to mention that it can't be psychologically healthy for us as humans to adhere to a moral code which allows torture and murder because people like eating animals.

[Hezadukii92]

Maybe it isn't in our material interests to enslave and eat animals though... Maybe in a very short-sighted way it might appear to be so, but animal agriculture is destroying the planet and wasting valuable resources, not to mention that it can't be psychologically healthy for us as humans to adhere to a moral code which allows torture and murder because people like eating animals.

Yu are arguing from a moral position and trying to make it fit as if giving up meat is in our self interests, it is not. There will always be ways we will revolutionise tech, especially when it comes to us needing to for our survival on the planet.

Farming and agriculture, when the time comes when we finally make a desperate effort to address climate change, will find solutions to the pollution caused by those processes.

Have you seen the levels of emissions between local sourced grassfed cattle and factory farm? A simple reverse from mega farms to local sustainable farming would = less meat overall but continuous and better treated animals and massively lower emissions.

And seeing as we kill untold animals through crop production and all that goes along with that, eating grassfed beef a couple times a week probably leaves you with less blood on your handles than a vegan smashing down veggies, fruit, grains etc.

If you want to be vegan for your wish to adhere to social constructs regarding morals then so be it more power to you. But seeing as murder is a construct and that construct was established for us by us, meat is not murder meat is simply consumption of high quality protein and b vitamins.

[Ele'ill]

Because morality are social constructs, social constructs were things we created to improve our conditions.

We came up with the construct of murder, a natural act within nature, because outlawing it made society safer for us and increased our chances of passing on our genes, reciprocal altruism etc. Same for other "crimes".

We develop morality and laws and these artificial constructs like "rights" increase our chances of survival and passing on our genes even more. As we evolved we created more and more and society got safer and safer.

We created constructs like races and nations and in turn developed new ways of producing, feudalism, to the revolutionary system of capitalism, the division of labour, the advancement of technology through economic advancement and vice versa.

As technology evolved and production thus evolved and scarcity lowered and lowered we lived comfortable enough lives to develop even more ideas and constructs and moral codes. All furthering our self interest and the mutual advancement and aid of our species.

A materialist outlook tells us what? morals are constructs we developed to survive and advance our species. for self interest. What logical reason would we have, in line with out self interest to apply those artificial man made morals and ethics to animals?

It is in our material interest to enslave and eat chickens. Therefore applying human constructs to animals is illogical and inherently opposed to our self interests, which was what created those moral and social constructs in the first place and keeps erecting them still.

aside from everything in your post pretty much being flawed because you actually have no idea what you're talking about despite being here all day long, the point being made through the criticism wasn't whether or not our species should come first but that given our understanding that many other animals feel emotional distress and physical pain in a similar way that we do, and we don't need them dietarily, then why 'enslave', kill, and eat them?

[Hezadukii92]

aside from everything in your post pretty much being flawed because you actually have no idea what you're talking about despite being here all day long, the point being made through the criticism wasn't whether or not our species should come first but that given our understanding that many other animals feel emotional distress and physical pain in a similar way that we do, and we don't need them dietarily, then why 'enslave', kill, and eat them?

If you has bothered to listen instead of being a self righteous whining vegan you would of understood it clealry. Not torturing them does not benefit me, the only reason not to torture them would be moral reasons which are constructs designed for us to increase our safety and create a safe society for ourselves via reciprocal altruism.

If morals are constructs we erected for self interest and eating and using animals for clothing etc is also in my interests then why would I use a construct like morals which are there to help me secure my interests to stop me eating and using animals which is in my material interests?

The only way you don't get this contradiction is if you are using a moralistic analysis. Make more sense?

[BIXX]

No, equating the worth of a chicken to that of a black person or a gay person and their oppression is misanthropic nonsense.

What a moralist statement

[Ele'ill]

If you has bothered to listen instead of being a self righteous whining vegan you would of understood it clealry. Not torturing them does not benefit me, the only reason not to torture them would be moral reasons which are constructs designed for us to increase our safety and create a safe society for ourselves via reciprocal altruism.

Why are we talking about torturing them? How was I self righteous? How was I whining?


If morals are constructs we erected for self interest and eating and using animals for clothing etc is also in my interests then why would I use a construct like morals which are there to help me secure my interests to stop me eating and using animals which is in my material interests?

Who is 'we'? Is that how this works? The vast majority of animal products we don't need.





The only way you don't get this contradiction is if you are using a moralistic analysis. Make more sense?

no, you make sense you're just wrong.

[Hezadukii92]

Why are we talking about torturing them? How was I self righteous? How was I whining?



Who is 'we'? Is that how this works? The vast majority of animal products we don't need.






no, you make sense you're just wrong.

We don't need animal producs, but having them benefits us, so it is in our interests to kill them for food and clothing etc. What is hard to get?

[Hezadukii92]

What a moralist statement

Of course, morals are human constructs for humans. Shocking I know.

[Ele'ill]

We don't need animal producs, but having them benefits us, so it is in our interests to kill them for food and clothing etc. What is hard to get?

We don't need animal products so not having animal products doesn't leave us at some disadvantage. It's not really 'in our interest', then, especially not for clothes. :rolleyes:

[Hezadukii92]

We don't need animal products so not having animal products doesn't leave us at some disadvantage. It's not really 'in our interest', then, especially not for clothes. :rolleyes:

I don't need ice cream but it benefits me to have the option, I don't need music but it benefits me to have access to it. You are not getting it on purpose. Rather odd strategy.

[BIXX]

Of course, morals are human constructs for humans. Shocking I know.

"You are being a moralist vegan so you're wrong!"

"But when I'm being a moralist I'm right!"

Are you legitimately stupid?

[Ele'ill]

I don't need ice cream but it benefits me to have the option

yeah but you're aware of the emotional distress and physical pain that it causes other animals and the environmental destruction that it causes, and it isn't essential, so why? Do you not have a problem with emotional distress and physical pain in humans?

[Hezadukii92]

yeah but you're aware of the emotional distress and physical pain that it causes other animals and the environmental destruction that it causes, and it isn't essential, so why? Do you not have a problem with emotional distress and physical pain in humans?

As I just explained, our empathy for one another on a widespread scale is because of social constructs which benefit us via reciprocal altruism. Our morals are man made and serve a biological function, they make society safe thus increase our chances of passing on our genes.

Kindness towards humans benefits us all by making society safer and thus full filling the biological urge to pass on our genes easier.
Applying these constructs to other species serves no advantageous purpose for us or our species.

That answers the question you find so puzzling, why humans won't give up eating and using animals despite them not being necessary for our survival. Because we derive benefit and pleasure from eating them, wearing their skin and fur. So we continue to do so.

If you can't get that simple evolutionary explanation then you never will understand it because you are not trying to understand it.

[Ele'ill]

As I just explained, our empathy for one another on a widespread scale is because of social constructs which benefit us via reciprocal altruism. Our morals are man made and serve a biological function, they make society safe thus increase our chances of passing on our genes.

Kindness towards humans benefits us all by making society safer and thus full filling the biological urge to pass on our genes easier.
Applying these constructs to other species serves no advantageous purpose for us or our species.

That answers the question you find so puzzling, why humans won't give up eating and using animals despite them not being necessary for our survival. Because we derive benefit and pleasure from eating them, wearing their skin and fur. So we continue to do so.

If you can't get that simple evolutionary explanation then you never will understand it because you are not trying to understand it.

No I am trying to understand it still can you explain it again

[Hezadukii92]

yeah but you're aware of the emotional distress and physical pain that it causes other animals and the environmental destruction that it causes, and it isn't essential, so why? Do you not have a problem with emotional distress and physical pain in humans?

Yes because I have been conditioned by social constructs to have feelings of empathy and care for other human beings.

You can see the rise of certain constructs and how they have changed our emotional constructs. For example in the animal kingdom rape is natural, Dolphins rape, almost every species engages in rape. Through early civilisation up until just a jew hundred years ago open and legal rape was not considered immoral, neither was taking child brides etc.

Today we find these things sickening because of generations and generations of the implementation of constructs such as the illegalisation and criminalisation of "rape".

Why don't honey badgers or Dolphins feel bad about torturing and raping each other? Because they have no created constructs to make society safer via reciprocal altruism.

[Spectre of Spartacism]

Yes because I have been conditioned by social constructs to have feelings of empathy and care for other human beings.

You can see the rise of certain constructs and how they have changed our emotional constructs. For example in the animal kingdom rape is natural, Dolphins rape, almost every species engages in rape. Through early civilisation up until just a jew hundred years ago open and legal rape was not considered immoral, neither was taking child brides etc.

Today we find these things sickening because of generations and generations of the implementation of constructs such as the illegalisation and criminalisation of "rape".

Why don't honey badgers or Dolphins feel bad about torturing and raping each other? Because they have no created constructs to make society safer via reciprocal altruism.

I think you are confused here. Feeling empathy is a social process, but it is not a social construct. Many years of evolutionary conditioning of humans as social creatures has hardwired this propensity into our neural physiology. I see no reason to restrict empathy only to other humans and judging by the historical record, not many other people do in their day to day lives either.

[Ele'ill]

Yes because I have been conditioned by social constructs to have feelings of empathy and care for other human beings.

You can see the rise of certain constructs and how they have changed our emotional constructs. For example in the animal kingdom rape is natural, Dolphins rape, almost every species engages in rape. Through early civilisation up until just a jew hundred years ago open and legal rape was not considered immoral, neither was taking child brides etc.

Today we find these things sickening because of generations and generations of the implementation of constructs such as the illegalisation and criminalisation of "rape".

Why don't honey badgers or Dolphins feel bad about torturing and raping each other? Because they have no created constructs to make society safer via reciprocal altruism.

I am having a hard time believing that dolphins and honey badgers do that to one another mainly because dolphins can't survive for very long on land and I don't think they live together geographically.

[Hezadukii92]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/9172937/Dolphins-resort-to-rape.html

Dolphins are incredibly smart and have regional dialects, they also engage in war and kidnapping and repeated gang rape of captured dolphins from other pods. Dolphins are incredibly intelligent and are basically early humans without hands to manipulate their environment. They are fascinating, but they rape and do "evil" shit.

You seem to have an extreme problem with ampromorphising animals.

[Lord Testicles]

Haha, brilliant. I think we have the answer to your previous question Placenta cream. :lol:

[Ele'ill]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/wildlife/9172937/Dolphins-resort-to-rape.html

Dolphins are incredibly smart and have regional dialects, they also engage in war and kidnapping and repeated gang rape of captured dolphins from other pods. Dolphins are incredibly intelligent and are basically early humans without hands to manipulate their environment. They are fascinating, but they rape and do "evil" shit.

You seem to have an extreme problem with ampromorphising animals.

Yeah you're right, good thing we have the history of human civilization up to current times to juxtapoz that with.

[Hezadukii92]

Yeah you're right, good thing we have the history of human civilization up to current times to juxtapoz that with.

That was exactly my point you seem incapable of grasping. I am explaining why I for example as you asked, have feeling of empathy towards humans, I do, because through moral constructs etc I have been conditioned to.

I have not been conditioned by any moral constructs to give a shit about chickens. Just as dolphins have no moral constructs that stop them raping en masse. Basically evolution explain everything you are asking.

However in 300 years time we possibly could be conditioned through emerging moral constructs that we view meat eating then as we do slavery today.

[Cliff Paul]

That was exactly my point you seem incapable of grasping. I am explaining why I for example as you asked, have feeling of empathy towards humans, I do, because through moral constructs etc I have been conditioned to.

I have not been conditioned by any moral constructs to give a shit about chickens. Just as dolphins have no moral constructs that stop them raping en masse. Basically evolution explain everything you are asking.

However in 300 years time we possibly could be conditioned through emerging moral constructs that we view meat eating then as we do slavery today.

And 300 years when Hezadukii92 was asked about his opinion on slavery he replied with "well I was taught to not give a shit about the negro race so like don't really care. maybe in 300 years I might so long as they don't start acting out in front of police officers"

[Cliff Paul]

I bet Hezadukii92 uses facewash that was tested on baby bunny eyes.

[Hezadukii92]

I bet Hezadukii92 uses facewash that was tested on baby bunny eyes.

It costs a little extra but you have to have some luxuries.

[Cliff Paul]

One time Hezadukii92 clubbed a baby seal to death. Not for the fur or even the meat, but because it was in his way and fuck morals those are for people not animals.

[Hezadukii92]

And 300 years when Hezadukii92 was asked about his opinion on slavery he replied with "well I was taught to not give a shit about the negro race so like don't really care. maybe in 300 years I might so long as they don't start acting out in front of police officers"

But this is factually accurate, just like when the Muslim world took over a million European Christians as slaves by force a couple hundred years ago and when white Europeans took black Africans as slaves a couple hundred years ago all sides considered slavery morally acceptable:

Ohio State University history Professor Robert Davis describes the White Slave Trade as minimized by most modern historians in his book Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800 (Palgrave Macmillan). Davis estimates that 1 million to 1.25 million white Christian Europeans were enslaved in North Africa, from the beginning of the 16th century to the middle of the 18th, by slave traders from Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli alone (these numbers do not include the European people which were enslaved by Morocco and by other raiders and traders of the Mediterranean Sea coast),[1] and roughly 700 Americans were held captive in this region as slaves between 1785 and 1815.[2] 16th- and 17th-century customs statistics suggest that Istanbul's additional slave import from the Black Sea may have totaled around 2.5 million from 1450 to 1700.[3] The markets declined after the loss of the Barbary Wars and finally ended in the 1830s, when the region was conquered by France.

[Lord Testicles]

But this is factually accurate, just like when the Muslim world took over a million European Christians as slaves by force a couple hundred years ago and when white Europeans took black Africans as slaves a couple hundred years ago all sides considered slavery morally acceptable

If just "a couple" hundred years ago everyone saw slavery as morally acceptable, one wonders what Louis X of France was thinking when he abolished it in 1315.

[Hezadukii92]

If just "a couple" hundred years ago everyone saw slavery as morally acceptable, one wonders what Louis X of France was thinking when he abolished it in 1315.

Seeing as French slavery ended in 1794 and was reintroduced in 1802, who the fuck knows, right?

[Cliff Paul]

Well morals are based off of human self-interest and "our empathy for one another on a widespread scale is because of social constructs which benefit us via reciprocal altruism. Our morals are man made and serve a biological function, they make society safe thus increase our chances of passing on our genes" but sometimes we also think slavery is moral and that's okay because that's how it was at the time and since I was not "conditioned by any moral constructs to give a shit" then its okay. "However in 300 years time we possibly could be conditioned through emerging moral constructs that we view meat eating then as we do slavery today" (idk how this shit changes because we should never go against the status quot) and then it would be okay for me to refuse to eat meat but probably not since applying moral codes to animals doesn't make sense.

How do you dogmatic leftists not understand what I'm trying to say!!!!!!

[Lord Testicles]

Seeing as French slavery ended in 1794 and was reintroduced in 1802, who the fuck knows, right?

That's not really answering the question. If just a couple hundred years ago everyone saw slavery as morally acceptable, what was Louis X of France thinking when he abolished it in 1315?

[Ele'ill]

That was exactly my point you seem incapable of grasping. I am explaining why I for example as you asked, have feeling of empathy towards humans, I do, because through moral constructs etc I have been conditioned to.

I have not been conditioned by any moral constructs to give a shit about chickens. Just as dolphins have no moral constructs that stop them raping en masse. Basically evolution explain everything you are asking.

However in 300 years time we possibly could be conditioned through emerging moral constructs that we view meat eating then as we do slavery today.


So you're saying that you can relate a lot to these animals you keep bringing up, and know a lot about what you find problematic in their daily lives, because you can relate it to human experience in so far as emotional distress and physical pain

[Hezadukii92]

That's not really answering the question. If just a couple hundred years ago everyone saw slavery as morally acceptable, what was Louis X of France thinking when he abolished it in 1315?

If you has a basic understanding of French History you would know Louis X did not end slavery, he allowed serfs to be freed if they could pay for it.

He also expelled jews and when letting them return forced them to wear armbands signifying their jewishness at all times. Basically you just shit the bed and now look foolish.

[Ele'ill]

Why does shitting the bed look foolish?

[Hezadukii92]

Why does shitting the bed look foolish?

I have no idea why shitting the bed looks foolish. Are you somewhere on the scale Mari3l?

[Ele'ill]

I have no idea why shitting the bed looks foolish. Are you somewhere on the scale Mari3l?

so I just did a search for somewhere on the scale and I don't understand what you mean are you asking me if my bodyweight registers on a weight scale?

[Lord Testicles]

If you has a basic understanding of French History you would know Louis X did not end slavery, he allowed serfs to be freed if they could pay for it.

Um, no. He allowed serfs to buy their freedom and he abolished slavery. He proclaimed that "France signifies freedom and that any slave setting foot in France should be freed." So clearly Louis X didn't see slavery as morally acceptable, what was he thinking!?

[Hezadukii92]

Um, no. He allowed serfs to buy their freedom and he abolished slavery. He proclaimed that "France signifies freedom and that any slave setting foot in France should be freed." So clearly Louis X didn't see slavery as morally acceptable, what was he thinking!?

No again a very basic understand of French history would tell you he stopped slaves being brought onto French soil, so instead they all went where the majority always went, the colonies to be worked to death and treated like cattle.

So please tell me how Louis X ended slavery. I would be so very interested to hear about this moral anomaly.

[Lord Testicles]

No again a very basic understand of French history would tell you he stopped slaves being brought onto French soil, so instead they all went where the majority always went, the colonies to be worked to death and treated like cattle.

What colonies did France have in 1315? I only ask since you are clearly such an expert on French history.


So please tell me how Louis X ended slavery. I would be so very interested to hear about this moral anomaly.

Well, it's not whether he actually ended it, it was whether he saw it as morally acceptable. I'm asking because everyone saw it as morally acceptable just a couple of hundred years ago, except for this one king a couple of hundred years previous to that. Moral anomaly indeed.

[Cliff Paul]

You condemned a person to slavery whose nature is free and independent, and you make laws opposed to God and contrary to His natural law. For you have subjected one who was made precisely to be lord of the earth, and whom the Creator intended to be a ruler, to the yoke of slavery, in resistance to and rejection of His divine precept. Have you forgotten what limits were given to your authority? Your rulership has been limited to the extent, namely, that you may only have ownership over brute animals - Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395)

[Puzzled Left]

Just wondering: why's the so-called "speciesism" only limited to the Animal Kingdom? Aren't other organisms also "species"?

[BIXX]

Just wondering: why's the so-called "speciesism" only limited to the Animal Kingdom? Aren't other organisms also "species"?

I don't see your point, can you explain further?

[Puzzled Left]

I don't see your point, can you explain further?

There is no point but the observation that those who are concerned about "speciesism" seem to only focus on animals with spines.

[Quail]

I was reading through this thread and wondering why none of the mods had done anything about everyone trolling everyone... and then I realised I'm the mod who should have dealt with it :o

Try to keep the thread on topic. Any off topic posts from now on will receive an infraction (no matter how funny they are).

[Hatshepsut]

The above exchanges raise a few interesting paradoxes. Marxism sees morality as construct, yet Marxian ethics is primarily deontological (duty-bound), not consequentialist (golden rule). Meaning that at some times it must allow emotional distress and/or physical pain even in human beings. Revolution isn't painless. Yet Marxists feel a duty to the Revolution and to the raising of Class consciousness over False consciousness.

At the same time Marxism favors the principle of moderation (as far as I can tell, and as far as abundance has not yet been realized). Meaning the way we produce and consume food in the USA is unacceptably wasteful and inflicts unnecessary or gratuitous suffering, not only on animals, but on the farm workers who must raise them under such conditions. Factory farming is a recent development and we know that Marx favored industrial methods and means to abundance. Yet it's not sustainable over the long run. I can't imagine Marxists creating communism only to have it choke on its own wastes.

So, without a strict prohibition of pain, we do realize that pain and suffering, in either animal or human, is often a sign that something is materially wrong with a system and needs correction.

[Hezadukii92]

You condemned a person to slavery whose nature is free and independent, and you make laws opposed to God and contrary to His natural law. For you have subjected one who was made precisely to be lord of the earth, and whom the Creator intended to be a ruler, to the yoke of slavery, in resistance to and rejection of His divine precept. Have you forgotten what limits were given to your authority? Your rulership has been limited to the extent, namely, that you may only have ownership over brute animals - Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395)

People like this are anomalies though, the vast majority of us don't feel this way at all. Using a single guy or a handful from millions upon millions is meaningless.

it is constructs that make us feel a certain way and give us moral adaption and changes what we see as right or wrong. Even religious ones, for example India, religious constructs means a large group of vegetarians (who have an insanely high level of diabetes)

[Hezadukii92]

Just wondering: why's the so-called "speciesism" only limited to the Animal Kingdom? Aren't other organisms also "species"?

Because hippies don't give a shit about bacteria.

[Cliff Paul]

People like this are anomalies though, the vast majority of us don't feel this way at all. Using a single guy or a handful from millions upon millions is meaningless.

So how many until I get to more than a handful? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1688_Germantown_Quaker_Petition_Against_Slavery

awww he got banned

[Hatshepsut]

A difficult topic, where precise wording becomes important. Consider the following:


As I just explained, our empathy for one another on a widespread scale is because of social constructs which benefit us via reciprocal altruism.

This is reasonable where the bolded words are included. Empathy itself is not a social construct, that is, society didn't invent it. Humans have the ability to "put themselves in another's shoes," and guess what another human is thinking and feeling with fair accuracy. Yet without social constructs telling us we should have empathy for nonhuman animals, or even for foreigners of a different race, we might be restricted to having empathy only for close relatives and members of our own band, on a savannah in our state before larger societies and civilizations began to emerge.


Yes because I have been conditioned by social constructs to have feelings of empathy and care for other human beings.

This is almost correct, though imprecise. We could have empathy and care for our mothers and bandmates without social constructs, but we might not show much consideration to a strange newcomer from 75 miles away who walks into our camp one afternoon. We had to extend our moral circles to obtain tribes, nations, a sense of "world humanity," or nonhuman sentience such as in dolphins. These extensions are social constructs even if they play on the innate emotions involved.

(Later: The hammer from our favorite logo just fell. And just when I sided with this user on a few small things. I'm not sure I like bannit soups and restricted fora, although without them a cloud of reactionaries could descend like gnats and make the forum unreadable for repetition of the same conservative objection after ten patient counter-arguments. Best wishes to our departed gadfly.)


I think you are confused here. Feeling empathy is a social process, but it is not a social construct. Many years of evolutionary conditioning of humans as social creatures has hardwired this propensity into our neural physiology. I see no reason to restrict empathy only to other humans and judging by the historical record, not many other people do in their day to day lives either.

The first two sentences are correct per what we've covered. Yet the last sentence depends on our valuing the quality of empathy over other considerations. I'm not sure Marxists do that, although they don't ignore empathy either. That makes deciding what to do a tough proposition. A Marxist might ask situationally whether empathy is revolutionary right now. More often than not it probably is; struggle takes place for something, not just as mechanical process. Yet class struggle needs can override empathy.

[Rafiq]

And 300 years when Hezadukii92 was asked about his opinion on slavery he replied with "well I was taught to not give a shit about the negro race so like don't really care. maybe in 300 years I might so long as they don't start acting out in front of police officers"

There is no basis of equivalency, not even through the medium of an innocent abstraction, to compare "races" to animals. And the point is quite simple: When enslaving humans, the master-caste must render man to the domain of the animal. What domain does man render the animal when domesticating it, however? The difference is that slaves from the onset enter a certain inter-subjective space, and must be TRANSFORMED into beings they would otherwise not be - "Speaking tools" is what Aristotle had to say they were. But animals, from the onset, can never and would never belong to our inter-subjective social space, in domesticating an animal, you're just steering an animal passively into a different direction. An animal can be perfectly healthy and content, while being exploited and enslaved, so long as its physical needs can be met. You don't need to tell an animal "You are enslaved, you obey" because animals have no consciousness to even articulate their condition for what it is. If an animal is being treated poorly, it's autonomous bodily processes in control, like a machine. This goes true even for "social" animals like Chimps and Dolphins, who again can't articulate their own unfreedom even if they are deprived of physical needs (i.e. a proper habitat with others like them). Can it have spiritual needs (i.e. historic needs)? It cannot.

And the difference, of course, is that the "negro race" gave us historic heroes like Nat Turner, it gave us Toussaint Louverture, but no such world-historic legends are to be found among the animal kingdom - sure we can anthropomorphize "animal escapees", but what we can salvage from this would be nothing more than a projection of our own fantasies. While Haitian revolutionaries sang La Marseilles approaching Napoleon's army, "Moo" triumphantly proclaimed the heroic cow-escapee. Ultimately the difference is that slaves are capable of fighting for their own freedom too, and articulating a basis of justifying, and affirming that freedom in thought - because unlike animals, even when it's physically easy to escape, many slaves wouldn't, because their slavery is justified TO THEM - "I am a slave, and I am nothing more" they HAVE to think, in chains. And "Moo" went the cow as it passively chewed while sitting in its stable. Slaves are not just the fetishistic object of our hypocritical "concern" much how Western liberals conceive the human rights of third worlders. And of course, the difference with children is that their 'non-awareness' is not just provisional innocence being taken advantage of, not just one of the many ways they can grow and become adults.

But as I linked - Zizek is correct, the world of animal rights IS the world of human rights - today's Left-liberal politics does not bestow upon the oppressed solidarity, but the same "empathy" that they would owe animals. But animals are indefinitely passive creatures, they are not capable of history, they have no class-being, they lack subjectivity. Do you think men like John Brown gave their lives because he thought the blacks were like how Peter Singer sees cows and chickens in factory farms? No, John Brown gave his life because the basic axiom of American abolitionism was - as to them, so to I, so long as they are unfree, neither can I be. There was no choice to "empathize" with them or not - for men like John Brown, it was already a necessity.

This radically differs from empathy, because empathy works only in proximity. Solidarity is of world-historic significance. And one cannot have solidarity with an animal, it's clownish. Communists do not buy this notion of "rights" in that sense, the point is simple - one mustn't hurt other people because of "empathy" or because of moral abstractions, but because one sees the other as a comrade, one has solidarity in the spirit of self-sacrifice. One doesn't have to empathize with a stranger to not hurt them, one can look at a stranger and know both are serving the same gods, and this is all that matters, and that even if they were not - it would be an affront to your OWN identity to hurt them because of its social ramifications, i.e. because it undermines one's own ethical duty. What separates these individuals from animals is that individuals are constitutive of the social sphere from which the gods of worship are derived - animals are not.

"Empathy" (as substitution for solidarity) is the business of the guilty bourgeoisie and their charities. "Empathy" will make you feel good, but ONLY something like solidarity can make you feel like shit in service of a much higher cause (The French revolutionary terror in service of destroying "tyranny" forever, defending the republic - the hard decisions of Russian and Spanish revolutionaries in defense of the revolution as a whole, and so on).


If just "a couple" hundred years ago everyone saw slavery as morally acceptable, one wonders what Louis X of France was thinking when he abolished it in 1315.

The difference is that Louis did not abolish slavery because society found it morally unacceptable, but because the basis for this morality was rooted thoroughly in social considerations, not because of some kind of burst of "empathy". This decree was not a predecessor to any kind of anti-colonial slavery, because the only prevailing forms of slavery that existed at the time were in "serfdom" - and conditions necessitated an end to it. So it was not some kind of universal historic anti-slavery. And despite his good rhetoric, serfs were forced to pay for their own freedom. Even in the Roman Republic, slaves were allowed to buy their own freedom if they accumulated enough gold.

This was owed to the weakening of the manorial system in general, it had nothing to do with empathy or good will. But manorialism continued as a political privilege while capitalist accumulation slowly emerged that would come to replace it, serfdom however did not end at this time, serfdom as such persisted throughout France until 1789.

But what you say is wrong - only just a couple hundred years ago (I.e. 16th-late 18th centuries) everyone did see slavery as morally acceptable, and it doesn't matter if two thousand years before Spartacus was leading slaves to their freedom - because within this specific historic totality, the conditions of slavery that prevailed were the only basis of "slavery" as such, there is no abstract slavery that is a timeless moral category. Louis's decree was in no way a predecessor to any kind of anti-slavery sentiment that we saw in the last few hundred years, it plainly had nothing to do with it, and it's even reasonable to assume that had Louis been living in the 17th century, he would have forgotten his good rhetoric.

But what is the social, or even historic basis of animal rights? The result of a very weak ethical basis for human rights, it is fundamentally a post-modern perversion with no organic social basis, it is precisely the lack of real social consciousness that sustains it. While it might be convenient for those in power to conceive the billions living in destitution just as passively one conceives the poor animals, the reality is that it is they who will become the endangered species, the capitalist class - it is the proletariat that will inherit the world, if it is to remain.


I think you are confused here. Feeling empathy is a social process, but it is not a social construct. Many years of evolutionary conditioning of humans as social creatures has hardwired this propensity into our neural physiology. I see no reason to restrict empathy only to other humans and judging by the historical record, not many other people do in their day to day lives either.

Of course, we can't pick and choose what is "ingrained" by evolutionary conditioning and what is not. Empathy is a social construct, because outside of the social context is has basically no medium of expression - while the chemicals might be there to facilitate it, humans are not "conditioned" to be empathetic, because how they express their empathy must be socially conditioned.

But if we want to play this game, it would have made more sense for their survival this empathy to be 100% exclusive to other humans, not every living thing in general. You might not see a reason to restrict empathy only to other humans, but its restriction to humans is by default the only expression of it whether you want to see it or not, so much so that when you're empathizing with an animal, it's because that animal reminds you of characteristics inherent to humans. That's why you don't empathize with a lamprey - well - unless you're the creative type. Of course, reducing RIGHTS to the level of empathy, reducing politics and ideology to something as vague and abstract as "empathy" is rather stupid. Empathy begins with the onset of subjectivity - if I am self-aware, and aware that there are others like me, this is where "empathy" begins - it is social, it is in the domain of consciousness. But I can be conditioned to think that others are in fact not like me at all. This relates to social considerations, not the whimsical decisions of utilitarians.

When Chekists shot the reactionaries, I'm sure they "empathized" with them (Indeed, Communism does not make the bourgeoisie into the non-human, it cannot), but they still shot them in service of a higher cause. They didn't do it because they were playing ethical games of weighing in on who they empathize more with (What are the hungry masses who you don't see, to this poor soul whose right in front of you, no doubt bringing out from you those "ingrained" processes more than an unidentifiable mass ever could?)- they did it because it was an ethical duty. Utilitarianism is anti-Communism.

[Rafiq]

Yes because I have been conditioned by social constructs to have feelings of empathy and care for other human beings.


This doesn't make any sense. It's for a very simple reason that you have "empathy and care for other human beings" - and it isn't owed to anything essential. It is because you, in your identity, and in your living expression, you could not tell yourself that you are the person you are if you did not do this. It is your superego. This is a result of social processes, and the obsession with animals is nothing more than a way to project SOCIAL considerations about HUMANS onto something else - it has nothing to do with the actual cow in question, but how one bases their ethics regarding humans taken as a logical conclusion.

But to everyone, if it's "just" about not being cruel to animals, and we compare slaves to animals, how is that different from the stances of various pro-slavery ideologues who claimed slaves should be treated "humanely"? The ethics can't be consistent.

[Cliff Paul]

There is no basis of equivalency, not even through the medium of an innocent abstraction, to compare "races" to animals.

K but the point of that post was to point out the absurdity of Hezadukii92's justification for opposing animal welfare, which was "most people oppose it" and therefore we should go along with that, not to argue that humanity's domination of animals was the equivalent to slavery.

[Rafiq]

Apologies, I didn't mean to attack you or anyone specifically, it's aimed at the thread as a whole.

Opposing animal rights because "most people oppose it" is indeed a ridiculous justification.

[Comrade #138672]

Moral equivalents?

What are you, a moralistic idealist like Sam Harris?

[Spectre of Spartacism]

Of course, we can't pick and choose what is "ingrained" by evolutionary conditioning and what is not. Empathy is a social construct, because outside of the social context is has basically no medium of expression - while the chemicals might be there to facilitate it, humans are not "conditioned" to be empathetic, because how they express their empathy must be socially conditioned.

But if we want to play this game, it would have made more sense for their survival this empathy to be 100% exclusive to other humans, not every living thing in general. You might not see a reason to restrict empathy only to other humans, but its restriction to humans is by default the only expression of it whether you want to see it or not, so much so that when you're empathizing with an animal, it's because that animal reminds you of characteristics inherent to humans. That's why you don't empathize with a lamprey - well - unless you're the creative type. Of course, reducing RIGHTS to the level of empathy, reducing politics and ideology to something as vague and abstract as "empathy" is rather stupid. Empathy begins with the onset of subjectivity - if I am self-aware, and aware that there are others like me, this is where "empathy" begins - it is social, it is in the domain of consciousness. But I can be conditioned to think that others are in fact not like me at all. This relates to social considerations, not the whimsical decisions of utilitarians.

When Chekists shot the reactionaries, I'm sure they "empathized" with them (Indeed, Communism does not make the bourgeoisie into the non-human, it cannot), but they still shot them in service of a higher cause. They didn't do it because they were playing ethical games of weighing in on who they empathize more with (What are the hungry masses who you don't see, to this poor soul whose right in front of you, no doubt bringing out from you those "ingrained" processes more than an unidentifiable mass ever could?)- they did it because it was an ethical duty. Utilitarianism is anti-Communism.

This is a confusing post because it has the tone of disagreeing with what I said while not substantively contradicting it. Humans are "conditioned" or predisposed to be empathetic to the degree that physiology is capable of conditioning any type of social behavior. Take hunger. It is conditioned by human biology. It goes without saying that the act of eating or starving only takes place within a social context, feral children excepted.

To posit that it is socially constructed and that society is the sole creator of it without referencing human biology is a way to remove any consideration of how different ways of organizing social production could lead to a better social expression of undeniably real biologically conditioned capacities. I know it's not popular among the pomo crowd to say it, but bodies are meaningful. That meaning serves as the basis for comparing between two qualitatively different modes of social existence.

Do we seriously want to have a discussion about whether the design of the human body has no role in causing hunger?

[Luís Henrique]

May I post the picture of the lamprey now?

Seriously, if you are going to make the point of fighting for animal rights, then the Lamprey Liberation League (LLL) has to denounce your hipocrisy, and your utter speciesism, in that you only think of cute ponys, bunnies, puppies and kittens when you talk about "animals".

Cuddle a goblin shark (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Mistukurina_owstoni_museum_victoria_-_head_detail.jpg) (warning: do not open link if you are a bleeding heart Marxist-Disneyist) now, or stop pretending to care.

Luís Henrique

[Comrade Jacob]

Animal murders per year are well over 10 billion. What makes this even more fucked up is the fact that you do not need meat, and don't give me that b.s excuse of "OH NOES, BUTT MI PROTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN".
Your arguments and defence of the biggest mass-murder on Earth is bad and you should feel bad.

[BIXX]

May I post the picture of the lamprey now?

Seriously, if you are going to make the point of fighting for animal rights, then the Lamprey Liberation League (LLL) has to denounce your hipocrisy, and your utter speciesism, in that you only think of cute ponys, bunnies, puppies and kittens when you talk about "animals".

Cuddle a goblin shark (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Mistukurina_owstoni_museum_victoria_-_head_detail.jpg) (warning: do not open link if you are a bleeding heart Marxist-Disneyist) now, or stop pretending to care.

Luís Henrique

I fail to see why recognizing that something should be free or not destroyed means that we ought to cuddle it.

[Lord Testicles]

Animal murders per year are well over 10 billion. What makes this even more fucked up is the fact that you do not need meat, and don't give me that b.s excuse of "OH NOES, BUTT MI PROTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN".
Your arguments and defence of the biggest mass-murder on Earth is bad and you should feel bad.

Murder is by definition the killing of one human being by another. The killing of animals may be wrong but it certainly isn't murder.

[Comrade Jacob]

Murder is by definition the killing of one human being by another. The killing of animals may be wrong but it certainly isn't murder.

I feel a new definition is called for.

[Sewer Socialist]

Murder is by definition the killing of one human being by another. The killing of animals may be wrong but it certainly isn't murder.

This is simply not true. The mere killing of another human it's not murder, not even the intentional killing of another human.

Murder is the unjustifiable killing of a person. I don't think it would be unreasonable to consider the unjustifiable killing of an intelligent being, human or otherwise, to be murder.

[Lord Testicles]

I feel a new definition is called for.

Well, I don't know how you would do that, write to the Oxford University Press or something?


This is simply not true. The mere killing of another human it's not murder, not even the intentional killing of another human.

Murder is the unjustifiable killing of a person.

You are right. Murder is defined as:

"The unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another" (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/murder)


I don't think it would be unreasonable to consider the unjustifiable killing of an intelligent being, human or otherwise, to be murder.

It might not be unreasonable but you'd be using the word incorrectly unless you were referring to a human being.

[Sewer Socialist]

I don't really care what you're quoting. This is acommon usage that people often use, so I think my definition is more applicable.

[Rafiq]

I don't really care what you're quoting. This is acommon usage that people often use, so I think my definition is more applicable.

Except you're mistaking the twisted postmodern ethics of today's society with "a common usage that people use" that is neutral with no real political ramifications.

The reality is that for Communists, killing an animal can never and will never be murder. If a person senselessly murders an animal for no reason, the only significance in this is the person's pathology. If a person murders another person, this has direct social ramifications irreducible to the pathology that leads him to kill.

So no, for us, your definition is absolutely abominable, disgusting even. What's even more sickening is the notion that this pertains to "intelligent beings", as though there is some kind of objective, neutral criterium of "intelligence" that is not reducible to how similar it is to something inherently human. You don't, with "empathy" elevate animals to the level of human by saying this bullshit, you trivialize actual real murder in the political sense. Murder pertains to inter-subjectivity, end of story.

[Alet]

To conceive the oppressed, for example, as merely deserving of our support is vulgar - the oppressed must be able to free themselves, too, elevate themselves above the level of just being the fetishistic object of liberals.

What about these disabled people, who are not able to move and speak? They couldn't free themselves from oppression. As far as I remember, Singer's argument was that, although they are "consciously" (? is this the correct term?) on the level of animals, we still treat them like "normal" humans.

[Comrade Jacob]

I recognise animals as persons.

[Hatshepsut]

What about these disabled people, who are not able to move and speak? ...

People have trouble deciding when killing should be considered justified. With the complications of war, self-defense, judicial or law enforcement deaths, and the food chain laid aside and only the topic of euthanasia at hand, Singer himself endorses three contradictory statements on it during a single interview:

1. “Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Sometimes it is not wrong at all.”

2. “Moreover, although a normal newborn baby has no sense of the future, and therefore is not a person, that does not mean that it is all right to kill such a baby. It only means that the wrong done to the infant is not as great as the wrong that would be done to a person who was killed.”

3. “When a human being once had a sense of the future, but has now lost it, we should be guided by what he or she would have wanted to happen in these circumstances.”

-all at http://www.princeton.edu/~psinger/faq.html

His criterion for being a person is awareness of the difference between future and past, as he informs us that “Newborn human babies have no sense of their own existence over time.” I have no idea how he knows this; I doubt anyone has consulted the babies here. So adults who lose this ability (dementia patients) remain human while babies who haven’t acquired the ability are not people. I find his academic contortions hard to swallow.

I agree with Singer that when it comes to “Father Darwin’s” decision about whether the human species will be around a million years from now, we have no special entitlement over any other species. That’s more by way of luck and laws of nature than morality; a million years is a long while. Human morality can have regard for animals and animal welfare, sure, but it can’t equate animal and human intellect, comparisons of which involve unknowables. We can’t project our mental contents into another species—notwithstanding our use of brain to body mass ratios in attempts to do so.

[Rafiq]

What about these disabled people, who are not able to move and speak? They couldn't free themselves from oppression. As far as I remember, Singer's argument was that, although they are "consciously" (? is this the correct term?) on the level of animals, we still treat them like "normal" humans.

I addressed this previously (mind the tone, I was talking to Izvestia):

And as stated, it is the degree of their CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE. SO it is incomparable to say that not giving a shit about the mass extermination of species is comparable to not giving a shit about the mass extermination of humans, because in the case of the former, a mere CULTURAL peculiarity, a fetish, a PATHOLOGICAL thing is now disappearing, while in the latter case, this has ramifications for the SOCIAL SPHERE itself, i.e. if humans are exterminated for any kind of essential characteristics (Come the revolution, do you think that the counter-revolution will be dealt with peacefully, by the way) then that would have definite implications for ALL humans, more moreover, a basis of causality would be necessary - people do not spontaneously exterminate humans and the idea that people are killed in the manner exemplified in James Cameron's Avatar wherein "if not" for the 'empathy' of the ecologists the blue people could be mowed over without that entailing ANY kind of definite characteristics about the humans themselves (that makes it possible for them to do this to humans, too) is a perverse fantasy. The reality is that it is not empathy, but real-grounded SOLIDARITY which is why, because by merit of our physical, species-like characteristics, we are NOTHING, we are animals - it is the social field that makes us human as such. So my point was that EVEN IF a dog, or an animal could have human consciousness, but physically not "look" human, they would constitute a part of the social field. What you fail to understand is that my point is no - they don't, and that's the fucking end of it. The species in question not only are not protesting their extermination with any kind of consciousness, they are INDEFINITELY incapable of doing this. The difference with a mentally disabled person is that no matter how incompetent they are, no matter if they are aware or not - they are still possessive of a fundamentally HUMAN consciousnesses, no matter whether it is at the lowest possible magnitude - otherwise, they would simply be a rock, a mere body and nothing more. The difference, as well, amounts to the reality that the mentally, physically handicapped are conceived as just that - handicapped. An animal, conversely, is not "impaired", it is a fucking animal. It is ESSENTIALLY incapable of constituting ANYTHING social.

So the point is rather simple - disabled people, who can't move and can't speak, still constitute subjects. If they didn't, they wouldn't be alive at all. For the simple reason that any one of us can one day become disabled - but none of us can one day become an octopus. Of course, even comparing the struggle of the proletariat for emancipation (Or the fight against racism, and so on) to the struggle for the rights of disabled is wrong, because the former deal precisely with oppression, with relations of power, while the "fight" for the disabled is one that would have to persist irregardless of the class struggle: It is an "end of history" question, one that doesn't have a political character (besides, of course, regarding struggles against welfare cuts, but again, this is irreducible to disabled themselves, no less the kind that cannot move or speak).

But in any case, Singer is absolutely wrong. They are not, and can never be on the level of animals "consciously" unless they themselves are animals. It has nothing to do with the propensity to do things (i.e. "intelligence"). But again, these ethics are, at a whole, thoroughly idealist and anti-scientific. They conceive rights as somehow the product of essential characteristics, rather than being the result of the social field itself, i.e. something we can just pick and choose based on this or that criteria.

[Luís Henrique]

I fail to see why recognizing that something should be free or not destroyed means that we ought to cuddle it.

It doesn't - but the reasoning is the inverse.

People think that cats, or sheep, or horse, should have "rights" because they are cute. They don't think that lampreys should have rights, because lampreys are nightmarish creatures. And if called on that, they change subjects or ignore the issue. Because lampreys are unredeemably ugly.

And more, people think that the only reason we shouldn't destroy kittens or ponys is because kittens or ponys should have rights. Which means, for their speciesist, mammal supremacist minds, there is no problem with destroying lampreys: they are not cute, so they have no rights, so they are fair game.

The point being, there is absolutely no equation between "should have rights" and "should not be destroyed".

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

I feel a new definition is called for.

Under this new definition, is abortion "murder"? Why, or why not?

Luís Henrique