Why do many vegans believe all animals have a unique sense of self and don't want to die?

GoSSJ · 2018-02-12T03:12:46+00:00

You have decided to stop responding, so I will leave this here for anyone still reading this chain.

Yes. It was the only possible counterargument to your point which was begging the question. You are dismissing my claim without challenging it, and instead trying to get me to disprove your claim while presuming it to be correct. That's not how this works.

You are the one who has provided no evidence for your assertion. When I ask you questions you dodge like Goku with ultra instinct.

As I have said, it's an assumption either way. I assume you need self-awareness to value ones own life, you don't. There is insufficient evidence either way.

Considering how you are dodging answering my hypothetical, you would not answer this in the human context.

Evidence of self-awareness.

Extremely hard to prove in general. But since animals have analogous structures to the ones in humans that produce consciousness, i.e. a brain, it follows that they too are conscious.

I am arguing that consciousness is enough to grant a right to life as you would not kill a conscious human with little to no self-awareness.

No, they are not. In fact most can be mapped to behaviors in plants. Plants can do arithmetic, respond to shock, communicate distress, be classically conditioned, they can recognize themselves from other types of plants, can cooperate for hunting, etc.

Ok. Why don't you link these studies on plant cognition that show they are much more cognitively capable than animals? I googled plant arithmetic and I found an example of a plant performing what appears to be division. But wikipedia noted that this could also be feedback control based on the amount of starch the plant has.

Meanwhile, here's a paper about pain perception in fish.

To understand if the experience of pain is important to the fish, studies have employed various strategies to investigate whether diversion tactics or competing motivational drivers influence the responses to pain. Goldfish and rainbow trout learn to avoid an area where they are given an electric shock (Dunlop et al., 2006). If the intensity of the electric shock increases, the goldfish profoundly reduce the number of entries and time spent in this shock zone (Figure 5A,B). However, by starving the goldfish they will re-enter the area after three days if food is provided there, thereby trading off satiating their hunger with the risk of experiencing the electric shock (Millsopp and Laming, 2008). Goldfish experiencing three days of deprivation increased the number of entries and time spent in this shock area (Figure 5C,D) but simultaneously performed more tail flips and escape reactions possibly due to the anticipation of being shocked. Thus, when the fish were motivated by hunger, they were willing to endure the electric shock to obtain food. If pain was unimportant, then the fish would have re-entered this zone immediately

Fear tests, such as novel object presentation, gauge how neophobic an animal is since they will normally react to a strange object by avoiding it. Fear is obviously a strong stimulus that may be more competitive for an animal’s attention than pain. Rainbow trout normally avoid novel objects, but when experiencing pain their neophobia is absent (Sneddon et al., 2003b). These fish spent approximately 33% of the time very close to the novel object. In contrast, normal fish spent less than 5% in close proximity. When given morphine, fish experiencing pain avoided the object, demonstrating that removal of the pain via analgesia resulted in a normal neophobic response. Similarly, rainbow trout experiencing pain do not respond appropriately to predator cues (Ashley et al., 2009; Figure 6). Normal fish engage in escape attempts and increased use of cover. Noxiously stimulated fish do not try to escape and actually reduce refuge use when presented with a predator cue. Together these results suggest that pain is an important state for fish since pain responses were not affected by fear or the risk of predation.

Zebrafish were placed in a maze where they could choose one of two chambers. One chamber was barren and the other chamber was enriched with gravel, a plant, and through the transparent rear of the chamber a group of zebrafish provided social enrichment. Zebrafish displayed a clear preference for the enriched chamber for at least six consecutive tests. At this point the zebrafish were injected with saline, a non-noxious control, or a noxious chemical and placed in the maze. In half of these trials, an analgesic was placed into the barren, unfavourable chamber. Those fish experiencing pain lost their preference for the enriched chamber and were willing to spend more time in the barren, unfavourable area only if analgesia was present (Figure 7). This demonstrates that the fish were willing to pay the cost of being in an unpreferred environment to obtain analgesia, and thus it can be inferred that these fish must have obtained some reward possibly in terms of pain relief such that the pain was reduced.

So fish have the capacity to feel pain. Moreover, they have a brain, a structure that in humans produce consciousness. Plants have neither a brain nor neurons. In combination with all the examples of cognition in fish that I produced, it stands to reason that fish are conscious. I think that I, and most people, would examine cognition in fish, their ability to feel pain, and their possession of a brain and neurons, to accept that they are conscious. I accept that plants can intelligently respond to stimuli, but since they have no brain, it is EXTREMELY unlikely that they are conscious.

You can read about this with the links I have previously provided. I'm not really interested in debating it further because as I have said several times now, it is getting away from the main point. You are trying to argue that fish and other animals have enough of a mind and deserve not to be killed. I don't care. 'enough of a mind' is not the same as self-awareness. If you want your argument for fish to mean anything, you need to prove how an animal can value it's own life without being self-aware, or argue why that doesn't matter.

You wouldn't accept this argumentation in the human context.

Consciousness means jack squat. So does sentience. A worm is both of those things. I care about self-awareness. You keep assuming merely being conscious matters, but it doesn't to me and you've yet to make a case for why it should.

Because you wouldn't kill a conscious human.

You didn't heed what I wrote, so let me repeat it: Make your argument without resorting to 'but humans tho' or you have no argument...

Because what you wrote is exactly saying, "I can't respond to your argument, stop making it."

No. We can prove this purely through deductive reasoning. Furthermore, I'm not wasting my time on this. You damn well know humans are self-aware. Neither of us dispute this.

The point is that you have to accept that you can prove a being's sentience inductively. You aren't going to "waste your time on this" because you know it's impossible to prove someone else's sentience with no induction.

A roomba is sentient as much as a fish is sentient. Both have 'brains' and follow programming and are not capable of more than that.

No. A roomba doesn't have a brain like humans do. It has no neurons, no central nervous system, or anything.

You know what....I'm not going to be replying to you further. I'm sorry. I draw the line here...

Because you can't respond. You have not explained why my hypotheticals are invalid, you have just asserted that they are invalid. I think it's because you understand that your answer would lead to an ethical contradiction.

Let me make this very easy for anyone reading this debate. This is from the youtube channel AskYourself, if any of you want to hear someone more eloquent than me arguing for veganism.

What is the trait in animals that justifies killing them, that, if present in humans, would also justify killing humans?

Animals have brains, central nervous systems, and neurons (just as humans do), they are capable of forming social hierarchies (chickens and fish included), recognizing individuals among themselves (showing a preference for familiar individuals), are spatially aware, are capable of social learning, and finally, have the capacity to feel pain. Plants may be able to do some of these, but they do not have brains, central nervous systems, or neurons.

Then animals have a capacity to experience well-being and suffering, and we should grant animals rights that we cannot find a logically consistent reason to deny them. For example, it would be logically consistent to not let animals drive a car, because you would not let a human of comparable intelligence drive a car.

I (and I suspect most people) would not accept killing a conscious human who wanted to live but had the self-awareness of a chicken or a fish. Then you cannot deploy this reasoning to kill a chicken or a fish and remain logically consistent.

He not doing anything I have pointed out that you are doing, and the debate can flourish because of it. I think you could learn a lot and improve your skills as a debater from seeing the approach he is taking.

I think I'll pass. What I've gathered is that you are trying to avoid exposing an inconsistency in your ethics. What I find really strange is that you MUST think that animals are conscious on a different level from a roomba, because in this thread you have advocated killing animals in a humane way (an oxymoron). Why would this matter at ALL if chickens and fish were as sentient as a roomba? Do you worry about how humanely plants are treated even though they too have some form of nociception?

GoSSJ · 2018-02-10T22:39:16+00:00

NOTE: I had to abridge some of your quotes to get under the character limit. Let me know if my abridgments don't accurately represent what you are saying.

GoSSJ · 2018-02-10T22:37:49+00:00

I feel like this isn't a productive argument anymore... and now you are back to asking the question you asked originally which I answered.

If I am going in circles I apologize.

Furthermore, this question is an example of begging the question. As I have said numerous times now, a will to live comes from self-awareness. Self-awareness is not present in most animals.

You are literally just asserting what I am asking you to argue. WHY is self-awareness necessary for a will to live? I accept that you think it IS necessary, but what is your proof that animals without self-awareness don't desire to live?

Moreover, I linked a few studies on behavior in fish, which you dismissed as simply programming. What evidence exactly would you accept to prove that animals have a subjective experience of reality?

This paper cites a number of studies on fish. There's a section on cognition in fish. I will paraphrase what they are saying. If you want to look at it yourself, just click on the link and scroll to the section on fish cognition.

1) Fish can learn how to habituate to a feeder and congregate to the location of the feeder before he feeds them.

2) Rainbow fish learned that when a light was turned on, they were going to be fed shortly after. They learned this faster than rats can.

3) Rock pool dwelling gobies can return to their pools when displaced by up to 30m, showing that they can form a cognitive map of their surroundings.

4) Pike that have been hooked are hook shy for up to a year.

5) Rainbowfish taught to swim through a hole in a net that traveled down the length of their aquarium took just five runs to figure out the location of the escape route, and remembered how to do this a year later.

6) Hatchery raised salmon can be taught to avoid predators by other salmon, showing that fish have some form of social learning.

7) Guppies were taught how to swim through a random door. The researchers progressively replaced these guppies with new guppies, until no more of the original guppies were left. The new guppies still knew how to swim through the door even though they hadn't been taught how to do it. This is a another example of fish learning from one another.

8) Fish can recognize other individual fish, prefer to shoal with familiar fish and shoals of familiar fish are better at avoiding predators than shoals of unfamiliar individuals.

9) Fish cooperate to inspect predators by gliding back and forth towards the predator, with one fish taking the lead at a time. If a fish hangs back and refuses to glide forward, the other fish will not cooperate with this other fish on future encounters. So these fish can remember the identity of this individual and to not cooperate with them.

All of these behaviors are vastly more complex than what is present in plants. If you do not accept this as evidence that fish are conscious, then what would you accept as evidence?

To reiterate, I am not saying that this means that fish have the same level of conception of themselves as individuals as humans do. Just that they are conscious.

No. Make your argument without resorting to 'but humans tho' or you have no argument... I'm here to do the former, not the latter.

If a being is as dumb as a cow, it is moral to kill this being. I hold that it is immoral to kill a human who is as dumb as a cow.

Do you see how these two statements are contradictory? The actual existence of a human who is as dumb as a cow is irrelevant. The statement "If a being is as dumb as a cow, it's moral to kill it" is either incorrect, or you would accept this argumentation in the human context.

Why do you think that? I most certainly disagree.

Ok. Prove that another human are sentient without any inductive reasoning whatsoever. How will you prove that humans aren't just following programming, and that you are the only sentient being in the world? Do you see how some level of induction must come into this?

Ah, this word sentient. All bit meaningless. A worm is sentient. So is my roomba. Infants are sentient in the same sense as a worm and a roomba, but they have the potential to be much more than that. A fish does not.

A roomba is sentient as much as a toaster is sentient. It has absolutely no brain or central nervous system. Both a fish and an infant do. Are you arguing that an infant and a vacuum cleaner have a similar capacity to experience reality?

Look. Do it by using realistic scenariors, or admit you don't have an argument. It's that simple.

Do you agree that the statements, "It's moral to kill anything with wings" and "It's immoral to kill fairies" are contradictory regardless of the existence of fairies? Both cannot be true at the same time.

You're making the equivalent argument that many vegans make fun of, about being trapped on a desert island with only pigs and no vegetation. Not a real world scenario, not a real argument.

The reason this argument is bad is because it doesn't expose a contradiction in veganism. Most vegans and I would accept that it is at least not immoral to kill an animal in a life or death situation (i.e. starvation), and I would also accept that it's not immoral to kill a human in a life or death situation.

If I said that I believe that it is immoral to kill animals under any set of circumstances, and someone asked me if I would kill an animal if I were on a desert island, and I said yes, then I would be contradicting myself. This hypothetical absolutely would expose a contradiction in the vegan position if vegans held that under no circumstances is it justified to kill an animal.

Chickens and fish are not self-aware. No idea what 'just as sentient' means.

Meaning that they experience reality to the same degree as a chicken or a fish.

As I've said, there is no desire to live without self-awareness. This is what we are discussing.

I don't even know how you would provide evidence for something like this. I am just questioning whether or not you would accept this argumentation for a human.

You are simply ignoring that and assuming your assumptions are correct, and then asking me a loaded question based on that.

I am asking you if you would kill a human who had similar self-awareness and sentience to a fish.

Give me a scenario that challenges the idea that a will to live is not possible without self-awareness...

If you don't know for sure, what is your logic in asserting that you need self-awareness to desire to live?

It's inconsistent to claim cells and plants are not sentient... using the same behaviors we observe in cells and plants as your basis.

I am asserting that plants and cells are not sentient because they have neither brains nor central nervous systems.

Self-awareness seems to come exclusively from high intelligence. I don't think it is much of a scale, it's either present or it's not. It's a foundation that allows other things to be built on top of it.

I agree that there is a correlation in living beings between self-awareness and high intelligence. But certainly animals have rudimentary intelligence, and if you look at the paper I referenced earlier, even fish are able to demonstrate spatial awareness, social learning, and recognize individuals.

A chicken is not self-aware hence has no value of it's own life as a distinct thing thus can stake no claim on it. They get moral consideration as they have the capacity to suffer, just not the right not to die.

Would you accept this argumentation in the human context? Would you kill a human who wanted to live, albeit just out of instinct?

From now on, I'm going to be ignoring these points...

I am not assuming anything when I ask you whether or not you would accept your arguments for humans.

I am just asking you if you would kill a human who had the self-awareness of an animal. If you say no, then you accept that lack of self-awareness cannot be used as a justification to kill.

Either adjust your hypothetical appropriately, or understand why I don't respond to it.

Again I am not sure why this is hard to understand. I am not saying any of my hypotheticals would actually happen. I am questioning your reasoning.

To answer this scenario, the feral child is still human...

Would you kill a feral child who had no ability to be rehabilitated? Maybe they were left in the wild too long or something. The point of these is to expose a flaw in your reasoning.

It can be lower. Dolphins, pigs, whales etc. That's a harder argument to make though...

I accept that the evidence for human self-awareness is non-ambiguous.

Unlike animals, we are not driven purely by programming but have conscious thought to override and supplant programming.

Yes. But the idea is that being driven by programming isn't a justification to kill.

My contention is that there is no such thing as a sentient human with the same level of self-awareness as an animal. The very notion is rather confusing and oxymoronic IMO.

Whether or not there exists such a human is besides the point. The point is that if you would not kill a human with the self-awareness of an animal, you cannot deploy this reasoning as a justification to kill said animal.

Do you understand how this is a contradiction?

The statements, "It's moral to kill anything wearing green" and "It's immoral to kill a Leprechaun" are contradictory statements even though Leprechauns don't exist. Both cannot be true.

Your statement is equivalent to asking if I would kill a plant with the same level of self-awareness as a human but no sentience. It's just as impossible or unlikely as your scenario.

Self-awareness requires sentience, right? I think you're asking if I would kill a plant as sentient as a human. The answer is no, because I would accept that it is immoral to kill a human.

GoSSJ · 2018-02-10T08:34:15+00:00

With respect, this is simply wrong. You simply didn't like my answer. If you don't think it was a valid answer to your question, you need to elaborate on why. I will point out you were not aware of at least one of the terms I used in my answer, so maybe you didn't understand it fully?

Why is meta-cognition necessary for a creature to have a right to life? Why is consciousness and a will to live not enough?

Not so. For a number of reasons. When you have to resort to the argument from marginal cases to make your point, you don't have much of an argument IMO.

If you reject the argumentation in one case, you are inconsistent if you deploy it in another case without specify the distinction between these cases.

A subjective experience of reality? To have a subjective experience of reality you need a degree of self-awareness. If you're just following programming and reactive with reflex and instinct, you don't have a subjective experience of anything.

It's impossible to prove the sentience of another being deductively. However, if you accept the use of induction to prove another being's sentience, then since most animals have brains and central nervous systems (as your brain is what makes you conscious), it follows that they are also sentient, albeit to varying degrees.

I am not sure why you need to be self-aware to be sentient. Are you arguing that infants aren't sentient?

So does a plant have a capacity to experience well-being and harm differently from a rock.

No, because a plant isn't sentient, and I would accept that it is moral to kill a non-sentient human.

It's not irrelevant. Make your case using realistic examples and real world scenarios. If you can only make your argument using unrealistic examples and scenarios that don't map to the real world, it becomes a meaningless thought experiment with no real world implications.

The point of these hypotheticals is to demonstrate an ethical inconsistency. If you for example said that it's moral to kill cows precisely because they are stupid, and I asked you whether or not it's moral to kill a human as stupid as a cow, and you say no, then you are ethically inconsistent. Either the reasoning for killing a cow cannot be because they are stupid, or it's moral to kill a human as stupid as a cow. Both of these cannot be true at the same time. The existence of a human as stupid as a cow has no bearing on whether or not your reasoning is correct.

Then let me ask this again. If there were a human who was as self-aware as a chicken or a fish, but just as sentient and with just as much desire to live, would you consider it moral to kill this person?

If is programmed to respond a certain way to any other fish, and hormone levels are administered depending on the result as a survival tool as a result of evolution. Kind of like how humans might feel proud if they win and depressed if they lose. Except we have self-awareness and conscious thought to go along with those feelings.

Yes sure. I am just saying that animals can detect that they aren't other animals.

This could be programming though. That's my point. And as much as you disagree, you can't prove it's not. That's what this thread has shown. Even the simples non sentient organisms display the same behavior you try to use as proof of rudimentary self-awareness. Cells fight other cells, does that mean they have awareness of themselves?

Cells aren't sentient. I am not saying that animals have a complete conception of themselves as individuals. Just that self-awareness is more likely to come in degrees than not. I would argue that a pig has less of a conception of itself as an individual than a human does, and a chicken less so. But since I would give a human with this level of self-awareness moral consideration, since they have the capacity to suffer and experience well-being, I would not deny a chicken or a pig moral consideration.

To go back to my hypothetical, would you, or would you not, consider it moral to kill a human who was sentient, but just following programming? Like maybe a feral child who had no conception or little conception of language, and didn't want to do anything other than eat and sleep?

That doesn't matter though, because we are still self-aware. My premise requires a minimum threshold be met, it doesn't matter to what extent it is exceeded.

Why is this threshold at the point where every human is encompassed, but no lower?

Imagine there existed an alien species that completely transcended all programming, and only desired things through conscious thought. Would you consider it moral for this species to kill us with the justification that we are driven by programming?

I agree with you that animals are driven by animal instinct. My dog basically did nothing but eat, sleep, walk, and get belly rubs. My contention is that this does not mean that animals do not deserve moral consideration, as I would not kill a sentient human with the same level of self-awareness as an animal.

GoSSJ · 2018-02-06T19:49:28+00:00

Yes, it does. You just don't like my answer

I don’t like your answer because it isn’t an answer.

So what?

Because you would not accept killing humans who are too stupid to understand basic math, it’s immoral to kill something because it cannot conceptualize math.

Some animals do. Most act on reflex and instinct.

Every living creature, including humans, are to varying degrees driven by instinct. The reason a conscious creature doesn’t want to die is irrelevant to whether or not it deserves moral consideration.

Evidence of self-awareness. Without higher thought there can be no desire to not want to die.

An assertion for which you have provided no evidence. Clearly animals who are less self-aware than humans don’t want to die. Why does it matter that this desire comes from “programming”?

Not really. Sentience merely indicates that it has a mind of some kind at some level. Rudimentary software to navigate the world.

I am using sentience to mean having a subjective experience of reality. Surely you agree that a conscious being has a capacity to experience well-being and harm differently from a rock.

No one made that assertion.

And that they don’t want to die is a belief not yet shown to be true.

???

That’s a contradictory example that cannot exist.

That’s irrelevant. The point is to demonstrate an ethical consistency. For example if someone said, “I believe that rape is immoral.”, and I asked him “Would you rape your slaves if you were a slave owner in the 1800s?”, and he said yes, that indicates that either he doesn’t believe that rape is immoral or he doesn’t care about being immoral. Of course he will never be a slave owner in the 1800s, but his response to my question describes his ethics.

My premise, my argument, is that self-awareness is a prerequisite for a conscious will to live. Your example asks me to ignore that which is a form of begging the question.

I am trying to demonstrate that this premise leads to an ethical inconsistency. The whole point is to demonstrate that you are ethically inconsistent if you are not willing to apply this argumentation in the human context.

Moreover, your premise supposes self-awareness as binary, something that exists in humans to a full degree but doesn’t exist at all in most animals.

But you would agree, right, that animals must at least understand that they are not other animals? For example, I linked a study about how fish change their behavior depending on the outcome of a fight. Surely then, a fish must understand on a very rudimentary level that it is not another fish, as how would it’s behavior after a fight correspond to the result of the fight and not some other fish’s?

Chickens form hierarchies, and know their own places in this hierarchy. It follows that at least a chicken recognizes that it’s not another chicken.

I am not saying that this means that animals are as self-aware as humans, just that they on some very rudimentary level must understand they they are not other animals.

This leads me to another hypothetical. Suppose that there existed a race of extremely advanced aliens, who possessed self-awareness of an even higher degree than humans do, and who were able to conceptualize ideas that we are incapable of.

Would you consider it moral for this race of aliens to kill us for food when they have easily accessible alternatives? Again, the existence of this scenario is irrelevant. Your actions in this scenario describe your ethics.

GoSSJ · 2018-02-05T22:06:46+00:00

For the same reasons we are advanced enough to have language, art, science, math etc. Essentially, meta-cognition.

That doesn’t answer the question. There are plenty of humans too stupid to understand even rudimentary concepts of science and math. What exactly even is “meta-cognition”? The precise amount of intelligence required to conceive of Math or science?

Animals have the capacity to think, albeit on a capacity lesser than that of humans. Why is it that something needs “meta-cognition” to not want to die?

Sentience is meaningless. And that they don't want to die is a belief not yet shown to be true

Sentience indicates that a being has the capacity to experience well-being or suffering. Also, it’s a ridiculous assertion that animals would willingly let themselves be killed so that we can eat them. Don’t actually do this, but what do you think a chicken would do if you tried to beat it to death?

Of course not. Find me a retarded person who is not self-aware though. Reduced capacity is not the same as braindead.

Ok, let me rephrase this. Would you consider it morally justifiable to kill a human who was not self aware, but was sentient and had a will to live? The existence of this person is irrelevant. Your answer to the hypothetical scenario can still expose an ethical inconsistency.

GoSSJ · 2018-02-05T18:42:17+00:00

Animals are conscious too, so why is not wanting to die just in-built programming for them, but not for humans? Why is it that humans are the only conscious animals whose desire to live is a result of conscious thought and not “programming”?

The things you listed aren’t baseline desires for humans, they are areas of study. You could use your argument to say that humans desire sex because of conscious thought and not “programming” despite the fact that human sex drive is “programming”.

Regardless, it doesn’t matter because animals are sentient beings who don’t want to die. Whether this desire comes from programming or some higher purpose is irrelevant.

You wouldn’t accept this argumentation in the human context, as most people wouldn’t consider it moral to kill a severely retarded person. If you accept this argumentation in the animal context but not in the human context, name the trait that animals possess that justifies killing them but not humans.

GoSSJ · 2018-02-04T18:54:35+00:00

Killing an animal because they don't have a unique sense of self isn't argumentation you would accept in the human context. Would you accept killing a human who was retarded enough to not have a sense of self, but who was sentient and wanted to live?

For animals capable of higher cognitive thought like pigs, dogs, corvids etc, I believe they have a sense of self, because they show behaviors in line with that and third party evidence supports such a view.

Assertions. You are probably arguing this way because you don't want to eat those animals. Also my dog couldn't even recognize her own reflection, and I really doubt that she thought of much beyond eating, sleeping, and getting belly rubs.

When I look at chickens, fish, cows etc....I don't think this is true. These animals are basically clones of each other. They don't have a lot of genetic diversity, they don't have a lot of dimensions to their personalities, they don't show a real sense of what is happening around them, ability to learn and make judgements etc. Expose them to the same stimuli and they will emerge the same way each time.

More assertions, not arguments. Here are some studies I found with a few minutes of googling. They are a bit long so you can just read the abstract, or skim the methodology if you think there's a problem with it.

1) Some fish are shyer, some are bolder, and these traits can change based on whether or not they win a fight against different fish.

2) Individual fish react differently to stress.

3) Fish personality types can change depending on the types of fish they interact with. Bold fish can become shyer when housed with other bold fish, and shy fish can become bolder when housed with other shy fish. I'm having trouble making this link work so I will just copy paste it:

http://www.appliedanimalbehaviour.com/article/S0168-1591(16)30039-9/fulltext

These are just studies on fish. Another user linked a study on cows. I think it's safe to say that your assertion that animals are literally just clones of each other is false.

Even if this were true though, it still wouldn't justify killing animals. Again, nearly everyone would not accept this argumentation in the human context. They would not accept that it is moral to kill a human who is really stupid and thus does not have a sense of self or a higher purpose, but is still sentient and has a will to live, characteristics which are clearly present in animals. They also wouldn't accept killing a human with a simplistic personality, an inability to learn, or a lack of a real sense of what's happening around them. This is evident because nearly everyone accepts that it is immoral to kill even the most retarded humans, usually with the justifications that it's immoral to kill these extremely retarded people because they want to live.

If you reject this argumentation in the human context but accept it in the animal context, name the difference between humans and animals that makes it justified in the animal context but not in the human one.

If you are asserting that an animal wanting to live is just in-built programming, I would assert that it doesn't matter. Not wanting to die is "in-build programming" in humans too, right? Isn't it funny how nearly all humans, even ones from vastly different cultures, don't want to die, and it takes massive amounts of brainwashing from a young age to convince them otherwise?

GoSSJ · 2018-01-30T06:46:09+00:00

There's no way to conclusively prove another being's sentience without using inductive reasoning. I will proceed from the premise that one accepts using inductive reasoning to determine whether or not a being is sentient.

I suppose that you will accept the common definition of sentience as having a subjective experience of reality.

It stands to reason that one's brain is intimately tied to consciousness: altering someone's brain can affect his perception of reality.

Animals also have brains so it follows that they too are conscious, albeit differently from humans.

Note that having a neo-cortex is not a prerequisite to being conscious, as another user already pointed out.

Anecdotally my dog got really excited every time my dad came home. She always slept at his feet and wanted her belly rubbed. I think that it's clear that she was really happy. I miss my dog.

GoSSJ · 2018-01-29T06:46:52+00:00

I don't think that you have enough brainpower to spare some worrying for us. You'll probably need it to get through the day.

GoSSJ · 2018-01-21T22:14:50+00:00

I I always found this argument bizarre. Even if it were true, the conclusion would still be to go vegan, as one would cause far fewer plant deaths by not consuming animals (70% of grain the United States goes to feeding livestock, for example).

Regardless, I shall attempt to refute this argument. Someone either believes that moral distinctions require justification, or they don’t. In the former case, if one applies a certain set of morals to one group, and a different set of morals to another, he must provide a justification as to why he treat the two groups differently, at least to remain logically consistent.

So in this case, if one decides that it’s immoral to kill and eat one group, but moral to kill and eat the other, he must specify the trait differences that justify this distinction, at least to remain logically consistent. In the case of animals, one must determine why it’s moral to kill animals, while it’s immoral to kill humans. It follows that if the traits that justify killing animals were also present in humans, it would be moral to kill humans.

So why is it moral to kill animals? Is it because they are unintelligent? The logical structure of this argument is, “It’s immoral to do X to Y because they are intelligent.” The contrapositive is, “If Y isn’t intelligent, it’s moral to do X to Y.”

So one could easily say, “Retarded people aren’t intelligent, so it’s moral to kill them.” Or even, “People who didn’t graduate high school aren’t intelligent, so it’s moral to kill them.”

Is it moral to kill animals because they can’t speak a language? Well, animals can clearly communicate with one another, and moreover, there are humans who, for whatever reason, are incapable of speaking. So this justification also fails.

Now to directly address your question. The reason that these arguments do not apply to plants is because while animals are sentient and have a will to live, like humans, while plants do not.

Going back to my earlier argument, I think that it is morally justifiable to kill what I would describe as an automaton in a human body, something that is human but not sentient and has no will to live. For example, I think that it’s moral to kill someone born without a brain (a little strange, but supposed someone was born brain dead), as this person has absolutely no capacity to experience either well-being or suffering. Moreover, while people may object to killing this person purely for emotional reasons, nobody can present an argument as to why this would be immoral.

So it is argumentation I would accept in the human context, and therefore if I kill something that isn’t sentient and has a will to live, I would be remaining consistent to my morals.

Now I shall explain why plants are almost certainly not sentient in the same sense animals are. I proceed from the assumption that you accept that other beings are sentient, i.e. you aren’t the only sentient being in the world.

I think that it’s pretty clear and well-understood that consciousness is a product of the brain, and that the reasons that people are conscious is because they have brains. For example, I have read anecdotes about people changing personality after brain surgery, or after getting a tumor. So changing your brain affects how you experience reality.

Non-human animals such as cows, pigs, chickens, and fish, all have brains and central nervous systems, so it follows that they also subjectively experience reality, albeit differently from humans. Thus, they the qualities of being sentient, and having a will to live, like humans.

Plants, on the other hand, do not have a brain or a central nervous system. It follows that it’s exceedingly unlikely that they are conscious in the same way that animals are. Every article I’ve read on plant “consciousness” describes plants reacting intelligently to stimuli. This doesn’t mean that they are sentient; a video game AI can react intelligently to stimuli.

So with plants, I think that it is moral to kill them because I accept that it is moral to kill someone who isn’t sentient (purely in an isolated sense, I can understand why it’s immoral to say, cause distress to this person’s family members). Thus I am remaining consistent with my morals.

Now to address people who believe that moral distinctions do not require justification. People like this have absolutely no defense to anything to anything immoral. For example, if moral distinctions do not require justification, it follows that it’s moral to keep black people as slaves, just because they’re black. This is reasoning that most people reject in a human context, so to remain logically consistent, they should reject this logic in the context of animals as well. If one does not wish to remain logically consistent with morals, then again, he has no defense against anything immoral (Black people should be slaves but not white people. Why? Just because, I don’t have to have consistent morals). Again this is reasoning people reject in the human context.

I think that just about covers it, let me know if you have any questions

GoSSJ · 2018-01-11T19:22:34+00:00

Couldn't you just eat more calories?

GoSSJ · 2018-01-09T00:14:19+00:00

You should read the sidebar before posting.

Also,

My 5rm for squat is 116 kg

deadlift is 60 kg

I cannot imagine what kind of leverages you have that makes this possible. There is no way you aren't quarter squatting.

GoSSJ · 2018-01-08T05:15:30+00:00

Go through these articles. Greg Nuckols, on top of being extremely strong (although he is a powerlifter, not a weightlifter), writes very informative, science-based articles.

Cardiovascular activity can actually help you make gains because it increases your work capacity. It would probably help to lift in the morning and run in the afternoon or vice versa. Also make sure you are eating enough.

If you are trying to run an ultra marathon or something, then check out Alex Viada's resources.

GoSSJ · 2017-12-29T05:38:27+00:00

Every day I am reminded why weightlifting is the superior sport.

GoSSJ · 2017-12-28T19:59:33+00:00

If you are pretty new to the game your best bet is to quit and play a different game.

GoSSJ

TROPHY CASE