Argument for animal moral value

No one said animals have no moral value.

The question is, do they have as much moral value as humans? The answer is no.

no

explain

The question is more deeper.

People do say animals have no moral value mainly because morality requires an active agency/soul/sense of meta-awareness and so on. However many believe animals don't have sense of meta awareness and they don't have souls and such, therefore they cannot be moral themselves. The question then is, with the lack of moral agency, can a behavior which is found in humans to be moral and is then found in animal give animals moral value?

>The question is, do they have as much moral value as humans? The answer is no.
Its not a question of whether or not animals are more/less/equal moral than humans, but rather in the absense of moral agency, will a moral behavior be recognized and give an entity any moral value.

It doesn't have to be a single trait. You could use a set of traits, emergent traits or even a set of traits that are likely to occur together.

>"moral value"

But this isn't an either or scenario.
One person may have less moral value than another, that doesn't mean the person with great moral value has a right to kill the one with less.

ok, disregarding that i don't agree with P1 and P2, C still doesn't follow even if i accept the premise, because it implies that animals and humans are inherently equal and possession or lack of traits between the two can be easily compared. If i share a trait with an animal, for example the ability to percieve light, it doesn't make us equals in perceptions for many reasons (colorvision, UV-/infrared vision, degree of vision....). Same should go for concepts such as intelligence and conciousness. Are certain animals as intelligent as human toddlers? yes. Does that make them automatically of equal value as human toddlers? I'd say no

Basically this conclusion lacks a premise P3 to work: "animals and humans can be compared with each other and their traits and quality thereof is of equal value"

>But this isn't an either or scenario.
That's what I'm saying

>One person may have less moral value than another, that doesn't mean the person with great moral value has a right to kill the one with less.
Yeah, it's complex. I think killing animals for food is fine though

I do it to, but how do you justify it?

There's hidden premises that moral value is tied to natural attributes and nothing else, and that moral value is an either/or situation (either something has as much moral value as all other entities with moral value, or it has none)

Most domestic animals wouldn't exist if it wasn't for agriculture. If we all quit eating meat, what would happen to them? They probably would not be able to survive in nature, and if we just released them all it would probably disrupt the ecosystem.

And a short life being raised for food is better than having no life at all.

>All these fucking furries that grew up watching Disney movies that think that animals are the same as humans and deserve to be treated the same

you mean, how do you justify eating meat?

tell me /his, how would i have to align my views for them to be philosophical/morally consistent:

>pro vs anti-veganism
>pro vs anti-abortion
>pro vs anti-death penalty
>pro vs anti-euthanasia

you don't have to, since they're all separate issues

But if you want to be RIGHT, you should be:
>anti-vegan
>pro-abortion
>anti-death penalty
>pro-euthanasia

>they're all separate issues
correct answer

but to be RIGHT, the answers actually should be:
>anti-vegan
>depends (not really morally justifiable, but can be seen as the lesser of two evils compared to a society where women/couples have no choice (which is still a bad point in a society that doesn't prohibit birth control))
>depends on the circumstances (like gravity of the crime, possible rehabitability of the person...)
>depends, but generally pro-euthanasia

All animals possess the traits that we fully respect in a human being if a human being only possesses those traits.. The human being is still of moral value.

Abortion and euthanasia shouldn't be absolute rights, yeah

The thing about the death penalty is that it's almost never cheaper than life in prison and has little deterrance value. I think it's acceptable in extreme situations (e.g. a civil war), but has no place in a stable society

OP, if you're actually trying to argue this point, a much better argument would be:

P1) Humans have moral value
P2) Humans are animals
C) Some animals have moral value

and then throw in some skepticism of the distinction between humans and other animals

>The thing about the death penalty is that it's almost never cheaper than life in prison
really? huh...i might change my oppinion on that then. (either to anti-death penalty or to the reintroduction of the rope and/or guillotine)

>P1 is correct
Why
>P2 is correct
Why
>there exists a connection which results in C
Why? Where is this connection? Are you implying that there is a mystical force which connects these two objects and draws a line to C? Perhaps the same force that gives human life 'moral' 'value'?
'consistency' is a disgusting meme. Abandon it.

Wow this argument convinced me! All animals have as much moral value as humans!!

>*inhales a flea*
>*gets arrested for manslaughter*

>*conducts scientific experiment on tardigrades*
>*gets arrested for torture*

>*exterminates cockroach colony*
>*gets tried at the hague for genocide*

youtube.com/watch?v=ti-WcnqUwLM

You could argue that animals don't have the *possibility* of human traits.

This is used in ontology of film,
Film has the possibility of producing the illusion of movement.
Therefore works,like Empire are film while a slide show presentation is not.

God created animals for us to eat, there's nothing immoral about it.

>accepting darwinian evolution justifies the premise that humans are not of more value than humans and that human suffering and animal suffering is comparable

i just can't take Singer seriously and i always felt it disappointing that Dawkins agreed with him, however reluctant it was

Yes. However, P2 is incorrect so the conclusion is incorrect as well.

>animal husbandry/slaughter is basically the same as human slavery

REEEEEEEEEEEE

This is the worst argument I have seen in my life

Feel free to critique my symbolic logic, I know I need to work on it

wait fuck the conclusion should be forall y (A(y)->M(y))

fuck off with your autism runes! Just speak concise and plain english

The second premise is always true from the first, since the first argues that all humans have moral value, independent of traits

So you could turn the argument into:
P) Humans have moral value
C) Animals have moral value

An implicit admission of the non-equality of humans and animals that PETA and others make is that suffering in an animal warrants euthanasia.

In humans, suffering can be good for us. Nietzsche was right about that. It would be better for a human to be a hobo than to be euthanized even if this involves suffering. Animal rights people euthanize strays because the life of a stray contains some amount of suffering and any amount is too much.

PETA would happily euthanize a pregnant dog and c-section the puppies if the pregnancy was going to be painful and end in the dog's death. We likely wouldn't even fully anesthetize a pregnant human mom who was destined to die during childbirth (and knows this) because we recognize that to humans having a child is valuable independent of the suffering involved.

Don't you need an existential quantifier somewhere? And shouldn't this almost be like a little subproof where P1 and P2 entail a contradiction symbol?

i see
i think you're right with "the first argues that all humans have moral value, independent of traits", but i don't see how P2 then is always true from P1.

>Don't you need an existential quantifier somewhere?
The original argument is dealing with ALL humans, ALL animals, and ALL traits, so I don't think so.

>And shouldn't this almost be like a little subproof where P1 and P2 entail a contradiction symbol?
The issue is that P2 is trivially true from P1, since any trait that a human has cannot make them not have moral value, because P1 already establishes that all humans have moral value period.

God gave us dominion over animals baka desu senpai

I get premise 2 from premise 1 here.

tl;dr: you can just prove that "there is no trait absent in humans that would cause us to deem ourselves valueless" from premise one, since according to P1 all humans have moral value by definition. You can then just arbritrarily tack on the part about these traits being absent in animals

>In humans, suffering can be good for us. Nietzsche was right about that. It would be better for a human to be a hobo than to be euthanized even if this involves suffering.
Could you expand on it?

i...think i get it now. Yeah, you're right; since a human can never be valueless according to P1 you can automatically never make an animal valueless irregarding of traits according to P2.
so you're right with your non sequitur:
P) Humans have moral value
C) Animals have moral value

You probably should read the Geneology as it's hard to do Nietzsche justice.
This section on the SEP has some stuff
plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/#CritReliMora

Basically, hedonists think all values involve pleasure/suffering and value pluralists like Nietzsche point out that not all suffering is bad so we need to investigate what other values guide our lives.

i agree that suffering can make us stronger if we overcome it, or become stable enough to bear it, but "being a hobo" seems to be a poor example (i'm not saying, hobos should better be dead, but most hobos aren't paragons for "humans overcoming adversity and suffering")

can you (or anyone who understands) explain it to this Ask yourself fag in the comments of this vid

youtu.be/aZvE5FiHurQ

he insists it's not a non sequitur

jesus, fight your internet arguments on your own!

>can you (or anyone who understands)
And if you don't understand the argument, then why do YOU insist on it being a non sequitur? You just want to prove that guy (who has indeed retarded oppinions) wrong, because he doesn't share your point of view. You should however invest some time in understanding the arguments and counterarguments rather than just copy-pasting stuff just for the sole purpose of proving someone wrong

I understand them but I don't understand the symbolic representation

Is there a single person on Earth that claims animals are valueless?

We eat them specifically because we value their meat.

youtube.com/watch?v=JBjAyrX7wms
web.mit.edu/gleitz/www/Introduction to Logic - P. Suppes (1957) WW.pdf
people.ucalgary.ca/~rzach/static/open-logic/open-logic-complete.pdf

no but seriously, why do you need to express your arguments to that guy in formal symbolic logic? If he just refuses your normal logical arguments expressed in english, whithout providing any arguments for himself it doesn't matter talking to him anyway

Because fanbois dont accept the worded logic and parrot his bullshit making all vegans look stupid

Then just tell him to read a fucking book on reasoning sometime

>He's trying to syllogize
Kek

LOGICAL/ RATIONAL VIEW:
POSITIVISM
Science is the end all be all and a few traits here and there make no difference because meaning/ value arguments arise from appealing to culture. What you deem as valuable another group might say that's rubbish Etc. Etc.

IRRATIONAL ILLOGICAL VIEW:
SUBJECTIVISM
If you want to be subjectivist and force your value criterion into the world, you can. However, there's no scientific universally established doctrine of what makes someone/ a group valuable. It will just come down to your/ another group x's opinion.

There's a hidden premise here, which is:

>For all things which have value, they have value due to their intrinsic traits.

Which doesn't seem right at all.

>Most domestic animals wouldn't exist if it wasn't for agriculture. If we all quit eating meat, what would happen to them? They probably would not be able to survive in nature, and if we just released them all it would probably disrupt the ecosystem.
we could just eat every last one that is destined to be slaughtered and stop them from breeding
besides, large scale animal farmy is far more disrupting to ecosystems than setting some farm animals free

dumb

>P1
I don't even know what this means.
>P2
Valueless? Perhaps not, but certainly can be deemed less valuable. We show compassion to the mentally handicapped, but saying that they have the exact same "value" as everyone else is just naive idealism. If dolphins were just a bit smarter and could communicate with us, our ethical system would extend to them as well.

How exactly how you "derived" C1 from P? Show your working, because it seems to me like you don't know much about QL beyond a vague grasp of the notation

I don't get why the first response a lot of people who criticise vegetarianism/veganism have is "animals are not as valuable as humans" as if saying that they are valuable at all is implying that.
Perhaps a severely mentally handicapped person is less valuable than a healthy person. Does that, in your mind, make it right for a healthy person to harvest a handicapped person's flesh for nourishment?

>morality based on reason

Kek.

No, because the mentally handicapped person is still human. This single trait is the defining feature. If a human were no longer human, they would not fit into the moral framework, it's really that simple. We do extend compassion to animals, hence animal cruelty laws, but they are not human.

Peter Singers slippery slope is shining through your argument

comparing retarded people with animals works only if you define "value" by having certain mental capabilities/IQ.

>P2
The ability to reason
Empathy
Society
Morality
Religion
Sapience
Self-awareness
Altruism

fuck off vegans

altough you're right, that isn't the point of the OP

Do you think a member of your family is more valueable than some random guy in japan (even though that guy has an iq of 130 and your family members all just have an iq of 110)?

if so, how do you explain your reasoning?

Why is the trait of being human the one that makes a living being more valuable than another?
Wouldn't it make more sense that the reason human beings are more valuable than other beings is because they possess specific qualities that are valuable/worthy?

>Peter Singers slippery slope is shining through your argument
Not sure how my argument was a slippery slope one.
I'm not really sure of how I would calculate the value of a living being. But at some point there are animals who are more intelligent than some humans.

Are they more valuable to me? Of course. Are they more valuable in an absolute sense? I don't really know. Obviously IQ is not all there is to a person. Maybe the japanese guy is a real piece of shit. Maybe he's the greatest person ever.
I don't really have a way to say whom is more valuable than whom. It's not really necessary though, because it's very unlikely that you will have to decide whom between two people is more valuable.
The point is that, it seems intuitive to me that some people must be more valuable than others. And we could conceive of the possibility of an algorithm that could calculate that value based on the characteristics of that person.
And I guess my point is that, if we were to represent all human beings on a bell curve of "value" and intersect it with that of, say, cows, I'm sure there'd be some cows that would score higher.

>my point is that, if we were to represent all human beings on a bell curve of "value" and intersect it with that of, say, cows, I'm sure there'd be some cows that would score higher.

pretty reasonable, i just wasn't sure wether your argument was "most animals have the same value as humans because they too are intelligent and/or feel pain"

>it seems intuitive to me that some people must be more valuable than others
yeah, just like it seems intuitive to me that most animals just aren't as valueable as humans, without having to compare certain characteristics between them such as intelligence and ability to feel pain. Although i love Coco the gorilla she's less valueable than most humans i know (even though i also know of more humans that deserve death far more than coco)

Animals lack sentience, and thus are only objects in the material world. Humans have evolved above this status into actors, who by right of reason can claim objects. I am free to do whatever I want to an unclaimed object, as I am not harming a sentient being.

>Animals lack sentience
[citation needed]

What I'm trying to say though is that even if they're not as valuable, how does it justify killing them?

>even if they're not as valuable, how does it justify killing them?
i...well, i'm stumped there i have to admit...
i just assumed that one follows the other. I guess it doesn't follow that that makes it automatically right to eat animals, but that it atleast follows from that that it isn't wrong either

also: eat your vegetables user

So wait, do you believe that human beings are all equally valuable?

It would, but P2 is incorrect as human beings were made in the image of God, have souls, and animals were not, and have not.

no? where did i say that?

You godless people have answers for literally nothing. I wonder how you're okay with that complete and utter state of ignorance.

Genesis 9
“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.

Godless liberals. Not even once.

>HERP DERP JUST 'CAUSE GOD SAID IT DOESN'T MAKE IT SO

>You godless people have answers for literally nothing

>getting your oppinions spoonfed by ancient books and applying them literally>thinking about stuff on your own

i have no idea with you justifying your views based on the bible, but you should atleast put more work into it than just saying "it does say so".

Well, now I'm the one who's having trouble following your reasoning.

You said that if animals are not as valuable as humans, it follows that it is not wrong to eat them.
Using that same reasoning, wouldn't it follow that as some humans are less valuable than other humans, it would also not be wrong for the more valuable ones to eat the less valuable ones?

ah, i see.

my completely subjective value scale:
humans i respect and value on a personal level>>>humans i value intellectually or because of some other achievement>some random human i don't know>>very intelligent animals with signs of personality and conciousness>other animals>certain humans i deem to be absolute scum that should be erradicated (but not eaten since having less value still doesn't make the act of cannibalism ok)

i would argue that merely having "less value" isn't the only prequisite to justify something being eaten or even killed. Because if i would argue for that i should be ok with killing and eating strangers. I believe value to be subjective and on a continuum, but even on a continuum there can exist some values that completely change the outcome. i believe some people are less valueable than others, but not to a point that they "deserve" death.

The issue with eating something is even more complicated, because irregarding value you still have to argue wether cannibalism is right or wrong (which again is fine in life and death situations)

>I HAVE BYPASSED THE NEED FOR SUCH THINGS AS "ARGUMENTS"

>Why is the trait of being human the one that makes a living being more valuable than another?

Because it's required for us to succeed as social organisms.

>Wouldn't it make more sense that the reason human beings are more valuable than other beings is because they possess specific qualities that are valuable/worthy?

No, because that premise hinder us a social species by requiring us to extend moral consideration to animals that are incapable of doing likewise.

Better to have no answers than completely idiotic ones

So I pretty much am in line with you, I just don't understand how one can justify killing an intelligent animal (in a situation where it is not necessary for one's own survival/the survival of other people)

Fuck off Isaac.

>I just don't understand how one can justify killing an intelligent animal

do you think killing humans is inherently wrong?

because they don't pay their goddamn taxes!

I'm not really sure. In general, yes. But I'm sure there'd be specific examples in which I wouldn't find murder to be objectionable.

i see, but since no animal can do something deserving death, the killing of animals is "objectively" less justifiable than the killing of "evil" humans?

i really do think most of the problems with the ethics of eating animals really arise as a consequence of us anthorpomorphizing those animals.
animal intelligence=/=human intelligence. animal suffering=/=human suffering. Animal conciousness (if it even exists at all)=/=human conciousness (if it even exists at all :^) )

To constantly draw parallels between the two, means that you accepted the premise that intelligent animals are basically just our retarded cousins, instead of describing them as completely different entities. (this also means i don't accept arguments about me eating my actual retarded cousin, being basically the same)

>but since no animal can do something deserving death
I never said that though.
I guess if an animal is violent and dangerous, and it's an animal that will live in close contact with humans by nature, I think suppression can be understandable.

>i really do think most of the problems with the ethics of eating animals really arise as a consequence of us anthorpomorphizing those animals.
>animal intelligence=/=human intelligence. animal suffering=/=human suffering. Animal conciousness (if it even exists at all)=/=human conciousness (if it even exists at all :^) )
I just don't understand how one can think that without being a creationist who denies evolution.
Humans are animals, we're just more intelligent animals.
The way we experience pain is probably the same way most intelligent animals do.
It's clear that pain/suffering will have a traumatic effect on an animal.
Dogs are the easiest example. It is clear that dogs remember. They understand certain things. They can be happy or sad. And the same is true of cows and pigs.
Mammals in general tend to be more like us.
When you get to birds, reptiles and ultimately fish then you can make more of a case that they don't experience these things in the same way, to an increasing degree respectively

>that intelligent animals are basically just our retarded cousins, instead of describing them as completely different entities.
isn't that what they are though, in a billion year time scale?

one can accept evolution and still recognise that humans are special

i spent most of my life surrounded by dogs, cows, pigs, cats etc. and while they clearly have intelligence, dreams, different personalities (atleast it seems that way, but i'll go into that later)... to equate them in any way to human beings i still consider an insult.

To a being billions of years "up the evolutionary ladder" (in terms of intelligence; i know that evolution doesn't work that way) our feelings, sorrows, fears and pains might seem trivial and irrelevant compared to its own and for all we know, that being might be right. How do we know? Maybe at their level of conciousness the indeed realized that our suffering is not real suffering such as they experience. You can per definition never imagine how something more intelligent than you can percieve the world and at the same time you can never imagine how something less intelligent and completely than you are sees the world, without putting yourself in that place, thus automatically anthropomorphizing that thing, giving it reasons/intent/character, where probably none exists.

You shouldn't make cows suffer more than necessary, but i see no problem with swiftly ending their existence, for no reason other than me wanting beef. I seriously deem most mammals that far beneath me, you can call that evil if you want.

*and completely different than you are sees the world

only once animals have their first existential crisis i care about wether they die or not
youtube.com/watch?v=CJkWS4t4l0k

>To a being billions of years "up the evolutionary ladder" (in terms of intelligence; i know that evolution doesn't work that way) our feelings, sorrows, fears and pains might seem trivial and irrelevant compared to its own and for all we know, that being might be right. How do we know? Maybe at their level of conciousness the indeed realized that our suffering is not real suffering such as they experience.
The only perspective that's relevant is that of the being that is experiencing the consequences. If an advanced being were to flay you alive, no matter what their perspective was it would still be a horrible experience for you. This is where empathy comes into play.

>You shouldn't make cows suffer more than necessary, but i see no problem with swiftly ending their existence, for no reason other than me wanting beef. I seriously deem most mammals that far beneath me, you can call that evil if you want.
But I just doubt you actually believe this. I mean, would you kill a dog on a whim? Would you think there would be nothing wrong with that?

Haha love the fish on the vegetarian.
One rule for this animal another for the other.
It's just because they're not cute and don't bleed.