So if some people went off to live very remotely in the woods with no contact with other people and started breeding, murdering and eating humans where the children’s lives are “net positive” that would be okay to you?
Everything else equal[1], I would rather have such children exist. However, I would not be okay with that situation, because I think we can do much better. For example, if the children had net positive lives, it would make sense to let them live longer. A situation where each person decides when to end their lives painlessly would also be better than one involving murders.
Children eat less than adults, so you can feed more children at the same time than adults with the same amount of food. If they’re young enough (or otherwise unaware), they won’t understand or expect their deaths. Children also seem more hedonistically reactive than adults, both positively and negatively, so if you ensure they are happy (good food, play, affection), they’d plausibly be happier than adults treated just as well.
So, it’s not clear that letting people decide when they die is better from a classical utilitarian perspective and ignoring indirect effects, e.g. the productivity of adults and how it contributes to others’ welfare. Adults are also more self-sufficient, which counts further in their favour.
Great points, Michael. I found the situation intuitively quite bad, and therefore stumbled into some motivated reasoning. I would be okay with the situation described by matty as long as the lives of the children were sufficiently good (to offset the negative effects to the mothers, and the pain involved in the murders), and neglecting indirect effects.
Nevertheless, in practice, if a bunch of humans contacted me describing their great plan to produce lots of utility along the lines described by matty, I would just report them to the police. I think having such plans in real life correlates with bad outcomes (compared to non-existence), even if the plan itself describes a good outcome (compared to non-existence).
We’re issuing mattya 1-week ban for this comment thread; matty’s comments here are counterproductive and not a type of discourse acceptable on the Forum. They’re very rhetorically loaded (and almost entirely phrased in the form of rhetorical questions — a bad idea for a collaborative discussion) and they don’t seem to be serious or remotely charitable attempts to understand Vasco’s point of view.
E.g. I don’t think that a reasonable reader can actually believe that Vasco’s answer to matty’s question here — “So the thing wrong with breeding, murdering and eating humans is the harmful effects it would have on other humans not the treatment of the victim?” — is “Yes.”
The comments also heavily lean on using graphic descriptions of violence towards humans in a pretty careless way, which doesn’t help; that kind of content should be approached more thoughtfully.
I think it’s possible to outline strong disagreement and to point out possible contradictions (both of which can be incredibly useful) while still following Forum discussion norms. I’d want to see this from matty in the future.
This seems a really weird ban to me to be honest.
I don’t see why in ethical discussions we can’t use extreme cases that try and stir an emotional reaction- in many ways our emotions are a key tool in deciding what is ethical.
And with regards to the example you have given, I very much think a reasonable person can take Matty’s interpretation of Vasco; indeed, I still don’t see why this interpretation is incorrect. Vasco seems to be suggesting that as long as ones life is worth living, been bred for slaughter is only morally bad because of the impacts on other people, not on the person being slaughtered it seems like highlighting a key crux between kantian and utilitarian viewpoints, rather than being uncharitable.
And with regards to the example you have given, I very much think a reasonable person can take Matty’s interpretation of Vasco; indeed, I still don’t see why this interpretation is incorrect.
I actually upvoted some of matty’s comments in this thread because of that, and did not downvote any. They made me question my arguments, and I think that is quite useful in general. However, I agree with Lizka that the tone could have been better (although I personally did not feel offended by it, because I do not see a big intrinsic difference between factory-farming humans and e.g. chickens).
Vasco seems to be suggesting that as long as ones life is worth living, been bred for slaughter is only morally bad because of the impacts on other people, not on the person being slaughtered
I agree if “bad” means better than non-existence. I disagree if “bad” is interpreted as in common usage of language, which I think pressuposes a counterfactual with higher value than non-existence. In other words, having a barely good life is better than nothing, but could be much better.
I agree that the same points could have been made in a less counterproductive way. Specifically, I found them a bit aggressive and condescending (like “gotcha!”). I can see how this could warrant a temporary ban. (I don’t have strong views either way about whether it should.)
I also agree that “forcibly impregnating” is graphic and I’m not sure if it’s even generally accurate for animal agriculture, since I expect milder reactions from farmed animals than “forcibly” suggests.
However — and I don’t know if you had them in mind, so you can correct me if you didn’t — the other terms, like ‘breeding’, ‘killing’ and ‘eating’, don’t really have any better alternatives for making the same points. They’re also standard terms in both animal ethics and animal agriculture (well, ‘slaughter’ instead of ‘killing’, and ‘slaughter’ is both more precise and graphic, or sometimes ‘dispatch’, ‘process’ or ‘harvest’, which are much less precise/descriptive and less graphic; and ‘murder’ isn’t applicable to nonhuman animals, because it refers to unlawful killing.) I don’t think we should deter people from using them.
(EDITED)
I’m not sure either way whether the example you pointed out was a reasonable interpretation of what Vasco wrote, but I think that’s what votes and explanations should be used for, unless it becomes a disruptive pattern. Vasco did refer to both reasons applying to the direct victims and reasons applying to others affected, and the OP is mostly about whether or not the effects on others are generally more important than the effects on farmed animals.
I agree that the same points could have been made in a less counterproductive way. Specifically, I found them a bit aggressive and condescending (like “gotcha!”). I can see how this could warrant a temporary ban. (I don’t have strong views either way about whether it should.)
This is my view too.
However — and I don’t know if you had them in mind, so you can correct me if you didn’t — the other terms, like ‘breeding’, ‘killing’ and ‘eating’, don’t really have any better alternatives for making the same points.
On the one hand, I believe applying the same terms to both humans and non-human animals is helpful to break speciesism. On the other, it can be offensive to people who attribbute quite different moral weights to humans and non-human animals (I do not).
Furthermore, my understanding from Vasco’s writing and comments is that he’s a classical utilitarian or close, so the replaceability argument should apply in principle even to humans, as long as the average human life-moment isn’t worse, or greater numbers can make up for a worse average.
Agreed. To clarify, I strongly endorse expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism (which I think is the same as classical utilitarianism).
This is basically what matty pointed out in the last comment, and it seems worth it for Vasco to explicitly consider and respond to this point. Vasco did call it uncooperative, both if done to humans and to other humans.
Good point! I had not realised that, possibly because of the tone. I will reply.
Hey Vasco, I edited my response around when you were replying, and replaced the bottom part of my comment. What I had before and decided to replace wasn’t useful/relevant in response to Lizka. I’m just flagging this for you, but feel free to leave your comment as is.
Good point. The utility equals the product between population size, quality of life and duration of the situation. So I agree that one can make the situation better by increasing any of these.
So if some people went off to live very remotely in the woods with no contact with other people and started breeding, murdering and eating humans where the children’s lives are “net positive” that would be okay to you?
Everything else equal[1], I would rather have such children exist. However, I would not be okay with that situation, because I think we can do much better. For example, if the children had net positive lives, it would make sense to let them live longer. A situation where each person decides when to end their lives painlessly would also be better than one involving murders.
This would be impossible. For example, the children would have to eat, and the production of food would influence the population of wild animals.
Children eat less than adults, so you can feed more children at the same time than adults with the same amount of food. If they’re young enough (or otherwise unaware), they won’t understand or expect their deaths. Children also seem more hedonistically reactive than adults, both positively and negatively, so if you ensure they are happy (good food, play, affection), they’d plausibly be happier than adults treated just as well.
So, it’s not clear that letting people decide when they die is better from a classical utilitarian perspective and ignoring indirect effects, e.g. the productivity of adults and how it contributes to others’ welfare. Adults are also more self-sufficient, which counts further in their favour.
Great points, Michael. I found the situation intuitively quite bad, and therefore stumbled into some motivated reasoning. I would be okay with the situation described by matty as long as the lives of the children were sufficiently good (to offset the negative effects to the mothers, and the pain involved in the murders), and neglecting indirect effects.
Nevertheless, in practice, if a bunch of humans contacted me describing their great plan to produce lots of utility along the lines described by matty, I would just report them to the police. I think having such plans in real life correlates with bad outcomes (compared to non-existence), even if the plan itself describes a good outcome (compared to non-existence).
But if they repeatedly bred humans and killed them there would be just as much “utility” as if you let the children live longer so it’s all good!
We’re issuing matty a 1-week ban for this comment thread; matty’s comments here are counterproductive and not a type of discourse acceptable on the Forum. They’re very rhetorically loaded (and almost entirely phrased in the form of rhetorical questions — a bad idea for a collaborative discussion) and they don’t seem to be serious or remotely charitable attempts to understand Vasco’s point of view.
E.g. I don’t think that a reasonable reader can actually believe that Vasco’s answer to matty’s question here — “So the thing wrong with breeding, murdering and eating humans is the harmful effects it would have on other humans not the treatment of the victim?” — is “Yes.”
The comments also heavily lean on using graphic descriptions of violence towards humans in a pretty careless way, which doesn’t help; that kind of content should be approached more thoughtfully.
I think it’s possible to outline strong disagreement and to point out possible contradictions (both of which can be incredibly useful) while still following Forum discussion norms. I’d want to see this from matty in the future.
This seems a really weird ban to me to be honest. I don’t see why in ethical discussions we can’t use extreme cases that try and stir an emotional reaction- in many ways our emotions are a key tool in deciding what is ethical. And with regards to the example you have given, I very much think a reasonable person can take Matty’s interpretation of Vasco; indeed, I still don’t see why this interpretation is incorrect. Vasco seems to be suggesting that as long as ones life is worth living, been bred for slaughter is only morally bad because of the impacts on other people, not on the person being slaughtered it seems like highlighting a key crux between kantian and utilitarian viewpoints, rather than being uncharitable.
Thanks for commenting, Gideon.
I actually upvoted some of matty’s comments in this thread because of that, and did not downvote any. They made me question my arguments, and I think that is quite useful in general. However, I agree with Lizka that the tone could have been better (although I personally did not feel offended by it, because I do not see a big intrinsic difference between factory-farming humans and e.g. chickens).
I agree if “bad” means better than non-existence. I disagree if “bad” is interpreted as in common usage of language, which I think pressuposes a counterfactual with higher value than non-existence. In other words, having a barely good life is better than nothing, but could be much better.
I agree that the same points could have been made in a less counterproductive way. Specifically, I found them a bit aggressive and condescending (like “gotcha!”). I can see how this could warrant a temporary ban. (I don’t have strong views either way about whether it should.)
I also agree that “forcibly impregnating” is graphic and I’m not sure if it’s even generally accurate for animal agriculture, since I expect milder reactions from farmed animals than “forcibly” suggests.
However — and I don’t know if you had them in mind, so you can correct me if you didn’t — the other terms, like ‘breeding’, ‘killing’ and ‘eating’, don’t really have any better alternatives for making the same points. They’re also standard terms in both animal ethics and animal agriculture (well, ‘slaughter’ instead of ‘killing’, and ‘slaughter’ is both more precise and graphic, or sometimes ‘dispatch’, ‘process’ or ‘harvest’, which are much less precise/descriptive and less graphic; and ‘murder’ isn’t applicable to nonhuman animals, because it refers to unlawful killing.) I don’t think we should deter people from using them.
(EDITED)
I’m not sure either way whether the example you pointed out was a reasonable interpretation of what Vasco wrote, but I think that’s what votes and explanations should be used for, unless it becomes a disruptive pattern. Vasco did refer to both reasons applying to the direct victims and reasons applying to others affected, and the OP is mostly about whether or not the effects on others are generally more important than the effects on farmed animals.
Thanks for commenting, Michael.
This is my view too.
On the one hand, I believe applying the same terms to both humans and non-human animals is helpful to break speciesism. On the other, it can be offensive to people who attribbute quite different moral weights to humans and non-human animals (I do not).
Agreed. To clarify, I strongly endorse expectational total hedonistic utilitarianism (which I think is the same as classical utilitarianism).
Good point! I had not realised that, possibly because of the tone. I will reply.
Hey Vasco, I edited my response around when you were replying, and replaced the bottom part of my comment. What I had before and decided to replace wasn’t useful/relevant in response to Lizka. I’m just flagging this for you, but feel free to leave your comment as is.
Good point. The utility equals the product between population size, quality of life and duration of the situation. So I agree that one can make the situation better by increasing any of these.