I appreciate some of the concerns raised here, and share some of them myself (I think focusing on ârightsâ, especially in the way Francione and Charlton usually frame them, has been unhelpful in animal ethics, especially when it comes to the disciplineâs public image).
However, while I donât want to be holding linkposts to unreasonable standards (and the post would probably have been more nuanced if it had been planned as an EA Forum linkpost), I did find the article quite uncharitable to the two things it critiques: the calling into attention of the harms that can come to domestic animals, and minimalist axiologies.
Regarding the former: in the comments, you mention second-order effects that could come from âhumane farmingâ in the future, but in the post itself, you donât link the strays whose lives you acknowledge to be bad to the breeding of pets themselves. Currently, domestic animals are often bred in operations with poor welfare standards, and many are mistreated and abandoned by their owners. I do think Francione and Charlton are not doing the cause a favor by pointing to ârightsâ instead of the tangible, terrible experiences that millions of domestic animals face every year, but I donât think it can be said that thereâs âno trade-offâ with anotherâs interests here: if we focus on domestic animals that will live long, good lives, and think itâs important that more exist and thus think that the pet industry should continue existing as it currently does, this will cause more strays (not to mention all the short and miserable lives that end at the puppy mills itself), and more domestic animals who might end up in homes where they are mistreated.
So to me, this example isnât a spotless application of the idea you wish to defend: but Iâm also not sure there are any good applications of this idea that can be as broad as âthe existence of petsâ, as there are generally significant trade-offs with otherâs interests when creating good lives, as our resources could be allocated elsewhere (as has been pointed out by Magnus Vinding).
Regarding the latter: calling a philosophical position âa pathologyâ with no further justification is not the sort of thing I usually expect to find on the forum, though itâs still common when it comes to minimalist axiologies and related views.
Regarding the latter: calling a philosophical position âa pathologyâ with no further justification is not the sort of thing I usually expect to find on the forum
Agreed; same for the reference to the position here being strong because âit straightforwardly verifies sensible views on the topicâ.
You think itâs a norm violation for me to say that itâs âsensibleâ to allow happy pets to exist? Or, more abstractly, that itâs good for a theory to have sensible implications?
I think the âpathologyâ comment is probably a norm violation. The âsensibleâ comment feels more like circular reasoning I guess? (Or maybe it doesnât feel obvious to me, and perhaps therefore it irks me more than it does others.)
To be precise, I didnât say the post committed any norm violation (and Henry Stanley didnât either), I made the vaguer claim that it doesnât fit the standards of discussion that are often seen on the EA Forum (a âgenerousâ approach, scout mindset).
I think itâs very strange to say that a premise that doesnât feel obvious to you âis not the sort of thing [you] usually expect to find on the forum.â (Especially when the premise in question would seem obvious common sense to, like, 99% of people.)
If an analogy helps, imagine a post where someone points out that commonsense requires us to reject SBF-style âdouble or nothingâ existence gambles, and that this is a good reason to like some particular anti-fanatical decision theory. One may of course disagree with the reasoning, but I think it would be very strange for a bullet-biting Benthamite to object that this invocation of common sense was ânot the sort of thing I usually expect to find on the forum.â (If true, that would suggest that their views were not being challenged enough!)
(I also donât think it would be a norm violation to, say, argue that naive instrumentalism is a kind of âphilosophical pathologyâ that people should try to build up some memetic resistance against. Or if it is, Iâd want to question that norm. Itâs important to be able to honestly discuss when we think philosophical views are deeply harmful, and while one generally wants to encourage âgenerousâ engagement with alternative views, an indiscriminate demand for universal generosity would make it impossible to frankly discuss the exceptions. We should be respectful to individual interlocutors, but itâs just not true that every view warrants respect. An important part of the open exchange of ideas is openness to the question of which views are, and which are not, respectable.)
Not what I was saying. More like, itâs a weak argument to merely say âmy position generates a sensible-sounding conclusion and thus is more likely to be trueâ, and it would surprise me if eg a highly-upvoted EA Forum post used this kind of circular reasoning. Or is that what youâre defending?
I suppose I agree that weâre not obliged to give every crackpot view equal airtimeâI just disagree that âpets have net negative livesâ is such a view.
To be clear: the view I argued against was not âpets have net negative lives,â but rather, âpets ought not to exist even if they have net positive lives, because we violate their rights by owning/âcontrolling them.â (Beneficentrism makes no empirical claims about whether pets have positive or negative lives on net, so it would make no sense to interpret me as suggesting that it supports any such empirical claim.)
Itâs not âcircular reasoningâ to note that plausible implications are a count in favor of a theory. Thatâs normal philosophical reasoningâreflective equilibrium. (Though we can distinguish âsensible-soundingâ from actually sensible. Not everything that sounds sensible at first glance will prove to be so on further reflection. But youâd need to provide some argument to undermine the claim; it isnât inherently objectionable to pass judgment on what is or isnât sensible, so objecting to that argumentative structure is really odd.)
Iâm still skeptical of using âobviousnessâ/ââplausibilityâ as evidence of a theory being correctâas a mental move it risks proving too much. Multiple theories might have equally obvious implications. Plenty of previously-unthinkable views would have been seen to be deeply un-obvious.
You have your intuitions and I have mineâwe can each say theyâre obvious to us and it gets us no further, surely? Perhaps Iâm being dense.
Omelas is a very good place, and itâs deeply irrational to condemn it. We can demonstrate this by noting that from behind a veil of ignorance, where you had an equal chance to be any affected individual (including the kid in the basement), it would be prudent to gamble on Omelas.
If it was so straightforwardly irrational (dare I say itâinsensible), Le Guin would presumably never have written the story in the first place! Not everyone behind the veil of ignorance would take the gamble, despite the naked assertion that âit would be prudentâ to do so.
If it was so straightforwardly irrational (dare I say itâinsensible), Le Guin would presumably never have written the story in the first place!
This is bad reasoning. People vary radically in their ability to recognize irrationality (of various sorts). In the same way that we shouldnât be surprised if a popular story involves mathematical assumptions that are obviously incoherent to a mathematician, we shouldnât be surprised if a popular story involves normative assumptions that others can recognize as obviously wrong. (Consider how Gone with the Wind glorifies Confederate slavery, etc.)
Itâs a basic and undeniable fact of life that people are swayed by bad reasoning all the time (e.g. when it is emotionally compelling, some interests are initially more salient to us than others, etc.).
You have your intuitions and I have mineâwe can each say theyâre obvious to us and it gets us no further, surely?
Correct; you are not my target audience. Iâm responding here because you seemed to think that there was something wrong with my post because it took for granted something that you happen not to accept. Iâm trying to explain why thatâs an absurd standard. Plenty of others could find what I wrote both accurate and illuminating. It doesnât have to convince you (or any other particular individual) in order to be epistemically valuable to the broader community.
If you find that a post starts from philosophical assumptions that you reject, I think the reasonable options available to you are:
(1) Engage in a first-order dispute, explaining why you think different assumptions are more likely to be true; or
(2) Ignore it and move on.
I do not think it is reasonable to engage in silencing procedural criticism, claiming that nobody should post things (including claims about what they take to be obvious) that you happen to disagree with.
[Update: struck-through a word that was somewhat too strong. But ânot the sort of thing I usually expect to find on the forumâ implicates more than just âI happen to disagree with this,â and something closer to âyou should not have written this.â]
I appreciate some of the concerns raised here, and share some of them myself (I think focusing on ârightsâ, especially in the way Francione and Charlton usually frame them, has been unhelpful in animal ethics, especially when it comes to the disciplineâs public image).
However, while I donât want to be holding linkposts to unreasonable standards (and the post would probably have been more nuanced if it had been planned as an EA Forum linkpost), I did find the article quite uncharitable to the two things it critiques: the calling into attention of the harms that can come to domestic animals, and minimalist axiologies.
Regarding the former: in the comments, you mention second-order effects that could come from âhumane farmingâ in the future, but in the post itself, you donât link the strays whose lives you acknowledge to be bad to the breeding of pets themselves. Currently, domestic animals are often bred in operations with poor welfare standards, and many are mistreated and abandoned by their owners. I do think Francione and Charlton are not doing the cause a favor by pointing to ârightsâ instead of the tangible, terrible experiences that millions of domestic animals face every year, but I donât think it can be said that thereâs âno trade-offâ with anotherâs interests here: if we focus on domestic animals that will live long, good lives, and think itâs important that more exist and thus think that the pet industry should continue existing as it currently does, this will cause more strays (not to mention all the short and miserable lives that end at the puppy mills itself), and more domestic animals who might end up in homes where they are mistreated.
So to me, this example isnât a spotless application of the idea you wish to defend: but Iâm also not sure there are any good applications of this idea that can be as broad as âthe existence of petsâ, as there are generally significant trade-offs with otherâs interests when creating good lives, as our resources could be allocated elsewhere (as has been pointed out by Magnus Vinding).
Regarding the latter: calling a philosophical position âa pathologyâ with no further justification is not the sort of thing I usually expect to find on the forum, though itâs still common when it comes to minimalist axiologies and related views.
Agreed; same for the reference to the position here being strong because âit straightforwardly verifies sensible views on the topicâ.
You think itâs a norm violation for me to say that itâs âsensibleâ to allow happy pets to exist? Or, more abstractly, that itâs good for a theory to have sensible implications?
I think the âpathologyâ comment is probably a norm violation. The âsensibleâ comment feels more like circular reasoning I guess? (Or maybe it doesnât feel obvious to me, and perhaps therefore it irks me more than it does others.)
To be precise, I didnât say the post committed any norm violation (and Henry Stanley didnât either), I made the vaguer claim that it doesnât fit the standards of discussion that are often seen on the EA Forum (a âgenerousâ approach, scout mindset).
I think itâs very strange to say that a premise that doesnât feel obvious to you âis not the sort of thing [you] usually expect to find on the forum.â (Especially when the premise in question would seem obvious common sense to, like, 99% of people.)
If an analogy helps, imagine a post where someone points out that commonsense requires us to reject SBF-style âdouble or nothingâ existence gambles, and that this is a good reason to like some particular anti-fanatical decision theory. One may of course disagree with the reasoning, but I think it would be very strange for a bullet-biting Benthamite to object that this invocation of common sense was ânot the sort of thing I usually expect to find on the forum.â (If true, that would suggest that their views were not being challenged enough!)
(I also donât think it would be a norm violation to, say, argue that naive instrumentalism is a kind of âphilosophical pathologyâ that people should try to build up some memetic resistance against. Or if it is, Iâd want to question that norm. Itâs important to be able to honestly discuss when we think philosophical views are deeply harmful, and while one generally wants to encourage âgenerousâ engagement with alternative views, an indiscriminate demand for universal generosity would make it impossible to frankly discuss the exceptions. We should be respectful to individual interlocutors, but itâs just not true that every view warrants respect. An important part of the open exchange of ideas is openness to the question of which views are, and which are not, respectable.)
Not what I was saying. More like, itâs a weak argument to merely say âmy position generates a sensible-sounding conclusion and thus is more likely to be trueâ, and it would surprise me if eg a highly-upvoted EA Forum post used this kind of circular reasoning. Or is that what youâre defending?
I suppose I agree that weâre not obliged to give every crackpot view equal airtimeâI just disagree that âpets have net negative livesâ is such a view.
To be clear: the view I argued against was not âpets have net negative lives,â but rather, âpets ought not to exist even if they have net positive lives, because we violate their rights by owning/âcontrolling them.â (Beneficentrism makes no empirical claims about whether pets have positive or negative lives on net, so it would make no sense to interpret me as suggesting that it supports any such empirical claim.)
Itâs not âcircular reasoningâ to note that plausible implications are a count in favor of a theory. Thatâs normal philosophical reasoningâreflective equilibrium. (Though we can distinguish âsensible-soundingâ from actually sensible. Not everything that sounds sensible at first glance will prove to be so on further reflection. But youâd need to provide some argument to undermine the claim; it isnât inherently objectionable to pass judgment on what is or isnât sensible, so objecting to that argumentative structure is really odd.)
Iâm still skeptical of using âobviousnessâ/ââplausibilityâ as evidence of a theory being correctâas a mental move it risks proving too much. Multiple theories might have equally obvious implications. Plenty of previously-unthinkable views would have been seen to be deeply un-obvious.
You have your intuitions and I have mineâwe can each say theyâre obvious to us and it gets us no further, surely? Perhaps Iâm being dense.
In Donât Valorize The Void you say:
If it was so straightforwardly irrational (dare I say itâinsensible), Le Guin would presumably never have written the story in the first place! Not everyone behind the veil of ignorance would take the gamble, despite the naked assertion that âit would be prudentâ to do so.
This is bad reasoning. People vary radically in their ability to recognize irrationality (of various sorts). In the same way that we shouldnât be surprised if a popular story involves mathematical assumptions that are obviously incoherent to a mathematician, we shouldnât be surprised if a popular story involves normative assumptions that others can recognize as obviously wrong. (Consider how Gone with the Wind glorifies Confederate slavery, etc.)
Itâs a basic and undeniable fact of life that people are swayed by bad reasoning all the time (e.g. when it is emotionally compelling, some interests are initially more salient to us than others, etc.).
Correct; you are not my target audience. Iâm responding here because you seemed to think that there was something wrong with my post because it took for granted something that you happen not to accept. Iâm trying to explain why thatâs an absurd standard. Plenty of others could find what I wrote both accurate and illuminating. It doesnât have to convince you (or any other particular individual) in order to be epistemically valuable to the broader community.
If you find that a post starts from philosophical assumptions that you reject, I think the reasonable options available to you are:
(1) Engage in a first-order dispute, explaining why you think different assumptions are more likely to be true; or
(2) Ignore it and move on.
I do not think it is reasonable to engage in
silencingprocedural criticism, claiming that nobody should post things (including claims about what they take to be obvious) that you happen to disagree with.[Update: struck-through a word that was somewhat too strong. But ânot the sort of thing I usually expect to find on the forumâ implicates more than just âI happen to disagree with this,â and something closer to âyou should not have written this.â]
Iâm going to bow outâwasnât my intention to try to âsilenceâ anybody and Iâm not quite sure how we got there!