already in the thread we’ve got examples of people considering whether murdering someone who eats meat isn’t immoral
If the question were about humans who cause an equivalent amount of harm to other humans, I would not expect to see objection to the question merely being asked or considered. When humans are at risk, this question is asked even when the price is killing (a lower number of) humans who are not causing the harm. It is true that present human culture applies such a double standard to humans versus to members of other species, but this is not morally relevant and should not influence what moral questions one allows themself to consider (though it still does, empirically. This is relevant to a principle introduced below).
I think that this question is both intuitive to ask and would be important in a neartermist frame given the animal lives at stake. It has also been discussed in at least one published philosophy paper.[1] That paper concludes (on this question) that in the current world, it is a much less effective way of reducing animal torture compared to other ways, and so shouldn’t be done in order to avoid ending up arrested and unable to help animals in far more effective ways, but that it would likely reduce more suffering than it causes.[2] That is my belief too, by which I mean that seems to be the way the world is, not that I like that the world is this way. (This is a core rationalist principle, which I believe is also violated by other of your points in the ‘pattern matches to dangerous beliefs’ section.)
The Litany of Tarski is a template to remind oneself that beliefs should stem from reality, from what actually is, as opposed to what we want, or what would be convenient. For any statement X, the litany takes the form “If X, I desire to believe that X”.
I think there are other instances of different standards being applied to how we treat extreme harm of humans versus extreme harm of members of other species throughout your comment.[3]
For example, I think that if one believes factory farming is a moral catastrophe (as you do), and if discomfort originated from that one’s morality alone, then the use of ‘meat’ over ‘animals’ or ‘animal bodies’ would cause more discomfort than the use of ‘meat eater’ over ‘meat eating’.
That’s not to say I don’t think the term ‘eating’ instead of ‘eater’ is better, or rather, more generally, that language should not have words that refer to a being by one of their malleable behaviors or attitudes. I might favor such a general linguistic change.
However, if this were a discussion of great ongoing harm being caused to humans, such as through abuse or murder, I would not expect to find comments objecting to referring to the humans causing that harm as ‘abusers’ or ‘murderers’ on the basis that they might stop in the future.[4] (I’m solely commenting on the perceived double standard here.)
There are other examples (in section three), but I can (in general) only find words matching my thoughts very slowly (this took me almost two hours to write and revise) so I’m choosing to stop here.
I think this also shows that this question is importantly two questions:
Is it right to kill someone who would otherwise continually cause animals to be harmed and killed, in isolation, i.e in a hypothetical thought-experiment-world where there’s no better way to stop this, and doing so will not prevent you from preventing greater amounts of harm?
In this case, ‘yes’ feels like the obvious answer to me.
I also think it would feel like an obvious answer for most people if present biases towards members of other species were removed, for most would say ‘yes’ to the version of this question about a human creating and killing humans.
Is it right to kill someone who would otherwise continually cause animals to be harmed and killed, in the current world, where this will lead to you being imprisoned?
In this case, ‘no’ feels like the obvious answer to me, because you could do more good just by causing two humans to go vegan for life, and even more good by following EA principles.
(To preclude certain objections: These are different standards which would not be justified by members of a given species experiencing only less suffering from 0-2 years of psychological desperation and physical torture than humans would from that same situation).
(Relatedly, after reading your comment, one thing I tried was to read it again with reference to {people eating animals} mentally replaced with reference to {people enacting moral catastrophes that are now widely opposed}, to isolate the ‘currently still supported’ variable, to see if anything in my perception or your comment would be unexpected if that variable were different, despite it not being a morally relevant variable. This, I think, is a good technique for avoiding/noticing bias.)
If the question were about humans who cause an equivalent amount of harm to other humans, I would not expect to see objection to the question merely being asked or considered. When humans are at risk, this question is asked even when the price is killing (a lower number of) humans who are not causing the harm. It is true that present human culture applies such a double standard to humans versus to members of other species, but this is not morally relevant and should not influence what moral questions one allows themself to consider (though it still does, empirically. This is relevant to a principle introduced below).
I think that this question is both intuitive to ask and would be important in a neartermist frame given the animal lives at stake. It has also been discussed in at least one published philosophy paper.[1] That paper concludes (on this question) that in the current world, it is a much less effective way of reducing animal torture compared to other ways, and so shouldn’t be done in order to avoid ending up arrested and unable to help animals in far more effective ways, but that it would likely reduce more suffering than it causes.[2] That is my belief too, by which I mean that seems to be the way the world is, not that I like that the world is this way. (This is a core rationalist principle, which I believe is also violated by other of your points in the ‘pattern matches to dangerous beliefs’ section.)
I think there are other instances of different standards being applied to how we treat extreme harm of humans versus extreme harm of members of other species throughout your comment.[3]
For example, I think that if one believes factory farming is a moral catastrophe (as you do), and if discomfort originated from that one’s morality alone, then the use of ‘meat’ over ‘animals’ or ‘animal bodies’ would cause more discomfort than the use of ‘meat eater’ over ‘meat eating’.
That’s not to say I don’t think the term ‘eating’ instead of ‘eater’ is better, or rather, more generally, that language should not have words that refer to a being by one of their malleable behaviors or attitudes. I might favor such a general linguistic change.
However, if this were a discussion of great ongoing harm being caused to humans, such as through abuse or murder, I would not expect to find comments objecting to referring to the humans causing that harm as ‘abusers’ or ‘murderers’ on the basis that they might stop in the future.[4] (I’m solely commenting on the perceived double standard here.)
There are other examples (in section three), but I can (in general) only find words matching my thoughts very slowly (this took me almost two hours to write and revise) so I’m choosing to stop here.
https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/article/2/2/206
In the Journal of Controversial Ideas, co-founded by Peter Singer. (wikipedia)
I think this also shows that this question is importantly two questions:
Is it right to kill someone who would otherwise continually cause animals to be harmed and killed, in isolation, i.e in a hypothetical thought-experiment-world where there’s no better way to stop this, and doing so will not prevent you from preventing greater amounts of harm?
In this case, ‘yes’ feels like the obvious answer to me.
I also think it would feel like an obvious answer for most people if present biases towards members of other species were removed, for most would say ‘yes’ to the version of this question about a human creating and killing humans.
Is it right to kill someone who would otherwise continually cause animals to be harmed and killed, in the current world, where this will lead to you being imprisoned?
In this case, ‘no’ feels like the obvious answer to me, because you could do more good just by causing two humans to go vegan for life, and even more good by following EA principles.
(To preclude certain objections: These are different standards which would not be justified by members of a given species experiencing only less suffering from 0-2 years of psychological desperation and physical torture than humans would from that same situation).
(Relatedly, after reading your comment, one thing I tried was to read it again with reference to {people eating animals} mentally replaced with reference to {people enacting moral catastrophes that are now widely opposed}, to isolate the ‘currently still supported’ variable, to see if anything in my perception or your comment would be unexpected if that variable were different, despite it not being a morally relevant variable. This, I think, is a good technique for avoiding/noticing bias.)
great reply
Takes a long time to read to ! Nice work its really interesting :)