In terms of species success, which is better off - the cow or the tiger?

Cows will go on being successful as long as we keep eating them. If we all turn vegan and they're competing with us for arable land and resources - maybe not so much

Animals are supposed to be eaten, not just by us. Just watch planet earth 2 if you need a refresher

Yeah, most primates eat meat.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com...l-vegetarians/

And cows survive in Southern India, where many people are vegetarians. Zeno can provide more details.

Plants "suffer" far more then animals. But back to your point, without understanding the is no suffering. there is only pain.

Cows eat meat. Most animals do. A cow,a horse or a Deer would not miss on eating a small bird.

Existentialist freedom is only a particular kind of freedom, and the claim that morality, or following moral rules is in some way opposed to freedom generally (or even, imo the kind of freedom the existentialists were interested in) is a false dichotomy. For instance, contrary to your claim about Kantians, freedom of choice is the basic presupposition of Kantian ethics. Kant claimed that doing the right thing is of no moral significance unless we freely choose to do so for moral reasons (a moral reason being a reason that can be rationalized into a general rule that can be followed by anyone faced with the same decision). Your true enemy here is reason, with its universalizing ambitions, rather than morality. You don't like the kind of morally-based decisions advocated by Kant because you think they imply (if accurately-based) that you should act in the same way. Fine. That doesn't mean those decisions are not themselves still freely chosen by Kant and his followers.

This is an obviously false deepity. It's probably true that some Stoics and Buddhists and religious saints develop a sense of internal fortitude strong enough to overcome great trials of suffering. But, as your own arguments imply, we are not simply minds wandering through the void. We are physical beings living among other physical beings. Actual judges and their opinion of your decisions (and how much guilt they imply) matter. People's opinion about the value or interest of your writing, art, or thoughts matter. Other people's opinion of the goods or services you sell also matter. Only hermits completely apart from any society can plausibly make your claim - and even here the importance of other people's judgements are shown in the depth of denial required to achieve this state.

Agreed, but don't suppose that an awareness of the provisional and contingent nature of moral heuristics implies that moral heuristics can or should be overthrown.

Unfortunately for your view, the existentialists were wrong that existence precedes essence. We don't have absolute freedom to mold ourselves as we wish. Basic capabilities of intelligence, personality, and etc. are based at least in part on the physical aspects of the brain. Our contingent circumstances in life: where we were born, our wealth and parents, etc. all have an irrevocable impact on who we are.

I'll defer to the BBC and link a yak-it-up article about Cows in India:

bbc.world-asia-india

I would also like to point out that this is how some worship cows:




And that this is how I worship cows:

Big difference between eating animals that are treated well and killed painlessly and otherwise. Two different discussions.

I think if one can argue convincingly that the animals have lived a good life and do not have behavior consistent with planning for the future in anticipation of it like higher intelligence beings, only reacting to here and now conditions and instinct, then terminating life with well designed to be not painful or stressful, easily recognizable for their purpose methods, and consuming the meat from this process is reasonable acceptable inevitability of life cycle.

I have no evidence that chickens or most cattle or non pet adapted to human intelligent environments pigs design a future and anticipate tomorrow the same way higher animals do. How about fish?

Consider this argument;

If you regularly consume fish that are near the end of their cycle like say salmon just before their eggs are produced (or instantly after before they decay on their own) then what is the problem? Any person that dislikes that or the consumption of eggs for ethical reasons is a moron. The value gained by eating is better than the loss of a day of life say under tremendous stress anyway.

What is the point also of letting a bear eat it instead if there is plenty for all anyway?

In fact i will argue that i can imagine a world ala scientific society where you can have if you voted for it communities that eat, without prematurely killing, many animals and consume a ton of animal protein without any ethical issue only because it is well planned for all.

You can certainly argue that what is the point to letting a salmon release eggs and start a process of body decay when you can kill it earlier only a bit earlier and get all the benefits plus the eggs and allow of course enough to maintain the species numbers.

Also what is the problem with eggs? Chicken eggs are a very decent compact source of protein. Where is the harm here? How about yogurt or cheese?

How about genetically altering a species to age faster and die on its own. Then that is a new species with that kind of cycle! If it lives well and has no concept of how much is long enough where is the unethical action?

How about if you entice the animals to the kind of addictive behavior that makes them happy but accelerates their death also? One can design an elaborate process that this happens and all involved are happy in bliss.

Come on now, intelligence and science rules and redesigns ethical systems to be even more ethical for all involved!


Hardcore vegetarians are highly tilting to me actually because the proper behavior is not bs rejection to religious death of any animal protein but a well balanced minimally destructive to the body combination of all good things in proper ratios. Even if you focus mostly on plant food you can still have a few animal protein sources here and there from the examples i gave above or better ones even.

Imagine if it was necessary to catch, kill and then skin/remove feathers from a chicken before we ever ate another chicken again. How long do you think we would go on eating lentils, beans, stuffed tomatoes, rice, potatoes, spaghetti, eggs, cheese, milk etc?

I think one can go on for a good year before they pull the trigger and go for the nasty job. Then again some dont care and the hell with it immediately. We all choose to ignore it. I dont think i would ever get used to it though. What do you prefer one more day to see that chicken walk around in the yard or eating it if all you had was a knife and no experience? I prefer to watch it around a long time and then find a very efficient fast way to be done with it all. Fast is not 10 seconds of death.

It is a nasty job. The stupid bird has already won your sympathy by the time you are ready. You are never ready. You just become another killer and that is it.

So i say the hell with it i am not doing it. I will spend a year trying to find a fast way and then i will kill 10 of them if you ask me. But not until i find the right way because i want to not hate myself. There is only one correct way. For the bird to be happy, to go to sleep and never wake up. To lose in one instant with a bullet its brain if it was possible to not miss at all ever.

But we dont do that. The price of chicken would be $15 per chicken if we did. But we should want one day to be able to say it is not a terrible ending, it is not a horrible living, it was a happy living with a random ending that was never expected and never felt. Yes in scientific society one would care to do it right. And until they did, yes maybe lentils it is.

And if I choose to regard a chicken as a biological automaton, no more capable of feeling in any meaningful sense than a character in a video game?

It isn't a choice, and you'd be about 400 years behind the times.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/c...usness-animal/

Is there no level then at which the animal is merely a biological machine? Where is the line drawn? Insects? Nematodes? Paramecium? Bacteria?

I wouldn't know, but FWIW this seems very anthropomorphic to me:

https://www.peta.org/living/food/shellfish/

The line is at actually being a machine and appearing machine-like from a certain perspective.

If you decide that you have a duty to a moral or "categorical" imperative and that you must live up to that duty, are you then free to be undutiful?
Other people's opinions matter. I didn't intend to imply otherwise.

They matter to the extent that they contribute to the way you see yourself. To the way that your conscience judges you/plays it's game. Refer to Sartres on Being-for-Others and Authenticity. He provided excellent examples. I'll provide one here. Imagine yourself as a young kid, peeping on some girls through a hole separating the girls and boys showers. You think you're alone and then you hear a creak behind you, like someone is about to walk up to you and catch you. In that moment, your conscience immediately judges you from the perspective of the "other". You see yourself from the perspective of the "other". As doing something naughty.

To the extent that you permit the "other" to define how you see yourself, is the extent to which your conscience is perturbed. Ultimately though, your own conscience is the common denominator to all judgement about you. Others perspectives can form part of your own perspective of yourself...to the extent you consider their perspective as valid or worthy. This is what I meant, but I said it in simpler terms.
I don't talk of "should be's". Or understand them. The fact that these heuristics are easily interchangeable, through awareness and strength of character, implies something.
The existentialists will always be wrong to those who ultimately do not believe in free will.

Cut it how you will. You will remain a victim of circumstance. Your philosophy is one of surrender, acceptance and sacrifice. Not one of empowerment, courage and possibility.

Enlightening.

Apparently animals don't suffer when being tortured, since they have no understanding of the fact that they may die.

Tell me more about the weak ideas of eastern thought...

You're saying it's not a machine purely because it's made from squishy biological bits?

Yes, of course. Moral rules are not physical laws that can't be broken.

From an external viewpoint, other people's opinions matter because they can punish us and otherwise impact our physical circumstances. From an internal viewpoint, since we don't have direct access to other people's consciousness, they only matter insofar as they impact our consciousness. However, we are social beings, and other people's opinions, actions, and goals do impact our consciousness all the time in ways we don't control. This includes through social mores, shame and guilt, and so on (I can't just choose not to feel shame about eg how I look if I am slovenly in a formal setting). This all seems obviously true to me. Maybe you are not claiming otherwise, but then I'm not sure what you mean to be claiming.

If you don't understand "should be," then on what grounds are you claiming it should be rejected? You would then have a disqualifying ignorance of the basic terms of the debate. Also, isn't your argument here a "should be" about how to live?

Nietszche in Beyond Good and Evil:
Sartre claimed an absolute freedom was necessary for an authentic life, but he was wrong. Authenticity requires that your choices reflect your actual desires, not that your desires are entirely malleable or self-created.

You should become a Christian, it is a more successful and useful way of maintaining an internal locus of control than atheistic existentialism.

So after you've decided it's your duty to follow moral rule x and then you fail to follow moral rule x, how will you feel? Are you likely to feel anything? And if the feeling is bad, will it gradually dissuade you from failing to follow moral rule x again?

How long until you consistently succeed at your duty? And what's the benefit of succeeding at your duty? Some feel-goods, right? At the cost of what? Your freedom.

Apply this more broadly now to someone who follows 5 or 10 times more moral rules than yourself, for example. How free can they really be? Free from their own self-imposed cruelty?
Well, I wasn't sure why you decided to contest this to begin with. There was no other claim made aside from the fact that it is your conscience which is the only judge that matters. A conscience that can be lightly or heavily influenced by the beliefs of others.
No. Don't reject anything that works for you. Or do. Live how you choose. For most, rules work. More rules work better. So choose that. Or don't. Choose what you think is best. Or don't.
This is so backward. Refer to Camus in his discussion of the prisoner being free to interpret his situation in any way he chooses. Freedom requires faith in freedom. As does the opposite of that. A taboo word around here (faith).
I'm not convinced of your knowledge of existentialism when you make claims about authenticity that see it as some alignment between choices and desires. Even integrity - alignment between beliefs and actions - is a more desireable quality. And that's a real Kantian quality.

A Kantian - an old, feeble man waving his stick around in condemnation of the kids having fun on his yard.

A Kantian quality - a habit of character which when adopted fools you into believing that life is a serious affair.

...*which when adopted in great number fools you into believing that life is a serious affair.

Eating vegetables is worse than eating animals because they can't run away.

One of those is extremely overcooked.

I don't know? You might feel happy or sad. Relieved or guilty. Proud or ashamed. Nothing at all. I don't think think there is some universally common response to following moral rules.

Again, the basic idea of Kantian moral philosophy is that following moral rules only have moral significance if you freely choose to follow those rules. On what grounds are you claiming this is giving up your freedom? Because Kantians think you should include other people's goals as part of your calculus when deciding on these rules?

I'm not claiming that all moral rules or systems everywhere encourage freedom. I'm saying that morality is not opposed to freedom, and that some of the most well-known moral systems include personal freedom as a fundamental good.
If we agree, I don't want to argue about terminology, so we can move on. I decided to contest your claim because I don't think our own conscience is the only judge that matters. One way of saying this is that I think our conscience can judge poorly because other people's judgement also matters.

If you are dying of thirst in a desert, but you choose to interpret your situation as a nice day at the spa, bully for you. You can interpret your situation in all sorts of obviously false ways. No one is denying that humans can will to do things or see things in particular ways. The question is what constraints are there or should there be on what we do or believe.

There is nothing profound in pointing out that it is possible to choose not to follow moral rules. Theologians and philosophers have been saying this for eons. Claiming that there are no constraints - that reality or other people shouldn't or can't constrain our beliefs or actions, that is a more unusual claim, and imo an obviously false one.

Sure, it's been a while since I've read much existentialist philosophy. Go ahead and tell me what you mean by authenticity. I'd also like your thoughts on how Nietzsche, who rejected freedom of will in the "superlative, metaphysical sense," fits in with your conception of existentialism.

Yeah, I often get the sense from people who like existentialism and Nietzsche that what they really object to is the uncoolness of people who are concerned with morality. That they don't like those straitlaced schoolmarms who write boring books about boring subjects instead of hanging out with artists with interesting drug habits and write cool books full of epigrams instead of arguments.

Hegel said it so it must be true. Animals do not suffer