Why is self-awareness even required for meaningful suffering? I've never understood that argument of "animals experience pain, but they're probably not aware of being in pain". What does that even mean? What about being aware of pain and thus meaningful suffering requires self-awareness and what good reason do we have to accept this? Do they have to somehow reflect on their suffering? Infants, toddlers, and people with certain mental disabilities don't do this and yet we accept that their experiences are relavant.
Oh Michael Huemer perhaps one day you can have a dialogue with him regarding his views on libertarianism as contrasted by your libertarian socialist views.
Hey @crusade against ignorance thanks for all of the great content! Any chance of getting Dr. Huemer and Dr. Crummett in discussion together or questions on Gun Rights, Libertarianism vs Socialism or Political Authority?
Very interesting and enjoyable conversation! I think that when discussing pet ownership in general or animals kept in zoos, one may oversimplify the matters when focusing solely on specific cases that might not be problematic, missing a sort of "bigger picture" of what those institutions entail and imply for most animals. We can have great and respectful relationships with domesticated animals but we also see that even the "luckiest" species when it comes to how we treat them - dogs and cats - are routinely abused, neglected, abandoned and suffer in all sorts of terrible ways both by individual pet owners as wells as pet providers. The same is true with zoos, where many animals suffer on site, from lack of space, social relationships, boredom, etc., but also from the horrors of the wildlife trade. It seems like the fact that they are still considered property *is* a very important issue here, that allows both the good cases and the bad ones. Of course, this could be ameliorated with laws, regulations and social norms, but I guess this is the core of the discussion about the legal status of animals in general. Wouldn't it be better if we gave some basic rights to animals that would imply they can't be used, bred or commercialized for any of these purposes? On the topic of animals in research, it's also easy to think "if experimenting on these rats finds the cure of cancer then it's ok", but the situation is that we effectively torture millions upon millions of animals just hoping that we might get something extremely good in return eventually. Is this sort of bet justified? How does the suffering of all these unconsenting subjects count against a probability of getting some benefits in the future? Animal Ethics is a great reservoir for further discussion of these topics, as well as on the issue of wild animal welfare and also the conflicts between animal ethics and environmentalism: www.animal-ethics.org/ Cheers!
@Crusade Against Ignorance I could not quite tell if you are vegan or not. If not, would you be up for having a voice chat discussion about it? Or even if you are, I would be up for talking about you regarding the argument from marginal cases / NTT if you wanted to learn more about it (assuming you don't already)!
I think most people see meat as a product even after watching a video on factory farming. So they will think of it as a boycott decision rather than a moral decision and people are generally skeptical of boycotts.
Interesting discussion, thanks. I'm still stuck on the idea that there isn't really a reason to think that morality exists. The evidence seems to suggest that we are the way we are due to the process of evolution that optimised us for survival and propagating our genes. Therefore, the things we intuitively feel about right and wrong most likely indicate that that is the best strategy for passing on our genes and not a good reason to think that they indicate some kind of deep objective moral truth. Another thought that I have is that I don't really see why consciousness, self awareness or 'qualia' should give us special moral consideration. Obviously as the self centred creatures that we are it would make sense that we would seek to construct a moral grouping that includes us in it... but is there anymore more to it than our selfishness? As far as I can tell, my mental life basically boils down to an internal monologue which arbitrates between some inputs and outputs. Pain isn't really bad in itself, its only that it holds my attention away from other things I'd rather be doing... but those preferences just appear in my internal monologue anyway without any particular reason to think they're special or should be respected or preserved by anyone... although I can't help but be driven by them. Even with today's technology you could easily create a computer program with similar features and I don't see why it shouldn't be given equal moral consideration to us.
You should read his paper on evolutionary debunking arguments. I think he gives a rather powerful rebuttal to your first argument. link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11098-015-0588-9 By the way, evolutionary arguments, even if true, wouldn't debunk the existence of morality as you say. It would merely say that we wouldn't know moral facts even if they existed (as evolution would theoretically lead us away from those facts).
@@SolarxPvP thanks, ill check it out. I didnt say it debunks the existance of morality, only that its reason to doubt that our moral intuitions indicate that it exista.
@@SolarxPvP yes, if we have reason to doubt our only evidence (moral intuitions) that morality exists then i think that means we dont have a good reason to think that it exists. Edit: sorry, might have misinterpreted 'dubunks' in your other comment. I took it to mean that i have evidence against the existence of morality but actually im just saying that i doubt that moral intuitions count as evidence
@@SolarxPvP paper has a paywall, might look into it later. My first thought though is that couldnt our moral intuitions explain the trend towards liberalisation? Im assuming he thinks this trend is a result of human activities and not some outside force and if thats true then wouldnt our moral intuitions be enough to explain our actions without needing to add that they also indicate moral realism.
i do not get why the debate is framed in its entirety in terms of eating animals, even the term vegetarianism is arguably misleading. In the UK animals involved in scientific testing have a special ring of classification around the research keeping it out of public domain. Even beyond testing, pharmaceuticals are by and large not vegan.
I am not interested in debate about ethics or morals in context of animals here but what always makes me feel like wanting to pound head against the wall is when someone says that -" we grow animals etc just so we could get little bit of pleasure from eating them". That just makes my head hurt. And same with using word torture to describe the entire life of the animals because they are killed at the end. It kind of equates entire life with the end result which is death. That leads me to anti-natalism because you can as well argue that raising up children is torturing because at the end they die. I am really waiting for people to get past these kind of arguments which at least for me are just ridiculous.
> makes me feel like wanting to pound head against the wall is when someone says that -" we grow animals etc just so we could get little bit of pleasure from eating them" The basis for that argument is that we can get adequate nutrition without eating animals. We eat animals instead of plants because of taste (and probably convenience), not because of any ethically justifiable reason. > And same with using word torture to describe the entire life of the animals because they are killed at the end. It is not "because they are killed at the end". Animals in factory farms are the products of selective breeding which usually makes them suffer just from growing too quickly and their organs or bones not being able to keep up, produce too much milk, etc., are subjected to very painful mutilations (without anesthesia or any pain relief),forced to live in densely crowded spaces, surrounded by and on top of feces, urine and sometimes blood and corpses, unable to exhibit the most basic behaviours, in many cases barely able to move around or not even able to turn around (breeding sows) or spread wings (egg-laying hens). Fishes in fish farms don't have it any easier. I think if you were to put any human in their place (or maybe even a dog), calling it torture would actually sound almost too light. What is done to the vast majority of non-human animals *throughout their lives* is torture.
@@SoloUnAnimal if you want to say that we can get adequate nutrition without eating animals then say so. Going at it with a roundabout way and with ... honestly, with a stupid statement in my opinion, is not a way. Also animals are not grown only and only in factories. And even there their lives are not constant and deliberate torturing. Torturing is that, deliberate action to make someone suffer. And I think that if we are put you even in a living conditions which some pampered pet has then you still would complain and would not want it. You are equating animals with humans and when thinking how they should live then you imagine how human would live. I am against bad and cruel treating for animals but your comment shows absolute lack of knowledge about husbandry and growing animals and lack of any awareness how life is in other places in the world and that animals have different living conditions than humans. As I said - I am not interested in debate about ethics or morals in context of animals here but these kind of arguments make me want facepalm hard and make me wonder about how humans can get so ignorant in some topics so fast.
@@sasilik > Also animals are not grown only and only in factories. True, and nobody has said that. However: "We estimate that 99% of US farmed animals are living in factory farms at present. By species, we estimate that 70.4% of cows, 98.3% of pigs, 99.8% of turkeys, 98.2% of chickens raised for eggs, and over 99.9% of chickens raised for meat are living in factory farms. Based on the confinement and living conditions of farmed fish, we estimate that virtually all US fish farms are suitably described as factory farms, though there is limited data on fish farm conditions and no standardized definition.[1] Land animal figures use data from the USDA Census of Agriculture[2] and EPA definitions of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.[3]" www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates Worldwide the percentage might be slightly lower, but all countries are moving towards more factory farming, not less. Also, the vast majority of land animals that we raise and kill for food are chickens, and the biggest producer still is the US, with China and Brazil next, both countries heavily reliant on factory farming. Also, China is the biggest producer of total meat in the world and, again, it comes mostly from factory farms. So yes, not all animals are raised in factory farms, but the vast majority are. That's why the most relevant discussion revolves around that and not about all the many other different ways in which animals are or can be used for food, which may very well represent around ~1% of total farm animals.
@@sasilik > And even there their lives are not constant and deliberate torturing. Torturing is that, deliberate action to make someone suffer. Not all farmed animals are living constantly in pain, however: "Broiler (meat) chickens have been subjected to intense genetic selection. In the past 50 years, broiler growth rates have increased by over 300% (from 25 g per day to 100 g per day). There is growing societal concern that many broiler chickens have impaired locomotion or are even unable to walk. Here we present the results of a comprehensive survey of commercial flocks which quantifies the risk factors for poor locomotion in broiler chickens. [...] At a mean age of 40 days, over 27.6% of birds in our study showed poor locomotion and 3.3% were almost unable to walk. The high prevalence of poor locomotion occurred despite culling policies designed to remove severely lame birds from flocks." www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2212134/ Several studies have shown that given pain-relief medication, lame chickens increase their locomotion, which suggests that they are, actually, in constant pain. Also, the percentage above represents the animals whose pain is high enough so as to *show* in observable poor locomotion. It's quite likely that many more are experiencing pain constantly from bearing such heavy bodyweights even if not showing poor locomotion. And they are suffering like this because we deliberately breed them to be like this. We also cut their beaks off without any anesthesia or pain relief, deliberately, to reduce the rates of injury and cannibalism that they exhibit from having to live in such crowded and stressful conditions. Conditions in which we deliberately put them, which include overcrowding, terrible air quality, constant living over their own feces and more. And that is the specific case for the vast majority of the most numerous land animal we farm. Don't call it torture if you don't want to. But semantics don't change one bit of the underlying reality. Neither does banging your head on walls or facepalming hard and often.
@@SoloUnAnimal I would say majority, not vast majority. And all that statistics does not make these couple so called arguments better or arguments at all. They are just slogans and propaganda. If you want to make an argument. Dont 'start with propaganda/slogans and appeal to emotion. I am ready to listen arguments but when person comes and says from the start than all we do is torture animals their entire life and the only reason we raise them is just to get some taste then this person is not worth listening to. My faceplaming and head banging is not for the purpose of changing reality but expressing my frustration with peoples ignorance with reality. Like you here arguing statistics. Its like searching for the average person which statistics display to us and which literrally does not exist. Maybe you should live at some farm some time and not just read statistics.
Great interview!! Everyone should watch this.
This channel keeps getting better
Why is self-awareness even required for meaningful suffering? I've never understood that argument of "animals experience pain, but they're probably not aware of being in pain". What does that even mean? What about being aware of pain and thus meaningful suffering requires self-awareness and what good reason do we have to accept this? Do they have to somehow reflect on their suffering? Infants, toddlers, and people with certain mental disabilities don't do this and yet we accept that their experiences are relavant.
Oh Michael Huemer perhaps one day you can have a dialogue with him regarding his views on libertarianism as contrasted by your libertarian socialist views.
He did have a debate with Ben Burgis but i thought it got caught too much in hypothetical examples rather than on more substantive issues.
Hey @crusade against ignorance thanks for all of the great content! Any chance of getting Dr. Huemer and Dr. Crummett in discussion together or questions on Gun Rights, Libertarianism vs Socialism or Political Authority?
Very interesting and enjoyable conversation!
I think that when discussing pet ownership in general or animals kept in zoos, one may oversimplify the matters when focusing solely on specific cases that might not be problematic, missing a sort of "bigger picture" of what those institutions entail and imply for most animals. We can have great and respectful relationships with domesticated animals but we also see that even the "luckiest" species when it comes to how we treat them - dogs and cats - are routinely abused, neglected, abandoned and suffer in all sorts of terrible ways both by individual pet owners as wells as pet providers. The same is true with zoos, where many animals suffer on site, from lack of space, social relationships, boredom, etc., but also from the horrors of the wildlife trade.
It seems like the fact that they are still considered property *is* a very important issue here, that allows both the good cases and the bad ones. Of course, this could be ameliorated with laws, regulations and social norms, but I guess this is the core of the discussion about the legal status of animals in general. Wouldn't it be better if we gave some basic rights to animals that would imply they can't be used, bred or commercialized for any of these purposes?
On the topic of animals in research, it's also easy to think "if experimenting on these rats finds the cure of cancer then it's ok", but the situation is that we effectively torture millions upon millions of animals just hoping that we might get something extremely good in return eventually. Is this sort of bet justified? How does the suffering of all these unconsenting subjects count against a probability of getting some benefits in the future?
Animal Ethics is a great reservoir for further discussion of these topics, as well as on the issue of wild animal welfare and also the conflicts between animal ethics and environmentalism: www.animal-ethics.org/ Cheers!
Samuel Álvarez All good points! Thank you for that and the link.
@Crusade Against Ignorance I could not quite tell if you are vegan or not. If not, would you be up for having a voice chat discussion about it? Or even if you are, I would be up for talking about you regarding the argument from marginal cases / NTT if you wanted to learn more about it (assuming you don't already)!
I’m not a vegan currently. I’d like to transition to being at least vegetarian soon. And sure I’d be down to chat!
@@medvenson Excellent! I will shoot you an email. Loving the content btw!
I think most people see meat as a product even after watching a video on factory farming. So they will think of it as a boycott decision rather than a moral decision and people are generally skeptical of boycotts.
basado
Interesting discussion, thanks. I'm still stuck on the idea that there isn't really a reason to think that morality exists. The evidence seems to suggest that we are the way we are due to the process of evolution that optimised us for survival and propagating our genes. Therefore, the things we intuitively feel about right and wrong most likely indicate that that is the best strategy for passing on our genes and not a good reason to think that they indicate some kind of deep objective moral truth.
Another thought that I have is that I don't really see why consciousness, self awareness or 'qualia' should give us special moral consideration. Obviously as the self centred creatures that we are it would make sense that we would seek to construct a moral grouping that includes us in it... but is there anymore more to it than our selfishness? As far as I can tell, my mental life basically boils down to an internal monologue which arbitrates between some inputs and outputs. Pain isn't really bad in itself, its only that it holds my attention away from other things I'd rather be doing... but those preferences just appear in my internal monologue anyway without any particular reason to think they're special or should be respected or preserved by anyone... although I can't help but be driven by them. Even with today's technology you could easily create a computer program with similar features and I don't see why it shouldn't be given equal moral consideration to us.
You should read his paper on evolutionary debunking arguments. I think he gives a rather powerful rebuttal to your first argument. link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11098-015-0588-9
By the way, evolutionary arguments, even if true, wouldn't debunk the existence of morality as you say. It would merely say that we wouldn't know moral facts even if they existed (as evolution would theoretically lead us away from those facts).
@@SolarxPvP thanks, ill check it out. I didnt say it debunks the existance of morality, only that its reason to doubt that our moral intuitions indicate that it exista.
@@nickmorris2250 Okay, you just said that "there sin't really a reason to think that morality exists" so I assumed you meant otherwise.
@@SolarxPvP yes, if we have reason to doubt our only evidence (moral intuitions) that morality exists then i think that means we dont have a good reason to think that it exists.
Edit: sorry, might have misinterpreted 'dubunks' in your other comment. I took it to mean that i have evidence against the existence of morality but actually im just saying that i doubt that moral intuitions count as evidence
@@SolarxPvP paper has a paywall, might look into it later. My first thought though is that couldnt our moral intuitions explain the trend towards liberalisation? Im assuming he thinks this trend is a result of human activities and not some outside force and if thats true then wouldnt our moral intuitions be enough to explain our actions without needing to add that they also indicate moral realism.
i do not get why the debate is framed in its entirety in terms of eating animals, even the term vegetarianism is arguably misleading. In the UK animals involved in scientific testing have a special ring of classification around the research keeping it out of public domain. Even beyond testing, pharmaceuticals are by and large not vegan.
I am not interested in debate about ethics or morals in context of animals here but what always makes me feel like wanting to pound head against the wall is when someone says that -" we grow animals etc just so we could get little bit of pleasure from eating them". That just makes my head hurt. And same with using word torture to describe the entire life of the animals because they are killed at the end. It kind of equates entire life with the end result which is death. That leads me to anti-natalism because you can as well argue that raising up children is torturing because at the end they die. I am really waiting for people to get past these kind of arguments which at least for me are just ridiculous.
> makes me feel like wanting to pound head against the wall is when someone says that -" we grow animals etc just so we could get little bit of pleasure from eating them"
The basis for that argument is that we can get adequate nutrition without eating animals. We eat animals instead of plants because of taste (and probably convenience), not because of any ethically justifiable reason.
> And same with using word torture to describe the entire life of the animals because they are killed at the end.
It is not "because they are killed at the end". Animals in factory farms are the products of selective breeding which usually makes them suffer just from growing too quickly and their organs or bones not being able to keep up, produce too much milk, etc., are subjected to very painful mutilations (without anesthesia or any pain relief),forced to live in densely crowded spaces, surrounded by and on top of feces, urine and sometimes blood and corpses, unable to exhibit the most basic behaviours, in many cases barely able to move around or not even able to turn around (breeding sows) or spread wings (egg-laying hens). Fishes in fish farms don't have it any easier.
I think if you were to put any human in their place (or maybe even a dog), calling it torture would actually sound almost too light. What is done to the vast majority of non-human animals *throughout their lives* is torture.
@@SoloUnAnimal if you want to say that we can get adequate nutrition without eating animals then say so. Going at it with a roundabout way and with ... honestly, with a stupid statement in my opinion, is not a way.
Also animals are not grown only and only in factories. And even there their lives are not constant and deliberate torturing. Torturing is that, deliberate action to make someone suffer.
And I think that if we are put you even in a living conditions which some pampered pet has then you still would complain and would not want it. You are equating animals with humans and when thinking how they should live then you imagine how human would live. I am against bad and cruel treating for animals but your comment shows absolute lack of knowledge about husbandry and growing animals and lack of any awareness how life is in other places in the world and that animals have different living conditions than humans. As I said - I am not interested in debate about ethics or morals in context of animals here but these kind of arguments make me want facepalm hard and make me wonder about how humans can get so ignorant in some topics so fast.
@@sasilik > Also animals are not grown only and only in factories.
True, and nobody has said that. However:
"We estimate that 99% of US farmed animals are living in factory farms at present. By species, we estimate that 70.4% of cows, 98.3% of pigs, 99.8% of turkeys, 98.2% of chickens raised for eggs, and over 99.9% of chickens raised for meat are living in factory farms. Based on the confinement and living conditions of farmed fish, we estimate that virtually all US fish farms are suitably described as factory farms, though there is limited data on fish farm conditions and no standardized definition.[1] Land animal figures use data from the USDA Census of Agriculture[2] and EPA definitions of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.[3]" www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estimates
Worldwide the percentage might be slightly lower, but all countries are moving towards more factory farming, not less. Also, the vast majority of land animals that we raise and kill for food are chickens, and the biggest producer still is the US, with China and Brazil next, both countries heavily reliant on factory farming. Also, China is the biggest producer of total meat in the world and, again, it comes mostly from factory farms.
So yes, not all animals are raised in factory farms, but the vast majority are. That's why the most relevant discussion revolves around that and not about all the many other different ways in which animals are or can be used for food, which may very well represent around ~1% of total farm animals.
@@sasilik > And even there their lives are not constant and deliberate torturing. Torturing is that, deliberate action to make someone suffer.
Not all farmed animals are living constantly in pain, however:
"Broiler (meat) chickens have been subjected to intense genetic selection. In the past 50 years, broiler growth rates have increased by over 300% (from 25 g per day to 100 g per day). There is growing societal concern that many broiler chickens have impaired locomotion or are even unable to walk. Here we present the results of a comprehensive survey of commercial flocks which quantifies the risk factors for poor locomotion in broiler chickens. [...] At a mean age of 40 days, over 27.6% of birds in our study showed poor locomotion and 3.3% were almost unable to walk. The high prevalence of poor locomotion occurred despite culling policies designed to remove severely lame birds from flocks."
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2212134/
Several studies have shown that given pain-relief medication, lame chickens increase their locomotion, which suggests that they are, actually, in constant pain. Also, the percentage above represents the animals whose pain is high enough so as to *show* in observable poor locomotion. It's quite likely that many more are experiencing pain constantly from bearing such heavy bodyweights even if not showing poor locomotion. And they are suffering like this because we deliberately breed them to be like this. We also cut their beaks off without any anesthesia or pain relief, deliberately, to reduce the rates of injury and cannibalism that they exhibit from having to live in such crowded and stressful conditions. Conditions in which we deliberately put them, which include overcrowding, terrible air quality, constant living over their own feces and more.
And that is the specific case for the vast majority of the most numerous land animal we farm. Don't call it torture if you don't want to. But semantics don't change one bit of the underlying reality. Neither does banging your head on walls or facepalming hard and often.
@@SoloUnAnimal I would say majority, not vast majority. And all that statistics does not make these couple so called arguments better or arguments at all. They are just slogans and propaganda. If you want to make an argument. Dont 'start with propaganda/slogans and appeal to emotion. I am ready to listen arguments but when person comes and says from the start than all we do is torture animals their entire life and the only reason we raise them is just to get some taste then this person is not worth listening to.
My faceplaming and head banging is not for the purpose of changing reality but expressing my frustration with peoples ignorance with reality. Like you here arguing statistics. Its like searching for the average person which statistics display to us and which literrally does not exist. Maybe you should live at some farm some time and not just read statistics.