"Rupert" > wrote
> Dutch wrote:

[..]

>> >> >> The morally relevant difference lies in the essential
>> >> >> difference between
>> >> >> humans and the animal species we use as food, or kill in crop
>> >> >> fields, or
>> >> >> what-have-you.
>> >> >>
>> >> >
>> >> > You can identify some differences which hold between most
>> >> > humans and
>> >> > most nonhumans and claim that they are morally relevant, but
>> >> > there will
>> >> > always be some humans who don't have these differences from
>> >> > nonhuman
>> >> > animals.
>> >> =====================
>> >> But the main difference still remains. Within each person is the
>> >> seed of what being human is.
>> >> No such seed exists in ANY animal.
>> >
>> > I don't know what "the seed of being human" is. It's just empty
>> > hand-waving. There is no property which all humans have in common and
>> > all nonhumans lack
>>
>> Your reasoning is backwards. That is not the test. There is no animal of
>> another species that can demonstrate the equivalent of human abilities.
>>
>
> If that is a sufficient reasno to exploit animals in the way we do, it
> should also be a sufficient reason to exploit radically cognitively
> impaired humans. If you're not comfortable with doing this, but you
> still want to defend exploiting nonhumans, you've got to identify a
> morally relevant difference and argue that it is morally relevant.

Your reasoning is completely backwards. We have an inherent right and
capability as animals to exploit our environments in order to succeed as all
organisms do. These rights and freedoms are curtailed in specific and
limited ways by an evolved social network that protects us and other
indivduals within that network. Every "right" we introduce into this system
is actually a further limitation on our freedom, so we do so with caution.
There is nothing in the paragraph above that tells me that you remotely
understand this process.

>> > except certain genetic characteristics, which
>> > cannot be plausibly held to be morally relevant.
>>
>> Sure it can.
>
> In what way is it morally relevant, and why?

The species an animal belongs to is an accurate descriptor of the upper
limit of it's cognitive abilities and characteristics.

>> Genetics, species membership, is an accurate catch-all
>> categorization that delineates all the attributes of members within it.
>>
>> >> The person you claim now
>> >> doesn't have the differences from animals has the potential to
>> >> achieve those differences. No matter how much hand-waving, and
>> >> how many strawmen you prop up, NO animals will ever achive the
>> >> difference. Again, your ignorance and stupidity blind you to
>> >> reality.
>> >
>> > It's quite funny to see you talking about "ignorance and stupidity".
>> > The philosophical community has been debating this issue for the last
>> > thirty years and everyone agrees that there is a serious problem with
>> > defending speciesism. I really don't think you are competent to judge
>> > all these professional philosophers to be ignorant and stupid. Why
>> > don't you try and publish the argument you just came up with, see how
>> > you go. If you really think you can defend speciesism I'm sure everyone
>> > would be very excited to hear about it.
>>
>> I seriously question your word that "everyone agrees" that speciesism
>> cannot
>> be defended.
>
> I did not say this. I said everyone acknowledges that there is a
> serious problem with doing it.

"everyone agrees that there is a serious problem with defending speciesism".

> Some people think they can do it, such
> as Carl Cohen.

Then he does not agree that there is a serious problem, therefore you were
lying when you said everyone agrees that there is a serious problem with
defending speciesism.

>If you doubt my word, read the philosophical literature
> and form your own conclusions.

Why would I NOT doubt your word after that?

>> You don't speak for "everyone" in the <ahem> philosophical
>> community,
>
> Your disparagement of the philosophical community is out of place.

I wasn't disparging the philosophical community, I was disparging your
appeal to authority. You have already demonstrated that you are incapable of
honestly portraying the opinion of the philosophical community.

> You're not familiar with the philosophical literature, and if you were
> you could learn something about how to construct a good argument.
>
>> and in fact Cohen defends it quite nicely in "Regan vs Cohen".
>
> No, that's a very poor defence of speciesism.

In your highly biased opinion.

> He doesn't address the
> argument from marginal cases.

That is not a valid argument as I have demonstrated. Again, the AR community
turns reality on it's ear then demands that everyone else prove them wrong.

> Neil Levy has kindly helped him out by
> elaborating his argument into the "natural kinds" argument, which has
> some credibility, but there are still important challenges to it, one
> of which I have mentioned on this thread (the thought-experiment of the
> nonhuman with abnormally good cognitive abilities).

An argument which I shattered, not that you could have noticed..

>> "Speciesism", the rational worldview, is not to be confused with terms
>> like
>> "racism" and "sexism" which carry a pjorative "unfair" connotation.
>> Everyone
>> is a speciesist,
>
> No.

Yes
>
>> the only question is at what point do you begin to allow
>> non-human animals into your sphere of consideration and for what reasons.
>> You dismiss animals too small for your normal perception to distinguish,
>
> Because they are not sentient.

How the hell do you know? By what definition?

> That is not speciesist.

Where is "sentience" whatever you mean by that, implied in the word
"species"? If I dismiss an entire species because I define them all as not
sentient, how am I not being speciesist?

>> too
>> ubiquitous to avoid destroying,
>
> That is justified by limitations on the presumption against causing
> harm, which are necessary for human civilization to survive.

Who says the human species must survive at the cost of harming others? How
are you defining "survival"? What happened to equal consideration, to
dealing on an individual basis?

> These
> limitations must be formulated in non-speciesist ways.

By holding intelligence tests on an indivdual-by-indivdual basis?

>> too inconvenient to preserve, therefore it
>> is the default reality,
>
> No. These considerations are no argument against equal consideration.

"Equal consideration" is a meaningless buzz-phrase.

>> and the onus falls on so-called "non-speciesism
>> advocates" to argue where that line should be and why there should be
>> only
>> one place for everyone.
>
> Everyone has to draw a line somewhere and argue for why that is the
> place the line should be drawn. You have indicated where you draw the
> line, now it is your job to defend that.

You have not indicated where you think the line should be drawn,
conveniently avoiding the need to defend it.

> My criticism of it is that
> there is no good reason to judge a being's moral status on the basis of
> what is typical for his or her species.

We don't, ALL individuals of all species we kill in agriculture for example
fall below a threshold of cognitive ability that most humans would find
unacceptable in animals we use for food or harm regularly.

You display the typically arrogant approach of the ARA. You attack and
presume to sit in judgment, but when asked to give real alternatives you
hide behind vague, lofty sounding catch-phrases.