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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/11/2012 3:23 PM, Dutch wrote:
> "Rupert" > wrote
>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
>> the default starting position.

>
> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
> community, my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant
> species, lower level animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in
> there somewhere.
>
> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
> interests, that is the way the world works.


That's right, and even when considering others' interests, one is still
considering one's own, and that's going to affect how you weight the
interests of others. I consider my son's interests ahead of my wife's,
my wife's ahead of my friends', my friends' ahead of my neighbors', and
so on. There comes a point at which I would consider my dog's interests
ahead of some humans' interests. If I have $100 and am faced with a
choice of taking my dog to the vet because she's ill, or donating to the
Haitian earthquake relief fund, I can tell you the Haitians are going to
be $100 short.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 11, 8:37*pm, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/11/2012 10:40 AM, Rupert wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 11, 8:51 am, George > *wrote:
> >> On 4/10/2012 10:50 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>> On Apr 11, 2:16 am, George > * *wrote:
> >>>> On 4/10/2012 3:54 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>> On Apr 10, 3:50 pm, George > * * *wrote:
> >>>>>> On 4/10/2012 12:35 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>> On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, George > * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 12:04 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:42 pm, George > * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 9:15 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 4:31 pm, George > * * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 11:43 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:44 am, George > * * * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 9:00 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 8, 7:06 pm, wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> why human use of animals is wrong. *This is meaningless. *First of all,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all species are "speciesist": *the members of all species pursue their
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no regard for the interests of other species.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Some nonhuman animals do show concern for the interests of members of
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> other species, and in any case there is no good reason why we should
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> use the behaviour of nonhuman animals as a moral guide.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> No other species show *moral* concern for interests of other species'
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> members.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> The point of the post is that those who decry "speciesism" are relying
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> on it to say that humans should not engage in it.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they are not.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> Yes, they are. *You are requiring humans to behave a particular way due
> >>>>>>>>>>>> to their species. *That's "speciesism" (an ugly, contrived word, in fact
> >>>>>>>>>>>> not even a real word at all, as every spell-checker in existence
> >>>>>>>>>>>> demonstrates by flagging it as not a word.)

>
> >>>>>>>>>>> No, they're not requiring that humans behave a particular way due to
> >>>>>>>>>>> their species. Saying that only moral agents have moral obligations is
> >>>>>>>>>>> not speciesism.

>
> >>>>>>>>>> That's not what you're doing.

>
> >>>>>>>>> Why not?

>
> >>>>>>>> You tell us what your motive is.

>
> >>>>>>> I don't understand this.

>
> >>>> Yes, you do.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The "ar" passivists
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by invoking it themselves. *Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests of members of other species. *To say that we /must/ is itself
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "speciesist."

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's not.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> It is.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> You obviously don't understand what speciesism is.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> I do understand full well what it is. *In fact, it's sophistry.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: *racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> etc. *This comparison is cynical and dishonest. *First, a discussion of
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are doing the discriminating. *A person's race or sex has no bearing on
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> There are plenty of intellectually disabled humans who cannot
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> participate in the moral comunnity of humanity to

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> "marginal cases" doesn't work. *It's useless.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> I've explained that to you before, too. *The argument from species
> >>>>>>>>>>>> normality defeats it, among other things.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>> The argument from species normality is flawed.

>
> >>>>>>>>>> No, it isn't. *It fully defeats the fake argument from marginal cases.

>
> >>>>>>>>> Wrong.

>
> >>>>>>>> Nope; right.

>
> >>>>>>> What exactly are the premises of the argument from species normality?

>
> >>>>>> Above you wrote, "The argument from species normality is flawed." *Do
> >>>>>> you mean to say you wrote that without knowing what the premises are?
> >>>>>> That seems very reckless and irresponsible.

>
> >>>>> I believe that one of the premises of the argument from species
> >>>>> normality is that the moral consideration an individual should get is
> >>>>> determined by what characteristics are typical for that individual's
> >>>>> species, and I believe that it is possible to construct thought-
> >>>>> experiments which show this premise to be problematic.

>
> >>>> Have a go at it.

>
> >>> Do you know the thought-experiment of the chimpanzee who can
> >>> understand advanced mathematics?

>
> >> Yes, of course. *It's the case of freak intelligence. *It fails, because
> >> it is not symmetric with a marginal human case. *The actuality of the
> >> chimp with freak intelligence entails the potentiality of moral
> >> considerability, but the non-actuality of normal human cognition in the
> >> marginal human does *not* entail the non-potentiality of being a moral
> >> agent. *We see this clearly with humans who are only temporarily
> >> incapacitated, or with children who mostly will develop to be moral agents.

>
> > What do you mean by "potentiality"?

>
> Because humans are the unique class who are moral agents, then without
> knowing anything else about a human being, you know at least that he has
> the potential to be or to become a moral actor. *Furthermore, even when
> the actuality is that a human is not a moral actor, that doesn't mean he
> isn't potentially one. *This is obviously true of normal human infants,
> people in a reversible coma, people under anesthesia, people who are
> asleep, and others.
>


Again: what do you *mean* by "potential"?

> It is not membership /per se/ in the class of beings who as a matter of
> species normality have the morally relevant trait that leads us to
> include marginal humans and exclude all other animals; it is the
> *meaning* of it, which is the potentiality to exercising those faculties.
>
> There's another reason why the two marginal cases - freak-intelligent
> chimp, comatose human - are not symmetric: *we observe plenty of
> marginal humans, most of whom develop or recover their faculty for moral
> agency, but we have never observed a chimpanzee who can do mathematics
> at a level that he ought to earn university admission, nor does anyone
> reasonably expect we ever will.


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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 11, 7:55*pm, Donn Messenheimer >
wrote:
> On 4/11/2012 10:40 AM, Rupert wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 11, 6:27 pm, Donn >
> > wrote:
> >> On 4/10/2012 10:50 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>> On Apr 11, 2:16 am, George > * *wrote:
> >>>> On 4/10/2012 3:54 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>> On Apr 10, 3:50 pm, George > * * *wrote:
> >>>>>> On 4/10/2012 12:35 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>> On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, George > * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 12:04 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:42 pm, George > * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 9:15 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 4:31 pm, George > * * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 11:43 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:44 am, George > * * * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 9:00 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 8, 7:06 pm, wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> why human use of animals is wrong. *This is meaningless. *First of all,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all species are "speciesist": *the members of all species pursue their
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no regard for the interests of other species.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Some nonhuman animals do show concern for the interests of members of
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> other species, and in any case there is no good reason why we should
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> use the behaviour of nonhuman animals as a moral guide.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> No other species show *moral* concern for interests of other species'
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> members.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> The point of the post is that those who decry "speciesism" are relying
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> on it to say that humans should not engage in it.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they are not.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> Yes, they are. *You are requiring humans to behave a particular way due
> >>>>>>>>>>>> to their species. *That's "speciesism" (an ugly, contrived word, in fact
> >>>>>>>>>>>> not even a real word at all, as every spell-checker in existence
> >>>>>>>>>>>> demonstrates by flagging it as not a word.)

>
> >>>>>>>>>>> No, they're not requiring that humans behave a particular way due to
> >>>>>>>>>>> their species. Saying that only moral agents have moral obligations is
> >>>>>>>>>>> not speciesism.

>
> >>>>>>>>>> That's not what you're doing.

>
> >>>>>>>>> Why not?

>
> >>>>>>>> You tell us what your motive is.

>
> >>>>>>> I don't understand this.

>
> >>>> Yes, you do.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The "ar" passivists
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by invoking it themselves. *Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests of members of other species. *To say that we /must/ is itself
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "speciesist."

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's not.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> It is.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> You obviously don't understand what speciesism is.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> I do understand full well what it is. *In fact, it's sophistry.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: *racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> etc. *This comparison is cynical and dishonest. *First, a discussion of
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are doing the discriminating. *A person's race or sex has no bearing on
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> There are plenty of intellectually disabled humans who cannot
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> participate in the moral comunnity of humanity to

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> "marginal cases" doesn't work. *It's useless.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> I've explained that to you before, too. *The argument from species
> >>>>>>>>>>>> normality defeats it, among other things.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>> The argument from species normality is flawed.

>
> >>>>>>>>>> No, it isn't. *It fully defeats the fake argument from marginal cases.

>
> >>>>>>>>> Wrong.

>
> >>>>>>>> Nope; right.

>
> >>>>>>> What exactly are the premises of the argument from species normality?

>
> >>>>>> Above you wrote, "The argument from species normality is flawed." *Do
> >>>>>> you mean to say you wrote that without knowing what the premises are?
> >>>>>> That seems very reckless and irresponsible.

>
> >>>>> I believe that one of the premises of the argument from species
> >>>>> normality is that the moral consideration an individual should get is
> >>>>> determined by what characteristics are typical for that individual's
> >>>>> species, and I believe that it is possible to construct thought-
> >>>>> experiments which show this premise to be problematic.

>
> >>>> Have a go at it.

>
> >>> Do you know the thought-experiment of the chimpanzee who can
> >>> understand advanced mathematics?

>
> >>>>>>>> Another way the bogus "marginal cases" argument is queered is by
> >>>>>>>> pointing out that rather than elevate the moral consideration given to
> >>>>>>>> animals, it would tend to lessen that given to the marginal cases.

>
> >>>>>>> It would probably do both.

>
> >>>>>> No.

>
> >>>>>>>> You just don't have a sound argument against "speciesism".

>
> >>>>>>> The burden of proof is on the *defender* of speciesism.

>
> >>>>>> The burden of proof is on the "ar" extremists who claim non-human
> >>>>>> animals deserve equal moral consideration.

>
> >>>>> Wrong. If you think that you belong to a special group whose interests
> >>>>> deserve more consideration than those of other groups, the burden is
> >>>>> on you to explain why.

>
> >>>> Nope. *As the overwhelming majority - 99% + - of people believe that it
> >>>> is correct to give more consideration to the interests of members of
> >>>> their species than to members of other species, you're going to have to
> >>>> make a case for why they're wrong. *The burden is on you. *The
> >>>> presumption that our interests should receive greater consideration is
> >>>> the champion; your position is the challenger. *The challenger must
> >>>> defeat the champion, or the champion remains champion by default.
> >>>> That's how it works.

>
> >>> No. There is a default presumption of equal consideration of interests
> >>> in ethics.

>
> >> Who says so? *Peter Singer?

>
> > Peter Singer, and most other ethicists, whether they be in favour of
> > speciesism or no.

>
> >> * That's a position he advocates polemically.
> >> * *How does he show that it ought to be considered the default? *Who
> >> agrees with him? *Not Bonnie Steinbock.

>
> > Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> > the default starting position.

>
> I don't believe you.


I'll see if I can find some references for you. I've asked a friend
who is doing a PhD in metaethics.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 12:23*am, "Dutch" > wrote:
> "Rupert" > wrote
>
> > Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> > the default starting position.

>
> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my community,
> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower level
> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.
>
> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
> interests, that is the way the world works.


That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/11/2012 8:46 PM, Rupert wrote:
> On Apr 11, 8:37 pm, George > wrote:
>> On 4/11/2012 10:40 AM, Rupert wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 11, 8:51 am, George > wrote:
>>>> On 4/10/2012 10:50 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>> On Apr 11, 2:16 am, George > wrote:
>>>>>> On 4/10/2012 3:54 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>> On Apr 10, 3:50 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 4/10/2012 12:35 AM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 12:04 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:42 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 9:15 AM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 4:31 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 11:43 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:44 am, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 9:00 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 8, 7:06 pm, wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> why human use of animals is wrong. This is meaningless. First of all,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all species are "speciesist": the members of all species pursue their
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no regard for the interests of other species.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Some nonhuman animals do show concern for the interests of members of
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> other species, and in any case there is no good reason why we should
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> use the behaviour of nonhuman animals as a moral guide.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No other species show *moral* concern for interests of other species'
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> members.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The point of the post is that those who decry "speciesism" are relying
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> on it to say that humans should not engage in it.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they are not.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yes, they are. You are requiring humans to behave a particular way due
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> to their species. That's "speciesism" (an ugly, contrived word, in fact
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> not even a real word at all, as every spell-checker in existence
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> demonstrates by flagging it as not a word.)

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they're not requiring that humans behave a particular way due to
>>>>>>>>>>>>> their species. Saying that only moral agents have moral obligations is
>>>>>>>>>>>>> not speciesism.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> That's not what you're doing.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>>
>>>>>>>>>> You tell us what your motive is.

>>
>>>>>>>>> I don't understand this.

>>
>>>>>> Yes, you do.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The "ar" passivists
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by invoking it themselves. Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests of members of other species. To say that we /must/ is itself
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "speciesist."

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's not.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It is.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> You obviously don't understand what speciesism is.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I do understand full well what it is. In fact, it's sophistry.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> etc. This comparison is cynical and dishonest. First, a discussion of
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are doing the discriminating. A person's race or sex has no bearing on
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> There are plenty of intellectually disabled humans who cannot
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> participate in the moral comunnity of humanity to

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "marginal cases" doesn't work. It's useless.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I've explained that to you before, too. The argument from species
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> normality defeats it, among other things.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> The argument from species normality is flawed.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> No, it isn't. It fully defeats the fake argument from marginal cases.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Wrong.

>>
>>>>>>>>>> Nope; right.

>>
>>>>>>>>> What exactly are the premises of the argument from species normality?

>>
>>>>>>>> Above you wrote, "The argument from species normality is flawed." Do
>>>>>>>> you mean to say you wrote that without knowing what the premises are?
>>>>>>>> That seems very reckless and irresponsible.

>>
>>>>>>> I believe that one of the premises of the argument from species
>>>>>>> normality is that the moral consideration an individual should get is
>>>>>>> determined by what characteristics are typical for that individual's
>>>>>>> species, and I believe that it is possible to construct thought-
>>>>>>> experiments which show this premise to be problematic.

>>
>>>>>> Have a go at it.

>>
>>>>> Do you know the thought-experiment of the chimpanzee who can
>>>>> understand advanced mathematics?

>>
>>>> Yes, of course. It's the case of freak intelligence. It fails, because
>>>> it is not symmetric with a marginal human case. The actuality of the
>>>> chimp with freak intelligence entails the potentiality of moral
>>>> considerability, but the non-actuality of normal human cognition in the
>>>> marginal human does *not* entail the non-potentiality of being a moral
>>>> agent. We see this clearly with humans who are only temporarily
>>>> incapacitated, or with children who mostly will develop to be moral agents.

>>
>>> What do you mean by "potentiality"?

>>
>> Because humans are the unique class who are moral agents, then without
>> knowing anything else about a human being, you know at least that he has
>> the potential to be or to become a moral actor. Furthermore, even when
>> the actuality is that a human is not a moral actor, that doesn't mean he
>> isn't potentially one. This is obviously true of normal human infants,
>> people in a reversible coma, people under anesthesia, people who are
>> asleep, and others.
>>

>
> Again: what do you *mean* by "potential"?


Stop wasting time. It's not a difficult word, and English is your
native language.


>> It is not membership /per se/ in the class of beings who as a matter of
>> species normality have the morally relevant trait that leads us to
>> include marginal humans and exclude all other animals; it is the
>> *meaning* of it, which is the potentiality to exercising those faculties.
>>
>> There's another reason why the two marginal cases - freak-intelligent
>> chimp, comatose human - are not symmetric: we observe plenty of
>> marginal humans, most of whom develop or recover their faculty for moral
>> agency, but we have never observed a chimpanzee who can do mathematics
>> at a level that he ought to earn university admission, nor does anyone
>> reasonably expect we ever will.

>




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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/11/2012 8:53 PM, Rupert wrote:
> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > wrote:
>> > wrote
>>
>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
>>> the default starting position.

>>
>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my community,
>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower level
>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.
>>
>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
>> interests, that is the way the world works.

>
> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.


Why?
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

"Rupert" > wrote in message
...
> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, "Dutch" > wrote:
>> "Rupert" > wrote
>>
>> > Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
>> > the default starting position.

>>
>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
>> community,
>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
>> level
>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.
>>
>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
>> interests, that is the way the world works.

>
> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.


You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most ethicists
agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an ethicist, but if
they think that way then they are different than every other person or
animal that I am aware of. No, you're wrong here, in fact your description
of your own moral calculations proves it. You have admitted that adjusting
your lifestyle to avoid causing harm to animals is secondary to maintaining
a suitable career and lifestyle for yourself, as it should be. I don't know
if you have ever see the comic Louis C.K. but he does a bit about his
beliefs about what is right, like signing an organ donor card, he thinks
that everyone should do that, to save lives. But he doesn't do it himself
because he thinks its gross. He calls these beliefs "his believies", things
that he believes in as part of his self-image but doesn't follow through on.
He is describing you, your belief that equal consideration of interests is
the default starting position is one of your "believies".



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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/11/2012 11:29 PM, Dutch wrote:
> "Rupert" > wrote in message
> ...
>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, "Dutch" > wrote:
>>> "Rupert" > wrote
>>>
>>> > Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
>>> > the default starting position.
>>>
>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
>>> community,
>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
>>> level
>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.
>>>
>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
>>> interests, that is the way the world works.

>>
>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>
> You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most
> ethicists agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an
> ethicist,


nor has Woopert...


> but if they think that way then they are different than every
> other person or animal that I am aware of. No, you're wrong here, in
> fact your description of your own moral calculations proves it. You have
> admitted that adjusting your lifestyle to avoid causing harm to animals
> is secondary to maintaining a suitable career and lifestyle for
> yourself, as it should be.


Exactly. Woopert essentially has refused to make any alteration in his
life *whatever* to attempt to give equal consideration to the interests
of animals. I have long maintained that this is a fundamental flaw in
the belief system itself, rather than a flaw in its adherents, if not
*one* of them can be bothered to try to live fully up to its moral
prescriptions.


> I don't know if you have ever see the comic
> Louis C.K. but he does a bit about his beliefs about what is right, like
> signing an organ donor card, he thinks that everyone should do that, to
> save lives. But he doesn't do it himself because he thinks its gross. He
> calls these beliefs "his believies", things that he believes in as part
> of his self-image but doesn't follow through on.


That is brilliant! I'll have to see if I can find anything on it in
YouTube.

Years ago I read of something called The Garbage Project. It's a
long-running academic study at one of the Arizona universities - I can't
recall if it's U of A in Tucson or Arizona State U in Tempe - in which
they analyze human refuse, including human behavior with respect to the
generation and handling of it. One of the things they found is that
with most people, they claim that they recycle far more than they really
do. In surveys, people would report that they recycled heavily while
their neighbors didn't recycle much at all, but what the surveyors found
is that people recycle about as much as what they say their neighbors
do, on average. I think a lot of analysis of virtue would turn up
similar results. That, among other reasons, is why I don't believe
****wit when he says he only buys "cage-free" eggs.


> He is describing you,
> your belief that equal consideration of interests is the default
> starting position is one of your "believies".


Right.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 8, 10:06*am, wrote:
> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
> why human use of animals is wrong. *This is meaningless. *First of all,
> all species are "speciesist": *the members of all species pursue their
> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
> no regard for the interests of other species. *The "ar" passivists
> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
> by invoking it themselves. *Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
> interests of members of other species. *To say that we /must/ is itself
> "speciesist."
>
> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: *racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
> etc. *This comparison is cynical and dishonest. *First, a discussion of
> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
> are doing the discriminating. *A person's race or sex has no bearing on
> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.
>
> That leads to the second criticism of the passivists' comparison. *The
> member of a disadvantaged group was and is able to say, himself, that
> his treatment at the hands of the advantaged group's members is based on
> irrelevant considerations and is therefore wrong - he is able to
> *demonstrate* that he is and ought to be seen as the moral equal of
> those in the advantaged group.
>
> The analogy with racism and sexism and other wholly *human* "isms" is
> spurious.
>
> The passivists cannot make a case as to *why* the interests of members
> of other species ought to be given the same moral weight as the
> interests of members of our own species. *Forget about "marginal cases"
> - that doesn't achieve anything.


Speciesism is the idea that being human is a good enough reason for
human animals to have greater moral rights than non-human animals. It
is a prejudice or bias in favour of the interests of members of one's
own species and against those of members of other species.

Pure speciesism carries the idea of human superiority to the extreme
of saying that the most trivial human wish is more important that the
vital needs of other species... for example a pure speciesist would
argue that it's ok for animals to be cruelly treated and killed to
provide fur decorations for human beings to wear.

Supporters of speciesism say that there is a clear difference between
humans and other species, and that this difference affects their moral
status.

They argue that human beings are more self-aware, and more able to
choose their own course of action than other animals. This, they say,
enables them to think and act morally, and so entitles them to a
higher moral status.

But the argument that there are morally relevant differences between
human animals and non-human animals is not a speciesist argument,
since the argument is about the particular characteristics that are
being put forward to justify the different moral status of human and
non-human animals.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/...eciesism.shtml
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/12/2012 7:27 AM, George Plimpton wrote:
> On 4/11/2012 11:29 PM, Dutch wrote:
>> "Rupert" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, "Dutch" > wrote:
>>>> "Rupert" > wrote
>>>>
>>>> > Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
>>>> > the default starting position.
>>>>
>>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
>>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
>>>> community,
>>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
>>>> level
>>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.
>>>>
>>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its
>>>> owninterests, that is the way the world works.
>>>
>>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>>
>> You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most
>> ethicists agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an
>> ethicist,

>
> nor has Woopert...


I should have elaborated in my original reply that it's a sick joke for
Woopert to be saying that the "default position" in ethics is to give
equal consideration to the interests of any suffering-capable entity.
First of all, I don't believe Woopert has studied ethics rigorously at
all, let alone to a degree that would permit him to say with such
comical "authority" what the consensus position among ethicists is.
Second, it is completely obvious, due to the amount of controversy
surrounding it, that Singer's position is distinctly a minority view.
With as much controversy over it as there clearly is, I find it very
hard to believe it's the "default" or consensus view of ethics. Rather,
it's what Singer - and Woopert - would *want* to be the default view.
That's why I maintain they are the ones with the burden of proof: given
that most ethicists (or so I intuitively believe) and the overwhelming
majority of humans do *not* accept it as the default, the burden clearly
is on them.

Carl Cohen said something in "The Animal Rights Debate" that has stuck
with me. He wrote that when there is a huge majority holding a
particular moral intuition, the overwhelming size of that majority gives
it a particular weight that cannot simply be casually brushed away. It
doesn't mean it's necessarily a correct intuition, but there's a
presumption. Now, both the human concept of ethics, and ethics as a
distinct branch of philosophy, have been around literally for millennia.
With all that, the overwhelming majority of humans still consider it
morally acceptable to give less weight to the interests of animals than
to human interests, while at the same time most humans feel that *some*
weight should be given to animals' interests, so it's not as if their
moral intuition simply treats animals as holding no morally considerable
interests at all. However imperfectly people may have thought this
through, they have given thought to it, and concluded that animals'
interests deserve less moral consideration than humans'.

The Humane Society of the US (HSUS) says that 39% of US households own
at least one dog, and 33% of households own at least one cat
(interestingly, there are about 8 million more owned cats in the US than
owned dogs, so many more households have multiple cats than multiple
dogs.)
http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/...tatistics.html
A pet products professional association gives about the same number of
owned cats and dogs, but says the percentage of households owning one or
the other is higher
http://www.americanpetproducts.org/p...strytrends.asp Most US
households are comprised of more than one person, so it's very likely
that more than 50% of Americans have a dog or a cat or both. I think
most people give a fair amount of consideration to the interests of
their animals. They spend over $50 billion a year on them, including
almost $13.5 billion on medical care. If people didn't give
considerable weight to the interests of these animals, they wouldn't
spend nearly as much.

Woopert and his corrupt pal Singer are going to have to do a lot of work
to convince people they ought to be providing the same amount of medical
care and same quality of food to their animals as they provide for
themselves. The "ar"/"al" radicals have the burden of proof. As you
say, most of their so-called ethics with regard to animals seems to be
"believies".


>
>> but if they think that way then they are different than every
>> other person or animal that I am aware of. No, you're wrong here, in
>> fact your description of your own moral calculations proves it. You have
>> admitted that adjusting your lifestyle to avoid causing harm to animals
>> is secondary to maintaining a suitable career and lifestyle for
>> yourself, as it should be.

>
> Exactly. Woopert essentially has refused to make any alteration in his
> life *whatever* to attempt to give equal consideration to the interests
> of animals. I have long maintained that this is a fundamental flaw in
> the belief system itself, rather than a flaw in its adherents, if not
> *one* of them can be bothered to try to live fully up to its moral
> prescriptions.
>
>
>> I don't know if you have ever see the comic
>> Louis C.K. but he does a bit about his beliefs about what is right, like
>> signing an organ donor card, he thinks that everyone should do that, to
>> save lives. But he doesn't do it himself because he thinks its gross. He
>> calls these beliefs "his believies", things that he believes in as part
>> of his self-image but doesn't follow through on.

>
> That is brilliant! I'll have to see if I can find anything on it in
> YouTube.
>
> Years ago I read of something called The Garbage Project. It's a
> long-running academic study at one of the Arizona universities - I can't
> recall if it's U of A in Tucson or Arizona State U in Tempe - in which
> they analyze human refuse, including human behavior with respect to the
> generation and handling of it. One of the things they found is that with
> most people, they claim that they recycle far more than they really do.
> In surveys, people would report that they recycled heavily while their
> neighbors didn't recycle much at all, but what the surveyors found is
> that people recycle about as much as what they say their neighbors do,
> on average. I think a lot of analysis of virtue would turn up similar
> results. That, among other reasons, is why I don't believe ****wit when
> he says he only buys "cage-free" eggs.
>
>
>> He is describing you,
>> your belief that equal consideration of interests is the default
>> starting position is one of your "believies".

>
> Right.




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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/12/2012 8:21 AM, Immortalist wrote:
> On Apr 8, 10:06 am, wrote:
>> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
>> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
>> why human use of animals is wrong. This is meaningless. First of all,
>> all species are "speciesist": the members of all species pursue their
>> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
>> no regard for the interests of other species. The "ar" passivists
>> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
>> by invoking it themselves. Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
>> interests of members of other species. To say that we /must/ is itself
>> "speciesist."
>>
>> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
>> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
>> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
>> etc. This comparison is cynical and dishonest. First, a discussion of
>> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
>> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
>> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
>> are doing the discriminating. A person's race or sex has no bearing on
>> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.
>>
>> That leads to the second criticism of the passivists' comparison. The
>> member of a disadvantaged group was and is able to say, himself, that
>> his treatment at the hands of the advantaged group's members is based on
>> irrelevant considerations and is therefore wrong - he is able to
>> *demonstrate* that he is and ought to be seen as the moral equal of
>> those in the advantaged group.
>>
>> The analogy with racism and sexism and other wholly *human* "isms" is
>> spurious.
>>
>> The passivists cannot make a case as to *why* the interests of members
>> of other species ought to be given the same moral weight as the
>> interests of members of our own species. Forget about "marginal cases"
>> - that doesn't achieve anything.

>
> Speciesism is the idea that being human is a good enough reason for
> human animals to have greater moral rights than non-human animals. It
> is a prejudice or bias in favour of the interests of members of one's
> own species and against those of members of other species.


That's the revolting neologism given as a name for that belief. It's
truly a disgusting word, so much so that every spell-checker I've seen
rejects it as a word.


> Pure speciesism carries the idea of human superiority to the extreme
> of saying that the most trivial human wish is more important that the
> vital needs of other species... for example a pure speciesist would
> argue that it's ok for animals to be cruelly treated and killed to
> provide fur decorations for human beings to wear.
>
> Supporters of speciesism say that there is a clear difference between
> humans and other species, and that this difference affects their moral
> status.
>
> They argue that human beings are more self-aware, and more able to
> choose their own course of action than other animals. This, they say,
> enables them to think and act morally, and so entitles them to a
> higher moral status.
>
> But the argument that there are morally relevant differences between
> human animals and non-human animals is not a speciesist argument,
> since the argument is about the particular characteristics that are
> being put forward to justify the different moral status of human and
> non-human animals.
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/...eciesism.shtml


So, you tiresomely copied and pasted this boilerplate without adding any
commentary of your own. What the **** for?
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 5:53*am, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/11/2012 8:46 PM, Rupert wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 11, 8:37 pm, George > *wrote:
> >> On 4/11/2012 10:40 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>> On Apr 11, 8:51 am, George > * *wrote:
> >>>> On 4/10/2012 10:50 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>> On Apr 11, 2:16 am, George > * * *wrote:
> >>>>>> On 4/10/2012 3:54 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>> On Apr 10, 3:50 pm, George > * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On 4/10/2012 12:35 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, George > * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 12:04 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:42 pm, George > * * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 9:15 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 4:31 pm, George > * * * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 11:43 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:44 am, George > * * * * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 9:00 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 8, 7:06 pm, wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> why human use of animals is wrong. *This is meaningless. *First of all,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all species are "speciesist": *the members of all species pursue their
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no regard for the interests of other species.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Some nonhuman animals do show concern for the interests of members of
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> other species, and in any case there is no good reason why we should
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> use the behaviour of nonhuman animals as a moral guide.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No other species show *moral* concern for interests of other species'
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> members.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The point of the post is that those who decry "speciesism" are relying
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> on it to say that humans should not engage in it.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they are not.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yes, they are. *You are requiring humans to behave a particular way due
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> to their species. *That's "speciesism" (an ugly, contrived word, in fact
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> not even a real word at all, as every spell-checker in existence
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> demonstrates by flagging it as not a word.)

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they're not requiring that humans behave a particular way due to
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> their species. Saying that only moral agents have moral obligations is
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> not speciesism.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> That's not what you're doing.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>
> >>>>>>>>>> You tell us what your motive is.

>
> >>>>>>>>> I don't understand this.

>
> >>>>>> Yes, you do.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The "ar" passivists
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by invoking it themselves. *Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests of members of other species. *To say that we /must/ is itself
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "speciesist."

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's not.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It is.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> You obviously don't understand what speciesism is.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> I do understand full well what it is. *In fact, it's sophistry.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: *racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> etc. *This comparison is cynical and dishonest. *First, a discussion of
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are doing the discriminating. *A person's race or sex has no bearing on
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> There are plenty of intellectually disabled humans who cannot
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> participate in the moral comunnity of humanity to

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "marginal cases" doesn't work. *It's useless.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> I've explained that to you before, too. *The argument from species
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> normality defeats it, among other things.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> The argument from species normality is flawed.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> No, it isn't. *It fully defeats the fake argument from marginal cases.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>> Wrong.

>
> >>>>>>>>>> Nope; right.

>
> >>>>>>>>> What exactly are the premises of the argument from species normality?

>
> >>>>>>>> Above you wrote, "The argument from species normality is flawed." *Do
> >>>>>>>> you mean to say you wrote that without knowing what the premises are?
> >>>>>>>> That seems very reckless and irresponsible.

>
> >>>>>>> I believe that one of the premises of the argument from species
> >>>>>>> normality is that the moral consideration an individual should get is
> >>>>>>> determined by what characteristics are typical for that individual's
> >>>>>>> species, and I believe that it is possible to construct thought-
> >>>>>>> experiments which show this premise to be problematic.

>
> >>>>>> Have a go at it.

>
> >>>>> Do you know the thought-experiment of the chimpanzee who can
> >>>>> understand advanced mathematics?

>
> >>>> Yes, of course. *It's the case of freak intelligence. *It fails, because
> >>>> it is not symmetric with a marginal human case. *The actuality of the
> >>>> chimp with freak intelligence entails the potentiality of moral
> >>>> considerability, but the non-actuality of normal human cognition in the
> >>>> marginal human does *not* entail the non-potentiality of being a moral
> >>>> agent. *We see this clearly with humans who are only temporarily
> >>>> incapacitated, or with children who mostly will develop to be moral agents.

>
> >>> What do you mean by "potentiality"?

>
> >> Because humans are the unique class who are moral agents, then without
> >> knowing anything else about a human being, you know at least that he has
> >> the potential to be or to become a moral actor. *Furthermore, even when
> >> the actuality is that a human is not a moral actor, that doesn't mean he
> >> isn't potentially one. *This is obviously true of normal human infants,
> >> people in a reversible coma, people under anesthesia, people who are
> >> asleep, and others.

>
> > Again: what do you *mean* by "potential"?

>
> Stop wasting time. *It's not a difficult word, and English is your
> native language.
>


It is not plausible that all humans have the potential to be moral
agents.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 5:49*am, Rupert > wrote:
> On Apr 11, 7:55*pm, Donn Messenheimer >
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 4/11/2012 10:40 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> > > On Apr 11, 6:27 pm, Donn >
> > > wrote:
> > >> On 4/10/2012 10:50 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> > >>> On Apr 11, 2:16 am, George > * *wrote:
> > >>>> On 4/10/2012 3:54 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> > >>>>> On Apr 10, 3:50 pm, George > * * *wrote:
> > >>>>>> On 4/10/2012 12:35 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> > >>>>>>> On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, George > * * * *wrote:
> > >>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 12:04 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> > >>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:42 pm, George > * * * * *wrote:
> > >>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 9:15 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 4:31 pm, George > * * * * * *wrote:
> > >>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 11:43 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:44 am, George > * * * * * * *wrote:
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 9:00 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 8, 7:06 pm, wrote:
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> why human use of animals is wrong. *This is meaningless. *First of all,
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all species are "speciesist": *the members of all species pursue their
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no regard for the interests of other species.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Some nonhuman animals do show concern for the interests of members of
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> other species, and in any case there is no good reason why we should
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> use the behaviour of nonhuman animals as a moral guide.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> No other species show *moral* concern for interests of other species'
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> members.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> The point of the post is that those who decry "speciesism" are relying
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> on it to say that humans should not engage in it.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they are not.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>> Yes, they are. *You are requiring humans to behave a particular way due
> > >>>>>>>>>>>> to their species. *That's "speciesism" (an ugly, contrived word, in fact
> > >>>>>>>>>>>> not even a real word at all, as every spell-checker in existence
> > >>>>>>>>>>>> demonstrates by flagging it as not a word.)

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>> No, they're not requiring that humans behave a particular way due to
> > >>>>>>>>>>> their species. Saying that only moral agents have moral obligations is
> > >>>>>>>>>>> not speciesism.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>> That's not what you're doing.

>
> > >>>>>>>>> Why not?

>
> > >>>>>>>> You tell us what your motive is.

>
> > >>>>>>> I don't understand this.

>
> > >>>> Yes, you do.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The "ar" passivists
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by invoking it themselves. *Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests of members of other species. *To say that we /must/ is itself
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "speciesist."

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's not.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> It is.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> You obviously don't understand what speciesism is.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>> I do understand full well what it is. *In fact, it's sophistry.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: *racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> etc. *This comparison is cynical and dishonest. *First, a discussion of
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are doing the discriminating. *A person's race or sex has no bearing on
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> There are plenty of intellectually disabled humans who cannot
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> participate in the moral comunnity of humanity to

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> "marginal cases" doesn't work. *It's useless.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>>> I've explained that to you before, too. *The argument from species
> > >>>>>>>>>>>> normality defeats it, among other things.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>>> The argument from species normality is flawed.

>
> > >>>>>>>>>> No, it isn't. *It fully defeats the fake argument from marginal cases.

>
> > >>>>>>>>> Wrong.

>
> > >>>>>>>> Nope; right.

>
> > >>>>>>> What exactly are the premises of the argument from species normality?

>
> > >>>>>> Above you wrote, "The argument from species normality is flawed." *Do
> > >>>>>> you mean to say you wrote that without knowing what the premises are?
> > >>>>>> That seems very reckless and irresponsible.

>
> > >>>>> I believe that one of the premises of the argument from species
> > >>>>> normality is that the moral consideration an individual should get is
> > >>>>> determined by what characteristics are typical for that individual's
> > >>>>> species, and I believe that it is possible to construct thought-
> > >>>>> experiments which show this premise to be problematic.

>
> > >>>> Have a go at it.

>
> > >>> Do you know the thought-experiment of the chimpanzee who can
> > >>> understand advanced mathematics?

>
> > >>>>>>>> Another way the bogus "marginal cases" argument is queered is by
> > >>>>>>>> pointing out that rather than elevate the moral consideration given to
> > >>>>>>>> animals, it would tend to lessen that given to the marginal cases.

>
> > >>>>>>> It would probably do both.

>
> > >>>>>> No.

>
> > >>>>>>>> You just don't have a sound argument against "speciesism".

>
> > >>>>>>> The burden of proof is on the *defender* of speciesism.

>
> > >>>>>> The burden of proof is on the "ar" extremists who claim non-human
> > >>>>>> animals deserve equal moral consideration.

>
> > >>>>> Wrong. If you think that you belong to a special group whose interests
> > >>>>> deserve more consideration than those of other groups, the burden is
> > >>>>> on you to explain why.

>
> > >>>> Nope. *As the overwhelming majority - 99% + - of people believe that it
> > >>>> is correct to give more consideration to the interests of members of
> > >>>> their species than to members of other species, you're going to have to
> > >>>> make a case for why they're wrong. *The burden is on you. *The
> > >>>> presumption that our interests should receive greater consideration is
> > >>>> the champion; your position is the challenger. *The challenger must
> > >>>> defeat the champion, or the champion remains champion by default.
> > >>>> That's how it works.

>
> > >>> No. There is a default presumption of equal consideration of interests
> > >>> in ethics.

>
> > >> Who says so? *Peter Singer?

>
> > > Peter Singer, and most other ethicists, whether they be in favour of
> > > speciesism or no.

>
> > >> * That's a position he advocates polemically.
> > >> * *How does he show that it ought to be considered the default? *Who
> > >> agrees with him? *Not Bonnie Steinbock.

>
> > > Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> > > the default starting position.

>
> > I don't believe you.

>
> I'll see if I can find some references for you. I've asked a friend
> who is doing a PhD in metaethics.


He agrees with me that it is the majority view among ethicists.

He wasn't sure about references but he mentioned this paper:

http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/fa...son/singer.pdf
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 7:11*am, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/11/2012 8:53 PM, Rupert wrote:
>
> > On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > *wrote:
> >> > *wrote

>
> >>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> >>> the default starting position.

>
> >> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> >> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my community,
> >> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower level
> >> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>
> >> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
> >> interests, that is the way the world works.

>
> > That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>
> Why?


Because the interests of other organisms are equally important from
the moral point of view, and you must offer reasons for favouring your
own.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 8:29*am, "Dutch" > wrote:
> "Rupert" > wrote in message
>
> ...
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 12, 12:23 am, "Dutch" > wrote:
> >> "Rupert" > wrote

>
> >> > Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> >> > the default starting position.

>
> >> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> >> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
> >> community,
> >> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
> >> level
> >> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>
> >> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
> >> interests, that is the way the world works.

>
> > That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>
> You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most ethicists
> agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an ethicist, but if
> they think that way then they are different than every other person or
> animal that I am aware of. No, you're wrong here, in fact your description
> of your own moral calculations proves it. You have admitted that adjusting
> your lifestyle to avoid causing harm to animals is secondary to maintaining
> a suitable career and lifestyle for yourself, as it should be. I don't know
> if you have ever see the comic Louis C.K. but he does a bit about his
> beliefs about what is right, like signing an organ donor card, he thinks
> that everyone should do that, to save lives. But he doesn't do it himself
> because he thinks its gross. He calls these beliefs "his believies", things
> that he believes in as part of his self-image but doesn't follow through on.
> He is describing you, your belief that equal consideration of interests is
> the default starting position is one of your "believies".


I don't see why my behaviour is inconsistent with equal consideration.


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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 4:27*pm, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/11/2012 11:29 PM, Dutch wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > "Rupert" > wrote in message
> ...
> >> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, "Dutch" > wrote:
> >>> "Rupert" > wrote

>
> >>> > Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> >>> > the default starting position.

>
> >>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> >>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
> >>> community,
> >>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
> >>> level
> >>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>
> >>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
> >>> interests, that is the way the world works.

>
> >> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>
> > You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most
> > ethicists agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an
> > ethicist,

>
> nor has Woopert...
>
> > but if they think that way then they are different than every
> > other person or animal that I am aware of. No, you're wrong here, in
> > fact your description of your own moral calculations proves it. You have
> > admitted that adjusting your lifestyle to avoid causing harm to animals
> > is secondary to maintaining a suitable career and lifestyle for
> > yourself, as it should be.

>
> Exactly. *Woopert essentially has refused to make any alteration in his
> life *whatever* to attempt to give equal consideration to the interests
> of animals.


That is quite obvious nonsense.

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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 5:41*pm, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/12/2012 7:27 AM, George Plimpton wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 4/11/2012 11:29 PM, Dutch wrote:
> >> "Rupert" > wrote in message
> ....
> >>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, "Dutch" > wrote:
> >>>> "Rupert" > wrote

>
> >>>> > Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> >>>> > the default starting position.

>
> >>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> >>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
> >>>> community,
> >>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
> >>>> level
> >>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>
> >>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its
> >>>> owninterests, that is the way the world works.

>
> >>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>
> >> You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most
> >> ethicists agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an
> >> ethicist,

>
> > nor has Woopert...

>
> I should have elaborated in my original reply that it's a sick joke for
> Woopert to be saying that the "default position" in ethics is to give
> equal consideration to the interests of any suffering-capable entity.
> First of all, I don't believe Woopert has studied ethics rigorously at
> all, let alone to a degree that would permit him to say with such
> comical "authority" what the consensus position among ethicists is.
> Second, it is completely obvious, due to the amount of controversy
> surrounding it, that Singer's position is distinctly a minority view.
> With as much controversy over it as there clearly is, I find it very
> hard to believe it's the "default" or consensus view of ethics. *Rather,
> it's what Singer - and Woopert - would *want* to be the default view.
> That's why I maintain they are the ones with the burden of proof: *given
> that most ethicists (or so I intuitively believe) and the overwhelming
> majority of humans do *not* accept it as the default, the burden clearly
> is on them.
>
> Carl Cohen said something in "The Animal Rights Debate" that has stuck
> with me. *He wrote that when there is a huge majority holding a
> particular moral intuition, the overwhelming size of that majority gives
> it a particular weight that cannot simply be casually brushed away. *It
> doesn't mean it's necessarily a correct intuition, but there's a
> presumption. *Now, both the human concept of ethics, and ethics as a
> distinct branch of philosophy, have been around literally for millennia.
> * With all that, the overwhelming majority of humans still consider it
> morally acceptable to give less weight to the interests of animals than
> to human interests, while at the same time most humans feel that *some*
> weight should be given to animals' interests, so it's not as if their
> moral intuition simply treats animals as holding no morally considerable
> interests at all. *However imperfectly people may have thought this
> through, they have given thought to it, and concluded that animals'
> interests deserve less moral consideration than humans'.
>
> The Humane Society of the US (HSUS) says that 39% of US households own
> at least one dog, and 33% of households own at least one cat
> (interestingly, there are about 8 million more owned cats in the US than
> owned dogs, so many more households have multiple cats than multiple
> dogs.)http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/...facts/pet_owne...
> * A pet products professional association gives about the same number of
> owned cats and dogs, but says the percentage of households owning one or
> the other is higherhttp://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp* Most US
> households are comprised of more than one person, so it's very likely
> that more than 50% of Americans have a dog or a cat or both. *I think
> most people give a fair amount of consideration to the interests of
> their animals. *They spend over $50 billion a year on them, including
> almost $13.5 billion on medical care. *If people didn't give
> considerable weight to the interests of these animals, they wouldn't
> spend nearly as much.
>
> Woopert and his corrupt pal Singer are going to have to do a lot of work
> to convince people they ought to be providing the same amount of medical
> care and same quality of food to their animals as they provide for
> themselves.


That does not follow from the principle of equal consideration of
interests.

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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 8:43*am, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/12/2012 8:21 AM, Immortalist wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 8, 10:06 am, wrote:
> >> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
> >> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
> >> why human use of animals is wrong. *This is meaningless. *First of all,
> >> all species are "speciesist": *the members of all species pursue their
> >> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
> >> no regard for the interests of other species. *The "ar" passivists
> >> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
> >> by invoking it themselves. *Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
> >> interests of members of other species. *To say that we /must/ is itself
> >> "speciesist."

>
> >> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
> >> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
> >> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: *racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
> >> etc. *This comparison is cynical and dishonest. *First, a discussion of
> >> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
> >> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
> >> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
> >> are doing the discriminating. *A person's race or sex has no bearing on
> >> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.

>
> >> That leads to the second criticism of the passivists' comparison. *The
> >> member of a disadvantaged group was and is able to say, himself, that
> >> his treatment at the hands of the advantaged group's members is based on
> >> irrelevant considerations and is therefore wrong - he is able to
> >> *demonstrate* that he is and ought to be seen as the moral equal of
> >> those in the advantaged group.

>
> >> The analogy with racism and sexism and other wholly *human* "isms" is
> >> spurious.

>
> >> The passivists cannot make a case as to *why* the interests of members
> >> of other species ought to be given the same moral weight as the
> >> interests of members of our own species. *Forget about "marginal cases"
> >> - that doesn't achieve anything.

>
> > Speciesism is the idea that being human is a good enough reason for
> > human animals to have greater moral rights than non-human animals. It
> > is a prejudice or bias in favour of the interests of members of one's
> > own species and against those of members of other species.

>
> That's the revolting neologism given as a name for that belief. *It's
> truly a disgusting word, so much so that every spell-checker I've seen
> rejects it as a word.
>


Some humans observe that there are a number of apparent differences
between themselves and other beings. This observation alone hardly
justifies any actions involving beings unless combined with other
proposals and justifications.

Your theory of the revoltingness doesn't do the thing either idiot.

>
>
>
>
> > Pure speciesism carries the idea of human superiority to the extreme
> > of saying that the most trivial human wish is more important that the
> > vital needs of other species... for example a pure speciesist would
> > argue that it's ok for animals to be cruelly treated and killed to
> > provide fur decorations for human beings to wear.

>
> > Supporters of speciesism say that there is a clear difference between
> > humans and other species, and that this difference affects their moral
> > status.

>
> > They argue that human beings are more self-aware, and more able to
> > choose their own course of action than other animals. This, they say,
> > enables them to think and act morally, and so entitles them to a
> > higher moral status.

>
> > But the argument that there are morally relevant differences between
> > human animals and non-human animals is not a speciesist argument,
> > since the argument is about the particular characteristics that are
> > being put forward to justify the different moral status of human and
> > non-human animals.

>
> >http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/...eciesism.shtml

>
> So, you tiresomely copied and pasted this boilerplate without adding any
> commentary of your own. *What the **** for?


You are proposing that only commentary is allowable, please give
reasons for your theory.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/12/2012 8:52 AM, Rupert wrote:
> On Apr 12, 5:53 am, George > wrote:
>> On 4/11/2012 8:46 PM, Rupert wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 11, 8:37 pm, George > wrote:
>>>> On 4/11/2012 10:40 AM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>> On Apr 11, 8:51 am, George > wrote:
>>>>>> On 4/10/2012 10:50 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>> On Apr 11, 2:16 am, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 4/10/2012 3:54 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>> On Apr 10, 3:50 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 4/10/2012 12:35 AM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 12:04 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:42 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 9:15 AM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 4:31 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 11:43 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:44 am, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 9:00 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 8, 7:06 pm, wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> why human use of animals is wrong. This is meaningless. First of all,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all species are "speciesist": the members of all species pursue their
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no regard for the interests of other species.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Some nonhuman animals do show concern for the interests of members of
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> other species, and in any case there is no good reason why we should
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> use the behaviour of nonhuman animals as a moral guide.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No other species show *moral* concern for interests of other species'
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> members.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The point of the post is that those who decry "speciesism" are relying
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> on it to say that humans should not engage in it.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they are not.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yes, they are. You are requiring humans to behave a particular way due
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> to their species. That's "speciesism" (an ugly, contrived word, in fact
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> not even a real word at all, as every spell-checker in existence
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> demonstrates by flagging it as not a word.)

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they're not requiring that humans behave a particular way due to
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> their species. Saying that only moral agents have moral obligations is
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> not speciesism.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> That's not what you're doing.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> You tell us what your motive is.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>> I don't understand this.

>>
>>>>>>>> Yes, you do.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The "ar" passivists
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by invoking it themselves. Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests of members of other species. To say that we /must/ is itself
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "speciesist."

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's not.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It is.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> You obviously don't understand what speciesism is.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I do understand full well what it is. In fact, it's sophistry.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> etc. This comparison is cynical and dishonest. First, a discussion of
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are doing the discriminating. A person's race or sex has no bearing on
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> There are plenty of intellectually disabled humans who cannot
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> participate in the moral comunnity of humanity to

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "marginal cases" doesn't work. It's useless.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I've explained that to you before, too. The argument from species
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> normality defeats it, among other things.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The argument from species normality is flawed.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, it isn't. It fully defeats the fake argument from marginal cases.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> Wrong.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Nope; right.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>> What exactly are the premises of the argument from species normality?

>>
>>>>>>>>>> Above you wrote, "The argument from species normality is flawed." Do
>>>>>>>>>> you mean to say you wrote that without knowing what the premises are?
>>>>>>>>>> That seems very reckless and irresponsible.

>>
>>>>>>>>> I believe that one of the premises of the argument from species
>>>>>>>>> normality is that the moral consideration an individual should get is
>>>>>>>>> determined by what characteristics are typical for that individual's
>>>>>>>>> species, and I believe that it is possible to construct thought-
>>>>>>>>> experiments which show this premise to be problematic.

>>
>>>>>>>> Have a go at it.

>>
>>>>>>> Do you know the thought-experiment of the chimpanzee who can
>>>>>>> understand advanced mathematics?

>>
>>>>>> Yes, of course. It's the case of freak intelligence. It fails, because
>>>>>> it is not symmetric with a marginal human case. The actuality of the
>>>>>> chimp with freak intelligence entails the potentiality of moral
>>>>>> considerability, but the non-actuality of normal human cognition in the
>>>>>> marginal human does *not* entail the non-potentiality of being a moral
>>>>>> agent. We see this clearly with humans who are only temporarily
>>>>>> incapacitated, or with children who mostly will develop to be moral agents.

>>
>>>>> What do you mean by "potentiality"?

>>
>>>> Because humans are the unique class who are moral agents, then without
>>>> knowing anything else about a human being, you know at least that he has
>>>> the potential to be or to become a moral actor. Furthermore, even when
>>>> the actuality is that a human is not a moral actor, that doesn't mean he
>>>> isn't potentially one. This is obviously true of normal human infants,
>>>> people in a reversible coma, people under anesthesia, people who are
>>>> asleep, and others.

>>
>>> Again: what do you *mean* by "potential"?

>>
>> Stop wasting time. It's not a difficult word, and English is your
>> native language.
>>

>
> It is not plausible that all humans have the potential to be moral
> agents.


/ex ante/, all humans do have that potential. /ex post/ we see that the
actuality is some humans have diminished capacity that prevents them
from attaining the normal human potential.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/12/2012 8:56 AM, Rupert wrote:
> On Apr 12, 7:11 am, George > wrote:
>> On 4/11/2012 8:53 PM, Rupert wrote:
>>
>>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > wrote:
>>>> > wrote

>>
>>>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
>>>>> the default starting position.

>>
>>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
>>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my community,
>>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower level
>>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>>
>>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
>>>> interests, that is the way the world works.

>>
>>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>>
>> Why?

>
> Because the interests of other organisms are equally important from
> the moral point of view,


That's the assertion you must prove, but have to date not even attempted
to prove.


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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/12/2012 8:58 AM, Rupert wrote:
> On Apr 12, 4:27 pm, George > wrote:
>> On 4/11/2012 11:29 PM, Dutch wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> > wrote in message
>>> ...
>>>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > wrote:
>>>>> > wrote

>>
>>>>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
>>>>>> the default starting position.

>>
>>>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
>>>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
>>>>> community,
>>>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
>>>>> level
>>>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>>
>>>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
>>>>> interests, that is the way the world works.

>>
>>>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>>
>>> You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most
>>> ethicists agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an
>>> ethicist,

>>
>> nor has Woopert...
>>
>>> but if they think that way then they are different than every
>>> other person or animal that I am aware of. No, you're wrong here, in
>>> fact your description of your own moral calculations proves it. You have
>>> admitted that adjusting your lifestyle to avoid causing harm to animals
>>> is secondary to maintaining a suitable career and lifestyle for
>>> yourself, as it should be.

>>
>> Exactly. Woopert essentially has refused to make any alteration in his
>> life *whatever* to attempt to give equal consideration to the interests
>> of animals.

>
> That is quite obvious nonsense.


No, it's quite obviously true because *you* told us, explicitly. You
said that you can't - actually, won't - do all that you might do to
ensure you are giving the same consideration to animals' interests that
you give to humans'. You said you "needed" to do things to advance your
career that prevent you from determining which foods produce the least harm.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/12/2012 9:00 AM, Rupert wrote:
> On Apr 12, 5:41 pm, George > wrote:
>> On 4/12/2012 7:27 AM, George Plimpton wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On 4/11/2012 11:29 PM, Dutch wrote:
>>>> > wrote in message
>>>> ...
>>>>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > wrote:
>>>>>> > wrote

>>
>>>>>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
>>>>>>> the default starting position.

>>
>>>>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
>>>>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
>>>>>> community,
>>>>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
>>>>>> level
>>>>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>>
>>>>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its
>>>>>> owninterests, that is the way the world works.

>>
>>>>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>>
>>>> You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most
>>>> ethicists agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an
>>>> ethicist,

>>
>>> nor has Woopert...

>>
>> I should have elaborated in my original reply that it's a sick joke for
>> Woopert to be saying that the "default position" in ethics is to give
>> equal consideration to the interests of any suffering-capable entity.
>> First of all, I don't believe Woopert has studied ethics rigorously at
>> all, let alone to a degree that would permit him to say with such
>> comical "authority" what the consensus position among ethicists is.
>> Second, it is completely obvious, due to the amount of controversy
>> surrounding it, that Singer's position is distinctly a minority view.
>> With as much controversy over it as there clearly is, I find it very
>> hard to believe it's the "default" or consensus view of ethics. Rather,
>> it's what Singer - and Woopert - would *want* to be the default view.
>> That's why I maintain they are the ones with the burden of proof: given
>> that most ethicists (or so I intuitively believe) and the overwhelming
>> majority of humans do *not* accept it as the default, the burden clearly
>> is on them.
>>
>> Carl Cohen said something in "The Animal Rights Debate" that has stuck
>> with me. He wrote that when there is a huge majority holding a
>> particular moral intuition, the overwhelming size of that majority gives
>> it a particular weight that cannot simply be casually brushed away. It
>> doesn't mean it's necessarily a correct intuition, but there's a
>> presumption. Now, both the human concept of ethics, and ethics as a
>> distinct branch of philosophy, have been around literally for millennia.
>> With all that, the overwhelming majority of humans still consider it
>> morally acceptable to give less weight to the interests of animals than
>> to human interests, while at the same time most humans feel that *some*
>> weight should be given to animals' interests, so it's not as if their
>> moral intuition simply treats animals as holding no morally considerable
>> interests at all. However imperfectly people may have thought this
>> through, they have given thought to it, and concluded that animals'
>> interests deserve less moral consideration than humans'.
>>
>> The Humane Society of the US (HSUS) says that 39% of US households own
>> at least one dog, and 33% of households own at least one cat
>> (interestingly, there are about 8 million more owned cats in the US than
>> owned dogs, so many more households have multiple cats than multiple
>> dogs.)http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/...facts/pet_owne...
>> A pet products professional association gives about the same number of
>> owned cats and dogs, but says the percentage of households owning one or
>> the other is higherhttp://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp Most US
>> households are comprised of more than one person, so it's very likely
>> that more than 50% of Americans have a dog or a cat or both. I think
>> most people give a fair amount of consideration to the interests of
>> their animals. They spend over $50 billion a year on them, including
>> almost $13.5 billion on medical care. If people didn't give
>> considerable weight to the interests of these animals, they wouldn't
>> spend nearly as much.
>>
>> Woopert and his corrupt pal Singer are going to have to do a lot of work
>> to convince people they ought to be providing the same amount of medical
>> care and same quality of food to their animals as they provide for
>> themselves.

>
> That does not follow from the principle of equal consideration of
> interests.


It follows from the fact that your position is distinctly a minority
position that has been implicitly reject by the vast majority of humanity.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/12/2012 9:14 AM, Immortalist wrote:
> On Apr 12, 8:43 am, George > wrote:
>> On 4/12/2012 8:21 AM, Immortalist wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 8, 10:06 am, wrote:
>>>> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
>>>> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
>>>> why human use of animals is wrong. This is meaningless. First of all,
>>>> all species are "speciesist": the members of all species pursue their
>>>> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
>>>> no regard for the interests of other species. The "ar" passivists
>>>> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
>>>> by invoking it themselves. Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
>>>> interests of members of other species. To say that we /must/ is itself
>>>> "speciesist."

>>
>>>> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
>>>> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
>>>> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
>>>> etc. This comparison is cynical and dishonest. First, a discussion of
>>>> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
>>>> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
>>>> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
>>>> are doing the discriminating. A person's race or sex has no bearing on
>>>> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.

>>
>>>> That leads to the second criticism of the passivists' comparison. The
>>>> member of a disadvantaged group was and is able to say, himself, that
>>>> his treatment at the hands of the advantaged group's members is based on
>>>> irrelevant considerations and is therefore wrong - he is able to
>>>> *demonstrate* that he is and ought to be seen as the moral equal of
>>>> those in the advantaged group.

>>
>>>> The analogy with racism and sexism and other wholly *human* "isms" is
>>>> spurious.

>>
>>>> The passivists cannot make a case as to *why* the interests of members
>>>> of other species ought to be given the same moral weight as the
>>>> interests of members of our own species. Forget about "marginal cases"
>>>> - that doesn't achieve anything.

>>
>>> Speciesism is the idea that being human is a good enough reason for
>>> human animals to have greater moral rights than non-human animals. It
>>> is a prejudice or bias in favour of the interests of members of one's
>>> own species and against those of members of other species.

>>
>> That's the revolting neologism given as a name for that belief. It's
>> truly a disgusting word, so much so that every spell-checker I've seen
>> rejects it as a word.
>>

>
> Some humans observe that there are a number of apparent differences
> between themselves and other beings.


Really! How...insightful <chortle>.

> This observation alone hardly
> justifies any actions involving beings unless combined with other
> proposals and justifications.


Uhh...er...okay.


>
> Your theory of the revoltingness doesn't do the thing either idiot.


Do what thing, ****tard?


>>
>>
>>> Pure speciesism carries the idea of human superiority to the extreme
>>> of saying that the most trivial human wish is more important that the
>>> vital needs of other species... for example a pure speciesist would
>>> argue that it's ok for animals to be cruelly treated and killed to
>>> provide fur decorations for human beings to wear.

>>
>>> Supporters of speciesism say that there is a clear difference between
>>> humans and other species, and that this difference affects their moral
>>> status.

>>
>>> They argue that human beings are more self-aware, and more able to
>>> choose their own course of action than other animals. This, they say,
>>> enables them to think and act morally, and so entitles them to a
>>> higher moral status.

>>
>>> But the argument that there are morally relevant differences between
>>> human animals and non-human animals is not a speciesist argument,
>>> since the argument is about the particular characteristics that are
>>> being put forward to justify the different moral status of human and
>>> non-human animals.

>>
>>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/...eciesism.shtml

>>
>> So, you tiresomely copied and pasted this boilerplate without adding any
>> commentary of your own. What the **** for?

>
> You are proposing that only commentary is allowable, please give
> reasons for your theory.


No, I'm not proposing that only commentary is allowable, you tendentious
pedantic ****wit. I'm saying that only doing slavish copypasta isn't
very interesting or helpful.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 9:53*am, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/12/2012 9:14 AM, Immortalist wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 12, 8:43 am, George > *wrote:
> >> On 4/12/2012 8:21 AM, Immortalist wrote:

>
> >>> On Apr 8, 10:06 am, wrote:
> >>>> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
> >>>> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
> >>>> why human use of animals is wrong. *This is meaningless. *First of all,
> >>>> all species are "speciesist": *the members of all species pursue their
> >>>> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
> >>>> no regard for the interests of other species. *The "ar" passivists
> >>>> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
> >>>> by invoking it themselves. *Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
> >>>> interests of members of other species. *To say that we /must/ is itself
> >>>> "speciesist."

>
> >>>> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
> >>>> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
> >>>> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: *racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
> >>>> etc. *This comparison is cynical and dishonest. *First, a discussion of
> >>>> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
> >>>> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
> >>>> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
> >>>> are doing the discriminating. *A person's race or sex has no bearing on
> >>>> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.

>
> >>>> That leads to the second criticism of the passivists' comparison. *The
> >>>> member of a disadvantaged group was and is able to say, himself, that
> >>>> his treatment at the hands of the advantaged group's members is based on
> >>>> irrelevant considerations and is therefore wrong - he is able to
> >>>> *demonstrate* that he is and ought to be seen as the moral equal of
> >>>> those in the advantaged group.

>
> >>>> The analogy with racism and sexism and other wholly *human* "isms" is
> >>>> spurious.

>
> >>>> The passivists cannot make a case as to *why* the interests of members
> >>>> of other species ought to be given the same moral weight as the
> >>>> interests of members of our own species. *Forget about "marginal cases"
> >>>> - that doesn't achieve anything.

>
> >>> Speciesism is the idea that being human is a good enough reason for
> >>> human animals to have greater moral rights than non-human animals. It
> >>> is a prejudice or bias in favour of the interests of members of one's
> >>> own species and against those of members of other species.

>
> >> That's the revolting neologism given as a name for that belief. *It's
> >> truly a disgusting word, so much so that every spell-checker I've seen
> >> rejects it as a word.

>
> > Some humans observe that there are a number of apparent differences
> > between themselves and other beings.

>
> Really! *How...insightful <chortle>.
>


Yes, kinda like Descartes argument "I think therefore I exist" except
here the argument is "there are differences between beings therefore
different beings should be treated differently."

> > This observation alone hardly
> > justifies any actions involving beings unless combined with other
> > proposals and justifications.

>
> Uhh...er...okay.
>
>
>
> > Your theory of the revoltingness doesn't do the thing either idiot.

>
> Do what thing, ****tard?
>


The 'do the thing' phrase in my response referred to any attempt to
justify behavior that would be identical to either treating different
beings differently or treating different beings the same. In either
case we would need additional reasons to justify the longstanding
traditions of the way beings have treated or are treated by other
beings. It will do no good to appeal to tradition or evolution as ways
to justify the preponderance of a range of and the prescription of any
treatments. This will not be allowed since it is analogous to claiming
the 2+2=4 not because of any theories of addition and sums but simply
because thats what 2+2 always equalled traditionally.

>
>
>
>
>
>
> >>> Pure speciesism carries the idea of human superiority to the extreme
> >>> of saying that the most trivial human wish is more important that the
> >>> vital needs of other species... for example a pure speciesist would
> >>> argue that it's ok for animals to be cruelly treated and killed to
> >>> provide fur decorations for human beings to wear.

>
> >>> Supporters of speciesism say that there is a clear difference between
> >>> humans and other species, and that this difference affects their moral
> >>> status.

>
> >>> They argue that human beings are more self-aware, and more able to
> >>> choose their own course of action than other animals. This, they say,
> >>> enables them to think and act morally, and so entitles them to a
> >>> higher moral status.

>
> >>> But the argument that there are morally relevant differences between
> >>> human animals and non-human animals is not a speciesist argument,
> >>> since the argument is about the particular characteristics that are
> >>> being put forward to justify the different moral status of human and
> >>> non-human animals.

>
> >>>http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/...eciesism.shtml

>
> >> So, you tiresomely copied and pasted this boilerplate without adding any
> >> commentary of your own. *What the **** for?

>
> > You are proposing that only commentary is allowable, please give
> > reasons for your theory.

>
> No, I'm not proposing that only commentary is allowable, you tendentious
> pedantic ****wit. *I'm saying that only doing slavish copypasta isn't
> very interesting or helpful.


Are you requesting that the topic be changed to the interesting and
helpful or is this another red herring fallacious distration where an
irrelevant issue is introduced to take attention away from you weak
arguing abilities?
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/12/2012 10:21 AM, Immortalist wrote:
> On Apr 12, 9:53 am, George > wrote:
>> On 4/12/2012 9:14 AM, Immortalist wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 12, 8:43 am, George > wrote:
>>>> On 4/12/2012 8:21 AM, Immortalist wrote:

>>
>>>>> On Apr 8, 10:06 am, wrote:
>>>>>> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
>>>>>> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
>>>>>> why human use of animals is wrong. This is meaningless. First of all,
>>>>>> all species are "speciesist": the members of all species pursue their
>>>>>> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
>>>>>> no regard for the interests of other species. The "ar" passivists
>>>>>> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
>>>>>> by invoking it themselves. Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
>>>>>> interests of members of other species. To say that we /must/ is itself
>>>>>> "speciesist."

>>
>>>>>> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
>>>>>> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
>>>>>> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
>>>>>> etc. This comparison is cynical and dishonest. First, a discussion of
>>>>>> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
>>>>>> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
>>>>>> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
>>>>>> are doing the discriminating. A person's race or sex has no bearing on
>>>>>> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.

>>
>>>>>> That leads to the second criticism of the passivists' comparison. The
>>>>>> member of a disadvantaged group was and is able to say, himself, that
>>>>>> his treatment at the hands of the advantaged group's members is based on
>>>>>> irrelevant considerations and is therefore wrong - he is able to
>>>>>> *demonstrate* that he is and ought to be seen as the moral equal of
>>>>>> those in the advantaged group.

>>
>>>>>> The analogy with racism and sexism and other wholly *human* "isms" is
>>>>>> spurious.

>>
>>>>>> The passivists cannot make a case as to *why* the interests of members
>>>>>> of other species ought to be given the same moral weight as the
>>>>>> interests of members of our own species. Forget about "marginal cases"
>>>>>> - that doesn't achieve anything.

>>
>>>>> Speciesism is the idea that being human is a good enough reason for
>>>>> human animals to have greater moral rights than non-human animals. It
>>>>> is a prejudice or bias in favour of the interests of members of one's
>>>>> own species and against those of members of other species.

>>
>>>> That's the revolting neologism given as a name for that belief. It's
>>>> truly a disgusting word, so much so that every spell-checker I've seen
>>>> rejects it as a word.

>>
>>> Some humans observe that there are a number of apparent differences
>>> between themselves and other beings.

>>
>> Really! How...insightful<chortle>.
>>

>
> Yes, kinda like Descartes argument "I think therefore I exist" except
> here the argument is "there are differences between beings therefore
> different beings should be treated differently."
>
>>> This observation alone hardly
>>> justifies any actions involving beings unless combined with other
>>> proposals and justifications.

>>
>> Uhh...er...okay.
>>
>>
>>
>>> Your theory of the revoltingness doesn't do the thing either idiot.

>>
>> Do what thing, ****tard?
>>

>
> The 'do the thing' phrase in my response referred to any attempt to
> justify behavior that would be identical to either treating different
> beings differently or treating different beings the same. In either
> case we would need additional reasons to justify the longstanding
> traditions of the way beings have treated or are treated by other
> beings. It will do no good to appeal to tradition or evolution as ways
> to justify the preponderance of a range of and the prescription of any
> treatments. This will not be allowed since it is analogous to claiming
> the 2+2=4 not because of any theories of addition and sums but simply
> because thats what 2+2 always equalled traditionally.


Crikey, you are one long-winded wheezy *******, aren't you?

In fact, I don't appeal to tradition to justify humans considering
animals' interests differently from how they consider humans' interests.
What I *do* say is that given that humans overwhelmingly *do* give
differential consideration to humans' and animals' interests, and given
that this is based on at least a moral intuition on humans' part that
the difference is morally warranted, it simply isn't going to do for a
challenger position such as Woopert's and Singer's to try to shift the
burden.


>>
>>
>>>>> Pure speciesism carries the idea of human superiority to the extreme
>>>>> of saying that the most trivial human wish is more important that the
>>>>> vital needs of other species... for example a pure speciesist would
>>>>> argue that it's ok for animals to be cruelly treated and killed to
>>>>> provide fur decorations for human beings to wear.

>>
>>>>> Supporters of speciesism say that there is a clear difference between
>>>>> humans and other species, and that this difference affects their moral
>>>>> status.

>>
>>>>> They argue that human beings are more self-aware, and more able to
>>>>> choose their own course of action than other animals. This, they say,
>>>>> enables them to think and act morally, and so entitles them to a
>>>>> higher moral status.

>>
>>>>> But the argument that there are morally relevant differences between
>>>>> human animals and non-human animals is not a speciesist argument,
>>>>> since the argument is about the particular characteristics that are
>>>>> being put forward to justify the different moral status of human and
>>>>> non-human animals.

>>
>>>>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/...eciesism.shtml

>>
>>>> So, you tiresomely copied and pasted this boilerplate without adding any
>>>> commentary of your own. What the **** for?

>>
>>> You are proposing that only commentary is allowable, please give
>>> reasons for your theory.

>>
>> No, I'm not proposing that only commentary is allowable, you tendentious
>> pedantic ****wit. I'm saying that only doing slavish copypasta isn't
>> very interesting or helpful.

>
> Are you requesting that the topic be changed to the interesting and
> helpful or is this another red herring fallacious distration where an
> irrelevant issue is introduced to take attention away from you weak
> arguing abilities?


It's neither - it's just a well-aimed criticism of you as a wheezy
tendentious pedant.


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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it



"George Plimpton" > wrote
> That is brilliant! I'll have to see if I can find anything on it in
> YouTube.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FbnJ...=youtube_gdata

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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

"Rupert" > wrote
> I don't see why my behaviour is inconsistent with equal consideration.


You have based your lifestyle on having a job and an urban apartment near
shops and all that so that you can pursue your career and other personal
interests in a reasonable fashion. That means your default consideration is
yourself, as it must be. From that you presumably have made adjustments and
sacrifices to satisfy your desire to reduce suffering to animals, reduce air
pollution, help the homeless, or whatever else you think is important. But
your consideration to these goals is not equal to the consideration you give
to your own interests, it can't be. You couldn't possibly give equal
consideration to all other entities with interests, much less those who are
in need, or even those you are aware of. It's not possible. You can do *a
few* things, that's all. That's all anyone could expect you to do.

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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 6:46*pm, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/12/2012 8:52 AM, Rupert wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 12, 5:53 am, George > *wrote:
> >> On 4/11/2012 8:46 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>> On Apr 11, 8:37 pm, George > * *wrote:
> >>>> On 4/11/2012 10:40 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>> On Apr 11, 8:51 am, George > * * *wrote:
> >>>>>> On 4/10/2012 10:50 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>> On Apr 11, 2:16 am, George > * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>> On 4/10/2012 3:54 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>> On Apr 10, 3:50 pm, George > * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>> On 4/10/2012 12:35 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, George > * * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 12:04 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:42 pm, George > * * * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 9:15 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 4:31 pm, George > * * * * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 11:43 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:44 am, George > * * * * * * * * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 9:00 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 8, 7:06 pm, wrote:
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> why human use of animals is wrong. *This is meaningless. *First of all,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all species are "speciesist": *the members of all species pursue their
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no regard for the interests of other species.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Some nonhuman animals do show concern for the interests of members of
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> other species, and in any case there is no good reason why we should
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> use the behaviour of nonhuman animals as a moral guide.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No other species show *moral* concern for interests of other species'
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> members.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The point of the post is that those who decry "speciesism" are relying
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> on it to say that humans should not engage in it.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they are not.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yes, they are. *You are requiring humans to behave a particular way due
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> to their species. *That's "speciesism" (an ugly, contrived word, in fact
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> not even a real word at all, as every spell-checker in existence
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> demonstrates by flagging it as not a word.)

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they're not requiring that humans behave a particular way due to
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> their species. Saying that only moral agents have moral obligations is
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> not speciesism.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> That's not what you're doing.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> You tell us what your motive is.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>> I don't understand this.

>
> >>>>>>>> Yes, you do.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The "ar" passivists
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by invoking it themselves. *Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests of members of other species. *To say that we /must/ is itself
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "speciesist."

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's not.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It is.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> You obviously don't understand what speciesism is.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I do understand full well what it is. *In fact, it's sophistry.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: *racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> etc. *This comparison is cynical and dishonest. *First, a discussion of
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are doing the discriminating. *A person's race or sex has no bearing on
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> There are plenty of intellectually disabled humans who cannot
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> participate in the moral comunnity of humanity to

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "marginal cases" doesn't work. *It's useless.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I've explained that to you before, too. *The argument from species
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> normality defeats it, among other things.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The argument from species normality is flawed.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, it isn't. *It fully defeats the fake argument from marginal cases.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>>> Wrong.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>>> Nope; right.

>
> >>>>>>>>>>> What exactly are the premises of the argument from species normality?

>
> >>>>>>>>>> Above you wrote, "The argument from species normality is flawed." *Do
> >>>>>>>>>> you mean to say you wrote that without knowing what the premises are?
> >>>>>>>>>> That seems very reckless and irresponsible.

>
> >>>>>>>>> I believe that one of the premises of the argument from species
> >>>>>>>>> normality is that the moral consideration an individual should get is
> >>>>>>>>> determined by what characteristics are typical for that individual's
> >>>>>>>>> species, and I believe that it is possible to construct thought-
> >>>>>>>>> experiments which show this premise to be problematic.

>
> >>>>>>>> Have a go at it.

>
> >>>>>>> Do you know the thought-experiment of the chimpanzee who can
> >>>>>>> understand advanced mathematics?

>
> >>>>>> Yes, of course. *It's the case of freak intelligence. *It fails, because
> >>>>>> it is not symmetric with a marginal human case. *The actuality of the
> >>>>>> chimp with freak intelligence entails the potentiality of moral
> >>>>>> considerability, but the non-actuality of normal human cognition in the
> >>>>>> marginal human does *not* entail the non-potentiality of being a moral
> >>>>>> agent. *We see this clearly with humans who are only temporarily
> >>>>>> incapacitated, or with children who mostly will develop to be moral agents.

>
> >>>>> What do you mean by "potentiality"?

>
> >>>> Because humans are the unique class who are moral agents, then without
> >>>> knowing anything else about a human being, you know at least that he has
> >>>> the potential to be or to become a moral actor. *Furthermore, even when
> >>>> the actuality is that a human is not a moral actor, that doesn't mean he
> >>>> isn't potentially one. *This is obviously true of normal human infants,
> >>>> people in a reversible coma, people under anesthesia, people who are
> >>>> asleep, and others.

>
> >>> Again: what do you *mean* by "potential"?

>
> >> Stop wasting time. *It's not a difficult word, and English is your
> >> native language.

>
> > It is not plausible that all humans have the potential to be moral
> > agents.

>
> /ex ante/, all humans do have that potential.


Why?

> /ex post/ we see that the
> actuality is some humans have diminished capacity that prevents them
> from attaining the normal human potential.


Quite.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 6:47*pm, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/12/2012 8:56 AM, Rupert wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 12, 7:11 am, George > *wrote:
> >> On 4/11/2012 8:53 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > * *wrote:
> >>>> > * *wrote

>
> >>>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> >>>>> the default starting position.

>
> >>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> >>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my community,
> >>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower level
> >>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>
> >>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
> >>>> interests, that is the way the world works.

>
> >>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>
> >> Why?

>
> > Because the interests of other organisms are equally important from
> > the moral point of view,

>
> That's the assertion you must prove, but have to date not even attempted
> to prove.


The burden of proof is on someone who says that the interests of a
particular class of organisms deserve special consideration.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 6:50*pm, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/12/2012 9:00 AM, Rupert wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 12, 5:41 pm, George > *wrote:
> >> On 4/12/2012 7:27 AM, George Plimpton wrote:

>
> >>> On 4/11/2012 11:29 PM, Dutch wrote:
> >>>> > *wrote in message
> ....
> >>>>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > *wrote:
> >>>>>> > *wrote

>
> >>>>>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> >>>>>>> the default starting position.

>
> >>>>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> >>>>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
> >>>>>> community,
> >>>>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
> >>>>>> level
> >>>>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere..

>
> >>>>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its
> >>>>>> owninterests, that is the way the world works.

>
> >>>>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>
> >>>> You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most
> >>>> ethicists agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an
> >>>> ethicist,

>
> >>> nor has Woopert...

>
> >> I should have elaborated in my original reply that it's a sick joke for
> >> Woopert to be saying that the "default position" in ethics is to give
> >> equal consideration to the interests of any suffering-capable entity.
> >> First of all, I don't believe Woopert has studied ethics rigorously at
> >> all, let alone to a degree that would permit him to say with such
> >> comical "authority" what the consensus position among ethicists is.
> >> Second, it is completely obvious, due to the amount of controversy
> >> surrounding it, that Singer's position is distinctly a minority view.
> >> With as much controversy over it as there clearly is, I find it very
> >> hard to believe it's the "default" or consensus view of ethics. *Rather,
> >> it's what Singer - and Woopert - would *want* to be the default view.
> >> That's why I maintain they are the ones with the burden of proof: *given
> >> that most ethicists (or so I intuitively believe) and the overwhelming
> >> majority of humans do *not* accept it as the default, the burden clearly
> >> is on them.

>
> >> Carl Cohen said something in "The Animal Rights Debate" that has stuck
> >> with me. *He wrote that when there is a huge majority holding a
> >> particular moral intuition, the overwhelming size of that majority gives
> >> it a particular weight that cannot simply be casually brushed away. *It
> >> doesn't mean it's necessarily a correct intuition, but there's a
> >> presumption. *Now, both the human concept of ethics, and ethics as a
> >> distinct branch of philosophy, have been around literally for millennia.
> >> * *With all that, the overwhelming majority of humans still consider it
> >> morally acceptable to give less weight to the interests of animals than
> >> to human interests, while at the same time most humans feel that *some*
> >> weight should be given to animals' interests, so it's not as if their
> >> moral intuition simply treats animals as holding no morally considerable
> >> interests at all. *However imperfectly people may have thought this
> >> through, they have given thought to it, and concluded that animals'
> >> interests deserve less moral consideration than humans'.

>
> >> The Humane Society of the US (HSUS) says that 39% of US households own
> >> at least one dog, and 33% of households own at least one cat
> >> (interestingly, there are about 8 million more owned cats in the US than
> >> owned dogs, so many more households have multiple cats than multiple
> >> dogs.)http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/...facts/pet_owne...
> >> * *A pet products professional association gives about the same number of
> >> owned cats and dogs, but says the percentage of households owning one or
> >> the other is higherhttp://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp*Most US
> >> households are comprised of more than one person, so it's very likely
> >> that more than 50% of Americans have a dog or a cat or both. *I think
> >> most people give a fair amount of consideration to the interests of
> >> their animals. *They spend over $50 billion a year on them, including
> >> almost $13.5 billion on medical care. *If people didn't give
> >> considerable weight to the interests of these animals, they wouldn't
> >> spend nearly as much.

>
> >> Woopert and his corrupt pal Singer are going to have to do a lot of work
> >> to convince people they ought to be providing the same amount of medical
> >> care and same quality of food to their animals as they provide for
> >> themselves.

>
> > That does not follow from the principle of equal consideration of
> > interests.

>
> It follows from the fact that your position is distinctly a minority
> position that has been implicitly reject by the vast majority of humanity..


No, it doesn't.


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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 12, 6:49*pm, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/12/2012 8:58 AM, Rupert wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 12, 4:27 pm, George > *wrote:
> >> On 4/11/2012 11:29 PM, Dutch wrote:

>
> >>> > *wrote in message
> ....
> >>>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > *wrote:
> >>>>> > *wrote

>
> >>>>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> >>>>>> the default starting position.

>
> >>>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> >>>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
> >>>>> community,
> >>>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
> >>>>> level
> >>>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>
> >>>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
> >>>>> interests, that is the way the world works.

>
> >>>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view..

>
> >>> You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most
> >>> ethicists agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an
> >>> ethicist,

>
> >> nor has Woopert...

>
> >>> but if they think that way then they are different than every
> >>> other person or animal that I am aware of. No, you're wrong here, in
> >>> fact your description of your own moral calculations proves it. You have
> >>> admitted that adjusting your lifestyle to avoid causing harm to animals
> >>> is secondary to maintaining a suitable career and lifestyle for
> >>> yourself, as it should be.

>
> >> Exactly. *Woopert essentially has refused to make any alteration in his
> >> life *whatever* to attempt to give equal consideration to the interests
> >> of animals.

>
> > That is quite obvious nonsense.

>
> No, it's quite obviously true because *you* told us, explicitly. *You
> said that you can't - actually, won't - do all that you might do to
> ensure you are giving the same consideration to animals' interests that
> you give to humans'. *You said you "needed" to do things to advance your
> career that prevent you from determining which foods produce the least harm.


I am giving the same consideration to animals' interests that I give
to humans', I would behave the same way if the victims were human.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 13, 12:00*am, "Dutch" > wrote:
> "Rupert" > wrote
>
> > I don't see why my behaviour is inconsistent with equal consideration.

>
> You have based your lifestyle on having a job and an urban apartment near
> shops and all that so that you can pursue your career and other personal
> interests in a reasonable fashion. *That means your default consideration is
> yourself, as it must be. From that you presumably have made adjustments and
> sacrifices to satisfy your desire to reduce suffering to animals, reduce air
> pollution, help the homeless, or whatever else you think is important. But
> your consideration to these goals is not equal to the consideration you give
> to your own interests, it can't be. You couldn't possibly give equal
> consideration to all other entities with interests, much less those who are
> in need, or even those you are aware of. It's not possible. You can do *a
> few* things, that's all. That's all anyone could expect you to do.


I never said you weren't allowed to give special priority to your own
interests, I said that was something that required a justification.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

"Rupert" > wrote
> On Apr 13, 12:00 am, "Dutch" > wrote:
>> "Rupert" > wrote
>>
>> > I don't see why my behaviour is inconsistent with equal consideration.

>>
>> You have based your lifestyle on having a job and an urban apartment near
>> shops and all that so that you can pursue your career and other personal
>> interests in a reasonable fashion. That means your default consideration
>> is
>> yourself, as it must be. From that you presumably have made adjustments
>> and
>> sacrifices to satisfy your desire to reduce suffering to animals, reduce
>> air
>> pollution, help the homeless, or whatever else you think is important.
>> But
>> your consideration to these goals is not equal to the consideration you
>> give
>> to your own interests, it can't be. You couldn't possibly give equal
>> consideration to all other entities with interests, much less those who
>> are
>> in need, or even those you are aware of. It's not possible. You can do *a
>> few* things, that's all. That's all anyone could expect you to do.

>
> I never said you weren't allowed to give special priority to your own
> interests, I said that was something that required a justification.


What is your justification for the special consideration you give to your
own interests?


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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/12/2012 3:06 PM, Rupert wrote:
> On Apr 12, 6:46 pm, George > wrote:
>> On 4/12/2012 8:52 AM, Rupert wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 12, 5:53 am, George > wrote:
>>>> On 4/11/2012 8:46 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>> On Apr 11, 8:37 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>> On 4/11/2012 10:40 AM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>> On Apr 11, 8:51 am, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>> On 4/10/2012 10:50 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>> On Apr 11, 2:16 am, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> On 4/10/2012 3:54 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 10, 3:50 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/10/2012 12:35 AM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 10:41 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 12:04 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:42 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/9/2012 9:15 AM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 4:31 pm, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 11:43 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 9, 6:44 am, George > wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On 4/8/2012 9:00 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> On Apr 8, 7:06 pm, wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Animal rights activists" - actually, most are "passivists", doing
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> nothing more than talk - commonly invoke "speciesism" to try to explain
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> why human use of animals is wrong. This is meaningless. First of all,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> all species are "speciesist": the members of all species pursue their
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests, as individual entities and as members of their species, with
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> no regard for the interests of other species.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Some nonhuman animals do show concern for the interests of members of
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> other species, and in any case there is no good reason why we should
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> use the behaviour of nonhuman animals as a moral guide.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No other species show *moral* concern for interests of other species'
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> members.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The point of the post is that those who decry "speciesism" are relying
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> on it to say that humans should not engage in it.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they are not.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Yes, they are. You are requiring humans to behave a particular way due
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> to their species. That's "speciesism" (an ugly, contrived word, in fact
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> not even a real word at all, as every spell-checker in existence
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> demonstrates by flagging it as not a word.)

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, they're not requiring that humans behave a particular way due to
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> their species. Saying that only moral agents have moral obligations is
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> not speciesism.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> That's not what you're doing.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> You tell us what your motive is.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> I don't understand this.

>>
>>>>>>>>>> Yes, you do.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The "ar" passivists
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> cannot give a coherent explanation of why "speciesism" is wrong, except
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by invoking it themselves. Only humans are capable of conceiving of the
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> interests of members of other species. To say that we /must/ is itself
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "speciesist."

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It's not.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> It is.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> You obviously don't understand what speciesism is.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I do understand full well what it is. In fact, it's sophistry.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Secondly, the only way the passivists attempt to show that it's wrong is
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> by comparison with other "isms" that they claim, without explanation,
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are inherently and "obviously" wrong: racism, sexism, "heterosexism",
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> etc. This comparison is cynical and dishonest. First, a discussion of
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> *why* racism and sexism are (or might be) wrong quickly reveals that
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> they comprise negative thoughts and actions against people of the same
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> species who share the same morally relevant characteristics as those who
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> are doing the discriminating. A person's race or sex has no bearing on
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> his ability to participate in the moral community of humanity.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> There are plenty of intellectually disabled humans who cannot
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> participate in the moral comunnity of humanity to

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "marginal cases" doesn't work. It's useless.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Why not?

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I've explained that to you before, too. The argument from species
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> normality defeats it, among other things.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The argument from species normality is flawed.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> No, it isn't. It fully defeats the fake argument from marginal cases.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Wrong.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Nope; right.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>> What exactly are the premises of the argument from species normality?

>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> Above you wrote, "The argument from species normality is flawed." Do
>>>>>>>>>>>> you mean to say you wrote that without knowing what the premises are?
>>>>>>>>>>>> That seems very reckless and irresponsible.

>>
>>>>>>>>>>> I believe that one of the premises of the argument from species
>>>>>>>>>>> normality is that the moral consideration an individual should get is
>>>>>>>>>>> determined by what characteristics are typical for that individual's
>>>>>>>>>>> species, and I believe that it is possible to construct thought-
>>>>>>>>>>> experiments which show this premise to be problematic.

>>
>>>>>>>>>> Have a go at it.

>>
>>>>>>>>> Do you know the thought-experiment of the chimpanzee who can
>>>>>>>>> understand advanced mathematics?

>>
>>>>>>>> Yes, of course. It's the case of freak intelligence. It fails, because
>>>>>>>> it is not symmetric with a marginal human case. The actuality of the
>>>>>>>> chimp with freak intelligence entails the potentiality of moral
>>>>>>>> considerability, but the non-actuality of normal human cognition in the
>>>>>>>> marginal human does *not* entail the non-potentiality of being a moral
>>>>>>>> agent. We see this clearly with humans who are only temporarily
>>>>>>>> incapacitated, or with children who mostly will develop to be moral agents.

>>
>>>>>>> What do you mean by "potentiality"?

>>
>>>>>> Because humans are the unique class who are moral agents, then without
>>>>>> knowing anything else about a human being, you know at least that he has
>>>>>> the potential to be or to become a moral actor. Furthermore, even when
>>>>>> the actuality is that a human is not a moral actor, that doesn't mean he
>>>>>> isn't potentially one. This is obviously true of normal human infants,
>>>>>> people in a reversible coma, people under anesthesia, people who are
>>>>>> asleep, and others.

>>
>>>>> Again: what do you *mean* by "potential"?

>>
>>>> Stop wasting time. It's not a difficult word, and English is your
>>>> native language.

>>
>>> It is not plausible that all humans have the potential to be moral
>>> agents.

>>
>> /ex ante/, all humans do have that potential.

>
> Why?


**** off, time-waster.


>> /ex post/ we see that the
>> actuality is some humans have diminished capacity that prevents them
>> from attaining the normal human potential.

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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/12/2012 3:08 PM, Rupert wrote:
> On Apr 12, 6:47 pm, George > wrote:
>> On 4/12/2012 8:56 AM, Rupert wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 12, 7:11 am, George > wrote:
>>>> On 4/11/2012 8:53 PM, Rupert wrote:

>>
>>>>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > wrote:
>>>>>> > wrote

>>
>>>>>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
>>>>>>> the default starting position.

>>
>>>>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
>>>>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my community,
>>>>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower level
>>>>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>>
>>>>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
>>>>>> interests, that is the way the world works.

>>
>>>>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>>
>>>> Why?

>>
>>> Because the interests of other organisms are equally important from
>>> the moral point of view,

>>
>> That's the assertion you must prove, but have to date not even attempted
>> to prove.

>
> The burden of proof is on someone who says that the interests of a
> particular class of organisms deserve special consideration.


The burden of proof is on you limp challengers.


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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/12/2012 3:08 PM, Rupert wrote:
> On Apr 12, 6:50 pm, George > wrote:
>> On 4/12/2012 9:00 AM, Rupert wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 12, 5:41 pm, George > wrote:
>>>> On 4/12/2012 7:27 AM, George Plimpton wrote:

>>
>>>>> On 4/11/2012 11:29 PM, Dutch wrote:
>>>>>> > wrote in message
>>>>>> ...
>>>>>>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > wrote:
>>>>>>>> > wrote

>>
>>>>>>>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
>>>>>>>>> the default starting position.

>>
>>>>>>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
>>>>>>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
>>>>>>>> community,
>>>>>>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
>>>>>>>> level
>>>>>>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>>
>>>>>>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its
>>>>>>>> owninterests, that is the way the world works.

>>
>>>>>>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>>
>>>>>> You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most
>>>>>> ethicists agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an
>>>>>> ethicist,

>>
>>>>> nor has Woopert...

>>
>>>> I should have elaborated in my original reply that it's a sick joke for
>>>> Woopert to be saying that the "default position" in ethics is to give
>>>> equal consideration to the interests of any suffering-capable entity.
>>>> First of all, I don't believe Woopert has studied ethics rigorously at
>>>> all, let alone to a degree that would permit him to say with such
>>>> comical "authority" what the consensus position among ethicists is.
>>>> Second, it is completely obvious, due to the amount of controversy
>>>> surrounding it, that Singer's position is distinctly a minority view.
>>>> With as much controversy over it as there clearly is, I find it very
>>>> hard to believe it's the "default" or consensus view of ethics. Rather,
>>>> it's what Singer - and Woopert - would *want* to be the default view.
>>>> That's why I maintain they are the ones with the burden of proof: given
>>>> that most ethicists (or so I intuitively believe) and the overwhelming
>>>> majority of humans do *not* accept it as the default, the burden clearly
>>>> is on them.

>>
>>>> Carl Cohen said something in "The Animal Rights Debate" that has stuck
>>>> with me. He wrote that when there is a huge majority holding a
>>>> particular moral intuition, the overwhelming size of that majority gives
>>>> it a particular weight that cannot simply be casually brushed away. It
>>>> doesn't mean it's necessarily a correct intuition, but there's a
>>>> presumption. Now, both the human concept of ethics, and ethics as a
>>>> distinct branch of philosophy, have been around literally for millennia.
>>>> With all that, the overwhelming majority of humans still consider it
>>>> morally acceptable to give less weight to the interests of animals than
>>>> to human interests, while at the same time most humans feel that *some*
>>>> weight should be given to animals' interests, so it's not as if their
>>>> moral intuition simply treats animals as holding no morally considerable
>>>> interests at all. However imperfectly people may have thought this
>>>> through, they have given thought to it, and concluded that animals'
>>>> interests deserve less moral consideration than humans'.

>>
>>>> The Humane Society of the US (HSUS) says that 39% of US households own
>>>> at least one dog, and 33% of households own at least one cat
>>>> (interestingly, there are about 8 million more owned cats in the US than
>>>> owned dogs, so many more households have multiple cats than multiple
>>>> dogs.)http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/...facts/pet_owne...
>>>> A pet products professional association gives about the same number of
>>>> owned cats and dogs, but says the percentage of households owning one or
>>>> the other is higherhttp://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.asp Most US
>>>> households are comprised of more than one person, so it's very likely
>>>> that more than 50% of Americans have a dog or a cat or both. I think
>>>> most people give a fair amount of consideration to the interests of
>>>> their animals. They spend over $50 billion a year on them, including
>>>> almost $13.5 billion on medical care. If people didn't give
>>>> considerable weight to the interests of these animals, they wouldn't
>>>> spend nearly as much.

>>
>>>> Woopert and his corrupt pal Singer are going to have to do a lot of work
>>>> to convince people they ought to be providing the same amount of medical
>>>> care and same quality of food to their animals as they provide for
>>>> themselves.

>>
>>> That does not follow from the principle of equal consideration of
>>> interests.

>>
>> It follows from the fact that your position is distinctly a minority
>> position that has been implicitly reject by the vast majority of humanity.

>
> No, it doesn't.


It does.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On 4/12/2012 3:09 PM, Rupert wrote:
> On Apr 12, 6:49 pm, George > wrote:
>> On 4/12/2012 8:58 AM, Rupert wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 12, 4:27 pm, George > wrote:
>>>> On 4/11/2012 11:29 PM, Dutch wrote:

>>
>>>>> > wrote in message
>>>>> ...
>>>>>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > wrote:
>>>>>>> > wrote

>>
>>>>>>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
>>>>>>>> the default starting position.

>>
>>>>>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
>>>>>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
>>>>>>> community,
>>>>>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
>>>>>>> level
>>>>>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>>
>>>>>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
>>>>>>> interests, that is the way the world works.

>>
>>>>>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>>
>>>>> You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most
>>>>> ethicists agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an
>>>>> ethicist,

>>
>>>> nor has Woopert...

>>
>>>>> but if they think that way then they are different than every
>>>>> other person or animal that I am aware of. No, you're wrong here, in
>>>>> fact your description of your own moral calculations proves it. You have
>>>>> admitted that adjusting your lifestyle to avoid causing harm to animals
>>>>> is secondary to maintaining a suitable career and lifestyle for
>>>>> yourself, as it should be.

>>
>>>> Exactly. Woopert essentially has refused to make any alteration in his
>>>> life *whatever* to attempt to give equal consideration to the interests
>>>> of animals.

>>
>>> That is quite obvious nonsense.

>>
>> No, it's quite obviously true because *you* told us, explicitly. You
>> said that you can't - actually, won't - do all that you might do to
>> ensure you are giving the same consideration to animals' interests that
>> you give to humans'. You said you "needed" to do things to advance your
>> career that prevent you from determining which foods produce the least harm.

>
> I am giving the same consideration to animals' interests that I give
> to humans',


You aren't.
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 16, 2:13*am, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/12/2012 3:08 PM, Rupert wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 12, 6:47 pm, George > *wrote:
> >> On 4/12/2012 8:56 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>> On Apr 12, 7:11 am, George > * *wrote:
> >>>> On 4/11/2012 8:53 PM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>>>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > * * *wrote:
> >>>>>> > * * *wrote

>
> >>>>>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> >>>>>>> the default starting position.

>
> >>>>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> >>>>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my community,
> >>>>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower level
> >>>>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere..

>
> >>>>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
> >>>>>> interests, that is the way the world works.

>
> >>>>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>
> >>>> Why?

>
> >>> Because the interests of other organisms are equally important from
> >>> the moral point of view,

>
> >> That's the assertion you must prove, but have to date not even attempted
> >> to prove.

>
> > The burden of proof is on someone who says that the interests of a
> > particular class of organisms deserve special consideration.

>
> The burden of proof is on you limp challengers.


Well, it just degenerates into an exchange of contrary assertions
about who has the burden of proof, which is not very interesting.

In the actual historical situation of challenging the once widely held
belief that negroes were entitled to less moral consideration, how
would you say the burden of proof was met on that occasion?
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Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 16, 2:13*am, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/12/2012 3:08 PM, Rupert wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 12, 6:50 pm, George > *wrote:
> >> On 4/12/2012 9:00 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>> On Apr 12, 5:41 pm, George > * *wrote:
> >>>> On 4/12/2012 7:27 AM, George Plimpton wrote:

>
> >>>>> On 4/11/2012 11:29 PM, Dutch wrote:
> >>>>>> > * *wrote in message
> ...
> >>>>>>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > * *wrote:
> >>>>>>>> > * *wrote

>
> >>>>>>>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> >>>>>>>>> the default starting position.

>
> >>>>>>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> >>>>>>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
> >>>>>>>> community,
> >>>>>>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
> >>>>>>>> level
> >>>>>>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>
> >>>>>>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its
> >>>>>>>> owninterests, that is the way the world works.

>
> >>>>>>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>
> >>>>>> You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most
> >>>>>> ethicists agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an
> >>>>>> ethicist,

>
> >>>>> nor has Woopert...

>
> >>>> I should have elaborated in my original reply that it's a sick joke for
> >>>> Woopert to be saying that the "default position" in ethics is to give
> >>>> equal consideration to the interests of any suffering-capable entity..
> >>>> First of all, I don't believe Woopert has studied ethics rigorously at
> >>>> all, let alone to a degree that would permit him to say with such
> >>>> comical "authority" what the consensus position among ethicists is.
> >>>> Second, it is completely obvious, due to the amount of controversy
> >>>> surrounding it, that Singer's position is distinctly a minority view..
> >>>> With as much controversy over it as there clearly is, I find it very
> >>>> hard to believe it's the "default" or consensus view of ethics. *Rather,
> >>>> it's what Singer - and Woopert - would *want* to be the default view..
> >>>> That's why I maintain they are the ones with the burden of proof: *given
> >>>> that most ethicists (or so I intuitively believe) and the overwhelming
> >>>> majority of humans do *not* accept it as the default, the burden clearly
> >>>> is on them.

>
> >>>> Carl Cohen said something in "The Animal Rights Debate" that has stuck
> >>>> with me. *He wrote that when there is a huge majority holding a
> >>>> particular moral intuition, the overwhelming size of that majority gives
> >>>> it a particular weight that cannot simply be casually brushed away. *It
> >>>> doesn't mean it's necessarily a correct intuition, but there's a
> >>>> presumption. *Now, both the human concept of ethics, and ethics as a
> >>>> distinct branch of philosophy, have been around literally for millennia.
> >>>> * * With all that, the overwhelming majority of humans still consider it
> >>>> morally acceptable to give less weight to the interests of animals than
> >>>> to human interests, while at the same time most humans feel that *some*
> >>>> weight should be given to animals' interests, so it's not as if their
> >>>> moral intuition simply treats animals as holding no morally considerable
> >>>> interests at all. *However imperfectly people may have thought this
> >>>> through, they have given thought to it, and concluded that animals'
> >>>> interests deserve less moral consideration than humans'.

>
> >>>> The Humane Society of the US (HSUS) says that 39% of US households own
> >>>> at least one dog, and 33% of households own at least one cat
> >>>> (interestingly, there are about 8 million more owned cats in the US than
> >>>> owned dogs, so many more households have multiple cats than multiple
> >>>> dogs.)http://www.humanesociety.org/issues/...facts/pet_owne...
> >>>> * * A pet products professional association gives about the same number of
> >>>> owned cats and dogs, but says the percentage of households owning one or
> >>>> the other is higherhttp://www.americanpetproducts.org/press_industrytrends.aspMost US
> >>>> households are comprised of more than one person, so it's very likely
> >>>> that more than 50% of Americans have a dog or a cat or both. *I think
> >>>> most people give a fair amount of consideration to the interests of
> >>>> their animals. *They spend over $50 billion a year on them, including
> >>>> almost $13.5 billion on medical care. *If people didn't give
> >>>> considerable weight to the interests of these animals, they wouldn't
> >>>> spend nearly as much.

>
> >>>> Woopert and his corrupt pal Singer are going to have to do a lot of work
> >>>> to convince people they ought to be providing the same amount of medical
> >>>> care and same quality of food to their animals as they provide for
> >>>> themselves.

>
> >>> That does not follow from the principle of equal consideration of
> >>> interests.

>
> >> It follows from the fact that your position is distinctly a minority
> >> position that has been implicitly reject by the vast majority of humanity.

>
> > No, it doesn't.

>
> It does.


When I wrote "That does not follow from the principle of equal
consideration of interests", the "that" obviously refers to the
statement that "people ought to be providing the same amount of
medical care and the same quality of food to their animals as they
provide for themselves".

So what you are saying is "From the fact that your position is
distinctly a minority position that has been implicitly rejected by
the vast majority of humanity, it follows that people ought to be
providing the same amount of medical care and the same quality of food
to their animals as they provide for themselves."

This is what happens when you don't read the posts to which you are
responding properly.
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Posts: 1,380
Default "Speciesism" - nothing wrong with it

On Apr 16, 2:13*am, George Plimpton > wrote:
> On 4/12/2012 3:09 PM, Rupert wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Apr 12, 6:49 pm, George > *wrote:
> >> On 4/12/2012 8:58 AM, Rupert wrote:

>
> >>> On Apr 12, 4:27 pm, George > * *wrote:
> >>>> On 4/11/2012 11:29 PM, Dutch wrote:

>
> >>>>> > * *wrote in message
> ...
> >>>>>> On Apr 12, 12:23 am, > * *wrote:
> >>>>>>> > * *wrote

>
> >>>>>>>> Most ethicists would agree that equal consideration of interests is
> >>>>>>>> the default starting position.

>
> >>>>>>> For whom? My default starting position for consideration is my own
> >>>>>>> interests, followed by my immediate family including my pets, my
> >>>>>>> community,
> >>>>>>> my country, mankind, higher level animals, rare plant species, lower
> >>>>>>> level
> >>>>>>> animals, the planet, and the economy is implied in there somewhere.

>
> >>>>>>> The default starting position for every organism in existence is its own
> >>>>>>> interests, that is the way the world works.

>
> >>>>>> That is something that requires defence from the moral point of view.

>
> >>>>> You mean like you defended your assertion, by claiming that most
> >>>>> ethicists agree with you? Well I can't honestly say I've ever met an
> >>>>> ethicist,

>
> >>>> nor has Woopert...

>
> >>>>> but if they think that way then they are different than every
> >>>>> other person or animal that I am aware of. No, you're wrong here, in
> >>>>> fact your description of your own moral calculations proves it. You have
> >>>>> admitted that adjusting your lifestyle to avoid causing harm to animals
> >>>>> is secondary to maintaining a suitable career and lifestyle for
> >>>>> yourself, as it should be.

>
> >>>> Exactly. *Woopert essentially has refused to make any alteration in his
> >>>> life *whatever* to attempt to give equal consideration to the interests
> >>>> of animals.

>
> >>> That is quite obvious nonsense.

>
> >> No, it's quite obviously true because *you* told us, explicitly. *You
> >> said that you can't - actually, won't - do all that you might do to
> >> ensure you are giving the same consideration to animals' interests that
> >> you give to humans'. *You said you "needed" to do things to advance your
> >> career that prevent you from determining which foods produce the least harm.

>
> > I am giving the same consideration to animals' interests that I give
> > to humans',

>
> You aren't.


Why do you think that?
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