A funeral for a thought-terminating anti vegan clicheFor reasons I’ve given before at length, I think morality is objective. Thus, I don’t think morality is a social technology any more than the sun is it was here long before society, it will be here after society, and we did not create it. When dinosaurs died in agony and terror, long before anyone had any moral evaluations, that was deeply unfortunate. https://benthams.substack.com/p/why-i-believe-in-objective-morality But lots of moral anti-realists are fond of the phrase “morality is a social technology.” Or “ If your instincts are not congruent with maximizing the survival of you and your kin, you have a disorder like a homosexual or a zoophile does.” Or “ Humans operate within chemical reality, not philosophical theory “. They are obsessed with this phrase and similar phrases like it. When, for instance, I argued for the modest proposal that insect suffering is the worst thing in the world, https://benthams.substack.com/p/thinking-insect-suffering-is-the lots of people replied along roughly the following lines:Morality is a social technology which we follow because it’s useful for facilitating cooperation among social primates. However, trying to extend morality to say crazy things totally outside of the context for which it evolved is asking it to do too much. While perhaps YOU on account of being OBSESSED WITH BUGS have a moral code that causes you to weep each time an aphid feels upset, the rest of humanity doesn’t and it’s pointless to try to argue someone into a moral system that they don’t hold.
>>5100287I think everything about this is confused, even if you’re a moral anti-realist. It’s so confused that if confusion was fatness and the phrase was your mother, then your mother would be so fat that her weight would be considerable such that she’d be advised to begin dieting and exercising regularly.The phrase comes from conflating descriptive claims about how moral beliefs came to be with normative claims about what we should do morally.It’s true, of course, that part of the story of how our moral beliefs developed is that certain moral beliefs were adaptive. If everyone in a society thought that it was great to hit little babies with hammers, likely that society would not last very long and society develops norms to punish such behavior. (Some of us would also absurdly suggest that maybe part of the reason that almost everyone thinks it’s wrong to rape and torture people is that it really is wrong to rape and torture people but I know that such an absurd suggestion is unlikely to be seriously entertained by the “morality is a social technology” people. These people have moved beyond bogus superstition like the notion that you shouldn’t set random people on fire for no reason and this fact doesn’t just depend on your not liking setting people on fire).But this doesn’t tell us whether the moral beliefs we should adopt are those that we evolved to adopt. Now I’m well aware that moral anti-realists deny there are such things as stance-independent reasons. They hold that morality is a matter of mere preference there aren’t reasons to hold moral beliefs that don’t depend ultimately on one’s own judgment.
>>5100289>>5100289But if this is right, then the morality we should adopt is a function of our judgments. If so, why the hell should anyone care about the social function of morality? Suppose I’m a utilitarian anti-realist. I recognize that my set of moral beliefs is out of accordance with those of society. But why should I care? I have many aesthetic evaluations that are out of accordance with society. I think that Amos Wollen is funny and that Fahrenheit 451 is the single most boring book ever written! If morality is a matter of preference, then its evolutionary history is totally irrelevant!Now, one could reply that if morality is a matter of preference then it’s hard to see how you’d be able to convince people of moral judgments. You can’t normally talk people out of preferences or aesthetic judgments. One of the funniest passages ever written by the Chinese philosopher Mencius reads as follows:>Mouths have the same preferences in flavors. Master Chef Yi Ya was the first to discover what our mouths prefer. If it were the case that the natures of mouths varied among people just as dogs and horses are different species from us then how could it be that throughout the world all tastes follow Yi Ya when it comes to flavor? When it comes to flavor, the reason the whole world looks to Yi Ya is that mouths throughout the world are similar.>Ears are like this too. When it comes to sounds, the whole world looks to Music Master Shi Kuang. >This is because ears throughout the world are similar. Eyes are like this too. No one in the world does not appreciate the handsomeness of a man like Zidu. Anyone who does not appreciate the handsomeness of Zidu has no eyes. Hence, I say that mouths have the same preferences in flavors, ears have the same preferences in sounds, eyes have the same preferences in attractiveness. >When it comes to hearts, are they alone without preferences in common?
>>5100290Despite repeatedly trying to talk people out of finding Zidu handsome, I simply could not! Despite repeatedly trying to talk people out of enjoying the flavors of Master chef Yi Ya, I failed completely. Aesthetic preferences are not generally swayed by rational argument.(As an aside, I find it absolutely hilarious that we know basically nothing about Zidu other than that he was so handsome that Mencius thought that his existence demonstrated the objectivity of beauty).Pic related. Behold: the ideal man!Behold: the ideal man!But moral preferences are a bit different from other kinds of preferences even if moral anti-realism is true. Moral preferences aren’t just a function of the degree of enjoyment you get from different things they have an evaluative character. They’re directed at other things in the world. They’re not just a function of our own enjoyment, the way our preference for cake is.Suppose that there’s an anti-black racist. He thinks the interests of black people matter less than white people. I think it would be a problem for anti-realism if it holds that persuading him is impossible and that moral arguments shouldn’t change his mind. We should hold that at least for most people like that, they should change their mind if they reflected more. At the very least, we should hold that for many of these people if they reflected more, as a matter of fact they would change their mind. People can be talked out of moral positions even anti-realists.
>>5100292How would one go about talking this person out of his views? I think I’d argue roughly along the following lines:>The thing that your moral evaluations are being determined by skin color seems morally arbitrary. >If my skin simply changed color, it seems weird that this would affect my moral worth. So therefore it seems like you’re placing weight on something obviously morally irrelevant.Perhaps he would then say that what he really cares about is not skin color intrinsically but criminality. He thinks black people are more prone to criminality. Then we could debate whether this is actually true and whether even granting that this is true the fact that a group is more prone to criminality on average is a good reason to take the non-criminal members of the group to be morally unimportant. Men commit more crimes than women but presumably he wouldn’t claim that men don’t matter.Now, I don’t know if I would actually convince such a person. But it seems too quick to just handwave the possibility of persuasion with the thought-terminating cliche “morality is a social technology.” Even if morality ultimately boils down to preference, one can sometimes come to see that their moral evaluations are a byproduct of preferences that they don’t actually endorse.This is what I hope to bring about when I argue for other unintuitive moral claims. When I argue that insects matter a great deal, I’m under no illusion that people actually care about insects. What I think is that people reject insect welfare for no particularly good reason. If they thought about the subject more, I think they might see that. The reasons they reject the significance of insects is because they harbor various ill-thought-out biases https://benthams.substack.com/p/thinking-insect-suffering-is-the against creatures that are small, funny-looking, and that you don’t naturally empathize with.
>>5100294I also think there are other judgments that if they reflected on more, they could come to see are in conflict with their apathy towards insects. For instance, most people seem to be opposed to intense agony. All else equal, they think that if there’s more extreme agony in the world, that is unfortunate.But people ignore their general opposition to agony when it implies that insect suffering matters. If they thought about it more, I think they could see that the factors that make them oppose other kinds of agony the fact it feels bad should also make them oppose insect agony. The reason it’s bad when, say, babies suffer isn’t because they’re smart (they’re not) or they’re human (one’s species doesn’t seem to affect how morally serious it is when they feel pain). The reason is because it hurts and it’s bad to hurt. But if insects can hurt too, why in the world should we ignore their pain?Now, I think this appeal is a bit easier to make if someone’s a moral realist than if they’re not. But even moral anti-realists should be potentially persuadable. We’re not dogs perpetually jerked around by our emotional reactions. We can reflect on what truly matters to us and change our aims when we see that we’ve been drawing clearly irrelevant distinctions. Morality may be social in origin, but that cannot be a blanket excuse for ignoring every counterintuitive moral appeal.
You think much about things that do not matter because your principle desire to be perceived as intelligent and good, by achieving the highest form of narcissism: defining "good" all for yourself.>If I abstract rule A to the maximum extent of vagueness and then apply this new vague rule, everything is wrong!Morality is a social technology intersecting with inherited instinct. You do not have to abstract things into governing theories of everything by the way. You WANT to because then YOU can define good and evil.>THEN WHAT HAS MEANING?Whatever most people want.>THEN ANYONE CAN DO WHATEVER THEY WANT!They're free to try. The rest of us are free to stop them.In practical terms, veganism is only a system of oppression designed to restrict full physical and mental development to upper castes that can even design and afford a somewhat complete ("not as deficient") diet. It serves no other function.>MORALS?Morals are not real.>>5100295Exhibit A:>But people ignore their general opposition to agony when it implies that insect suffering mattersYou hallucinate a general rule and a hypocrisy out of this because you believe in general rules. Why? For no reason but facilitating your narcissistic masturbation.You fear the truth:That good and evil are INCOMPREHENSIBLE TO YOU AND UNDEFINABLE TO YOU, SUCH THAT YOUR THOUGHTS ARE MEANINGLESS AND WORTHLESSGOOD AND EVIL ARE THE SOLE DOMAIN OF *EVERYONE WHO ISNT YOU* - THE GESTALT GODYOU ARE UNIMPORTANTThis is anathema to the narcissist pseud. This is anathema to all narcissists. Good and evil are forever out of their reach. Morality does not care what they think. It doesn't care about their logic, for it rests on a foundation of liquid diarrhea. It is all other people, all the time, and their "philosophy" is in fact a form of begging. For forgiveness, praise, attention.
not gonna read all that gay shit
>>5100296Meaning isn't fixed by the mob's vote any more than truth is. “Whatever most people wanted" once was slavery, torture, women as property, etc. Those things changed, not completely but somewhat with more work to be done. I’d call that progress and so would most people today. It wasn’t just because a new majority felt like it,but because reflection of the masses or at least the elites who convinced the masses showed the old stuff like slavery was bad like it was hypocritical. If morality is just power, say it honestly instead of wasting so many characters and just say >might makes righthttps://desuarchive.org/an/thread/5071163/#q5071209>For any lurkers in this thread he and the other anon are clearly dodging because if they were arguing in good faith they know they'd look bad. If he were honest he'd bite the bullet and admit he'd support taking away women's rights IF taking away women's rights lead to being able to dominate or wipe out other cultures who are feminist just like he supports not granting rights to animals because he believes cultures that don't grant animals rights are able to dominate or wipe out cultures which do grant animals rights. He knows this makes carnism look bad because it's just might makes right with extra steps so he argues in bad faith just like his scumbag friend here >>5071205>>5071204>>5071201If you were teleported 300 years into the future and the vast majority of the world was currently vegan how would you try to convince them to go back to farming and eating animals?
>>5100305>>5100298>anti veganism = anti empiricism
>>5100304Abstract morals aren't real, idiot.He's right. You're a narcissist. You only care about clout.If your morals real world application is not immediately recognizable as "good" they are not real morals. Veganism's real world application is everyone but the rich being malnourished because humans need meat to live.Based on the potential real consequences of your pseuding: You focus on abstract morals because you are an idiot plain and simple, because you are a narcissist seeking "looking good" (the ultimate reward), or because you actively want a worse life for the majority of people.
>>5100287>i believe morals are objective…relative to the variables human nature and human situation.Nothing you say is relevant or makes sense. You’re a rambling idiot spewing godless theology. Its like a hindu yammering about their satanic karma system without saying brahma.
>>5100310>If your morals real world application is not immediately recognizable as "good" they are not real morals. Veganism's real world application is billions of animals no longer being tortured in factory farms and far less suffering and rights violations.
>>5100311Objective means mind independent. Also means stance independent. Hope that helps.
>>5100313Cool. You’re wrong. Stop spewing godless theology. Stop evading your ban. You have to proxy hop on /pol/. >>5100312And how many humans turn out as short 75 iq tards because they lack the resources and education to be as merely mildly deficient as a rich vegan with endless free time to meal plan and a four to five figure supplements budget?The cattle can deal with it until improved farming tech spreads and we relieve them of their brains. Now go spout some bullshit about making a moral argument to carnivorous aliens or some other waste of time you fuckin dogfucking nonce.
>>5100287I think a lot of vegans presuppose certain values that make caring about animal suffering obvious to them, and this makes their arguments weak against a person who doesn't share those values. >If you think deeply about it, and read these studies, you will find that insects can feel pain and suffer.This can only convince someone that already shares your belief that insects are worthy of moral consideration for any reason.Why does human life have value? Because of our uniquely deep and aware conscious experience. Do animals share this trait? They don't seem to.Only humans who have developed/haven't lost this trait are worthy of moral consideration.Therefore: what happens to animals doesn't matter beyond a human-centric desire to keep ecosystems that benefit us from collapsing and keeping cute pets that make us feel good.As far as I know, vegans have no answer for someone who doesn't already value animals.
inb4 OP and the anti vegan schizo go at it for 100 posts in under 24 hours
>>5100318Its actually because not valuing human life leads to the end of human life. Vegans exemplify this - they are essentially a parasitic entity. They take people from society and kill them or psychologically sterilize them. Given power they weaken billions and will hobble and end lives to protect or get justice for cows.
>>5100318>Why does human life have value? Because of our uniquely deep and aware conscious experience.Because they can reason?>Do animals share this trait? They don't seem to.Non “human” animals alive today can’t reason>Only humans who have developed/haven't lost this trait are worthy of moral consideration.Most people already believe that humans who lose the ability to reason because they were shot in the head but are still alive and conscious and less intelligent then a pig should still have rights.>As far as I know, vegans have no answer for someone who doesn't already value animals.For non vegans who believe in human rights and logical and internal consistency. https://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/index.php/NameTheTrait
>>5100318>i think a lot of people who aren’t white supremacists presuppose certain values that make caring about non white suffering and or rights violations obvious to them, and this makes their arguments weak against a person who doesn't share those values.>If you think deeply about it, and read these studies, you will find that non whites can feel pain and suffer.This can only convince someone that already shares your belief that non whites are worthy of moral consideration for any reason.Why does white life have value? Because of our white dna we possess.Do non whites share this trait? They don't seem to.Only whites who possess/haven't lost this trait are worthy of moral consideration.Therefore: what happens to non whites doesn't matter beyond a white-centric desire to keep ecosystems that benefit us from collapsing and keeping cute non whites that make us feel good.As far as I know, people who are not white supremacists have no answer for someone who doesn't already value non whites..This dialogue tree has been used by vegans many times in live debates, (feel free to comment on one of their videos, email them, message them on Instagram etc to challenge them to a debate on NTT )https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JiGT6ox0Y-Mhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gJR5vsrkr9Ahttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oQLjgo2TfcMhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrtziO8Ffc4&pp=ygUjRHIgQXZpIGRlYmF0ZSB2ZWdhbiBuYW1lIHRoZSB0cmFpdCA%3DIf someone says it's okay to kill a animal and turn them into a burger but not okay to do that to a human and the reason they give is that animals can't reason but humans can they'd have to bite the bullet and say it's okay to turn severely permanently mentally handicapped humans who can't reason into burgers. Or go vegan. Or name another trait(s)
>>5100328>i abstract the rule backwards on my chosen path and arrive at my desired general conclusionLogical internal consistency beyond practical use is of zero value. It has no reason to exist in non-theistic morality. Internal consistency only functions with regards to divine law as it is assumed every statement is perfect and the will of the universe itself, and co-occurring divine statements light the way back to god. You have no god so you’re arbitrarily constructing a path back to your desired faux-divine guiding principle, from flawed human statements that were not meant to be taken as divine truth, but rather immediately useful guidelines. Basically you’re stupid. >>5100330False equivalence + AI generated textAgain, you are permanently banned from all boards. When you post on /pol/ your ID and flag change periodically. You need proxies to post here. This is for a reason. You are stupid. You are not wanted here. You bring less to the table than common trolls, who are at least ebin. I expect this thread to vanish soon.
>>5100331>>5100331>on my chosen path and arrive at my desired general conclusionNo? There’s examples of people who went vegan only because name the trait “forced” them to. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XkMUr0WCOw4>For what it's worth, NTT is the only thing that motivated me to go vegan, where all the other things you mentioned were completely ineffective for me. I understand this is just my personal anecdote, which is precisely why empirical data is required to resolve such a question instead of bloviating about mechanistic speculations to assess an exposure outcome relationship.from vegan Dr Avi ^There’s people who were completely pro choice who became against abortion because of these types of arguments like this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SembwMzMePQ>Logical internal consistency beyond practical use is of zero value. You can’t trust a hypocrite. If you abandon logical consistency you can justify literally anything and everything and there’s no point of having any morals at that point. It’s just might makes right>False equivalence It’s an analogy.>AI generated textI typed it all myself
Anybody else automatically disregard anything an itoddler has to say?
>>5100335I just eat some animal products every time I see one of these threads.
>>5100334>i-its hypocrisyThen you’re just stupid. You mistake general use statements for word of god that can illuminate the ultimate truth. You think you’re reading scripture so you ramble “if we have to do this then we are forced to do this as well, it is logically implied” like a rabbi in the talmud but you have no gods or prophets so you’re just an idiot. The ultimate truth behind all of it is humans who prioritize human life are significantly more likely to reproduce and survive. When we say suffering bad we mean interpret that in the context of valuing humans and only valuing animals insofar as it is relevant to humans. This includes both intellectual and instinctual thought. Hence normal people dont really get a choice… and some people are irredeemable, impossible to convince to behave ideally for the species. Why value humans above all else? Because if you don’t agree, you’re not just more likely to die and less likely to reproduce, you may very well be a threat to others. In fact I believe you have proudly said you would murder a PERSON to save one thousand cattle from becoming food for thousands more people.
>>5100336GoodThe primary consequence of widespread veganism is widespread malnutrition and civilizational and human genetic development stalling and possibly reversing. Every time it has been tried. Wars have been won and empires built based on which group ate more meat. Prefer meats rich in DHA - fish, grass fed beef. Eat lots of eggs too. Just avoid ultra processed carbs and stick to whole grains and you’ll be healthy.
>>5100337>The ultimate truth behind all of it is aliens who prioritize alien life are significantly more likely to reproduce and survive. When we say suffering bad we mean interpret that in the context of valuing aliens and only valuing humans insofar as it is relevant to aliens. This includes both intellectual and instinctual thought. Hence normal aliens dont really get a choice… and some people are irredeemable, impossible to convince to behave ideally for the species.>Why value aliens above all else? Because if you don’t agree, you’re not just more likely to die and less likely to reproduce, you may very well be a threat to others. In fact I believe you have proudly said you would murder a ALIEN to save one thousand humans from becoming food for thousands more aliens.
>>5100343https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BUbYgDAK0FYhttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BUbYgDAK0FY
>>5100343>m-my moral system has to account for aliens applying it to me because they will surely worship artefacts of human cognition such as logical consistency as god like i, the narcissistic fedora tipping atheist cuck!My moral system says being logically arbitrary is often necessary to sate god given instinct and intuition so the aliens won’t eat us because of the vibes. Same reason humans don’t eat chimps, dogs, or pork nor do we want to. All purely logical systems are intuitively evil. Now you say your intuition includes cows. Then I say if you threaten a man in the name of a cow you will be killed. And you continue not doing shit because your real goal is sating your narcissistic impulses. And I continue eating the cows. And so will the aliens. Including my friends Kaylssshkcshhhhkssssshk and Bev-sohar LXIV, although they’re more partial to goats desu. Bev’s doing gyros next solstice party. Shit will be so cash.
>>5100343>m'alien, do you not respect how consistent i am? because i do not eat animals, you ought not eat me. i am no hypocrite. i do not value one life more than another. to me, suffering is wrong, or it is not. killing is wrong, or it is not. i am a thoughtful person. an enlightened one. this is objective truAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH AAAAAAAAAAAAAGH MY FUCKING ARM WHAT THE FUAAAAAAA PLEASE STOP AAAAAAAAAAA THIS IS EVI*ACK*>Holy fucking shit, vegans are delicious. I always thought humans tasted like garbage. Humans, take me to where you keep your vegans!>Oh, we will. And we have recipes too. Have you heard of... barbecue?>Can any human be a vegan?>No, xarlog. Most of us would become sick and never develop any appreciable muscle mass. However, people from the indian subcontinent seem to be well adapted to it.
