I think that your argument for “The animals we farm lack any concepts of suffering and joy similar to ours” is seriously lacking. The cruxes are (roughly) “if they have the mental ability to choose to commit suicide but don’t, then their lives are worth living” and “if they don’t have the mental ability to choose to commit suicide, they don’t have high level reasoning and therefore don’t suffer.”
The first point seems fallacious, since most factory farmed animals don’t have the physical ability to commit suicide.
As for the second point, making assumptions about their mental perception of suffering based on their cognitive capacity for certain unrelated tasks (ie. ability to conceptualize suicide and death) seems obviously wrong to me. There are many humans who don’t have the ability to reason about suicide but undoubtedly suffer. I’d say that most factory farmed animals likely don’t have the mental ability to do the reasoning of “if I do X action, it will cause me to die, which will end the pain,” but they still have very obvious levels of suffering.
The first point seems fallacious, since most factory farmed animals don’t have the physical ability to commit suicide.
Does the argument require for that to be the case ? In the ideal scenario yes, but in the pragamatic scenario one can just look for such behavior in conditions where it can be expressed. Since, much like humans vary enough that some “suffer” under the best of conditions enough to commit suicide, presumably so would animals.
There are many humans who don’t have the ability to reason about suicide but undoubtedly suffer
I’m taking it as granted that every human not in a coma can suffer, which I hope is uncontroversial. There are also many people who have an intellectual disability such that they don’t seem to be mentally capable of reasoning about death. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51532566_Concept_of_death_and_perceptions_of_bereavement_in_adults_with_intellectual_disabilities says that of the patients surveyed, which excluded people with a severe intellectual disability, 6% had a limited understanding of death, which I presume is a prerequisite for a concept of suicide. They also say that “many take a fatalistic view of death and believe that death only applies to the old or sick” and that many don’t believe that it can happen to them, both of which seem like issues for having a concept of suicide.
Similarly, in England and Wales in 2006, 89% of terminations occurred at or under 12 weeks, 9% between 13 and 19 weeks, and 2% at or over 20 weeks.
CNS starts developing at ~4 weeks, but the cerebral hemispheres start differentiating around week 8. Given 200,000 abortions a year in the UK alone, which the people doing and most (all?) of us don’t see as an immoral act, that’s at least 12,000 human children with a functioning brain killed a year in the UK, a number that is probably 10x in the US and hundreds of times higher if you account for all the world.
When you reach 20 weeks, where abortions still happens, well, one could argue the brain could be more developed than that of living human being, unless you want to assume it’s not a question of synaptic activity, nr of neurons & axons but instead of divine transubstantiation ( in which case the whole debate is moot).
So I would indeed say many humans agree that suffering is not a universal experience for every single being that shares our genetic code and exception such as human still in a mother’s womb are made. Whether that is true or not is another question entirely.
Many of us might claim this is not the case, but as I made it clear in this article, I’m a fan of looking at our actions rather than the moral stances we echo from soapboxes.
I think that your argument for “The animals we farm lack any concepts of suffering and joy similar to ours” is seriously lacking. The cruxes are (roughly) “if they have the mental ability to choose to commit suicide but don’t, then their lives are worth living” and “if they don’t have the mental ability to choose to commit suicide, they don’t have high level reasoning and therefore don’t suffer.”
The first point seems fallacious, since most factory farmed animals don’t have the physical ability to commit suicide.
As for the second point, making assumptions about their mental perception of suffering based on their cognitive capacity for certain unrelated tasks (ie. ability to conceptualize suicide and death) seems obviously wrong to me. There are many humans who don’t have the ability to reason about suicide but undoubtedly suffer. I’d say that most factory farmed animals likely don’t have the mental ability to do the reasoning of “if I do X action, it will cause me to die, which will end the pain,” but they still have very obvious levels of suffering.
Does the argument require for that to be the case ? In the ideal scenario yes, but in the pragamatic scenario one can just look for such behavior in conditions where it can be expressed. Since, much like humans vary enough that some “suffer” under the best of conditions enough to commit suicide, presumably so would animals.
Wait, what ? Ahm, can I ask for source on that ?
I’m taking it as granted that every human not in a coma can suffer, which I hope is uncontroversial. There are also many people who have an intellectual disability such that they don’t seem to be mentally capable of reasoning about death. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51532566_Concept_of_death_and_perceptions_of_bereavement_in_adults_with_intellectual_disabilities says that of the patients surveyed, which excluded people with a severe intellectual disability, 6% had a limited understanding of death, which I presume is a prerequisite for a concept of suicide. They also say that “many take a fatalistic view of death and believe that death only applies to the old or sick” and that many don’t believe that it can happen to them, both of which seem like issues for having a concept of suicide.
I don’t think it’s that uncontroversial
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion#Gestational_age_and_method
CNS starts developing at ~4 weeks, but the cerebral hemispheres start differentiating around week 8. Given 200,000 abortions a year in the UK alone, which the people doing and most (all?) of us don’t see as an immoral act, that’s at least 12,000 human children with a functioning brain killed a year in the UK, a number that is probably 10x in the US and hundreds of times higher if you account for all the world.
When you reach 20 weeks, where abortions still happens, well, one could argue the brain could be more developed than that of living human being, unless you want to assume it’s not a question of synaptic activity, nr of neurons & axons but instead of divine transubstantiation ( in which case the whole debate is moot).
So I would indeed say many humans agree that suffering is not a universal experience for every single being that shares our genetic code and exception such as human still in a mother’s womb are made. Whether that is true or not is another question entirely.
Many of us might claim this is not the case, but as I made it clear in this article, I’m a fan of looking at our actions rather than the moral stances we echo from soapboxes.
Sorry, let me amend my statement to “every adult human not in a coma”