Imagine that there is some behavior called “snarf,” which 10% of the population thinks is morally acceptable but 90% thinks is abhorrent. The desire of the 10% to perform snarf is going to be outweighed by the desire of the 90% to ban snarf. Thus, society will not move in the direction of legalizing snarf. If that’s still too abstract, substitute “gay marriage” for “snarf.”
Similarly, meat eaters would probably not agree that vegetarians hold the high ground.
I don’t think that a good analogy. i’ve never heard of a carnivore who thought meat eating was morally better. Their argument is that meat eating is not so much worse that it becomes an ethical no-no, rather than a ethically neutral lifestyle choice. (Morally level ground).
People can even carry on doing something they think is morally wrong on the excuse of akrasia.
i’ve never heard of a carnivore who thought meat eating was morally better
By sheerest coincidence, I just tabbed over from precisely that argument offsite. The arguments in favor of meat-eating struck me as rather confused (an odd quasi-Nietzschean will-to-power thing mixed with biological determinism, as best I can tell), but they were moral arguments and they were in favor of carnivory.
I’d expect that sort of thing to be rather rare, though. The mainstream position does seem to be that it simply isn’t a moral issue.
I don’t think that a good analogy. i’ve never heard of a carnivore who thought meat eating was morally better. Their argument is that meat eating is not so much worse that it becomes an ethical no-no, rather than a ethically neutral lifestyle choice. (Morally level ground).
I have. The argument went something like this:
For humans, an action that is natural for humans is more moral than an act that is not natural for humans, all else equal.
For humans, eating (some) meat is natural.
Therefore, for humans, eating (some) meat is more moral than not eating (some) meat, all else equal.
i’ve never heard of a carnivore who thought meat eating was morally better.
Katja Grace claimed to me that being a total utilitarian led her to prefer eating meat, since eating animals creates a reason for the animals to exist in the first place, and she imagines they’d prefer to exist for a while, and then be slaughtered, than not exist at all.
I tend to hang out in the average utilitarian camp, so that one didn’t move me much. On the other hand:
Oh, you want utilitarian logic? One serving of utilitarian logic coming up: Even in the unlikely chance that some moron did manage to confer sentience on chickens, it’s your research that stands the best chance of discovering the fact and doing something about it. If you can complete your work even slightly faster by not messing around with your diet, then, counterintuitive as it may seem, the best thing you can do to save the greatest number of possibly-sentient who-knows-whats is not wasting time on wild guesses about what might be intelligent. It’s not like the house elves haven’t prepared the food already, regardless of what you take onto your plate.
Harry considered this for a moment. It was a rather seductive line of reasoning -
Good! said Slytherin. I’m glad you see now that the most moral thing to do is to sacrifice the lives of sentient beings for your own convenience, to feed your dreadful appetites, for the sick pleasure of ripping them apart with your teeth -
What? Harry thought indignantly. Which side are you on here?
His inner Slytherin’s mental voice was grim. You too will someday embrace the doctrine… that the end justifies the meats. This was followed by some mental snickering.
I’m pretty sure that the maximally healthy diet for me contains meat, that I can be maximally effective in my chosen goals when maximally healthy, and that my likely moral impact on the world makes sacrifices on the order of a cow per year (note that cows are big and hamburgers are small) look like a rounding error.
Yes, your example is outside my model. If snarf is morally acceptable to some and abhorrent to others, this represents a moral conflict. My offered ‘strategy’ only applies to cases where one party is neutral and the other party cares, then you may have a chance of considering the caring party more morally sensitive.
Similarly, meat eaters would probably not agree that vegetarians hold the high ground.
Really? What if it were suddenly possible to harvest livestock without neural systems? If this were possible (and for the least convenient world, assume that such meat was understood to be just as healthy for consumption), do you predict that many people (even current meat eaters) would prefer farming the non-sapient livestock? If so, this would show that many people believe that the suffering of livestock has some moral weight—but perhaps currently offset by other considerations.
In the situation you describe, some meat eaters might still want to eat sapient livestock because some people consider “natural” behaviors to be moral. But there’s no reason to belabor the point—what I was trying to convey above was this: most-moral-minority sometimes oppresses the minority (e.g. the snarf example above) and impedes moral progress. There are certainly cases where it does work, but there are also borderline cases like this one and negative cases like snarf.
Imagine that there is some behavior called “snarf,” which 10% of the population thinks is morally acceptable but 90% thinks is abhorrent. The desire of the 10% to perform snarf is going to be outweighed by the desire of the 90% to ban snarf. Thus, society will not move in the direction of legalizing snarf. If that’s still too abstract, substitute “gay marriage” for “snarf.”
Similarly, meat eaters would probably not agree that vegetarians hold the high ground.
I don’t think that a good analogy. i’ve never heard of a carnivore who thought meat eating was morally better. Their argument is that meat eating is not so much worse that it becomes an ethical no-no, rather than a ethically neutral lifestyle choice. (Morally level ground).
People can even carry on doing something they think is morally wrong on the excuse of akrasia.
And gay marriage is becoming slowly accepted.
By sheerest coincidence, I just tabbed over from precisely that argument offsite. The arguments in favor of meat-eating struck me as rather confused (an odd quasi-Nietzschean will-to-power thing mixed with biological determinism, as best I can tell), but they were moral arguments and they were in favor of carnivory.
I’d expect that sort of thing to be rather rare, though. The mainstream position does seem to be that it simply isn’t a moral issue.
I have. The argument went something like this:
For humans, an action that is natural for humans is more moral than an act that is not natural for humans, all else equal.
For humans, eating (some) meat is natural.
Therefore, for humans, eating (some) meat is more moral than not eating (some) meat, all else equal.
Presumably they hunt their own meat...going to the supermarket is pretty unnatural.
I suspect that you either haven’t looked very hard or very long.
If you have, perhaps you can give me a pointer.
Recently stumbled into this. It’s probably incomplete, but it’s something.
Meat eating is morally better because meat dishes are objectively more aesthetically and gastronomically pleasing, and pleasure is a moral good.
Meat eating is morally better because meat dishes are objectively more aesthetically and gastronomically pleasing, and pleasure is a moral good.
Meat eating is morally better because meat dishes are objectively more aesthetically and gastronomically pleasing, and pleasure is a moral good.
Meat eating is morally better because meat dishes are objectively more aesthetically and gastronomically pleasing, and pleasure is a moral good.
Katja Grace claimed to me that being a total utilitarian led her to prefer eating meat, since eating animals creates a reason for the animals to exist in the first place, and she imagines they’d prefer to exist for a while, and then be slaughtered, than not exist at all.
I tend to hang out in the average utilitarian camp, so that one didn’t move me much. On the other hand:
I’m pretty sure that the maximally healthy diet for me contains meat, that I can be maximally effective in my chosen goals when maximally healthy, and that my likely moral impact on the world makes sacrifices on the order of a cow per year (note that cows are big and hamburgers are small) look like a rounding error.
Yes, your example is outside my model. If snarf is morally acceptable to some and abhorrent to others, this represents a moral conflict. My offered ‘strategy’ only applies to cases where one party is neutral and the other party cares, then you may have a chance of considering the caring party more morally sensitive.
Really? What if it were suddenly possible to harvest livestock without neural systems? If this were possible (and for the least convenient world, assume that such meat was understood to be just as healthy for consumption), do you predict that many people (even current meat eaters) would prefer farming the non-sapient livestock? If so, this would show that many people believe that the suffering of livestock has some moral weight—but perhaps currently offset by other considerations.
In the situation you describe, some meat eaters might still want to eat sapient livestock because some people consider “natural” behaviors to be moral. But there’s no reason to belabor the point—what I was trying to convey above was this: most-moral-minority sometimes oppresses the minority (e.g. the snarf example above) and impedes moral progress. There are certainly cases where it does work, but there are also borderline cases like this one and negative cases like snarf.
Not all of them, but some do.
Agreed.