By the way, for everyone who’s interested in convincing people that animals suffer and that animal suffering is morally relevant, I recommend reading (and quoting to people) Stanislaw Lem’s short story “The Seventh Sally, or How Trurl’s Own Perfection Led to No Good”. I found it to be possibly the most emotionally and logically salient argument for the “suffering matters, no matter what sort” position I’ve ever read. Here’s the most relevant passage (Klapaucius’s reply to Trurl arguing that his creations are mere simulacra, and so are not capable of real suffering):
“Come now, don’t pretend not to understand what I’m saying, I know you’re not that stupid! A phonograph record won’t run errands for you, won’t beg for mercy or fall on its knees! You say there’s no way of knowing whether Excelcius’s subjects groan, when beaten, purely because of the electrons hopping about inside—like wheels grinding out the mimicry of a voice—or whether they really groan, that is, because they honestly experience the pain? A pretty distinction, this! No, Trurl, a sufferer is not one who hands you his suffering, that you may touch it, weigh it, bite it like a coin; a sufferer is one who behaves like a sufferer! Prove to me here and now, once and for all, that they do not feel, that they do not think, that they do not in any way exist as being conscious of their enclosure between the two abysses of oblivion—the abyss before birth and the abyss that follows death—prove this to me, Trurl, and I’ll leave you be! Prove that you only imitated suffering, and did not create it!”
“You know perfectly well that’s impossible,” answered Trurl quietly, “Even before I took my instruments in hand, when the box was still empty, I had to anticipate the possibility of precisely such a proof—in order to rule it out. …
The entire story is well worth a read for anyone interested in this debate.
I think part of the problem here is that there is still an unsupported assumption, a pretty big one, at the core of the argument which it seems like people aren’t seriously addressing. Why is it exactly we should be going around trying to prevent suffering in the first place?
Obviously most of us already care about suffering, at least under certain circumstances, because of the human drive of empathy. And if you or the OP were to say “I am upset by the suffering of these animals because I empathize with them, and as such here is a solution I would endorse...” then that would be fine; I can’t see any flaw in that argument at all. Of course it’s not terribly convincing, which is a bit of an issue of efficiency if you want to get other people on board with your plan, but waving the flag of morality seems like a Dark Side sort of solution; it puts a pretty big target on someone’s back when they have to essentially swear team allegiance before they’re allowed to engage with the argument critically. An ethical argument is not exempt from having to have a solid foundation; assumptions should be acknowledged and named where reasonably possible if the objective is to present a strong argument.
This is especially problematic because this argument implicitly calls for restrictions on the behavior of people who don’t agree with it’s assumptions. People using very similar arguments have already severely restricted access to lab animals for medical / biological experimentation, so it’s hardly unreasonable to see that these sorts of arguments have potential real-world political traction. If someone is trying to control my behavior, I certainly expect an explanation better than ‘the alternative would upset me’!
I get that, in the long-run, empaths win and the sphere of things-we-care-about keeps expanding. But since this is a blog about rationality, maybe we could at least naming empathy as the motivator for these sorts of posts rather than dressing it all up in morality?
By the way, for everyone who’s interested in convincing people that animals suffer and that animal suffering is morally relevant, I recommend reading (and quoting to people) Stanislaw Lem’s short story “The Seventh Sally, or How Trurl’s Own Perfection Led to No Good”. I found it to be possibly the most emotionally and logically salient argument for the “suffering matters, no matter what sort” position I’ve ever read. Here’s the most relevant passage (Klapaucius’s reply to Trurl arguing that his creations are mere simulacra, and so are not capable of real suffering):
The entire story is well worth a read for anyone interested in this debate.
Still, this doesn’t answer, why should I care?
I think part of the problem here is that there is still an unsupported assumption, a pretty big one, at the core of the argument which it seems like people aren’t seriously addressing. Why is it exactly we should be going around trying to prevent suffering in the first place?
Obviously most of us already care about suffering, at least under certain circumstances, because of the human drive of empathy. And if you or the OP were to say “I am upset by the suffering of these animals because I empathize with them, and as such here is a solution I would endorse...” then that would be fine; I can’t see any flaw in that argument at all. Of course it’s not terribly convincing, which is a bit of an issue of efficiency if you want to get other people on board with your plan, but waving the flag of morality seems like a Dark Side sort of solution; it puts a pretty big target on someone’s back when they have to essentially swear team allegiance before they’re allowed to engage with the argument critically. An ethical argument is not exempt from having to have a solid foundation; assumptions should be acknowledged and named where reasonably possible if the objective is to present a strong argument.
This is especially problematic because this argument implicitly calls for restrictions on the behavior of people who don’t agree with it’s assumptions. People using very similar arguments have already severely restricted access to lab animals for medical / biological experimentation, so it’s hardly unreasonable to see that these sorts of arguments have potential real-world political traction. If someone is trying to control my behavior, I certainly expect an explanation better than ‘the alternative would upset me’!
I get that, in the long-run, empaths win and the sphere of things-we-care-about keeps expanding. But since this is a blog about rationality, maybe we could at least naming empathy as the motivator for these sorts of posts rather than dressing it all up in morality?
I misread the comment above mine; please ignore comment this as it is off-topic.