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 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.