Meat Morality and Human/Animal/Alien Rights

This is a thread exploring morality. I am not a vegetarian, not even a particular advocate of animal rights. I have no ideological axe to grind on this issue. But I do think that the way we treat animals is rationally unjustifiable.How can we rationally justify treating conscious, pain feeling creatures in the way that we do? We treat them in ways that we would not dream of treating human beings no matter how lacking in conscious awareness or the ability to feel pain those humans might be (e.g. humans in an irreversible vegetative state, new born babies etc. etc.)Put it this way - If a highly intelligent, highly advanced far intellectually superior alien race came to Earth and started treating humans in much the same way that we treat animals (intense meat farming, milk extraction, slave labour, conducting experiments, testing cosmetics etc. etc.) on what rational and consistent basis could we tell them that what they are doing is morally wrong whilst simultaneously justifying our own treatment of intellectually inferior creatures?It seems to me the best we can hope for is that any such hypothetical aliens be more enlightened than us and that they treat our rationally unjustifiable special pleading as a result of our feeble intellects. What do you think?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Wotcha Iano Fair point. But I would make a couple of points. A) Do we inflict such atrocities largely by dehumanising those humans who suffer from such things? B) If you had to choose to actively do these things to a room full of humans or a room full of cows which would you consider more morally acceptable? How many would disagree with you? C) Whilst we may have an abominible record of human Vs human atrocities do most of us consider equal atrocities towards animals (including speciocide) as even remotely comparable or in many cases even worthy of comment?In short I don't dispute our ability to dehumanise each other. But I ask whether many would justify bio experiments on humans, the farming of humans for meat and milk or any other such activities that we regularly impose on animals? And if not on what rational basis do we distinguish animals from humans that would stand up to my intellectually superior alien morality question.

Sounds lovely.How would we feel about an advanced alien that led us passively to our deaths by being autistically in tune with us as an intellectually inferior species?

Can you tell me how you would go about arguing that these intellectually superior aliens should not treat us as we treat cattle?My own position on this is that as a human I a perfectly happy to special plead humanity as a reason to distinguish us from cattle or indeed any other animal. But I don't think you could make a rational moral argument to aliens on that basis.

If sentience rather than humanity is your criteria then I assume you think performing experiments on brain damaged humans incapable of sentience is OK? Are they more sentient than the chimps on whuich we do experiment?As much as we convince ourselves that it is sentience or whatever that we are basing our criteria upon I think at the end of the day we just think humans are more worthy of moral consideration. Like I said I don't have a problem with this. I just don't think a purely rational criteria based case can be made for it.

If they don't then we are just "cattle" as far as they are concerned. And I see little rational justification for telling them otherwise.

Exactly. So why even pretend that things ike sentience are our criteria when newborn babies and brain dead humans lacking sentience are more protected than sentient beings such as chimps?Why not just admit we are being irrationaly humo-centric and get on with things?

Wrong. It has everything to do with it. If they are superior cognitively in the sense we are to chimps then why is there a moral difference between the way we treat chimps and they way an alien civilisation should morally treat us? That is the question here. So brain dead humans incapable of such cognitive abilities are fair game for experimentation and meat farming then? A newborn human baby is wholly incapable of such arguments. As is a brain dead human. Are these cases less deserving of more cognitively aware animals in terms of rights?Are you really arguing the case for the most cognitively aware? Or are you special pleading humans when it really comes down to it?

No that would be a wholly consistent attribute based method of applying morality (although we would have to define what we mean by sentience). I just don't think that is how we operate in practise. I know that I personally find the idea of experimenting on humans, even those lacking full sentience (for reasons or age, injury, ilness or whatever) as immoral.I think we all special plead humanity and that we are fooling ourselves if we say that we are applying morality on a purely rational basis that we could convey to some non-human moral entity (i.e. my hypopthetical aliens).Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

I wholly agree. It is an instinctive disposition. Not a rationally thought out moral stance that we could covincingly argue that a moral alien being should take on board. That is my point. Then they may well treat us as we treat animals and (morally) we would have little basis for complaint. I am working on it.Edited by Straggler, : Spelling

Precisely. Let’s take sentience as our defining attribute (however that is measured?). Now let’s say that we are judged to be closer in terms of sentience to our fellow apes than to our hypothetical aliens. On what rational moral basis can we argue that the aliens in question should treat us with any more moral consideration than we treat chimps?I don’t think we can. Which means either there is something immoral about the way we treat our fellow animals or we need to hope that any such aliens either don’t exist or are more morally enlightened than we are.

I am not sure we have learnt this at all have we? What makes you think we have? Well I didn't say it was immoarl to eat cows. I asked if we accept it as moral to eat cows then on what basis we would argue that advanced aliens should not farm and eat us? Then the aliens have every moral right to farm and eat us if they so wish? Eating meat is entirely natural. True. That doesn't necessarily mean it is moral. Surely that is for us to decide? All I am asking is on what basis we make that decision and then what the logical implications of consistenly applying that reasoning are if the positions of us as eater and eaten are reversed?

Hi Bluejay
I have replied to you but this is a general post to anyone interested in this topic really. Let me try and explain where I am coming from in this thread.I recently argued with Hyro about the humanity of a conceptus in the context of abortion. This got me thinking. A conceptus is nothing more than an unaware mindless clump of cells devoid of a brain , central nervous system, feeling or sentience of any sort. It isn’t human. On this basis I have no moral issue with abortion. Many here seem to agree with this stance and this broad reasoning. I stand by those comments. But I started asking myself on what basis do we really apply morality? Is terminating the life of a newborn human baby morally wrong? I think we would all agree that it is. But why exactly?Well a newborn human infant does have a brain. It does have a central nervous system. It can feel pain etc. etc. It is human by almost all definitions. It is also sentient in a limited sense. But then again so is a chimpanzee. In fact a chimpanzee is arguably more sentient than a newborn human baby. But that doesn’t stop us treating chimps in ways that we would never treat a human baby. Why? If sentience or ability to feel pain is our criteria then how do we morally justify our treatment of chimps or indeed many other animals? Are we really applying morality on the basis of sentience as we insist? Or are we fooling ourselves?Well we can argue that a human baby has the potential for full human sentience. But does that really help? Would I condone conducting experiments on geriatric humans with degenerative brain disorders that severely impeded their sentience? Even if their level of sentience were less than that of a chimp with no hope of improvement or recovery? No I wouldn’t. Again I don’t think many would. So again sentience based morality is in trouble. It seems to me that ultimately what we are doing is loosely justifying humanity/personhood on the basis of sentience in an initial period but then not applying our criteria consistently either to ourselves or other species.So then I asked myself the question about the aliens. If they are as superior to us as we are to chimps in terms of sentience then on what basis could we possibly tell them that they would be morally wrong to farm us, eat us, experiment on us etc. etc. etc. The answer is that I don’t think we could come up with a consistent rational criteria based moral argument. We would in effect have to rely on them being morally superior to us and hope that they did not emulate our rather morally inconsistent treatment of animals.I am not making a particular moral point about eating meat or whatever. I am just pointing out that we as a species seem to be in denial about the fact that we are very inconsistent in any objective moral sense.

No. I am asking on what objective criteria morality can be consistently applied. If any. Well that is a very philosophical attitude. But I think the bulk of humanity would be morally outraged at the bahaviour of the aliens. Rightly or wrongly. Not really. This is about what criteria we as thinking moral creatures use to apply our morality. Is it sentience? If so how do we justify considering it OK to experiment on chimps whilst not being OK to experiment on humans who are lacking such sentience due to age, accident or illness?Is it morally wrong to eat brain dead humans? If so why?

I accept that a general display of speciestic sentience may well be the deciding factor as far as an alien species is concerned. The alien question is a means to an end rather than the end in itself.My main concern here is with our own inconsistencies. If sentience is indeed our criteria for morality then why do we consider it immoral to experiment on or eat humans who are lacking sentience for reasons of age, injury or illness? Why is it morally OK to eat cows but not brain dead humans? Why can we experiment on chimps but not on humans suffering severe degenerative brain conditions? Which one of the two is more sentient?