{"items": [{"author": "Andrew", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=449572878392870", "anchor": "fb-449572878392870", "service": "fb", "text": "Some trees benefit from having chunks cut off them in a certain way. Such cutting is called pruning. Other trees are not harmed or benefitted by cutting chunks off them, but the wood harvested is useful to the human for fuel. Such cutting is sometimes called pollarding.
If the puppy is harmed by the kicking then how could it be anything but immoral? If it is not harmed but merely suffers a discomfort then it still seems immoral as it causes suffering.
Can ants suffer? I'm not sure. Can video game humans suffer? Definitely not.", "timestamp": "1335795069"}, {"author": "Brian", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=449572971726194", "anchor": "fb-449572971726194", "service": "fb", "text": "Thanks, Jeff. We certainly do have to pick and choose among our intuitions. However, I find that most of my intuitions resolve themselves on their own when I think about the matter for more than 5 seconds. For example, I don't feel any (conscious) inclination toward any of the bullet points you listed (possibly excepting the emulation one), even though I may have automatic/subconscious tendencies toward some of them. Upon reflection, the answer seems pretty clear. It also seems pretty clear to me that all and only conscious suffering/happiness matters, regardless of the species of the organism.
Sorry this reply wasn't very helpful; I'm just explaining what it feels like to me.
If I think about cutting chunks off a tree for more than 1 second, I see absolutely no moral problem with this, except insofar as hurting trees might have repercussions (good or bad) to conscious beings down the road. Perhaps part of the yuck factor comes from the fact that if we see someone do this, we might be more worried that the person will show no empathy to conscious creatures.
There are some things that are still unclear to me after more than 5 seconds, like torture vs. dust specks.", "timestamp": "1335795080"}, {"author": "Phillip", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=449595208390637", "anchor": "fb-449595208390637", "service": "fb", "text": "Don't discount the moral harm to the actor, rather than the acted upon.", "timestamp": "1335797149"}, {"author": "Brian", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=449613478388810", "anchor": "fb-449613478388810", "service": "fb", "text": "Can ants suffer? I'm not sure (http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/insect-pain.html), but until we know further, we should give them a nonzero probability of suffering in our expected-value calculations.
Can video-game humans suffer? No, not yet. However, in the farther future, we may very well have conscious digital minds (whether human or not).", "timestamp": "1335797558"}, {"author": "Paul", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=449671028383055", "anchor": "fb-449671028383055", "service": "fb", "text": "One ethical system that I find useful is Aldo Leopold's land ethic: \"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.\" http://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/landethic.html", "timestamp": "1335801863"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=449690911714400", "anchor": "fb-449690911714400", "service": "fb", "text": "@Andrew: assume that the tree cutting is malicious in intent and damaging to the tree.", "timestamp": "1335803800"}, {"author": "Andrew", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=449712058378952", "anchor": "fb-449712058378952", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff, apart from intent, if it was damaging to the tree then I'd ask: where in its life cycle is this tree, what is the good that this tree provides in life and health, how many units of this good will be lost in cutting this tree today?
Malicious intent is an interesting and separate question. Is it immoral to hate? I hope not. Is harm inflicted out of love less harmful than the same harm inflicted out of hate. Probably not. Maybe even more damaging in some ways.", "timestamp": "1335806027"}, {"author": "Andrew", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=449831315033693", "anchor": "fb-449831315033693", "service": "fb", "text": "In making ethical decisions in medicine, I generally turn to two opposing and complementary moral systems: (1) the Kantian \"what if everyone did it\", versus (2) the utilitarian question of cost versus benefit in this one case.
So in the tree chunking example, one could say that, assuming the tree is harmed, from the Kantian perspective either (1) it is an immoral act because if everyone were to do it, itd be very bad for trees and people, or (2) the proper question isn't what if everyone did it, but rather what if everyone who wanted to do it did it? The harms might be a lot less in the second case, with the benefit of allowing people the freedom to pursue their own happiness in whatever curious direction it may lead them.
The utilitarian answer would be something like what I said in an earlier comment: how much does the tree unchunked benefit us all, and how much will we all benefit from the chunking of the tree? One might even want to include opportunity costs into this analysis: how much good will we lose out on by saving the tree from being chunked? What do we lose if the tree is chunked?", "timestamp": "1335817687"}, {"author": "Andrew", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=449839541699537", "anchor": "fb-449839541699537", "service": "fb", "text": "Sorry for all the comments, but just wanted to add this. The question reminds me of the debate over cockfighting.
http://www.salon.com/.../cockfighting_barbarism_or.../
Back to the chickens. What about the fact that we simply don\u2019t treat them very nicely, even when we\u2019re not turning them into feathered gladiators? All it takes is one viewing of \u201cFood, Inc.\u201d or a similar documentary to see that most male chicks are chucked into a shredder before they can see the light of day, and that the majority of hens are bred to be so fat they can\u2019t walk. Companies like Tyson and Perdue have a stranglehold on the chicken industry, mandating that farmers keep their poultry in smelly, dark houses so packed with animals that many are crushed to death by the weight of their own kind. Even the lucky 1 percent, free range chickens, are headed for our dinner tables. What\u2019s so bad about raising a rooster to fight to the death, especially when the ones found still alive at busted cockfights are often euthanized anyway?
\u201cI treated my chickens like kings,\u201d Bo said. \u201cI fed them well, I made sure they wanted for nothing. They were loved. These animal rights people, the Humane Society, what they want to do is get rid of the breeds. That\u2019s what they want to do. This isn\u2019t about the chickens or their rights. It\u2019s about the government overstepping its power.\u201d", "timestamp": "1335818369"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=449927255024099", "anchor": "fb-449927255024099", "service": "fb", "text": "@Andrew: \"how much does the tree unchunked benefit us all, and how much will we all benefit from the chunking of the tree?\"
Here you implicitly assume an \"us\" that counts in your moral system. Who does it consist of? People? Does it include trees?", "timestamp": "1335827088"}, {"author": "Todd", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/112947709146257842066", "anchor": "gp-1335827569019", "service": "gp", "text": "In some of the examples you list, the things are wrong less because they are incredibly harmful, and more because they are pointlessly harmful- there's no offsetting benefit. The exception is the video games example- that's definitely an extension of natural empathy to a realm where it really doesn't matter. Although personally, I take a certain amount of pride in the fact that I have trouble acting like a jerk in a video game. I've got to think that it says good things about my behavior in general, even if it's irrational in and of itself.\n
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\nIf you had a situation where you could kick a puppy to save someone $15, or $50, or $1000, or $100,000... put a price on it, and that should give some context.", "timestamp": 1335827569}, {"author": "Andrew", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=449941611689330", "anchor": "fb-449941611689330", "service": "fb", "text": "Whoa. Good question. Just off the cuff, I'll say that In my moral system \"us\" would include any and all organisms with a consciousness, so it wouldn't include a tree.", "timestamp": "1335828793"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=450043155012509", "anchor": "fb-450043155012509", "service": "fb", "text": "@Brian: do I read you correctly as taking \"capacity for suffering\" to be the primary way of determining whether (and how much) something counts?", "timestamp": "1335840086"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=450044071679084", "anchor": "fb-450044071679084", "service": "fb", "text": "@Phillip: sure. But is kicking puppies *only* bad because of its effect on humans?", "timestamp": "1335840183"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1335840621213", "service": "gp", "text": "If you want an offsetting benefit, imagine there's a group of people who have some sort of social group built around causing the harm. Some lovers carve their initials in trees.\n
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\nMy real question is what are first class entities in my moral system? When I look at \"how good is this world?\" what are the beings that I consider how good the world is for?\n
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\nI'm not convinced that extending empathy to in the case of squished ants or cut trees is any more reasonable than extending it to video game characters.", "timestamp": 1335840621}, {"author": "Todd", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/112947709146257842066", "anchor": "gp-1335840789611", "service": "gp", "text": "Why can't it be weighted? It seems reasonable to extend it to them, just don't extent it very far.", "timestamp": 1335840789}, {"author": "Frederic", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/118156077148469167305", "anchor": "gp-1335850950212", "service": "gp", "text": "Damaging trees is bound up in environmental and aesthetic issues as well as moral ones. \n
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\nAs for bugs, I used to capture and release them, but now I just swat the unpleasant ones; I agree that they're somewhere around tree level. What to do about almost completely (but not 100%) insensate creatures is a tough question.", "timestamp": 1335850950}, {"author": "Brian", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=450147098335448", "anchor": "fb-450147098335448", "service": "fb", "text": "@Jeff, yes, \"capacity for suffering\" is what matters. To be more precise, I would agree with Andrew that it's all and only \"states of conscious emotion\" that matter, and I give very high weight to suffering compared with other emotions.
@Andrew, I assume you personally oppose cockfighting (and factory farming)? Another nice analogy are crush videos: http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/.../some-animals...", "timestamp": "1335852084"}, {"author": "Phillip", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/449562968393861?comment_id=450331318317026", "anchor": "fb-450331318317026", "service": "fb", "text": "@Jeff, no, not at all. I just feel, too often, we fail to realize the corrosive effect of bad behavior on ourselves.", "timestamp": "1335876054"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1335921767913", "service": "gp", "text": "@Todd\n They can be weighted, but then the question is how. \n@Brian\n suggests weighting by emotional capacity.", "timestamp": 1335921767}, {"author": "Brian", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/116207869987058429586", "anchor": "gp-1335933917299", "service": "gp", "text": "I would give literally zero direct weight to trees, because they aren't sentient (whereas ants potentially are). Current video-game characters are not sentient either. Harming these things still matters indirectly, but they aren't \"first-class moral entities,\" IMHO.", "timestamp": 1335933917}, {"author": "Todd", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/112947709146257842066", "anchor": "gp-1335936727768", "service": "gp", "text": "I'm skeptical that trees deserve no weight, though it's hard to dissociate that from human concerns (aesthetics, conservation, etc.). I'm trying to think of a thought experiment that would pull them apart, but nothing is coming to mind.", "timestamp": 1335936727}, {"author": "Brian", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/116207869987058429586", "anchor": "gp-1335937243002", "service": "gp", "text": "One famous case is the \"last man\" thought experiment (\nhttp://research.biology.arizona.edu/mosquito/willott/323/intro.html\n). I think there would be nothing wrong with destroying the last Redwood just for fun. However, as you say, it's tough to look at it only through the antiseptic lenses of a pure thought experiment, because there would be all sorts of real-world complications. For example, keeping a tree around increases the probability that sentient life would re-evolve on the planet. (I think that would be a net bad outcome: \nhttp://www.utilitarian-essays.com/suffering-nature.html\n)", "timestamp": 1335937243}]}