{"items": [{"author": "Danni", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=268369123253588", "anchor": "fb-268369123253588", "service": "fb", "text": "A semantic note: Peter Singer is an \"animal rights\" activist, which is different from \"animal welfare\". The \"animal rights\" position is that animals should not be used/enslaved by humans (for food, clothing, vivisection, etc). The \"animal welfare\" position is that animals may be ethically used for these purposes if they are treated with certain standards of humaneness. Most animal rights activists reject the \"animal welfare\" position because the \"animal rights\" belief is that keeping animals (including humans) in captivity is fundamentally unethical regardless of how well the animals are treated.", "timestamp": "1334160459"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=268379626585871", "anchor": "fb-268379626585871", "service": "fb", "text": "@Oliver: fixed", "timestamp": "1334161800"}, {"author": "Sasha", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=268385013251999", "anchor": "fb-268385013251999", "service": "fb", "text": "Er, recorrection. Peter Singer does not support animal rights, coming as he does from a philosophical tradition that views rights as 'nonsense upon stilts'. In the intro to one of his books (Practical Ethics 2e, I think) he makes this clear, saying that he would only ever use the word 'right' as shorthand for the wellbeing of animals, and only then if he'd recently explained as much - he then avoids the word throughout the book, IIRC.
In fact I'm sure Singer would be happy for animals to be used subject to 'certain standards of humaneness', though the standards he seeks might be well beyond those that other people using the welfarist moniker would.", "timestamp": "1334162470"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=268394099917757", "anchor": "fb-268394099917757", "service": "fb", "text": "How about \"known for animal activism\"?", "timestamp": "1334163589"}, {"author": "Danni", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=268400659917101", "anchor": "fb-268400659917101", "service": "fb", "text": "I stand corrected. :) It was a long time ago that I read Singer, so my memory is faulty.", "timestamp": "1334164319"}, {"author": "Sasha", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=268528539904313", "anchor": "fb-268528539904313", "service": "fb", "text": "Sounds like a safe option. I don't know exactly how he'd describe himself...", "timestamp": "1334178884"}, {"author": "Lukas", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=268541766569657", "anchor": "fb-268541766569657", "service": "fb", "text": "In a comment section on the 3rd edition of Practical Ethics, Singer wrote the following:
\"Lori Gruen is right to point to the fact that the difference between merely conscious beings and beings with an interest in a future existence is not clear-cut. Here\u2019s an amusing video about a goose that certainly seems to anticipate the future: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7358041n
That\u2019s far from a scientific proof of the ability of birds to anticipate the future, but in the 3rd edition of Practical Ethics I also discuss studies of scrub jays that appear to show just that. On the ethical question, I have shifted my position between the 2nd and 3rd editions, to the extent that I acknowledge that are differences of degree rather than a sharp cut-off, in the abilities of various beings to anticipate the future. Our judgments of the wrongness of killing should reflect this. In the case of beings with the kind of anticipation of the future that Gruen describes, I would regard this as providing grounds for thinking that the painless killing is wrong, but still less seriously wrong than in the case of a being with a clearer and more long-term view of its own future.\"
Source: http://onthehuman.org/2011/02/taking-life-animals/
Practically this means that he should now be opposed to even the most humane farming on the empirical grounds that even chicken are \"kind-of-persons\". Already (at least) in the 2nd edition, Singer emphasizes that on the \"practical level\" (he supports the idea of two-level utiltiarianism), killing sentient beings should be regarded as wrong, and he makes clear that he supports animal rights in the legal sense.", "timestamp": "1334180572"}, {"author": "Sean", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/107270646379592003271", "anchor": "gp-1334197894714", "service": "gp", "text": "off topic, and I may've asked before, but what are you using/doing to share these posts and collect the comments all in one place?", "timestamp": 1334197894}, {"author": "Roman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=268692386554595", "anchor": "fb-268692386554595", "service": "fb", "text": "So we should breed dumber animals?", "timestamp": "1334200773"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1334212448179", "service": "gp", "text": "Something I wrote: \nhttp://www.jefftk.com/news/2011-08-04.html", "timestamp": 1334212448}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=268759353214565", "anchor": "fb-268759353214565", "service": "fb", "text": "Future-anticipation-ability seems like a weird metric: very simple computer programs can anticipate, so should they be given weight in utilitarian calculations?", "timestamp": "1334212556"}, {"author": "Sasha", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=268824953208005", "anchor": "fb-268824953208005", "service": "fb", "text": "The reason most LW-types I\u2019ve spoken to have given against vegetarianism isn\u2019t that they don\u2019t agree with the arguments, but that they feel that X-risk work has such high expected payoff that any slight decrease in their productivity from the reduced energy levels one might get from eschewing meat costs more than any animal suffering they\u2019d cause by eating it.
Those who don\u2019t see X-risk research as the overriding concern tend to have more modest expectations of the impact they can have, so diminishing it slightly to reduce animal suffering a lot seems like a better trade-off.
Another factor is probably Robin Hanson\u2019s dismissal of vegetarianism http://hanson.gmu.edu/meat.html. Hanson\u2019s a prominent member of the LW community (I believe Less Wrong started out as a splinter from Overcoming Bias, which is now his personal blog), so his views probably carry a lot of weight.
Re future-anticipation, the claim as I understand it isn't that predictions of the future are what matter, but capacity to envisage oneself and therefore one's persistence. Nonetheless I've always thought it seemed odd (not just because I think the deflationary view of identity Chalmers describes on p51 of this paper is obviously the right one http://consc.net/papers/singularity.pdf). I think Michael Tooley came up with the argument, who's a non-consequentialist - I think he's a rights theorist - and it does seem irrelevant to our normal conceptions of utility. If future-oriented interests are so fundamentally important, why in all other circumstances wouldn't we also try to maximise future oriented interests rather than preferences or happiness?", "timestamp": "1334223830"}, {"author": "Sasha", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=268826846541149", "anchor": "fb-268826846541149", "service": "fb", "text": "(I'm compelled to add that I think Hanson's views on vegetarianism are misguided and lazy for a slew of reasons, including totally ignoring the unpleasantness of factory farms, failing to consider the opportunity costs of raising meat for consumption. It's not a crazy consideration, but with characteristic blitheness he just seems to have identified a controversial position that will piss liberals off, given a token argument for it and considered the matter settled.
Matheny and Chan tried examining the argument in more depth, and unsurprisingly found it was a lot more complicated: http://www.qalys.org/animal-welfare.pdf (they come down in favour of vegetarianism))", "timestamp": "1334224145"}, {"author": "Lukas", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=268928879864279", "anchor": "fb-268928879864279", "service": "fb", "text": "The \"Illogic of the Larder\" paper can be used as an argument for meat eating (at least cows and pigs) too when you add that wild animals probably don't have lives worth living. Or when you're following NU. Since cows are best at preventing wild animal life years though, you have an increase in global warming, which, according to Brian's estimates, is probably going to increase the number of wild animals. So the matter is *much* more complex than Hanson naively makes it look. (Add to this that granted the considerations are right, we'd be compelled to find other ways to achieve the indirect positive effects of meat eating more efficiently, and this would then likely speak against it again.)
Even when the above empirical calculations favor meat eating, there still remains one huge reason against it: Public awareness. How on earth are you supposed to get across the message of anti-speciesism if you raise sentient beings in order to later kill them for reasons of taste, tradition or convenience? If we artificially created a mentally impaired hominid slave species, let's call them \"Epsilons\", and let them do work for us that involves suffering, but overall their lives are considered \"worth living\", the logic of the larder argument could justify letting them suffer like that. But most people would be appalled if the species looked kind of humanoid. If you make people buy the argument for animals and not for humans, you circumvent anti-speciesism and it'll just backfire once we'll have the technologies for compassionate intervention in nature. That's why I think Singer has a very good point when he talks about the \"practical level\" and it being reasonable to just state that eating meat is overall bad if you farm and kill an animal for it.
(Additionally, I think the case for NU is much stronger than people may think, the whole notion of \"benefitting x by bringing it into existence\" seems completely absurd to me.)
Regarding Singer's preference utiltiarianism:
The reason future-related preferences seem to have \"extra value\" is simply that Singer considers preferences to be what's valuable. And by killing a being, one violates all future-related preferences. Even though the being is dead and doesn't have any preferences anymore, according to Singer, the preferences of that being are still \"out there\" carrying weight, and when they won't be fulfilled, that counts as bad. I think the whole preference thing is a bit absurd, but imo it's internally consistent. (But regarding the \"prior-existence\" -- that's the reason why no maximization of fulfilled preferences is called for -- aspect of his view, Singer is in fact being inconsistent. If he were consistent, his views would strongly resemble NU.) And its advantage is that it leads to intuitive results where hedonistic utilitarianism would be much more counterintuitive. So Singer's Practical Ethics serves as a great introduction to utilitarianism that doesn't \"scare people away\".", "timestamp": "1334239071"}, {"author": "Brian", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=270894599667707", "anchor": "fb-270894599667707", "service": "fb", "text": "In \"The Fable of the Fox and the Unliberated Animals,\" 1978, Singer says that he mentioned \"rights\" for animals in passing in Animal Liberation, but that he regrets this \"concession to popular moral rhetoric\" because it does not represent his position.
Here's the paper that Lukas referenced regarding global warming and wild animals: http://www.utilitarian-essays.com/veg-and-wild-animals.html
I second Lukas's point that vegetarianism is most important as part of an effort to reduce speciesism generally. Funding veg outreach is one of the most efficient ways to show people how much animals suffer, and it also makes them feel empowered to do something about it instead of feeling helpless. Plus, Our habits and actions have a big impact on our views (c.f., religious rituals). And for the record, I do think vegetarianism is net good for animals when you consider climate change.
I've never been a fan of Singer's distinction between persons and non-persons based on ability to see themselves as an agent with a history. This is mainly because I'm not a preference utilitarian in general. Killing persons is worse than killing non-persons because killing persons generally causes more emotional suffering and increases general fear within society. Beyond that, both people and sentient non-people are just buckets to hold happiness.", "timestamp": "1334483394"}, {"author": "Chris", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272743066149527", "anchor": "fb-272743066149527", "service": "fb", "text": "So, there may be a context I'm missing, but I don't know what NU is.", "timestamp": "1334601045"}, {"author": "Chris", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272744006149433", "anchor": "fb-272744006149433", "service": "fb", "text": "@Brian: Is there a standard definition for sentient that you're using?", "timestamp": "1334601095"}, {"author": "Sasha", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272795056144328", "anchor": "fb-272795056144328", "service": "fb", "text": "NU = Negative Utilitarianism. In its pure form it means you weight all positive experiences infinitessimally as much as negative feelings beyond a certain degree of intensity, though in practice the people who call themselves NU seem to mean they assign significantly greater weight to suffering than (they think) most hedonistic utilitarians do.
It seems slightly odd to me to distinguish this, since I definitely think for whatever reason we're built to be much better at suffering than happiness, so I just assume a human/similar animal suffering intently is a bucket for a lot more negative utilons than a happy human is for positive utilons, but I expect this to turn out to be an empirically answerable question.
Re 'sentient', my favourite definition (not popular) is similar 'a source of non-zero utilons (positive or negative)'", "timestamp": "1334604095"}, {"author": "Sasha", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272798196144014", "anchor": "fb-272798196144014", "service": "fb", "text": "Or rather 'a location' of non-zero utilons. In practice much the same thing.", "timestamp": "1334604381"}, {"author": "Lukas", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272803072810193", "anchor": "fb-272803072810193", "service": "fb", "text": "Just to be clear, I always refer to the \"pure form\" when I mention NU, even without a \"threshold\".", "timestamp": "1334604623"}, {"author": "Chris", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272804599476707", "anchor": "fb-272804599476707", "service": "fb", "text": "Sasha: If utilons were well defined aside from sentience, I think that would be an okay definition, but I feel like utilons are defined as things which have an effect on sentient beings which makes the definition circular.", "timestamp": "1334604717"}, {"author": "Chris", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272804922810008", "anchor": "fb-272804922810008", "service": "fb", "text": "Correct me if I'm wrong about my definition of utilons.", "timestamp": "1334604755"}, {"author": "Chris", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272805619476605", "anchor": "fb-272805619476605", "service": "fb", "text": "Also, I'm unconvinced that utility is quantifiable at a level where it's worth talking about, but I do like the term and that's off topic.", "timestamp": "1334604843"}, {"author": "Sasha", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272805976143236", "anchor": "fb-272805976143236", "service": "fb", "text": "Lukas: I think that's how non-NUs think of it, but in practice I've never known anyone (except possibly David Benatar) who actually thought all the positive experiences in a lifetime were outweighed by a slight itch. Even Benatar would surely agree in practice to said itch if it meant he got to otherwise live a long and glorious life, so I don't think he's really NU of the variety you mean.", "timestamp": "1334604893"}, {"author": "Chris", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272808542809646", "anchor": "fb-272808542809646", "service": "fb", "text": "So, if they could, an NU would end all life?", "timestamp": "1334604976"}, {"author": "Sasha", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272809899476177", "anchor": "fb-272809899476177", "service": "fb", "text": "The version Lukas talks about would switch the universe off as painlessly as possible given the chance, yes, and David Benatar does argue that we should painlessly end life. But the only person I know of who explicitly refers to himself as a negative utilitarian is David, who has rather a different goal: http://www.hedweb.co.uk/", "timestamp": "1334605097"}, {"author": "Lukas", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272811329476034", "anchor": "fb-272811329476034", "service": "fb", "text": "I and Adriano are negative utilitarians. I wonder what Brian's stance is exactly.", "timestamp": "1334605290"}, {"author": "Sasha", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272811529476014", "anchor": "fb-272811529476014", "service": "fb", "text": "Chris: My definition of utilon would be the smallest possible unit of positive value - it has an exact conceptual (though not necessarily physical) nemesis, the antiutilon.", "timestamp": "1334605317"}, {"author": "Chris", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272812169475950", "anchor": "fb-272812169475950", "service": "fb", "text": "David Benatar's stance seems horrible to me, but David's seems intriguing, though I'd have to think more.", "timestamp": "1334605392"}, {"author": "Chris", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272812399475927", "anchor": "fb-272812399475927", "service": "fb", "text": "Okay, I assumed that definition. But the definition of value still seems to depend on the definition of sentient", "timestamp": "1334605421"}, {"author": "Adriano", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272814516142382", "anchor": "fb-272814516142382", "service": "fb", "text": "To be precise: negative hedonic total utilitarians (as distinguished e.g. from http://www.philosophyoflife.org/jpl201204.pdf, where crucial arguments don't quite work in the end). Yes, I also wondered about Brian's exact stance.", "timestamp": "1334605652"}, {"author": "Adriano", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272818596141974", "anchor": "fb-272818596141974", "service": "fb", "text": "On a theoretical level, Pearce agrees with Benatar. But he (rightly) points out that Benatar's practical position is empirically implausible.", "timestamp": "1334605743"}, {"author": "David", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=272835229473644", "anchor": "fb-272835229473644", "service": "fb", "text": "David Benatar wrote a very brave book - and hats off to OUP for publishing it. Unfortunately, Benatar's anti-natalist argument nowhere considers the effects of selection pressure:
http://www.abolitionist.com/anti-natalism.html", "timestamp": "1334607047"}, {"author": "Brian", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/268351986588635?comment_id=276185565805277", "anchor": "fb-276185565805277", "service": "fb", "text": "Just now returning to this discussion -- I often go incommunicado during the work week.
\"Sentient\" means \"able to consciously experience positive or negative emotions,\" such as liking, disliking, pain, fear, etc. So if you're happy and you know it, or if you're suffering and you know it, then you're sentient. I don't care about unconscious nociception.
I waffle regarding my position on NU. Clearly I don't think pinpricks outweigh arbitrary amounts of pleasure (or even a few seconds of pleasure). However, on some days I think there might be some things so bad (e.g., a chicken \"scalded to death in defeathering tanks\" - http://www.peta.org/.../the-case-for-controlled...) that they would outweigh arbitrary pleasure. On other days, I say there is a definite, linear tradeoff between pleasure and suffering, but that extreme suffering has a very high exchange rate. For example, 1 minute of burning at the stake == 100 billion years of the pleasure of watching your favorite movie.", "timestamp": "1334986781"}]}