Ive gotten some constructive criticism among some rather unfair criticisms (see below) about the animal welfare articles and posts: (1) Yes, my frustration did show through. As anyone thats followed this page knows, I tend to show a high degree of calm when confronted with opposing viewpoints. In this case, yes, I may have come off as condescending. I can only apologize. (2) My frustration did not stem from the mere disagreement. My frustration stemmed from the level of the arguments. I’m well-versed in the animal ethics discussion. I’ve actually worked with one of the leading philosophers in the field. Now, that doesn’t make me automatically correct or more justified, but I have given the topic a lot of thought. I’ve had to defend positions I do not hold. My biggest frustration was people’s whole-cloth dismissal that the treatment of nonhuman animals is a moral question at all. Without any reason given, they dismiss it as a moral question. The problem is that, as non-theists, we tend to think rational arguments and reason ought to guide behavior. In the theism debate, we think people need to substantiate claims. We expect people to explain their position. The same should hold true for ethical discussions, especially whether eating animals is justified. (3) As for those examples (e.g., rape, enslaving), they are fairly common in any ethical discussion. For example, people justified eating meat by saying they gained pleasure from it. But if I extend the principle “I gain pleasure from X; therefore X is justified” to any other controversial moral question, the results are easily seen as wrong. So when I say the argument “I gain pleasure from eating animals; therefore eating animals is justified” is just as comparably weak as “I gain pleasure from raping people; therefore raping people is justified” I am pointing out the inadequacy of the principle being used. I am *not* saying that people that accept the former necessarily accept the latter, but that, if the moral principle under consideration is used to guide behavior, it would justify countless things. These are called counterexamples. Someone proposes a moral justification criterion. By providing a situation in which that moral justification criterion fails or leads to a conclusion we ought not accept, it means that the moral justification criterion is misguided at best or completely false at worse. (4) The articles, if you look again, were atheism related. Each one provided an *argument* with *reasons* for why atheists specifically have a specific moral reason to become vegans. Some people disagreed. Okay, now where exactly does the argument go wrong? What reasons do you have to think that the argument is wrong? Disagreeing with someone means you should be able to explain the disagreement.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 22:53:39 +0000
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