Vegetarianism (A clever title)

In response to Sean (full post here)

Interestingly, I think vegetarianism is actually decently likely to have some success; there are many people who care more, I think, for nonhuman animals, than they do for humans, and there are many people who care about neither. It is also true that there are many people who care more for humans, and many who care equally for both groups.

The number of meat substitutes available is increasing; in fact, in the US vegetarian food sales have doubles since 1999. Italy and Germany have around a 10% vegetarian and/or vegan population.

I think the dilemma is partially related at least to the attitude towards nonhuman animals, but I also think that even further below that is our insecurities, and wanting to treat things poorly; it just so happens that it is more socially acceptable to treat non-humans in that way.

Regarding your own issues with vegetarianism, perhaps there is some sort of rational or motivation you have for not being a vegetarian? Many people I know have accepted the arguments for vegetarianism, but were deterred by other thoughts until they thought long and hard about vegetarianism, and the possibility of becoming vegetarians.

Equal Worth?

In reference to the marginal cases argument, are all humans equal in value?

I would have to argue no for this one, too. It definitely seems a bit strange, and perhaps wrong to me, to suggest this, but I think it is the case. Of course, we did mention in class that this would possibly lead to some strange ethics. I'm not entire sure about the solution to this problem.

I do think that human infants and mentally disabled have less intrinsic value than adult humans. The source of this difference, I think, is the capacity of full cognition. This would then lead to the conclusion that even adult humans who have slightly lower cognition are worth less. There is, currently at least, no means to measure, cognition. I do think, however, that cognition can come in many forms, and that no form is necessarily better than any other; cognition through abstractions of numbers is no more valuable that cognition through spatio-temporal relations, and so on.

Come to think of it, however, for the most part, such a conclusion has no serious effect. The ability to experience and process pain is enough to prevent any person from harming another being. After a certain point of sentience and cognitive ability, it doesn't make much of a difference. The difference between the treatment of two people with similar but not equal cognitive abilities, would be none except that if you had to kill one, or cause one a significant amount of harm, you should choose to harm or kill the one with less cognitive ability. Since there is no way of know, and since it would hardly make a difference anyway, this moral choice is basically irrelevant.

Thoughts?

Language and Moral Relevance

Is the capacity to use language a morally relevant trait?

I would argue that the capacity to use learned language in not a morally relevant trait. We said this in class: language is the means through which we understand the world; language is not the means by which we understand the world. The capacity to make associations and learn is the morally relevant characteristic. Human infants, for instance, have the capacity to make associations and thereby understand the world and have beliefs. If human infants did not have this capacity that would not be able to learn a language at all.

Before we, as adult humans, have a thought and use language to communicate, we have no make non-lingual connections first. Language is how we communicate our beliefs and thoughts about those non-lingual connections. If we didn't have beliefs and desires and connections before we had language, then we probably wouldn't have language.