Oops, I messed up the formatting. Take 2. From my blog.
I just learned that The Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån were raided today. I don't know much about what's happened, but I really do hope that things have been handled very poorly. I hope that the allegations made by SVT that this was triggered by pressure from America are true and that it will cause public outrage. If Thomas Bodström is somehow involved (unlikely perhaps), that would be absolutely superb too.
Why do I hope for the worst? Because I want this to become a topic of fierce political debate so that it will be very clear who is a friend and who is an enemy in the upcoming Swedish election. It's been clear for a long time that none of the big parties are friends, but perhaps this will force some of them to make sensible decisions and become more friendly (look at what's happening in France, it's not impossible). I don't know if the recently formed Pirate Party are sane, but hopefully they'll be given a chance to present their views in the debate that will now follow.
The last time there was some debate about copyrights (when Sweden changed the copyright legislation to conform with EUCD last summer) I discussed and thought about these issues quite a bit. I arrived at the conclusion that copyright probably shouldn't be abolished all together, but that some of the following might be good ideas.
Shorten the copyright term to something between 5 and 20 years.
Allow all non-commercial distribution use of works covered by copyright. If the copyright term is very short, this may not actually be necessary. Conversely, with a long term it might be useful to allow even more non-commercial uses (e.g. sampling music or re-editing bad movies).
Disallow distribution of works which have not been published. The idea is that a creator should have the authority to stop distribution of copies that have been physically stolen or otherwise leaked before they are completed an published. Without this, I think it would be legal to publish someones private letters or photos without permission, and that wouldn't be cool.
Why does it matter? I have a vision that my children will be able to access a wikipedia-like database of all culture that has been produced in human history, with high technical quality and instant access. It's much too hard for to find works of culture these days, at least works that are a few years old. If you have access to a warez top-site you might be able to get anything you want, but it's only for a small elite.
Why are we locking away old culture that no longer makes money for anyone? The works that do make money long after they were created are the ones that were very popular to begin with and don't need a long copyright term. Some people want to make piles of money from The Beatles even though half of The Bealtes are already dead! I want everyone to be able to hear The Beatles at will. Copyright is not given by nature, it's a political tool and we should use it as we see fit to get the results we want. This is the information age, and with the proper legal framework in place we could reach the point where quality culture is a commons, not something for economic and technical elites.
My thoughts from http://foolip.org/blog/2006/05/31/hoping-for-the-w orst/
I just learned that The Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån were raided today. I don't know much about what's happened, but I really do hope that things have been handled very poorly. I hope that the allegations made by SVT that this was triggered by pressure from America are true and that it will cause public outrage. If Thomas Bodström is somehow involved (unlikely perhaps), that would be absolutely superb too.
Why do I hope for the worst? Because I want this to become a topic of fierce political debate so that it will be very clear who is a friend and who is an enemy in the upcoming Swedish election. It's been clear for a long time that none of the big parties are friends, but perhaps this will force some of them to make sensible decisions and become more friendly (look at what's happening in France, it's not impossible). I don't know if the recently formed Pirate Party are sane, but hopefully they'll be given a chance to present their views in the debate that will now follow.
The last time there was some debate about copyrights (when Sweden changed the copyright legislation to conform with EUCD last summer) I discussed and thought about these issues quite a bit. I arrived at the conclusion that copyright probably shouldn't be abolished all together, but that some of the following might be good ideas.
* Shorten the copyright term to something between 5 and 20 years.
* Allow all non-commercial distribution use of works covered by copyright. If the copyright term is very short, this may not actually be necessary. Conversely, with a long term it might be useful to allow even more non-commercial uses (e.g. sampling music or re-editing bad movies).
* Disallow distribution of works which have not been published. The idea is that a creator should have the authority to stop distribution of copies that have been physically stolen or otherwise leaked before they are completed an published. Without this, I think it would be legal to publish someones private letters or photos without permission, and that wouldn't be cool.
Why does it matter? I have a vision that my children will be able to access a wikipedia-like database of all culture that has been produced in human history, with high technical quality and instant access. It's much too hard for to find works of culture these days, at least works that are a few years old. If you have access to a warez top-site you might be able to get anything you want, but it's only for a small elite.
Why are we locking away old culture that no longer makes money for anyone? The works that do make money long after they were created are the ones that were very popular to begin with and don't need a long copyright term. Some people want to make piles of money from The Beatles even though half of The Bealtes are already dead! I want everyone to be able to hear The Beatles at will. Copyright is not given by nature, it's a political tool and we should use it as we see fit to get the results we want. This is the information age, and with the proper legal framework in place we could reach the point where quality culture is a commons, not something for economic and technical elites.
I look forward with great expectations to HD DVD/Blu-ray. The resolution of DVD video isn't that awsome, so getting higher resolution is nice. But more importantly, and never mentioned, is that instead of PAL/NTSC framerates, the film will be transferred with its native frame rate, 24 fps. That means no more PAL speedup (24->25 fps) and no more of that nasty NTSC 3:2 pulldown. Little chance of seeing nasty NTSC->PAL or PAL->NTSC transfers wich give scary ghosting effects. Of course, I won't be able to enjoy any of this until the DRM for either format is cracked (well, it's AACS in both cases). If the DRM isn't cracked I hope both formats die painfully.
A few days a go a swedish reality series (on public service TV) called "toppkandidaterna" (top candidates) with young people with political ideas competed was finished. The winner was a leftist guy who will give 50000 SEK (US$6270) of the cash prize (250000 SEK in total, the rest will go elsewhere) to the pirate bay. The money is to be used for new hardware (the site has been running a bit slow lately and the search function has frequently been unavailable). That's public service money well spent!
Well, I agree that it would be nice if all browsers stopped pretending to be Mozilla. But there's already something for that which you're asking for: The Accept header.
If that were widely used it would be really sweet. Of course IE (although I'm unsure about the newest versions) is arrogant enough to send "Accept: */*".
My browser says "Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,tex t/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5" . And then to makes things even better there's Accept-Charset, Accept-Encoding and Accept-Language.
I am not the original poster, but a few things need to be said. This is not a moral sermon or the Real Ultimate Truth(tm), just my views.
I mean, how can anyone cash their unemployment/social security check with a clear conscience, knowing that there are people starving somewhere?
A good question. Shouldn't we feel guilt if we live in surplus but keep everything for ourselves?
We should balance our funding.
Of course. The original poster didn't appear to be saying that all money should go to the most important cause, and your slippery slope argument stating that's where we'll end up is a mystery to me. Do you really think that's a place we're likely end up if we suggest spending money on starvation in Sudan instead of entertainment? Funding (private and from the worlds governments) are not currently balanced according to the needs of others.
If the objective is to help others then its obviously rediculous to give away all your money. Even if its a large one-time donation you'll crash your private economy and make it difficult for you to go on doing whatever you're doing, thus making certain that those you wish to help can get no further help from you, and possible you will find yourself where you're the one who needs help to survive. We should, as you say, balance our funding, and we don't do that by giving it all away. That doesn't show in any way that we can happily go on bying widescreen TVs and do nothing to help those in a life-threatening situation.
Plus, it's THEIR MONEY. They can spend it however they want.
I doubt you really believe that. If I were to spend my money in a way that harms other, for example by giving away substandard food or contraceptives in order to cause malnourishment and unwanted pregnancies, would I be doing nothing wrong because it was my money to spend? Now, if others are harmed because I neglect to spend my money helping them, am I really free from blame? Is there no obligation to help, at least when the price to pay is something trivial like entertainment, luxory electronics and the like?
Would you want someone coming to your house and criticising you like that?
I expect others to critisize me if my actions are immoral/unethical. Why should we assume that we the way we are living is OK? So maybe critisism is not always the best tactic towards all people, but surely we need to question our way of life at times. It may not be comfortable, and the conclusions even less comfortable to implement, but that's what basic honesty demands. It's not about being a saint either, just honestly trying your best.
How can you not hate yourself for not feeling the guilt you should over your outrageously self indulgent lifestyle, with your 'groceries' and '50 channels of TV'?
The obvious way to note hate yourself for leading such a life is by not leading sucha life. I'm not saying that we should give to the point to where we are starving ourself, but there needs to be some balance.
I am not the original poster, but a few things need to be said. This is not a moral sermon or the Real Ultimate Truth(tm), just my views.
I mean, how can anyone cash their unemployment/social security check with a clear conscience, knowing that there are people starving somewhere?
A good question. Shouldn't we feel guilt if we live in surplus but keep everything for ourselves?
We should balance our funding.
Of course. The original poster didn't appear to be saying that all money should go to the most important cause, and your slippery slope argument stating that's where we'll end up is a mystery to me. Do you really think that's a place we're likely end up if we suggest spending money on starvation in Sudan instead of entertainment? Funding (private and from the worlds governments) are not currently balanced according to the needs of others.
If the objective is to help others then its obviously rediculous to give away all your money. Even if its a large one-time donation you'll crash your private economy and make it difficult for you to go on doing whatever you're doing, thus making certain that those you wish to help can get no further help from you, and possible you will find yourself where you're the one who needs help to survive. We should, as you say, balance our funding, and we don't do that by giving it all away. That doesn't show in any way that we can happily go on bying widescreen TVs and do nothing to help those in a life-threatening situation.
Plus, it's THEIR MONEY. They can spend it however they want.
I doubt you really believe that. If I were to spend my money in a way that harms other, for example by giving away substandard food or contraceptives in order to cause malnourishment and unwanted pregnancies, would I be doing nothing wrong because it was my money to spend? Now, if others are harmed because I neglect to spend my money helping them, am I really free from blame? Is there no obligation to help, at least when the price to pay is something trivial like entertainment, luxory electronics and the like?
Would you want someone coming to your house and criticising you like that?
I expect others to critisize me if my actions are immoral/unethical. Why should we assume that we the way we are living is OK? So maybe critisism is not always the best tactic towards all people, but surely we need to question our way of life at times. It may not be comfortable, and the conclusions even less comfortable to implement, but that's what basic honesty demands. It's not about being a saint either, just honestly trying your best.
How can you not hate yourself for not feeling the guilt you should over your outrageously self indulgent lifestyle, with your 'groceries' and '50 channels of TV'?
The obvious way to note hate yourself for leading such a life is by not leading sucha life. I'm not saying that we should give to the point to where we are starving ourself, but there needs to be some balance.
Ah, raising my/your own animals didn't really strike me as an alternative, but you're right of course, that could mean massive improvements for the animals. Even though I believe there is something objectionable of the taking of life in itself, I've had that discussion many times with others without ever finding any common grounds or being able to use reason to confirm or refute either position. I'm happy that we were able to find this much common ground, and will now leave the animals (unless you have something to add).
I almost regret to say that I agree almost fully with your analysis of what causes us to go on with our destructive lifestyles, because I know it would make an interesting discussion if I had opposing views:)
To "effectively package and propagate the ideas" is very important, and I try to do this in the best way I can. I and my brother did some fun and successful activism the day before christmas when we made gingerbread (most in the shape of pigs!) on which we wrote "vego" (roughly a swedish equivilant of "veggie"), "vegetarian christmas" and stuff like that with frosting (picture). We also handed out recipies. No one can get angry at someone giving them gingerbread, so I think this sort of campaigning with a distinct positive feeling is the most efficient. And great fun:) Using methods that will not scare, annoy or amuse people like yourself who may not agree with all of what the animal rights movement is pushing, but who can see the need for change in how we treat our animals is very, very important.
I'm not familiar with the concept of cultural evolution, but it does not feel very comforting to know that our way of life will have to change/fail sometime, because that may be way too late.
Anyway, the only way things ever seem to change is through hard work, so that's what I'll try.
I also grew up close to farming, and we had our own animals during one period. None of these animals were in as poor conditions as the ones describes in factory farms, but I don't doubt that alot of them could have been better off. My grandads cows were in concrete stalls that were too short, and I don't believe the pigs were ever allowed outside. My day mother had a lot of turkeys in a crowded cage. Now these were very small productions, so I doubt highly that the standard of most animals now serving as food producers are any better.
You turned the focus exactly where it should be -- how to change the current conditions? I absolutely agree that opposition without offering alternatives is mostly useless (even though it does not follow that the opposition would be unwarented).
Making an informed descision is certainly no easy task. The deeply motivated customers you mention (I would consider myself one) take that time, and push for more alternatives. In the store closest to home there are several items I buy that I know are there because people like me have asked for them earlier. A relative few people help make it easier for those who come after, hopefully leading the way to broader change. Unfortunately, cases where I can think of this happening (such as the move from bleached coffee filters no non-bleached ones -- bleached filters are now non-existent at least in sweden) are cases where there is nothing substantial at stake for those who chose the alternative. When self-interest conflicts with the interests of others it seems that few are prepared to do the right thing.
I will first concentrate on the original question -- the treatment of animals. In this case I think it is quite clear that there are alternatives, an alternative that almost everyone who advocates animal liberation/animal rights choses -- vegetarianism. Vegetarianism is not a boycott in the ordinary sense, but is chosing a diet which minimizes the suffering of animals. This is the alternative, because I don't know of any choices that I can make that allow me to continue consuming animals that doesn't involve suffering for the animals. It is not an alternative that is easy to switch to, and I wish I could offer something better. As a side note, when taking the environment into consideration it is clear that at least for me, meat would not be an option even if I didn't care about the killing and if animals did not suffer.
In the bigger picture, it is blatantly obvious that many of our current practices are unsustainable and we will have to make big changes in the way we live. If we do not, we are more or less doomed. Thankfully, alternatives are starting to emerge in most of the places I consider important. Veg(eteri)anism is the alternative to the exploitation of sentient beings with interest of their own that should be given consideration. There are, at least where I live, ecologically grown alternatives to quite a few foods that I use often: potatoes, onions, bread, oat milk, soy milk, tofu, orange juice, bananas, sometimes oranges and tomatoes, and so on. These are more expensive, but clearly someone apart from myself is buying. As a reaction to the unfair trade with the third world is "fair trade". Products certified in this way can since recently be found in my local shop, for example coffee and chocolate. Clothes are still a big issue, and the best I'm able to do is ask every time I buy clothes under what conditions they were made. I know that the answers I get are probably not accurate and that the ethical codes these companies have are not followed, but I don't know what else to do right now. In short, alternatives are there for those who try hard enough, and when more people try it eventually reaches the mainstream. Coupled with political campaigning, I am at least moderately hopeful that the human race will not destroy itself and the planet with it.
I may be blinded by my own ideals so that I cannot see the alternatives you seek -- ones which do not require fundamental changes in the way we live but which
About deformed animals and humans. You make an argument from evolution about the species which we have discussed: super-fast growing chicken or cows that produce massive amounts of milk. Evolution would work against such traits in the wild, but what we are dealing with are not species that evolved "naturally" but ones which have been bred by humans into their current state. The breeding is targeted at making animals which produce more of what we want -- eggs, milk or meat. That this brings about animals which suffer a great deal during their lives and who would also cannot have very long lives because of medical problems does not matter, because there is no economical impact of suffering, and these animals are killed when they will not grow any more or start producing too little milk or eggs, making their shorter life-expectancy irrelevant. Procreation is hardly voluntary, it is we humans who select which individuals should produce offspring, any natural checks which would eliminate genetic defects are bypassed. You assert that "it will become more and more difficult to raise and breed them as, in a sense, they are no longer a viable species." This is unfortunately not true. These species are very viable in their environment, an environment which requires them to do nothing put produce as much as possible. The production increases, and so do profits. And the animals pay the price in form of suffering. The argument is sometimes made that animals which suffer will not be as productive, but there is little empirical evidence to back this up. Hens lay eggs whether they are comfortable or not, it is part of their menstrual cycle. A cow which has given birth will produce milk however much discomfort producing that much milk will cause. I find that there is no reason that the suffering that these animals endure will decrease by any natural mechanism, since they do not exist in anything remotely resembling a natural environment. Concious efforts by compassionate humans to stop this treatment appears to be the best hope of the animals.
About humans who have severe deformities then. Imagine a human baby born with a severe, non-curable disorder which will cause it immense amounts of sufferng during a short life. Does this baby have any interest in its own life, or is its life simply a burden to it? I would not wish to live such a life myself, and think it is morally justified, a moral duty even, to end the life of such an individual. This is not saying that such a baby is not a worthy being or something like that, but simply taking the facts of the situation and the interests of the baby seriously.
How about lesser deformities then, such as handicaped humans, which is probably something along the lines of what you were thinking of. The essential question to ask is of course -- does this individual wish to live, does it have an interest in its own life? If the answer is yes, then killing him/her would certainly be a horrible act. We should not decide the moral status of killing the individual by looking at its deformities, but by asking the aforementioned questions.
I realise that it may sound as if I wish to decide over other peoples lives, playing god, but to me it is simply giving basic moral consideration to the suffering of others, and acting responsibly thereafter.
To bring this back to the animals, there are some animals which are analagous to the baby in the example, an individual whose suffering is so great that we should end its life as soon as possible. One could jokingly say that it is an act of mercy to kill and eat them, but how could we justify knowingly putting them to the world in the first place?
Then there are other animals which maybe are closer to the second examlpe, animals which are deformed but don't suffer a great deal from it, although they would certainly be better of had they not been deformed. In this case I think it is irresponsible of us to willingly breed animals into such a state for the sake of increased production. Only
Granted that animals living and dying in the wild are not always very well off. I will also grant you that some animal liberation/animal rights advocates don't have very good knowledge about wildlife. However, the argument against huge animal farms is not (or should not be) that the animals would have been better off if living in the wild, but that the interests of the animals are not taken seriously and that they are worse of than they need to be under human care, possibly that they would be better off never existing. If we are to bring animals to this world, we have a responsibility of treating them in a way that respects their interests, not just in a way that is slightly better than putting them out in the wild.
You offer the survival of the species as an argument. I must ask you why it should be considered a loss if some domesticated animals were to disappear. Cow races which produce far more milk than they are physically equipped to, making them "wear out" much faster and giving them medical problems during their life. Poultry which have been bred to grow so fast that their skeleton cannot keep up, making painful deformations common. Such animals have no interest in existing and would be better off never having been born. Putting such animals to the world is not treating them humanely. Why should we want such species to go on existing?
You seem open to the possibility that high density feeding lots are harmful to the animals and should not be allowed to continue. I suggest that you investigate for yourself the conditions in which the animals you eat (if you do eat them) live, and decide if that is an acceptable way to treat other beings.
I suspect that we do not really disagree a great deal, but maybe I need to clarify my case.
I do not doubt that if stranded on an island, most people would kill the cow over the human and that they would regard it as moral to do so. This does not however show that such conduct is moral (or immoral) or that humans are superior to cows (or other animals) in terms of moral worth because they are human or because they are of the same species as the one making a decision.
Species membership may be a marker for other characteristics which most members of a species have, but it cannot be morally relevant in itself (I could go into great lengths explaining why I hold this to be true, but will not do so unless you ask me to).
I cannot see how the fact that we are ourselves human can justify giving humans a higher moral status than other animals. The fact that I am human, together with evolutionary theory, may certainly explain why I could tend to favour humans in a choice between humans and animals, but it does not give a justification. No more than the fact that I am a man should allow me to discriminate again women, or that fact that I am european should allow me to discriminate against asians should my membership of the human species be allowed to count as a ground for discrimination against non-human animals.
However, this only shows that discrimation against non-humans cannot be defended on the grounds that they are not human, not that discrimination between humans and animals is never acceptable. To take your example, I think there morally sound reasons (that do not depend on species membership) for killing the cow instead of the human if one must be killed. Something as simple as the size of the individual is relevant when considering who to use for food. Even if we considered it just as bad for a cow to lose its life as for a human to do so, in this case killing the cow will yield more food and increase the chances of survival of those who are left. If the cow were instead a cat, and the meat of the cat is not enough to increase any humans chance of survival significantly then it would clearly be better to kill one human and let the cat and the remaining human share that meat. When deciding on moral issues based on real world consequences, there can be no absolutes.
But this really side-steps the issue -- the issue of which is worse of killing a human and killing an animal. Comparing a normal, adult human being and a normal adult mammal such as a dog I think there is good reason to prefer the human based on the qualities it has. Such a human has the interest of continued self-existance to a greater degree than the dog and thus it would be a greater harm to kill then human than the dog. This does not however show that killing 1 human is worse than killing 1000 dogs or that we should prefer humans to other animals in other situations. It should be the relevant characteristics that count in each situation.
Turning to your second paragraph, the relevant characteristics of an individual when deciding whether or not to torture it is not whether a member of its species has been to the moon, but whether or not it can suffer and feel pain. Certainly there are many differences between humans and other animals, and most humans are superior to other animals in some respects. I do not believe that this observation should lead us to treat other animals cruelly, and I hope that I didn't give that impression in my previous post.
How we treat others should be decided on the characteristics they have that are morally relevant to the situation, and these seldom include species membership, how refined their appreciation of arts is or whether or if they are capable of using language. More often it is the ability to suffer, an ability possessed by the vast majority of animals we use for food, cloathing, cosmetic testing and medical research.
If rearing and killing animals for food is justified, then obviously this using animals for medicine or organs is also justified. But these conclusions are only true if the premise is true -- that it is justified to use animals for food.
You say that you very seldom think of it, but perhaps this is exactly what you should do. I won't go into any great length here, but just want to point out that it isn't enough to show that there exists some circumstances where killing animals for food is ok (e.g. a desert island scenario or whatever), but that it is ok in the real circumstances you live, circumstances where chosing not to use animals for food is possible and probably not very impractical (although I don't know where you live).
Also, even if you should find that keeping animals under the horrible conditions that exist in moder farming and then killing them for food is not justified, it will not follow that it is always unjustified to experiment on animals or use them for growing organs. Just as it is sometimes ok to kill animals (including humans), there probably exists some circumstances where experimenting on animals will save more lives than it costs.
As a side note, it shouldn't be the chicken fetuses that should be given consideration, but then hen laying the egg.
This article is very interesting from an animal animal liberation/animal rights point of view. Some of the arguments made on both sides are pretty weak:
But creating human-animal chimeras [...] has raised troubling questions: What new subhuman combination should be produced and for what purpose? At what point would it be considered human? And what rights, if any, should it have?
The assumption seems to be that if we are able to decide when a chimera becomes human, we have solved part of the issue. Why would knowing that an organism is human make a moral difference? If something is genetically human or not does not make a morally relevany difference unless you take a speciecist position claiming that species membership is morally relevant in itself. No defense of that position has to my knowledge been presented.
Also, it is difficult to see how there can be any new questions of rights since the genetic make-up of an individual is not what grants (or should grant) moral rights in the first place.
Biotechnology activist Jeremy Rifkin is opposed to crossing species boundaries, because he believes animals have the right to exist without being tampered with or crossed with another species.
He concedes that these studies would lead to some medical breakthroughs. Still, they should not be done.
The problem with any theory of rights is that it does not take into the consideration the consequences of an action beyond which rights are violated, in this case Rifkin claims that it doesn't matter what medical breakthroughs will result, it is still wrong to cross species boundaries. How does this make sense?
It is also interesting that he believes that animals have the rights not to be crossed with other species -- but who's rights are being violated when that is done? Unless the stem cells being tampered with have rights (how could this possibly be?) it must be the rights of the fully developed chimera which is constantly violated, since it is a cross of different species. But unless the chimera is in some way hurt by being the crossing of two species, what reasonable ground can there be for claiming that its rights are violated anymore than the rights of the mule -- the mixing of a horse and a donkey? Does the fact that humans have deliberately created a new genetic make-up make a moral difference? Why?
Last year Canada passed the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, which bans chimeras. Specifically, it prohibits transferring a nonhuman cell into a human embryo and putting human cells into a nonhuman embryo.
The Act bans chimeras only when one party is genetically human. How can this be justified? This is a law, and does not carry any ethical/moral weight, but what possible arguments could lay behind the law? Cynthia Cohen gives us an answer:
Creating chimeras, she said, by mixing human and animal gametes (sperms and eggs) or transferring reproductive cells, diminishes human dignity.
"It would deny that there is something distinctive and valuable about human beings that ought to be honored and protected"
"Human dignity", a fancy phrase that sound nice, but is devoid of any meaning. It is the last resort when arguments from a factual basis fail, or maybe a reflection of religious beliefs. She puts it pretty clearly when implying that it would be wrong to "deny that there is something distinctive and valuable about human beings that ought to be honored and protected". This should be denied, vigorously, as it is the basis of much unjustified oppression of non-human animals. Until it is shown what characteristic of humans are "distinctive and valuable" that exists in all humans and does not exist in any non-human animals, there is no merit to the idea of a special human dignity. It is nothing more than poorly masked discrimination on the sole basis of species membership, something which holds
Instead of arguing over what percentage Gates has given or who is more generous of Gates and a poor man giving the same percentage, I offer a challenge for any honest, rational human to accept:
I will assume that you have more money than you need to cover your basic needs. This will be true if you can ever afford to buy a new computer, buy ice cream or take a few beers at the pub. If you don't have any surplus money then you have nothing to give, and what I say does not apply.
You have your basic needs: food, clothes, shelter, transport, communications -- things which are required for you to live at a level where you do not feel that you are in some sort of distress. These needs take some part of your money, and anything else you have left is surplus. If you were to spend this on yourself, it would be to satisfy relatively trivial desired compared to the unfulfilled needs of large portions of the population of our planet. I will argue that that money would be put to better use if spent on those in need.
There appears that there are effective ways of improving the conditions of those in need on the long term. This could be spening resources (money in this case) on infrastructure, education and possibly famine relief (although it could be objected that feeding the hungry does not attack the root of the problem, but instead helps create another generation of people who will also starve unless the real problems are solved). If you do not agree on any of these measures, consider fair trade, population control, caring for the environmental (greenpeace) or human rights activism (amnesty international and others).
If you have any surplus money, you could (morally ought, I believe) give all or some of this to a cause which you believe will effectively help those in need. But how much? Giving nothing at all is clearly not optimal. Also, giving all of what I have defined as surplus may not be optimal either, as it would exclude you from some social activities (e.g. going to the pub) which may be required to uphold a healthy social life and without which your wellbeing would be at risk, and with it your ability to continue bringing home money to give to the needy. We arrive at the conclusion that you can (ought) give somewhere between nothing and all of your surplus.
Since it is difficult to determine which is the optimal giving rate, I suggest that you set this level in an honest way as you see fit. I feel that for me, as a full time student on state subsidies and loans, half of my surplus is reasonable. In no way am I certain that 50% is the optimal number, but it allows for a simple system which is self-adjusting to my current financial situation.
I suggest a system which is as follows. For each purchase that can rightly be considered surplus consumption, record that amount. When the total amount of money spent exceeds a nice even number like $10, $100 or in my case, 100 SEK, give that money to a cause which you believe will be of high benefit to humans (living or future), non-human animals, the environment or some other cause which you judge to be more important than your own needs (none of which are essential since those needs are already covered, or no surplus consumption could have taken place). Such a system has several benefits:
Your own basic needs cannot be threatened by your will to help those in need since it is only surplus money that is at stake. Thus you run no risk of putting yourself in a similar situation as those you are trying to help -- something which would hardly help in the long run.
Those times when you have no money to spend, you will give none. When you have more to spend, you will give more. This may be better than giving a fix amount every month or week, as sometimes feeling that one is not able to fulfil the obligation of giving may be dissuading and may hurt long-term giving.
My claims here have been rather moderate and aimed at finding a practical method of sharing ones surplus. It is possible that the moral obl
Well I actually don't believe that immaterial things exist, they're just a convenient abstraction that allow us to talk about certain things efficiently.
But no, my identity is not material in the sense that a coffee cup is. And no, it cannot be stolen.
What does the article actually say has happened? Has a copy of the game actually been stolen, or has a copy been made and put online? Since its impossible to steal immaterial things it should mean the latter, but with all the deliberate confusion of theft and copyright infringement that goes on its impossible to say.
What a contrarian is I don't know, but all the google hits seem to have something to do with investment and capital. Perhaps revenge could be argued against on contrarian grounds, but since I have made no real arguments -- only claims -- I don't see why you say that.
You're absolutely right, I give no arguments against revenge. I can't see that calling the idea absurd really consitutes an ad hominem argument since I have not said anything about the person making the orginal claim. Let me instead turn to my reasons for opposing revenge.
Definition. By revenge I mean an action which harms the reciever, and the reciever deserves to be harmed. Perhaps my definition of revenge does not fit all the actions which someone might say is revenge, but for purposes of this discussion, I need a word to describe the action of harming because harm is deserved.
What I should actually do is claim that revenge cannot exist, since I believe that harm cannot be deserved. Unfortunately for me, this belief is unprovable unless all possible arguments to the contrary can be anticipated and falsified. An example will shine some light on why I hold this belief.
If someone takes your bike you may rightfully take it back. Not because the taker deserves to be harmed (by having the bike taken away), but because you have a right to your bike (here making the assumption that there is some sort of property right and that in this case it is not displaced by a more fundamental right). As far as I can see, taking the bike from the taker only makes sense if it restores the bike to you. There are of course limits to this (e.g. if the taker faces great harm (death, starvation or similar) when you take the bike back then you must not do so). Taking revenge on the taker after the bike has been restored to you only makes sense (by my definition) if further harm is deserved. The burden of proof should lie on (s)he who claims that harm is deserved in this or any other case.
I have not claimed that harming criminals can never be morally right, but rather that revenge -- doing harm because harm is deserved -- is impossible because harm cannot be deserved. Your reasons for vengeance (which I must read as punishment so as not to equate it with revenge) may or may not give support for punishment, but they do not show that harm can be deserved (and of course I couldn't ask that they do since it I did not define exactly what I mean by revenge in my original posting).
Although not of any moral relevance, I see "eye for eye" as savage and somewhat childish. If the desire to retaliate and getting some satisfaction (peace of mind) from it is a natural part of a human psyche, I really do think that it should be supressed to the fullest extent possible. More morally relevant: assuming a moral of rights, it cannot be just to violate a criminals right to life and liberty to satisfy the victims right to peace of mind, because if such a right exits I am almost certain it is of a lower standing that the right to life and liberty. On utilitarian grounds I don't doubt that such treatment could be right (or even a duty) if there are enough people who derive satisfaction from seeing the criminal punished. The debate is endless (well not really) and it is not the question I am really concerned about.
In any eveny, it is true that the question at hand is not "cut and dry", and I thank you for pointing this out.
I see it as absolutely pointless to revenge criminals -- it's an absurd thought that you can deserve to have harm done upon you because you harmed someone else. The only valid reasons for "punishment" there can be is to protect someone else and/or to rehabilitate.
I believe "Society" (you and I) should show everyone compassion, including criminals, and we'll be better off for it.
Well, isn't that what Democracy is supposed to be? Law and order, morality encoded, at the bequest of the society within which it is created?
Generally, yes. But we need to recognize that the law is only an approximation of morals, and that there are unjust laws. If the morality of something is to be discussed, saying "society has decided that it is so" won't cut it since sometimes the majority of a society (or whatever group holds control) can be wrong.
On a side note, my opposition to accepting paradoxes comes from a fear that it's a much too easy way to dismiss wrongs as paradoxes. An effort should be made to reach a conclusion based on reason. If that fails some of the premises/values we build upon are probably false. I say probably because there still is a possibility that the best morals are arbitrary and contradictive, but I have very little reason to believe that is the case right now. How else are we going to find out when we are doing something wrong?
Won't you agree that it's problematic to grant moral rigths (only) on the basis of agreement within a society? It seems to me there are certain acts which are forbidden no matter how much agreement there is in the society (that is, no matter how much everyone else but the victim of the act thinks it's ok). For example I believe it's wrong to hurt someone against their will unless it's the only way to protect others from being hurt in an even worse way. It would still be wrong even if there's alot of agreement in this society that this individual should be hurt. Example: a criminal given the death penalty, 90% of the population think it's morally right to kill the criminal. I don't think that would make it right. If instead we chose "agreement among the affected parties" that would perhaps be more reasonable (but without a doubt problematic in some other way).
About your talk about being dialectic and "Paradox is just as valuable as resolution"... I'm not entirely sure I know what you're going on about, but it seems to me you're partly objecting to the view that "the truth" or "the best/right moral" can be reached by logically analyzing arguments and counter-arguments. The idea has struck my mind before that maybe the best moral system is full of contradiction and is completely arbitrary... which is very unsettling. But does this possibility mean that we shouldn't try to do it by reason? If in fact a coherent moral system which reflects all or most of your intuitions can be found, wouldn't that be worth something? Or do you believe that would be an absolute and hence necessarily something bad? Such a belief would be as much of an absolute as the absolute it opposes.
That is a very good question. The answer is: it comes from "Freedom".
I'm still unsure about the origin of the right under discussion. Is it because we have freedom (to do <something>)? I must point out that having such a right would limit the freedom of other individuals to alter your work in the privacy of their homes, even in their minds. Unless you think this is reasonable, the right you want is probably something else, or it has some conditions, like "the right to not have your work altered and then publically displayed" or something to that effect. Of course the fact that your rights affect everyone elses freedom is not news, but you would need to demonstrate that everyone elses right to alter their memories or private belongings (like a copy of your work) are of a lower moral standing than the right you have.
Paradox is just as valuable as resolution. This is the nature of a truly 'free' state of being.
Why do you speak in riddles?
The right to unalteration is a given one - it comes from the society you associate with. Any author who has had his works pirated, probably doesn't belong to the society doing the pirating - or else, it wouldn't be called 'pirating', it'd be called 'publishing'.
Rights are purely social.
Sounds like the rules of society are the ones we are morally bound to. This has some strange effects: Is it the majority that is always right, or is it whoever is in power? Also, if the pirate and the author are from two different societies, on what grounds can the author be upset? The pirate has not broken any rules of his society (I assume his society allows copying), and the authors rights cannot restrict anyone in another society (otherwise, two rights grated in two different societies could place opposite duties on all the people in the world, and the same act could be forbidden and mandatory at the same time, a contradiction which at least to me is proof enough that this cannot be. Is this the sort of paradox you're talking about?). I'd agree that rights and morals are a social thing but viewing it as bound to each society is very problematic, as is viewing it as a purely individual thing. I don't know by what social mechanism morals come into being, so I'll just question your suggestions for the time being:)
Slashdot Mirror
Oops, I messed up the formatting. Take 2. From my blog.
I just learned that The Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån were raided today. I don't know much about what's happened, but I really do hope that things have been handled very poorly. I hope that the allegations made by SVT that this was triggered by pressure from America are true and that it will cause public outrage. If Thomas Bodström is somehow involved (unlikely perhaps), that would be absolutely superb too.
Why do I hope for the worst? Because I want this to become a topic of fierce political debate so that it will be very clear who is a friend and who is an enemy in the upcoming Swedish election. It's been clear for a long time that none of the big parties are friends, but perhaps this will force some of them to make sensible decisions and become more friendly (look at what's happening in France, it's not impossible). I don't know if the recently formed Pirate Party are sane, but hopefully they'll be given a chance to present their views in the debate that will now follow.
The last time there was some debate about copyrights (when Sweden changed the copyright legislation to conform with EUCD last summer) I discussed and thought about these issues quite a bit. I arrived at the conclusion that copyright probably shouldn't be abolished all together, but that some of the following might be good ideas.
Why does it matter? I have a vision that my children will be able to access a wikipedia-like database of all culture that has been produced in human history, with high technical quality and instant access. It's much too hard for to find works of culture these days, at least works that are a few years old. If you have access to a warez top-site you might be able to get anything you want, but it's only for a small elite.
Why are we locking away old culture that no longer makes money for anyone? The works that do make money long after they were created are the ones that were very popular to begin with and don't need a long copyright term. Some people want to make piles of money from The Beatles even though half of The Bealtes are already dead! I want everyone to be able to hear The Beatles at will. Copyright is not given by nature, it's a political tool and we should use it as we see fit to get the results we want. This is the information age, and with the proper legal framework in place we could reach the point where quality culture is a commons, not something for economic and technical elites.
My thoughts from http://foolip.org/blog/2006/05/31/hoping-for-the-w orst/
I just learned that The Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån were raided today. I don't know much about what's happened, but I really do hope that things have been handled very poorly. I hope that the allegations made by SVT that this was triggered by pressure from America are true and that it will cause public outrage. If Thomas Bodström is somehow involved (unlikely perhaps), that would be absolutely superb too.
Why do I hope for the worst? Because I want this to become a topic of fierce political debate so that it will be very clear who is a friend and who is an enemy in the upcoming Swedish election. It's been clear for a long time that none of the big parties are friends, but perhaps this will force some of them to make sensible decisions and become more friendly (look at what's happening in France, it's not impossible). I don't know if the recently formed Pirate Party are sane, but hopefully they'll be given a chance to present their views in the debate that will now follow.
The last time there was some debate about copyrights (when Sweden changed the copyright legislation to conform with EUCD last summer) I discussed and thought about these issues quite a bit. I arrived at the conclusion that copyright probably shouldn't be abolished all together, but that some of the following might be good ideas.
* Shorten the copyright term to something between 5 and 20 years.
* Allow all non-commercial distribution use of works covered by copyright. If the copyright term is very short, this may not actually be necessary. Conversely, with a long term it might be useful to allow even more non-commercial uses (e.g. sampling music or re-editing bad movies).
* Disallow distribution of works which have not been published. The idea is that a creator should have the authority to stop distribution of copies that have been physically stolen or otherwise leaked before they are completed an published. Without this, I think it would be legal to publish someones private letters or photos without permission, and that wouldn't be cool.
Why does it matter? I have a vision that my children will be able to access a wikipedia-like database of all culture that has been produced in human history, with high technical quality and instant access. It's much too hard for to find works of culture these days, at least works that are a few years old. If you have access to a warez top-site you might be able to get anything you want, but it's only for a small elite.
Why are we locking away old culture that no longer makes money for anyone? The works that do make money long after they were created are the ones that were very popular to begin with and don't need a long copyright term. Some people want to make piles of money from The Beatles even though half of The Bealtes are already dead! I want everyone to be able to hear The Beatles at will. Copyright is not given by nature, it's a political tool and we should use it as we see fit to get the results we want. This is the information age, and with the proper legal framework in place we could reach the point where quality culture is a commons, not something for economic and technical elites.
Last I checked utilitarian referred to something that was in line with the ethic system utilitarianism. What's with the title?
I look forward with great expectations to HD DVD/Blu-ray. The resolution of DVD video isn't that awsome, so getting higher resolution is nice. But more importantly, and never mentioned, is that instead of PAL/NTSC framerates, the film will be transferred with its native frame rate, 24 fps. That means no more PAL speedup (24->25 fps) and no more of that nasty NTSC 3:2 pulldown. Little chance of seeing nasty NTSC->PAL or PAL->NTSC transfers wich give scary ghosting effects. Of course, I won't be able to enjoy any of this until the DRM for either format is cracked (well, it's AACS in both cases). If the DRM isn't cracked I hope both formats die painfully.
A few days a go a swedish reality series (on public service TV) called "toppkandidaterna" (top candidates) with young people with political ideas competed was finished. The winner was a leftist guy who will give 50000 SEK (US$6270) of the cash prize (250000 SEK in total, the rest will go elsewhere) to the pirate bay. The money is to be used for new hardware (the site has been running a bit slow lately and the search function has frequently been unavailable). That's public service money well spent!
Well, I agree that it would be nice if all browsers stopped pretending to be Mozilla. But there's already something for that which you're asking for: The Accept header.
If that were widely used it would be really sweet. Of course IE (although I'm unsure about the newest versions) is arrogant enough to send "Accept: */*".
My browser says "Accept: text/xml,application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,tex t/html;q=0.9,text/plain;q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5" . And then to makes things even better there's Accept-Charset, Accept-Encoding and Accept-Language.
If its a FPS or any game where I have a weapon, I sure hope the game engine lets me shoot the stupid things into oblivion.
Those who, like me, don't quite know what a salt is in hashing, can consult wikipedia.
The article is a stub, so it could use some improvement I guess.
Sorry, now in a readable format.
I am not the original poster, but a few things need to be said. This is not a moral sermon or the Real Ultimate Truth(tm), just my views.
I mean, how can anyone cash their unemployment/social security check with a clear conscience, knowing that there are people starving somewhere?
A good question. Shouldn't we feel guilt if we live in surplus but keep everything for ourselves?
We should balance our funding.
Of course. The original poster didn't appear to be saying that all money should go to the most important cause, and your slippery slope argument stating that's where we'll end up is a mystery to me. Do you really think that's a place we're likely end up if we suggest spending money on starvation in Sudan instead of entertainment? Funding (private and from the worlds governments) are not currently balanced according to the needs of others.
If the objective is to help others then its obviously rediculous to give away all your money. Even if its a large one-time donation you'll crash your private economy and make it difficult for you to go on doing whatever you're doing, thus making certain that those you wish to help can get no further help from you, and possible you will find yourself where you're the one who needs help to survive. We should, as you say, balance our funding, and we don't do that by giving it all away. That doesn't show in any way that we can happily go on bying widescreen TVs and do nothing to help those in a life-threatening situation.
Plus, it's THEIR MONEY. They can spend it however they want.
I doubt you really believe that. If I were to spend my money in a way that harms other, for example by giving away substandard food or contraceptives in order to cause malnourishment and unwanted pregnancies, would I be doing nothing wrong because it was my money to spend? Now, if others are harmed because I neglect to spend my money helping them, am I really free from blame? Is there no obligation to help, at least when the price to pay is something trivial like entertainment, luxory electronics and the like?
Would you want someone coming to your house and criticising you like that?
I expect others to critisize me if my actions are immoral/unethical. Why should we assume that we the way we are living is OK? So maybe critisism is not always the best tactic towards all people, but surely we need to question our way of life at times. It may not be comfortable, and the conclusions even less comfortable to implement, but that's what basic honesty demands. It's not about being a saint either, just honestly trying your best.
How can you not hate yourself for not feeling the guilt you should over your outrageously self indulgent lifestyle, with your 'groceries' and '50 channels of TV'?
The obvious way to note hate yourself for leading such a life is by not leading sucha life. I'm not saying that we should give to the point to where we are starving ourself, but there needs to be some balance.
I am not the original poster, but a few things need to be said. This is not a moral sermon or the Real Ultimate Truth(tm), just my views. I mean, how can anyone cash their unemployment/social security check with a clear conscience, knowing that there are people starving somewhere? A good question. Shouldn't we feel guilt if we live in surplus but keep everything for ourselves? We should balance our funding. Of course. The original poster didn't appear to be saying that all money should go to the most important cause, and your slippery slope argument stating that's where we'll end up is a mystery to me. Do you really think that's a place we're likely end up if we suggest spending money on starvation in Sudan instead of entertainment? Funding (private and from the worlds governments) are not currently balanced according to the needs of others. If the objective is to help others then its obviously rediculous to give away all your money. Even if its a large one-time donation you'll crash your private economy and make it difficult for you to go on doing whatever you're doing, thus making certain that those you wish to help can get no further help from you, and possible you will find yourself where you're the one who needs help to survive. We should, as you say, balance our funding, and we don't do that by giving it all away. That doesn't show in any way that we can happily go on bying widescreen TVs and do nothing to help those in a life-threatening situation. Plus, it's THEIR MONEY. They can spend it however they want. I doubt you really believe that. If I were to spend my money in a way that harms other, for example by giving away substandard food or contraceptives in order to cause malnourishment and unwanted pregnancies, would I be doing nothing wrong because it was my money to spend? Now, if others are harmed because I neglect to spend my money helping them, am I really free from blame? Is there no obligation to help, at least when the price to pay is something trivial like entertainment, luxory electronics and the like? Would you want someone coming to your house and criticising you like that? I expect others to critisize me if my actions are immoral/unethical. Why should we assume that we the way we are living is OK? So maybe critisism is not always the best tactic towards all people, but surely we need to question our way of life at times. It may not be comfortable, and the conclusions even less comfortable to implement, but that's what basic honesty demands. It's not about being a saint either, just honestly trying your best. How can you not hate yourself for not feeling the guilt you should over your outrageously self indulgent lifestyle, with your 'groceries' and '50 channels of TV'? The obvious way to note hate yourself for leading such a life is by not leading sucha life. I'm not saying that we should give to the point to where we are starving ourself, but there needs to be some balance.
Ah, raising my/your own animals didn't really strike me as an alternative, but you're right of course, that could mean massive improvements for the animals. Even though I believe there is something objectionable of the taking of life in itself, I've had that discussion many times with others without ever finding any common grounds or being able to use reason to confirm or refute either position. I'm happy that we were able to find this much common ground, and will now leave the animals (unless you have something to add).
I almost regret to say that I agree almost fully with your analysis of what causes us to go on with our destructive lifestyles, because I know it would make an interesting discussion if I had opposing views :)
To "effectively package and propagate the ideas" is very important, and I try to do this in the best way I can. I and my brother did some fun and successful activism the day before christmas when we made gingerbread (most in the shape of pigs!) on which we wrote "vego" (roughly a swedish equivilant of "veggie"), "vegetarian christmas" and stuff like that with frosting (picture). We also handed out recipies. No one can get angry at someone giving them gingerbread, so I think this sort of campaigning with a distinct positive feeling is the most efficient. And great fun :) Using methods that will not scare, annoy or amuse people like yourself who may not agree with all of what the animal rights movement is pushing, but who can see the need for change in how we treat our animals is very, very important.
I'm not familiar with the concept of cultural evolution, but it does not feel very comforting to know that our way of life will have to change/fail sometime, because that may be way too late.
Anyway, the only way things ever seem to change is through hard work, so that's what I'll try.
I also grew up close to farming, and we had our own animals during one period. None of these animals were in as poor conditions as the ones describes in factory farms, but I don't doubt that alot of them could have been better off. My grandads cows were in concrete stalls that were too short, and I don't believe the pigs were ever allowed outside. My day mother had a lot of turkeys in a crowded cage. Now these were very small productions, so I doubt highly that the standard of most animals now serving as food producers are any better.
You turned the focus exactly where it should be -- how to change the current conditions? I absolutely agree that opposition without offering alternatives is mostly useless (even though it does not follow that the opposition would be unwarented).
Making an informed descision is certainly no easy task. The deeply motivated customers you mention (I would consider myself one) take that time, and push for more alternatives. In the store closest to home there are several items I buy that I know are there because people like me have asked for them earlier. A relative few people help make it easier for those who come after, hopefully leading the way to broader change. Unfortunately, cases where I can think of this happening (such as the move from bleached coffee filters no non-bleached ones -- bleached filters are now non-existent at least in sweden) are cases where there is nothing substantial at stake for those who chose the alternative. When self-interest conflicts with the interests of others it seems that few are prepared to do the right thing.
I will first concentrate on the original question -- the treatment of animals. In this case I think it is quite clear that there are alternatives, an alternative that almost everyone who advocates animal liberation/animal rights choses -- vegetarianism. Vegetarianism is not a boycott in the ordinary sense, but is chosing a diet which minimizes the suffering of animals. This is the alternative, because I don't know of any choices that I can make that allow me to continue consuming animals that doesn't involve suffering for the animals. It is not an alternative that is easy to switch to, and I wish I could offer something better. As a side note, when taking the environment into consideration it is clear that at least for me, meat would not be an option even if I didn't care about the killing and if animals did not suffer.
In the bigger picture, it is blatantly obvious that many of our current practices are unsustainable and we will have to make big changes in the way we live. If we do not, we are more or less doomed. Thankfully, alternatives are starting to emerge in most of the places I consider important. Veg(eteri)anism is the alternative to the exploitation of sentient beings with interest of their own that should be given consideration. There are, at least where I live, ecologically grown alternatives to quite a few foods that I use often: potatoes, onions, bread, oat milk, soy milk, tofu, orange juice, bananas, sometimes oranges and tomatoes, and so on. These are more expensive, but clearly someone apart from myself is buying. As a reaction to the unfair trade with the third world is "fair trade". Products certified in this way can since recently be found in my local shop, for example coffee and chocolate. Clothes are still a big issue, and the best I'm able to do is ask every time I buy clothes under what conditions they were made. I know that the answers I get are probably not accurate and that the ethical codes these companies have are not followed, but I don't know what else to do right now. In short, alternatives are there for those who try hard enough, and when more people try it eventually reaches the mainstream. Coupled with political campaigning, I am at least moderately hopeful that the human race will not destroy itself and the planet with it.
I may be blinded by my own ideals so that I cannot see the alternatives you seek -- ones which do not require fundamental changes in the way we live but which
Thanks for your lengthy reply.
About deformed animals and humans. You make an argument from evolution about the species which we have discussed: super-fast growing chicken or cows that produce massive amounts of milk. Evolution would work against such traits in the wild, but what we are dealing with are not species that evolved "naturally" but ones which have been bred by humans into their current state. The breeding is targeted at making animals which produce more of what we want -- eggs, milk or meat. That this brings about animals which suffer a great deal during their lives and who would also cannot have very long lives because of medical problems does not matter, because there is no economical impact of suffering, and these animals are killed when they will not grow any more or start producing too little milk or eggs, making their shorter life-expectancy irrelevant. Procreation is hardly voluntary, it is we humans who select which individuals should produce offspring, any natural checks which would eliminate genetic defects are bypassed. You assert that "it will become more and more difficult to raise and breed them as, in a sense, they are no longer a viable species." This is unfortunately not true. These species are very viable in their environment, an environment which requires them to do nothing put produce as much as possible. The production increases, and so do profits. And the animals pay the price in form of suffering. The argument is sometimes made that animals which suffer will not be as productive, but there is little empirical evidence to back this up. Hens lay eggs whether they are comfortable or not, it is part of their menstrual cycle. A cow which has given birth will produce milk however much discomfort producing that much milk will cause. I find that there is no reason that the suffering that these animals endure will decrease by any natural mechanism, since they do not exist in anything remotely resembling a natural environment. Concious efforts by compassionate humans to stop this treatment appears to be the best hope of the animals.
About humans who have severe deformities then. Imagine a human baby born with a severe, non-curable disorder which will cause it immense amounts of sufferng during a short life. Does this baby have any interest in its own life, or is its life simply a burden to it? I would not wish to live such a life myself, and think it is morally justified, a moral duty even, to end the life of such an individual. This is not saying that such a baby is not a worthy being or something like that, but simply taking the facts of the situation and the interests of the baby seriously.
How about lesser deformities then, such as handicaped humans, which is probably something along the lines of what you were thinking of. The essential question to ask is of course -- does this individual wish to live, does it have an interest in its own life? If the answer is yes, then killing him/her would certainly be a horrible act. We should not decide the moral status of killing the individual by looking at its deformities, but by asking the aforementioned questions.
I realise that it may sound as if I wish to decide over other peoples lives, playing god, but to me it is simply giving basic moral consideration to the suffering of others, and acting responsibly thereafter.
To bring this back to the animals, there are some animals which are analagous to the baby in the example, an individual whose suffering is so great that we should end its life as soon as possible. One could jokingly say that it is an act of mercy to kill and eat them, but how could we justify knowingly putting them to the world in the first place?
Then there are other animals which maybe are closer to the second examlpe, animals which are deformed but don't suffer a great deal from it, although they would certainly be better of had they not been deformed. In this case I think it is irresponsible of us to willingly breed animals into such a state for the sake of increased production. Only
Granted that animals living and dying in the wild are not always very well off. I will also grant you that some animal liberation/animal rights advocates don't have very good knowledge about wildlife. However, the argument against huge animal farms is not (or should not be) that the animals would have been better off if living in the wild, but that the interests of the animals are not taken seriously and that they are worse of than they need to be under human care, possibly that they would be better off never existing. If we are to bring animals to this world, we have a responsibility of treating them in a way that respects their interests, not just in a way that is slightly better than putting them out in the wild.
You offer the survival of the species as an argument. I must ask you why it should be considered a loss if some domesticated animals were to disappear. Cow races which produce far more milk than they are physically equipped to, making them "wear out" much faster and giving them medical problems during their life. Poultry which have been bred to grow so fast that their skeleton cannot keep up, making painful deformations common. Such animals have no interest in existing and would be better off never having been born. Putting such animals to the world is not treating them humanely. Why should we want such species to go on existing?
You seem open to the possibility that high density feeding lots are harmful to the animals and should not be allowed to continue. I suggest that you investigate for yourself the conditions in which the animals you eat (if you do eat them) live, and decide if that is an acceptable way to treat other beings.
I suspect that we do not really disagree a great deal, but maybe I need to clarify my case.
I do not doubt that if stranded on an island, most people would kill the cow over the human and that they would regard it as moral to do so. This does not however show that such conduct is moral (or immoral) or that humans are superior to cows (or other animals) in terms of moral worth because they are human or because they are of the same species as the one making a decision.
Species membership may be a marker for other characteristics which most members of a species have, but it cannot be morally relevant in itself (I could go into great lengths explaining why I hold this to be true, but will not do so unless you ask me to).
I cannot see how the fact that we are ourselves human can justify giving humans a higher moral status than other animals. The fact that I am human, together with evolutionary theory, may certainly explain why I could tend to favour humans in a choice between humans and animals, but it does not give a justification. No more than the fact that I am a man should allow me to discriminate again women, or that fact that I am european should allow me to discriminate against asians should my membership of the human species be allowed to count as a ground for discrimination against non-human animals.
However, this only shows that discrimation against non-humans cannot be defended on the grounds that they are not human, not that discrimination between humans and animals is never acceptable. To take your example, I think there morally sound reasons (that do not depend on species membership) for killing the cow instead of the human if one must be killed. Something as simple as the size of the individual is relevant when considering who to use for food. Even if we considered it just as bad for a cow to lose its life as for a human to do so, in this case killing the cow will yield more food and increase the chances of survival of those who are left. If the cow were instead a cat, and the meat of the cat is not enough to increase any humans chance of survival significantly then it would clearly be better to kill one human and let the cat and the remaining human share that meat. When deciding on moral issues based on real world consequences, there can be no absolutes.
But this really side-steps the issue -- the issue of which is worse of killing a human and killing an animal. Comparing a normal, adult human being and a normal adult mammal such as a dog I think there is good reason to prefer the human based on the qualities it has. Such a human has the interest of continued self-existance to a greater degree than the dog and thus it would be a greater harm to kill then human than the dog. This does not however show that killing 1 human is worse than killing 1000 dogs or that we should prefer humans to other animals in other situations. It should be the relevant characteristics that count in each situation.
Turning to your second paragraph, the relevant characteristics of an individual when deciding whether or not to torture it is not whether a member of its species has been to the moon, but whether or not it can suffer and feel pain. Certainly there are many differences between humans and other animals, and most humans are superior to other animals in some respects. I do not believe that this observation should lead us to treat other animals cruelly, and I hope that I didn't give that impression in my previous post.
How we treat others should be decided on the characteristics they have that are morally relevant to the situation, and these seldom include species membership, how refined their appreciation of arts is or whether or if they are capable of using language. More often it is the ability to suffer, an ability possessed by the vast majority of animals we use for food, cloathing, cosmetic testing and medical research.
If rearing and killing animals for food is justified, then obviously this using animals for medicine or organs is also justified. But these conclusions are only true if the premise is true -- that it is justified to use animals for food. You say that you very seldom think of it, but perhaps this is exactly what you should do. I won't go into any great length here, but just want to point out that it isn't enough to show that there exists some circumstances where killing animals for food is ok (e.g. a desert island scenario or whatever), but that it is ok in the real circumstances you live, circumstances where chosing not to use animals for food is possible and probably not very impractical (although I don't know where you live). Also, even if you should find that keeping animals under the horrible conditions that exist in moder farming and then killing them for food is not justified, it will not follow that it is always unjustified to experiment on animals or use them for growing organs. Just as it is sometimes ok to kill animals (including humans), there probably exists some circumstances where experimenting on animals will save more lives than it costs. As a side note, it shouldn't be the chicken fetuses that should be given consideration, but then hen laying the egg.
This article is very interesting from an animal animal liberation/animal rights point of view. Some of the arguments made on both sides are pretty weak:
The assumption seems to be that if we are able to decide when a chimera becomes human, we have solved part of the issue. Why would knowing that an organism is human make a moral difference? If something is genetically human or not does not make a morally relevany difference unless you take a speciecist position claiming that species membership is morally relevant in itself. No defense of that position has to my knowledge been presented.
Also, it is difficult to see how there can be any new questions of rights since the genetic make-up of an individual is not what grants (or should grant) moral rights in the first place.
The problem with any theory of rights is that it does not take into the consideration the consequences of an action beyond which rights are violated, in this case Rifkin claims that it doesn't matter what medical breakthroughs will result, it is still wrong to cross species boundaries. How does this make sense?
It is also interesting that he believes that animals have the rights not to be crossed with other species -- but who's rights are being violated when that is done? Unless the stem cells being tampered with have rights (how could this possibly be?) it must be the rights of the fully developed chimera which is constantly violated, since it is a cross of different species. But unless the chimera is in some way hurt by being the crossing of two species, what reasonable ground can there be for claiming that its rights are violated anymore than the rights of the mule -- the mixing of a horse and a donkey? Does the fact that humans have deliberately created a new genetic make-up make a moral difference? Why?
The Act bans chimeras only when one party is genetically human. How can this be justified? This is a law, and does not carry any ethical/moral weight, but what possible arguments could lay behind the law? Cynthia Cohen gives us an answer:
"Human dignity", a fancy phrase that sound nice, but is devoid of any meaning. It is the last resort when arguments from a factual basis fail, or maybe a reflection of religious beliefs. She puts it pretty clearly when implying that it would be wrong to "deny that there is something distinctive and valuable about human beings that ought to be honored and protected". This should be denied, vigorously, as it is the basis of much unjustified oppression of non-human animals. Until it is shown what characteristic of humans are "distinctive and valuable" that exists in all humans and does not exist in any non-human animals, there is no merit to the idea of a special human dignity. It is nothing more than poorly masked discrimination on the sole basis of species membership, something which holds
Instead of arguing over what percentage Gates has given or who is more generous of Gates and a poor man giving the same percentage, I offer a challenge for any honest, rational human to accept:
I will assume that you have more money than you need to cover your basic needs. This will be true if you can ever afford to buy a new computer, buy ice cream or take a few beers at the pub. If you don't have any surplus money then you have nothing to give, and what I say does not apply.
You have your basic needs: food, clothes, shelter, transport, communications -- things which are required for you to live at a level where you do not feel that you are in some sort of distress. These needs take some part of your money, and anything else you have left is surplus. If you were to spend this on yourself, it would be to satisfy relatively trivial desired compared to the unfulfilled needs of large portions of the population of our planet. I will argue that that money would be put to better use if spent on those in need.
There appears that there are effective ways of improving the conditions of those in need on the long term. This could be spening resources (money in this case) on infrastructure, education and possibly famine relief (although it could be objected that feeding the hungry does not attack the root of the problem, but instead helps create another generation of people who will also starve unless the real problems are solved). If you do not agree on any of these measures, consider fair trade, population control, caring for the environmental (greenpeace) or human rights activism (amnesty international and others).
If you have any surplus money, you could (morally ought, I believe) give all or some of this to a cause which you believe will effectively help those in need. But how much? Giving nothing at all is clearly not optimal. Also, giving all of what I have defined as surplus may not be optimal either, as it would exclude you from some social activities (e.g. going to the pub) which may be required to uphold a healthy social life and without which your wellbeing would be at risk, and with it your ability to continue bringing home money to give to the needy. We arrive at the conclusion that you can (ought) give somewhere between nothing and all of your surplus.
Since it is difficult to determine which is the optimal giving rate, I suggest that you set this level in an honest way as you see fit. I feel that for me, as a full time student on state subsidies and loans, half of my surplus is reasonable. In no way am I certain that 50% is the optimal number, but it allows for a simple system which is self-adjusting to my current financial situation.
I suggest a system which is as follows. For each purchase that can rightly be considered surplus consumption, record that amount. When the total amount of money spent exceeds a nice even number like $10, $100 or in my case, 100 SEK, give that money to a cause which you believe will be of high benefit to humans (living or future), non-human animals, the environment or some other cause which you judge to be more important than your own needs (none of which are essential since those needs are already covered, or no surplus consumption could have taken place). Such a system has several benefits:
My claims here have been rather moderate and aimed at finding a practical method of sharing ones surplus. It is possible that the moral obl
Well I actually don't believe that immaterial things exist, they're just a convenient abstraction that allow us to talk about certain things efficiently.
But no, my identity is not material in the sense that a coffee cup is. And no, it cannot be stolen.
What does the article actually say has happened? Has a copy of the game actually been stolen, or has a copy been made and put online? Since its impossible to steal immaterial things it should mean the latter, but with all the deliberate confusion of theft and copyright infringement that goes on its impossible to say.
What a contrarian is I don't know, but all the google hits seem to have something to do with investment and capital. Perhaps revenge could be argued against on contrarian grounds, but since I have made no real arguments -- only claims -- I don't see why you say that.
You're absolutely right, I give no arguments against revenge. I can't see that calling the idea absurd really consitutes an ad hominem argument since I have not said anything about the person making the orginal claim. Let me instead turn to my reasons for opposing revenge.
Definition. By revenge I mean an action which harms the reciever, and the reciever deserves to be harmed. Perhaps my definition of revenge does not fit all the actions which someone might say is revenge, but for purposes of this discussion, I need a word to describe the action of harming because harm is deserved.
What I should actually do is claim that revenge cannot exist, since I believe that harm cannot be deserved. Unfortunately for me, this belief is unprovable unless all possible arguments to the contrary can be anticipated and falsified. An example will shine some light on why I hold this belief.
If someone takes your bike you may rightfully take it back. Not because the taker deserves to be harmed (by having the bike taken away), but because you have a right to your bike (here making the assumption that there is some sort of property right and that in this case it is not displaced by a more fundamental right). As far as I can see, taking the bike from the taker only makes sense if it restores the bike to you. There are of course limits to this (e.g. if the taker faces great harm (death, starvation or similar) when you take the bike back then you must not do so). Taking revenge on the taker after the bike has been restored to you only makes sense (by my definition) if further harm is deserved. The burden of proof should lie on (s)he who claims that harm is deserved in this or any other case.
I have not claimed that harming criminals can never be morally right, but rather that revenge -- doing harm because harm is deserved -- is impossible because harm cannot be deserved. Your reasons for vengeance (which I must read as punishment so as not to equate it with revenge) may or may not give support for punishment, but they do not show that harm can be deserved (and of course I couldn't ask that they do since it I did not define exactly what I mean by revenge in my original posting).
Although not of any moral relevance, I see "eye for eye" as savage and somewhat childish. If the desire to retaliate and getting some satisfaction (peace of mind) from it is a natural part of a human psyche, I really do think that it should be supressed to the fullest extent possible. More morally relevant: assuming a moral of rights, it cannot be just to violate a criminals right to life and liberty to satisfy the victims right to peace of mind, because if such a right exits I am almost certain it is of a lower standing that the right to life and liberty. On utilitarian grounds I don't doubt that such treatment could be right (or even a duty) if there are enough people who derive satisfaction from seeing the criminal punished. The debate is endless (well not really) and it is not the question I am really concerned about.
In any eveny, it is true that the question at hand is not "cut and dry", and I thank you for pointing this out.
An eye for an eye?
I see it as absolutely pointless to revenge criminals -- it's an absurd thought that you can deserve to have harm done upon you because you harmed someone else. The only valid reasons for "punishment" there can be is to protect someone else and/or to rehabilitate.
I believe "Society" (you and I) should show everyone compassion, including criminals, and we'll be better off for it.
Generally, yes. But we need to recognize that the law is only an approximation of morals, and that there are unjust laws. If the morality of something is to be discussed, saying "society has decided that it is so" won't cut it since sometimes the majority of a society (or whatever group holds control) can be wrong.
On a side note, my opposition to accepting paradoxes comes from a fear that it's a much too easy way to dismiss wrongs as paradoxes. An effort should be made to reach a conclusion based on reason. If that fails some of the premises/values we build upon are probably false. I say probably because there still is a possibility that the best morals are arbitrary and contradictive, but I have very little reason to believe that is the case right now. How else are we going to find out when we are doing something wrong?
Won't you agree that it's problematic to grant moral rigths (only) on the basis of agreement within a society? It seems to me there are certain acts which are forbidden no matter how much agreement there is in the society (that is, no matter how much everyone else but the victim of the act thinks it's ok). For example I believe it's wrong to hurt someone against their will unless it's the only way to protect others from being hurt in an even worse way. It would still be wrong even if there's alot of agreement in this society that this individual should be hurt. Example: a criminal given the death penalty, 90% of the population think it's morally right to kill the criminal. I don't think that would make it right. If instead we chose "agreement among the affected parties" that would perhaps be more reasonable (but without a doubt problematic in some other way).
About your talk about being dialectic and "Paradox is just as valuable as resolution"... I'm not entirely sure I know what you're going on about, but it seems to me you're partly objecting to the view that "the truth" or "the best/right moral" can be reached by logically analyzing arguments and counter-arguments. The idea has struck my mind before that maybe the best moral system is full of contradiction and is completely arbitrary... which is very unsettling. But does this possibility mean that we shouldn't try to do it by reason? If in fact a coherent moral system which reflects all or most of your intuitions can be found, wouldn't that be worth something? Or do you believe that would be an absolute and hence necessarily something bad? Such a belief would be as much of an absolute as the absolute it opposes.
I'm still unsure about the origin of the right under discussion. Is it because we have freedom (to do <something>)? I must point out that having such a right would limit the freedom of other individuals to alter your work in the privacy of their homes, even in their minds. Unless you think this is reasonable, the right you want is probably something else, or it has some conditions, like "the right to not have your work altered and then publically displayed" or something to that effect. Of course the fact that your rights affect everyone elses freedom is not news, but you would need to demonstrate that everyone elses right to alter their memories or private belongings (like a copy of your work) are of a lower moral standing than the right you have.
Why do you speak in riddles?
Sounds like the rules of society are the ones we are morally bound to. This has some strange effects: Is it the majority that is always right, or is it whoever is in power? Also, if the pirate and the author are from two different societies, on what grounds can the author be upset? The pirate has not broken any rules of his society (I assume his society allows copying), and the authors rights cannot restrict anyone in another society (otherwise, two rights grated in two different societies could place opposite duties on all the people in the world, and the same act could be forbidden and mandatory at the same time, a contradiction which at least to me is proof enough that this cannot be. Is this the sort of paradox you're talking about?). I'd agree that rights and morals are a social thing but viewing it as bound to each society is very problematic, as is viewing it as a purely individual thing. I don't know by what social mechanism morals come into being, so I'll just question your suggestions for the time being :)