In My Memory

People know me for having an almost religious fascination with skirts, especially minis, and generally wearing short skirts everyday of the year, and talking about how much I love skirts because they are so feminine and adorable I have a pretty sizable collection of skirts and dresses, more than most other women. However, most people dont know that I have an inordinate amount of Hello Kitty merchandise too, and I've been collecting Hello Kitties for 10 years.

YT,

YT, Not exactly. I'm talking about the place where two blades come into contact with one another, when they swing across each other like scissors. I think everyone else had the idea that I was asking whether a blade could be swung so fast its end point exceeds C, but thats not what I was talking about in the first place. I'm only talking about the place where the blades come into contact, as indicated by the nifty animation from the opening post

woelen, I dont actually think thats a genuine limitation, because the end points can actually move very slowly, but the contact point between the blades will move much faster. Imagine the following, we construct a pair of blades 5000 m long, where the back ends of the blades are level, and the front ends of the blades are seperated by 1 m: ___________________5000 m_____________________________ / \ ----------- } ----------- } ----------- } 1 m ----------- } -*--------- } -*------------------------------------------------------- ^ | Contact point Its probably not very easy to see with ASCII art, but if you close the blades (the ends move a total of 1 m), the contact point travels 5000 m. So if the blades close at 1 m/s, then the contact point moves along the blades at an average speed of 5000 m/s. You never have to worry about the end points of the blades moving anywhere close to C at all

I discussed this a little with YT on the SFN chatroom, and I want to know why information cant be transmitted any faster than C. I dont know if there if "information" has a special meaning in physics, so I'm going to use it as a synonym for language and communication. Specifically, I want to know if its possible to send Morse Code from point A to point B faster than 300,000 km/s. I've heard of ways where objects can travel "faster" than C in a trivial sense, for instance if you wave a beam across the sky you could observe the reflected laser dot trace the surface of the moon faster than C. I've been interested in the way the contact point between the blades on a pair of scissors can hypothetically travel faster than C, like this: The black dot marks the contact point between the blades, and you can see that the contact point travels along the blades with exponentially increasing speed. With sufficiently long blades moving at a very fast speed, I dont find it hard at all to concieve that the contact point of the blades exceeds C. So whats to prevent someone from transmitting Morse Code information faster than C?

10) You look under your roommates mattress and find Homosexual Narcoleptic Cow fetish magazines 9) ... 8) ... 7) ... 6) ... 5) ... 4) ... 3) ... 2) ... 1) wtf, nevermore? Reasons why the whole world, even your parents, even your dog, hates you.

Dak, I really dont think business owners wake up one day and say, "you know, I really dont think I've pissed enough people off today". I dont think you have a real claim that students are being discriminated against, because theres no evidence that stores wouldn't use similar measures to drive away large numbers of loitering geriatrics. Probably the reason for repelling teens is reducing crime or troublemaking, because if someone gets assaulted in the parking lot of business, then the business gets sued, which ultimately causes the store to raise prices / cut wages and hurts everyone. Similarly, if groups of kids are outside of a store playing music very loudly, the store can get ticketed for noise pollution. There might also be some kind of "image" factor at work, where groups of students loitering outside of a store just makes the store look less professional. And in any case, no ones rights have been violated. A store or business is private property, where you dont have a right to walk or stand anywhere you please at any time. I dont see that the stores have done anything unusual at all.

Here's a fun forum game - reply to the topic of the poster above - make your replies in a Johnny Carson style Top 10 List. Your replies should be funny or suffer the consequences - after you finish, suggest a new topic I'll start: First topic: Things You Wouldn't Want on Your Tombstone: 10) Didnt eat his lima beans 9) This week's winning lotto numbers: 7 14 5 21 15 9 8) Be right back... 7) Its Clobberin' Time! 6) LOL 5) This Space for Rent 4) Last Words: "Hey guys, watch this!..." 3) Hated by all, befriended by none 2) He entered this world the way he left it: screaming and naked 1) Unmourned, Unloved Next topic: Unconventional uses of a knife

AzurePhoenix, Ahem, he has kept Batgirl and Robin interested for almost 200 issues. Take that!

You can wear short skirts and be feminine and beautiful all day, even if you're not a girl (eh, Klaynos?). Or you can read Bash.org

why, Wolverine is even more vulnerable than spiderman, because if you remember from the X-men movie, Magneto completely incompassitated Wolverine by taking advantage of his very magnetic adamantium skeleton. So Batman calls up Magneto and says "hey buddy, if you do me a favor, I'll do you a favor in return". So Batman uses his only superpower, money, to bail Magneto out of prison, or just higher Johnny Cochoran to argue at Magneto's next appeal, then Magneto floats Wolverine in the air where he's perfectly harmless until Batman decides to dump a truck full of cement on Wolverine where he's entombed forever. Batman: 2. Wolverine: 0.

Batmans superpower is money, and I really like that in a superhero. Plus, Batman is really smart, and spiderman really isnt. Spiderman wins his battles only because he can beat his villains to a pulp before they can beat him, but he really doesnt have any tact at all (remember in the Spiderman movie where bus is falling off a bridge and Spiderman has to hold on to it? he manages to save his girlfriend and the bus at the same time only because he's spiderman and benchpresses buses in his spare time). Batman would really easily find a way to use Spidermans powers against him. Example: Spiderman has spidysense, so Batman says "what if I build a decoy of myself and fill it with explosives". So Batman sends his decoy after Spiderman, it trips Spidermans spidysense, he takes the bait and BOOM! Deader than Boris the Spider ever was. Batman: 1. Spiderman: 0. Oh, and I thought this was funny: http://watkins.gospelcom.net/jwc4.htm

Severian, I dont really know how I feel about Iraq, but the very least Zarqawis death destroys the morale and organization of the terrorist groups (which is a good thing), and I dont hate Bush as much

Mokele, Yes, thats true. But then again, we also have different flavors of utilitarianism, such as totalizing utilitarianism (which argues that if pleasures of any intensity and duration cover the same area, they are morally equal) and averaging utilitarianism (which argues that pleasures can differ if they cover the same area in a duration but have different average of pleasures at any give time). Both kinds of utilitarianism have their advantages and disadvantages. For instance totalizing utilitarianism seems to imply that its morally better to house a huge population in barely livable conditions than housing a small population in decent conditions (a repugnant conclusion); while averaging utilitarianism only takes into account changes in the average happiness but not the total happiness, so that killing off the unhappiest 50% of the population is morally obligatory (another repugnant conclusion). Maybe we can blend both of these conclusions by calculating moral goodness with true bayseian estimates, so that increasing the total amount of happiness and average happiness simultaneously is good. It would be interesting to see that kind of approach advanced. To the part in bold, that is a pretty harsh judgement of a philosopher whose works you've never even read (you have no idea how much it makes my head spin to read that, and in fact I think it embodies the exact same frustrated naivety --- and I use that word academically, not as an insult -- of creationists who say "Darwin just tossed together his theory of evolution because he didnt want to believe in Jesus"). If you're interested to see how the individual-per-individual calculations are laid out, I'd urge you to read what Regan actually has to say: - Short article examining utilitarianism by Tom Regan - The Dog in the Lifeboat, an exchange between deontologist philosopher Tom Regan and utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer. I find Regans comments plausibly defend the idea that actions are weighted on an individual per individual basis, and Singers comments miss the point a little. In other words, you're guilty of multiple murder for not abducting people off the street and harvesting their organs and blood to save others. Instead of being guilty of one murder, you're guilty of hundreds because so few could have been sacrificed for the needs of many others! Of course, if you're like me, you'll probably reject the claim that you're guilty of hundreds of murders because, after all, you dont have any recollection of actually murdering anyone do you? Theres a good reason for this: because you're introducing the question of whether we are just as responsible for the lives we take as the lives we fail to save. Generally, the consensus among academics is that we're more responsible for the lives we take, because it takes considerably more effort to save someone than to refrain from killing them; this is one of the reasons why failing to donate food to starving Africans overseas is not the moral equivalent to sending poisoned food. If you're interested to see this argument fleshed out in more detail, then I recommend any books by Helga Kuhse or Mary Midgley on euthanasia. The principles above indicate that we arent even talking about a zero sum game anymore, because with the implications that its wrong to cut up one person to save 6 others, he have grounds for saying one persons murder is worse than at least 6 peoples unintended deaths, so that killing people is worse than not saving them. In this way, killing one person to save another is always morally worse than failing to kill someone which leads to anothers death. You might be able to get away with saying that, so long if one persons death is sufficiently beneficial, such as killing one infant to instantly cure AIDS; that might be logically consistent, but those kinds of examples are extremely rare, if existent at all, in the real world. However, your situation also involves some more complex considerations: on the one hand, if a mother withheld food from their child, and her actions lead to the death of the child, then I would agree that mother is guilty of murder. But for a doctor that fails to kill another to save another, is he really guilty of murder? I dont really think that case applies, because the harm of killing a person is a rational constraint on the way the doctor can treat his patient (especially when taken in consideration of the fact that taking lives is morally worse than failing to save them). At best, your stating your beliefs without really justifying them. The individual-per-individual way of calculating harms isnt specious in the least, because its a variant of deontological ethical systems which have a pretty weighty influence in moral philosophy. Lets say Bob feels harmed because you wont give him 20 dollars, and lets say Bob is one of 100 people who want you to give him 20 dollars; Bob and each individual is only harmed -20 dollars by your refusal, but you are harmed 2000 dollars for complying; is it really the case that you are harmed less for having your money taken, than Bob is harmed for not being able to take your money? No, that would be nonsense, because its plainly evident that Bobs individual harm is less than your individual harm just by calculating the net gains and losses. Is it true that any individual is harmed to a greater extent than yourself? No. Yet even when everyones net gain is substantially less than your net harm, your argument implies you harm all of them profoundly for not giving away your money, more profoundly than they harm you for taking it. Its enough to make your head spin. I agree with your conclusions, but the ways that you got there are incoherent, because they imply that, if you dont donate all of the blood you possibly can, dont max out all of your credit cards and sell your home to donate money overseas, and dont donate all of your expendable organs, and dont harvest peoples organs every day, then you're a multiple mass murderer. You can come to the same conclusion by shifting the discussion from killing vs. letting die, to something more subtle like self-defense on behalf of others, social contract theories, or utilitarian angles: - On the self-defense angle, you can say Person A has a right to defend herself from harm, but if for some reason Person A is incapacitated, then its morally acceptable for Person B to defend Person A's life on Person A's behalf. - On the social contract angle, you can say that person who kills violates the social contract (presumably if the social contract prohibits killing others), so that the killers contractarian protections are forfeited, so the killer no longer has a right to life. - On the utililtarian angle, you can say that a killer causes more harm than a non-killer, so that the killers continued existence is profoundly more harmful than the victims continued existence, so that killing the killer ultimately minimizes the harm than if the victim were allowed to be killed. From a number of different moral stances, we can rationally say that killing murderers is less immoral than allowing murderers to kill. (If it matters at all, I most strongly agree with the first and third approaches.) I dont know why you think I was insincere with my first answer. But in any case, I think thread is about ready to go in about 50 million directions at once, so I'll make this my last post and let you have the last word Oh by the way, I've purchased a membership to PETA today I was reluctant to do so for a long time, but they do a lot of a good work which I support. w00t! JohnB,

Mokele, Think about it: all the morally relevant characteristics a being has almost always refer to the beings mental and feeling capacities. For instance, capacity to feel pain and pleasure, capacity to be rational, capacity to empathize with others, capacity to seek long term goals, and so on are direct statements about a beings mental and feeling capacities. As well, almost all moral actions you do to a being have to do with how you affect the being either directly or indirectly, which refers back to a beings mental and feeling experiences (which is lumped under the umbrella term "experiential welfare"). Add to that, all of the morally relevant capacities a being has depend directly on its continued existence, so respecting a beings experiential welfare is a prerequisite to respecting all of its other morally relevant characteristics. I hope you dont take this as shifting the burden of moral discourse, but if you dont think preserving a beings experiential welfare is a valid moral principle, whats your alternative? Would you like to read some philosophers who argue exactly that? You tell me, do you think its worse to spank a child for 5 seconds or 5 hours? But in any case, the whole point with fleeting pleasures, in a utilitarian sense, is that a temporary pleasure doesnt maximize the amount of good as longer lasting pleasures. If you dont mind a crude display, heres a chart showing the goodness of 4 pleasures, and how they aggregate with one another (aggregate pleasures are stacked on top of each other when they occur in the same time frame): @ = pleasure1, occurs at time=0 # = pleasure2, occurs at time=4 $ = pleasure3, occurs at time=12 % = pleasure4, occurs at time=16 First case, where @, #, $, % last for about 5 seconds each } } } } Aggregate good } ## % } @@@@@### $$$$$%%%% } 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 seconds Second case, where @, #, $, % last for about 15 seconds each } } } } Aggregate good $$$ %% } ############$$$%%%%%%%% } @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@###$$$$$$$$%%%%% } 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 seconds You get a greater aggregate good, and a higher average good for any given time for longer lasting pleasures than fleeting pleasures, so longer lasting pleasures maximize moral good. Each person suffers the harms and benefits of only one person, so its rational to consider the harms and benefits of our actions an individual per individual basis. So it doesnt matter that one death decreases the suffering of many, because that single death must be compared against the benefit of each single individual. Philosophers Tom Regan, explains this kind of comparison and the reasons for it a lot of depth (if you're interesting, you can pick up the book "The Case for Animal Rights" and give it a read, and see how he argues it). We dont aggregate the benefit of all the individuals affected, but compare them as individuals, so we're still effectively making a 1:1 comparison; there are reasons to prefer this kind of moral reasoning, such as to avoid the akwardness of saying "its ok to murder one person if their organs will save 6 others". Lets imagine a TV show that features someone torturing a baby, and the show entertains millions and millions of people. The harm caused to the baby is more profound than the enjoyment of any single television viewer, so we can conclude that torturing the baby is morally wrong, no matter how many people benefit. (We can also say that the viewers enjoyment is fleeting and temporary, and that there are less cruel way to entertain people, like watching Law and Order: SVU, so we have a few additional reasons not to torture people on TV.) The same principles apply to the scenario you defined, but it also entails a number of other interesting moral questions: if its ok to destroy a life to save another, would you say that murder is justified so long as another life is brought into existence immediately afterward? For instance, if a woman is pregnant, she could get away with murder on the grounds that she is having a baby to replace the person who she has killed. I presume you arent very comfortable with this, and for your own reasons you reject it as morally sound. Of course, you also have to take into consideration, when you kill a being to save others, you deliberately harm it and do it moral wrong; but when you try to save a person, without killing others, you do no one anymore moral wrong at all, even if your patient doesnt survive. From the point of view of minimizing the harm we cause, we arent justified in murdering others to for anyones benefit, so that kind of practice is morally wrong. And taken with consideration of the "individual per individual" calculation above, and the fact that murder is not justified by bringing others into existence, then we have a strong cumulative argument for the categorical abolition of all killing for the benefit of others. Severian, I value the chimpanzee just as much as I'd value my own children, but the chimpanzee has more morally relevant characteristics to take into consideration, and in the interest of minimizing the harm that I cause, I'd save the adult chimpanzee.

Mokele, Good morning, Mokele I'm not really sure why you would question why ethics need to logical, because anything follows from a logical contradiction, and so there can be no rational reason why people should behave morally. (Of course, I'm just being pedant, but I think its really interesting the way you allow that moral systems can be internally inconsistent and contradictory, so that they could follow from logical or intuitional propositions, but at the same time you rejected some of my comments for being intuitional ) Are you trolling with that statement' date=' or do you genuinely believe that?[/quote'] Actually, I think Bascule was quoting Jeremy Bentham: The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been witholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognized that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sarrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose they were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reasons nor Can they talk? but, Can their suffer? I agree with Bascule, and I'd be interested to hear on what basis you object to Bascules comment.

Mokele, I'm not sure, but I think we are reasonably intelligent enough to understand that creatures need to take in sense data of their environment, and they need to know when they've been injured (it has a tremendous survival advantage). We can also observe their behavior where they appear to be stressed by "painful" stimuli, they have certain behaviors that indicate distress, and they respond to pain killers. Its kinda hard to imagine that creatures with sense organs dont actually use them to sense, so I dont think its unreasonable to believe that non-vertebrate animals have similar pain experiences as people. I just want to make another comment: I cant tell whether your statement, "Is their pain homologous, or even analagous, to ours", is just a quirk of language or something else. At first sight, I thought you were implying that pain experiences only matter so long as they are sufficiently human enough (note that I reject anthropocentric presumptions, and I dont think pain matters anymore for it being the pain of particular species or not). I think the above portions are the most important part of your post, because they are entirely correct. I'm not ignoring the correlates with species, in fact I explicitly stated how those correlates are relevant in a comment to Severian: Because it doesnt tell me anything about the creatures actual capacities. But now you have to understand the implications of this: when we dont talk about a creatures breeding group as a moral characteristic' date=' and instead focus on its actual capacities and characterstics, then we are talking [i']only[/i] about those characteristics and not the creatures breeding group. This way of thinking changes many moral decisions, because now we cant say that there is any concievable moral difference between electrocuting an animal and electrocuting a mentally similar human; its not coherent anymore to argue that one is justified because it causes an animal pain, and one is unjustified because it causes a human suffering, because "animal" and "human" tell me only a beings breeding group without adding anything to the moral equation. Both electrocuted beings are harmed to a same extent because they're rights are violated to the same extent, and they experience the same amount of suffering; the fact that one creature belongs to one breeding group and another creature belongs to some other breeding group is happenstance, but irrelevant. Because you and I are now on the same page (we both understand that breeding groups dont matter and actual capacities do), you and I should agree that if two creatures who share many of the same morally relevant capacities, then they have a similar claim to moral value no matter what breeding group they are. And I'm sure you'll agree that the fact one creature belongs to one breeding group as opposed to another does not justify neglecting one or all of its morally relevant characteristics. It follows from this kind of moral thinking that all moral boundaries between breeding groups (because many of the same characteristics are common in many species), leading to a rejection of the belief that humans are intrinsically more important or morally superior to all other creatures for the sake of being human. With this rejection of species as a moral boundary, veganism and animal rights philosophies almost build themselves. You have to realize that morally relevant characteristics are almost always connected with a beings feeling and mental capacities (notice how many moral characteristics, like the capacity to suffer, be rational, practice moral reciprocity, make choices, etc. are all direct statements about a creatures feeling and mental capacities), and that almost all animals have equal or greater mental and feeling capacities to human infants. All of the same moral characteristics that make infants valuable apply to mentally similar animals. It follows that breeding livestock and cutting them up for human food is fundamentally no different than breeding infants and cutting them up to feed animals; it is fundamentally no different to hunt rabbits for sport as it would be to hunt infants for sport; it is fundamentally no different to plunge a knife into a deer's belly as it would be to plunge a knife into an intant's belly. Does it make sense why a person would become a vegan and an animal rights activist when the moral wrongness of taking animals' lives is just as profoundly disturbing and vile as taking infants' lives? Severian, Factual and moral judgments report facts: factual judgements refer to true or false claims about nature, and moral judgements refer to true or false claims about the ways to behave. Moral judgements are intelligible in the world of moral language, and they report facts using moral language. Moral judgments always reduce down to a set of intrinsic values (things valuable in themselves); claims of intrinsic value always begin in metaethics, and always begin with asking "is it true that X is intrinsically valuable", where an intrinsic value is understood as something worth pursuing in itself without reference to other entities. Many moral theories provide different reasons for why some characteristics are intrinsically valuable, but they all have in common a way of showing that the question "is it true that X is intrinsically valuable" is answered with a "yes" or a "no" when X is replaced with some characteristics. At this point, the philosophy of language can show that some X's affirm the statement, but that gets incredibly technical and cumbersome to read; hopefully, the demonstration with lundles and oogles shows that X is not affirmed for the characteristic "breeding group", so breeding groups arent a measure of intrinsic value; and hopefully if you remember some of my other posts, you understand that it really is true that people persue happy experiences for the sake of those experiences without reference to other entities, so happiness is at least one intrinsic value. Preference satisfaction is intrinsically valuable for identical reasons, because the satisfaction of preference is pursuable for the sake of satisfying those preferences alone (note that it isnt important what the content of those preferences are, just that they are satisfied). I think some of my comments in previous posts on "interests" are too technical, and I recommend reading Peter Singer's book "Practical Ethics" to get a handle on it. But basically, "interests" refer collectively to a creatures morally relevant characteristics, so that promoting happiness and satisfying a beings preferences both fall under the umbrella phrase "satisfying interests". Because interests are connected to a beings morally relevant characteristics, and morally relevant characteristics almost always refer directly to a beings mental and feeling capacities, then its understood that (minimally) a capacity to feel pain is prerequisite to holding any interests at all. Plants dont have brains, they dont suffer, they dont have mental lives, so they dont have any interests to take in consideration. I dont see why we have to presume that moral rules and physical rules have to be necessarily the same thing or follow from one another, because moral rules are not objects or substances found anywhere in the universe. We can take from the tradition of the rationalists and state that a non-arbitrary moral code can be known from reason alone where moral rules follow directly from logical rules, or we can take from the tradition of the empiricists and say that moral rules follow directly from the interactions between rational and feeling beings (both approaches are compliant with naturalism, because the moral rules would refer to facts about the natural world). Fair enough, should I choose to write down all of my moral prescriptions before I die, they will be fixed and hopefully passed down to my children and all of their children. As my said morals are fixed too, and therefore not arbitrary. One could also argue that: - Gods commands have no prescriptive weight - that God's commands are arbitrary - that God's commands are subjective - that God's commands are fundamentally unknowable - that God's commands are fundamentally irresolvable, because many people have different ideas of what God has willed, but because God's commands cant be scrutinized by the rules of logical inference, there is no way to determine which ideas of God really belong to God - that God's commands dont single out human beings for a special place in the universe - that the commands ascribed to God are false - or that God doesnt exist. If I were a theist, I could never believe in the anthropocentric Gods of religion, because those gods are so morally short-sighted and the moral rules so evidently reflect the customs of the time that the moral prescriptions of religion cannot possibly come from an infinitely wise being. My theism would probably look like deism, a god who neither knows nor cares about human affairs, or it would be a personal God who reflects no anthropocentric tendencies (of course, if I went around saying "dont kill animals because it upsets the divine goddess", you would probably think I was schizophrenic).

Severian, Remember when you made a comment about arbitrary moral distinctions? You're making an arbitrary distinction above, because there is absolutely no reason why anyone should prefer the statement "humans do have a special place in my actions since I am human" over the competing statement "animals do have a special place in my actions since I am an animal", nor is there an indication to prefer that statement over the competing statement "caucasians have a special place in my actions since I am caucasian". The same moral principle, that you only need to concern yourself with members of your own group, can simultaneously defend killing all non-human animals, protecting all non-human animals, and killing all non-caucasian humans, so we have anthropocentricism, biocentricism, and racism are being endorsed by the same moral standard. You should see how this is hopelessly contradictory, so it cannot form the basis for any valid moral judgements at all. Your principles are not only arbitrary, but ambiguous because you are a member of many different groups with are all inclusive and exclusive to animals and humans, but you havent provided reasons for why one group membership should form the basis for moral distinctions as opposed to any other group membership. Essentially, your argument rests on an ambiguous distinction of groups, which ultimately undermines the argument you're attempting to make. See A Critique of Cohen's "Kind" Argument For Speciesism by Nathan Noblis for the severity of this ambiguity.

Severian I dont want to get into the specifics, but the claim that "... cant breed, but it is still a human and deserves moral protection" is dubious at best. But, more importantly, I'll grant that the biological definition of species provides a distinction between them. However, now you need to bridge the gap between something merely being a factual difference between two beings, such as their breeding group, and a morally relevant difference between them, where a morally relevant difference is some distinction that rationally justifies treating two beings different in a way that bears moral weight. For instance, I am 5'8 and 115 lbs, and I think its reasonable to assume you have a larger build than me; that is a factual difference between us, but one you would hopefully agree does not justify killing one of us and not the other (at least in normal circumstances). The biological definition of breeding is a factual difference between creatures, but its only a factual difference between beings with no further moral relevance -- unless you have an explanation why breeding groups determine whose valueable and whose not. Edit to add Because it doesnt tell me anything about the creatures actual capacities. Its easy to show that no amount of knowledge of a creatures breeding group tells you any information to make a moral decision by: imagine that a hypothetical person, Bob, asks "is it acceptable to kill oogles so long as it saves lundle lives?". You know nothing else about the creatures, except the creatures breeding groups. Can you provide an non-arbitrary answer to Bobs question, even with a dozen textbooks telling you about the breeding groups of oogles and lundles? I dont think you could, so knowing a creatures breeding group doesnt tell you anything useful. So how could you possibly defend species-based moral distinctions? It is impossible.

Severian, I certainly can give you an answer. I recommend reading "Species is a social construction" by Daniel Elstein, who provides a succinct explanation for why species-membership does not carry any moral relevance: I would first note that Cohen is using the term "speciesist" incorrectly, since he is talking not about the importance of "species" but about the importance of qualities that are correlated with our perceptions of species. His argument is therefore irrelevant because it ignores Singer’s point that individuals of different species (and individuals of the same species) should be treated differently insofar as they have morally relevant differences- just as men have no right to an affordable mammogram and wealthy white men have no right to the benefits of affirmative action. But what I really want to draw attention to is the question, what does Cohen mean by "species"? One might think that it would be giving Cohen the benefit of the doubt to just name one, preferably one that is accepted by many experts. Let's suppose, for instance, he is talking about Mayr’s biological species concept, which defines a species as a group of individuals capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. But surely Cohen does not believe that when we "are constantly making decisions and acting on these moral differences among species,” we are making our decisions based upon matters of who is capable of breeding with whom. For, not only do we not need to know any information about the mating capabilities of these animals to make moral distinctions between them; most of us wouldn’t even know what to do with this kind of information if we had it! So perhaps Cohen means a "commonsense" concept of species. That is, what is morally relevant are the distinctions that we are all capable of making simply by looking, with no scientific or philosophical training. What is morally relevant, in other words, is appearance. Yet I doubt that when Cohen wrote this passage he had appearance in mind as a morally relevant characteristic. For Cohen, unlike Darwin, the difference between humans and other animals is not merely one of degree, but one of kind. It is difficult to imagine how Cohen might hold this essential difference of kind to be based upon appearance. More likely, he would probably claim that we make distinctions between species based upon appearance, but it is not the appearance that is morally relevant but something else that is inevitably correlated with appearance. For instance, we distinguish between worms and cats based upon how they look, but the morally important distinction is ‘something else’ that is correlated by appearance. But unless someone can tell us what this ‘something else’ is, it is only prudent to assume that it is a "vivid illusion,” as biologists Frank Keil and Daniel Richardson argue in "Species, Stuff, and Patterns of Causation" (Keil and Richardson in Species, 273). And remember, this ‘something else’ cannot be intelligence, self-awareness, language, or capacity for suffering, because then those properties would be the morally relevant characteristics- but no one argues that they are equivalent to "species.” This ‘something else’ must simultaneously satisfy at least two conditions, which I believe is impossible. First, it must correspond with what we really mean when we talk about species, and second, it must at least be plausible that it is really the basis of our moral distinctions between supposed species. Mayr’s biological species concept and species concepts based on genes or DNA, for instance, do not satisfy the second condition. And properties like rationality and language do not satisfy the first condition. In other words, my main reason for saying that species is socially constructed is that we often unconsciously argue as if species has an essence; as if there is something about species in the background that can not be described, but which can simultaneously satisfy both the first and second condition. Given the basis of any species concept, few would argue that that basis is morally relevant in any significant way. Given the basis of Mayr’s biological species concept, few would argue that whom we have the ability to mate with is a relevant characteristic for determining how much moral consideration we should be granted (Lewis Petrinovich may be an exception, though his work is not altogether clear on the matter). Given the major basis of commonsense notions of species, few would argue that how we look should determine how much moral consideration we should be granted. Why, then, do some philosophers hold that our species can determine how much moral consideration we should be granted? I believe it is because they do not equate species with any biological or commonsense way of determining species. Rather, they are probably committing Washoe’s fallacy, thinking of species membership as some essential characteristic of an individual that, in reality, does not exist. Biologists and philosophers of science have had a tremendous amount to say about species, and much debate has ensued on this topic. But in nearly every philosophical discussion of animal rights (with some notable exceptions), the concept has been unanalyzed and taken for granted, as if the “problem” has been solved. The use of the term "species" within the philosophical context of animal rights has hardly been addressed at all. Why is this? That is, why do philosophers feel comfortable discussing questions of the moral relevance of species without first asking what species is, or what we should mean when we talk about species in the context of animal rights? So thats the problem in a nutshell: the use the word "species" in a morally relevant context, it needs to be defined. But biological definitions of species only state a creatures breeding group without providing information to make moral decisions by; and other definitions of species which correlate abilities and capacities shift moral distinctions away from species membership and over to the abililities and capacities, which makes species-membership irrelevant to actual moral decision making. You can extend the principles above to provide objections to racism, sexism, nationalism, and any other kinds of prejudice. I just dont think many people who hold that opinion have a very well-developed idea of morality. For instance, I've been in debates with logical positivists who insist that its impossible to make first-order evaluative judgements (which implies that moral statements cannot be true or false), but moral judgements are singled out because of an intuitional belief that they are "special". In fact, people make evaluative judgements all the time without thinking about it, and they can do so coherently. For instance, computer programmers have the capacity to write "efficient" code and "sloppy" code, where both pieces of code do the same job, but one piece does the job more quickly and elegantly; the distinction between efficient and inefficient code is an evaluative judgement which can be true or false, or in this case it can be "better" or "worse". This immediately contradicts the positivist thesis that first-order evaluative judgements are impossible, and these principles extend to moral evalutions as well. I think most people have naive notions about morality, such as believing that morality has to be etched into the fabric of the universe like the cosmological constants, or that morality has to be some kind of physical object to be "real". When people reify moral language and talk about it as if its supposed to be some kind of object, then a problem arise; but those problems are just a consequence of quirks in our language, and has no other moral relevance whatsoever. Very good! Even the most intelligent people I know still fall for the erroneous claim that evolution is a moral theory, like Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, Penn Gillette, and others. I'm not exactly sure why you think approaching morality from the bias and prejudices of your own point of view is anymore superior than approaching morality from the prejudices and bias of any other human-centric point of view. Peter Singer makes an interesting comment on the subject, he argues that theres no coherent way to approach morality from a human-centric point of view, but the only way to make a truly fair moral judgement is to approach it from the "point of view of the universe", or a point of view that doesnt unfairly weight one possible moral outcome more heavily than other moral outcomes. Its essentially no more rational than a sadist approaching morality for the sadists prejudices and bias, the the sadist unfairly weights his preferred outcomes above all other outcomes; the sadist then cannot be making an actual moral judgment. So that fact your morality deals with the way you act is irrelevant, and if you defend the claim that humans have an intrinsic value that applies to other creatures on the planet, then you must defend it from the universal point of view (one that says humans have a special place in the universe), otherwise you're not making a moral judgment at all.

Skye, I'm not really sure what you're implying. Are you saying that people have moral disagreements, therefore its ok to kill animals? I dont think that follows. Of course, even when people have disagreements, we're smart enough to weed out the naive forms of ethics and analyze certain principles for consistency through the simple rules of logical inference. Even if we dont know what actual moral rules are, we can say that a moral principle that simultaneously says A and not-A cannot possibly be true because its internally contradictory. And more importantly, some moral axioms are actually reducible and can be analyzed for truthiness and consistency. For instance, there is a very ancient belief, called anthropocentricism, that human beings have a special place in the universe, and this belief was taken to be an axiomatic philosophical truth; naturally, people believed that the universe would reflect philosophical truths, so they constructed cosmologies and religions to reflect that philosophical truth. From anthropocentricism came geocentricism and scores of anthropocentric religious beliefs... but now, geocentricism is rejected as silly and superstitious, and just flat out wrong. But in a fit of moral schizophrenia, when people no longer believe that humans are the center of the physical universe, they insist that humans are the center of the moral universe, so they are still just as superstitious as they've ever been, and theres no possibility of any anthropocentric moral theories being true. Many people hold moral axioms, such as the belief that humans have a special place in the universe, and that axiom forms the basis for dismissing the value of non-human animals. Of course, the belief that humans are the center of the universe is just wrong and superstitious, so it cannot be used as the basis for any moral distinctions, and all moral theories which follow from anthropocentric presumptions should be dismissed as superstitious. Even if we cannot agree on what moral rules actually are, we can agree on what they are not. And if you follow any discussion on vegetarianism, you will undoubtedly see many people using fallacious or superstitious arguments in favor of killing animals, such as the claim that the entire moral universe revolves around humans and their affairs, or the claim that survival of the fittest forms the basis for any moral decisions.

Severian, There is a significant problem, namely that species membership doesnt actually name a creatures morally relevant capacities, or name moral characteristics about a being that provides a moral basis for protecting it. The statement, "Its ok to kill non-members of your own species" is morally equal to the statement "Its ok to kill non-members of your own race / religion / sex / nationality / hair-color / eye color / etc". Then again, evolution isnt a moral theory. But of course, if we took evolution to be a moral theory, you should note there is nothing morally obligatory about keeping the human species as a whole alive and prospering, and it would be consistent for a sufficiently dominant aggressor to section off a portion of the human species for their own gain -- I think you are too nice of a person, even for someone who destroys animals lives every day, to think defend "survival of the fittest" as a moral theory with those implications, and I think you are intelligent enough to understand the naturalistic fallacy and how it implies that evolution isnt a moral theory. YT, Nothing is more torturous than that... but then, people think nothing out of the ordinary about eating veal or sirloin steaks, and no one thinks anything out of the ordinary about inducing "immobilization stress" on animals for experimentation. The harm caused by skinning and immobilizing humans for weeks at a time is identical to harm of skinning and immobilizing non-human animals. The only difference between the two is the species-membership of the creatures, but species-membership is morally irrelevant and does not provide an adequate basis for distinguishing the harm of skinning humans with skinning animals.

Herme3, No, they are humans. I don't usually spend time socializing with infants, but I understand they are human and will become adults one day. The fact something is a human doesnt has nothing to do with anything, because species membership is not a moral characteristic. Species membership is as morally irrelevant as race and sex membership, and cannot form the basis for our moral decisions. So then, the only thing that really makes a moral difference is the fact that infants are potential adults... but then again, what if they werent? Sometimes infants are born terminally ill, and no matter what, they will never become a rational adult one day. And sometimes infants are born with mental handicaps, so they might be an adult, but they'd still be the mental equals to eating, sleeping, stinking, language-less animals. And sometimes humans lose lose the capacity for rationality altogether, due to trauma or illness. If you think its wrong to kill any of those humans, then its evident that potential personhood isnt actually a factor in your moral decision making, so that the fact an infant is a potential person or not doesnt make a difference in the wrongfulness of killing it. In that case, potential personhood doesnt form the basis for a moral distinction between animals and mentally similar humans at all, and your reasons for valuing the experiential welfare of terminally ill infants, the mentally retarded, the senile, comatose, and other "marginal persons" should logically extend to animals. The wrongfulness of taking any animal life should then be just as severe as taking the lives of the aforementioned persons.

Herme3, Then again, most human beings, unlike animals, are rational creatures who are capable of making moral decisions about their diet, so they are obligated to do so. Animals have an experiential welfare that is fundamentally no different from a human's experiential welfare, and the same reasons that form the basis for protecting a humans experiential welfare logically extend to non-human animals. If we can minimize the harm that we cause, we're obligated to do so, and we really dont need to take our moral inspiration from non-rational creatures like animals. Keep in mind that the principles of animal rights are nothing more than a logical extension of humanism, so animal rights and human rights are two sides of the same coin. Killing animals is wrong for exactly the same reasons as killing mentally similar humans, because they have an experiential welfare that makes them inherently valuable. Then again, there is no moral difference between taking the lives of animals and taking the lives of mentally similar humans, like infants. After all, if you think its ok to destroy animal lives because they dont do anything except eat, sleep, and stink, what do you say about the value of human infants, the severely mentally handicapped, or the senile? Should they be cut up and fed to mentally superior people too? So its ok to kill things so long as they arent cute? Would you be willing to extend that ethic to humans?

Bascule, No one is going to switch from animal slaughter to cultured meat because its a more ethical choice, only if it turns out to be more profitable. If for some reason, the cultured meat didnt taste as good (probably because cultured meat doesnt contain blood or hormones), no one would buy it and manufacturers wouldnt make as much money, so they would still continue to slaughter (as proof of this, just look at how popular factory farmed milk is compared to its infinitely more ethical soy milk competitor). The fact cultured meat exists doesnt say anything at all about manufacturers making an ethical choice about meat production, and it doesnt say anything at all about manufacturers having the slightest respect for animals as feeling beings entitled to the same rights as their mentally similar human counterparts. So the move to cultured meat isnt a moral move at all, and factory farms will continue to exist, and hunting, and vivisection, and fur trapping, and leather, and so on. It would be nice if the move to cultured meat could be accompanied by, ideally, a total and categorical abolition of all animal products. Depends on how the starter cells are obtained, but I dont have a problem with growing meat in a bucket. I would just never eat it because its not healthy, and over the past 7 years of being strictly vegan I just wouldnt find it palatable anymore.