It sure does, it’s a moral statement. But let me speak them then:
pain is unpleasant and should be avoided as much as practicable
If you care about reducing the pain in others then you should act accordingly
the vegan perspective is to reduce our exploitation of animals as much as practicable
the pain and suffering of animals at the hands of humans matters
we should try to limit the unnecessary pain we cause
there are actions humans can take to lower the amount of pain and suffering in the world
a world with less pain and suffering is preferable to one with more
But seriously, what would you do with the information that plants felt suffering on the level of animals and humans? Would you do nothing with this shocking new evidence?
it also assumes that you can know what will decrease suffering in the future. you can’t.
further, it assumes that inflicting or avoiding suffering is either immoral or moral. only one system I’m aware of states this outright and it’s utilitarianism, which can be summed up " the ends justify the means" which most people think is pretty abhorrent.
Yes and that holds true for all actions—we can never know how our behavior will “sum out” in the future, especially the far far future.
We still make moral decisions based on the imperfect information we have. In fact we have to, because merely existing in the status quo is a moral decision. Even choosing to remove ourselves from existence is a moral decision. On a long enough horizon we can’t tell how anything will play out.
So while can’t know what any of our decisions or lack of decisions will amount to in the future, we still try, and update our assumptions as time goes on.
But there’s no point in arguing whether reducing suffering is moral or not if you’re not even going to grant that attempting to reduce suffering is a worthy goal.
On a long enough horizon we can’t tell how anything will play out.
which is why consequentialism can’t actually tell us the right thing to do. it’s a fatally flawed ethical approach.
since ethics can’t be derived from possible future outcomes, they must come from somewhere else. kant proposes it’s the categorical imperative. divine command theorists propose from God or a holy text.
neither of those systems axiomatically say to reduce suffering.
I feel like you’re getting lost in the world of abstracts. I’m talking subjective, fallible, imperfect, morality—not objective ethics.
There is a concrete instance of a chicken that is being tortured for profit currently. If you’re against that, it’s morally self-consistent to avoid contributing to the system which is torturing the chicken.
this has a lot of unspoken moral assumptions in it
It sure does, it’s a moral statement. But let me speak them then:
pain is unpleasant and should be avoided as much as practicable
If you care about reducing the pain in others then you should act accordingly
the vegan perspective is to reduce our exploitation of animals as much as practicable
the pain and suffering of animals at the hands of humans matters
we should try to limit the unnecessary pain we cause
there are actions humans can take to lower the amount of pain and suffering in the world
a world with less pain and suffering is preferable to one with more
But seriously, what would you do with the information that plants felt suffering on the level of animals and humans? Would you do nothing with this shocking new evidence?
it also assumes that you can know what will decrease suffering in the future. you can’t.
further, it assumes that inflicting or avoiding suffering is either immoral or moral. only one system I’m aware of states this outright and it’s utilitarianism, which can be summed up " the ends justify the means" which most people think is pretty abhorrent.
Yes and that holds true for all actions—we can never know how our behavior will “sum out” in the future, especially the far far future.
We still make moral decisions based on the imperfect information we have. In fact we have to, because merely existing in the status quo is a moral decision. Even choosing to remove ourselves from existence is a moral decision. On a long enough horizon we can’t tell how anything will play out.
So while can’t know what any of our decisions or lack of decisions will amount to in the future, we still try, and update our assumptions as time goes on.
But there’s no point in arguing whether reducing suffering is moral or not if you’re not even going to grant that attempting to reduce suffering is a worthy goal.
which is why consequentialism can’t actually tell us the right thing to do. it’s a fatally flawed ethical approach.
since ethics can’t be derived from possible future outcomes, they must come from somewhere else. kant proposes it’s the categorical imperative. divine command theorists propose from God or a holy text.
neither of those systems axiomatically say to reduce suffering.
I feel like you’re getting lost in the world of abstracts. I’m talking subjective, fallible, imperfect, morality—not objective ethics.
There is a concrete instance of a chicken that is being tortured for profit currently. If you’re against that, it’s morally self-consistent to avoid contributing to the system which is torturing the chicken.
Is it not?
i don’t think that’s true.
Ok, we’re getting somewhere.
Personally, I would consider the conditions of battery chickens torture, made worse because of the profit maximising motive.
If you don’t agree with that then this explains why we have different moral intuitions.
I would still say my points stand because I emphasise internal moral consistency, not some appeal to an objective value system.