111–120 of 147 posts
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That doesn't mean physical pain is necessarily among the feelings felt.
I think creatures that don't feel pain would not survive long in the wild. If they don't feel pain they would not have any reason for avoiding dangerous situations.
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How is a response about what communists did relevant to a critique of capitalism? Except if one can't think of any other alternative or starting point from which to criticize capitalism but communism (and even more so, how some specific regimes practiced it).
Communism is the typical alternative to capitalism.
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Why does sentience matter? Why do humans deserve a right to a life free of imposed suffering?
Because they are sentient, they deserve a right to a life free of imposed suffering. I can argue for why sentience matters, and see my other reply for that, but if you want to argue a different standard, you're going to have to do that instead of just asking why not. Remember, most philosophies have to start from a set of axioms. I mean, fundamentally, no logical system can be complete anyway (Godel of course, althou…
Why is sentience an objective good or something to be valued?
Imo, morals and values are always relative and never absolute. As a result, there's no objective answer to where this line in the sand should be drawn.
You can say sentience is the measuring stick. I can say that life itself is the measuring stick. Neither position has an objective basis.
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They're a keystone species, have culture and language (probably older than any human one), they mourn their dead, and on and on...
Pigs are smart too. I don't know about on the same scale as elephants though. Elephants are also very social and long lived.
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Those barriers are certainly falling. The campaign to end the live boiling of lobsters and crabs [1] is underway due to our findings that crustaceans can feel pain. [1] http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-42873644
Grimly hilarious that anyone ever thought they couldn’t
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Horses are huge animals and often have to be put down for injuries to their legs. It's a shame to let meat go to waste. I don't know about killing horses in their prime though if that's what they do.
You honestly think that most horse meat steaks are from animals that were put down due to a leg injury?
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Optimal allocation of finite time and resources on a society scale is a hard problem. Supposed alternatives to capitalism tend to ignore that. Bad economics of all stripes tends to assume some form betrayal theory as the only issue.
> Optimal allocation of finite time and resources on a society scale is a hard problem. Agreed > Supposed alternatives to capitalism tend to ignore that. Disagreed, capitalism ignores the finite nature of resources, while treating some of them, which are actually infinite, as finite (time). Also, I'd argue that nothing about the resource allocation, the way capitalism does it, is in any way optimal, at least in regar…
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But if you are so skeptical of the "appeal to nature" how would you decide what's positive for Earth/the ecosystem? Wouldn't you just come back to the conclusion of "What's good for nature must be natural or else it can't be part of nature?" Imho it's that logic which most "appeals to nature" are built upon.
By figuring out a list of priorities and balancing the benefits of different strategies in terms of those priorities?
Whales are intelligent. They should not be killed by humans who mask the activities as scientific research. Japan is a great country and a leader on many levels. I speak Japanese. I enjoy Japanese food and culture. The people are very kind and considerate. There are some who are concerned if you stop killing whales you must stop killing fish and other forms of sustenance. This is not the case. The difference is whale…
>The difference is whales are not sustenance and are not something most Japanese would eat or enjoy to eat. Wow this is presumptuous, whale meat has a long history in Japan and whales have been used for sustenance for a long time. That they should not be sustenance is your opinion. Pigs are intelligent too. Unfortunately eating animals in general is fraught with moral quandary. Please stop making blanket statements a…