: Not at all, but there are just so many minutes in a day. I believe I can poke rather large holes in most of the parroting you guys call reason.
Yet when presented with reason, choose not to do so.:If you don't like the attached ad hominem, too bad. Take note that I tweak you guys for sport at times. Forgive me if I don't consider these posts to be dead serious. If you take this stuff that seriously and consider ad hominem attacks as taboo, call your buddies on it when they do it as well.
I do so. I expect civility between debaters. But its your job to call them out yourself. the actual argument that led to the jibe is on no concern to me.
: Which one of you guys will admit that man is superior to animals by at least one dictionary definition? Anybody? Is man not manifestly superior in a miriad measurable ways to animals? Of course he is!
Yes, and aimals are superior to us by other scales. To say Superior, without qualification as to in what the superiority lies, is frankly meaningless. However, I suspect in a contest between a man and a scorpion over who could survive best in teh desert, teh Scorpion would win hands down.
On the bio-mass measure of success, humans are undoubtedly the winners.
My Two penneth.
: Only head of programmed mush will overlook what is manifest to win an argument.
Or a person with reasoned disagreements, argument by assertion of somethings transparent proof is yet another logical flaw stu.
: I recognize if you cut me any slack at all it undermines an argument that animals are not subject to man. Of course, I don't need your affirmation if I base my opinion of this issue on biblical decree.
I've never made any such argument stu man...I was just commenting on your outrageous behaviour.
: I could be smug and just parrot biblical tenets. Instead, I use the logic of applying the model we have in the animal kingdom as it relates to homosexuality (which you guys provided) to the morality of meat eating.
No, because you were mis-applying the model, people are using- people only, and I think foolishly, argue the naturality of homosexuality because *you* think is such an important factor. Frankly, the naturalness or otherwise of homosexuality is not the crux of their arguments.
: Animals practice sexual behavior on their same sex and that is natural so it is also natural for man to do so. What is natural should not be judged immoral.
But let us be clear- Natural is that which is without human reason, which is beyond it, if humans unconsciously existed, and had homosexual lives without conscious decisions, it would be natural. now, we can question whether desire is or is not subject to nature, but I think any modern utilitarian would approach the matter purely according to consequences, and not according to the reactionary morality of natural Law. I can't think of a serious philosopher who does.
: Animals practice meat eating and that is natural so it is also natural for man to do so. What is natural should not be judged immoral.
Except they are not using that criterion, at least, not if they are being consciously consistant (and for most of them, utilitarianism is the implicit presumption of their argument, even if not explicitly known). All you've done is blow holes in argument from nature, which is something that Happened long ago....
: Except it is judged immoral by the same folks who offer us this style of reasoning. I'm not addressing the half a million tangents and peripheral obfuscatory arguments that you are all going off on - just the moral judgment issue - JUST THAT!
And I was addressing it as well. you are errecting a gargantuan straw man, within which you judge anothers argument by the premises of your own, and thus, predictably, and inevitably, find contradiction.
: But I am unreasonable somehow. Look people, admit this lapse of logic and be more consistent with your reasoning.
No, because theya re consistant, consistant hedonistic utilitarians, the naturalness of whatever is irrelevent, utterly, its only you who harp on about it.
: I'm sorry you spent so much time on your XB=YB treatise Red, I still don't have the time or the inclination to answer it though. I might if there were some connection to the stated position which spawned this
But it did, it answered directly to your own rendition of the 'No True Scotsman' Argument, in which you imply that anyone who isn't disgusted by homosexuality is either a liar or a queer. Also, I was specifically refuting, from my own position (that of humanism, rather than hedonistic utilitarianism) your proposition that a believf in vegetarianism is inconsistant with not being disgusted by homosexuality.
: thread. Do you suppose that your "meat causes pain" argument sufficed, freeing to argue the periphery? Tell me why animals are not immoral when they cause pain among themselves. Then proceed to tell me why humans are immoral when they do the same. I have no interest in your XB=YB treatise if you blow past my fundamental point.
Thats a question for utilitarians to answer, hwoever, I would propose that animals are not capable of self-consciousness nor reason, and should tret as wuold a child be, as an intelectual incompetant (children under 7 are innocents who cannot commit crimes in the eyes of the law, remember)?
: First, you assume animal pain is the technical equivalent of human pain. Prove that. I say the cognitive complexity of humans amplifies pain. I say the anticipation, experience, rememberance, and processing of pain for humans is greviously higher in quantity and quality than in animals. Proving that should not be too difficult should you wish to argue this further.
You're getting off teh point here Stu, I was merely posting about your argument techniquue, in response, I'd only say that pain centres in humans and animals are roughly similar, and thus physical pain is likely to be equal, although humans can suffer emotional pain that many animals would not suffer. We are not dealing in degrees of pain, but rather pain as an absolute token of exchange (hideousflaw in utilitarianism I know 'ethics of the account book' but there ya go).
: 1. Universally constant and therefore ought to apply to the animal kingdom as well, making animals immoral when they kill. or...
Nope, I'd suggest not, that'd rely upon some obejctive force constricting morality to affix that morality, a Bob say. Ideas, as far as I am concerned, cannot exist without human consciousness, morals are ideas, and thus morals are human constructions as to how to live in society. Animals cannot partake of human morals, but *always* have been the objects of our morality.
: 3. The product of fickle consensus opinion and therefore has no imperative other than legal consequence. or...
hmmm, or rather, is the product of a whole way of life, rational human beings under certain conditions living together producing morality to sanction, legitimize and control their way of life.
: 4. Is based on opinions and therefore has no absolutes if we are not to esteem one's opinion over another's.
We could call that reason, in which case it is based upon logic and argument by reference to a set of values, which are lived.
: You guys are not seeming to accept 1, 2, or 3. Number 4 leaves us with no absolute right and wrong yet we still hear condemnation of meat eating. This is inconsistent.
Sweeping generalisation stu, another logical fallacy. I think. I work with a mix of 3 & 4. try Hegel's 'reason in history' , or Marx's @The German Ideology' for details.
: Sometimes I have something to offer you guys. Sometimes I take a hard day out on you. But, high levels of reason and adult debate are no more the purview of this board than are ad hominem attack and spite, nor am I the exclusive distributor of either.
No, but we should strive for reason. And you are a particulalry grievous offender in terms of sophistry....
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McSpotlight: By the biomass measure of success, I'd say that ants and roaches are superior creatures *g*
