Animals, Eating Meat and Moral Standing

I don't know how you arrive at that conclusion. But even if every system of morality includes animals within their scope, so what? That might just mean that they're all wrong.

Indeed, most people don't like to suffer. But whether suffering has any moral significance remains an open question. You can't just assume that, because most people prefer not to suffer, there's any moral significance in the avoidance of suffering.

Too high a standard? You haven't articulated any standard.

No, that's not how rules change. Rules change because people become convinced that the old rules are wrong, not that they're correct but less advantageous than some other rule.

That didn't stop you from asserting that humans are more capable of suffering than non-human animals. But if you want to hide behind this transparent dodge, far be it from me to stop you. It's a flaw in your argument, not mine.

The notion that, by killing Schiavo, the doctors would have wronged everyone else sounds awfully Kantian to me. I can't get my head around the notion that, for a utilitarian, a wrong against person A becomes a wrong against everyone else, just because that wrongful act violated a utilitarian rule. A Kantian would be fine with that. A utilitarian -- not so much.

You agreed with me in a previous post that there is something wrong with a cat being lit on fire. And yet as I've said before (to which you gave no reply) indirect arguments concerning an animal's standing don't suffice.

As Robert Nozick puts it, as long as there is no moral spillover which affects humanity (since you imply direct moral consideration applies only to humans), there is no reason stopping one from treating an animal however they would like. Taking a bat to a dogs head when no one is around seems hardly agreeable.

As a matter of normative argument, I doubt many find that persuasive. Shouldn't it follow then, that animals obtain direct standing, and if this is true, does it not also follow that we have obligations and duties to animals because they make a moral claim on us?

As I'm sure you know, Moore's open question is just as controversial. Maybe I am making an un justified assumption, maybe the open question is confused because it too begs the question.

I'll take the Humean line and say that beliefs and desires are sufficient for the bindingness of duties and obligations, which arise from general interests (preferences) or necessities. Hence why most people agree that a principle of non harm is morally significant. In turn, these duties or obligations are restrained by "subsequent judgement or observation".

I have, but you seem not to notice. The desire to further one's own interests should be the standard to which rights apply. I guess the problem with this standard is which interests are considered more important than others. But through deliberation, I don't see any reason(s) why such a task is impossible.

You agreed with me in a previous post that there is something wrong with a cat being lit on fire.

And what convinces people that the old rules are wrong? They realize that the old rules cause a lot of pointless misery without redeeming benefits. At least, that's how Bentham discovered, as early as 1785, that the laws of England were unjust to criminalize gay sex. If a convention of 18th-century Englishmen in a Rawlesian original position would have reached a different conclusion, as I suspect they would have, that's just one more reason to be sceptical of Rawls's approach.

In the case of Amoebae, I'm confident that their capacity to suffer is negligible. In the case of dogs, it's perfectly plausible to assume that they feel physical pain as much as we do. So if I was forced to either kick a dog or kick a human equally hard, I ought to be upset about the kicking, but almost indifferent about whom to kick. I admit that my gut instinct is to kick the dog. But then again, my gut instincts were corrupted by decades of humano-centric indoctrination.

When utilitarians evaluate legal rules, they only care about their consequences in terms of happiness and suffering. Also, they consider the consequences of those rules for everyone. If that sounds non-utilitarian to you, perhaps you really should read up on Utilitarianism.

Besides, I'm not the one who thinks Utilitarianism is incompatible with the Categorical Imperative. You're the one who thinks that. (In fairness, Kant agrees with you. He is wrong.)

I have no idea what you mean by an "indirect argument."

Likewise, I have no idea what you mean by "direct moral consideration." If by that you're saying that animals don't have rights, I agree, If by that you mean humans can't have direct moral obligations toward animals, I don't agree.

No, that doesn't follow at all. We can have moral rules that prohibit cruelty to animals without recognizing that animals have rights.

Oh, well, if you take a Humean approach to morality, then you don't believe in morality at all. Hume certainly didn't.

The desire to further one's interests? That's the standard? So if something has interests, it has moral rights?

I'm sure Kant in his heaven grieves to learn that he got the categorical imperative wrong.

If harming an animal is morally wrong, its is wrong not because the animal itself is harmed, but because of other reasons e.g. it sets a bad example for other human beings.

GEN 1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

GEN 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

GEN 9:2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast
of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the
earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.

GEN 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the
green herb have I given you all things.

GEN 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye
not eat. [i.e. have the decency to kill something before you eat it...]

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I have no idea what you mean by an "indirect argument."

If harming an animal is morally wrong, its is wrong not because the animal itself is harmed, but because of other reasons e.g. it sets a bad example for other human beings.

Direct moral obligations to the object of moral concern.

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No, that doesn't follow at all. We can have moral rules that prohibit cruelty to animals without recognizing that animals have rights.

What is the content of those moral rules? How are they applied?

He certainly recognized interests, but disagreed with Hobbes/contractarians that contracts alone can justify universal moral norms.

Why not? Arguably, human beings acquire universal rights to non discrimination, non harm because these are general and necessary interests.

Not his categorical imperative is wrong, his inferences from it are. But I won't explain because you've lost interest.

So why are such arguments insufficient?

That doesn't make it any clearer.

We can have a rule that prohibits the infliction of unnecessary suffering. It can be applied universally.

Hume didn't believe in universal moral norms at all. He believed that all morality was merely custom and habit.

That doesn't follow. Just because people have interests doesn't necessarily mean that they have interests which are worthy of moral consideration. That's an is-ought problem.

I already said if there is no moral spillover, animal cruelty is not a problem. That is a problem. Further, when a cat is lit on fire, which is a more coherent claim: that the cat itself is harmed and that is morally wrong, or that it sets a bad example and that is morally wrong? What do we attribute moral concern to?

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We can have a rule that prohibits the infliction of unnecessary suffering. It can be applied universally.

What objects apply and what objects don't? What is the justification for such a rule?

Because he did not believe custom could justify universal moral norms. I see this problem that Hume notes as the basis for why non-customary justification are required for universal moral norms (which we do think exist e.g. principles of non harm, non discrimination on the basis of gender/race).

Well I guess we have a fundamental disagreement here. I think the purpose of ethics is the valuing of people's (and other objects of moral concern) well being, comprising of interests. What we ought to do necessarily derives from this purpose.

Both can be defended under coherent sets of moral rules. What you're trying to do, however, is back into a system of morality. You want to establish that something is wrong and then find the theory that best explains why it's wrong. That's not how it's done.

Before I delve into this any further, one question: do you think Hume was right? Because if you don't, I don't see any reason to pursue this point.

You won't commit to any system of ethics but you know what the purpose of ethics is? And that purpose is the source of our moral obligations?