VeganDE

Part 2: Morality

What is moral for you? What does it require?

I already gave my interpretation before. Instead of repeating myself, l'll try to respond to your points and try to clear misunderstandings.

I was thinking that for you and me, moral - in a nutshell - means distinguishing actions between “good” and “bad”, where the exact definition of “good” and “bad” can vary as well as the ethical framework which might be built on that.

Yes, this is something I also can agree with.

But I don't agree that "distinguishing" it requires "active contemplation" to manifest in the behavior of the entity.
You imply that if we don't "actively contemplate" the act then it cannot be "good" nor "bad".
This is analogous to the idea of a tree in the forest emits no sound if nobody hears it.
Well, I think we simply disagree on that.

In my interpretation, acts can be good or bad regardless of how you "contemplate" them. Even if it were done without "contemplation" if it results in killing humans then it'll be "bad" for humanity (and "good" for some other species?). There's an objective morality emerging from natural selection, though at the same time there's certain subjectivity when we have different species competing. Some aspects might converge, maybe even some level of "symbiosis" in which we have convergent goals that are "good" for both species, but that doesn't make it equal.

Take a plant for example. It will grow towards light. Is this moral behavior? I say it isn’t. I say it is a reflex. If the plant is not able to reason about whether it might be advantageous or not and thereby “good” or “bad” for its survival to grow towards light and if it does not have the possibility to “decide” against growing towards light, it can not have moral.

But that's under your interpretation of morality.

Under mine, it is "good" for the plant to exercise a behavior that helps the survival of its species. My interpretation of morality relates to natural selection.

In fact, even our "higher" level human moral is constructed on "reflexive" instincts (emotions) as a basis, the only difference is that humans react to those reflexes while applying logic and reason in their behavior, because that way we can be more logically consistent at reacting to them. But the actions are ultimately driven by the same type of low-level instincts that drive all living things.

I'm curious: why do you think emotions are the basis on morality?
We agree on that, but I feel our reason as to "why that is" might be different.

How do you know something is "Good"?
Why do you think "treating others like you would want you to be treated", for example, is "Good"?
My answer would be: because it's evolutionarily beneficial, it helps our survivability.

Under your view of morality: why does it often makes us "feel good" to act "good"?
For mine: because it's a reward that increases survival, so it passes natural selection.

But it can not think about that in such a way that it could make the decision to stay. It lacks the cognitive abilities to do that.

Yes. but that's not a problem in my interpretation. Mine does not require "thinking", like I explained before.
This is simply a matter of definition, we can repeat it many times but it does not make it more/less true.

you are still able to think about your actions before you act on them. And not only think in a goal oriented manner about that, but in an ethical manner.

Yes. But this is just as true in your view of morality as it is in mine.
The difference is that to me, being "able to think" is an extra, not a requirement.
Also, I'd say you still are "goal oriented" when ethics are the goal.

someone suffers from a brain injury which incapacitaes their higher reasoning. Then they kill someone. Wouldn’t you argue that this is something less “bad” than someone who kills someone else intentionally?

The act is still "bad", because it negatively affects survivability of the species.
Like I said in what you quoted: "it just shows that [this person's] “thinking” wasn’t the cause responsible for [their] behavior"

So, what the lack of "thinking" changes is the chain of responsibility. The "thinking" of the injured person is NOT responsible of the crime. So their "thinking" should NOT be punished. Instead, other measures should be taken to prevent killings.

That doesn't mean that the act of killing unintentionally has no moral. The act is still something that we should try to prevent. It's a "bad" act, so we should try to minimize it. Or do you think we should not and that it's neither "good" nor "bad"?

One might argue the lack of intentionality might have less/more impact on human survival. So it might be less/more "bad", but that would still be consistent with my interpretation. I'm not sure it is with yours, since you said that "thinking" the act was a requirement for it to be "good" or "bad".

Part 3: Veganism

I think we have reached some level of understanding on that one.

I agree that human morals place an implicit hierarchy on animals, though I feel it has more to do with which animals are closer to us (and the attempt at measuring their "suffering" only makes sense as a consequence to that, with our concern relating only about forms of "suffering" that are closer to the way we ourselves experience "suffering"... in other words, we project ourselves into other creatures and judge them based on how well that projection maps).

That's what I meant when I asked if you did find it curious how humans feel more attached to animals the more similar they are to us. Also, the more you get to know/love the animal, the stronger the emotional attachment. Even if there were no "suffering" in their death, it would still make us sad. This is why looking at a creature in the eyes and talking to it as if it were a human makes it harder for us to wish for them something that would be "humanly bad".

In fact, I'd argue humans can even feel attached to inanimate objects sometimes. It's a known phenomenon called "animistic thinking", which it's theorized to be common in babies. And I expect there's evolutionary reasons as to why it happens too. Perhaps it's related to how some animal babies will get attached to whichever creature they see first when they get born as if it were their parent (probably it helps their survival), to the point that many caretakers need to use animal-looking "puppets" when caring for the babies destined to be released back to nature. So the babies get attached to the puppet (even if it's inanimate) and not the human.

Going back to veganism: personally, I find that the strongest case for it is in the defense of our own human interests. Because I do see that Veganism is actually something "good", under my definition of "good" understood as beneficial for our own survival & natural adaptability.

So personally, I would find a more compelling argument in that direction. Rather than appealing to empathy towards animals. Which to me requires drawing arbitrary lines based on preconceived notions of what "suffering" might be without having a way to determine how strong those "feelings" are in what can only be an anthropocentric analysis that cannot take into account experiences that humans would not be able to experience to begin with, and to which we would be biased towards protecting those who are most similar to us, not those who contribute the most to the sustainability of our ecosystem.

Imho, we should stop breeding animals for human purposes like crazy because that's gonna destroy our ecosystem. Though I expect this might lead to compromises that don't match the more extreme vegan ideas. but I'm not convinced that driving veganism to the extreme is something advisable anyway.

Also, note that in some cases this even applies to some plants. The Borneo island is more and more being overrun with palm tree plantations because palm oil makes so much money there.. we are removing jungle and more and more ecosystems are being lost, disturbing a balance that is likely to hit us in the face.. biodiversity is good for our own adaptability, and I would say that endangering so many species at this rate is gonna hit back to us at some point... it goes against our own interests to exploit nature this badly. And this can only get worse the more "developed" some countries that used to be rich in diversity & natural resources become. You used to be able to get all kinds of relatively rare tropical fruits for cheap in countries like Malaysia, but that's becoming increasingly harder little by little, as the country "westernizes".

Out planet is like one of those "ecospheres" that are left alone in the sun within an hermetically closed jar. You can keep it alive and well for a long time if you manage to hit a good balance... but any change that could destabilize it can end up triggering a chain of events that could devastate even the most evolutionary advanced creatures within it.

I also need to thank you for our discussion here. Even though we disagree on some key aspects, this motivated me to dive deeper into the topic of “true randomness” and related topics. This has yielded some life changing results for me, even though it led me to a minor existential crisis, haha. :D

Ow.. sorry (I think? :P). And I have to thank you too. I enjoy the conversation very much. It helped put into words some things, do some introspection and look deeper into how I think the world might work, trying to challenge my model of it. You have raised some reasonable points that have made me think deeper into some of its aspects, all the while keeping it very respectful.