• commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 months ago

    the crux of the argument that they might feel pain is not that it is wrong, but that it is inevitable, so it cannot be wrong

      • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        4 months ago

        when somebody raises the objection that plants feel pain, it’s not an appeal to hypocrisy. it’s a statement of fact whether we can prove it or not. and it’s the premise of a larger argument. that argument goes

        pain is an inevitable facet of food production

        food production is a moral good

        an inevitable facet of food production cannot make food production bad

        therefore

        food production remains a moral good

        your rebuttal was targeted at defending against the accusation of hypocrisy, but the devastating bit has nothing to do with the hypocrisy.

        • Emerald@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Pain might be an inevitable facet of food production (crop deaths). But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to eliminate as much pain as we reasonably can.


          Pain is an inevitable facet of surgery

          Surgery is a moral good

          an inevitable facet of surgery cannot make surgey bad

          surgery remains a moral good


          The fact that pain is inevitable to surgery doesn’t mean we should stop giving patients anesthesia and pain medication.

            • Emerald@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              So it just loops back to speciesism then? You don’t care about the pain animals face, only humans?

              • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                4 months ago

                as kant said, cruelty is bad. you ought not kick a dog, for instance, but there is no contradiction in animal agriculture itself. if some operations are acting cruelly, we should admonish them. otherwise, tehre is no reason to believe non-human animals can participate in an ethical society, so there is no reason to include them in our ethical systems.

                • Emerald@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  tehre is no reason to believe non-human animals can participate in an ethical society, so there is no reason to include them in our ethical systems.

                  But we do. You mentioned how you ought not to kick a dog, for instance. The difference is that we treat some animals as companions while treating others as resources for exploitation. If you truly believe that there is no reason to be ethical to animals, why not kick that dog? Or maybe boil it alive?

                  • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    4 months ago

                    why not kick that dog?

                    again, kant discourages cruelty as a practice toward non-human animals, as it may lead to practicing cruelty toward people. that’s it. it’s not including them in our morality.