Lumifer comments on Why Eat Less Meat? - LessWrong

48 Post author: peter_hurford 23 July 2013 09:30PM

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Comment author: Lumifer 25 July 2013 05:17:15AM *  0 points [-]

What form of evidence would you find more convincing than the Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness?

Evidence of what?

It seems that you want to ask a question "Are human and non-human minds similar?" That question is essentially about the meaning of the word "similar" in this context -- a definition of "similar" would be the answer.

There are no facts involved, it's all a question of terminology, of what "approximately as conscious as humans" means.

Sure, you plausibly define some metric (or several of them) of similarity-to-human-mind and arrange various living creatures on the that scale. But that scale is continuous and unless you have a specific purpose in mind, thresholds are arbitrary. I don't know why defining only a few mammals and birds as having a mind similar-to-human is more valid than defining everything up to a slug as having a mind similar-to-human.

Comment author: MTGandP 25 July 2013 05:28:52AM 0 points [-]

Evidence of what?

I originally posted the Cambridge Declaration of Consciousness because Peter asked you, "What do you think of the body of evidence provided in this post [that nonhuman animals suffer]?" You said he hadn't provided any, and I offered the Cambridge Declaration as evidence. The question is, in response to your original reply to Peter, what would you consider to be meaningful evidence that non-human animals suffer in a morally relevant way?

Comment author: Lumifer 25 July 2013 05:36:36AM 0 points [-]

what would you consider to be meaningful evidence that non-human animals suffer in a morally relevant way?

I freely admit that animals can and do feel pain. "Suffer" is a complicated word and it's possible to debate whether it can properly be applied only to humans or not only. However for simplicity's sake I'll stipulate that animals can suffer.

Now, a "morally relevant way" is a much more iffy proposition. It depends on your morality which is not a matter of facts or evidence. In some moral systems animal suffering would be "morally relevant", in others it would not be. No evidence would be capable of changing that.