responses to doug, miles:
Doug Henwood wrote:
> ravi wrote:
>> Carrol Cox wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, we have to start somewhere -- but in action (i.e., given
>>> social relations) NOT any principle. Principles emerge from
>>> social activity rather than exist prior to it. Suffering is a bad
>>> thing rather than a good thing ONLY because there has developed
>>> from our practice a rough and ready agreement on this.
>>
>> waitaminit! did you read my entire post? you are pretty much
>> summarizing what i wrote (roughly) in over three or so posts.
>> setting aside the bootstrapping problem for a second, let us follow
>> this path of reasoning. what are the principles that have emerged
>> from social activity?
>
> What kind of social activity? A gang of racist skinheads are going to
> come up with a different set of principles from a houseful of
> lesbian separatists (do they still exist?) or a Christian knitting
> circle. How do you choose which social grouping to affiliate with, if
> not from some pre-existing set of principles or preferences?
>
yes, hence my mention of the bootstrapping problem.
Miles Jackson wrote:
> On Thu, 1 Sep 2005, ravi wrote:
>
>> IMHO, this is getting more abstract, actually than necessary. in
>> the real world, when we decide the question of comatose-vs-ill we
>> reason in ways that assume the consensus. given such consensus
>> rules/goals/values, in the real world (not the miles jackson
>> fashionably thin world ;-)), singer shows that there is nothing in
>> those rules to exclude their application to animals. to really make
>> your case, you have to provide some system where attention to
>> avoidance of suffering, consciousness (or any of the other values
>> that we are assuming in this debate) are not values and part of the
>> consensus that drives decisions and actions, not provide
>> improbable scenarios!
>
> I guess I submit "improbable" scenarios because human history is a
> series of improbable scenarios. It's improbable in many societies
> that people would choose (or even want to choose) their spouse; thus
> we should not treat our moral values related to freedom and choice as
> the necessary, inalterable bases of family life.
>
yes, but once you decide that you want to choose a spouse, or not (i.e., participate in an "arranged marriage" system) you have chosen some set of rules to live your life by. the question then becomes, are your actions consistent with your rules?
> --And just so with the "self-evident" rules about suffering and
> consciousness you lean on in this thread: these rules are social
> products, not human universals!
but rules gain any value only in their semi-universal application, yes? i mean, what's the point in a rule if nobody follows it, even after agreeing upon it?
> Thought experiment: we live in a society (as numerous societies in
> the past) that believes in spirits that animate the rocks, trees, and
> animals. In this worldview, everything in the natural world is
> sacred and supernatural, and humans are a part of it. Imagine a
> Singer in this society makes the argument that conscious, animal life
> is especially deserving of rights and respect. Under the social
> consensus of this society, is Singer's argument valid?
but that is not singer's argument. more below:
> It's banal, but it comes down to this: if people in our society
> conceptualize no meaningful differences in consciousness between
> humans and animals, Singer's position will become as taken-for
> granted element of our moral universe. If--as the majority of people
> in our society do now--people maintain some sort of meaningful
> distinction between humans and animals ("the consciousness of a
> chicken is not much like the consciousness of a human"), Singer's
> argument will be marginalized and rejected.
this assumes society as a sort of perfect logical machine, expressing its preferences in global actions that are consistent.
you can approach the issue thus: are rules of any use? if so, is consistency between the rules and in following the rules, important?
singer's point is this: if you asked a society why they choose to honour human life, and in particular, choose one form of it over another, and further, how they even define "life", you will receive some answers. drilling down further, you will be able to abstract the rules that are consciously (within formal frameworks such as the justice system) or subconsciously in use. these rules, in singer's argument, do not in any way preclude animals (and there on down, if you wish) from their consideration. rules can be finely nuanced, arrived at through social consensus, list special cases and the reasons for those cases, etc.
that said, despite being somewhat of a cultural relativist, i think there is some universality to human moral reasoning and abstract reasoning can play a part in the choice of action. such action has to be hypersensitive to the system it aims to intrude upon or modify, but no culture, society, group, or individual should be exempt from analysis or correction.
--ravi