Great comments on new #namethetrait video

[Gregor Samsa]

The funny thing is that the first argument isn't even really valuable on its own. You are highly unlikely to meet many people in real life who wouldn't give sentient animals any moral value whatsoever (just ask them if they're fine with torturing animals to death for fun). Anyone could construct a moral giving argument in five seconds that would do the trick:

P1. If something has moral-value giving properties, then it has at least some moral value
P2. The capacity to suffer and experience wellbeing is a moral-value giving property
P3. Sentient animals have the capacity to suffer and experience wellbeing
C Sentient animals have at least some moral value

So it's a bit of a fail that the first argument isn't valid. If it was it would still be trivial without the second component. Or maybe people are more awful than I think.

On to the second argument. To me it isn't obvious that it holds any additional merit over AMC even if it's valid (and it has a lot of problems compared to AMC). P2 is highly contentious; would we really not accept expoiting humans for say medical research if they had an extremely limited sentience? I reject that entirely. I would absolutely accept being used for medical research if my sentience was reduced significantly enough. If the worst suffering I could experience is comparable to being ever so slightly hungry and the highest wellbeing I could experience is comparable to some minor trivial thing, then surely using me for hiv-research and potentially saving millions and millions of lives is warranted. Deontology be damned.

Any potential merit NTT would have over AMC if valid is that it plays around with hypothetical humans and so it's stronger, but that could just as well be seen as a weakness. It's not at all obvious that we would grant moral value to a human with an extremely limited sentience. The whole argument rests on ambiguity/failure of imagination as far as I can tell. What exactly would it entail to be "turned into a cow" (what it's like to be a bat)? Here the argument rests on the person imagining themself "as a cow", which of course is impossible so one does the next best thing: one imagines oneself as oneself minus some stuff + looking like a cow. Well... that doesn't really cut it. And it goes on like that really; what exactly would it mean to "accept if aliens wanted to kill you for food"? Accepting that it wouldn't be immoral isn't the same as accepting one's fate, and it's not obvious that carnists would have a moral problem with aliens killing severely mentally retarded humans for food.

Also: if I'm eating some set A of nutrionally adequate vegan food-items but there's another set B of nutritionally adequate vegan food-items that involve less animals dying and less animal suffering, then am I exploiting animals if I still choose set A? Why would NTT stop with veganism? What's the difference between animals and humans that justifies me eating vegan ice-cream when I don't have to even if it hypothetically involves more animals dying compared to eating the same calories from rice and beans? As far as I can tell Isaac "resolves" this by saying he'd be fine with being killed given that circumstance. So why can't a carnist do the same thing?

AMC avoids all of that. It points to actual humans that we actually grant moral value. As far as I can tell the only really reasonable way to avoid AMC's conclusion is to either argue against species overlap (very difficult, this is basically what Dan Dennett does and even he doesn't really seem to believe it) or to accept that marginal cases don't actually have moral-value giving properties but that they should have rights for some other reason (one could appeal to utilitarianism in the form of social cohesion, that giving these individuals artificial rights serve to secure the actual rights of non-marginal cases more firmly, to the extrinsic value of those individuals etc.)

This isn't to say that NTT is a bad argument, I think its merits can be summed up in the following question (which is the one activists who like NTT seem to actually use): can you point to a difference between animals and humans that would justify treating humans that way if we were in their hooves? Which is basically the golden rule. And fine, if framing a question in some specific way makes people who otherwise wouldn't consider applying the golden rule to non-human animals do so (this question clearly devised as to try and cancel out the speciecism aspect), then that's all for the better.

[DrSinger]

Yeh I doubt many people would be willing to deny animal moral value entirely. I think namethetrait was a useful conversations starter.

This isn't to say that NTT is a bad argument, I think its merits can be summed up in the following question (which is the one activists who like NTT seem to actually use): can you point to a difference between animals and humans that would justify treating humans that way if we were in their hooves? Which is basically the golden rule. And fine, if framing a question in some specific way makes people who otherwise wouldn't consider applying the golden rule to non-human animals do so (this question clearly devised as to try and cancel out the speciecism aspect), then that's all for the better.

This pretty much sums it up.

The worst part about #namethetrait was AY's defense of P2. As if you can't name a trait without CONTRADICTING YOURSELF!!!!!! because you'd defend yourself against being killed by aliens. Whether or not the trait named is reasonable is an entirely different story.

I think the trouble with marginal cases would be defending the premise

Any P that only human beings have is a property that (some) human beings lack (e.g., the marginal cases).

Since that would rule out 'being human', probably something most people would say is of inherent value.

It seems he's going to release another vid on UV

It'd be good if someone could post the virtue vegan debunk on the vid (I'm banned on all accounts)

The one featured here, in Pavlov's dog's vid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK7kE8PDau8

(Interested to see if AY makes a response to this. Probably the most credible vid against NTT around atm. )

Even if P2 did what AY thinks it does the conclusion still doesnt follow because NTT fails miserably on the level of quantification

[Gregor Samsa]

the trouble with marginal cases would be defending the premise

Any P that only human beings have is a property that (some) human beings lack (e.g., the marginal cases).

Since that would rule out 'being human', probably something most people would say is of inherent value.

I think vegans simply have to make the case for why "being human" isn't a morally relevant difference.

[brimstoneSalad]

...

Maximum file size should be fixed, up to 4mb

These were the clips, for reference:

These three clips from that video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CgBHt55SHE) might be useful in that article:

On evolution as a comparison to moral objectivism vs. relativism
14 - 1:27

Nobody thinks it's built into the fabric of the universe
2:42 - 4:53

Morality relating to the nature of human (or sentient) beings, comparing subjectivity in morality as "mind dependence" to that in psychology and other fields
4:54 - 6:52

Also, I asked Darren, he said he did not delete the comment.

I don't know where it is, but he copied it to me, here it is:

Frail pseudo-intellectual sophistry debunk for dummies + spastics

"P2 requires a trait that can be absent in humans"
Yeah, that's kind of the point, you dumb cunt. An example could be "[insert threshold] of intelligence" but because humans can lack a level of intelligence too, that makes it an invalid trait (given you agree with P1). You don't just go straight to the conclusion by asserting "this has moral value and this doesn't" without first running it through the criteria of moral value as presupposed by P1. Remember, this is an INFORMAL argument not one making absolutes.

"Traits that can be absent in humans are all traits except 'being human' and 'moral value' (moral value because of P1)"
Yes and if you arbitrarily assign them to make a valid argument "justifying" the killing of animals, another can arbitrarily negate it, defeating the traits' soundness and consequently, any argument that deploys them as justification.

"Traits that could give moral value to animals based on P1 are 'being human' or 'moral value'"
P1 is a supposition of the debater and debatee holding the belief that humans are of moral value (it's not a tautology) so they can review the normative consistency with P2 and reach C, it's not a formal absolute, you moron. If YOU grasped logic, you'd know that you're making a categorical error here by conflating absolute validity with informal validity.

"Neither of these can satisfy P2 as they cannot be absent in humans"
Self identicality is the type of justification being made there which means that the quality of being human translates over to the quality of being an animal when you regard them. Obviously, the quality of being of moral value is the trait under review, and because no trait can functionally remove it from animals without removing it from humans as well, the argument remains cast-iron. How the fuck don't you get this?
Trait identicality in humans and animals can't just make humans of moral value and exclude animals of being part of the same category. Hence P fucking 2.

"Therefore P2 does not assign the traits 'moral value' or 'being human' to animals"
Already defeated. Deploying "being human" is an X=X argument which translates over to "being animal" when regarding them (basic category logic, retard, something you should probably know by now), so it doesn't work as a justification when running it through NTT to qualify as the trait that excludes animals from being of moral value. This also defeats the "moral value" trait, because it:
1.) Begs the question of why and how humans are of moral value (which would elicit an NTT for human moral value) and
2.) Asserts what we try to answer (what else is of moral value) by running our morality through NTT without any validity or soundness (WHICH IS IRONICALLY A NON-FUCKING-SEQUITUR)

"Hence C 'Animals have moral' does not follow from the premises and the argument is a non sequitur"
Lol, "being human" is X=X with "being animal" as to their categories. As to their contingencies, no fucking trait (P2) that could be lacking or absent in animals (e.g. undercutting an intelligence threshold) would, IF WE APPLIED THAT 'LACK OF TRAIT' TO US HUMANS (follow along, dunce) would render humans morally valueless, which means that nothing is different about us in ways that determine OUR moral value, so by extension, ANIMALS are of moral value due to trait identicality.

Additionally, affirming that there needs to be stipulation in the premises for validity, just to fucking negate that by interpreting P1 as an absolute universal, renders no trait absent in you that would contradict the notion of you being an incorrigible fucking spastic who barely understands the discipline he boasts his intellect over.

Furthermore, wellbeing is the moral-value-giving trait that exists in all sentient biological entities which NO FUCKING SHIT excludes things like clams and insects from containing moral value.

Try to prove ME wrong

Protip: You can't, it's not possible to refute without committing further categorical errors and ironic non-sequiturs. Once again, you're an incorrigible spastic who barely understands the discipline he boasts his intellect over.

Might be some things worth addressing in the Wiki.

[DrSinger]

Maximum file size should be fixed, up to 4mb

great!


That comment should be here, but I can't see it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzz7GZuwRVU&lc=UgwTE8mTYv2UaRDSNIV4AaABAg

I guess he's not claiming it's formally valid, but that it's informally valid (whatever that means)?

I think most of this stuff is covered in the 'it's not formal logic' sections.

imo the wiki has a lot of superfluous discussion that needn't be there. You wouldn't want people to think they have to read all of it to recognise why NTT isn't valid

I don't like this main editors vs alternate editors dispute that's written into it, I think it would be better if the article has a single stance

[brimstoneSalad]

I guess he's not claiming it's formally valid, but that it's informally valid (whatever that means)?

That is what he told me before.

imo the wiki has a lot of superfluous discussion that needn't be there. You wouldn't want people to think they have to read all of it to recognise why NTT isn't valid

Yes, we need to break off some of that into new pages.

I don't like this main editors vs alternate editors dispute that's written into it, I think it would be better if the article has a single stance

Yes, it just hasn't been cleaned up yet. Margaret wasn't familiar with how we've been working, and there wasn't any guide explaining it.

I'm going to write some editing guidelines.
Comparisons to Less Wrong ( https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/FAQ ) or RationalWiki are better than comparisons to Wikipedia.
In practice we aim for reaching consensus, and then explaining that consensus and addressing criticism of it.

Basically, that the Wiki represents a single stance as arrived at through consensus on the forum, and that disagreements should be worked out on the forum to come to a more moderated position which can be reflected in an updated consensus, or in updates to the criticism section.

I'll also add in some of the explanation I made about how we err on the side of honesty, not promoting arguments we know are wrong or inaccurate just because they *may* be compelling.

For logical arguments, that means deductively valid as a bare minimum (or overtly inductive, with appropriate language to make this clear)

For empirical ones it's more complicated, and it means generally in line with scientific consensus, or if it reaches beyond that with original research and arguments at least not starkly against consensus and with a high degree of plausibility (e.g. unlike What the Health which made experts go WTF?).
The worst reaction we want to illicit from an educated professional is "Huh, maybe, I'll have to look that up", and not "that's obviously bullshit and goes against everything we know about metabolism. etc.".

Any pages on religious or spiritual arguments are probably the only exception, since there's not really any right answer there or anything like consensus.
We'd just need a disclaimer there, like on the Bible or Qur'an arguments pages, linking to a short article on interpretation and textualism/translation issues, as well as contradictions and how to read around those and draw conclusions based on reason from what would be consistent.

[DrSinger]

I'm going to write some editing guidelines.
Comparisons to Less Wrong ( https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/FAQ ) or RationalWiki are better than comparisons to Wikipedia.

I think this is a good idea.

The extraordinary claims and burden of proof sections are gone? ...

I moved the debunk section up since that's what most people will be interested in atm.

I also think some of the writing by margaret is overly formal and long (please join this thread if you're reading)

AY animated NTT in his latest vid, I wrote a bit about it on the wiki. It's probably worth discussing if you have the time

[Margaret Hayek]

Hi Dr. Singer,

Thanks very much for inviting me here! I had actually wanted to contact you much earlier, but I had no idea how to do so (as you can see, I'm still very early on the learning curve of what should go where around here, and I'm most grateful for your continued patience).

I've actually been talking to brimstoneSalad over here on the wiki questions section of the forum (http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3516&start=10) and I think that we've arrived at a great deal of consensus, to the point that we both agreed that we can have a univocal authorial voice. So I'm glad you removed the old summary section, both for this reason and because it was as I think you observed above too repetitive given what I ended up including in the general issues section.

I'm going to write some editing guidelines.
Comparisons to Less Wrong ( https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/FAQ ) or RationalWiki are better than comparisons to Wikipedia.

I think this is a good idea.

The extraordinary claims and burden of proof sections are gone? ...

Not gone - just temporarily moved into the entry on Isaac Brown, with some notes and explanations about how I intend to bring some of the content back into the new organization that brimstoneSalad and I were talking about over on the wiki questions section. I'm sorry that I had no idea to flag that this was what I was doing instead.

I moved the debunk section up since that's what most people will be interested in atm.

Great; this is also ideal given the structure brimstoneSalad and I were discussing. I really love the changes you've made to what I'd done in general, including moving the lengthy comparison to the argument from less able humans to the entry on that argument.

I also think some of the writing by margaret is overly formal and long (please join this thread if you're reading)

Thanks for letting me know. I'll try to do better in the future (any specific suggestions as to how to do better on this score would of course be greatly appreciated, but I know we're all busy with other things and such, so I'll just try to do my best).

AY animated NTT in his latest vid, I wrote a bit about it on the wiki. It's probably worth discussing if you have the time

I've been trying to discuss this with others, including especially you, on the discussion page for the NTT wiki, but I don't think that anyone is checking that page. I've had quite a long exchange with Isaac trying to explain to him how the bundle theory and the identity of indiscernibles are substantive metaphysical principles and not facts about the logical form of propositions containing the identity relation. Here's what I said about this over at the wiki:

"I was talking to Isaac, and he seemed to suggest an alternative way of thinking about the argument, that would lead to an alternative correction in order to achieve technical logical validity. Here is a mildly-regimented English language proposal for an alternative deductively valid correction:

(P1) All (sentient) humans have moral value
(P2) There is no trait (broadly construed so as to include totalities of differences) such that no (sentient) non-human animals have the trait and if x is an alteration of a (sentient) human and x lacks the trait, then x lacks moral value.
(P3) if an altered (sentient) human lacks the totality of differences between (sentient) humans and (sentient) non-human animals, then the altered (sentient) human is a (sentient) non-human animal. (This resembles, but is logically weaker, than the identity of indiscernibles)
Therefore, (C) all (sentient) non-human animals have moral value

Anyone want to translate into FOL and prove or find a counterexample? It's been awhile since I've taught logic, and I'm already spending just a bit too much time on all this...

Update: Isaac has now made a video invoking what I think is in effect the identity of indiscernibles to attempt to defend the validity of NTT [1]. Unfortunately he seems to be using 'validity' in his own sense and he doesn't seem to want to entertain the sense of 'validity' employed by those complaining about the argument's invalidity. So he's very resistant to there being a sense of 'validity' in which P3 must be added to make the argument valid. He also seems in the comment to be repeating a translation, with which I am not familiar, of something from Aristotle's metaphysics, and so far refusing either to explain what it means or accepting as relevant to his remarks explanations of how what he means by it (and clearly what he illustrates in the video) is a version of the identity of indiscernibles which is a substantive metaphysical thesis rather than a fact about the logical form of propositions employing the identity relation. But it's still the basic idea of bringing in the identity of indiscernibles to make the argument in some sense valid. As I explained on the phil vegan forum:

"Substantively all this really does (whether we take II as a suppressed premise or just go ahead and add it in there) is shift concerns about the validity of the old argument into concerns about the defensibility of premise 2. All an error theorist who (i) wants not to be harmed, and (ii) would want not to be harmed if intellectually disabled would have to do in order to respond to Isaac now is to say "yeah, if you changed out my traits in such a way that I'd be a non-human animal, then I'd have no value, even given the way in which you interpret having value. I wouldn't even be me in any relevant sense, so have at it and harm the crap out of the entity that isn't in any relevant sense m, I don't even desire that you not do so"."


I would really like to talk to you if I may about how to make the wonderful section on the invalidity of NTT, on which you have been working so hard, more accessible to the general public. Some of my thoughts on this were going into where I put the stuff I had had about validity where I did in your general issues section (after you very helpfully removed the old summary section). I am certainly assuming that we want this entry to be as accessible as possible to as general an audience as possible. As such, I think that it would really help for us to say something about what is going on with logical form, quantification, and such before we start presenting the reader with things translated into FOL. I'd be happy to take a stab at some of this without altering the substance of what you've written if you'd like. But I was also thinking that it might be helpful also to alter the order of some of the sub-sections [or sub^n-sections (n >/=2)]. So perhaps it would be best to talk a bit about this on this thread, if that sounds good to you.

Thanks again so much!
Margaret

PS - about 'deductive validity' vs 'validity': Isaac and some of his subs are using the term 'validity' in a loose way that is not tied down to the truth of a conclusion being guaranteed by the truth of the premises simply in virtue of the logical form of the conclusion and the premises. As such, I thought that it might be helpful to use 'deductive validity' to clarify that it is the latter idea (which of course those of us who interact with contemporary logic just refer to as 'validity') that is under discussion.

[DrSinger]

I'm glad we're on the same page

I was thinking about the 'switching-traits' version. I wrote about it in the Steel-manning section, it doesn't match written version. It seemed to me like it effectively just reduces down to the golden rule applied to animals if you use it like that i.e. if you were an animal would it be okay to kill you?

pavlovs dog reformulated it in a similar way to what you have described https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LK7kE8PDau8

I could have a go at translating it if you think it's worthwhile.

I am certainly assuming that we want this entry to be as accessible as possible to as general an audience as possible. As such, I think that it would really help for us to say something about what is going on with logical form, quantification, and such before we start presenting the reader with things translated into FOL.

I agree, but it's a difficult to balance. I wrote a bit about logical connectives, I think it would be worth writing a little bit about FOL and quantifiers. Though I think this will be more natural to people with a math background since it's used a lot in math, whereas logical connectives are not.

I've had quite a long exchange with Isaac trying to explain to him how the bundle theory and the identity of indiscernibles are substantive metaphysical principles and not facts about the logical form of propositions containing the identity relation.

I think this is interesting, I would probably put in the post-debunk sections, relating to his defense of the arguments. I don't know much about this though. I definitely think it's worth talking about.

Thanks for letting me know. I'll try to do better in the future (any specific suggestions as to how to do better on this score would of course be greatly appreciated, but I know we're all busy with other things and such, so I'll just try to do my best).

Mainly length tbh, I think very long paragraphs and sections would be off-putting to readers. I also think overly technical language would be off-putting, so I'd only use it where necessary. The way I would write would be in the manner of a first year text-book (less so like a technical philosophy paper), and in such a way that someone who doesnt speak english as their first language could follow it (if possible). In my opinion, 'dumb it down' as much as possible without changing the substance (I guess this is something I agree with AY on).

PS - about 'deductive validity' vs 'validity': Isaac and some of his subs are using the term 'validity' in a loose way that is not tied down to the truth of a conclusion being guaranteed by the truth of the premises simply in virtue of the logical form of the conclusion and the premises. As such, I thought that it might be helpful to use 'deductive validity' to clarify that it is the latter idea (which of course those of us who interact with contemporary logic just refer to as 'validity') that is under discussion.

I think it's best to just use valid, since we haven't discussed deduction in the wiki, nor have we used it in the disproof.

by the way, we did start an article on how to prove an argument is valid. I'm not overly familiar with deduction so I can't say how much value it would bring to the NTT article, if you can make a clear case of why NTT fails based on form I'm sure it would be worth including

[brimstoneSalad]

I've been trying to discuss this with others, including especially you, on the discussion page for the NTT wiki, but I don't think that anyone is checking that page.

Yes, the discussion page is basically just a paste-bin at this point. The forum is much easier to use, it alerts you to replies, comment threads are more coherent, etc.

I will explain this in the editing guide.

I've had quite a long exchange with Isaac trying to explain to him how the bundle theory and the identity of indiscernibles are substantive metaphysical principles and not facts about the logical form of propositions containing the identity relation.

That's impressive. I talked to him for a few hours too, we weren't even able to touch on name the trait, it was all discussing realism and William Lane Craig, and failing to explain to him how his usage of "Ontologically objective" and "Ontologically subjective" results in a false dichotomy that makes it impossible to express naturalist-realist positions.

PS - about 'deductive validity' vs 'validity': Isaac and some of his subs are using the term 'validity' in a loose way that is not tied down to the truth of a conclusion being guaranteed by the truth of the premises simply in virtue of the logical form of the conclusion and the premises. As such, I thought that it might be helpful to use 'deductive validity' to clarify that it is the latter idea (which of course those of us who interact with contemporary logic just refer to as 'validity') that is under discussion.

I agree with DrSinger on this one, I think "valid" is fine since the context is clear (logical/philosophical), and it's unlikely people are going to infer some kind of colloquial definition, like "your feelings are valid".

I don't think "inductively valid" has a clear meaning, since induction is always a spectrum of reasonableness (and to some degree is often subjective) and there's not really any valid/invalid dichotomy there. That would just get confusing.

If you're concerned that there may be confusion, how about "logically valid"?
Or we could make a page explaining what validity is (and what we mean by it) and link it from a couple of the usages.

I agree, but it's a difficult to balance.

We should probably not worry about dumbing down the proof too much, it could get too wordy to try to explain it to everybody.

Instead, we may just want to move the proof down under the Issues discussion, and link to it from the top as is being done now (the jump down link).

This way, for those users who will flee as soon as they see "Chinese" they will at least be retained through the plain English explanations if they're reading top to bottom. So the article would become higher level the deeper into it the reader goes (which is probably good practice generally).

Thoughts?

Mainly length tbh, I think very long paragraphs and sections would be off-putting to readers.

Yes to this, and a little simpler wording where possible, more images and video clips can help break things up too.

I think it's best to just use valid, since we haven't discussed deduction in the wiki, nor have we used it in the disproof.

I agree, as mentioned above. We could perhaps use "logically valid" as a compromise to make that clearer that we're not talking about it in a colloquial sense, and/or link to a page explaining in more detail.

We need to be cautious not to overload this page any more, it's reaching the limit of what people will read (I think).