Philosophical Vegan Forum

brimstoneSalad

I wasn't making an argument, i asked you a simple question.

"No, it's not sentient at that time." I didnt say that it is.
""sentient being" means roughly "usually sentient" or "commonly sentient", not always so."
False. A being is sentient being if sentience is in its nature.

" I already explained to you MULTIPLE times that I do not subscribe to hedonism."
What I said was not about hedonism, neither the line of discussion has nothing to do with hedonism.

"I know what you're trying to say, and it has nothing to do with the topic at hand."
You are actually missing the topic and assuming things. I asked you what is system of values and connection to existence of values and I provided a fact that you cant get to system of reasoned values, as you have put it, just by sheer existence of values.

"It wasn't a bad analogy"
It certainly was. Things do not have mass in the same way things have moral value, thus comparison is fallacious.

"That an intelligent mind has interests (which is how an intelligence works) is true by function of the mind."
That is not what i asked,

".... you don't understand the point which is to avoid arbitrarity by not putting any arbitrary material restrictions on it."
Maybe, or maybe it is arbitrary and double standard. I pointed out why, more than once and you are not dealing with that by just stating how I dont understand your point.

"I explained it in detail, it has to do with cricumstance."
I said once and I am going to repeat myself. I didnt make an argument. You asked me what is potential and i provided a definition, I think it is from Oxford's dictionary. And from that definition, you constructed a straw man and attacked it, and then you even stated how it is incoherent....

"That was in my response, when I said that no, a potato is not like a baby."
You have two instances where you made it clear that baby from hypothetical is like a potato....interest which never was and never will be and also you said that both have instrumental value.
And it seems that you are contradicting yourself, but more about it in next message, depending what will you write about previous subjects.

And you missed my question, so i will repeat myself:
"So you dont agree with those two examples? You dont agree that me turning 18, 19, 25, 55, 87 years, would always be higher than 17, or in other words, i will always be older than when i was 17?"

McLovin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:12 pm I wasn't making an argument, i asked you a simple question.

No, you asked a loaded question attached to an implicit claim in line with a claim you have been explicitly making for the whole thread.

McLovin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:12 pm ""sentient being" means roughly "usually sentient" or "commonly sentient", not always so."
False. A being is sentient being if sentience is in its nature.

Platonic forms now?

What do you think some quality being in something's nature means? Do you think it's meant to have that quality? Ordained by a god or something?

We, as humans, simply describe it like that because it's a quality it often has. It's a shorthand.
And we say that not because it's magically supposed to have that quality as proclaimed by the universe, but because it just happens to have that quality sometimes; it's merely incidental.

McLovin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:12 pm " I already explained to you MULTIPLE times that I do not subscribe to hedonism."
What I said was not about hedonism, neither the line of discussion has nothing to do with hedonism.

You have no idea what we were discussing then.
I've been critical of supposed alternatives to preference based consideration.

McLovin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:12 pm I asked you what is system of values and connection to existence of values and I provided a fact that you cant get to system of reasoned values, as you have put it, just by sheer existence of values.

You provided an assertion.

If you are after an objective system of values, you have nothing else to derive them from. Call it the process of elimination.

McLovin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:12 pm"It wasn't a bad analogy"
It certainly was. Things do not have mass in the same way things have moral value, thus comparison is fallacious.

Mass is a property of certain matter, and interests are an emergent property of functioning minds.

The fact that having interests bestows moral value derives from a non-arbitrary objective value system.

A perfect analogy to moral value specifically relative to interests would be something like momentum, which derives from mass and velocity via the relationship explained in physics.

McLovin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:12 pm".... you don't understand the point which is to avoid arbitrarity by not putting any arbitrary material restrictions on it."
Maybe, or maybe it is arbitrary and double standard. I pointed out why, more than once and you are not dealing with that by just stating how I dont understand your point.

You didn't point out anything, you've made assertions without any argument behind them.

It is not arbitrary to reject arbitrary standards.
That's all I'm doing: rejecting arbitrarity.

McLovin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:12 pmYou asked me what is potential and i provided a definition, I think it is from Oxford's dictionary. And from that definition, you constructed a straw man and attacked it, and then you even stated how it is incoherent....

You provided an argument about potential, then I asked you to define potential, and you did: the result was an incoherent argument. I demonstrated how.
And you haven't answered any of my challenges to your claim.

McLovin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:12 pmYou have two instances where you made it clear that baby from hypothetical is like a potato...

Is NOT like a normal potato, because stabbing a normal potato has no negative instrumental value.
But IS like a magical potato that would become a cure for cancer (or something else good) if you didn't stab it.

You are preventing something good from happening by stabbing the baby OR the magical potato.
By stabbing a normal potato you are not preventing anything good from happening.

McLovin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:12 pminterest which never was and never will be and also you said that both have instrumental value.

A regular potato probably has MORE instrumental value after you stab it, because now it's closer to being prepared for food.
A baby has LESS instrumental value after stabbing it.

In neither case have you sabotaged interests of the thing, because it has none, but the consequences of each action on the future are different.

McLovin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:12 pmAnd you missed my question, so i will repeat myself:
"So you dont agree with those two examples? You dont agree that me turning 18, 19, 25, 55, 87 years, would always be higher than 17, or in other words, i will always be older than when i was 17?"

I didn't miss that "question", I answered multiple times how it is meaningless and off topic. If you think that's deep or that you're revealing something meaningful you just have no idea what this discussion is about.

You can make any arbitrary threshold you want, it's still arbitrary.

Do not ask it again.

brimstoneSalad

Yes, my question might be very well connected to that implicit claim I have have been explicitly making for the whole thread, what is expected and what we are discussing for some time. Not wanting to answer on the question for that reason makes me wonder why discuss at all.

"What do you think some quality being in something's nature means?"
That it is inherent feature of that someone. Cut my legs off and I will still be bipedal being. I might not have legs and not be able to use my legs, but me being bipedal is what I am by virtue of being human. Attach two tentacles where my legs once were and I would still be bipedal being. Cut my arms off and attach two human legs where arms were so it would look that I have four legs....and I will still be bipedal being.

"You have no idea what we were discussing then."
You need to reread the exchange, because you got completely lost.

"You provided an assertion."
Yes, which happens to be the self evident fact.You cant have the reasoned system of values just by sheer existence of values, you need something more for those values to become a system of reasoned values. Just like you cant have a brick wall by sheer existence of bricks, you need something more to get from bricks to a brick wall.

" A perfect analogy to moral value specifically relative to interests would be something like momentum ...."
It suffers from similar problems like mass analogy.

" You didn't point out anything, you've made assertions without any argument behind them. "
Retrace the discussion, I never made an argument about it.

" You provided an argument about potential ... "
This is yet another straw man. Do yourself a favor and retrace the line of the discussion, because if you go back it is obvious I never made argument you think I made.

" Is NOT like a normal potato, because stabbing a normal potato has no negative instrumental value.
But IS like a magical potato that would become a cure for cancer (or something else good) if you didn't stab it. "
Let me quote you:
" The fact that a fetus WILL be aborted is enough to seal its fate: it is not a potential interest, because it's scheduled to be aborted.
A pregnant woman who is smoking is doing something bad IF she will have the child, because there will be a being to suffer those consequences.
A pregnant women who is smoking is not doing anything bad to the child IF she is 100% certainly going to abort it, because there will be no being to suffer those consequences. "

And wait....are you appealing to the.....potential.....of newborn curing cancer? Let me quote you:
"...." Potential is meaningless without circumstance. Everything has the "potential" to be anything if it's put in the right circumstances. NOTHING has the potential to become a particular thing given the wrong circumstances.
A fetus requires very specific circumstances to become a fully formed human being. If those circumstances don't exist, it has no potential.
A fetus that is scheduled to be aborted does not have the potential to become a fully grown human being, because the circumstance of being aborted is not compatible with that outcome...."

" In neither case have you sabotaged interests of the thing, because it has none, but the consequences of each action on the future are different. "
You made my case for me....both newborn from hypothetical and potato have instrumental value, and also when i decide to kill the newborn, it has no potential to be anything.

" Do not ask it again. "
This is a fine example of intellectual dishonesty. That question is there from the first page, just differently formed and we started discussing about it since the second page. And whenever I made an analogy, in most cases you just disregarded it and also started ignoring it. There is nothing arbitrary in the question about numbers I made, plus, I am NOT making an argument about what is arbitrary for moral value and not, so your whole "arbitrary" excuse is fallacious.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:22 am Yes, my question might be very well connected to that implicit claim I have have been explicitly making for the whole thread,

So you recognize that you are being dishonest when you deny making an argument.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:22 ammakes me wonder why discuss at all.

I don't know how to explain this more clearly.

Objective morality = no arbitrary metrics.

You're asserting arbitrary metrics, like "above 17", and 17 is an arbitrary cutoff. That's not a valid basis for morality.
Obviously numbers that are higher than 17 are higher than 17, you don't need to ask questions like that, and pretending that's some kind of checkmate is dishonest on your part when I'm explaining how the question is not relevant because "higher than 17" is an arbitrary threshold.

If you keep doing this rather than trying to understand and engage with the discussion, then there's no reason for you to reply.

You complained about things like drivers licenses, and I explained how licenses are based on demonstrated safe driving ability and knowledge, and how there ARE multiple levels of licenses (not everything is a single arbitrary threshold, but can be a spectrum with a series of thresholds that exist for practical reason based on evidence).

If you don't understand that, you have no business trying to engage in this discussion.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:22 am"What do you think some quality being in something's nature means?"
That it is inherent feature of that someone. Cut my legs off and I will still be bipedal being. I might not have legs and not be able to use my legs, but me being bipedal is what I am by virtue of being human. Attach two tentacles where my legs once were and I would still be bipedal being. Cut my arms off and attach two human legs where arms were so it would look that I have four legs....and I will still be bipedal being.

Burn you into ash and grow a plant, and that plant will still be a human being, I see. So, basically we're all fish and insects and dinosaurs or whatever the matter we are made of was claimed by first is what you're saying. So nobody should have any human rights at all, because we're just amalgamations of other things.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus

Your beliefs are based on ignorance of very basic philosophical questions.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:22 am "You have no idea what we were discussing then."
You need to reread the exchange, because you got completely lost.

I summarized the relevant points above.

Why don't you try to do that?

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:22 am"You provided an assertion."
Yes, which happens to be the self evident fact.

Now you're asserting that your assertion is just self evident.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:22 amYou cant have the reasoned system of values just by sheer existence of values, you need something more for those values to become a system of reasoned values. Just like you cant have a brick wall by sheer existence of bricks, you need something more to get from bricks to a brick wall.

The existence of values outside yourself make it possible to "build" an objective value system, just like the existence of bricks make it possible to build a wall.

The difference between a wall which must be manually assembled and a value system which is a concept is that in order for the latter to exist it need only be consistent. As such, the parts existing do indicate existence of the whole as long as there's an obvious and non-arbitrary way they work together (which there is).

The same way 1 + 1 = 2 even if nobody has ever explicitly added the numbers before. It's consistent and conceptually true.

The ontology of concepts, which need only be consistent, is different from that of physical things which must be assembled in a particular configuration.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 8:22 am" You provided an argument about potential ... "
This is yet another straw man. Do yourself a favor and retrace the line of the discussion, because if you go back it is obvious I never made argument you think I made.

You made an argument that I was inconsistent based on a strawman you made of my position,

McLovin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2018 5:53 amI am criticizing your reasoning, because you have double standard and arbitrariness there.
I will try again. for moral value, interests have to be actualized, must exist, it is not just enough to have potential for interests, there must be interests. And after some interest has been actualized, no further actualization of that interest is required, which you showed with examples of comatose and dead people.

Your argument has been that vegans should believe abortion is immoral:

McLovin wrote: ↑Sat Jan 06, 2018 7:06 am And I hardly see how my "currently value" can continue, when I have no values, etc, during the coma. And if appeal to the future values, then abortion would clearly be immoral, what would conflict with many vegans.

As such, you're appealing to potential (you're the first one to bring it up) as a necessary prerequisite for vegan values but claiming there's inconsistency there and arguing that vegans should be against abortion on those grounds.
You are arguing against abortion in order to argue against veganism (whether you hold that position or not).
If you can make your case against abortion on the same basis vegans must use to make the case for veganism, and vegans do not accept it, then they are being inconsistent.

As I have demonstrated, though, your arguments against abortion are not viable, because "potential" is incoherent. "Potential" is not what we're using.

We're talking about opportunity cost (which is a failure to do good), and we're talking about violation of future interests that WILL exist but do not yet.
At no point are we dealing with violations of interests that will never exist.

And I responded to your strawman here. Read it more carefully and try actually replying this time:

brimstoneSalad wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2018 7:14 pm Where did you get this? That's not my claim.
There is no interest yet, but if there WILL BE in the future, that's something to consider.

What is "potential"?

"Blind potential" with no consideration for probability is not enough, but a very probable interest in the future has moral value then (in the future), and because our actions can affect beings in the future that's absolutely morally relevant to the consequences and to the moral judgement attached to the action.

And I explicitly said bringing a being into the world who could retroactively appreciate that action can be good.
I don't know how you completely ignored what I said and came up with this.

In consequentialism, what matters is the consequences. If those consequences are satisfying interests, it doesn't matter if you're helping people today, or setting something in motion that will help children in five years who haven't even been born yet. The act is still good -- as long as you know they WILL BE born.

By your reasoning, there's absolutely no good in creating a cure for some disease that affects young children (say, four year olds), because nobody yet exists who will benefit from that cure since it will take years to make and test and get to market.

Do you believe that?
I don't believe that.

Likewise, by your reasoning there's no bad in genetically engineering some terrible virus that reliably kills everybody under the age of ten years old but doesn't harm anybody else, and then setting a release mechanism with a time delay of eleven years.

Do you believe that?
I don't believe that.

IF an interest WILL come into being, it's good to do things to help that being before it even exists.
My point about abortion was that IF something will NOT come into being, there is no future interest to sabotage.

The fact that a fetus WILL be aborted is enough to seal its fate: it is not a potential interest, because it's scheduled to be aborted.

A pregnant woman who is smoking is doing something bad IF she will have the child, because there will be a being to suffer those consequences.
A pregnant women who is smoking is not doing anything bad to the child IF she is 100% certainly going to abort it, because there will be no being to suffer those consequences.

However, and as I said before, it can be a good thing to bring a being into the world. So failing to do that good thing is in some important ways comparable to doing a bad thing. We can assess them similarly (you can even call it relatively bad, which it is).

You responded by ignoring my questions which proved your absurdity, and you gave a definition of potential which was incoherent and I demonstrated how. Your anti-abortion argument (which was to serve as a demonstration of vegan inconsistency) fails.

Your argument of my inconsistency is not valid; the "potential" argument doesn't work because its incoherent, so it doesn't apply to abortion like you claimed earlier:

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:26 am And as for the abortion part and problems. First one, in short, is there to point out the absurdity of thinking that pile of tissue is something of the already mentioned things, but the unborn human is not.
And second problem is criticism of your reasoning. values/interests needs to be actualized (unborn didnt actualize it) for moral value, but any further actualization of those things is not required. Humans can be in coma, or dead, and there is no more actualization of those things, but moral value remains. That really looks like a double standard to me and something arbitrary.

'the absurdity of thinking ... the unborn human is not [of moral value]', etc.

I don't care if you personally believe that or not, you're making an argument against veganism by trying to demonstrate inconsistency by making argument against abortion which you presume we disagree with. You are mistaken in your argument against abortion, it is not consistent.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:26 amLet me quote you:

Instead of cherry picking and taking my comments out of context, try reading the rest of my post in which I gave very clear explanation of opportunity cost.

AGAIN, you are not doing something bad by violating an interest because you can't violate an interest that will never exist, but you are FAILING to do something good. Preventing a good is very closely related to doing a bad thing.

The distinction in opportunity cost is important, because we can understand that abortion is NOT wrong if the mother is aborting to facilitate having a child later when the situation is more favorable. If one child will be born and those interest satisfied either way, there is not an opportunity cost; it can very easily be better to abort and have a different child some time later when circumstances will give that child a better life.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:26 amAnd wait....are you appealing to the.....potential.....of newborn curing cancer? Let me quote you:

I'm saying if you allow the newborn to grow up, the probability is that it will be a productive member of society and generally be beneficial.

It's not wrong to kill the newborn because it has an interest in living - it doesn't have one yet, so you are not violating it's interest.
But it is wrong IF you are being destructive to something that will do good: there is opportunity cost.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:26 amYou made my case for me....both newborn from hypothetical and potato have instrumental value,

A regular non-magical potato loses no instrumental value by stabbing it with a knife. It actually gains value in some context because now it's closer to being cut up and prepared to be eaten.

A baby loses instrumental value when you kill it.
It's not that you're violating its interest, it's that the effect of the action can be harmful.

I've said this multiple times, and you consistently ignore what I say.

A magical potato that would do something amazing if you didn't stab it could lose instrumental value, but that's not realistic.
Potatoes are not like babies in terms of instrumental value.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:26 amand also when i decide to kill the newborn, it has no potential to be anything.

If the newborn will be killed, it has no potential to have interests anymore.

The definition of "potential" that you gave was not useful, and your argument based on it is invalid.

"Potential" can be defined in a useful way when we look at the consequences of actions and compare them in the way of opportunity cost, which is a consistent and coherent concept. It means if you do X you can not do Y, and where Y yields some benefit, doing X has an opportunity cost.

This is not the definition of potential you provided. If you want to rewrite your argument against abortion to involve opportunity cost, it may be valid, but it also fails to be an effective argument against abortion because sometimes the opportunity cost of having one baby is having another baby later.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:26 am" Do not ask it again. "
This is a fine example of intellectual dishonesty.

No, it's an example of you not listening to my actual argument.

"higher than 17" is an arbitrary metric. The fact that it applies to 18, 19, 20, 50, 9000 etc. does not make it less arbitrary.

I have explained why your questions are not relevant to the topic. If you want to back up and talk about drivers licenses again that's fine, but you need to back up and make your argument from another angle.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:26 amThere is nothing arbitrary in the question about numbers I made

If you believe that, and you don't understand or won't accept that "higher than 17" is an arbitrary threshold, then you're not intelligent enough to engage in this or any conversation on this forum.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/arbitrary

Based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system.

The drinking age in the U.S. (21) or the age of adulthood (18) and the ages of sexual consent (ranging from 14 - 18 in most places) are arbitrary.

If you disagree with that, you need to do one of two things:

1. Provide an argument for how they are not arbitrary by appealing to some reason or evidence based argument for those numbers being used. Then explain how that is in any way relevant to veganism.

2. Concede the argument and pursue some different avenue of discussion, and never bring this up again.

If you don't, then you are in violation for forum rules #1 and #3:
http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2115

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 08, 2018 5:26 amplus, I am NOT making an argument about what is arbitrary for moral value and not, so your whole "arbitrary" excuse is fallacious.

Your dishonesty is amazing. This whole thread of discussion obviously stemmed from that, and you clearly intend to relate it back to that as some intellectually dishonest "checkmate" you claim to have made.

Your choices are clear: drop it, or back up your claim that the value is non-arbitrary with an actual argument and relate it back to the topic at hand with an actual argument.

brimstoneSalad

" So you recognize that you are being dishonest when you deny making an argument. "
What argument exactly? You accused me of making few imaginary arguments, so I would love to see clarification.

" I don't know how to explain this more clearly. "
This is hilarious.....The quote you quoted of me and what you wrote in response are about two completely different topics.....
" makes me wonder why discuss at all. " was my comment of you not wanting to answer on this question: " Who can morally consider anything? Obviously not those which do not understand what is morality. Do you agree? " and what you wrote is about completely different topic of how can you get more moral value of the same thing....
I never said that above 17 is some kind of metric for moral value....
Wow....

" Burn you into ash and grow a plant, and that plant will still be a human being "
Nice straw man. Not even comparable with what i said, but hey, you attacked straw man before, so what is one more, right? I mean....ask yourself a question what is a human being and when you get the answer, then reread what you wrote and you will understand how silly it is.

" I summarized the relevant points above. "
You are still lost. Reread the exchange.

" The difference between a wall which must be manually assembled and a value system which is a concept is that in order for the latter to exist it need only be consistent...."
Please explain me how do you come from sheer existence of values to reasoned system of values?

" As such, you're appealing to potential (you're the first one to bring it up) as a necessary prerequisite for vegan values but claiming there's "
I mean, another straw man....I wrote that in the second page in response to Lightningman_42, not you, and you accused me of making potential argument on the third page while quoting some other text of mine. On the third page you asked me what is the potential and on the third page I responded and on the third page you accused me of making some kind of made up potential argument, by quoting text from the third page.
On the fourth page you said that what i said potential is, is incoherent. Nothing of that is connected with the quote you quoted now and that quote was not even about potential, but that is beside the point, the point is that you are either intellectually dishonest, or you are just lost in this discussion and dont know what you even writing about.

" You responded by ignoring my questions which proved your absurdity "
Yes, I ignored red herring and your straw man.
" and you gave a definition of potential which was incoherent and I demonstrated how "
Please show where you demonstrated how oxford's dictionary definition of potential is incoherent. i would love to see that.

" I don't care if you personally believe that or not, you're making an argument against veganism ..."
Straw man. I never made that as argument against veganism, but against reasoning vegans use. But hey....what is yet another straw man, right?

" Instead of cherry picking and taking my comments out of context, try reading the rest of my post in which I gave very clear explanation of opportunity cost. "
I did and quote I provided fits to the discussion we have about the newborn.
" but you are FAILING to do something good. Preventing a good is very closely related to doing a bad thing. " You cant fail to do good if there is no good, what your quote established.

" I'm saying if you allow the newborn to grow up, the probability is that it will be a productive member of society and generally be beneficial. "
So.....for that newborn to become a productive member of society and generally be beneficial, requires very specific circumstances and if I decide to kill it, it then does not have the potential become a productive member of society and generally be beneficial, because the circumstance of being killed is not compatible with that outcome.It has no potential nor probability to to become a productive member of society and generally be beneficial, because it is scheduled to be killed. I am just following your reasoning here.

" A magical potato that would do something amazing if you didn't stab it could lose instrumental value, but that's not realistic.
Potatoes are not like babies in terms of instrumental value. "
And I already addressed before how this is a straw man.

" Your dishonesty is amazing. This whole thread of discussion obviously stemmed from that, and you clearly intend to relate it back to that as some intellectually dishonest "checkmate" you claim to have made. "
No, it is not and I explained in my first paragraph. Since the second page of our discussion, the last paragraph, the last part of my message, was always about some other topic and I have been doing that for 3 pages now. That part was NEVER about how interests/values/etc is not criteria for moral value....
This is why I keep saying that you are completely lost in this discussion, you are not following what i am writing, you just assume things about me, just like you assumed, up in the quotes, my intentions. what is a prejudice....This is hilarious.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pm "Burn you into ash and grow a plant, and that plant will still be a human being "
Nice straw man. Not even comparable with what i said, but hey, you attacked straw man before, so what is one more, right? I mean....ask yourself a question what is a human being and when you get the answer, then reread what you wrote and you will understand how silly it is.

It's not a strawman, it's demonstrating a fundamental problem with your concept of identity.
There is no such thing as a platonic form of a human being, a human being is a matter of subjective interpretation based on crude induction not an objective quality of the universe or reason.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pmask yourself a question what is a human being and when you get the answer

Congratulations, you may be the stupidest person in the history of this forum. And we've had flat-earthers and moon-landing-denialists around here.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pm" I summarized the relevant points above. "
You are still lost. Reread the exchange.

I'm not going to do that again. You can try to explain what you think I'm mistaken about, but it's obvious that you don't have the level of understanding of these topics to even grasp what the subject is here.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pmPlease explain me how do you come from sheer existence of values to reasoned system of values?

It's not simply reasoned; it's reasoned from the goal of objectivity.

An objective system of values, if it takes into account any values, must treat them all comparably unless there are non-arbitrary reasons not to do so.
This isn't complicated.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pmI wrote that in the second page in response to Lightningman_42, not you

Wow! Maybe I read the history of the argument so I'd know what you were arguing?

Conversations go on for multiple pages and segue into each other, you know.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pmon the third page you accused me of making some kind of made up potential argument, by quoting text from the third page.

It's not "made up", at least not by you, it's a common attempt at a secular pro-life argument from conservatives. I explained how it's a bad argument and doesn't follow from the moral reasoning anybody here has been trying to explain to you.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pmand that quote was not even about potential,

You are welcome to explain your argument.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pmthe point is that you are either intellectually dishonest, or you are just lost in this discussion and dont know what you even writing about.

We're clearly talking past one another, but it's due to your ignorance of philosophy. You're talking about really basic stuff and profoundly misunderstanding these things.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pm" You responded by ignoring my questions which proved your absurdity "
Yes, I ignored red herring and your straw man.

Well, I'm calling on you to answer those questions or defend your claims that morality can be based only on the actualized.

I explained how you are wrong in that claim, due to the effects of current actions on future people who WILL exist.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pm " and you gave a definition of potential which was incoherent and I demonstrated how "
Please show where you demonstrated how oxford's dictionary definition of potential is incoherent. i would love to see that.

I showed how it is philosophically incoherent because it doesn't take into account circumstance.
It's ridiculous that you think you can just plug colloquial definitions into a philosophical conversation.
Try an encyclopedia of philosophy.

Even Wikipedia would give you a better understanding of these concepts and their limitations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiality_and_actuality

If you have any ambition whatsoever to be less stupid, read that.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pm I did and quote I provided fits to the discussion we have about the newborn.

You excluded the line right after the quote where I explained opportunity cost of failing to do a good.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pm You cant fail to do good if there is no good, what your quote established.

How are you simultaneously this ignorant and this arrogant?

If you do NOT abort the baby, and you allow it to come into existence and become sentient that might be a good thing. You are in that act creating and fulfilling an interest (there are some very interesting arguments to be had over that).
Failing to do a good thing is very closely related to doing a bad thing.

Beyond that, I have also discussed instrumental value.

Read this, and become less ignorant:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_and_intrinsic_value

When talking about instrumental value, not intrinsic value, the question is the effect for others. Other people already exist to benefit from new members of society, and if it's a far off effect, we know that they will almost certainly exist.

There are many ways in which HAVING a baby is a good thing, and sabotaging that process is a failure to do good even if you aren't engaging in a direct intrinsic wrong by violating the baby's non-existent and never to be existent interest by aborting it.

Try to keep up.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pmSo.....for that newborn to become a productive member of society and generally be beneficial, requires very specific circumstances

And if you had knowledge that those circumstances did not exist, then that would not be an issue.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pmand if I decide to kill it, it then does not have the potential become a productive member of society and generally be beneficial,

That is why I don't like to talk about poorly defined colloquial terms like potential.

We can talk about opportunity cost, because opportunity cost clearly delineates two actions and their outcomes, then compares them.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pmbecause the circumstance of being killed is not compatible with that outcome.It has no potential nor probability to to become a productive member of society and generally be beneficial, because it is scheduled to be killed. I am just following your reasoning here.

Which is why it doesn't not have intrinsic negative value.

It has negative instrumental value in terms of opportunity cost, but if the interest will not exist it can not be violated.

This should not be that difficult for you to understand.

McLovin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 29, 2018 6:10 pm This is why I keep saying that you are completely lost in this discussion, you are not following what i am writing, you just assume things about me, just like you assumed, up in the quotes, my intentions. what is a prejudice....This is hilarious.

If that's true, then start over: what is your claim?

brimstoneSalad

t's not a strawman..... There is no such thing as a platonic form of a human being.....
This is a straw man. I am not talking about platonic forms, that is what you assumed that I am talking about.

"Congratulations, you may be the stupidest person in the history of this forum "
Throwing insults at me is not showing me wrong. You quoted part of my text, do you have something else to add there, beside ad hominem?

" I'm not going to do that again. You can try to explain what you think I'm mistaken about, "
I already did, but you discarded it, then i keep telling you you to trace back our exchange and you keep discarding it.

" It's not simply reasoned; it's reasoned from the goal of objectivity. "
That is not what you previously said.

" It's not "made up", at least not by you, it's a common attempt at a secular pro-life argument from conservatives. "
You ignored my block of text linking everything to the third page and you quoting text from the third page to say how I am doing potential argument. Why did you quote that text, if you were talking about my exchange with some other person, page before?

" Well, I'm calling on you to answer those questions or defend your claims that morality can be based only on the actualized.
I explained how you are wrong in that claim, due to the effects of current actions on future people who WILL exist. "
This is yet another red herring. The text you quoted of me was addressing your red herring questions of your straw man of potential argument.

" showed how it is philosophically incoherent because it doesn't take into account circumstance.
It's ridiculous that you think you can just plug colloquial definitions into a philosophical conversation.
Try an encyclopedia of philosophy.
Even Wikipedia would give you a better understanding of these concepts and their limitations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiality_and_actuality"
Quote me a text of it what you think it is relevant.

" You excluded the line right after the quote where I explained opportunity cost of failing to do a good. "
I had nothing against that part, so it was irrelevant to the point I was making.

" If you do NOT abort the baby, and you allow it to come into existence and become sentient that might be a good thing...."
This whole part is a straw man. As I have followed your reasoning.....if I decide to kill it, then there is no potential for any "good".

" That is why I don't like to talk about poorly defined colloquial terms like potential. "
I was just copying your text and what you said.

"If that's true, then start over: what is your claim?"
It is not about one claim, I have been repeating myself that you missed the point, that you are not listening to me, that you are misrepresenting me, for some time now and not only about one thing. Plus, your constant passive aggressive style of argumentation, butchering my sentences to the point of raping the context of them and then conflating two different things, and also spicing up with ad hominem, do not really help.
If you are still going to do that, then I have no interest of starting over, I might stick around while this discussion lasts, depending how much it lasts.

Sorry I am late and have not read all of it and dont know if this was mentioned,

But as I see it, vegansim is not a different moral code than that shared in all societies I have experienced. It is universal whether professed or not, that people base how they treat others on how they themselves would want to be treated. The Golden Rule. That is anthropocentric, because using yourself as a measure means you are using a conscious, language-using human as a measure. Therefore it has to apply to beings which share characteristics with the model, which is the subjectivity of the believer.

Can it be assumed that another being also feels and wants like you do? Well for vegans many more beings fit that model than for non-vegans.
It is only a matter of expanding the tent.

Some people, who pretend not to employ this rule, say, how terribly parochial, to look for similarities before feeling compassion, does that mean you feel more for someone of your own race, culture, cognitive abilities, etc. To which I answer, that my philosophy dictates that I extend compassion to all born humans not in a vegetative state, that all such beings share more than enough of these cardinal traits with me to merit compassion, whether I really feel for them or not. I might not feel for someone who is making my life difficult, or who hates the music I like, nonetheless they all fall well inside the tent, past the horizon where there are no relevant differences. A persons culture or skin color does not affect whether or how they want or feel.

So I believe anthropomorphism is inescapable. And I would save a baby before a puppy. And a puppy before a tick, etc. But I (hope) I would not save a baby of my own sex, race, culture, etc. before one of a different one.

I dont really believe anybody who says they believe we should treat all beings equally.

McLovin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:16 am This is a straw man. I am not talking about platonic forms, that is what you assumed that I am talking about.

You don't know what platonic forms are, but you're talking about them unwittingly.

McLovin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:16 am" It's not simply reasoned; it's reasoned from the goal of objectivity. "
That is not what you previously said.

I try to explain things more clearly, if you finally understood then I'm glad it was successful.

McLovin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:16 amWhy did you quote that text, if you were talking about my exchange with some other person, page before?

Because we're still in the same thread and on the same topic, and it supposedly reflects your views (unless they changed in one page without you mentioning it).
You are welcome to quote me from other threads, even.

McLovin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:16 am" Well, I'm calling on you to answer those questions or defend your claims that morality can be based only on the actualized.
I explained how you are wrong in that claim, due to the effects of current actions on future people who WILL exist. "
This is yet another red herring. The text you quoted of me was addressing your red herring questions of your straw man of potential argument.

No, your claim was that actualization was necessary. You need to back that up: I showed how that wasn't true. It also matters if something WILL BE actualized.

McLovin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:16 amhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentiality_and_actuality"
Quote me a text of it what you think it is relevant.

You could have just read the intro and the first section on potential. It's not long.

Wikipedia wrote:The concept of potentiality, in this context, generally refers to any "possibility" that a thing can be said to have. Aristotle did not consider all possibilities the same, and emphasized the importance of those that become real of their own accord when conditions are right and nothing stops them.[3] Actuality, in contrast to potentiality, is the motion, change or activity that represents an exercise or fulfillment of a possibility, when a possibility becomes real in the fullest sense.[...]

Throughout his works, Aristotle clearly distinguishes things that are stable or persistent, with their own strong natural tendency to a specific type of change, from things that appear to occur by chance. He treats these as having a different and more real existence. "Natures which persist" are said by him to be one of the causes of all things, while natures that do not persist, "might often be slandered as not being at all by one who fixes his thinking sternly upon it as upon a criminal". The potencies which persist in a particular material are one way of describing "the nature itself" of that material, an innate source of motion and rest within that material. In terms of Aristotle's theory of four causes, a material's non-accidental potential, is the material cause of the things that can come to be from that material, and one part of how we can understand the substance (ousia, sometimes translated as "thinghood") of any separate thing. (As emphasized by Aristotle, this requires his distinction between accidental causes and natural causes.)[8] According to Aristotle, when we refer to the nature of a thing, we are referring to the form, shape or look of a thing, which was already present as a potential, an innate tendency to change, in that material before it achieved that form, but things show what they are more fully, as a real thing, when they are "fully at work".[9]

This should indicate pretty clearly the metaphysical problems for any atheistic materialist.

McLovin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:16 am" You excluded the line right after the quote where I explained opportunity cost of failing to do a good. "
I had nothing against that part, so it was irrelevant to the point I was making.

It's precisely the part that contradicted the strawman you made. It's where I explained how a baby and a potato are DIFFERENT, and explained the way in which it is wrong to stab the baby... and then you claim I say they're the same and that there's no difference.

You're just admitting to cherry picking what I say to construct a strawman.

McLovin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:16 am" If you do NOT abort the baby, and you allow it to come into existence and become sentient that might be a good thing...."
This whole part is a straw man. As I have followed your reasoning.....if I decide to kill it, then there is no potential for any "good".

What is wrong with you? You can't be this stupid...

This is me explaining MY POSITION to you. You scream strawman constantly, but you don't know what it means. You can't strawman your own position.

If you want to accuse me of advocating different positions, say I'm contradicting myself or engaging in motte-bailey argumentation.

You need to stop using the term "strawman", you don't understand what it means.

McLovin wrote: ↑Tue Jan 30, 2018 6:16 amAs I have followed your reasoning.....if I decide to kill it, then there is no potential for any "good".

False. Outside of physics, I avoid the word "potential" because it's inconsistent as I have shown. It doesn't function well with materialistic metaphysics.

Stop using the word "potential" to describe my views here, you're using it poorly.

You do not understand my position.

IF you kill it, it will not have any interests it the future to sabotage or benefit, thus you can not harm or its interests that it will never have. You CAN NOT do an intrinsic bad or good to it since it will never have interests.
IF you do not kill it, it WILL have interests in the future to sabotage or benefit, thus you can harm or help its interests. You CAN do intrinsic good or bad to it.

The only way you can do an intrinsic (or direct) good or bad to it by directly fulfilling or violating its interests is if it comes to have interests in the future. If you kill it, it never will, and there is no intrinsic good or bad to be done to it.

FAILING to do a good thing (by letting it come into existence and satisfying its interest) is importantly related to doing a bad thing. But this relies on the principle of opportunity cost (something that is much better and more consistently defined than "potential", and is not quite equivalent), and it assumes that you don't or are unable to bring another baby into existence because of this.

Whether or not you kill it, OTHER PEOPLE already exist and will exist, so the instrumental effects on others of that action are still relevant. Killing the baby denies society of another useful actor, which can be harmful to interests that already exist and certainly will come into existence.

Brimstone Salad

" You don't know what platonic forms are, but you're talking about them unwittingly. "
You are assuming stuff again...and attacking straw man again. You didnt ask for clarification, you didnt ask me to expand on that, you just assumed how it is Platonism and then you proceeded to attack that straw man you constructed and even though I am telling you how I am not talking about Platonism you still continue to assume that I do.

" Because we're still in the same thread and on the same topic, and it supposedly reflects your views (unless they changed in one page without you mentioning it). "
Wait....so as long as we are on the same thread I can quote some random text while responding to some other text under that quote? Is that what you are telling me?

" No, your claim was that actualization was necessary. You need to back that up: I showed how that wasn't true. It also matters if something WILL BE actualized. "
Here is needed some clarification. Do you mean how I claimed that, or do you mean how I claimed how that is under your position?

" You could have just read the intro and the first section on potential. It's not long."
If the definition of potential I quoted is not saying what is in the quote you provided now, what then it does say?

" It's precisely the part that contradicted the strawman you made. It's where I explained how a baby and a potato are DIFFERENT, and explained the way in which it is wrong to stab the baby... and then you claim I say they're the same and that there's no difference. "
This needs another clarification. When I said how the newborn and the potato are the same, what do you think I meant by that?

" False. Outside of physics, I avoid the word "potential" because it's inconsistent as I have shown. It doesn't function well with materialistic metaphysics. "
So, all those time you used word "potential" were never about your position?

" IF you kill it, it will not have any interests it the future to sabotage or benefit, thus you can not harm or its interests that it will never have. You CAN NOT do an intrinsic bad or good to it since it will never have interests. "
So, if I decide to kill it , as you have mentioned before with women who decide to abort the pregnancy, it will not have interests in the future to sabotage or benefit. Do you agree that if I decide to kill the newborn, the moment I decided that, just like interests, the newborn will not do some good like cure cancer?