 Ladies and gentlemen thrilled to have you here for this epic debate. This is going to be really fun folks We have two guys who love philosophy. They love kind of thinking through these ethical issues and careful ways And so they're very experienced. It's gonna be a lot of fun Want to let you know though if it's your first time here consider hitting that subscribe button as we have many more debates coming up We are very excited for example at the bottom right of your screen Steve McCrae will be on tomorrow to hash out some personal issues with his son snake is right So that will be a very exciting one the we're a neutral channel the thumbnail there on the bottom right of your screen Is just a joke between Steve and I but we do want to let you know we are a neutral channel We don't have any stances. 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That's up to you guys. And so I just want to say again, though Thanks so much for being with us today. Awesome. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me as well Oh, if you want to go first perspective, I think that probably be best Haven't formally prepared anything. I wasn't necessarily sure of the format and obviously I didn't know Precisely the topic area. I knew what owned by veganism I wasn't I'm not really familiar with your stance per se. I know obviously, you know, arguing that Veganism is not a moral obligation. So, um If you'd like I could give a brief opening on why I would argue why veganism is an ethical obligation if he's like Yeah, okay So I would say that veganism is an ethical obligation like any other ethical obligation as in Something which we do because it is the right thing to do. Now what I mean by right is that we have an epistemological Well an ethical and epistemological Obligation to commit the action or to be consistent within our actions to be in our judgments So for example, if I was to say that murder is wrong What I'm actually saying is that we have an obligation to not commit murder When I say that we have an obligation to not commit murder what I'm not saying that you just shouldn't do it and that a god has Given us a law. We follow that law and therefore We come to some conclusion that you know, we shouldn't kill people What instead I'm saying is that based on fundamental human nature that to commit murder actively harms us Ourselves and that because what we have in us is innate drives and it goes I tell us if you will that it goes against our very Will to commit murder when I commit murder what I'm doing is I'm actually destroying my epistemological ability to gain Epistemic grounding. So in other words, I'm reliant upon other individuals to gain A notion of how to live my life in the best way possible I want to live my life in the best way possible because I am committed from being a human to enjoy Like I cannot help but enjoy certain experiences and I cannot help to suffer in other experiences In in so much each of what each of one of those experiences that I go towards I need to know how to reach them I need to know which experiences are enjoyable and I need to know essentially What it means to live a good life in form in a form of a narrative So I don't care about one experience. I care about all of my experiences with varying weights All of this requires an investigation Into myself and I can only do that investigation with another person. Let me explain why so essentially individuals are in a Incapable of any form of verification or falsification Without another individual. I require someone else to allow me to create a language game From which I can divest the world So if I wanted to say that this is a table in front of me What I'm actually doing is I am pointing signifying towards an object I'm pointing towards an object and I've created a signifier a concept something that represents that object That object is then agreed upon and is formed And and then we can form a language game off that way. We can hold that constant If I didn't hold that constant I wouldn't be able to say that this is a table and this is a chair What instead make unjustified assertions and I would be I can confuse myself and my reasoning can be Would always be inductive in other words So deductive reasoning is conceptually confined to a mutual cooperation and So what I'm saying is that the grounding of ethics is this mutual cooperation I have to see you as equal to myself This is what hagel calls a master slave relationship master slave morality And essentially this equality that exists between us if it is unequal Would create a bias assertions of what I think is good and bad So when I try and investigate myself If I don't take your considerations into account With equal weight to my own I would be unjustified in my assertions I would lack epistemic grounding and so I would be open to the principle of explosion Now why would we want to avoid that we'd want to avoid, you know, essentially falling into epistemic nihilism because it would It creates an inability to understand how we should live our lives in the sense that I become everything becomes absurd So I wouldn't know what was going to hurt me or help me. I wouldn't know What it means to Experience good and bad in any respect and whether whether I'm seeking pleasure or pain and In various degrees and I also wouldn't have a solid sense of identity I wouldn't understand who I am which means I would go into existential crisis and that creates the that creates anxiety and angst And essentially what we see nowadays throughout all of our society actually most of our generations do experience existential crisis And are in anxiety and angst and I think that if we have a strong ethical foundation to avoid nihilism Then we will overcome these problems now This means that what we have to consider is everyone we have to consider a non-bias objective view of What is considered good and bad? Which is in reflection to desire as I said and that these desires is the desire of everyone desire simplicity What we find is that desire simplicity doesn't just include anthropocentric morality It also includes a sentientist view of morality in other words animals have desire And so if we are being truly unbiased we will take into consideration animal suffering as as a like to our own So I hope that explains my position. Thank you Thanks so much gentlemen with that we will jump right into The conversation so appreciate you guys. Oh, I don't get oh wait. Yeah That's you're right. Go ahead Go ahead. So that was a quite an interesting introduction It's going to be quite interesting to interact with you just because our philosophies Our ethical philosophies are actually quite similar. Maybe it's just because of our philosophical influences And the different ideas. I even heard you bring in some pierce The signifier significant distinction and the things like that which is quite interesting Just because I'm studying a lot of pierce recently There were a lot of different claims there. They were I really didn't other than the The end part of your argument I didn't see the connection to animals up until that point until you made the assertion that desires implicit Is the what's intrinsically valuable? That's probably where we're going to get hung up. Um, I imagine Um under my view, obviously I agree with the telos. I think that they're that all animals all humans, you know, every Everything that exists really has a telos even if it has no subjectivity um So I would agree with that. Um, as a member of satelion I think that everything tries to go towards its end And so there are ways that things can go badly or poorly for them based on that end But I think in everything has that not just I did not just animals or people um In terms I was a little confused about a couple things that you said, um, you said that deductive reasoning relies on the On the outside person on some kind of person to falsify or verify things I mean, it seems like a priori claims are just a priori. It doesn't at least a priori analytic claims They don't really need like you can make a syllogism out of purely a priori analytic claims Um, but you do derive experience out of the world Um to what definitions are so I can see somewhat of a perspective there of what you're arguing Um, my argument essentially is going to be a couple different things So the first thing I'm going to say is that not all animals are worthy of equivalent or some case any moral protection I think that there is a distinction between many different animals. I don't think that some animals even have subjectivity Um, uh, which you can say that well, they're not considered animals under your view and we can talk about that um But that's where I'd like to go on that basis. Basically the distinction I make between animals and humans is the Capacity for moral reasoning. Um, I think that it's in our essence. It's in our um, our biological our biological essence That what it means to be human is to be capable of moral reasoning and when and when I say human I'm not talking about some kind of biological definition of human. I'm talking about like the metaphysical So you could might be might in modern parlance might be equivalent to person and some kinds of uh philosophical discourse Because if an alien had the capability capability of moral reasoning, then they would be qualified as a moral agent as well Um, that being said, I don't necessarily think that you need to be capable of moral reasoning to have, uh, moral consideration I think that there are certain moral considerations that animals are afforded Based on them being the subject of a life. Um, I don't know if you're familiar with uh the animal rights, uh, philosopher tom reagan but he But he makes this distinction where there are certain animals which are subjects of a life Um, which means they have a certain characteristics that make them worthy of moral consideration And so that would be something like beliefs desires perception memory Uh, psychophysical continuance or a sense of future these kind of characteristics um And I would say that the the literature at least on invertebrates is pretty clear That at least uh, the most of them besides cephalopods Do not have it's gonna besides cephalopods. Um, have don't have Any of those characteristics. Um, and there's an argument about uh, whether fish do I mean American philosopher gary verner did a Research study on this and like he compared he did a meta analysis on all the relevant data on invertebrates and uh vertebrates and he concluded that no invertebrates besides cephalopods Have these type of characteristics. Um, and so I would consider them Completely without moral consideration on a similar level to other uh things without beliefs and desires such as You know inanimate objects So that would include and people say well, what's the relevance of that, you know, not many vegans are out campaigning for um By valves for example, right? It's not like vegans are saying don't eat by valves. They're not at least they're not seriously doing that a lot Um, but there are certain animals within the invertebrate kingdom that they do advocate for now I can just name a few and so like, you know, it's not just completely irrelevant I mean vegan gains for example, he puts an equal committee equal Uh, not equal, but he puts more consideration upon ants and other arthropods Um, because they're going past the mirror test. Yeah. And so I'm thinking like I so I don't think that they are morally relevant I don't think that um Any invertebrates besides cephalopods are And I would say that again, and I would also argue that fish probably aren't morally relevant as well um But yeah, so um, that's basically where I'd like to start off and then we can move from there Yeah, yeah Should I just ask you a question? Sure. Well, I think that yeah, it'd be good if we go off of questions I would say that I mostly think that uh, I didn't I haven't mentioned this in any of the debates But I am actually in practice a lacto vegetarian But For this but I'm arguing that there's not a moral obligation for veganism. That's my argument Like actually, I don't really eat any meat, but I'm just saying that that's my idea Okay, awesome. So go ahead feel free to ask me anything Yeah, okay So first I would like to say like when you say like a priori reasoning can be done without another individual um I guess my point is is that language itself is I would consider reason And and I think language is a cooperative endeavor So like even to have the concepts necessary to reason a priori to say that p is p to hold p and p constant Throughout the the syllogistic form or whatever you put an argument in you will uh, genuinely require another individual to Hold a language game constant. So I don't think a priori reasoning can even be done So the concession so the language is prior to the conception Um Yeah, yeah, well, it's not it. Well, actually it's not like I would say language is prior to the conception I think hegel calls it like sometimes calls things pre concepts I would say that preconceptualization occurs within, you know, for example in non-language non-linguistic beings like I think that they you know, still are able to divest the world They're just not able to hold that constant in a form of reasoning that form them where they could gain knowledge epistemically Um, like for example, they may come to conclusions the same as us and have problem-solving capabilities But I think without communication. There's no way for them to To be able to hold their Interpretation of concepts constant There'd be nothing objective for them to refer to to see if they are actually using their concepts correctly So like even analytic analytic arguments then kind of fall apart because you don't know whether the the the object is um equal to itself um But I think you also brought up ours or you also brought up Aristotle. Um, and uh, I think um, you said that Aristotle said You said Aristotle, um, you know Gave consideration to you know, everything's moving towards an end, you know, whether it's plants animals You know, the universe is moving towards the prime mover in other words. Like there is a constant Um movement within the universe I think that the only reason that kind of is able to occur in the first place is because we would see it It's because of the conceptualization and within thinking and that what the what we actually live in is I would argue for idealism Um, so, you know, are you going to go with Bishop Berkeley on me now? We're gonna have no no no I'll be haggling Yeah, so like objective idealism, so it's not as if I'm what I'd be really saying is that um, you know The we see this movement in the first place is conceptual movement I mean like for example, the good knife is the one that cuts in the words of our style Um, if we look at that kind of understanding of reality and the final cause I think that the final cause is always in relation to the subject um and subjectivity in the first place the reason it has cause and we give this um This conceptualization in the first place attributed to objects is because of the the thinking itself I don't think there's anything prior to the ethical relationship between individuals Which is hence essentially the basis of any kind of like existentialism Well, I'd push back on that though I mean I'd push back on that because I would say that final cause existed within the nature of things, right? It's what makes them. I mean so like we could get into like philosophy of nature here, right? So the final cause is um Exhibited within its behavior in the world, right? Things seem to have behaviors in the world that are so they act in certain ways, right? Like they have some kind of essence Right, and so that's their final cause being exhibited outside of I mean obviously if you want to argue for idealism Yeah, exactly Existence proceeds as uh proceeds essence. That's what I'll be. Well, and that's and that and you could even argue that right? like I mean you could argue that but the The my point is like because we could argue about whether the the mind really like just puts these things on the world Right, like if we're just having like a content view like this transcendental idealistic kind of projection essentially Essentially what I'd be saying is that all of our institutions are reflections of an ethical relationship, which then allows us to divest the world It's not that as if the world isn't like that as if these plants and trees and whatever aren't moving towards something But that that itself is the conclusions that we form From having an ethical relationship with the other in the first place Right, but how would you know that outside of a human context? Like if you would if there weren't like so example, this is the classic like Kantian like thing Well, like before when there were no subjects around did uh, did the scientific laws still hold something like that? Well, I think I think that kind of misses the point It's not as if the scientific laws like the scientific laws Could not exist because a law is a transcendental object in the first place Like what a scientific law is well, that's that's argument versus realism versus idealism. It's just kind of presuppose there Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, like obviously i'm not like we're gonna have the metaphysical debate You know, it's right. I know, but I mean even the conceptual existence of a law I think would be impossible like without a conscious mind It's not to say that the the physical reality which the laws attributed to didn't exist You know, it's just that the concept and its Inferential basis didn't exist if you see what i'm saying like the the institution and the in the end I understand what you're saying but what Kant would say is like those We can't even make conclusions about that right like we can't make conclusions about behavior of objects No, you can't you can't make conclusions because you'd be preceding yourself existence. Yeah, exactly Which is a little unintuitive when you think I mean like it seems like they would behave the same way Um, if I mean and that would be my argument as a realist, right? Yeah, I mean that's that's fair enough. You can say that like for example You could say that the conclusions of the institutions from which you exist point towards that You know, this is an objective physical world that uh, you know Operates with certain criteria which have been going on for millennia Which is actually to be entirely honest with you probably what I would say I'm not going to say that the earth popped up when I did, you know, like absolutely no Like but that's to say that like and it's not to say that, you know, we need some sort of consciousness That's constantly observing the world and some sort of god to to give it reality in a kind of berkeley in sense because I wouldn't say that either um I think the point of what the point is is that It's not to say that the the laws like that the existence of reality probably like I would say rationally You could conclude that it exists pre-existed or us um but Knowledge of that reality could not have pre-existed anything So to say that you could have knowledge of something that pre-existed the foundations of knowledge is the is the epistemic issue It's not to say that it's a it's an epistemic issue. Maybe not a uh like an Like a physical like an actual issue in terms of like you don't need to make any assertions in the first place It just be saying right chances are you know, the physical world did exist Is there a way to verify or falsify that? Absolutely not. Let's move on. Well, that's not exactly done I think Forgive me for cutting in just just to be sure for those who have just arrived Uh, as I think especially if they happen to be newer to philosophy If because you guys are both well versed and well read and have deep roots within philosophy If you want to kind of like tie back Uh, kind of these ideas just in a basic like short way Tie back these ideas to like how these Uh Kind of the downstream effects for whether or not veganism is an obligation or not So the the point of that i'm trying to make right here and like and I uh, well perspective philosophy Would you have can I call you by your first name or something? Yeah, just louis. Thank you Lewis so the point that louis is trying to make is that um that we don't need to make epistemic claims about What happened before subjectivity? Why that's relevant is because what i'm going to argue or what i'm arguing essentially is that essence is This kind of fundamental thing about the world and the reason why that's relevant to veganism is because I don't think that this This final cause that he's going to appeal to to kind of justify our care about Animals is going to work because I think it applies to everything everything has final cause and he's gonna and then there's a Deeper level that we're going to go into it. I might not be super relevant Maybe we should just move on to subjectivity and go to animals talk about like Them specifically just because I don't want to get people lost. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah Yeah, uh and and just to quickly, you know, maybe give another quick summary The reason that I think this final cause thing is interesting is because like what I'm trying to say is that like essentially knowledge claims in general Relate to desire and the the individual being a subject in the first place And the grounding that I'm arguing for for ethics Is to make is is to say that epistemic claims are founded upon an ethical relationship So if he can show that they're not and that he that that we do not require, let's say another individual to um Understand the world in such a way that we can gain Moral knowledge and that we can do that privately Then he would be able to ultimately Undermine my ethical stance to the point in which my epistemic claims and my ethical claims would fall apart Which is which would then go downstream to my claims about animals and you know the considerations of sentient beings So like that's kind of like the the real foundation. I mean we're arguing metaphysics pretty much. Yeah, so Like you can't really but I wonder though, I don't know if I would see this is the problem I don't think I would disagree like in principle that ethical that ethical systems require People like require more than one person like a community essentially I would agree with that I the only reason why I was disputing on that is because I because of a deeper metaphysical point that I think Is true, but I'm not sure that's going to be relevant because I do agree that ethical systems require communities That's I mean, that's the basis of ethics. Oh, that's brilliant. So I mean, we're not I mean just to be clear I'm not making that argument. Yeah. Oh, that's fine. And then obviously if we're moving on to animals and sentience I think that Whether invertebrates are sentient. I mean, that's a kind of it's I think that the literature I've read and Most literature unconsciousness in general that I've read actually is really terrible Um primarily because neuroscientists have no idea what they're talking about Um philosophers are not involved enough and uh, you can't test this And We can't make claims and I think that like, you know, and I justified that like a certain neurological complexity is necessary. Um, I think for for um If we take like a physicalist kind of notion, it doesn't have to be a physicalist But at least material notion of consciousness originating from the biological form, which I think I think is just a void I think I would I would say that, you know, with our brains and you know, central nervous systems You know, I would would not be conscious. Right. Um and have conscious preferences Which is the foundations of ethics and and desire Um, I guess the issue is is that do I know whether You know, what kind of what the limits of are like the bare minimum complexity necessary for consciousness is Not a clue Um, I don't think we do know that yet. Um, like for example, there's this whole thing like it's like Intuitively, I'd say plants are probably not conscious Um, they seem to lack all of the necessary criteria would see for that's your like a psychophysicalist, right? No Yeah, but this or like a pan-psychist or something. Yeah, like yeah, exactly, you know, atoms are con atoms are conscious Um, but the no, I don't see any real conscious preferences I think the likelihood of conscious preferences in plants But like, you know, obviously it doesn't matter if it if they were conscious because you know more cows and chickens and so on or Killing plants by eating them. And so you actually end up like, you know, it's the whole tropic No, of course. Yeah, I understand. Yeah. Yeah. So so there's always going to be less planned deaths So just in case that anyone in the comment section is like, what about the plants? You save more plants if you're vegan anyway, so don't worry. Um But like, yeah, I'd say plants are probably not conscious But I like to operate on a on a principle of moral hazard as well I think that if there's any kind of doubt Involved in like not any kind of doubt but any reasonable doubt as to something being conscious and having preferences You should treat it as as being Um, morally considerable. I think that it's um Primarily because I think if you like for example the The invertebrates, I think if you can say that And I'm not maybe as well versed on the literature as you don't get me wrong But if you could say that the invertebrates, um, could be conscious within reasonable doubt and that the literature is Inadequate to show that they're not conscious because I think that's where you've got to kind of prove the inverse Um, and that's where the moral burden lies. I think you've got to prove that they're not conscious Can you justify that real quick just because I don't really see the intuitive like, you know It seems like you have to have a reason to have a moral obligation to do something rather than a reason Not to do something or something like that. Well, I see that we'll have a moral obligation all conscious beings And if we have agreed with that Then we don't know the bottom line. No, no. Yeah, but if there's an ambiguity then moral hazard lies upon taking an action Which could cause harm and since harm would be caused on one side and not the other Then we have an obligation to To respect the possibility of harm. So it's like, um It's like I said there was a 50-50 chance that, you know, someone could or could not get hurt at any given time of Of an action that would take let's say it's uh, I don't know. I'm trying to think quite a risky action Let's say driving like above the speed limit or something, right Going really fast You would have to show that like for example that if you were to like go to a court You'd end you would say like, okay, right the roads were closed No one was going to get hurt. You've given justified evidence to say there was no moral hazard and that your your risk was justified in reference to Being a rational course of action. That's what I'm saying essentially with how we consider You know, um possible conscious The only problem the quibble I would have there is that it just seems like that there is always moral hazard, right? Like yeah, there's always a non non zero moral hazard Oh, yeah, yeah, and I think that like I'm not saying that we're perfectly rational beings That will won't make mistakes and that you know that if this is even applicable in all cases But the point is is to say that this is Kind of like if we would have perfect reason if we were to be able to understand the world in a perfectly epistemic Uh, you know sit with epistemic certainty Then we would be able to give those justifications and then that would allow us to take these risks And that's the the point I'm saying right and I'm just I mean, okay So I guess I would just make the the empirical claim that there's not sufficient evidence I think there was there's I mean, it's definitely less than 50 percent I would say at least within the literature right now Like I'm just talking about what's out there right now that most invertebrates are conscious Like that's just my argument My argument is that it seems like that there's a very little risk And I understand you're operating with a principle of moral hazard and I agree with it to some extent Like I mean if an action is overly risky it seems to um Well, because I would argue that the standard by which we judge Actions is based on what a rational agent would do right because we are a rational agent It's based on our nature right so if it's a rationally justified risk like because the risk is so small I think that and I think in this case it is at least with most invertebrates, especially I would make the claim especially for arthropods um Yeah, I think that they're that there's such just such a little chance that they're conscious um That even like remember my my stance isn't necessarily that's that um consciousness is the be all end all I mean it's valuable. Well, it's not to be all involved But I'm just saying that I would say that even then it doesn't seem justified on my at least on my yeah Yeah, no, I'm not stunned with a review to the literature that is Yeah, I'm just obviously I just wanted to put out the the opposite kind of view that like even if like there is an ambiguity there that like obviously I would say like everyone do your own research for one. Um It's important to recognize and uh, obviously, um, you know, try and try and be careful, you know Um, and uh, I guess obviously we're moving on to fish. I think fish are far more complex. Um, Then then then insects and I think that you know, we've shown that certain fish. I mean fish is a very broad term Uh for one there are so so many varieties of fish ranging through so many different forms of animals Um, it's hard to say that whether fish themselves I mean fish is they I don't think we can just say like fish aren't conscious I think that's I think you'd have to give them an individual species by species basis really I mean like I think we'd probably agree on that. I agree. Um Yeah, and the same thing with birds I would say actually Um, yeah, I think I think that that'd be fair enough and but then obviously I think to be entirely honest with you I think anything with a you know operating central nervous system to me from what I've read seems to have enough neurological complexity to to be conscious Um, at least I'd say I have a meta process which could analyze its phenomenological experiences in a conscious Uh framework. I'd say it probably does even in a minimal sense. I'd be whether it's conscious Yeah Well, I have to talk about what conscious complexity obviously entails and this is the issue with the literature What is the bare minimum? Like what is the minimum processing power needed to run a conscious? simulation of one's experiences and that obviously depends upon the complexity of the experiences themselves in anyways So like human experience might be much more complex than let's say the experience of any given fish But that doesn't mean that their experience is not valuable to them and that they aren't having a subjective experience In reference to the much less complex simulation that they're running So there's also not to be considered and I think that Just because it's more complex doesn't make it more valuable They could feel an equal equal quality of weight in terms of you know, how they actually experience suffering And pleasure like for example a fish might live in a less complex simulation of reality And in that it could it'll have its own drives and its own way to seek its end goal and It has you know pain and pleasure mechanisms tied in to those pleasure to those goals How it experiences those quality of experience is one absolutely impossible to measure because it's the hard problem of consciousness and two is likely to Have the same impact upon that being of its of its own will in terms of its frustration and so on As it would a more complex being like just because a hawk can see with greater You know intensity doesn't mean that it values its site doesn't mean that its site gives it more pleasure Or like that it would appreciate a sunset to a greater degree or anything like that. Do you know what I mean? And the whole point is is the quality of experience isn't necessarily the same as the quantitative experience of actually perceiving the world And that we can't conflate those two Which kind of defeats the idea of a sentient hierarchy, I think which is I think a problem that a lot of vegans bring up Well, I would argue the interest isn't like okay So there are a lot of different points here and I'm going to try to drain them together one So like there's obviously the problem that we can't measure consciousness, right? We can't measure what a conscious experience is. It's kind of like nagle's whole thing What's it like to be a bat? Like we really don't know because their conscious experience is so much different than ours Even if we like well, even if we didn't we even if the conscious experience was similar to ours We wouldn't know it just because we're not bats, right? We don't have a similar type of phenomenological experience as them But I think doesn't he also conclude that there's a there's the likelihood that there could exist in a ready to hand state In a Haguevian sense because they're being capable of, you know, you know conceptualization which will allow them to have Right. Well, they definitely wouldn't have put that president had had experiences under ankle, which is I mean under a handle under an idea an idea of like Um, for example, um, how they could react in relation to certain phenomenological stimuli. Well, wait a minute Let me let me back up because I wanted to address your points. Um, so Heidegger what so Heidegger definitely would say animals are not dozzied if you've read anything about is about his Phenomenological experience. He would say they're not dozzied and dozzied are kind of the morally relevant things even though He doesn't really think there are his morals, but we'll just we'll just kind of skip over Heidegger's intricacies um And because I just want to make sure I hit all your points and we're having a proper discussion, right? um So what what you had said was um that maybe okay, so like let's say that the sentience We can't really measure it. We'll say that it's equal, right? Like the the the amount of sentience that's needed for pleasure and pain is the same Like their their experience of pain is similar to ours exactly the same Which I would say I don't know if we have a way of knowing But I don't think we have a way of knowing that with other humans either, right? Except for their articulation like they say that they feel this way Um, and though I would argue like again in nagle's perspective that we understand what it's like to be a human So we have a greater understanding and we do for like a bad But let's just pretend like they're equal just for argument's sake, right? There are other relevant things that would be that we need to justify, right? I don't know whether pain and pleasure are significant in the absence of like psychophysical continuance, for example Like the idea that something uh has a An identity within itself like knows that it's one Identity because then the pleasure and pain isn't really applied to anything any person as it were or any individual Um, and this is kind of like and I don't know how familiar you are with tom brigham Have you read anything of his? Yeah, yeah, I've read some Regan and the argument you make and is also an argument given by um In the book against liberation written by um leahe, right? Who's a who's a bit against in you? So like there are different like I think that as you get some of these characteristics your moral consideration goes up Like if you're an if you're an individual Right, you have if you have a psychophysical continuance the way things can go bad or well for you is very relevant Because you you are one individual throughout a course of a life, right? Or if you have if you don't have any memory for example I mean, obviously memory is a morally relevant thing because you can be harmed in the past and you know that you were harmed Because you remember that right if so these things are relevant at least can we argue? Well, I think they're morally relevant in the sense that they hold um consideration to the you know How we treat other individuals, but they're not what will make the individual actually be capable of treated be treated with respect I don't respect you because you have a memory which allows me to Understand you as an individual throughout time. I respect you because of your experiences in reflection to What you actually feel and and how you can experience and pay pains and pleasures I don't I don't I don't I don't reflect like notions of uh, I don't respect notions of like identity for example I'm not going to respect let's say that the an individual more or less because of a better articulated identity and about a Notion of self and about a stronger sense of uh, self continuation Like let's say someone lost their memory and formed an entirely new identity In relation to the environment that they now, you know, have you know, re discover themselves in Then that that person had the both individuals who have formed as in the first person and then the second person who's Who's then developed after the lost our memory have equal moral consideration Um in reflection make a distinction there. We need to make a distinction between accidental and essential properties Right because you could accidentally have lost your memory, but to have never had anything like a memory in the first place Is a little bit different, right? It's like that we're talking about beings that don't have the capacity for memory here No, I was talking about identity there. Well identity. I'm sorry the capacity to understand even identity Well, yeah, I'm but let's say like what depends what we mean by identity for the first part Like identity is if we can either take identity and this is the problem with Leah here Then and the problem to be entirely honest with you I would find with most people who argue this is that they conflate identity with subjectivity That's not the same thing. Like what you're doing is you're conflating essence a notion of, you know, um conceptualize notion of Who we are and what we are and how we understand ourselves Which would be identity and understanding of what we are in reflection to nature and divesting ourselves from this metaphysical reality in this plane So objectifying ourselves in other words, uh, and then we have the experience of being ourselves Experience I would argue predates essence. I do not have an identity and therefore experience I gain an identity because I'm already experiencing Okay, so there's no such thing under your view as psychological identity No, psychological identity is There's only the physical identity of the unit, right? I'd say that the the physical the the the physical consciousness as in like the physical Experiencer Exists but in so much that they are experiencing it is a it's an it's a nothingness anyway It's something that can't be properly articulated and understood and I'd say that the The essence from which we attribute it to it the the notions of identity and Conceptualizations when we objectify ourselves and we start calling ourselves names and giving our and referring to ourselves as eyes And talking about how we are psychologically continuous beings Those themselves are constructions applied to consciousness. They aren't the consciousness itself It's not the the identity doesn't give us consciousness. It just lets us talk about it in an intelligible way Yeah, this is the distinction between the president and ready to hand that we're gonna get into Yeah, which is interesting. I mean like because it's interesting because in principle I I agree to a large extent, but like arguing from the analytical perspective, right? Like we just argue that these identities are just as real, right? Like so if uh, uh, even like in a physical sense I mean like if we're talking about a physicalist rather than like, uh Well, okay, so you're arguing that what's intrinsically valuable essentially in an analytical framework or I'm like Is qualia is the ability to have an experience. Yeah. Yeah, it's the qualia is what you're arguing Not the psychological physical continuum It's not any of that because that's not what the conscious experience is very very continental of you. Um Yeah, I mean, I love continental philosophy too. So it's like it's I understand. No, it's it's it's quite tempting Um, I guess I guess then if we're gonna say that's what you value I mean, I could go into reasons why I value beliefs Desires perception memory, but ultimately if your argument's going to be that qualia is what's relevant, right? That's I mean, that's ultimately what it's going to come down to Well, it's self-evident isn't it self-evidently positive or negative and it's only thing that can be taken As positive or negative in relation to having a Having a metaphysical foundation is that the fittingness of the fittingness of the concept in a in a Heideggerian sense Um would only apply to qualia because qualia is the only thing that is Qualitive it is the qualitative experience without without such without being that The concept no longer fits and we end up, you know, asserting notions of positive and negative Which aren't attributable to reality, which I would say then breaks humans law Right, so then we're having like this so we're going to have this discussion Like this is going to be an empirical thing then what exactly has qualia and like how do we know what has qualia? Well, this is the thing. I don't think we can fundamentally know what has qualia because of the hard problem of consciousness, which we've disagreed Um But we can say that maybe there is a minimum complexity Necessary for like the simulation of a conscious being which is I think understandable I think that we should appreciate that there is a moral hazard in relation to these beings And so if there is any doubt, you know, I avoid taking such a risk because qualia is valuable And if we do not want to Take unjustifiable Risks with other with other potential beings Right, right, right. And so okay, so I think that that's just kind of like so what exactly is desire on your view Um, I would say desire is the action urging process within a being It essentially connects the qualitative experience with our actions in the first place And essentially that our movement towards our our telos, which is okay. Well, okay, wait a minute So then we're I don't want to dive too far into I don't know because then we're going to have to get again. I would disagree right? I don't think that I mean I think that that's just an inherent part of the universe telos is even like Agents have Yeah, I mean it doesn't I mean like we're gonna we can even we can even as long as we just agree that we have one anyway And that we're like and and we'll agree on like are you like mac and tear as well the functional concept of man? Yes, quite. Yes Okay, so but my but I guess this is kind of the distinction here. I mean, I don't think that Um, that many animals, especially invertebrates have desires Or if I may as well if I may as well Can I just just to qualify to the the crowd that are watching this the functional concept of man in mac and tear Would you like to talk about like give a brief explanation of it? Or shall I just let them know what the hell Kind of because I think I think I think that what I would say essentially that the functional concept of man is essentially the foundation of Of human action that we are already trying to achieve a goal and in that we necessarily require Ethics to achieve that goal Essentially, yeah that um that we have an essence that we have the dysfunctional purpose if you want to use like analytic talk That is built into our very nature and that we're already trying to do It's kind of like in in heidegger where like we're always we have this essential nature But we're always trying to do something always trying to get at something which is the functional The functional concept of man, which is the the rational essentially Aristotle's rational animal like always trying to get that rationality as it were See, but then the the kind of mental critique of this is that the the knowledge of such an essence is not inherent to our being We do do not have it and that what we do when we apply essence is we are applying Transcendental objects to a state of being which we cannot have fundamental knowledge And so it's always inadequate and so what we are doing is fundamentally always trying to investigate it further and further Which is why there's a there's a an issue with that would but I think never started to disagree I mean like he would say that those things are just in the nature and that's not like trends We're not like we're not trying to apply transcendental ideas from inside our head Rather those things are just within the nature of things like you have to make this anti-realist assumption that those things really don't have those properties Right. Well, I don't know. Actually, I completely disagree like for example And this is why I said like I think Hegel actually really relates well Aristotle because I think that It's not to say that the that the object itself doesn't have a nature from which we are trying to understand I think in all Hegelian ethics and I think if you read brandoms inferentialism an inference in applies the possibility of it actually obtaining Truth and and reality so to say that, you know humans are what humans are Implies that there is a human to be understood and and I would actually argue that there is and that way I'm just about him believing that it just to say that Our our concepts aren't perfect. We constructed the concepts We do not abstract them and in so much that we when we are investigating reality What we tend to find is that these concepts are not perfect fits And so what we do is we reevaluate them hermeneutically And reapply them and create new concepts which fit that and we're constantly improve Upon our ethics and our epistemological systems and again and a pure Aristotelian Thomas would not agree with that, right? He would say no, no, okay. So at least we understand that's because there will be a certain there'll be a certain essence before exactly It precedes the experience right ethical mechanism. The ethical mechanism is is the same though Like in terms of the Aristotelian the Aristotelian would say that the institution shows why it's uh flawed against You know human life and then overall McIntyre even makes the same point in many ways one. He says that humans are Human nature doesn't exist fundamentally without without culture. He says humans do not exist fundamentally without culture Which uh hagel would absolutely agree Aristotle would agree too, right? He talks about it in the necomedian ethics where he says that Man is necessarily a social animal So ethics arises out of being social, right? If there's nothing to be social about there is no ethics. I agree Yeah, and and I think that the the the point and and hey any McIntyre even says that the goal Is modified by the journey as the and he gives this reference to quests like the you know, the The quest in the middle ages the knight starts upon his quest and then halfway through He realizes that the goal that he's seeking is the wrong goal and he changes the the end of the quest So the quest evolves and the narrative changes and the end goal changes as the quest goes on That's essentially I think built into the hegelian and and con nendle notion But not so much a notion which is scribes an essence which is to be abstracted I think there was a fittingness of the concept which we can test against reality And I think that that applies nicely within existentialism. I don't think that would necessarily fit Or um, let's say something which which attributed like a platonic notion which attributed You know form an essence before existence, right? And that's just the disagreement there, right? I think that's just the disagreement right we're talking about metaphysics whether the actual essence proceeds precedes the existence, but I don't want to I just don't want to dive too far out the rabbit hole. Um, only because On one hand i'm going to end at least because okay, so i'm arguing for the position that veganism isn't a moral obligation to the hand I don't want to go too far down the rabbit hole in metaphysics But the fact is because I would fundamentally being a phenomenologist like I think that Existence does precede essence, right? But that's not going to be relevant. I don't think it's relevant to the critique right now Or the argument we're trying to make so I just think that we should leave it off For now. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine Yeah, but I mean like if we can agree that like What is concerned? I mean like it then what we'll have to consider is what is considerable morally, right? Like ethically consider And we don't want to you know break Hume's law or anything along those lines And I think McIntyre has a great job and shown us how not to You know the functional concept of man and so, you know What we end up in is an inferential relationship with the other where we try and create inferences to what actually is good in reference to Uh our fundamental nature And if our fundamental nature is to respect an aspect of ourselves and which is found in the other as well Excuse me, uh, and what they are trying to respect within themselves What I'm trying to respect within me is what I know and I and I think is uh inherent within our being I would argue is inherent with our being is this notion of of of the qualia Now if we are saying that we respect in qualia itself and quality of quality of experience Then why would we not attribute that to other sentient beings? Well, I don't think that that's the only thing that which we that we value in other people, right? I think that we do what else could be valuable, huh? What what else could be? ethically Well, I think that there's the easiest one right is the capacity for moral reasoning That is something that changes our our moral behavior with regards to the agent for example, we We respect their preferences in different ways. We give them different moral duties and obligations based on that so it I mean, I think Um in controversially changes their moral nature Like if something has the ability to reason morally then it has a different type of moral nature There's something that doesn't have a or well, I guess I shouldn't say more on nature because that that would be a little question begging But like our behavior will say like our present at hand behavior with them But that just changes how we respect our ready to have it doesn't it doesn't give us a reason to respect them Yes, it does. I mean, well, so so behavior informs I mean, so behavior informs Theory, right? Like why do we treat conscious beings that have moral but in natures like that act that way differently? um, then we do because that's that's going to be your whole argument like the For the subjectivity that's it like behavior behavior under fundamentally points towards the experience We respect the experience. We don't respect the behavior. I don't respect someone someone's pure like I don't look at a computer and Crunching numbers and wow We really need to preserve that I unplug it and I don't feel bad at all Um, even though it's a purely arguably a purely rational mechanism ongoing like going through It's not rational. I would argue That's fair enough. I mean like as in like it's at least, you know, it's it's It's using a form of reasoning whether it's pre-programmed or not I would I would kind of say I'd say that it's uh, maybe maybe not reason Because I would say reasons in language, but since it's kind of using its own language I wouldn't say there's any agency but and and you know a rational agency there but like There's there's no reason to say that a quantitative like even let's say we could create a computer an ai with a purely quantitative Experience where it was conscious, but only of the numbers that it was that that was like Well, I have no idea. I don't think that's this against I don't think it's possible either So I'm just using it as a purely hypothetical scenario. I actually made this argument against someone else where I said I'm pretty sure that's not possible But let's just imagine it was let's say there was just a being which experienced purely Rational stimuli. It didn't have a pain a positive or negative response to the stimuli that it was that that it was conscious of It just was aware of it. It was pure awareness of a quantitative experience Like I don't know. It's basically the computer version of watching paint dry, right, right? But it was actually it didn't care about watching the paint dry It didn't have any preferences at all. No interests. Nothing along the sword Would we feel bad in turning it off? Would there be a moral quandary in turning it off? I'm just not convinced. I understand what that even means What it even would mean to have an experience of just quantitative data, right? I don't think that quantitative data has experience or like is experiential in nature So I'm not even sure so like if a computer like even if like you could program a computer to have those characteristics I'm almost a perfect ai, right? I don't know What again, I would argue like surly and right like that really wouldn't have any quantitative experience actually It wouldn't actually be an experience Yeah, I wouldn't call it. Okay. Like I mean if we were to say that it was purely conscious But like and I do doubt whether consciousness can exist without a subjective framework from which it Helps you divest the world as in But then I don't see any necessarily reason why Like for example, if you were to create something which had receptors able able to perceptually differentiate Objects within the world why it would necessarily have to have A qualitative Experience of that why it would necessarily have to be positive or negative in relation to that Phenomenon phenomenological You know state that it's in And but regardless even just in a hypothetical sense Let's just assume for the for the state of like for the for this that it is possible But I say that you grab that like there's a okay here. I'll let you go. Sorry. I apologize The reason I'm just saying it is just that I don't think that we would say that it is the It's not the the moral thinking we respect because if the moral thinking is what we respected then we didn't then why would Why did we start more thinking morally in the first place? No, but I mean, but again remember what I said. I didn't say that all that's all that we respect I said that that's something else. That's something that changes our evaluation So I'm saying just how I'm saying how we respect I want to make this clear Like there is a like there is some moral relevance to just being subjective some amount, right? I think that that that having a subjective experience is morally relevant But I'm saying that there is other things which are also morally relevant That changes our evaluations of our actions toward the being if something doesn't and I think that that makes Certain actions permissible and impermissible within that context. No, I agree. I would agree It changes how we would respect them, but it doesn't tell us why we respect them We like for example, right? Let's just assume like let's take ready to hand in present at hand states Let's say a child is incapable Of having as a complex psychological experience of a present at hand state as an adult Which I think is a justifiable claim to make I think that you know children don't just lack the necessary conceptual complexity So let's just say that they have in a you know, they're going along the day-to-day lives and that feeling ready Are in a mostly ready to hand state The fall over and the star cry and they've hurt the knee I would say that what we can say is that they're probably incapable of Distancing distancing themselves away from the pain in a present at hand state as an A stoic like environment because they've fallen over right and and because they're incapable of that conceptual complexity And so they may feel that pain more intensely than an adult who could grit that teeth and bear it and allow themselves to You know, think of something else distract themselves or or even understand that this pain will end And it also removes that idea of like uncertainty and angst and think you know, they know that it's not serious and so on So you can say that the like, yeah, there is a different consideration even in relation Think it changes the experience itself. I completely agree But it doesn't tell me why the experience is valuable The only thing that the value of the experience has to be inherent within the experience For the concept to be applicable in the first place Morality and and ethics is an investigation into that experience It's not it's not what it doesn't give the value the value is not attributed because of the investigation Otherwise the investigation would have been fruitless in the first place. Well, okay. So again, there's a distinction there, right? What I'm saying is that okay, so What makes let me let me see if I could drill you down a little bit. What makes the distinction Why do we treat different conscious agents differently based on these type of properties? Um, why why do we treat them differently? Right, I would say that essentially it modifies their experience and the quality of experience is modified by it as in They would have an experience of qualia And that is modified by the phenomena from which they are aware of and so do we have an obligation to Change that any behavior that would seem to make the qualitative experience better Do we have an obligation to do that? Or at least or let me rephrase that or at least make their experience less bad Uh, yeah, right. Okay. That that makes it even easier. I would say yes. Okay. So, um And what and what about them or what about that situation? Uh, makes you have the moral obligation as opposed to seem to like non-action, right? Like not doing anything What what about as in what about them? I'd say that fundamentally that they hold the same characteristic of you as you which you hold valuable Uh, that that that you hold a categorical Notion of Value in relation to what they're experiencing you value qualia you value experience because that's what you value in yourself Because that's all that is valuable in yourself. Okay, but let me let me let me let me rephrase that like so that maybe you understand a little better Uh, okay. Yeah, so like so it seems to me it would make a cow's life a lot better If I gave him, you know, cushy conditions, um, you know, we fed it like the best Hey, we uh, you know, did we reduce its suffering to the utmost extent, right? Uh, what's going to be the distinction there between what we have to do for the cow and what we should do for the cow Um, I see the distinction. All right. Sorry. Not sorry I mean, I think you understood the distinction between what we should do and what we don't need to do where like it's not morally I'd say that the first the first the first thing I'd say is that the moral obligations are typically in the negative Uh, I think I think in laws. I think that like it's more about me not hindering your subjectivity And you not hindering my subjectivity. Um, but then I think to be entirely honest with you, it's I think that as time goes on while moral obligations become more Fleshed out and more um detailed that they get the the ways in which we can allow the greatest expression of subjectivity In relation to to having the best experience would overall be while obligation So what if I if I can make for example, um facilitate Uh, a cow's ability to you know, eat hay or whatever and it has a great time Am I morally obliged to do so in all circumstances? I'd say that there is the one I'd say that the ethical obligations that we have are institutional And that they don't exist on a purely subject by subject basis My individual obligations are not given to me because of my moral reasoning in a in a given scenario But are given to me by a normative system, which is um institutionally bounded I I mean, I guess that would we're just gonna we're gonna run into that metaphysical problem again Like I if you say like that there is like an essence that is not founded within the thing then obviously that's gonna We're gonna go right back into that. It's not that I just say I just say that the deductive ethical process like ethical reason And is institutional. I think that individuals make um ethical assertions and individually that like as in like Ethicals is communicative. Yeah, and I agree like it's socially But that doesn't mean that there isn't anything intrinsic. Like you said, even if we didn't know it There would still be that intrinsic nature like even if we couldn't ever discover like we couldn't ever reason it out Right, but it would still be something there. There would still be an essence Like that we even if we didn't couldn't articulate it and there weren't like we'd still be rational agents assuming that we acted that way It's not that I even disagreed with the As I said the fitness of the concept. I don't think it causes a problem Like essentially, it's not I'm saying that the cow does not have the thing that we respect because I'm definitely saying that the cow Does have the thing that I would we respect. I'm just saying that there's an epistemic issue in asserting Essence before existence. It's not as I said, but that doesn't mean that the application of ethical concepts is Impossible and I would actually argue the exact opposite, which is why and I'd say I think Hegel would as well Like absolutely Uh, like it definitely fundamentally I could say that there is a something to be respected within the cow and In so much but intrinsically, yeah Go ahead. I like I Yeah, that's what I agree there like it's not it's not we don't agree because otherwise If the inference didn't actually relate to reality, then I'll be playing a game for its own sake and ethics would be unfounded And would be a nihilist right so so it wouldn't it wouldn't make any sense. Anyway, um Like the point I'm making is essentially that there is something to be respected in the cow and The way that we understand what is to be respected is in an institutional basis And like what my individual personal obligations are Exists in an institution which reflects the greatest expression. Yeah, this is this is like the hegelian like being in a world, right? Like it's reflective of all these connections within between subjectivities that have different views and different wants and desires And because of this web we have certain obligations because of the web itself not because of any particular individual in the web um Yeah, well, it's the it's the individual finds them So was it the subject finds themself in the objective like the like that that's the point So it's not like as if it's unrelated like the universal application of ethics is not unrelated in account like in a candy in Like in a candy in sense with it. Yeah, like where it's it's given from some sort of almost a divinity Like it intrinsically relates to the subjects and to the particular Like those individuals themselves are what is valuable But the system doesn't consider one individual's assertion of value It considers every individual's assertion of I understand that or it to be objective and right right and I understand that What i'm trying to drill down is what makes something like any statement a moral obligation like any particular thing Like if I were to say veganism is a moral obligation, right? What exactly makes something a moral obligation versus like, uh, I think ann ran makes this distinction between like a whim And like a desire, right? So like what where's going to be the distinction there? Where is it like just something that we could do to help them? Right versus like something that we should do to help them Well, I would say that what is being rationally determined within the institutions and I'd say that the institution itself is in reflecting Of a certain concept and that concept is in quality of experience I think that it that always moves towards quality of experience and reflects the values of those quality of experiences I think that they're obviously but obviously other ethical considerations are made that are not qualitative experience No, yeah, you can get ethical. Yeah, but then they typically like would you argue that like somebody in world times have an ethical obligation to go vegan Because of the they inherit like nature of well if you say that ethical discourse But what I would say is that the ethical discourse in the first place originated because of subjectivity and that's what it's related to I'd say that the the overall normative expression of that fundamental link Was inadequate because of the master slave morality that appeared in Rome Rome was an unequal state with improper reasoning and therefore came to faulty conclusions Like that's why they had slavery. That's why they had all of these other ethical problems It's not their fault the language in that conceptualization hadn't yet met this stage of development So they could not have known it's not as if they are bad people They were just ignorant to the truth now It's the same with like the Romans didn't understand physics the Romans didn't understand, you know High-level mathematics does that mean that our society should abandon such things? Absolutely not That's not well, I mean, but that's not the argument I was making. I think that you understand the thrust there, right? the Well, the like the first the first would be essentially like like what are our obligations in relation to like our ethical our ethical spheres and not the normative expression out of that veganism is the conclusions that we will meet from the Internal critique of internal and external critique in relation to welfarism and in relation to human rights I think when you see that, you know, like human rights and And the growing of animal rights, they are one in the same the ethical It's like, you know in Jeremy Bentham, you know, and like the 1700s brought essentially, you know, what is what is morally considerable in relation to You know, is it is it asking was it what's the full court again? You're the vegan I know I should know it off my heart. What is it? Um I don't know if you're gonna appeal to rights I'm just gonna appeal to Bentham too and say rights are nonsense nonsense upon stilts, right? Yeah, but like the only point though, don't they want Bentham Bentham is wrong Utilitarian It's okay But he was right essentially in ensuring the foundations of our reasoning like being in relation to desire The expression of how we how we respect that desire is normatively embedded within our culture It's not to say that that is not the foundation It's just that how we respect it and our understanding of it is institutionally embedded and it constantly progresses That's why we move from tribalism to nationalism to anthropocentrism This is super again. Oh my gosh, you're gonna are you really gonna pull the dialectic on me? Oh, yeah, absolutely. It's this is this is an ongoing historical process, which uh veganism happens to be uh now On your opinion, um, obviously well like at least it exists as an institution within our society So at least it has to be considered in my will have an unethical debate So it's not whether it's right or wrong is is you know the point of these debates But uh, you know external critique and obviously internal critique between like for example me and ask yourself I'm criticizing the end of the trade that's internal critique And then you have the external critique of us to debate and whether we should or should not be vegan and The the institution itself though is um historically embedded It only makes sense in reference To to to what's come before it like vegan thought could not have existed before 1945 When the vegan society was established and said that it was the beginning and end of vegetarianism Vegetarianism being an institution in our state, which was grounded upon a relationship between animals being similar to that of humans Which is historically embedded and has grown from the very bedrock of a tribalistic scenario Like that's where ethics came from a master-slave relationship, which is constantly fellow social relationship, I would argue But yeah, I understand what you're saying. I understand what you're saying. I understand the argument. Um Sorry, we dived into like hegelian dialectic. I'm trying to track my uh My my where we at um So, wait a minute. Let me just make sure I have this clear um on your position our our uh Our how do I say this? Sorry. I'm trying to make sure I got this phrase, right? So Dietarily vegan actions, right? If they do not interfere with subjectivity as far as we can tell Are the will of the individual? Those are not morally wrong under your view and not obligation to avoid like for example I'm thinking of and again me and cosmic sceptic got into this a little bit But the the idea of like you had a backyard hand for example Um with like this and I mean, obviously there are practical concerns, but I'm not talking about the practical concern. There's like, you know Um, obviously we they need calcium in their diet So you have to supplement their diet with calcium and obviously feeding them eggs is a way to do that Um, but my point is is that I mean there's you could even you could even like rather than like thinking of it like that Like rather than making it like let's say like a chicken in a backyard hen which then has its own moral quandary around it Why don't you just make it if you wanted to show a relationship that like this you could say that like let's say Um, you know like human breast milk Is it wrong to take human breast milk if it was voluntarily given? Well, I don't think a mother's I don't think a more a mother who breastfeeds a child is immoral like that child's not exploiting But then there's the question of voluntary, right? There is no voluntary with animals. You can't really Oh, yeah, yeah, but and it's but but I think part of it part of part part and parcel of it Is whether they will become distressed and harmed from it? I think chickens can they that that's what we are considering in this scenario And do you think that that's but do you think that's uh, a morally? uh, premised morally uh Like parents. Yeah, well, I was yeah, I was gonna morally dangerous situation. That's what I'm asking All right. All right. Um, right. Okay. Like, um, yeah, I would say that like backyard hens are morally dangerous I think big for a few reasons. I think obviously you say like there's the like, you know We talk about the institution which produces the hens obviously in the first instance It's a 100% vegan argument where you know, they've got to get the baby hens from somewhere The males aren't useful. They're going to get killed and so on Also, then there's the consideration. Are you going to keep the hens after they're spent? Or you're going to have these chickens throughout the whole of their lives Even after they're not producing eggs or you're going to kill them Um, you know, and then obviously there's the welfare aspect How are you keeping these chickens? And then there's also how do the chickens react when you take the eggs start producing more eggs, which can be harmful to their health the um There's the, you know, the calcium sort of decided Okay, so here's my problem, right? It seems like that where if we take them out of the situation where they're in this kind of chain of Being like you don't know where they could go if you if you buy them from these people, right? Like if you don't buy them, they're likely to go into either slaughterhouses Um, or maybe in factory farming situations or whatever, right? So like the situation is better if you have them and you treat them right We'll say that that's generally good conditions Um, it's kind of similar to what i'm arguing about with with pets, right? It seems like there are let me let's just let's abstract it from the practicals because that's what i'm trying to argue Right, there are there seem like practical situations, which subjectivity is mostly respected You know, there may be individual instances where there's problematic or we need to but obviously we do that with our daily life There's all we always need to get better. That's the idea moral progress Um, but my question is is all interaction with these subjective beings since we can't know their preferences At least not by asking them, right? Like how how do we can you can infer but I mean like we don't know whether and there's also practical conditions I mean like In order to have a pet you have to lock it up in order so that it doesn't get away There is the there is the consideration like with the animal's preferences I think that you know understanding like I think we both agree that like the biology of the animal is a good indication For example, like dogs don't like being electrocuted. I think we could we could make that claim like essentially fundamentally harms the Ontology of their being to be electrocuted when we the biology the biological mechanisms that go on Actively react in such a way that we could infer that they are having a pain response And I don't think that's an unjustifiable claim, but there are other situations that are not so clear, right? Like that's a very clear situation. Yeah, that's that's what essentially I was trying to show I was trying to say that there is the there is ambiguity in certain scenarios Obviously that we could not know but whether these are whether the ambiguity is enough to To defy us interacting with animals as a whole I'm not I say I'm not seen any like moral moral ambiguity to the fact that like if I have a pet dog That then gets you know regularly walked or even has an outside area to go to whenever it wants and so on like that Whether it would feel harm and also like obviously the relations with with the dogs themselves like Um, you know, like I would like advocate for a dog don't shop for the same reason I would advocate like you don't buy backyard hens in that respect because then you're producing a breeding system Which is then not only it's creating individuals to to satisfy a demand Um, you know for for their companionship But that is inherently exploited if I don't think there's very many ethical breeders Which is why I mean we can get to argument why they're breeding some flicheteria is like value. I mean is um Morally permissible, but what I want to drive the point in is that all our interactions and especially with animals seem to have some aspects which in in like Like uh, yeah, well they impede on their subjectivity, right? But there's certain I mean certain in certain way. Maybe they maximize our Um subjective experience like where we keep dogs and kennels for example because if they didn't weren't in kennels They would tear up your stuff or something like that. Um, but my point is no, I'd say that might be unjust See that's what I'm saying. I'm saying it seems like a lot of these practices Um any interaction with animals is gonna infer on infringe upon their subjectivity in some ways Right, and I don't think that that's the only moral consideration I think that they're but I think that's the same with humans, isn't it? I mean, but we have even more like we have more like again being a morally relevant agent Being an agent that can I shouldn't say morally relevant. I apologize. That was the wrong term. Um, morally Uh a moral agent that's somebody who can do right and wrong Like there are other considerations that we have to put into so basically what I'm saying is like if there is the spectrum If they have more moral duties, which it's kind of funny because like probably like 30 minutes ago We was trying to get into this but it was difficult because we've jumped around a lot Um there if we have more moral duties to somebody who's on like this side of the spectrum There needs to be a delineation why each particular step Like you know what what type of actions are permitted toward each particular step on that kind of ring Like I wouldn't think that we have a moral obligation to alleviate. Um, I don't know. I'll let you talk I don't I don't want to interrupt you. I see what you're going for. Um, but I guess the point is is that what I would say is like in in any way like Is our interaction or cooperation worth the implicit? Um Confliction within interests between agents, you know, like like on a most intuitive scale There's the there's the the fact that our desires will conflict in one or two ways Especially if I'm a murderer and you you don't want to get killed And and obviously that's like just a very obvious one, but it happens day to day and which is why you get, um, you know in in most Scenarios like whether we want the same like, you know food or not and we can only get one Uh, like one bag of crisps and we want uh two separate flavors We're having we're having a a moral quandary in a very very like small way. We're having this ethical, you know contention And uh, like is it worth it? I was absolutely like for example like Like for example like having a girlfriend who you know, she might want sweet popcorn I might want salted popcorn. We'll find a compromise. We eat sweet and salted. It's worth it. It's not like Oh, I should get rid of miguel french who wants sweet popcorn. Do you know what I mean? Like there is certain considerations that are like the you know Downsides that are totally worth the advantages of having ethics and and and the advantages of having Cooperate cooperative adventures. Uh, I think it's the same with animals I think that so long as that we are treating animals with it within a consideration Um of their interests That seems to outweigh the negative aspects like for example, uh, like me dawg can't walk around the streets You know without his lead on because he could you know harm others Um, is it does he still want to walk? Yeah, the walk's still good for him He still wants to have he still wants to have that relationship. He still wants to You know experience these things and I think that overall he can have a positive life a good life I mean, you're not respecting his interest in so far as you're choking him with the with the collar with this like uh This device he's gonna he's gotta okay fair enough. Uh, we'll say a hard We'll say a hardest, but still I mean you're restricting him. You're restricting his uh his subjectivity what he wants his desires And what makes you think that you have that kind of justification? Like why do you well, I say for one reason while being for one and even the restriction between what we restrict ourselves all the time within normative structures within laws about say that the restriction within law is not a not a Because it's a rational system. So we should be able to actually off us. Wait a minute back I want I want you to justify that so So are we allowed to make any laws that you know restrict Somebody's um, somebody's liberty if it would you know hypothetically raise their a chance to have a better life I think we should restrict individuals libid as in drug laws is what I don't want to say Like I'm thinking drug laws specifically right like it seems like these things have like So like like these things have negative properties, which if you were to use them They have a unreasonably high chance that they would cause you negative effects on your well-being. And so Do you think that we have an obligation to make laws which restrict the subjectivities? desires in order that that we have You know a greater chance of having an increase of well-being Yeah, um, I'll see what you get. I mean the one with like, I mean drugs I will say that there is a lot more like I'm not going to give a definitive answer of whether drugs should be legal or not I would say that the probably should be decriminalized at the very least for one but then Uh, the reason I'm saying that is essentially because like I'm not giving a definitive answer on drugs themselves I will answer your proper question Which is about whether, you know, we should make laws which district libid like, you know, like freedom In a second and you're going to get a horribly Hegelian answer. So be ready for that Um, I actually know what you're going to say. I saw your debate yesterday. So I know exactly what you're going to say Go ahead But essentially reason I'm not giving a definitive answer on laws But on um, sorry on drugs particularly is because you know, we've got the societal impacts And when you talk about applied ethics, there's so much things so much to be considered Like it's not as if we're just ban drugs, for example, just because of the individual taking them There's also the the impact upon society in the healthcare system There's the impact upon them the individual's ability to make rational decisions if they are in like, you know The take heroin once The reason and may become impaired because they get addicted and now we'll have this Scenario where the individual might be a rational agent anymore and you know, whether allowing them to continue on that path is justified And there's so much there's so much to be considered. Well, but the principle is what we're talking about, right? We're talking about the principle that I just wanted to clarify for the audience that I can't like if you're wondering like He stands on drugs, but um In relation to you know Law I would say that law offers the opportunity for self-determination. It's actually freedom itself rather than And rather than a restriction I think that the the notion of a restriction being purely negative is a very like naturalistic notion Of freedom where freedom is essentially the ability to meet one's preferences And I think that I think socrates actually does a great job It's destroying this in gorgias where he basically says like is the fool free You know when he gets what he wants and he's not free if he starts suffering because he never intended for that suffering so what he's actually free in is when he's rational and right and So if law is a normative structure, which actually represents what is the right thing to do Then the law is actually freeing you which is why hegel would say the law purifies your desires It allows for proper self-determination But you have to be able to understand the reasoning behind the law, right? But then you say your answer is just yes, I mean essentially because because your answer is that okay We should make laws which maximize well-being and so far is that that would increase real freedom It just would decrease this kind of simple simple notion like this like Only if the The reason and was They genuinely publicly available as if the public have a grade and understand the reasons behind it properly So like a purely democratically justified law Like why is that necessary though? Because it seems like I mean like obviously we have societies which are not democratically determined um And and it seems like if just the inferences are made validly anyway Don't seem why why does everybody have to agree? Because I would say that like it's not necessarily that the have to agree as in as in that that participation is respected within Within ethics as being equal. It's not as if they even have to necessarily participate if they chose not to like That's an individual's like, you know, you don't have to vote for example You don't have to do whatever And the point is is what I'm saying is that when an individual is not given Equal way to their subjectivity for example, you know, what I would say a master's degree in relationship or laws and lawsman and bondsman employer employee, you know socialist kind of Rhetoric then what we see is that the individual's preferences or the individual the individual's um Assertions and justifications the individual's um inferences on treated with equal weight And so the conceptualization is actually one sided and and equates to a bias Which is why you would find institutions which are then biased you can find institute I mean, it's not it's not unsurprising that we can find let's say, you know If you joined the ussr in the ussr there was a Heavy bias towards the state and towards and and the state ethic that was going on What was justifiable was good for the state in almost a fascist scenario in a fascist fascistic kind of scenario We move towards a, you know, almost a actually kind of represents I think quite similar to plato's republic in this respect, you know The good of the state over the good of the people when the whole point is is that when you have a universal concept That's being heightened above the particular interests of the individuals and doesn't respect the individual's subjectivity You've already destroyed the individuals in the first place and the respect for them that that it's in trying to do You're not respecting anything. It's a It's a wishy-washy Well, but I mean you could also come at that from like the platonic perspective the platonic that That people don't necessarily know what's good for them that they're whole like even though that they have these interests, right? That were like it's a kind of like the whole example where Plato makes He doesn't use this but i'm trying to think of his specific example But like when children are voting for the dentist versus the the candy man, for example, people don't really know What's good for them, right? They think I'm not actually in gorgias. Yeah It is yeah Um, the thing is that people don't generally know what will maximize their well-being They just have like these kind of inclinations to fulfill desires and so like yeah, so the fool Right. Yeah, it's a criticism about popular But then Plato also makes the mistake and he thinks that like for example the philosopher when he climbs out the cave Um is able to see truth But then is unable to report upon it The point is is that the philosopher wouldn't know what he was seeing was the truth Unless he was able to speak a bit and able to report on it in which people are able to actually verify or falsify his inferences in the first place So the so you can't say that Plato did that Plato thinks that Obviously, he has a completely different ontology, right? His theory is that you have to experience the good in order to even Have knowledge of it like and you can't convey that because in order to have the good You have to have knowledge of the good already, right? Like it's like I'm not simply don't thought that I'm I'm simply don't make a mistake in thinking that yeah Um, I'm just saying Plato is wrong Haven't you ever read the quote all all philosophy is just a history. It's just um a series of footnotes to Plato All right. Yeah, you're probably He has actually raised pretty much every philosophical question to date pretty much. Um, but you know, I think The reason I'm criticizing Plato is like in this respect It's because he wouldn't know if he was moving from one illusion to the truth when he could be moving from An illusion to another illusion, right? Yeah, right. No, it's just another assistant of our assistant of our room in the cave I mean, he would disagree, but I don't know if we should really get into platonic I don't know if we should get the platonics. I'm gonna have to pull some platonists on you. Um, but we might Maybe this is a good time to start to transition So maybe if we you guys want to take a few minutes to summarize Kind of draw together the threads from the discussion with some kind of flexible closings And then we will go into the q&a So folks if you have a question fired into the old live chat and we will read through those Thanks so much and back to you guys. So do you want to wrap up first or do you want me to wrap up? It's your decision. Um, I might be I might be to go I will say like I am really sorry to the crowd, but we've really got in there. There's a lot of metaphysics Yeah, uh, and then we we never really left metaphysics that much like a little bit of ethics and then went straight back Um, um, I suppose is what I would say is um I guess that like from from my understanding like I haven't really grasped your position so much within this Because it seems to me that you agree that you know It seems that the only thing that you would be saying that I am not is that morally relevant features in reality Can exist beyond The qualia and the the actual qualitative experience and can exist within the rational decision making process And rational agency is therefore more valuable or own or the only thing that maybe the only thing that is valuable More valuable to a greater extent even and so that like anthropocentric value overtake sentient values and I would obviously deny that I would say that the the Existence of anthropocentric value and rational the value of rational rationality is is not intrinsic But is instead extrinsic. It is it is um instrumental the value of reason isn't And reason rational agents. I don't value rational agents because they are rational I value them because they are agents and then I treat them differently because they are rational I respect their agency and their subjectivity and their rationality modifies that But it doesn't give them anything that is inherently more valuable The value itself would still be in the experience in the quality in the quality in the quality of judgments that they experience themselves It wouldn't be in the the rational decision making processes because otherwise Then we would be saying that their inferences themselves are what are valuable not the agents So I and then I would say that obviously Animals are capable of a quality quality of experience and since that what that's what we are considering within ethics Then we should be applying that to animals We should be considering their interests with equal weight to our own Within reference to our duties and obligations to the other So our societies will understand how to respect other individuals to a greater and greater degree And I think the first thing that we could do is just stop eating them And I think that considering the the most Interactions we have with animals is on our dinner plates, you know on our plates Then what we realize is that actually what we are doing on a day-to-day basis is massacring millions and millions of sentient quality sentient creatures who are having a quality of experience who feel pain who suffer Who do not want to die and when they do die That is a moral travesty and we are committing this This genocide I would say or even I would like, you know in many ways I think vegans get criticized for this, but I would say it's an equivalent to a holocaust in the sense of what we are doing It is it is a moral. It is an ethical An ethical calamity that we are committing against these animals billions and billions of animals every year And so in so much that we are respecting Quality of experience in that we are respecting subjects and that we are respecting individuals themselves We should start by just not eating them. Thank you All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate Lewis for coming on. I think that this is actually the most It's funny because I think that this is the most debate where we talked about veganism the least yet We also like but we it was the most interesting for me personally, unfortunately So I apologize to the crowd that we dived into metaphysics so hard It just was particularly relevant to the his particular view of veganism It's very different than like something from alex or something different from isaac's view So I wanted to dive into the particulars because I wanted to develop a critique that would be sufficient on his terms Unfortunately, we don't really have the time for that But I'm going to give him kind of what my thoughts are on his position And I'll just kind of give wrapping up thoughts about what I think about this overall So I think that um, so obviously his position is that qualia is the the morally relevant trait And it's the only possible morally relevant trait for him. Um, obviously it's interesting He says like that the agents are what's valuable. It's a subjectivity And it's it's interesting because there's this distinction of what is the word agent come from it comes from my jr It comes from agens. It's just something which does something else Um, so like I and ultimately if you think that essence are within the fabric of nature itself Everything is an agent in some sense. I mean like it acts in some way But uh, we don't really have time to get into that obviously he thinks that And he wanted me to articulate a little bit of my position I think that there is value of having the subjectivity having some kind of qualitative experience I just think there's more things that are relevant and I think that there's this scale of value I think that if you have like if so what I didn't really get to articulate is if you have these rational Um considerations you're a moral agent you have obligations that are not applied to the lesser animals animals that don't have that And furthermore as you go up like if you have psychophysical continuance and obviously He doesn't like that. He doesn't like identity and I kind of understand why it's it's an interesting position I'd have to go with him more on that and talk about identity but um But if you have some of these characteristics Like you get more moral consideration because these things are particularly relevant I just don't think that having subjectivity in of itself is valuable and he touched on this in his closing statement He said uh, they don't want to die And I think that there are some beings which are sentient have some kind of qualitative experience That is they have some kind of underlying neurology And I'm thinking particularly about like crustaceans where they have some like level of Of neurology, but they don't think that they have any qualitative real experience Or well I shouldn't say I should say that I don't think that they have any experience that's like ours certainly and definitely not Definitely not desires not beliefs not anything like that. Um, I don't think that they're morally relevant I think that you need more than qualitative experience You need to have beliefs or desires or like something else. I think there's a lot of different different things Now, what does that mean? Uh, that means that at least some forms of non-veganism are permissible and again, it depends on What your definition of veganism is what you think that qualifies as that And I also think that in something we didn't get to touch too much on I don't think that a lot of the things that vegans Uh Are against really harm animals in a significant way. I think that they are He talks about this in his like well, this is actually for their well-being You know, then maybe this uh, actually increases their well-being in some ways I think that there are certain uh, products that the animal industry does and I'm not talking about like chicken or like Beef or veal or something like that. I'm talking about maybe honey talking about Certain other practices that are in the animal industry that do maximize the well-being of certain animals Um, obviously we didn't really get a chance to touch on that. I apologize But I think that we we I would love to continue this conversation I think that we're like, you know, really get deep into some of these issues Um, and maybe I mean, yeah on your channel or something like that Yeah, happily. I'd happily have a follow-up Especially since I think that we could get into the more applied say, you know, like for example Like, you know, whether there could be an industry Which is beneficial to the animals themselves and have an perhaps a symbiotic relationship with animals and maybe bees for example um All whether you know like practices like, you know, um Like for example, uh, was a tail dock and are justified because it's overall quote-unquote for the welfare of the animal Or artificial insemination, right? Because it's like you but yeah Yeah, yeah, we'll definitely argue Well, I mean there are there are relevant topics, right? I mean, uh, yeah, they're relevant. They're relevant. Yeah, they absolutely are Um And um, yeah, definitely. I'd love to follow Awesome. Thanks so much gentlemen. It's been a true pleasure. I think people really enjoyed this in live chat Nothing but good feedback. So really fun and with that we will jump into these questions So first up got a short list, but we appreciate all these questions folks. It's always fun Jen's van Oh, let me know if I don't pronounce this right. Is it Brookhoven, I hope let me know. Thanks for your super chat who said this chat is making me a vegan I don't know if they're referring to the live chat or the uh, the uh Video chat, but we uh, that's thanks for sharing that Jen's we're glad you're here and thanks so much for Your question from tomato who asks Question for sterling Would it be possible for an animal to demonstrate a capacity for moral reasoning without language? Have you explored their complex behavior? I think okay So I do think I kind of agree with Lewis in the sense that language is necessary to convey rational information Um, but I think that there could be ways that are non syntactic to communicate language Um, so it's it's possible like if they had more reasoning they could communicate it And I have to dived into the literature And I'm not I'm definitely not convinced they have any kind of moral reasoning even if they have altruistic behavior. Um, but yeah, so I mean Uh, no, I don't think that they do in fact, but I think it's maybe possible Gotcha, thanks so much and that is actually oh no today, so Uh, it's but people I can tell you people have been giving really positive feedback I think they just really enjoyed it's kind of a calming way to start your sunday a friendly conversation Rather than the blood sports that sometimes happens. So I want to say thanks so much folks I have got to remind you folks if you're listening and you're like, um, I like that And you want to hear more there is plenty more to hear where that came from from each of these guys I put their links in the description so that you can click on their links and hear more at their own channels And also want to say we just really appreciate you hanging out here folks. It's always a pleasure We know that you guys uh, there are a lot of channels to hang out at but we just appreciate you Spending time here. It's always a fun community. And so with that Want to say thanks one last final. Thanks to both sterling and louis. Thanks so much for being here guys It's been a true pleasure Thank you both of you. I really appreciate obviously you have them on horse and work and obviously I appreciate you sterling for For some good critique and uh, you know, we'll get you there eventually. You'll be vegan by the end of it Don't worry But thank you. No, thank you james. I appreciate you having me on again Absolutely always a pleasure. So with that folks take care. Have a great rest of your weekend. Keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable Take care