Scholar

Panpsychism becoming a more relevant view

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Posted (edited)

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

I think the way people reason around this issue is not really conducive to human progress. Animal liberation is mainly about how our identities relate to others. If we had applied utilitarian logic this way to issues like slavery, we would have forever procrastinated the abolition of slavery. "What about animals, they are also slaves, if you think it's immoral to have slaves, do you also refuse to use animals as objects?!", "What about people abroad? Is it really that much worse to keep free range slaves if on the other side of the planet chinese slave-workers have to make our cheap products?".

The way things change is through an evolution of identity and the adoption of new virtues. With slavery, we considered it wrong to view human beings as objects, we recognized human beings as a means in and of themselves, rather than a means to an end.

If someone wore human skin or ate human flesh, we would be horrified at this. Why? Because we would recognize that the individual who participated in that act related to other conscious beings in a fundamentally pathological way. They objectified humans to such a degree that they could tolerate using them as mere objects.

As long as we are not horrified by the sight of animal corpses being consumed and worn as items of clothing, we know our identities are pathological. Once we are horrified, the laws and behaviors will align.

This recognition can only occur if we recognize in animals the same individuation we recognize in ourselves.

You essentially told all of philosophy "use your Fi, not your Ti", and "evolve", not "arrive there by logic". Not that it's wrong or anything, but it's like preaching spirituality to 2 year olds; sometimes you have to engage with the frame and do some rough-and-tumble play :P (And are you just waiting for them to evolve or do you have a solution for speeding it up?)

 

1 hour ago, Scholar said:

Slavery was not abolished because we made consequentialist arguments that lead us to change our policies or  consumer behavior, but because we have found ourselves horrified at the idea of viewing human beings as objects.

It could be a mix of both. Because both were happening and it's not easy to dissociate them causally retrospectively.

Edited by Carl-Richard

Intrinsic joy = being x meaning ²

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Posted (edited)

On 2025. 10. 05. at 9:14 PM, Scholar said:

You can imagine a scenario in which mentally disabled individuals simply do not exist. In that case, the argument from marginal cases (one of the most compelling arguments against speciesism) would simply not hold any compelling ethical force. There are more complex ethical issues that do not have such clear reductios and therefore individuals can easily maintain whatever their preferred view is without appearing irrational. 

 

Individuals aren't primarily rational agents, but social agents. We model our identity around the social realities that surround us, not around what is rational and truthful.

I agree with most of the things you are saying, and I share most of your intuitions about identity and persuasion, but I dont have a strong conviction in it, because I havent done any deep research on persuasion when it comes to human psychology (I only rely on an inductive case  that is based on my very limited sample set and it relies on the explanation that explains that limited sample set - but the explanation can be wrong and it can also easily be the case that sample of people I encountered with arent representative of the population we would try to persuade) and also given that this is very clearly an emprical question, I wouldnt be quick with being blackpilled on persuasion, I think its an open and valuable area to research.

 

On 2025. 10. 05. at 9:14 PM, Scholar said:

You can imagine a scenario in which mentally disabled individuals simply do not exist. In that case, the argument from marginal cases (one of the most compelling arguments against speciesism) would simply not hold any compelling ethical force. There are more complex ethical issues that do not have such clear reductios and therefore individuals can easily maintain whatever their preferred view is without appearing irrational. 

I disagree that it wouldnt be persuasive or that it wouldnt be as persuasive. I personally dont limit hypotheticals to physically possible things and a good chunk of logically possible hypotheticals can be very persuasive (if the interlocutor is an honest actor). There are scenarios where people dodge the logically possible hypothetical on the grounds of "but that cant happen in reality, because it would violate the laws of phyiscs" or some shit like that, but there are responses to those kind of objections and you can walk people through on the utility of such hypotheticals.

For example, I dont think that if we would be in a world where mentally disabled individuals wouldnt be possible or wouldnt exist, that in that world most people would have such moral intuitions that they would be just causally okay with answering "yes, I would be okay with slaughtering my mentally disabled relatives".

I think your point make sense when it comes to things people cant relate to and cant conceptualize at all, but I think there are many things that can be conceptualized and reflected upon that arent actual in reality, but still hold compelling ethical force.

Edited by zurew

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Posted (edited)

On 05/10/2025 at 10:15 PM, Carl-Richard said:

You essentially told all of philosophy "use your Fi, not your Ti", and "evolve", not "arrive there by logic". Not that it's wrong or anything, but it's like preaching spirituality to 2 year olds; sometimes you have to engage with the frame and do some rough-and-tumble play :P (And are you just waiting for them to evolve or do you have a solution for speeding it up?)

From my point of view philosophy has virtually no real world relevancy, certainly not academic philosophy. The problem with engaging with it on more abstract terms is that philosophy is mostly about building elaborate, logically consistent mental constructs. It's like theoretical physics without any contact to any verifiable reality, which is why you have such diverse viewsets amongst philosophers. The only things you can generate agreement on is on things that only have one logical possibility.

So in the end that's what's most academic philosophers do. They test each others mental constructs for logical consistency (not the only factor but the main factor) and think they succeeded if they have a construct that is unable to be shown to be propositionally false.

And most of that process is fueled by identity. The vast majority of philosophers do no introspective or deconstructive work relating to their identity and really just generate mental constructs that fit their identity. I mean if you talk to most academic philsophers and you just prong them why they are a Hegelian over some other obscure philosophical trend, they will tell you because it was most compelling to them. And the reason why it was most compelling was because some of the foundational thinking felt more correct to them than the thinking of other philosophical movements. Most of what feels right or not right is just determined by your identity.

 

7 hours ago, zurew said:

For example, I dont think that if we would be in a world where mentally disabled individuals wouldnt be possible or wouldnt exist, that in that world most people would have such moral intuitions that they would be just causally okay with answering "yes, I would be okay with slaughtering my mentally disabled relatives".

I disagree. Intelligence is the first answer people give when they justify killing animals, because their identity has a distinct separation between themselves and that subgroup. The reason why Peter Singer was so convincing is because he made an argument from Marginal Cases, which clearly shows us that individuals we do care about are non-intelligent and therefore that it is not logically feasible to use that as grounds to discriminate against others.

You can tell someone "But what if you had a son and a daughter who fell in love, do you really believe they should go to prison for that if there is no sign of coercion?", that will not convince them that we shouldn't stigmatize and imprison people for incest. Mostly this is the case because they cannot actually imagine the situation vividly enough to recognize the suffering they are inflicting onto someone they would love. If we could employ hypotheticals this way, moral progress wouldn't be taking so long.

By the way, for this reason, storytelling has been the main vehicle for moral communication for all of human history, including today. Most people get their values from the media they consume, because whereas previously your imagination might have failed, if the story is compelling enough, it will give you insight into something about yourself that you could previously not access.

 

The problem is that their identity fundamentally has made a distinction between themselves and animals. This is why people get deeply offended at comparing racism to speciesism. They view animals as inferior, as a funciton of their identity, which means if you compare a human to an animal, you degrade that human to the level of an inferior being. The best way to make someone less racist is having them interact with people of the other race in an environment in which some cooperation is necessary. The same is true for sexual minorities and even animals. People don't have any qualms about calling for violence against people who abuse dogs and cats. We consider our pets part of our family, part of our identity. People are horrified at the idea of eating dogs almost as much as eating humans. And that's a healthy response.

Edited by Scholar

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