Rationalization of eating meat

birdsong1

If this is so, then the original case would have had to have been many "eating generations" ago. This presumes a massive proliferation of cannibalism. We're not exactly dealing with a categorical imperative here; I am, after all, making counterexamples involving one permissible murderer.

If you are such an expert, tell me also about the transmission rate through eating normal muscle as opposed to the transmission rate through eating the brain.

The problem with that is that it's almost impossible to separate all neural tissue from muscle tissue. The transmission rates for kuru aren't known, it's pretty much impossible to set up a clinical trial to study that kind of thing due to ethical concerns about cannibalism.

However, it is known that it can be transmitted by blood transfusion, and eating beef that has been infected (mad cow disease, BSE). However, the transmission rate in beef is much lower, possibly due to the species barrier (feeding cows beef gives a much higher infectivity rate, but I don't recall any specific statistics being given to me, not sure if it's actually been quantitatively studied).

The blood transfusion method, however, is a pretty sure fire way to get yourself some CJD, so assuming that muscle has blood in it, infectivity is certainly there.

I don't really understand what your saying in the above by virtue of your random long words and general oddness, but yes it does presume that lots of people eat human meat if that answers your question...?

Reply 262

birdsong1

You have an interesting idea of "barely contradicting". Yes, the research and our knowledge is presently weak; that does not give you the right to make such random conjectures as:

The research isn't that weak, it just doesn't support what you said. I refer you again to what you posted.

birdsong1

I would say that guilt was actually a higher cognitive function, rather than a conditioned response. Guilt is felt when you've done something wrong, it is a self-realisation of wrong doing.

Fair point, that was just my point of view, though I can see that there is some conditioning in it. Didn't really consider that sentence too well.

birdsong1

I think most autistic (almost all autistics) know right from wrong

This, however, is not a random conjecture, autism is not characterised, defined or linked to an inability to tell right from wrong.

I support this statement with the following: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism#Characteristics

I think your original conjecture about this matter was significantly more random given the complete lack of evidence.

birdsong1

I tried to give evidence (even vague, wikipedia evidence :biggrin:

) that these might not be true.

Ok, I didn't give evidence, but you didn't give evidence that supported what you were saying. There was nothing vague about the wikipedia article, it merely contradicted you.

birdsong1

...And a black box which doesn't seem to be supported by the wikipedia evidence, despite your assertions that they "barely contradict" what you say. I think I would much prefer "support" to "barely contradict", thank you.

Have you read what you posted? Have you actually read those pages? Ok 'barely contradict' was a poor choice of words, doesn't contradict would have been better, but it DID contradict what you said.

And the other links that you've posted actually supported and reiterated what I had said!

Not to mention that you said several things that were, by the infinite wisdom of wikipedia, just plain wrong!

birdsong1

I'm going to make another note here. The numbers are against you. I need only to find one counterexample to make the moral theory say it's okay to kill someone. You, on the other hand, have to show (which you really haven't; no evidence) that your characterizations apply to every human being (who possess said properties). Going after technicalities in the evidence doesn't really help a lot here; the evidence needs only the slightest vestige of truth to beat your argument (unless, of course, you're okay with killing humans).

So, the numbers being against something automatically makes it wrong? I'm not sure about that.

birdsong1

Now that we're done with the ad hominem (aside from my parting shot that it keeps strange how you keep saying "I've made one bad conjecture" about the sofa, when really you only made two total), I'll actually respond in earnest.

I never said that, I said I had made many bad points, one of which was the poor example of the sofa. Why have you put that in quotes? And I reiterate that I'm not actually arguing a specific line in your 'i want to eat humans' plot, merely pointing out frailties in your evidence.

Reply 263

birdsong1

A valid point, but actually, I didn't say anything about mirror neurons in cats and dogs (since, after all, it wasn't listed on the source). I was hedging my bets with three alternate theories of empathy; the cats and dogs satisfy the first, though not the second.

True enough, but you said something about pack animals, which weren't listed in the source. Unless of course birds are pack animals?

birdsong1

zz Thanks for the technicality; I was using "characterized" informally, as in the deficiency was found in a bunch of autistics.

OK - but even using it informally is wrong as the pathology simply isn't characterised by MSN deficiency. There is some correlation, but it isn't a defining feature and if this were the pathology behind autism then you would expect several other symptoms to be present that simply aren't.

I refer you to this link: http://www.news-medical.net/health/Autism-Mechanism.aspx

birdsong1

Agreed, but in order to justify a moral theory, you're going to have to be more specific than that, besides which, see what I said to tazarooni89.

I really don't care about the moral the

birdsong1

An interesting proposition, but I'm not really sure how it doesn't reduce to the one-theory case. If multiple theories are required, surely you can make a single theory that lists all their assumptions (I haven't exactly been rejecting peoples' propositions on the grounds that they contain more than one criterion).

Well true, of course. But you haven't found a single example of a human that you can eat that fulfills the following criteria:

-Low intelligence (the brain dead example)
-Can't tell right from wrong (the psycopath example)
-No potential intelligence (i.e. a baby has potential intelligence)
-Doesn't look human
-bipedal gait
-opposable thumbs
-facial features

-Avoids the possibility of disease (to the extent that animal meat does at least)
-viral/bacterial/CJD-type
-Preserves genes
-Prevents feelings of guilt
-Fits with social conditioning
-Preserves your society

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birdsong1

Finally, I will reiterate. Conjectures with no supporting evidence get "beaten" (in the debate sense) by crappy evidence. What you're doing is akin to saying "unicorns exist", then partially undermining my evidence otherwise, and concluding that "because birdsong1 has not shown convincingly that I'm wrong, I win and she should reread wikipedia". Well, actually, I would seriously prefer evidence for the conjecture: this is not right-until-proven-otherwise world.

(Particularly when the conjecture only needs to fail once in order for the moral theory to have undesirable consequences.)

Fair enough, but equally you are not in a right until otherwise state, especially when you have posted evidence that simply doesn't support what you say. You seriously should read what you posted because it just didn't fit with your evidence.

The articles you posted talked only of humans (and birds at one point), and I am not debating that anything you said isn't true of humans, I am contesting its applicability to animals, in particular those that we eat.

I have, hopefully, satiated your need for evidence in what I have said above.

Finally, i reiterate, you are telling everyone on this forum that they are making unjust and random points, when equally much of what you're saying you are not supporting, and when you have applied evidence to what you've said to me, it has not supported what you've said.

EDIT:
Oh, and actually, in a scientific sense, which is the sense that we are talking about with this autism and MN debate, poor evidence for a theory is just as bad as no evidence. Neither can prove a theory, neither would be accepted by peer review, neither has a good empirical basis, and poor evidence is easy to warp and leads to false conclusions.

Reply 264

OP

hslt

I don't really understand what your saying in the above by virtue of your random long words and general oddness, but yes it does presume that lots of people eat human meat if that answers your question...?

Sorry. The categorical imperative was some sort of theory put forth by Kant, saying something like "something is morally okay only if it's okay that everyone does it". (Of course, that theory fails pretty badly in its popular conceptions; not sure if there's something more subtle in the original version that makes it work, I kind of doubt it though.) So, I was saying that one doesn't need to be able to universalize cannibalism for it to be okay for some people at least, so even if universalizing it was bad, that's np.

Reply 265

birdsong1

Sorry. The categorical imperative was some sort of theory put forth by Kant, saying something like "something is morally okay only if it's okay that everyone does it". (Of course, that theory fails pretty badly in its popular conceptions; not sure if there's something more subtle in the original version that makes it work, I kind of doubt it though.) So, I was saying that one doesn't need to be able to universalize cannibalism for it to be okay for some people at least, so even if universalizing it was bad, that's np.

Well it is ok for some populations, and those populations have a higher rate of certain diseases - e.g. kuru, papa new guinea. If a transmissible disease enters a population that engages in cannibalism then it has a high risk of becoming endemic in that population. However, if there are just a few random cannibilism cases then the disease transmission becomes a less significant problem - BUT would still explain why (to some extent), as a population it is beneficial to avoid engaging in cannibilism.

Reply 266

OP

Too many quotations; I'm only responding to your most important points.

hslt

Ok, I didn't give evidence, but you didn't give evidence that supported what you were saying. There was nothing vague about the wikipedia article, it merely contradicted you.

This, you will have to find for me. The closest I can think to wikipedia "contradicting" me was me using the word "characterized" informally, and that's, well, a nitpick. Exact quotes to contrast, please; I'm done with you describing how I've supposedly been contradicted. Speaking of which:

hslt

OK - but even using it informally is wrong as the pathology simply isn't characterised by MSN deficiency. There is some correlation, but it isn't a defining feature

Thanks, we got that the first time, and I got that the zeroth time because that was not in the sense that I meant.

hslt

True enough, but you said something about pack animals, which weren't listed in the source. Unless of course birds are pack animals?

I speculated that pack animals are probably likely to evolve empathy (it would probably lead to better pack survival). I don't know about birds.

hslt

Well true, of course. But you haven't found a single example of a human that you can eat that fulfills the following criteria:

-Low intelligence (the brain dead example)
-Can't tell right from wrong (the psycopath example)
-No potential intelligence (i.e. a baby has potential intelligence)
-Doesn't look human
-bipedal gait
-opposable thumbs
-facial features

Dare I ask what the looks have to do with the morality of eating them? In either case, the top three intelligence criteria can probably be combined into one, a severely brain damaged person.

Furthermore, who needs to produce a name and birth certificate, when you can get away with showing the plausibility of such a person existing? You're fighting a severe uphill battle when trying to show no such person can exist.

hslt

The articles you posted talked only of humans (and birds at one point), and I am not debating that anything you said isn't true of humans, I am contesting its applicability to animals, in particular those that we eat.

Obviously, we can only explicitly study some things (guilt, morality) in human beings, and extrapolate from there. Considering that the requirements for a weak sense of morality (say, that of young children) are exceptionally small, it seems kind of funny that you would just question this extrapolation, though of course, it is your right.

hslt

Oh, and actually, in a scientific sense, which is the sense that we are talking about with this autism and MN debate

Well, no. Actually, this is purely tangential; I'm just humoring you. You see, I made my OP to diss people who construct a moral theory. I, like you, don't construct one myself. Which means I didn't technically need any of that positive evidence. I just used it to further undermine your unfounded claims. (Although you seem to think that it failed because there was a little bit of extrapolation and I used a word informally, lul.)

Reply 267

n00

14

birdsong1

Dare I ask what the looks have to do with the morality of eating them? In either case, the top three intelligence criteria can probably be combined into one, a severely brain damaged person.

Why did you choose to ignore the second part?

-Avoids the possibility of disease (to the extent that animal meat does at least)
-viral/bacterial/CJD-type
-Preserves genes
-Prevents feelings of guilt
-Fits with social conditioning
-Preserves your society

Reply 268

OP

n00

Why did you choose to ignore the second part?

Because, I'm more curious of why such strange attributes like "has opposable thumbs" "is socially acceptable" appears. You could list a lot of random crap in your criteria ("has a frog on her ear" ), and I'm not necessarily obliged to show plausibility of existence.

Reply 269

birdsong1

Because, I'm more curious of why such strange attributes like "has opposable thumbs" "is socially acceptable" appears. You could list a lot of random crap in your criteria ("has a frog on her ear" ), and I'm not necessarily obliged to show plausibility of existence.

Merely added as a way of detecting their humanity. Nothing to do with morality, but more to do with maintaining genes. Was listing ways in which humans are different to animals :wink:

Reply 270

OP

hslt

Merely added as a way of detecting their humanity. Nothing to do with morality, but more to do with maintaining genes. Was listing ways in which humans are different to animals :wink:

Did you see the post I showed you, that I wrote to tazarooni89? That comment, in addition to my comments in the OP about "basically assuming the conclusion beforehand", start to apply.

Edit: except for the "cleverness" bit. Simply listing all of the attributes of a species is not clever.

Reply 271