On Singer, Saletan, and Shagging

[Agnapostate]

It's hard to say what is meant by animal suffering. Many people try to put themselves in the animals shoes, but this doesn't work because we don't know if they suffer like us and to what extent.

True. The first disagreement that the preference utilitarian might draw with the classical utilitarian (such as John Stuart Mill), regards the qualitative separation of pleasures, or the doctrine that there are "higher" pleasures (such as intellectual pleasures), separate from "lower" pleasures (such as physical gratification). The specific objection as it pertains to this thread might be to Mill's claim that "A human dissatisfied is better than a pig satisfied." Since Mill has never been a pig, how would he plausibly say that it is better to be a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied?

But then again, we could simply apply this doctrine to other humans, and claim that we don't have any real knowledge of other humans suffering because we don't experience it in a personal capacity. We don't even have absolute knowledge that other humans even exist, of course. We simply deduce what we can from the behavior patterns of others, and we can infer the nature of an animal's pleasure or suffering from its behavior patterns.

This thread's first post says that child abuse is distinct from bestiality in that children are likely to suffer psychological trauma down the road (albeit a byproduct of a disconnect between what society deems right and their experience), and that makes child abuse incomparable with bestiality. I'd agree.

Well, I wouldn't necessarily phrase it that way. It's obviously true that the issue of long-term psychological harm in children is a necessary one to consider. I'm in flat disagreement with many of the popular assessments on the matter, as you know. And of course, that doesn't change the fact that the element must be analyzed, thus invalidating the attempt to claim that the dynamics of human-animal sexual relationships and adult-child sexual relationships are equivalent. Yet there can still be meaningful disagreement on the matter, even if unpopular, such as with the now infamous Rind meta-analysis.

But then how do we balance the suffering of humans and other animals? After all, if some little boy shoots a hummingbird for fun, sending him to prison would cause a great deal of human suffering for both the boy and his family. How many hummingbird lives would it take to outweigh that cost? What if it were a dog, a cat, or a cow? Normally those would be treated as property offenses if the animals belonged to somebody much like vandalizing somebody's car. But we know that cows experience pain while cars don't... Nevertheless, in my mind human suffering matters more than animal suffering. Perhaps I'm speciesist.

We must make distinctions between acts and rules, as well as the levels of pleasure and pain felt. My own opinion on the purpose of imprisonment is that it ultimately serves a utility maximization function. Prisoners are caused to suffer as a result of their confinement, but optimally, the amount of suffering caused by their confinement should be less than the amount of suffering that they would incur on their victims were they not confined. I don't know if actual imprisonment is necessary to stop a boy from actively shooting hummingbirds. The same goes for dogs, cats, and cows, although I would assess their lives as being of greater moral value than that of a hummingbird's. Imprisonment may be necessary if it would deter an individual from actively harming animals with a level of awareness sufficient to feel a significant amount of pain.

 

[editec]

Overheard in a gentlemens club​

First Tory, (lowers his paper to mention)

"Oh, I say..did you hear about Chauncey?"

Second Tory:

"No, can't say I have."

First Tory:

"Seems he was niked making love to a horse"

Second Tory:

A horse, you say?! Male or female?

First Tory

Well female of course! You don't think Chauncy was odd, do you?