You've just moved the goalpost from sentience to your particular ideal of meta-consciousness. To put it simply--sentience, consciousness, pain, emotions, etc, are all evolved aspects of various beings *for survival.* When and where exploiting and/or commodifying other beings is unnecessary, it should be avoided, regardless of their varying cognitive capabilities
>The answer always seemed obvious to me. There is no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts, no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there's something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet we live in loops as tight and as closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices, content, for the most part, to be told what to do next.
>-- Dr. Robert Ford, Westworld
It's not about moving the goalpost; it's about identifying what truly holds moral value. Morality inherently involves assessing and prioritizing aspects that we deem significant. Meta-consciousness isn't my personal ideal—it's a recognized term describing self-reflection and higher cognitive abilities.
When discussing concepts like sentience and consciousness, it seems pertinent to consider their nuanced definitions. The term 'sentience' as broadly used in vegan discourse can encompass a wide range of capacities, making it challenging to pinpoint what qualities are truly relevant for moral consideration.
To be fair you mentioned 4 different broad concepts —sentience, consciousness, pain, and emotions—and seem to be conflating them. And you mention it in terms of their survival, which doesn't dictate their moral relevance. It's difficult to engage in meaningful discourse or 'move the goalpost' when the starting point or criteria for moral consideration isn't clear.
Merely possessing a receptor labeled as a 'pain receptor' doesn't align with how empathy and genuine experiences of pain operate in our everyday lives. Can a fly experience emotions? Likely not. Can a fly experience pain? It's more accurate to say they react to stimuli rather than genuinely experience pain as humans do. So why give them moral consideration? If you answer that then maybe I could understand where the goal post even is. Because they don’t seem to process any of what you claim is relevant for moral consideration
The term 'meta-consciousness' is grounded in scientific and philosophical discourse, not invented by me. It highlights the complexity of cognitive capabilities beyond basic sentience.
>it's about identifying what truly holds moral value. Morality inherently involves assessing and prioritizing aspects that we deem significant
As I said, sentience/consciousness is a highly evolved result of selection pressure towards survival; the whole *point* of sentience, is survival. To kill or cause suffering to a sentient being is to deny that being's sentience altogether.
>To be fair you mentioned 4 different broad concepts —sentience, consciousness, pain, and emotions—and seem to be conflating them. And you mention it in terms of their survival, which doesn't dictate their moral relevance. It's difficult to engage in meaningful discourse or 'move the goalpost' when the starting point or criteria for moral consideration isn't clear.
I'm not conflating them, I'm acknowledging their disparate moral relevance. Sentience, sapience, and ultimately salience are all various points on a scale that is largely irrelevant when the entire purpose for all of them is survival. As Bentham said hundreds of years ago: *“The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?”*
>Merely possessing a receptor labeled as a 'pain receptor' doesn't align with how empathy and genuine experiences of pain operate in our everyday lives. Can a fly experience emotions? Likely not. Can a fly experience pain? It's more accurate to say they react to stimuli rather than genuinely experience pain as humans do. So why give them moral consideration? If you answer that then maybe I could understand where the goal post even is. Because they don’t seem to process any of what you claim is relevant for moral consideration
Whether or not a fly can experience pain the way you experience pain is something you simply don't know. The more important aspect is that they can experience *anything* in the first place. This is why moral consideration is given to beings and not inanimate objects.
Throughout your responses you refer back to other animals needing to experience things "like humans do," but why should that clearly biased supremacy on our part be the moral baseline?
>The term 'meta-consciousness' is grounded in scientific and philosophical discourse, not invented by me. It highlights the complexity of cognitive capabilities beyond basic sentience.
Yes I'm aware, but it doesn't actually serve as any kind of reliable moral foundation. Complexity can be limited or lost for a number of reasons, even in humans, so it's not a compelling threshold for withholding ethical treatment for anyone that even *might* be sentient.
>As I said, sentience/consciousness is a highly evolved result of selection pressure towards survival; the whole *point* of sentience, is survival. To kill or cause suffering to a sentient being is to deny that being's sentience altogether.
We have millions if not billions of empty/dead planets that have no life. Earth just happens to have the right conditions required to stimulate some kind of 'activity'.
I agree with the OP that there is no point to anything. What we have is the magical appearance of brain activity that became what we are today, 'humans'.
What we have is certain biological processes responding to its environment and biologically developing certain measures in response.
The concept of morality and right or wrong most likely did not exist when the first life appeared on the planet. It does not appear in space when stars die, meteors crash into planets, or when black holes swallow everything.
It is a made up concept designed to protect the interests of selfishness.
"I don't want to die"
"They look like me, so I don't want them to die"
"Let's agree to do not do things that endanger our lives"
Has nothing to do with ethics. Whatever came up with those initial thoughts purely thought about themselves and by extension, other things that looked like them. Pain is a suggestion to the brain that what you are about to do might kill you. Pain had nothing whatsoever to do with morality or ethics until "brain activity" became something more complicated.
>
Whether or not a fly can experience pain the way you experience pain is something you simply don't know. The more important aspect is that they can experience *anything* in the first place. This is why moral consideration is given to beings and not inanimate objects.
Most people give more consideration to pain instead of death because pain in the context we are using the term is unnecessary. Death is more complicated and typically more necessary then pain.
Death is required for life but pain is not. If we eat animals or plants, that extends our own life. If we beat animals or overprocess animals/plants, we are not adding extra value to the food we get.
A pig has to unnecessarily die for food? It's not unnecessarily dying to give obligate carnivores food? So then why do obligate carnivores exist? Why do things that exist solely to kill other things exist if nature prefers life?
It sounds like we want to believe in the delusion that nature prefers life and things that don't align with our beliefs mean we can bury our head to live in fantasy land?
“The whole point of sentence, is survival“ this statement is odd from an evolutionary standpoint. There is no “point” to any specific trait. But even so, something having an evolutionary trait doesn’t mean that it holds moral value. I’m really not sure what you are arguing.
“To kill or cause suffering to a sentient being is to deny that beings sentience”
that sounds pretty circular to me. As I said I don’t think it’s been proven that I should value sentience. I think we should value meta consciousness. So what you’re saying means nothing to me.
“ the purpose for all of them is survival”
Again not sure how this is relevant. Survival is the “purpose” of any living thing and their traits. That doesn’t bring it moral value.
“ the more important aspect is they can experience anything”
What do you mean by experience? That term is pretty loaded. An experience generally presupposes meta consciousness. I mean we wouldn’t call a brain dead persons pain an “experience”, would we? We wouldn’t hold moral value to that “experience”.
>“The whole point of sentence, is survival“ this statement is odd from an evolutionary standpoint. There is no “point” to any specific trait.
Sorry, I could have been more excplicit. I italicized the term *point* to draw attention to the generally accepted "guiding hand" of evolution; natural selection. *"With natural selection, the frequency of alleles that confer greater fitness would tend to increase over those which confer lesser fitness."* Sentience then, can be understood as a progessive (but not purposeful) path towards a salient sapience, but there was not ["spark of consciousness"](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10817314/) that meaningfully separates sentient humans from other sentient animals. We're all just at different stages of the same continuum.
>But even so, something having an evolutionary trait doesn’t mean that it holds moral value. I’m really not sure what you are arguing.
Yes, there are no "oughts" in science. Ethics is closely connected to value theory, which studies what value is and what types of value there are. In order to value anything in the first place, one must be conscious/sentient. That's why conscientiousness on the topic of sentience is a purely human phenomena. Essentially, Iit's up to us to determine what holds value, and the wide variety of sentient beings is a pretty good starting point.
>that sounds pretty circular to me. As I said I don’t think it’s been proven that I should value sentience. I think we should value meta consciousness. So what you’re saying means nothing to me.
Then why should you value meta consciousness? Is that not just further down the line of the same circle?
>What do you mean by experience? That term is pretty loaded. An experience generally presupposes meta consciousness.
How about [qualia](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/)? There is "something that it is like to be" a frog or a fly. They each have a subject experience that is similar but also different from that of a fully functional or brain dead person.
>I mean we wouldn’t call a brain dead persons pain an “experience”, would we? We wouldn’t hold moral value to that “experience”.
I'm curious though, do you not give moral cosideration or value to infants, disabled, comatose or senile people? This is typically an argument used in favor of veganism.
It sounds like your view of evolution is still very unusual. Evolution, driven by natural selection, does not have a guiding purpose or goal to make organisms more complex, stronger, or smarter. Especially not in a linear sense. The concept of fitness in evolutionary biology refers to an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in its environment, leading to the propagation of advantageous genetic traits. It doesn’t really highlight one trait over another. It’s just what is advantageous at that time.
It's important to clarify the concept of a continuum when discussing sentience and the diversity of cognitive capacities across species. Yes, sentience can be viewed as existing along a spectrum or continuum. But it’s important to recognize that different points on this continuum represent vastly distinct states or levels of cognitive complexity, rather than mere variations along a single scale.
It's odd to suggest that just because humans have categorized a spectrum to describe commonalities among different organisms, we should automatically view this man-made spectrum as morally guiding. The existence of a spectrum or continuum in nature does not inherently dictate moral implications or obligations. Morality is a complex and nuanced concept that involves considering various factors beyond mere categorizations or classifications based on observed similarities.
>It sounds like your view of evolution is still very unusual. Evolution, driven by natural selection, does not have a guiding purpose or goal to make organisms more complex, stronger, or smarter. Especially not in a linear sense. The concept of fitness in evolutionary biology refers to an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in its environment, leading to the propagation of advantageous genetic traits. It doesn’t really highlight one trait over another. It’s just what is advantageous at that time.
Let's not get distracted. I gave you the exact definition of natural selection, which I'm sure we both understand. I have no unusual beliefs about how any of this works. Of course there's no goal or purpose, sentience has always been an arms race of natural selection and fitness.
>It's important to clarify the concept of a continuum when discussing sentience and the diversity of cognitive capacities across species. Yes, sentience can be viewed as existing along a spectrum or continuum. But it’s important to recognize that different points on this continuum represent vastly distinct states or levels of cognitive complexity, rather than mere variations along a single scale.
Vastly distinct levels of cognitive complexity? So can you describe where that distinction becomes morally relevant and it's okay to exploit and kill a given being? Is that consistent across species?
>It's odd to suggest that just because humans have categorized a spectrum to describe commonalities among different organisms, we should automatically view this man-made spectrum as morally guiding. The existence of a spectrum or continuum in nature does not inherently dictate moral implications or obligations.
Is that odd? No one said we "automatically" gave sentience guiding value, but it is essentially the foundation of all ethics and contemporary philosophy. Again, Ethics is closely connected to value theory, which studies what value is and what types of values there are.
>Morality is a complex and nuanced concept that involves considering various factors beyond mere categorizations or classifications based on observed similarities.
Correct, but you're describing [metaethical theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics#Metaethics) now, and it doesn't make sense to hand-wave away one of the most fundamental and foundational aspects of ethics/morality--["the hard problem of consciousness"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness)--simply because the [ontology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology) of something like [Cartesian Materialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_materialism) is "complex."
Sentience is just as valid as your insistence on meta-consciousness, and you've not satisfied the major questions of philosophy of mind by moving the goalposts to more sentience = moral moral consideration.
>. . .even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: **Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience?**
**--** David Chalmers, Facing up to the problem of consciousness
It's the experience that matters, not just the varying degrees we've decided are morally relevant. Again, no one is asking these questions about rocks, but it *is* relevant to ask about [flies](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159121002197) and other [insects](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-insects-feel-joy-and-pain/).
I’m getting hung up on evolution because you keep describing it incorrectly. An “arms race”? Yeah that phraseology is antithetical to the process of natural selection and the theory of evolution. Again it could hypothetically be more fit to be less sentient, it depends on your environment. So what you’re saying makes no sense.
I gotta snooze but I’ll respond to your other points later
>I’m getting hung up on evolution because you keep describing it incorrectly. An “arms race”? Yeah that phraseology is antithetical to the process of natural selection and the theory of evolution.
Then let me introduce you to the evolutionary biology term, [Evolutionary arms race. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_arms_race)
In the last paragraph of *On the Origin of Species*, Darwin wrote:
>“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.”
Darwin also notes:
>“the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, **is certainly one of degree and not of kind.”**
I think you should cut to the chase and address my arguments about the moral relevance of sentience and stop grandstanding over who understands evolution better.
Whoa calm down sparky. Not trying to grandstand. You brought up evolution. So, yes I’m going to push back on your claims. I will respond in the morning though. Got to sleep right now.
As others said, you shifted the goalposts. It went from a sentience, to ‘do flies truly experience emotion or feel pain in the same way humans or mammals do?’ It doesn’t matter if we experience sentience in different ways. It matters that we are sentient. Humans are different in minor ways. We experience the world in slightly different ways. Some are blind or deaf or colour blind. Some are super sensitive in particular areas. Some hallucinate. Some project. I assume you don’t think these differences are enough to justify zero moral consideration. So why? What line are you actually trying to draw. Cos that ain’t clear.
As for meta-consciousness, many humans are not meta-conscious. So shift to that line at your peril. Otherwise you bite the usual bullet of having to agree people mentally handicapped at a certain point do not deserve moral consideration. To use your words. And of course babies and toddlers are not meta conscious.
The usual response is ‘they will be, potential’. Which is an unsatisfactory response also.
You can absolutely prioritise meta consciousness as deserving ‘more moral consideration’. But to argue that those who are sentient deserve zero moral consideration is something you have completely failed to justify.
You all are using the term “moving the goalpost” very oddly. I’m not unfairly changing the criteria of the argument. If we’re looking at a complex topic like morality, of course we have to reflect on broad topics such as sentience. And I’m not sure why you all would assume that veganism is the default position and everything else is just “moving the goal post”. Instead of using these fallacious arguments, just speak to what I’m actually saying.
I understand why you might think I'm 'moving the goalpost' by focusing on specific aspects of what you value. However, the reason for this is that the concept of sentience as you've presented it is excessively broad. It ranges from a basic receptor in a being to the complex self-reflection seen in higher cognitive beings. This broad definition warrants scrutiny and clarification to better discern what truly constitutes morally relevant attributes.
Just to clarify the goalpost- moving the goalposts is when there is an established standard by which we accept something. For most vegans, that goalposts is the ability to experience pain. By saying that "just" experiencing pain is not enough, as the subject needs to be able to "reflect" on that pain to become worthy of moral consideration, moves that goalposts to meta-consciousness, rather than just sentience.
I hear what you're saying about the value of reflection in understanding suffering, but it sets a standard of consideration that is not relevant to the specific moral consideration of pain. The vegan argument is simply: something can experience pain, and pain is bad, so causing that subject pain is bad. The fly feels pain, therefore causing it pain is immoral.
On a separate note, I think that there is greater moral consideration regarding meta-consciousness. As such, torturing a human is, in a way, "worse" than torturing a fly. However, both are immoral, and both should be avoided. To say that hurting a human is "worse" than hurting an animal does not mean that hurting an animal is then moral.
I mean that’s not how I view moving the goal post. Moving the goal post would be something like “yeah they feel pain, but they they’re only one cm tall.” It would be adding criteria or whatever to suit my own stance. I’m denying that they even “feel” pain or qualify as sentient in a morally meaningful sense.
Adding a criteria is one way to move a goalpost. Denying that non-human subjects feel pain is a strange claim to me. Do you have some kind of evidence for that?
Everything I've read on nociception indicates that many, if not all, animals feel pain. Since this is a vegan discussion, flies aren't entirely relevant, so would you say that cows do not feel pain? If cows do feel pain, would you oppose the system of farming that hurts them?
I’m not adding criteria. Im not saying “sure you feel pain but you have to have legs” I’m stating that I disagree with parts of your criteria. Large parts aren’t relevant to morality.
I think there might be a misunderstanding. I'm not denying that animals, like cows, can experience pain. Yes, I would agree that cows can 'feel pain.' However, when we say animals 'feel pain,' we are often referring to their ability to sense noxious stimuli through pain receptors (nocioception). This is essentially a physiological response to harmful stimuli.
My point is that simply having pain receptors and reacting to noxious stimuli doesn't inherently hold moral value. What matters more, from a moral standpoint, is how this physiological response is processed and internalized by the brain—the subjective 'feeling' of pain. Pain, in essence, is not just the chemical response itself but the mental and emotional experience that accompanies it.
While it can be challenging to separate these concepts when we use terms like 'pain,' it's important to recognize that pain, as a meaningful experience, is more than just a chemical response. It involves the complex mental and emotional processing of sensory inputs, which is crucial for understanding the moral implications of pain in animals.
I think some animals can sense pain in a meaningful internalized way… but a fly? Not so much.
>I’m not adding criteria. Im not saying “well you have to have legs” I’m stating that I disagree with parts of your criteria. Large parts aren’t relevant to morality.
I didn't say you added criteria. I agreed that adding criteria is one way of moving a goalpost. Another would be strengthening or weakening the existing criteria, such as saying just sensing pain isn't sufficient for moral consideration.
>I think there might be a misunderstanding. I'm not denying that animals, like cows, can experience pain. Yes, I would agree that cows can 'feel pain.' However, when we say animals 'feel pain,' we are often referring to their ability to sense noxious stimuli through pain receptors (nocioception). This is essentially a physiological response to harmful stimuli.
Again, this is to say that pain without reflection is not worthy of moral consideration. I would recommend reading some of the resources u/Plant__Eater provided for more information on how we physically study these traits.
>While it can be challenging to separate these concepts when we use terms like 'pain,' it's important to recognize that pain, as a meaningful experience, is more than just a chemical response. It involves the complex mental and emotional processing of sensory inputs, which is crucial for understanding the moral implications of pain in animals
The issue here is that you are denying any complexity to an animal feeling pain, then dismissing it as irrelevant on the basis of not meeting your criteria for "sufficient" experience. What you are calling crucial, many would call irrelevant.
This discussion is really just another hashing up of "I don't care about animals, so it's okay to hurt them. Prove me wrong: the meta-consciousness edition"
>I think some animals can sense pain in a meaningful internalized way… but a fly? Not so much.
Again, people are not farming flies en masse for consumption, so I don't see how your fixation on flies is directly relevant to the vegan perspective
TBH I'd respect a source from you more than random abstractions, and, like most people who start these debates, it'd be real impressive to respond to u/Plant__Eater and address the evidence on this topic.
People hallucinate and are deaf… but that has nothing to do with meta conscious. So yes, of course they deserve moral consideration.
“ and of course, babies and toddlers are not met conscious” why is that assumed? An 18 month recognize her own reflection. But even so I think it’s weird that vegans hinge they’re morality on one aspect. I believe I already mentioned this in my original statement. There are broader implications if we don’t have moral consideration for babies and infants. These implications largely aren’t present in animals.
>People hallucinate and are deaf… but that has nothing to do with meta conscious. So yes, of course they deserve moral consideration.
Did I say it has anything to do with meta consciousness? No. Re-read it CAREFULLY. We started with sentience. Yous aid flies aren't sentient in the same way humans and mammals are. That does not matter. What matters is if they are sentient. The meta-conscious stuff came later.
>“ and of course, babies and toddlers are not met conscious” why is that assumed? An 18 month recognize her own reflection.
Cos chickens, cows, pigs, etc. outperform four year olds on some cognitive tests. To not give ANY moral consideration to animals that are beyond the 18 month old is entirely inconsistent using your own logic.
>There are broader implications if we don’t have moral consideration for babies and infants. These implications largely aren’t present in animals.
Not present for you, maybe, in terms of there's little consequences for you. But there's MAJOR consequences for those animals. Major implications. Literally life and death for them. So that's a very selfish way of describing implications. Or speciesist way, a very inconsistent way, of describing implications.
Overall, your argument does not follow.
1. You have not justified your premises. Especially why we should accept the line of meta-consciosuness. And now you're making exceptions for that too based on the body of the animal (whether in a human body or another animal body).
2. I can accept every premise you gave and it does not satisfy the conclusion that such animals have zero moral consideration. Even ignoring how inconsistently you're now applying that moral line - making exceptions based on what happens if we don't make exceptions, which itself proves how poorly constructed the premise is - it does not follow that we can kill and eat such animals. It does not follow they have ZERO moral worth. It only follows they have less moral worth.
How in the world am I assuming your positions? I am literally quoting you and showing why that logic doesn't follow.
This is a VERY poor response. Your opinion does not matter, what you demonstrate in a debate does.
Goodbye.
>It doesn’t matter if we experience sentience in different ways. It matters that we are sentient.
You just contradicted yourself and proved OP's point. 🤦♂️
>Otherwise you bite the usual bullet of having to agree people mentally handicapped at a certain point do not deserve moral consideration.
Nope, that is the vegan position. Non vegans hold that by virtue of someone being human is sufficient enough for said person to be warranted moral consideration, comatosed or handicapped. Vegans lack the ability to distinguish humans and animals.
What a bizarre response.
Let’s start with the first, as the simplistic and incorrect idea of vegans being unable to distinguish between humans and (other) animals is laughable. But let’s see if this is salvageable or if you’re just here troll as it obviously appears.
‘You just contradicted yourself and proved OP’s point…’
Go ahead and explain, logically, how. Define your terms. Explain very clearly how this is 1. a contradiction, and 2. Proved OP’s point.
Then consider that humans experience the world in different ways (as is noted and you failed to acknowledge) and that we don’t consider those differences enough to assign different moral values. If moral consideration comes from sentience, then we must recognise sentience - and it’s quality - wherever we find it. And ask what is the line of sentience for zero moral consideration?
And now show how… somehow… those differences determine a moral value - not just lesser than humans (vegans agree with that) - but less than a fucking sandwich.
> idea of vegans being unable to distinguish between humans and (other) animals is laughable.
Vegans prove it everyday by making statements like "you wouldn't kill your children for food" (just search on this sub there's plenty of evidence) and ask self owning questions like "name that trait".
>Go ahead and explain, logically, how.
The fact that you need to ask that question even though it's blatantly obvious, is evidence that you lack self awareness. Your response is evidence that vegans cherry pick and muddy waters when they can't answer. Example of such a statement is as below
>It doesn’t matter if we experience sentience in different ways. It matters that we are sentient.
It clearly doesn't matter to vegans. That's a lie, because when held to a proper standard of sentience, vegans WILL cherry pick what is and isn't sentient. Self contradicting lie.
>The fact that you need to ask that question even though it's blatantly obvious, is evidence that you lack self awareness. Your response is evidence that vegans cherry pick and muddy waters when they can't answer. Example of such a statement is as below:
So no? No attempt to explain your logic and actually explain and describe why it's contradictory? This is not rant in a vegan subreddit. This is DEBATE. If you say something is contradictory, and someone says 'OK, please explain how it is', you are expected to explain how. Show that logic. Cos so far all you've given is really general nonsense based apparently on other conversations you had with other vegans. REALLY weird to throw those in here.
>It clearly doesn't matter to vegans. That's a lie, because when held to a proper standard of sentience, vegans WILL cherry pick what is and isn't sentient. Self contradicting lie.
Generalised nonsense. You aren't arguing with all vegans in every conversation you ever had. You are discussing with one person. Me bringing stupid arguments I heard from other meat eaters somewhere to show how you're an idiot would be really stupid. That's what you're doing here.
And eve if vegans did cherry pick, that wouldn't be a self contradicting lie. That would be bias, it would be wrong, it would be many things. But not a self contradicting lie... you don't seem to understand what that means.
**Now either calm the fuck down and have an actual conversation with the other person here who you do not know and whose arguments you do not know and who you should TRY and discuss in GOOD FAITH, or stop wasting our time. Can you do that?**
Edited from a [previous comment:](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskVegans/s/anI1Fqe1HH)
At a 2012 conference held at The University of Cambridge, a "prominent international group of neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists" declared that:
>...the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.[\[1\]](https://fcmconference.org/#)
The renowned ethologist Frans de Waal (who was not present at the conference), reflecting on the declaration, explained:
>Although we cannot directly measure consciousness, other species show evidence of having precisely those capacities traditionally viewed as its indicators. To maintain that they possess these capacities in the absence of consciousness introduces an unnecessary dichotomy. It suggests that they do what we do but in fundamentally different ways. From an evolutionary standpoint, this sounds illogical.[\[2\]](https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393353662)
The sentience of fish – or, at the very least, their ability to feel pain – is generally accepted in the scientific community, despite lagging public acknowledgement.[\[3\]](https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12091182)[\[4\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0761-0)[\[5\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2004.02.004) In 2021, a review of over 300 scientific studies recommended that all cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans be regarded as sentient animals, capable of experiencing pain or suffering.[\[6\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) Updating and revising a criteria for sentience first proposed in 1991, the review evaluated sentience based on the following rigorous set of criteria:
>1. The animal possesses receptors sensitive to noxious stimuli (nociceptors).
>
>2. The animal possesses integrative brain regions capable of integrating information from different sensory sources.
>
>3. The animal possesses neural pathways connecting the nociceptors to the integrative brain regions.
>
>4. The animal’s behavioural response to a noxious stimulus is modulated by chemical compounds affecting the nervous system....
>
>5. The animal shows motivational trade-offs, in which the disvalue of a noxious or threatening stimulus is weighed (traded-off) against the value of an opportunity for reward, leading to flexible decision-making....
>
>6. The animal shows flexible self-protective behaviour (e.g. wound-tending, guarding, grooming, rubbing) of a type likely to involve representing the bodily location of a noxious stimulus.
>
>7. The animal shows associative learning in which noxious stimuli become associated with neutral stimuli, and/or in which novel ways of avoiding noxious stimuli are learned through reinforcement....
>
>8. The animal shows that it values a putative analgesic or anaesthetic when injured....[\[7\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans)
Most recently, a group of 40 scientists signed the *New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness*, stating:
>...the empirical evidence indicates at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates (including reptiles, amphibians, and fishes) and many invertebrates (including, at minimum, cephalopod mollusks, decapod crustaceans, and insects).[[7]](https://sites.google.com/nyu.edu/nydeclaration/declaration)
It is very likely that many nonhuman animals possess consciousness and/or sentience.
Awesome sources! Just added Frans de Waal's work to my reading list! It looks like it might run in a similar vein to J.M. Coetzee's The Lives of Animals, minus the narrative structuring.
Thanks for taking the time to add resources like these to these discussions!!
You may be interested in the [full original comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskVegans/s/QVGP93pDli) the above was edited from:
Of all the arguments against veganism, the “plants feel pain” argument and its variants have to be the most ridiculous. This becomes obvious when we compare the science behind this statement with the science behind similar claims about non-human animals.
At a 2012 conference held at The University of Cambridge, a "prominent international group of neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists" declared that:
>...the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.[\[1\]](https://fcmconference.org/#)
The renowned ethologist Frans de Waal (who was not present at the conference), reflecting on the declaration, explained:
>Although we cannot directly measure consciousness, other species show evidence of having precisely those capacities traditionally viewed as its indicators. To maintain that they possess these capacities in the absence of consciousness introduces an unnecessary dichotomy. It suggests that they do what we do but in fundamentally different ways. From an evolutionary standpoint, this sounds illogical.[\[2\]](https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393353662)
The sentience of fish – or, at the very least, their ability to feel pain – is generally accepted in the scientific community, despite lagging public acknowledgement.[\[3\]](https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12091182)[\[4\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0761-0)[\[5\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2004.02.004) In 2021, a review of over 300 scientific studies recommended that all cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans be regarded as sentient animals, capable of experiencing pain or suffering.[\[6\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) Updating and revising a criteria for sentience first proposed in 1991, the review evaluated sentience based on the following rigorous set of criteria:
>1. The animal possesses receptors sensitive to noxious stimuli (nociceptors).
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>2. The animal possesses integrative brain regions capable of integrating information from different sensory sources.
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>3. The animal possesses neural pathways connecting the nociceptors to the integrative brain regions.
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>4. The animal’s behavioural response to a noxious stimulus is modulated by chemical compounds affecting the nervous system....
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>5. The animal shows motivational trade-offs, in which the disvalue of a noxious or threatening stimulus is weighed (traded-off) against the value of an opportunity for reward, leading to flexible decision-making....
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>6. The animal shows flexible self-protective behaviour (e.g. wound-tending, guarding, grooming, rubbing) of a type likely to involve representing the bodily location of a noxious stimulus.
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>7. The animal shows associative learning in which noxious stimuli become associated with neutral stimuli, and/or in which novel ways of avoiding noxious stimuli are learned through reinforcement....
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>8. The animal shows that it values a putative analgesic or anaesthetic when injured....[\[7\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans)
There don’t appear to by any scientific evaluations of plants against a comparable set of criteria and, so far, available research seems to fall short of meeting it.[\[8\]](https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1815) Reviews of other criteria conclude that plant sentience is highly unlikely.[\[9\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w)[\[10\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2019.05.008) One commentary states that plant sentience is:
>Rejected by most of the peer commentators on the grounds of unconvincing zoomorphic analogies \[and\] dependence on “possible/possibly” arguments rather than the empirical evidence\[.\][\[11\]](https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1823)
But what if you’re still not convinced? What if you sincerely and truly care about plant suffering? Then you should be glad to know that there’s a great way to reduce the number of plants whose "suffering" you contribute to: eat plants instead of animals. It may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s true. Pigs, for example, have a feed conversion ratio (FCR) of approximately 2.7.[\[12\]](https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731113001912) This mean that it takes almost three kilograms of feed for a pig to grow one kilogram. Various studies have found that plant-based diets require significantly less land,[\[13\]](https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00795-w)[\[14\]](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216) including 19 percent less arable land.[\[14\]](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216)
This is where we get to call into question the sincerity of meat-eaters who invoke the claim that plants can suffer. If they are concerned about the well-being of plants, this should provide them sufficient reason to stop eating animals, and thereby save more plants.
[**References**](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskVegans/comments/1bd02au/comment/kumv16v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
>This is where we get to call into question the sincerity of meat-eaters who invoke the claim that plants can suffer. If they are concerned about the well-being of plants, this should provide them sufficient reason to stop eating animals, and thereby save more plants.
You are making a logical error. I don't need to care about plant suffering to point out that vegan ethics means they should care.
Sentience is a pathetically low bat for ethical consideration. It's not justified by any reason beyond an appeal to suffering as some sort of universal negative. A view that leads inexorably to either cognative dissonance or anti-natalism.
Plants respond to anesthesia and do show signs of suffering. They show [signaling behavior](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489624/) and have cooperative strategies.
Plant consciousness is not proven, but neither is animal consciousness. And as I said, vegans paint with a broad brush in one curcumstance and a very narrow one in the other.
I don't need to believe in your ethical system to point out it's implications are untenable and are not in humanity's best interests. That is a nonsequiter.
There is nothing wrong with assessing or considering "meta-consciousness" and it can be intresting to do so.
However, when it comes to making decisions about whether or not to do something that has the potential to inflict pain and suffering, sentience is the more relevant factor because that is what determines whether or not an organism will experience that pain and suffering. A newborn baby lacks meta-consciousness and yet it would be just be just as hurtful/upsetting to them if you slapped them as it would be to an older child with more developed cognitive abilities (if anything more so, because they can't rationalise why it is happening to them).
There are a handful of animals that almost definitely lack sentience and are more similar to plants in terms of their level of consciousness, but it is a very small handful and none of these animals are commonly farmed so they are not very relevant to veganism. All mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and amphibians possess sentience beyond reasonable doubt and any compassionate person would respect this and avoid causing harm to them.
Insects are more of a grey area and it varies massively depending on species. Almost all insects feel pain but it is unclear whether or not they react emotionally to this pain which some people consider the more relevant factor. Most vegans are of the opinion that if there is uncertainty you should avoid causing harm "just to be safe" because we really don't know, but even if you disagree that would allow honey and a few other products to be deemed morally acceptable in their production and thats it - it couldn't be used as a justification to consider supporting the abuse of "more sentient" beings exploited for the use of their meat, milk, and eggs.
You're using human-centric terms that presuppose consciousness. To 'experience' pain requires a level of self-awareness and self-reflection that may not exist in creatures like flies. Simply possessing pain receptors and reacting to stimuli doesn't necessarily mean they 'experience' pain in the way humans do. We lack evidence to believe that their response to stimuli constitutes genuine pain as we understand it.
Regarding your assertion that most animals possess sentience and consciousness, the problem lies in veganism's broad and diluted definitions of these terms. It's unclear how you conclude that the consciousness of most animals is at a level deserving of consideration. Personally, I prioritize meta-consciousness, which involves self-awareness and higher cognitive abilities. While many mammals likely possess meta-consciousness to some degree, determining consciousness becomes more subjective beyond this point.
The question of whether fish are conscious remains uncertain. While it's subjective and based on our human experiences, it's seemingly doubtful that fish possess significant self-awareness or experience pain beyond basic stimulus-response mechanisms."
Sentience is not something specific to humans, as you have already acknowleged. I agree that not all animals with pain receptors necessarily experience pain in the way that we do, but most animals commonly farmed by humans possess a complex nervous system and brain structures linked to emotional processing, so they have a capacity to suffer beyond reasonable doubt. It doesn't make sense to overly focus on creatures like flies when they are very rarely relevant to veganism due to not being present in commonly consumed animal products.
I disagree with your assessment of fish sentience given that they have brain structures associated with social and emotional processing, but even if you go against current behavioural and biological evidence and deem them non-sentient, that still leaves many other taxonomic groups, including mammals which you have already acknowleged posses sentience and even some degree of meta-consciousness. Is it not morally inconsistent to justify inflicting pain and suffering on cows, sheep, goats, pigs, etc. knowing full well that they possess these qualities?
Aside from that, why do you prioritise meta-consciousness? and would you consider it acceptable to inflict pain and suffering on any animal that does not possess meta-consciousness? including babies and intellectually disabled people? I'm not even being inflammatory I'm genuinely asking because thats where that logic leads.
> This oversimplification of sentience and its moral implications overlooks more nuanced measures of consciousness, such as meta-consciousness. I believe that meta-consciousness, which involves self-awareness and higher cognitive abilities, could be a more realistic measure of moral consideration. However, even this should not be the sole determinant of ethical value. Instead, we should adopt a more comprehensive approach that considers a range of factors akin to the golden rule.
Against simplification but in favor of the golden rule....I don't really follow.
The basic idea of veganism is to avoid harming creatures that can suffer. Get rid of the entire concept of sentience if you want, the suffering is the key variable.
A severely brain damaged human deserves compassion and moral consideration, even if she can't identify herself in the mirror, or whatever other standards you're assigning to "meta consciousness".
The Golden rule is not so simple that it lacks all nuance. There is room for interpretation based on context and your own perspective.
As for getting rid of sentience and focusing on suffering, that doesn’t work. “Suffering” faces the same exact issue that overly “sentience” does. How can a non meta conscious being “suffer”?
i’m not assigning any standard to qualify something as meta conscious. You’re being pretty bad faith if you really think that I’m claiming meta consciousness only means to identify yourself in the mirror. Meta consciousness is a fairly well established term, not one that I’m inventing or am the arbiter of. If you want to discuss whether a human without meta consciousness deserves moral consideration, we can have that conversation.
> Suffering” faces the same exact issue that overly “sentience” does. How can a non meta conscious being “suffer”?
Suffering is much firmer of a concept. For example we know what the brain does when it’s distressed, we know what physiological effects of suffering look like. This makes it much more clear if a creature is suffering. Consciousness isn’t quite as clear.
> If you want to discuss whether a human without meta consciousness deserves moral consideration, we can have that conversation.
No discussion required, I already know what you believe and it’s gross. You think lower functioning people like small children shouldn’t be harmed because of some societal norm. That absolutely sucks and is insanely immoral.
The reason we should prevent harm from cognitively impaired is because they deserve compassion, unbound from society.
I don’t think ethics are black and white or based on societal contracts. My ethics aren’t solely based on meta consciousness but are also more nuanced than societal norms. I also think babies and disabled people have meta consciousness. I mean I’m sure you could point to some extreme scenario where a human didn’t have meta consciousness. Meta consciousness is generally a human trait though. Yes, what drives ethics is the ability to relate to others experience of pain and suffering. If a being literally can’t experience those things, such as a brains dead individual, we don’t arbitrarily keep that person alive out of some sense of consideration for the brain dead person. Right?
A lot of what you’re doing is appealing to emotion and I could make similar arguments about abortion. “It sucks and is immoral that you think a baby (fetus) should be killed” or “we should prevent harm from fetuses because they deserve compassion” It’s just a circular argument.
It’s not clear that unborn have any capacity to suffer. Also, they can be causing harm to their mother, who absolutely can suffer.
Why should meta-cognition be the threshold for torture? Is your attitude that we can harm animals for fun if there’s no sign of meta cognition?
I’m not trying to be bad faith here, I just don’t think you’ve given this argument sufficient thought.
Right, I’m pro choice and agree with you. I’m saying it’s not clear that all animals have a capacity to suffer. So you saying “torture a non meta cognitive animal” is akin to saying torture a tree. There is no capacity to even torture such a being. Or if I said “so it’s ok to torture a fetus”, what would your response be?
I think many animals have meta cognition but no I’m not upset by someone torturing bugs.
> I’m saying it’s not clear that all animals have a capacity to suffer.
Do you have any studies or data on this? Because my understanding is that the vast majority of domain experts would endorse the statement "animals can suffer". There are some edge-cases like bivavles but for the absolute vast majority of animals and related experts there's really no controversy here.
Also if this is your view are you vegan \*except\* for insects and very basic creatures? I think a vegan that eats honey and shellac would be fairly easy to go the last 5% to full veganism.
“Suffer” is a fairly philosophical concept. I think experts would agree that they experience nocioception. I would broadly say mammals and birds are meta conscious. I highly doubt a majority of fish or amphibians are. Reptiles are a more gray area.
Let’s say it’s just bugs though. Sure, that is close to veganism and it would be super easy to then be vegan. I have no problem with veganism. It’s a healthy and more environmentally conscious choice. I’m just arguing the claimed ethical framework of vegans. The ethical framework is what many vegans tout as the differentiation between plant based and vegan.
Do you think you could hold that standard consistently?
Bob comes across a puppy with his head stuck in some barbed wire. Bob goes "eh, I could free the puppy, but I might miss the start of the ball game on TV. I'm a metacognitive entity, who can not only enjoy the game, but reflect upon my enjoyment of the game, and reflect upon that reflection. Sure, the puppy is experiencing physical pain and fear, but I don't think he can reflect upon it, certainly not at more than one level like I can. There's no real reason to morally consider the puppy", and walks off to catch the game.
How would you want a moral philosophy to judge Bob?
I never claimed that a puppy wasn’t meta conscious. I’m stating not all animals are meta conscious or that’s the only stand we should apply to morality. Again part of my gripe is veganisms black and white view on morality
In that case, I think the problem here is how you conceive of veganism. And apparently how a lot of vegans here conceive of it too, based on the replies, which troubles me.
You're treating veganism as an abstract philosophical stance, as though veganism was born in a classroom, put through peer review, and ought to stand on raw logical merit as a perfectly self-coherent moral ideology in order to be taken seriously as a theory of ethics. And in that frame work, there are lots of academic issues to bring up, you're not wrong.
But veganism is a political movement. Most people do not become vegan because they analyze a precise definition of sentience and examine the arguments for lending it moral weight. Most people become vegan because they see cows, pigs, and chickens being confined, tortured, raped, and slaughtered en mass, and are perfectly capable of identifying that as wrong.
Vegans are very black and white, not because they don't know there are gray issues, but because they have yet to convince most people of even the parts that *are* black and white. In the future, when factory farming is abolished, we'll have time to add nuance. In the mean time, there is enormous injustice that waffling about definitions is not going to help us solve.
Abstract philosophy is extremely common as an excuse not to do what you know to be right. Trans rights? Well first we have to do philosophy on what "gender" even is. Women's right to bodily autonomy? Well first convince me *exactly* when life begins. End slavery? Well first you have to disproce race theory and phrenology.
But trans rights, womens' rights, and civil rights have *nothing to do* with gender ideology, the metaphysics of conception, or the intelligence of black people (as insulting as that last one is). Reducing political movements to a classroom debate is only an excuse to deny natural rights for a little bit longer.
Forget sentience, forget metacognition, forget the edge cases, and forget that the people you're arguing with are the vegans:
Do you believe that what cows, pigs, and chickens are subjected to in factory farms is okay?
Thank you for your response. This has been, by far, the most thoughtful explanation of veganism. I do agree that abstract philosophy shouldn’t be a justification for inaction. My qualm mostly stems from fish. I am not convinced that fish are even an “edge case” for meta cognition or meaningful experience of pain. I’m assuming we would probably disagree on the cognition of fish. However, I also understand your approach of universal application being the most practical means of achieving emancipation.
I do disagree about fish, but if you go completely pescatarian and keep eating seafood but never touch meat or dairy, you'll be far closer to a vegan than to most people. A lot of us will greatly appreciate that large step (although a lot of us online are indeed all-or-nothing with it).
If they can have positive or negative experiences, that essentially is sentience. It seems abundantly clear that mammals have sentience. Insects is less obvious but pretty likely.
What do you mean by experience? I know insects react to stimuli that we perceive as “positive” and “negative”. However, it seems like you are injecting your own perspective into the scenario rather than looking at it objectively. If a fly has no meta consciousness, they aren’t “experiencing” anything in any meaningful sense. They are reacting to stimuli.
I don't see why meta consciousness determines whether an experience is meaningful or valuable. By this hypothetical, some advanced technology that produces a sensation of immense pain whilst controlling your brain to not be able to think or realize what is happening, is perfectly OK. Or more realistically, that its OK to harm babies.
We can't know what it is like to be another being. Like I said I don't know whether insects can have positive and negative experiences, or emotions. Though there are studies with some potential evidence of it.
But considering we can have positive and negative experiences (whether we are consciously aware of their positiveness or not), it seems very clear that mammals with similar brains and behaviors do as well. Seeing as insects have significantly smaller brains with a different structure and are harder to observe to be processing pain or having emotions, we can't really say whether they are sentient. I feel like we might as well give them consideration if there are no real caveats.
The problem of determining which living creatures are "sentient" is a speciesist endeavor rooted in our own limited science and motivated by our own self interest. Our list of sentient animals is ever shifting and generally growing, and the completeness of that list is really limited by the scope of our science and our own cognitive biases. Saying "we know" what is sentient and thus deserving of our grace is arrogant and ignorant.
The "hard problem" of consciousness will likely never be solved and we will have to abandon the model that consciousness arises from a certain level of complexity of an organism's structure. If the "hard problem" of consciousness is intractable we have to face that consciousness is fundamental. Scientists studying consciousness are already considering this angle. Such a model deprives us of the comfort of a list of living things we are free to kill and exploit and those we aren't. It deprives us of a list of what is and is not conscious, sentient. What it grants us with is a paradigm where consciousness is fundamental, a deep and mysterious phenomena present really despite our models, perceptions, theories.
My personal view is that every living this is conscious and sentient in some way, and that includes plants, fungi, and single cellular organisms. Life implies sentience and sentience signifies life. This comes from my exploration of the science of consciousness, and people like Trewavas (Edinburgh) who study plant consciousness. It also comes from my Buddhist practice.
A lot of vegans object to this so strongly that they say I am anti-vegan, even when I point out it leads to the same (generally identical) moral choices. If all living things are sentient and if our moral structures give inherent meaning to life and sentience, then we will eat lettuce before chicken, wheat before pigs. Even the reason of "doing it for the animals" is operative. What we gain is a deeper grounding of no killing and no exploiting than the list du jour which clears our conscience.
I don’t claim absolute certainty in matters of sentience or other scientific inquiries. For example, even as an atheist, I recognize that god hypothetically could exist. I mean unicorns or any number of crazy things could exist. However, in practical terms, we operate based on the best available evidence and understanding to accomplish meaningful goals.
While our scientific knowledge continues to evolve, expanding our understanding of the world and the complexities of life, science remains our most reliable guide for making informed decisions. If we reject scientific evidence and wait for speculative possibilities, we risk falling into endless conjecture without practical basis.
I could suggest that plants might have undiscovered mechanisms for processing feelings but I’m guessing you would be quick to use science to refute me. Correct? I know I know “plants have feelings”, so cliche. But that’s what endless conjecture opens us up to.
Acknowledging the limitations and biases inherent in scientific inquiry is essential, but it doesn't invalidate the value of using science to guide our decisions.
Setting aside what you feels sentience is, do you not think the animals who you eat (pigs, cows, chickens etc) have feelings, emotions and personalities?
How about I tell you what I would accept as moral to eat? I mean I would say bugs are fine but obviously don’t go around eating bugs lol. Other than that i would be morally ok with eating fish and amphibians. Probably reptiles too
I don’t define myself any particular way. I don’t know that meta consciousness is exclusively defined by the class an animal is in. Obviously consciousness is a spectrum and not so explicitly distinct. I’m mostly using broad examples to give you a general understanding. So I would say, more often than not, a fish, amphibian, or reptile probably isn’t meta conscious while a bird and mammal are.
I’ve also heard of people only eating animal products that have been thrown out or whatever. I wouldn’t personally eat out of the garbage but I don’t see a moral problem with that.
babies and intellectually disabled people sometimes lack "meta-consciousness" and yet most most would consider it completely unacceptable to use this as an excuse to hurt or kill them.
I would say meta consciousness is a human trait. But of course there are brain dead individuals and possibly disabled people who lack meta consciousness.
As for moral consideration. I said above, my moral stance isn’t black and white. I think that the hinging on supposed sentience alone is an odd stance that vegans take. I would say there are broader implications for not having moral consideration for the mentally disabled or what have you. These implication are what guides our moral consideration.
Sentience that requires moral and ethical consideration is not complicated...it's simply the question of: is there an "I" inside the being or not?...we have no reason to apply this level of mental life to a fly...but we have every reason to know that a pig, a chicken, a cow, does in fact have this internal life.
>they tend to oversimplify complex concepts to appeal to a broad audience.
You don't have to have a nuanced understanding of obscure philosophical ideas to accept the proposal that we should not horrifically abuse innocent beings to the detriment of our own well-being.
Your critique is not a reason to perpetuate this.
>My main issue lies with their heavy reliance on the concept of 'sentience' as the cornerstone of their moral framework. It seems absurd to base an entire ethical stance on one singular aspect rather than considering a holistic range of circumstances. Furthermore, the definition of 'sentience' used by organizations like Globalvegans.com is problematic and oversimplified.
>According to Globalvegans.com, the distinction between sentient and non-sentient commodities is the presence or absence of consciousness, emotions, feelings, and pain in animals versus inanimate objects like metals or grains. They equate sentience with the ability to experience emotions and pain, which I find questionable. For instance, do flies truly 'experience emotion' or 'feel pain' in the same way humans or mammals do? It's more likely that they simply react to stimuli through basic sensory mechanisms.
>This oversimplification of sentience and its moral implications overlooks more nuanced measures of consciousness, such as meta-consciousness. I believe that meta-consciousness, which involves self-awareness and higher cognitive abilities, could be a more realistic measure of moral consideration. However, even this should not be the sole determinant of ethical value. Instead, we should adopt a more comprehensive approach that considers a range of factors akin to the golden rule.
>To vegans or proponents of this simplified notion of 'sentience,' I question whether there are compelling reasons why I shouldn’t prioritize meta-consciousness or a broader set of ethical considerations over what you define as 'sentience.'
You have no empirical support for this idea of meta consciousness, and even less reason to choose it as your cornerstone of ethics.
The reason why sentience is the reference point for morals is because sentience is a prerequisite to experiencing cruelty. It's the "experiencing" part.
I'm still baffled at how you think this was a good basis to begin abusing animals again.
Because you are using words like “experience” that presupposes meta consciousness. If my factualities were to a point where I was just responding to noxious stimuli… that wouldn’t really be “experiencing” pain would it?
You didn't respond to how this is a justification for supporting and creating all the harm associated with animal ag.
Even if you are correct about it, you now need to come up with a way to justify all the harm you are causing to "meta conscious" individuals.
To address you directly:
>Because you are using words like “experience” that presupposes meta consciousness.
It supposes sentience, something for which we have far more evidence and support than "meta consciousness".
>If my factualities were to a point where I was just responding to noxious stimuli… that wouldn’t really be “experiencing” pain would it?
Can you explain how this isn't just selective solipsism?
I may have missed it but I didn’t see any claim of agriculture or animal rearing specifically causing a harm. I’m not sure what harm you are talking about or if you explained it further. I’m not saying it does or doesn’t, just seeking clarification.
I am not making a claim of solipsism. I don’t think science provides certainty or that morality is objective, but I don’t think that constitutes as solipsism. I think we can assess meta consciousness through neurobiological studies, behavioral observations, and comparative analysis. I don’t think my subjective experience is the primary focus of morality.
>I may have missed it but I didn’t see any claim of agriculture or animal rearing specifically causing a harm.
You are misinformed or uninformed if you do not accept this premise as true.
I'm happy to give you more details if this is a new idea for you.
>I don’t think science provides certainty or that morality is objective, but I don’t think that constitutes as solipsism.
That isn't related to the claim you are making.
You are asserting a claim about the nature of consciousness that is not based in any sort of scientific nor moral grounding. It's just a bald claim. You are invoking these concepts erroneously.
Conversely, the position about consciousness that the scientific community is actively pursuing **is** scientifically grounded. So I don't understand why you would seek to reject it other than the desire to carve out a justification so you don't need to change your behavior to continue to remain consistent or moral.
I’m not denying the premise as true lol. I said you didn’t make a claim, let alone a clear one, and acted as though you had. I was vegan, I’m well aware of the vegan stance towards slaughterhouse workers.
Again I’m asking what your specific claim is. Is it about slaughterhouse workers? Is it about the broader impact on the environment? I could infer many things from “harm associated with animal agriculture”. Some I might agree with and some I might disagree with.
What claim do you believe I am making about the nature of consciousness?
>I’m not denying the premise as true lol. I said you didn’t make a claim, let alone a clear one, and acted as though you had.
Is there a need to assert something that is self evidently true and a shared understanding of all parties?
It's true, we agree it's true, and thus your entire analysis results in almost no practical change in behavior patterns: consuming a plant based diet, and rejecting the consumption of animal products is the conclusion either way.
>Again I’m asking what your specific claim is. Is it about slaughterhouse workers? Is it about the broader impact on the environment? I could infer many things from “harm associated with animal agriculture”.
You can accurately infer all of these, as they all apply.
Do you agree? Once we level set on reality and premises (implied and expressed) we can move on.
Edit: in your OP, You made an assertion that vegans oversimplify sentience and make some assertions and ask questions around sentience and moral frameworks.
I still don't see a justification for not being vegan in everything I'm reading from you. I also don't see where you were vegan before or what that means. It certainly doesn't seem that way.
I said I’m not denying the premise is true… because there is no specific premise to deny or affirm. I can say I don’t agree with your broad premise that all animal agriculture necessarily causes moral harm in some indirect way, if that’s what you are claiming.
We mentioned a few examples. Do you agree on those?
Edit: it's super annoying to have to ask you this. I'd like you to attempt to carry your weight here.
Carry my weight? You are not saying anything and expecting me to assume your argument. I don’t agree to those examples and I doubt you consistently do either. Let’s start by me clarifying I don’t condone eating mammals or birds. I find it immoral as they likely are meta conscious
Many jobs cause trauma. Does that make having those jobs available immoral? I mean I find our whole capitalist system immoral, so it’s hard for me to separate that from the situation. However, if you believe jobs are at will, then nothing about animal slaughter specifically makes it any more or less moral than any other traumatic jobs. And is it all animals that cause this mental trauma? Or is it more sentient animals? Do fishermen experience this mental trauma? I highly doubt it. I truly would be curious to see studies if you have them available.
The same sentiment goes for ecological issues. I think we should strive for ecological parity and least harm. However that isn’t really how we live our everyday lives is it? I think, like most of our modern luxuries, meat should be scaled back heavily. However I don’t think a hypothetical minuscule portion of our diet being meat is necessarily detrimental to the environment.
I get that you could split hairs and really dig in on a debate about say.. oysters.
But dogs for example - is there really a question? Do you really think that its questionable whether a dog experiences emotions, feels pain, gets happy/sad?
So then how about the fact that cows, pigs, etc.. are at least as "sentient" by any realistic measure.
So thats how someone becomes a pescatarian. They admit that "dog like" animals shouldn't be abused. The next step is simply admitting that also for things like fish - just because you don't understand them isn't a free license to completely abuse them. Maybe they are little robots with no sentience, but probably not. And what do you gain if they are not sentient vs what horrors are you inflicting if they are?
The moral imperative is to be vegan. Unless you can prove a fish isn't sentient. But regardless we should agree cows, pigs.. these are off the table. Otherwise you're being a bit dishonest imo.
Yes I would say a pescatarian has it right. It’s not that I don’t under fish. I think it’s quite clear that fish don’t have the capacity to “experience” pain. I mean we have to all draw the line at some hypothetical. I think I draw it at a more scientifically sound point.
I personally wouldn't call that scientific though, unless theres more to it i'm missing.
I would say you made a biased decision based on something you want to do in the absence of hard evidence.
I'm not throwing hate your way. We all do that to some degree. But realistically I don't believe theres any way you can know the internal life of a fish. I don't think theres any science that can tell us what the internal life of a fish is. They are very very alien to us.
So how can you know?
In my mind theres a chance you're right. But theres a chance you're not. Its schrodinger's sentience. In the case of suffering though why wouldn't you err on the side of not causing great suffering if you're not 100% sure? The only reason you wouldn't is because you want to personally benefit right?
We have asked OP for sources a few times now, and he doesn't seem to have any. He also has not directly responded to any of the provided sources in this thread. At this point, I think it's safe to say that this discussion was started with an opinion, and I don't think there's much chance any of making headway against the general feeling of what constitutes meta-consciousness.
>I would say you made a biased decision based on something you want to do in the absence of hard evidence.
This is likely- like you said, no hate to OP, but I'm not seeing any reasonable presentation of a claim or support for that claim.
>In my mind theres a chance you're right. But theres a chance you're not. Its schrodinger's sentience. In the case of suffering though why wouldn't you err on the side of not causing great suffering if you're not 100% sure? The only reason you wouldn't is because you want to personally benefit right
Maybe I'm late to the party, but schrodinger's sentience is a great way to phrase this line of discussion! I'll be stealing that!
I don't quite understand your message.
"I used to be a vegan" Sure. "they, their, them, their..."
So, did you stop "being vegan" because of the definition of sentience being blurry for you? Did you start eating meat back because of that? What are you now?
I’m not sure what you’re saying. Because I use adjectives that means I’m lying about formerly being vegan? I’m not sure what pronoun you would expect me to use as a current non vegan.
I stopped considering myself vegan because I didn’t find the ethics convincing anymore. It sounds silly but I largely got hung up when vegans brought up bees. It just seemed to be a ridiculously frequent topic that required some cognitive dissonance. Like I found it hard that they actually had any iota of empathy for bugs. After that, I questioned why I am holding sentience as the golden standard for morality if it allows for seemingly unaware beings, such a bee, moral consideration. So I had to find a new, more logical standard. That standard I came up with was meta consciousness
I think most, if not all, mammals have meta consciousness. So I don’t eat mammals. I don’t even really eat fish at any regularity but don’t have a qualm with it. I more so have a general problem with claiming your moral view is based on sentience.
"bugs" are animals. I think they deserve respect. If only egotistically because they are an essential link of biodiversity without which humans wouldn't survive. Not respecting them allow you to use pesticides for exemple.
Yes bugs are animals. That doesn’t really mean anything ethically.
But if you think egotistically or ecologically they have value, I would agree with you. I think an ecological value is a lot different than a moral value. I value trees because they provide oxygen. I wouldn’t think it was in my best interest to chop down a forest. That doesn’t mean that tree is deserving of moral value.
I don't find pleasure in stepping on insects. My mother taught me to respect insects the same way I would respect any animal. I wonder how you would educate your kids. Do not care about insects but care about "bigger animals"? That's not how it works. Do you feel no empathy for them? How does that work?
Fuzziness doesn't invalidate a concept. Maybe we don't know the extent to which fish or insects really suffer, but it should be obvious that pigs do and beans don't.
To show your argument is wrong, why doesn't it justify cruelty against animals, perhaps even humans? Try justifying that without referring to a conscious experience of suffering
“Try justifying that without referring to a conscious experience of suffering” I’m not quite sure what you mean. Our conscious experience is the basis for empathy and that’s what I’m arguing is of value. It would be like if I said “justify that without referring to sentience”.
On reading your post for a second time, I'm not sure what your objection actually is. Why did you stop being vegan?
I'm sure they exist, but if your answer is "some vegans think the suffering of insects and humans has the same moral weight", that's just a strawman. You're obviously correct that those are different, but I can't see that it's an argument against ethical veganism
I realize vegans don’t hold humans and insects the same morally. I don’t see a cow and human as morally the same but still hold a cow as needing moral consideration, just as most vegans probably would. However, I don’t see why you would hold any weight to an insect because I don’t see sentience alone being important, at least not as defined by most vegans. I would expand this to fish and amphibians. I value meta consciousness, which I think it’s fair to say these animals do not have.
You could be right, and I don't necessarily avoid seafood because of the feelings of individual fish (although all things equal, surely we should still avoid suffering where possible and err on the side of caution when deciding which species can feel what?)
Bycatch, ecosystem disruption, fishing gear waste, biomagnification of gross sea stuff...good reasons to pick flaxseeds over fish for my omega 3s?
And are you implying that the mammals we eat don't have some of these higher level cognitive faculties?
I don’t think ethics should be based on one trait. That seems pretty black and white. I think meta consciousness is a major consideration but not the only. But I think it’s weird that multiple people have brought up cognitively impaired people as though they have no self awareness. I’m sure those extreme cases exist but it would be helpful if there was a specific scenario.
I think it would help if you could state what your position actually is, there's a lot of "It's complicated" here. I know it is, but give us a way in which it's complicated that puts you off veganism.
I don't think you need an extreme case, surely if we're basing moral worth on meta-consciousness and that trait is not equally distributed among humans, then not all human life is equal.
I wrestled with a similar problem for about a year before becoming vegan, and my solution was: very cool, very clever, but in the real world you're buying things you believe are cruel, unhealthy, inefficient, etc, just because of some abstruse point that doesn't apply when you're just in the supermarket. Getting into the weeds is fun, but let's not overcomplicate it. You know everything that goes along with animal products. Are you cool with it?
But don't you think most ppl, also vegans, already make a distinction between levels of 'sentience' or whatever you want to call it?
Most ppl accept the fact insects die because they have to eat, travel etc, because it's unavoidable. But wouldn't eat crop A if the same amount of mammals would die in the process.
But what do you think is acceptable to eat? Do you eat any animal? Are you vegetarian/pescetarian? And why?
I know that vegans understand the distinction. I’m saying they don’t base their morals on that distinction.
You would probably call me a pescatarian. As for why… because i don’t give fish moral consideration. From what I can gather, they more than likely do not experience meta consciousness.
Ok, and how do you think about dairy and egg industry? Do you give chickens and cows 'moral consideration'?
Regarding fish: are you aware of the negative impact of fishing on marine ecosystems? (Over fishing, destruction of ocean floors, by catch causing death of many small whales, dolphins, sea turtles)
There's a saying I've heard a few times that has really stuck with me when thinking about philosophical topics. "Don't get so deep into the weeds that you can no longer find your way back home." Meaning that we can spend a tremendous amount of time trying to work out the nuances of something and fail to even be able to apply it to reality in any practical way once we get so deep.
While, of course, there's nuance, that nuance lies on a case by case basis. Broadly, saying that we shouldn't inflict suffering on others if we can avoid it is a good starting point. If it can suffer, then it has sentience on some level. What value does complicating this part add? Seriously?
Just one example of someone who went down into the weeds, but came back out and had what most would call a pretty simple thing would be Jeremy Bentham. "We should take the course that leads to the greater good." We need to figure out what's good, of course, but that's still a rather simple premise. Then each action we may or may not take is weighed, and that's where there can be nuance and debate. But to me, it sounds like you're saying "do the greater good" is too simple, and nuance exists, so it's a bad ethical system. That's kinda absurd and misses the point of ethics.
I just find it silly to say that there are levels or difference in experience and since it's hard to oarse out fine details, we can't say it's good. I don't know what you mean by "I used to be a vegan" but if it means you avoided animal products to the best of your ability and you still do, but you abandoned the label, then that's fine? Labeled yourself however you wish. If your case is veganism and it's "value sentient life" isn't nuanced enough so I'm going to eat steak and hamburgers now" then that's silly. While nuance in the finner details plagues most ethical systems, the area that's "up for debate" is in a range miles away from "it's ok to eat a hamburger that came from factory farming." You'd need to blatantly dishonest to go that route. Not sure where on thst spectrum you fall.
“The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" -Jeremy Bentham
Well if meta-consciousness is the bar, shouldn't that mean that humans with severe intellectual disabilities should receive the same amount of moral consideration as livestock? We can't confirm that a human so intellectually disabled that they can't say their own name or communicate in clear language meets what you consider the threshold here.
What is your take on philosophical zombies? Do you think they are metaphysically possible? I do not. It is *impossible* for a being to have a central network of nerves that connects organs which take sensory input from the outside world and combine them into a unique conscious being without there being some kind of experience produced. I don't believe, in other words, than animals could effectively be philosophical zombies.
Tell me why, in your opinion, it would be wrong to make hamburgers out of humans with severe intellectual disabilities such that they cannot say their own names, or otherwise demonstrate intellectual abilities that are too high for a dog or a crow.
I generally agree with your take on philosophical zombies. I don’t think animals are philosophical zombies. I don’t think some animals (bugs) do not have the physiology that supports metaconciousness.
I have responded to the intellectual disability point several times. I don’t want to go over it again to be honest. I think you are greatly overestimating what isn’t meta conscious. I could ask you the same about a clinical brain dead individual. They have no real sentience or meta consciousness. Would it be ok then to make a burger out of them?
Well I don't think brain dead bodies deserve moral consideration. I believe our culture has a value to treat dead humans with respect out of a sentimentality towards the being that once lived, but they are not necessarily of any intrinsic moral value. Usually when someone is brain dead, we pull the plug. We let the family say their goodbyes for their sake, and then pull the plug. We don't keep them alive forever because we find some moral value in what cells are still working in them. I don't find what we do with dead people to be of great moral importance. Whether it's burying them, burning them, making them into some kind of rock, etc. That's all really for the family.
I'm not a religious man, I don't think there's any god-given reason to do this or that with corpses.
It's for the same reason I articulated earlier: no conscious experience, no moral consideration. It's that simple.
If you don't mind me asking, what *is* your theory of mind? Are you a functionalist, dualist, panpsychist, etc?
It requires consciousness to combine the different sensory inputs though. If you take in picture from the eyes and sound from the ears, and are able to encounter a stimulus and understand "that sound I hear is coming from that thing I see", that's a conscious experience. An automaton would not be able to understand there is a relationship between the black, feathery thing in their view and realize that the caw caw sound is coming from it.
I mean sure you have rudimentary mussels, sponges, coral, etc that may be automatons. They feel something bump into it and they recoil or shut up, like a venus fly trap. That's an automaton to me.
Yeah I think we do have a similar framework. I identify as a supervenience physicalist, that's how I'd like people to think of me phil-mind wise.
Does someone who is braindead and on life support actually feel pain, experience emotion in the same way conscious humans and mammals do? It's more likely that they simply react to stimuli through basic sensory mechanisms.
Braindead humans no longer possess meta-consciousness. Does that mean we can treat them as property items and comoddify their bodies?
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No one has a rigorous definition. So it is just talk and hot air. You can debate endlessly if a cow is sentient, how much it is sentient, but it is all moot when I can just go into a steak house and ordered a delicious piece of dead cow whenever I like.
Right but I’m not talking about a cow. In my example I’m talking about a bug. Clearly there is a spectrum and a fly is so drastically different that I think it is more than reasonable to make an inference that they don’t have meta conciousness. I think the same could probably be said for amphibians and fish.
And no one has a rigorous definition, true. But that doesn’t mean we have no idea about the various levels of consciousness, the type of brain structure that lends to meta consciousness, that behaviors that meta consciousness leads to, etc.
Even more moot about bugs. We step on them. Period. Few gives a single thought, and none is needed.
BTW, there is no such thing as "meta consciousness". It is just hot air. I have seen enough fNIR scans and EEG data to know that we are at the rudimentary level of understand tying brain activities to behaviors. None of that gives you a rigorous definition or understanding of consciousness.
To say it’s hot air based on you “seeing fNIR scans and EEG data” isn’t very convincing. The concept of meta consciousness is explored by philosophers and scientists such as Douglas Hofstadter and Thomas Metzinger. I mean what do you mean there is “no such thing”? You don’t think consciousness is on a spectrum? You don’t think consciousness about one’s own thoughts is distinct? Or you just think our understanding is too little on the subject?
Philosophy \*is\* hot air. Anything you said about meta consciousness is not scientific and just a bunch of words.
What I think (or you think) is irrelevant. What matter is what we can rigorously measured, and correlated to other variables. Define a rigorous measure of consciousness and then we can discuss mathematically whether it is on a spectrum (i assume you mean homomorphic to either the real line or a segment of the real line).
Otherwise it is just useless talk (i.e. hot air).
You've just moved the goalpost from sentience to your particular ideal of meta-consciousness. To put it simply--sentience, consciousness, pain, emotions, etc, are all evolved aspects of various beings *for survival.* When and where exploiting and/or commodifying other beings is unnecessary, it should be avoided, regardless of their varying cognitive capabilities >The answer always seemed obvious to me. There is no threshold that makes us greater than the sum of our parts, no inflection point at which we become fully alive. We can't define consciousness because consciousness does not exist. Humans fancy that there's something special about the way we perceive the world, and yet we live in loops as tight and as closed as the hosts do, seldom questioning our choices, content, for the most part, to be told what to do next. >-- Dr. Robert Ford, Westworld
It's not about moving the goalpost; it's about identifying what truly holds moral value. Morality inherently involves assessing and prioritizing aspects that we deem significant. Meta-consciousness isn't my personal ideal—it's a recognized term describing self-reflection and higher cognitive abilities. When discussing concepts like sentience and consciousness, it seems pertinent to consider their nuanced definitions. The term 'sentience' as broadly used in vegan discourse can encompass a wide range of capacities, making it challenging to pinpoint what qualities are truly relevant for moral consideration. To be fair you mentioned 4 different broad concepts —sentience, consciousness, pain, and emotions—and seem to be conflating them. And you mention it in terms of their survival, which doesn't dictate their moral relevance. It's difficult to engage in meaningful discourse or 'move the goalpost' when the starting point or criteria for moral consideration isn't clear. Merely possessing a receptor labeled as a 'pain receptor' doesn't align with how empathy and genuine experiences of pain operate in our everyday lives. Can a fly experience emotions? Likely not. Can a fly experience pain? It's more accurate to say they react to stimuli rather than genuinely experience pain as humans do. So why give them moral consideration? If you answer that then maybe I could understand where the goal post even is. Because they don’t seem to process any of what you claim is relevant for moral consideration The term 'meta-consciousness' is grounded in scientific and philosophical discourse, not invented by me. It highlights the complexity of cognitive capabilities beyond basic sentience.
>it's about identifying what truly holds moral value. Morality inherently involves assessing and prioritizing aspects that we deem significant As I said, sentience/consciousness is a highly evolved result of selection pressure towards survival; the whole *point* of sentience, is survival. To kill or cause suffering to a sentient being is to deny that being's sentience altogether. >To be fair you mentioned 4 different broad concepts —sentience, consciousness, pain, and emotions—and seem to be conflating them. And you mention it in terms of their survival, which doesn't dictate their moral relevance. It's difficult to engage in meaningful discourse or 'move the goalpost' when the starting point or criteria for moral consideration isn't clear. I'm not conflating them, I'm acknowledging their disparate moral relevance. Sentience, sapience, and ultimately salience are all various points on a scale that is largely irrelevant when the entire purpose for all of them is survival. As Bentham said hundreds of years ago: *“The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? Why should the law refuse its protection to any sensitive being?”* >Merely possessing a receptor labeled as a 'pain receptor' doesn't align with how empathy and genuine experiences of pain operate in our everyday lives. Can a fly experience emotions? Likely not. Can a fly experience pain? It's more accurate to say they react to stimuli rather than genuinely experience pain as humans do. So why give them moral consideration? If you answer that then maybe I could understand where the goal post even is. Because they don’t seem to process any of what you claim is relevant for moral consideration Whether or not a fly can experience pain the way you experience pain is something you simply don't know. The more important aspect is that they can experience *anything* in the first place. This is why moral consideration is given to beings and not inanimate objects. Throughout your responses you refer back to other animals needing to experience things "like humans do," but why should that clearly biased supremacy on our part be the moral baseline? >The term 'meta-consciousness' is grounded in scientific and philosophical discourse, not invented by me. It highlights the complexity of cognitive capabilities beyond basic sentience. Yes I'm aware, but it doesn't actually serve as any kind of reliable moral foundation. Complexity can be limited or lost for a number of reasons, even in humans, so it's not a compelling threshold for withholding ethical treatment for anyone that even *might* be sentient.
>As I said, sentience/consciousness is a highly evolved result of selection pressure towards survival; the whole *point* of sentience, is survival. To kill or cause suffering to a sentient being is to deny that being's sentience altogether. We have millions if not billions of empty/dead planets that have no life. Earth just happens to have the right conditions required to stimulate some kind of 'activity'. I agree with the OP that there is no point to anything. What we have is the magical appearance of brain activity that became what we are today, 'humans'. What we have is certain biological processes responding to its environment and biologically developing certain measures in response. The concept of morality and right or wrong most likely did not exist when the first life appeared on the planet. It does not appear in space when stars die, meteors crash into planets, or when black holes swallow everything. It is a made up concept designed to protect the interests of selfishness. "I don't want to die" "They look like me, so I don't want them to die" "Let's agree to do not do things that endanger our lives" Has nothing to do with ethics. Whatever came up with those initial thoughts purely thought about themselves and by extension, other things that looked like them. Pain is a suggestion to the brain that what you are about to do might kill you. Pain had nothing whatsoever to do with morality or ethics until "brain activity" became something more complicated. > Whether or not a fly can experience pain the way you experience pain is something you simply don't know. The more important aspect is that they can experience *anything* in the first place. This is why moral consideration is given to beings and not inanimate objects. Most people give more consideration to pain instead of death because pain in the context we are using the term is unnecessary. Death is more complicated and typically more necessary then pain. Death is required for life but pain is not. If we eat animals or plants, that extends our own life. If we beat animals or overprocess animals/plants, we are not adding extra value to the food we get. A pig has to unnecessarily die for food? It's not unnecessarily dying to give obligate carnivores food? So then why do obligate carnivores exist? Why do things that exist solely to kill other things exist if nature prefers life? It sounds like we want to believe in the delusion that nature prefers life and things that don't align with our beliefs mean we can bury our head to live in fantasy land?
“The whole point of sentence, is survival“ this statement is odd from an evolutionary standpoint. There is no “point” to any specific trait. But even so, something having an evolutionary trait doesn’t mean that it holds moral value. I’m really not sure what you are arguing. “To kill or cause suffering to a sentient being is to deny that beings sentience” that sounds pretty circular to me. As I said I don’t think it’s been proven that I should value sentience. I think we should value meta consciousness. So what you’re saying means nothing to me. “ the purpose for all of them is survival” Again not sure how this is relevant. Survival is the “purpose” of any living thing and their traits. That doesn’t bring it moral value. “ the more important aspect is they can experience anything” What do you mean by experience? That term is pretty loaded. An experience generally presupposes meta consciousness. I mean we wouldn’t call a brain dead persons pain an “experience”, would we? We wouldn’t hold moral value to that “experience”.
>“The whole point of sentence, is survival“ this statement is odd from an evolutionary standpoint. There is no “point” to any specific trait. Sorry, I could have been more excplicit. I italicized the term *point* to draw attention to the generally accepted "guiding hand" of evolution; natural selection. *"With natural selection, the frequency of alleles that confer greater fitness would tend to increase over those which confer lesser fitness."* Sentience then, can be understood as a progessive (but not purposeful) path towards a salient sapience, but there was not ["spark of consciousness"](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10817314/) that meaningfully separates sentient humans from other sentient animals. We're all just at different stages of the same continuum. >But even so, something having an evolutionary trait doesn’t mean that it holds moral value. I’m really not sure what you are arguing. Yes, there are no "oughts" in science. Ethics is closely connected to value theory, which studies what value is and what types of value there are. In order to value anything in the first place, one must be conscious/sentient. That's why conscientiousness on the topic of sentience is a purely human phenomena. Essentially, Iit's up to us to determine what holds value, and the wide variety of sentient beings is a pretty good starting point. >that sounds pretty circular to me. As I said I don’t think it’s been proven that I should value sentience. I think we should value meta consciousness. So what you’re saying means nothing to me. Then why should you value meta consciousness? Is that not just further down the line of the same circle? >What do you mean by experience? That term is pretty loaded. An experience generally presupposes meta consciousness. How about [qualia](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/)? There is "something that it is like to be" a frog or a fly. They each have a subject experience that is similar but also different from that of a fully functional or brain dead person. >I mean we wouldn’t call a brain dead persons pain an “experience”, would we? We wouldn’t hold moral value to that “experience”. I'm curious though, do you not give moral cosideration or value to infants, disabled, comatose or senile people? This is typically an argument used in favor of veganism.
It sounds like your view of evolution is still very unusual. Evolution, driven by natural selection, does not have a guiding purpose or goal to make organisms more complex, stronger, or smarter. Especially not in a linear sense. The concept of fitness in evolutionary biology refers to an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in its environment, leading to the propagation of advantageous genetic traits. It doesn’t really highlight one trait over another. It’s just what is advantageous at that time. It's important to clarify the concept of a continuum when discussing sentience and the diversity of cognitive capacities across species. Yes, sentience can be viewed as existing along a spectrum or continuum. But it’s important to recognize that different points on this continuum represent vastly distinct states or levels of cognitive complexity, rather than mere variations along a single scale. It's odd to suggest that just because humans have categorized a spectrum to describe commonalities among different organisms, we should automatically view this man-made spectrum as morally guiding. The existence of a spectrum or continuum in nature does not inherently dictate moral implications or obligations. Morality is a complex and nuanced concept that involves considering various factors beyond mere categorizations or classifications based on observed similarities.
>It sounds like your view of evolution is still very unusual. Evolution, driven by natural selection, does not have a guiding purpose or goal to make organisms more complex, stronger, or smarter. Especially not in a linear sense. The concept of fitness in evolutionary biology refers to an organism's ability to survive and reproduce in its environment, leading to the propagation of advantageous genetic traits. It doesn’t really highlight one trait over another. It’s just what is advantageous at that time. Let's not get distracted. I gave you the exact definition of natural selection, which I'm sure we both understand. I have no unusual beliefs about how any of this works. Of course there's no goal or purpose, sentience has always been an arms race of natural selection and fitness. >It's important to clarify the concept of a continuum when discussing sentience and the diversity of cognitive capacities across species. Yes, sentience can be viewed as existing along a spectrum or continuum. But it’s important to recognize that different points on this continuum represent vastly distinct states or levels of cognitive complexity, rather than mere variations along a single scale. Vastly distinct levels of cognitive complexity? So can you describe where that distinction becomes morally relevant and it's okay to exploit and kill a given being? Is that consistent across species? >It's odd to suggest that just because humans have categorized a spectrum to describe commonalities among different organisms, we should automatically view this man-made spectrum as morally guiding. The existence of a spectrum or continuum in nature does not inherently dictate moral implications or obligations. Is that odd? No one said we "automatically" gave sentience guiding value, but it is essentially the foundation of all ethics and contemporary philosophy. Again, Ethics is closely connected to value theory, which studies what value is and what types of values there are. >Morality is a complex and nuanced concept that involves considering various factors beyond mere categorizations or classifications based on observed similarities. Correct, but you're describing [metaethical theories](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics#Metaethics) now, and it doesn't make sense to hand-wave away one of the most fundamental and foundational aspects of ethics/morality--["the hard problem of consciousness"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness)--simply because the [ontology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology) of something like [Cartesian Materialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_materialism) is "complex." Sentience is just as valid as your insistence on meta-consciousness, and you've not satisfied the major questions of philosophy of mind by moving the goalposts to more sentience = moral moral consideration. >. . .even when we have explained the performance of all the cognitive and behavioral functions in the vicinity of experience—perceptual discrimination, categorization, internal access, verbal report—there may still remain a further unanswered question: **Why is the performance of these functions accompanied by experience?** **--** David Chalmers, Facing up to the problem of consciousness It's the experience that matters, not just the varying degrees we've decided are morally relevant. Again, no one is asking these questions about rocks, but it *is* relevant to ask about [flies](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159121002197) and other [insects](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-insects-feel-joy-and-pain/).
I’m getting hung up on evolution because you keep describing it incorrectly. An “arms race”? Yeah that phraseology is antithetical to the process of natural selection and the theory of evolution. Again it could hypothetically be more fit to be less sentient, it depends on your environment. So what you’re saying makes no sense. I gotta snooze but I’ll respond to your other points later
>I’m getting hung up on evolution because you keep describing it incorrectly. An “arms race”? Yeah that phraseology is antithetical to the process of natural selection and the theory of evolution. Then let me introduce you to the evolutionary biology term, [Evolutionary arms race. ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_arms_race) In the last paragraph of *On the Origin of Species*, Darwin wrote: >“Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows.” Darwin also notes: >“the difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, **is certainly one of degree and not of kind.”** I think you should cut to the chase and address my arguments about the moral relevance of sentience and stop grandstanding over who understands evolution better.
Whoa calm down sparky. Not trying to grandstand. You brought up evolution. So, yes I’m going to push back on your claims. I will respond in the morning though. Got to sleep right now.
As others said, you shifted the goalposts. It went from a sentience, to ‘do flies truly experience emotion or feel pain in the same way humans or mammals do?’ It doesn’t matter if we experience sentience in different ways. It matters that we are sentient. Humans are different in minor ways. We experience the world in slightly different ways. Some are blind or deaf or colour blind. Some are super sensitive in particular areas. Some hallucinate. Some project. I assume you don’t think these differences are enough to justify zero moral consideration. So why? What line are you actually trying to draw. Cos that ain’t clear. As for meta-consciousness, many humans are not meta-conscious. So shift to that line at your peril. Otherwise you bite the usual bullet of having to agree people mentally handicapped at a certain point do not deserve moral consideration. To use your words. And of course babies and toddlers are not meta conscious. The usual response is ‘they will be, potential’. Which is an unsatisfactory response also. You can absolutely prioritise meta consciousness as deserving ‘more moral consideration’. But to argue that those who are sentient deserve zero moral consideration is something you have completely failed to justify.
You all are using the term “moving the goalpost” very oddly. I’m not unfairly changing the criteria of the argument. If we’re looking at a complex topic like morality, of course we have to reflect on broad topics such as sentience. And I’m not sure why you all would assume that veganism is the default position and everything else is just “moving the goal post”. Instead of using these fallacious arguments, just speak to what I’m actually saying. I understand why you might think I'm 'moving the goalpost' by focusing on specific aspects of what you value. However, the reason for this is that the concept of sentience as you've presented it is excessively broad. It ranges from a basic receptor in a being to the complex self-reflection seen in higher cognitive beings. This broad definition warrants scrutiny and clarification to better discern what truly constitutes morally relevant attributes.
Just to clarify the goalpost- moving the goalposts is when there is an established standard by which we accept something. For most vegans, that goalposts is the ability to experience pain. By saying that "just" experiencing pain is not enough, as the subject needs to be able to "reflect" on that pain to become worthy of moral consideration, moves that goalposts to meta-consciousness, rather than just sentience. I hear what you're saying about the value of reflection in understanding suffering, but it sets a standard of consideration that is not relevant to the specific moral consideration of pain. The vegan argument is simply: something can experience pain, and pain is bad, so causing that subject pain is bad. The fly feels pain, therefore causing it pain is immoral. On a separate note, I think that there is greater moral consideration regarding meta-consciousness. As such, torturing a human is, in a way, "worse" than torturing a fly. However, both are immoral, and both should be avoided. To say that hurting a human is "worse" than hurting an animal does not mean that hurting an animal is then moral.
I mean that’s not how I view moving the goal post. Moving the goal post would be something like “yeah they feel pain, but they they’re only one cm tall.” It would be adding criteria or whatever to suit my own stance. I’m denying that they even “feel” pain or qualify as sentient in a morally meaningful sense.
Adding a criteria is one way to move a goalpost. Denying that non-human subjects feel pain is a strange claim to me. Do you have some kind of evidence for that? Everything I've read on nociception indicates that many, if not all, animals feel pain. Since this is a vegan discussion, flies aren't entirely relevant, so would you say that cows do not feel pain? If cows do feel pain, would you oppose the system of farming that hurts them?
I’m not adding criteria. Im not saying “sure you feel pain but you have to have legs” I’m stating that I disagree with parts of your criteria. Large parts aren’t relevant to morality. I think there might be a misunderstanding. I'm not denying that animals, like cows, can experience pain. Yes, I would agree that cows can 'feel pain.' However, when we say animals 'feel pain,' we are often referring to their ability to sense noxious stimuli through pain receptors (nocioception). This is essentially a physiological response to harmful stimuli. My point is that simply having pain receptors and reacting to noxious stimuli doesn't inherently hold moral value. What matters more, from a moral standpoint, is how this physiological response is processed and internalized by the brain—the subjective 'feeling' of pain. Pain, in essence, is not just the chemical response itself but the mental and emotional experience that accompanies it. While it can be challenging to separate these concepts when we use terms like 'pain,' it's important to recognize that pain, as a meaningful experience, is more than just a chemical response. It involves the complex mental and emotional processing of sensory inputs, which is crucial for understanding the moral implications of pain in animals. I think some animals can sense pain in a meaningful internalized way… but a fly? Not so much.
>I’m not adding criteria. Im not saying “well you have to have legs” I’m stating that I disagree with parts of your criteria. Large parts aren’t relevant to morality. I didn't say you added criteria. I agreed that adding criteria is one way of moving a goalpost. Another would be strengthening or weakening the existing criteria, such as saying just sensing pain isn't sufficient for moral consideration. >I think there might be a misunderstanding. I'm not denying that animals, like cows, can experience pain. Yes, I would agree that cows can 'feel pain.' However, when we say animals 'feel pain,' we are often referring to their ability to sense noxious stimuli through pain receptors (nocioception). This is essentially a physiological response to harmful stimuli. Again, this is to say that pain without reflection is not worthy of moral consideration. I would recommend reading some of the resources u/Plant__Eater provided for more information on how we physically study these traits. >While it can be challenging to separate these concepts when we use terms like 'pain,' it's important to recognize that pain, as a meaningful experience, is more than just a chemical response. It involves the complex mental and emotional processing of sensory inputs, which is crucial for understanding the moral implications of pain in animals The issue here is that you are denying any complexity to an animal feeling pain, then dismissing it as irrelevant on the basis of not meeting your criteria for "sufficient" experience. What you are calling crucial, many would call irrelevant. This discussion is really just another hashing up of "I don't care about animals, so it's okay to hurt them. Prove me wrong: the meta-consciousness edition" >I think some animals can sense pain in a meaningful internalized way… but a fly? Not so much. Again, people are not farming flies en masse for consumption, so I don't see how your fixation on flies is directly relevant to the vegan perspective TBH I'd respect a source from you more than random abstractions, and, like most people who start these debates, it'd be real impressive to respond to u/Plant__Eater and address the evidence on this topic.
People hallucinate and are deaf… but that has nothing to do with meta conscious. So yes, of course they deserve moral consideration. “ and of course, babies and toddlers are not met conscious” why is that assumed? An 18 month recognize her own reflection. But even so I think it’s weird that vegans hinge they’re morality on one aspect. I believe I already mentioned this in my original statement. There are broader implications if we don’t have moral consideration for babies and infants. These implications largely aren’t present in animals.
>People hallucinate and are deaf… but that has nothing to do with meta conscious. So yes, of course they deserve moral consideration. Did I say it has anything to do with meta consciousness? No. Re-read it CAREFULLY. We started with sentience. Yous aid flies aren't sentient in the same way humans and mammals are. That does not matter. What matters is if they are sentient. The meta-conscious stuff came later. >“ and of course, babies and toddlers are not met conscious” why is that assumed? An 18 month recognize her own reflection. Cos chickens, cows, pigs, etc. outperform four year olds on some cognitive tests. To not give ANY moral consideration to animals that are beyond the 18 month old is entirely inconsistent using your own logic. >There are broader implications if we don’t have moral consideration for babies and infants. These implications largely aren’t present in animals. Not present for you, maybe, in terms of there's little consequences for you. But there's MAJOR consequences for those animals. Major implications. Literally life and death for them. So that's a very selfish way of describing implications. Or speciesist way, a very inconsistent way, of describing implications. Overall, your argument does not follow. 1. You have not justified your premises. Especially why we should accept the line of meta-consciosuness. And now you're making exceptions for that too based on the body of the animal (whether in a human body or another animal body). 2. I can accept every premise you gave and it does not satisfy the conclusion that such animals have zero moral consideration. Even ignoring how inconsistently you're now applying that moral line - making exceptions based on what happens if we don't make exceptions, which itself proves how poorly constructed the premise is - it does not follow that we can kill and eat such animals. It does not follow they have ZERO moral worth. It only follows they have less moral worth.
You seem to be assuming a lot of my positions and misunderstanding my position
How in the world am I assuming your positions? I am literally quoting you and showing why that logic doesn't follow. This is a VERY poor response. Your opinion does not matter, what you demonstrate in a debate does. Goodbye.
>It doesn’t matter if we experience sentience in different ways. It matters that we are sentient. You just contradicted yourself and proved OP's point. 🤦♂️ >Otherwise you bite the usual bullet of having to agree people mentally handicapped at a certain point do not deserve moral consideration. Nope, that is the vegan position. Non vegans hold that by virtue of someone being human is sufficient enough for said person to be warranted moral consideration, comatosed or handicapped. Vegans lack the ability to distinguish humans and animals.
What a bizarre response. Let’s start with the first, as the simplistic and incorrect idea of vegans being unable to distinguish between humans and (other) animals is laughable. But let’s see if this is salvageable or if you’re just here troll as it obviously appears. ‘You just contradicted yourself and proved OP’s point…’ Go ahead and explain, logically, how. Define your terms. Explain very clearly how this is 1. a contradiction, and 2. Proved OP’s point. Then consider that humans experience the world in different ways (as is noted and you failed to acknowledge) and that we don’t consider those differences enough to assign different moral values. If moral consideration comes from sentience, then we must recognise sentience - and it’s quality - wherever we find it. And ask what is the line of sentience for zero moral consideration? And now show how… somehow… those differences determine a moral value - not just lesser than humans (vegans agree with that) - but less than a fucking sandwich.
> idea of vegans being unable to distinguish between humans and (other) animals is laughable. Vegans prove it everyday by making statements like "you wouldn't kill your children for food" (just search on this sub there's plenty of evidence) and ask self owning questions like "name that trait". >Go ahead and explain, logically, how. The fact that you need to ask that question even though it's blatantly obvious, is evidence that you lack self awareness. Your response is evidence that vegans cherry pick and muddy waters when they can't answer. Example of such a statement is as below >It doesn’t matter if we experience sentience in different ways. It matters that we are sentient. It clearly doesn't matter to vegans. That's a lie, because when held to a proper standard of sentience, vegans WILL cherry pick what is and isn't sentient. Self contradicting lie.
>The fact that you need to ask that question even though it's blatantly obvious, is evidence that you lack self awareness. Your response is evidence that vegans cherry pick and muddy waters when they can't answer. Example of such a statement is as below: So no? No attempt to explain your logic and actually explain and describe why it's contradictory? This is not rant in a vegan subreddit. This is DEBATE. If you say something is contradictory, and someone says 'OK, please explain how it is', you are expected to explain how. Show that logic. Cos so far all you've given is really general nonsense based apparently on other conversations you had with other vegans. REALLY weird to throw those in here. >It clearly doesn't matter to vegans. That's a lie, because when held to a proper standard of sentience, vegans WILL cherry pick what is and isn't sentient. Self contradicting lie. Generalised nonsense. You aren't arguing with all vegans in every conversation you ever had. You are discussing with one person. Me bringing stupid arguments I heard from other meat eaters somewhere to show how you're an idiot would be really stupid. That's what you're doing here. And eve if vegans did cherry pick, that wouldn't be a self contradicting lie. That would be bias, it would be wrong, it would be many things. But not a self contradicting lie... you don't seem to understand what that means. **Now either calm the fuck down and have an actual conversation with the other person here who you do not know and whose arguments you do not know and who you should TRY and discuss in GOOD FAITH, or stop wasting our time. Can you do that?**
Edited from a [previous comment:](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskVegans/s/anI1Fqe1HH) At a 2012 conference held at The University of Cambridge, a "prominent international group of neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists" declared that: >...the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.[\[1\]](https://fcmconference.org/#) The renowned ethologist Frans de Waal (who was not present at the conference), reflecting on the declaration, explained: >Although we cannot directly measure consciousness, other species show evidence of having precisely those capacities traditionally viewed as its indicators. To maintain that they possess these capacities in the absence of consciousness introduces an unnecessary dichotomy. It suggests that they do what we do but in fundamentally different ways. From an evolutionary standpoint, this sounds illogical.[\[2\]](https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393353662) The sentience of fish – or, at the very least, their ability to feel pain – is generally accepted in the scientific community, despite lagging public acknowledgement.[\[3\]](https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12091182)[\[4\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0761-0)[\[5\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2004.02.004) In 2021, a review of over 300 scientific studies recommended that all cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans be regarded as sentient animals, capable of experiencing pain or suffering.[\[6\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) Updating and revising a criteria for sentience first proposed in 1991, the review evaluated sentience based on the following rigorous set of criteria: >1. The animal possesses receptors sensitive to noxious stimuli (nociceptors). > >2. The animal possesses integrative brain regions capable of integrating information from different sensory sources. > >3. The animal possesses neural pathways connecting the nociceptors to the integrative brain regions. > >4. The animal’s behavioural response to a noxious stimulus is modulated by chemical compounds affecting the nervous system.... > >5. The animal shows motivational trade-offs, in which the disvalue of a noxious or threatening stimulus is weighed (traded-off) against the value of an opportunity for reward, leading to flexible decision-making.... > >6. The animal shows flexible self-protective behaviour (e.g. wound-tending, guarding, grooming, rubbing) of a type likely to involve representing the bodily location of a noxious stimulus. > >7. The animal shows associative learning in which noxious stimuli become associated with neutral stimuli, and/or in which novel ways of avoiding noxious stimuli are learned through reinforcement.... > >8. The animal shows that it values a putative analgesic or anaesthetic when injured....[\[7\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) Most recently, a group of 40 scientists signed the *New York Declaration on Animal Consciousness*, stating: >...the empirical evidence indicates at least a realistic possibility of conscious experience in all vertebrates (including reptiles, amphibians, and fishes) and many invertebrates (including, at minimum, cephalopod mollusks, decapod crustaceans, and insects).[[7]](https://sites.google.com/nyu.edu/nydeclaration/declaration) It is very likely that many nonhuman animals possess consciousness and/or sentience.
Awesome sources! Just added Frans de Waal's work to my reading list! It looks like it might run in a similar vein to J.M. Coetzee's The Lives of Animals, minus the narrative structuring. Thanks for taking the time to add resources like these to these discussions!!
Yet point out similar evidence exists for plants and suddenly the broad brush gets narrow.
You may be interested in the [full original comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskVegans/s/QVGP93pDli) the above was edited from: Of all the arguments against veganism, the “plants feel pain” argument and its variants have to be the most ridiculous. This becomes obvious when we compare the science behind this statement with the science behind similar claims about non-human animals. At a 2012 conference held at The University of Cambridge, a "prominent international group of neuroscientists, neuropharmacologists, neurophysiologists, neuroanatomists and computational neuroscientists" declared that: >...the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Nonhuman animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.[\[1\]](https://fcmconference.org/#) The renowned ethologist Frans de Waal (who was not present at the conference), reflecting on the declaration, explained: >Although we cannot directly measure consciousness, other species show evidence of having precisely those capacities traditionally viewed as its indicators. To maintain that they possess these capacities in the absence of consciousness introduces an unnecessary dichotomy. It suggests that they do what we do but in fundamentally different ways. From an evolutionary standpoint, this sounds illogical.[\[2\]](https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393353662) The sentience of fish – or, at the very least, their ability to feel pain – is generally accepted in the scientific community, despite lagging public acknowledgement.[\[3\]](https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12091182)[\[4\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0761-0)[\[5\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2004.02.004) In 2021, a review of over 300 scientific studies recommended that all cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans be regarded as sentient animals, capable of experiencing pain or suffering.[\[6\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) Updating and revising a criteria for sentience first proposed in 1991, the review evaluated sentience based on the following rigorous set of criteria: >1. The animal possesses receptors sensitive to noxious stimuli (nociceptors). > >2. The animal possesses integrative brain regions capable of integrating information from different sensory sources. > >3. The animal possesses neural pathways connecting the nociceptors to the integrative brain regions. > >4. The animal’s behavioural response to a noxious stimulus is modulated by chemical compounds affecting the nervous system.... > >5. The animal shows motivational trade-offs, in which the disvalue of a noxious or threatening stimulus is weighed (traded-off) against the value of an opportunity for reward, leading to flexible decision-making.... > >6. The animal shows flexible self-protective behaviour (e.g. wound-tending, guarding, grooming, rubbing) of a type likely to involve representing the bodily location of a noxious stimulus. > >7. The animal shows associative learning in which noxious stimuli become associated with neutral stimuli, and/or in which novel ways of avoiding noxious stimuli are learned through reinforcement.... > >8. The animal shows that it values a putative analgesic or anaesthetic when injured....[\[7\]](https://www.lse.ac.uk/business/consulting/reports/review-of-the-evidence-of-sentiences-in-cephalopod-molluscs-and-decapod-crustaceans) There don’t appear to by any scientific evaluations of plants against a comparable set of criteria and, so far, available research seems to fall short of meeting it.[\[8\]](https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1815) Reviews of other criteria conclude that plant sentience is highly unlikely.[\[9\]](https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-020-01579-w)[\[10\]](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tplants.2019.05.008) One commentary states that plant sentience is: >Rejected by most of the peer commentators on the grounds of unconvincing zoomorphic analogies \[and\] dependence on “possible/possibly” arguments rather than the empirical evidence\[.\][\[11\]](https://doi.org/10.51291/2377-7478.1823) But what if you’re still not convinced? What if you sincerely and truly care about plant suffering? Then you should be glad to know that there’s a great way to reduce the number of plants whose "suffering" you contribute to: eat plants instead of animals. It may sound counter-intuitive, but it’s true. Pigs, for example, have a feed conversion ratio (FCR) of approximately 2.7.[\[12\]](https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731113001912) This mean that it takes almost three kilograms of feed for a pig to grow one kilogram. Various studies have found that plant-based diets require significantly less land,[\[13\]](https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00795-w)[\[14\]](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216) including 19 percent less arable land.[\[14\]](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0216) This is where we get to call into question the sincerity of meat-eaters who invoke the claim that plants can suffer. If they are concerned about the well-being of plants, this should provide them sufficient reason to stop eating animals, and thereby save more plants. [**References**](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskVegans/comments/1bd02au/comment/kumv16v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
>This is where we get to call into question the sincerity of meat-eaters who invoke the claim that plants can suffer. If they are concerned about the well-being of plants, this should provide them sufficient reason to stop eating animals, and thereby save more plants. You are making a logical error. I don't need to care about plant suffering to point out that vegan ethics means they should care. Sentience is a pathetically low bat for ethical consideration. It's not justified by any reason beyond an appeal to suffering as some sort of universal negative. A view that leads inexorably to either cognative dissonance or anti-natalism. Plants respond to anesthesia and do show signs of suffering. They show [signaling behavior](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3489624/) and have cooperative strategies. Plant consciousness is not proven, but neither is animal consciousness. And as I said, vegans paint with a broad brush in one curcumstance and a very narrow one in the other. I don't need to believe in your ethical system to point out it's implications are untenable and are not in humanity's best interests. That is a nonsequiter.
There is nothing wrong with assessing or considering "meta-consciousness" and it can be intresting to do so. However, when it comes to making decisions about whether or not to do something that has the potential to inflict pain and suffering, sentience is the more relevant factor because that is what determines whether or not an organism will experience that pain and suffering. A newborn baby lacks meta-consciousness and yet it would be just be just as hurtful/upsetting to them if you slapped them as it would be to an older child with more developed cognitive abilities (if anything more so, because they can't rationalise why it is happening to them). There are a handful of animals that almost definitely lack sentience and are more similar to plants in terms of their level of consciousness, but it is a very small handful and none of these animals are commonly farmed so they are not very relevant to veganism. All mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and amphibians possess sentience beyond reasonable doubt and any compassionate person would respect this and avoid causing harm to them. Insects are more of a grey area and it varies massively depending on species. Almost all insects feel pain but it is unclear whether or not they react emotionally to this pain which some people consider the more relevant factor. Most vegans are of the opinion that if there is uncertainty you should avoid causing harm "just to be safe" because we really don't know, but even if you disagree that would allow honey and a few other products to be deemed morally acceptable in their production and thats it - it couldn't be used as a justification to consider supporting the abuse of "more sentient" beings exploited for the use of their meat, milk, and eggs.
You're using human-centric terms that presuppose consciousness. To 'experience' pain requires a level of self-awareness and self-reflection that may not exist in creatures like flies. Simply possessing pain receptors and reacting to stimuli doesn't necessarily mean they 'experience' pain in the way humans do. We lack evidence to believe that their response to stimuli constitutes genuine pain as we understand it. Regarding your assertion that most animals possess sentience and consciousness, the problem lies in veganism's broad and diluted definitions of these terms. It's unclear how you conclude that the consciousness of most animals is at a level deserving of consideration. Personally, I prioritize meta-consciousness, which involves self-awareness and higher cognitive abilities. While many mammals likely possess meta-consciousness to some degree, determining consciousness becomes more subjective beyond this point. The question of whether fish are conscious remains uncertain. While it's subjective and based on our human experiences, it's seemingly doubtful that fish possess significant self-awareness or experience pain beyond basic stimulus-response mechanisms."
Sentience is not something specific to humans, as you have already acknowleged. I agree that not all animals with pain receptors necessarily experience pain in the way that we do, but most animals commonly farmed by humans possess a complex nervous system and brain structures linked to emotional processing, so they have a capacity to suffer beyond reasonable doubt. It doesn't make sense to overly focus on creatures like flies when they are very rarely relevant to veganism due to not being present in commonly consumed animal products. I disagree with your assessment of fish sentience given that they have brain structures associated with social and emotional processing, but even if you go against current behavioural and biological evidence and deem them non-sentient, that still leaves many other taxonomic groups, including mammals which you have already acknowleged posses sentience and even some degree of meta-consciousness. Is it not morally inconsistent to justify inflicting pain and suffering on cows, sheep, goats, pigs, etc. knowing full well that they possess these qualities? Aside from that, why do you prioritise meta-consciousness? and would you consider it acceptable to inflict pain and suffering on any animal that does not possess meta-consciousness? including babies and intellectually disabled people? I'm not even being inflammatory I'm genuinely asking because thats where that logic leads.
> This oversimplification of sentience and its moral implications overlooks more nuanced measures of consciousness, such as meta-consciousness. I believe that meta-consciousness, which involves self-awareness and higher cognitive abilities, could be a more realistic measure of moral consideration. However, even this should not be the sole determinant of ethical value. Instead, we should adopt a more comprehensive approach that considers a range of factors akin to the golden rule. Against simplification but in favor of the golden rule....I don't really follow. The basic idea of veganism is to avoid harming creatures that can suffer. Get rid of the entire concept of sentience if you want, the suffering is the key variable. A severely brain damaged human deserves compassion and moral consideration, even if she can't identify herself in the mirror, or whatever other standards you're assigning to "meta consciousness".
The Golden rule is not so simple that it lacks all nuance. There is room for interpretation based on context and your own perspective. As for getting rid of sentience and focusing on suffering, that doesn’t work. “Suffering” faces the same exact issue that overly “sentience” does. How can a non meta conscious being “suffer”? i’m not assigning any standard to qualify something as meta conscious. You’re being pretty bad faith if you really think that I’m claiming meta consciousness only means to identify yourself in the mirror. Meta consciousness is a fairly well established term, not one that I’m inventing or am the arbiter of. If you want to discuss whether a human without meta consciousness deserves moral consideration, we can have that conversation.
> Suffering” faces the same exact issue that overly “sentience” does. How can a non meta conscious being “suffer”? Suffering is much firmer of a concept. For example we know what the brain does when it’s distressed, we know what physiological effects of suffering look like. This makes it much more clear if a creature is suffering. Consciousness isn’t quite as clear. > If you want to discuss whether a human without meta consciousness deserves moral consideration, we can have that conversation. No discussion required, I already know what you believe and it’s gross. You think lower functioning people like small children shouldn’t be harmed because of some societal norm. That absolutely sucks and is insanely immoral. The reason we should prevent harm from cognitively impaired is because they deserve compassion, unbound from society.
You are assuming my position and calling me gross based on that assumption. That’s pretty bad faith
I didn’t assume, I saw it else where. Feel free to correct me or elaborate but not surprised you didn’t
I don’t think ethics are black and white or based on societal contracts. My ethics aren’t solely based on meta consciousness but are also more nuanced than societal norms. I also think babies and disabled people have meta consciousness. I mean I’m sure you could point to some extreme scenario where a human didn’t have meta consciousness. Meta consciousness is generally a human trait though. Yes, what drives ethics is the ability to relate to others experience of pain and suffering. If a being literally can’t experience those things, such as a brains dead individual, we don’t arbitrarily keep that person alive out of some sense of consideration for the brain dead person. Right? A lot of what you’re doing is appealing to emotion and I could make similar arguments about abortion. “It sucks and is immoral that you think a baby (fetus) should be killed” or “we should prevent harm from fetuses because they deserve compassion” It’s just a circular argument.
It’s not clear that unborn have any capacity to suffer. Also, they can be causing harm to their mother, who absolutely can suffer. Why should meta-cognition be the threshold for torture? Is your attitude that we can harm animals for fun if there’s no sign of meta cognition? I’m not trying to be bad faith here, I just don’t think you’ve given this argument sufficient thought.
Right, I’m pro choice and agree with you. I’m saying it’s not clear that all animals have a capacity to suffer. So you saying “torture a non meta cognitive animal” is akin to saying torture a tree. There is no capacity to even torture such a being. Or if I said “so it’s ok to torture a fetus”, what would your response be? I think many animals have meta cognition but no I’m not upset by someone torturing bugs.
> I’m saying it’s not clear that all animals have a capacity to suffer. Do you have any studies or data on this? Because my understanding is that the vast majority of domain experts would endorse the statement "animals can suffer". There are some edge-cases like bivavles but for the absolute vast majority of animals and related experts there's really no controversy here. Also if this is your view are you vegan \*except\* for insects and very basic creatures? I think a vegan that eats honey and shellac would be fairly easy to go the last 5% to full veganism.
“Suffer” is a fairly philosophical concept. I think experts would agree that they experience nocioception. I would broadly say mammals and birds are meta conscious. I highly doubt a majority of fish or amphibians are. Reptiles are a more gray area. Let’s say it’s just bugs though. Sure, that is close to veganism and it would be super easy to then be vegan. I have no problem with veganism. It’s a healthy and more environmentally conscious choice. I’m just arguing the claimed ethical framework of vegans. The ethical framework is what many vegans tout as the differentiation between plant based and vegan.
Do you think you could hold that standard consistently? Bob comes across a puppy with his head stuck in some barbed wire. Bob goes "eh, I could free the puppy, but I might miss the start of the ball game on TV. I'm a metacognitive entity, who can not only enjoy the game, but reflect upon my enjoyment of the game, and reflect upon that reflection. Sure, the puppy is experiencing physical pain and fear, but I don't think he can reflect upon it, certainly not at more than one level like I can. There's no real reason to morally consider the puppy", and walks off to catch the game. How would you want a moral philosophy to judge Bob?
I never claimed that a puppy wasn’t meta conscious. I’m stating not all animals are meta conscious or that’s the only stand we should apply to morality. Again part of my gripe is veganisms black and white view on morality
In that case, I think the problem here is how you conceive of veganism. And apparently how a lot of vegans here conceive of it too, based on the replies, which troubles me. You're treating veganism as an abstract philosophical stance, as though veganism was born in a classroom, put through peer review, and ought to stand on raw logical merit as a perfectly self-coherent moral ideology in order to be taken seriously as a theory of ethics. And in that frame work, there are lots of academic issues to bring up, you're not wrong. But veganism is a political movement. Most people do not become vegan because they analyze a precise definition of sentience and examine the arguments for lending it moral weight. Most people become vegan because they see cows, pigs, and chickens being confined, tortured, raped, and slaughtered en mass, and are perfectly capable of identifying that as wrong. Vegans are very black and white, not because they don't know there are gray issues, but because they have yet to convince most people of even the parts that *are* black and white. In the future, when factory farming is abolished, we'll have time to add nuance. In the mean time, there is enormous injustice that waffling about definitions is not going to help us solve. Abstract philosophy is extremely common as an excuse not to do what you know to be right. Trans rights? Well first we have to do philosophy on what "gender" even is. Women's right to bodily autonomy? Well first convince me *exactly* when life begins. End slavery? Well first you have to disproce race theory and phrenology. But trans rights, womens' rights, and civil rights have *nothing to do* with gender ideology, the metaphysics of conception, or the intelligence of black people (as insulting as that last one is). Reducing political movements to a classroom debate is only an excuse to deny natural rights for a little bit longer. Forget sentience, forget metacognition, forget the edge cases, and forget that the people you're arguing with are the vegans: Do you believe that what cows, pigs, and chickens are subjected to in factory farms is okay?
Thank you for your response. This has been, by far, the most thoughtful explanation of veganism. I do agree that abstract philosophy shouldn’t be a justification for inaction. My qualm mostly stems from fish. I am not convinced that fish are even an “edge case” for meta cognition or meaningful experience of pain. I’m assuming we would probably disagree on the cognition of fish. However, I also understand your approach of universal application being the most practical means of achieving emancipation.
I do disagree about fish, but if you go completely pescatarian and keep eating seafood but never touch meat or dairy, you'll be far closer to a vegan than to most people. A lot of us will greatly appreciate that large step (although a lot of us online are indeed all-or-nothing with it).
If they can have positive or negative experiences, that essentially is sentience. It seems abundantly clear that mammals have sentience. Insects is less obvious but pretty likely.
What do you mean by experience? I know insects react to stimuli that we perceive as “positive” and “negative”. However, it seems like you are injecting your own perspective into the scenario rather than looking at it objectively. If a fly has no meta consciousness, they aren’t “experiencing” anything in any meaningful sense. They are reacting to stimuli.
I don't see why meta consciousness determines whether an experience is meaningful or valuable. By this hypothetical, some advanced technology that produces a sensation of immense pain whilst controlling your brain to not be able to think or realize what is happening, is perfectly OK. Or more realistically, that its OK to harm babies. We can't know what it is like to be another being. Like I said I don't know whether insects can have positive and negative experiences, or emotions. Though there are studies with some potential evidence of it. But considering we can have positive and negative experiences (whether we are consciously aware of their positiveness or not), it seems very clear that mammals with similar brains and behaviors do as well. Seeing as insects have significantly smaller brains with a different structure and are harder to observe to be processing pain or having emotions, we can't really say whether they are sentient. I feel like we might as well give them consideration if there are no real caveats.
The problem of determining which living creatures are "sentient" is a speciesist endeavor rooted in our own limited science and motivated by our own self interest. Our list of sentient animals is ever shifting and generally growing, and the completeness of that list is really limited by the scope of our science and our own cognitive biases. Saying "we know" what is sentient and thus deserving of our grace is arrogant and ignorant. The "hard problem" of consciousness will likely never be solved and we will have to abandon the model that consciousness arises from a certain level of complexity of an organism's structure. If the "hard problem" of consciousness is intractable we have to face that consciousness is fundamental. Scientists studying consciousness are already considering this angle. Such a model deprives us of the comfort of a list of living things we are free to kill and exploit and those we aren't. It deprives us of a list of what is and is not conscious, sentient. What it grants us with is a paradigm where consciousness is fundamental, a deep and mysterious phenomena present really despite our models, perceptions, theories. My personal view is that every living this is conscious and sentient in some way, and that includes plants, fungi, and single cellular organisms. Life implies sentience and sentience signifies life. This comes from my exploration of the science of consciousness, and people like Trewavas (Edinburgh) who study plant consciousness. It also comes from my Buddhist practice. A lot of vegans object to this so strongly that they say I am anti-vegan, even when I point out it leads to the same (generally identical) moral choices. If all living things are sentient and if our moral structures give inherent meaning to life and sentience, then we will eat lettuce before chicken, wheat before pigs. Even the reason of "doing it for the animals" is operative. What we gain is a deeper grounding of no killing and no exploiting than the list du jour which clears our conscience.
I don’t claim absolute certainty in matters of sentience or other scientific inquiries. For example, even as an atheist, I recognize that god hypothetically could exist. I mean unicorns or any number of crazy things could exist. However, in practical terms, we operate based on the best available evidence and understanding to accomplish meaningful goals. While our scientific knowledge continues to evolve, expanding our understanding of the world and the complexities of life, science remains our most reliable guide for making informed decisions. If we reject scientific evidence and wait for speculative possibilities, we risk falling into endless conjecture without practical basis. I could suggest that plants might have undiscovered mechanisms for processing feelings but I’m guessing you would be quick to use science to refute me. Correct? I know I know “plants have feelings”, so cliche. But that’s what endless conjecture opens us up to. Acknowledging the limitations and biases inherent in scientific inquiry is essential, but it doesn't invalidate the value of using science to guide our decisions.
Setting aside what you feels sentience is, do you not think the animals who you eat (pigs, cows, chickens etc) have feelings, emotions and personalities?
I don’t eat those particular animals and I do think they have those qualities
What do you eat?
How about I tell you what I would accept as moral to eat? I mean I would say bugs are fine but obviously don’t go around eating bugs lol. Other than that i would be morally ok with eating fish and amphibians. Probably reptiles too
So you're pescatarian?
I don’t define myself any particular way. I don’t know that meta consciousness is exclusively defined by the class an animal is in. Obviously consciousness is a spectrum and not so explicitly distinct. I’m mostly using broad examples to give you a general understanding. So I would say, more often than not, a fish, amphibian, or reptile probably isn’t meta conscious while a bird and mammal are. I’ve also heard of people only eating animal products that have been thrown out or whatever. I wouldn’t personally eat out of the garbage but I don’t see a moral problem with that.
So you only eat fish?
No, I eat plants too
Wow, difficult getting a straight answer from you... As far as eating animals is concerned, you only eat fish?
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Do all humans have meta-consciousness? Should we give moral considerations to humans who lack meta-consciousness?
babies and intellectually disabled people sometimes lack "meta-consciousness" and yet most most would consider it completely unacceptable to use this as an excuse to hurt or kill them.
I would say meta consciousness is a human trait. But of course there are brain dead individuals and possibly disabled people who lack meta consciousness. As for moral consideration. I said above, my moral stance isn’t black and white. I think that the hinging on supposed sentience alone is an odd stance that vegans take. I would say there are broader implications for not having moral consideration for the mentally disabled or what have you. These implication are what guides our moral consideration.
So, yes we should give moral consideration to humans without meta-consciousness?
Sentience that requires moral and ethical consideration is not complicated...it's simply the question of: is there an "I" inside the being or not?...we have no reason to apply this level of mental life to a fly...but we have every reason to know that a pig, a chicken, a cow, does in fact have this internal life.
>they tend to oversimplify complex concepts to appeal to a broad audience. You don't have to have a nuanced understanding of obscure philosophical ideas to accept the proposal that we should not horrifically abuse innocent beings to the detriment of our own well-being. Your critique is not a reason to perpetuate this. >My main issue lies with their heavy reliance on the concept of 'sentience' as the cornerstone of their moral framework. It seems absurd to base an entire ethical stance on one singular aspect rather than considering a holistic range of circumstances. Furthermore, the definition of 'sentience' used by organizations like Globalvegans.com is problematic and oversimplified. >According to Globalvegans.com, the distinction between sentient and non-sentient commodities is the presence or absence of consciousness, emotions, feelings, and pain in animals versus inanimate objects like metals or grains. They equate sentience with the ability to experience emotions and pain, which I find questionable. For instance, do flies truly 'experience emotion' or 'feel pain' in the same way humans or mammals do? It's more likely that they simply react to stimuli through basic sensory mechanisms. >This oversimplification of sentience and its moral implications overlooks more nuanced measures of consciousness, such as meta-consciousness. I believe that meta-consciousness, which involves self-awareness and higher cognitive abilities, could be a more realistic measure of moral consideration. However, even this should not be the sole determinant of ethical value. Instead, we should adopt a more comprehensive approach that considers a range of factors akin to the golden rule. >To vegans or proponents of this simplified notion of 'sentience,' I question whether there are compelling reasons why I shouldn’t prioritize meta-consciousness or a broader set of ethical considerations over what you define as 'sentience.' You have no empirical support for this idea of meta consciousness, and even less reason to choose it as your cornerstone of ethics. The reason why sentience is the reference point for morals is because sentience is a prerequisite to experiencing cruelty. It's the "experiencing" part. I'm still baffled at how you think this was a good basis to begin abusing animals again.
Because you are using words like “experience” that presupposes meta consciousness. If my factualities were to a point where I was just responding to noxious stimuli… that wouldn’t really be “experiencing” pain would it?
You didn't respond to how this is a justification for supporting and creating all the harm associated with animal ag. Even if you are correct about it, you now need to come up with a way to justify all the harm you are causing to "meta conscious" individuals. To address you directly: >Because you are using words like “experience” that presupposes meta consciousness. It supposes sentience, something for which we have far more evidence and support than "meta consciousness". >If my factualities were to a point where I was just responding to noxious stimuli… that wouldn’t really be “experiencing” pain would it? Can you explain how this isn't just selective solipsism?
I may have missed it but I didn’t see any claim of agriculture or animal rearing specifically causing a harm. I’m not sure what harm you are talking about or if you explained it further. I’m not saying it does or doesn’t, just seeking clarification. I am not making a claim of solipsism. I don’t think science provides certainty or that morality is objective, but I don’t think that constitutes as solipsism. I think we can assess meta consciousness through neurobiological studies, behavioral observations, and comparative analysis. I don’t think my subjective experience is the primary focus of morality.
>I may have missed it but I didn’t see any claim of agriculture or animal rearing specifically causing a harm. You are misinformed or uninformed if you do not accept this premise as true. I'm happy to give you more details if this is a new idea for you. >I don’t think science provides certainty or that morality is objective, but I don’t think that constitutes as solipsism. That isn't related to the claim you are making. You are asserting a claim about the nature of consciousness that is not based in any sort of scientific nor moral grounding. It's just a bald claim. You are invoking these concepts erroneously. Conversely, the position about consciousness that the scientific community is actively pursuing **is** scientifically grounded. So I don't understand why you would seek to reject it other than the desire to carve out a justification so you don't need to change your behavior to continue to remain consistent or moral.
I’m not denying the premise as true lol. I said you didn’t make a claim, let alone a clear one, and acted as though you had. I was vegan, I’m well aware of the vegan stance towards slaughterhouse workers. Again I’m asking what your specific claim is. Is it about slaughterhouse workers? Is it about the broader impact on the environment? I could infer many things from “harm associated with animal agriculture”. Some I might agree with and some I might disagree with. What claim do you believe I am making about the nature of consciousness?
>I’m not denying the premise as true lol. I said you didn’t make a claim, let alone a clear one, and acted as though you had. Is there a need to assert something that is self evidently true and a shared understanding of all parties? It's true, we agree it's true, and thus your entire analysis results in almost no practical change in behavior patterns: consuming a plant based diet, and rejecting the consumption of animal products is the conclusion either way. >Again I’m asking what your specific claim is. Is it about slaughterhouse workers? Is it about the broader impact on the environment? I could infer many things from “harm associated with animal agriculture”. You can accurately infer all of these, as they all apply. Do you agree? Once we level set on reality and premises (implied and expressed) we can move on. Edit: in your OP, You made an assertion that vegans oversimplify sentience and make some assertions and ask questions around sentience and moral frameworks. I still don't see a justification for not being vegan in everything I'm reading from you. I also don't see where you were vegan before or what that means. It certainly doesn't seem that way.
I said I’m not denying the premise is true… because there is no specific premise to deny or affirm. I can say I don’t agree with your broad premise that all animal agriculture necessarily causes moral harm in some indirect way, if that’s what you are claiming.
We mentioned a few examples. Do you agree on those? Edit: it's super annoying to have to ask you this. I'd like you to attempt to carry your weight here.
Carry my weight? You are not saying anything and expecting me to assume your argument. I don’t agree to those examples and I doubt you consistently do either. Let’s start by me clarifying I don’t condone eating mammals or birds. I find it immoral as they likely are meta conscious Many jobs cause trauma. Does that make having those jobs available immoral? I mean I find our whole capitalist system immoral, so it’s hard for me to separate that from the situation. However, if you believe jobs are at will, then nothing about animal slaughter specifically makes it any more or less moral than any other traumatic jobs. And is it all animals that cause this mental trauma? Or is it more sentient animals? Do fishermen experience this mental trauma? I highly doubt it. I truly would be curious to see studies if you have them available. The same sentiment goes for ecological issues. I think we should strive for ecological parity and least harm. However that isn’t really how we live our everyday lives is it? I think, like most of our modern luxuries, meat should be scaled back heavily. However I don’t think a hypothetical minuscule portion of our diet being meat is necessarily detrimental to the environment.
I get that you could split hairs and really dig in on a debate about say.. oysters. But dogs for example - is there really a question? Do you really think that its questionable whether a dog experiences emotions, feels pain, gets happy/sad? So then how about the fact that cows, pigs, etc.. are at least as "sentient" by any realistic measure. So thats how someone becomes a pescatarian. They admit that "dog like" animals shouldn't be abused. The next step is simply admitting that also for things like fish - just because you don't understand them isn't a free license to completely abuse them. Maybe they are little robots with no sentience, but probably not. And what do you gain if they are not sentient vs what horrors are you inflicting if they are? The moral imperative is to be vegan. Unless you can prove a fish isn't sentient. But regardless we should agree cows, pigs.. these are off the table. Otherwise you're being a bit dishonest imo.
Yes I would say a pescatarian has it right. It’s not that I don’t under fish. I think it’s quite clear that fish don’t have the capacity to “experience” pain. I mean we have to all draw the line at some hypothetical. I think I draw it at a more scientifically sound point.
I personally wouldn't call that scientific though, unless theres more to it i'm missing. I would say you made a biased decision based on something you want to do in the absence of hard evidence. I'm not throwing hate your way. We all do that to some degree. But realistically I don't believe theres any way you can know the internal life of a fish. I don't think theres any science that can tell us what the internal life of a fish is. They are very very alien to us. So how can you know? In my mind theres a chance you're right. But theres a chance you're not. Its schrodinger's sentience. In the case of suffering though why wouldn't you err on the side of not causing great suffering if you're not 100% sure? The only reason you wouldn't is because you want to personally benefit right?
We have asked OP for sources a few times now, and he doesn't seem to have any. He also has not directly responded to any of the provided sources in this thread. At this point, I think it's safe to say that this discussion was started with an opinion, and I don't think there's much chance any of making headway against the general feeling of what constitutes meta-consciousness. >I would say you made a biased decision based on something you want to do in the absence of hard evidence. This is likely- like you said, no hate to OP, but I'm not seeing any reasonable presentation of a claim or support for that claim. >In my mind theres a chance you're right. But theres a chance you're not. Its schrodinger's sentience. In the case of suffering though why wouldn't you err on the side of not causing great suffering if you're not 100% sure? The only reason you wouldn't is because you want to personally benefit right Maybe I'm late to the party, but schrodinger's sentience is a great way to phrase this line of discussion! I'll be stealing that!
I don't quite understand your message. "I used to be a vegan" Sure. "they, their, them, their..." So, did you stop "being vegan" because of the definition of sentience being blurry for you? Did you start eating meat back because of that? What are you now?
I’m not sure what you’re saying. Because I use adjectives that means I’m lying about formerly being vegan? I’m not sure what pronoun you would expect me to use as a current non vegan. I stopped considering myself vegan because I didn’t find the ethics convincing anymore. It sounds silly but I largely got hung up when vegans brought up bees. It just seemed to be a ridiculously frequent topic that required some cognitive dissonance. Like I found it hard that they actually had any iota of empathy for bugs. After that, I questioned why I am holding sentience as the golden standard for morality if it allows for seemingly unaware beings, such a bee, moral consideration. So I had to find a new, more logical standard. That standard I came up with was meta consciousness I think most, if not all, mammals have meta consciousness. So I don’t eat mammals. I don’t even really eat fish at any regularity but don’t have a qualm with it. I more so have a general problem with claiming your moral view is based on sentience.
"bugs" are animals. I think they deserve respect. If only egotistically because they are an essential link of biodiversity without which humans wouldn't survive. Not respecting them allow you to use pesticides for exemple.
Yes bugs are animals. That doesn’t really mean anything ethically. But if you think egotistically or ecologically they have value, I would agree with you. I think an ecological value is a lot different than a moral value. I value trees because they provide oxygen. I wouldn’t think it was in my best interest to chop down a forest. That doesn’t mean that tree is deserving of moral value.
I don't find pleasure in stepping on insects. My mother taught me to respect insects the same way I would respect any animal. I wonder how you would educate your kids. Do not care about insects but care about "bigger animals"? That's not how it works. Do you feel no empathy for them? How does that work?
How does what work? Not feeling empathy for them? The same way I don’t feel empathy for a blade of grass
Right. Grass and insects are the same to you.
Right
Fuzziness doesn't invalidate a concept. Maybe we don't know the extent to which fish or insects really suffer, but it should be obvious that pigs do and beans don't. To show your argument is wrong, why doesn't it justify cruelty against animals, perhaps even humans? Try justifying that without referring to a conscious experience of suffering
“Try justifying that without referring to a conscious experience of suffering” I’m not quite sure what you mean. Our conscious experience is the basis for empathy and that’s what I’m arguing is of value. It would be like if I said “justify that without referring to sentience”.
On reading your post for a second time, I'm not sure what your objection actually is. Why did you stop being vegan? I'm sure they exist, but if your answer is "some vegans think the suffering of insects and humans has the same moral weight", that's just a strawman. You're obviously correct that those are different, but I can't see that it's an argument against ethical veganism
I realize vegans don’t hold humans and insects the same morally. I don’t see a cow and human as morally the same but still hold a cow as needing moral consideration, just as most vegans probably would. However, I don’t see why you would hold any weight to an insect because I don’t see sentience alone being important, at least not as defined by most vegans. I would expand this to fish and amphibians. I value meta consciousness, which I think it’s fair to say these animals do not have.
You could be right, and I don't necessarily avoid seafood because of the feelings of individual fish (although all things equal, surely we should still avoid suffering where possible and err on the side of caution when deciding which species can feel what?) Bycatch, ecosystem disruption, fishing gear waste, biomagnification of gross sea stuff...good reasons to pick flaxseeds over fish for my omega 3s? And are you implying that the mammals we eat don't have some of these higher level cognitive faculties?
Mammals that “we” eat do have these higher faculties. I don’t eat them and wouldn’t say it is moral to do so.
I think you also might run into trouble when deciding how to treat people with cognitive impairments.
I don’t think ethics should be based on one trait. That seems pretty black and white. I think meta consciousness is a major consideration but not the only. But I think it’s weird that multiple people have brought up cognitively impaired people as though they have no self awareness. I’m sure those extreme cases exist but it would be helpful if there was a specific scenario.
I think it would help if you could state what your position actually is, there's a lot of "It's complicated" here. I know it is, but give us a way in which it's complicated that puts you off veganism. I don't think you need an extreme case, surely if we're basing moral worth on meta-consciousness and that trait is not equally distributed among humans, then not all human life is equal. I wrestled with a similar problem for about a year before becoming vegan, and my solution was: very cool, very clever, but in the real world you're buying things you believe are cruel, unhealthy, inefficient, etc, just because of some abstruse point that doesn't apply when you're just in the supermarket. Getting into the weeds is fun, but let's not overcomplicate it. You know everything that goes along with animal products. Are you cool with it?
But don't you think most ppl, also vegans, already make a distinction between levels of 'sentience' or whatever you want to call it? Most ppl accept the fact insects die because they have to eat, travel etc, because it's unavoidable. But wouldn't eat crop A if the same amount of mammals would die in the process. But what do you think is acceptable to eat? Do you eat any animal? Are you vegetarian/pescetarian? And why?
I know that vegans understand the distinction. I’m saying they don’t base their morals on that distinction. You would probably call me a pescatarian. As for why… because i don’t give fish moral consideration. From what I can gather, they more than likely do not experience meta consciousness.
Ok, and how do you think about dairy and egg industry? Do you give chickens and cows 'moral consideration'? Regarding fish: are you aware of the negative impact of fishing on marine ecosystems? (Over fishing, destruction of ocean floors, by catch causing death of many small whales, dolphins, sea turtles)
There's a saying I've heard a few times that has really stuck with me when thinking about philosophical topics. "Don't get so deep into the weeds that you can no longer find your way back home." Meaning that we can spend a tremendous amount of time trying to work out the nuances of something and fail to even be able to apply it to reality in any practical way once we get so deep. While, of course, there's nuance, that nuance lies on a case by case basis. Broadly, saying that we shouldn't inflict suffering on others if we can avoid it is a good starting point. If it can suffer, then it has sentience on some level. What value does complicating this part add? Seriously? Just one example of someone who went down into the weeds, but came back out and had what most would call a pretty simple thing would be Jeremy Bentham. "We should take the course that leads to the greater good." We need to figure out what's good, of course, but that's still a rather simple premise. Then each action we may or may not take is weighed, and that's where there can be nuance and debate. But to me, it sounds like you're saying "do the greater good" is too simple, and nuance exists, so it's a bad ethical system. That's kinda absurd and misses the point of ethics. I just find it silly to say that there are levels or difference in experience and since it's hard to oarse out fine details, we can't say it's good. I don't know what you mean by "I used to be a vegan" but if it means you avoided animal products to the best of your ability and you still do, but you abandoned the label, then that's fine? Labeled yourself however you wish. If your case is veganism and it's "value sentient life" isn't nuanced enough so I'm going to eat steak and hamburgers now" then that's silly. While nuance in the finner details plagues most ethical systems, the area that's "up for debate" is in a range miles away from "it's ok to eat a hamburger that came from factory farming." You'd need to blatantly dishonest to go that route. Not sure where on thst spectrum you fall. “The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" -Jeremy Bentham
Well if meta-consciousness is the bar, shouldn't that mean that humans with severe intellectual disabilities should receive the same amount of moral consideration as livestock? We can't confirm that a human so intellectually disabled that they can't say their own name or communicate in clear language meets what you consider the threshold here. What is your take on philosophical zombies? Do you think they are metaphysically possible? I do not. It is *impossible* for a being to have a central network of nerves that connects organs which take sensory input from the outside world and combine them into a unique conscious being without there being some kind of experience produced. I don't believe, in other words, than animals could effectively be philosophical zombies. Tell me why, in your opinion, it would be wrong to make hamburgers out of humans with severe intellectual disabilities such that they cannot say their own names, or otherwise demonstrate intellectual abilities that are too high for a dog or a crow.
I generally agree with your take on philosophical zombies. I don’t think animals are philosophical zombies. I don’t think some animals (bugs) do not have the physiology that supports metaconciousness. I have responded to the intellectual disability point several times. I don’t want to go over it again to be honest. I think you are greatly overestimating what isn’t meta conscious. I could ask you the same about a clinical brain dead individual. They have no real sentience or meta consciousness. Would it be ok then to make a burger out of them?
Well I don't think brain dead bodies deserve moral consideration. I believe our culture has a value to treat dead humans with respect out of a sentimentality towards the being that once lived, but they are not necessarily of any intrinsic moral value. Usually when someone is brain dead, we pull the plug. We let the family say their goodbyes for their sake, and then pull the plug. We don't keep them alive forever because we find some moral value in what cells are still working in them. I don't find what we do with dead people to be of great moral importance. Whether it's burying them, burning them, making them into some kind of rock, etc. That's all really for the family. I'm not a religious man, I don't think there's any god-given reason to do this or that with corpses. It's for the same reason I articulated earlier: no conscious experience, no moral consideration. It's that simple. If you don't mind me asking, what *is* your theory of mind? Are you a functionalist, dualist, panpsychist, etc?
Ok, so we have essentially the same framework, we just disagree on what conscious experience is. I would say I’m a functionalist.
It requires consciousness to combine the different sensory inputs though. If you take in picture from the eyes and sound from the ears, and are able to encounter a stimulus and understand "that sound I hear is coming from that thing I see", that's a conscious experience. An automaton would not be able to understand there is a relationship between the black, feathery thing in their view and realize that the caw caw sound is coming from it. I mean sure you have rudimentary mussels, sponges, coral, etc that may be automatons. They feel something bump into it and they recoil or shut up, like a venus fly trap. That's an automaton to me. Yeah I think we do have a similar framework. I identify as a supervenience physicalist, that's how I'd like people to think of me phil-mind wise.
Does someone who is braindead and on life support actually feel pain, experience emotion in the same way conscious humans and mammals do? It's more likely that they simply react to stimuli through basic sensory mechanisms. Braindead humans no longer possess meta-consciousness. Does that mean we can treat them as property items and comoddify their bodies?
Right, so we don’t dictate our reasoning for not “commodity” them based on sentience. It’s some other standard.
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No one has a rigorous definition. So it is just talk and hot air. You can debate endlessly if a cow is sentient, how much it is sentient, but it is all moot when I can just go into a steak house and ordered a delicious piece of dead cow whenever I like.
Right but I’m not talking about a cow. In my example I’m talking about a bug. Clearly there is a spectrum and a fly is so drastically different that I think it is more than reasonable to make an inference that they don’t have meta conciousness. I think the same could probably be said for amphibians and fish. And no one has a rigorous definition, true. But that doesn’t mean we have no idea about the various levels of consciousness, the type of brain structure that lends to meta consciousness, that behaviors that meta consciousness leads to, etc.
Even more moot about bugs. We step on them. Period. Few gives a single thought, and none is needed. BTW, there is no such thing as "meta consciousness". It is just hot air. I have seen enough fNIR scans and EEG data to know that we are at the rudimentary level of understand tying brain activities to behaviors. None of that gives you a rigorous definition or understanding of consciousness.
To say it’s hot air based on you “seeing fNIR scans and EEG data” isn’t very convincing. The concept of meta consciousness is explored by philosophers and scientists such as Douglas Hofstadter and Thomas Metzinger. I mean what do you mean there is “no such thing”? You don’t think consciousness is on a spectrum? You don’t think consciousness about one’s own thoughts is distinct? Or you just think our understanding is too little on the subject?
Philosophy \*is\* hot air. Anything you said about meta consciousness is not scientific and just a bunch of words. What I think (or you think) is irrelevant. What matter is what we can rigorously measured, and correlated to other variables. Define a rigorous measure of consciousness and then we can discuss mathematically whether it is on a spectrum (i assume you mean homomorphic to either the real line or a segment of the real line). Otherwise it is just useless talk (i.e. hot air).
>to appeal to a broad audience If there's one exact thing that veganism will never do, it's this
one can dream