[davekinkead]

Rights are the correlative of duties and obligations. If people have a duty not to X, then who ever that duty is owed to now has a right to X.

As a being capable of moral reflection, I think I have a duty not to inflict, or support the infliction upon, other beings capable of feeling pain and suffering. Thus, other beings have a right not to be inflicted with pain and suffering, from me at least.

[tantalor]

> pain and suffering

As far as you know.

[colanderman]

Ignorance is a poor excuse for moral blindness.

If I am about to demolish a house, it is my moral duty to ensure that the house contains no occupants. It is not sufficient to claim "as far as I know the house is empty, therefore I needn't check".

Similarly, if you make any moral claim predicated on the assumption that animals do not experience pain (or experience it to a lesser degree than humans), the burden is on you to demonstrate as much.

If you do not take religion or the supernatural as an axiom, you face a very difficult proof due to the physiological and evolutionary similarities between humans and other animals.

[icebraining]

How does that work if we could (can?) not prove that plants and the other sources of food can feel pain? Does eating at all become immoral?

[rwmj]

No, just as it's not immoral to eat animals. It's about how you treat animals.

Anyway, you're going to have a problem proving that plants feel pain since they lack all of the elements that cause the experience of pain in animals, such as nerves and brains.

[icebraining]

Anyway, you're going to have a problem proving that plants feel pain

colanderman was that you had to prove they don't before eating them, so I pointed out that until recently, we didn't even know of such elements.

[colanderman]

Read my comment more carefully. I didn't make that claim.

I claimed that if you make a distinction in your morality between animals and plants based on their ability to feel pain, you have that duty. (Note that this is a claim about the consistency of a morality, not about one particular moral system.)

If on the other hand your morality does predicate your moral right to eat something based on its ability to feel pain (as our ancestors did), then there is no such duty.

(Of course there is also a grey area between these -- a morality based on a creature's ability to express an experience of pain is more broadly accessible.)

[colanderman]

Only if your moral system bases the morality of eating a being on its ability to feel pain. If it doesn't, then you can eat whatever you want.

(i.e. My comment is a critique of the consistency of the moral system the GP set up; it is not an absolute moral judgement.)

[furyg3]

Yes?

Instead of defending our current habits with theoreticals, shouldn't we determine our actions based on the information we have available to us, with respect to the alternatives?

[icebraining]

Well, I usually draw a line at suicide over plants.

[furyg3]

I know your joking, but the premise of your original comment was that morality is black and white. If this is true for you, then yes, you'd have to voluntarily stop eating. :)

Personally, I take the position that everything I do probably has a negative impact somewhere. Taking the car, bus, train, or staying at home all have consequences for the environment. While I don't lock myself in my apartment, I do regularly review my lifestyle choices and see if they align with my values.

The same is true of the food I eat, both from an environmental point of view as well as how much suffering is involved.

[hype7]

ok sunshine. how about this. watch this video: http://www.peta.org/tv/videos/celebrities-skins/119802007000...

and tell me that it's "as far as you know" then.

WARNING: graphic. extremely graphic. i honestly don't understand how anyone could treat another living creature like that.

[tantalor]

Sorry, you missed my point...

Clearly some forms of pain and suffering are easily observed!

But what about the pain and suffering you can't observe? Insects? Plants? Microbes?

My point is, by placing the moral threshold at "observable pain and suffering", you are taking the easy way out.

[a_bonobo]

Depends on your definition of "suffering" -

if it's

>Physical suffering or discomfort caused by illness or injury

it has to be communicated to you, which in the case of animals is quite hard.

On the other hand, if you define "suffering" as

>an unpleasant situation causing signs of distress that is avoided by the sufferer,

then you can make better predictions, because "avoidance" or "distress" are easier to measure.