Haz from Infrared Debates Guactopus about Veganism | MOOOOOO™️ | Moralism™️

hello hey what's up am i coming through

all right

sorry am i coming through all right

sometimes discord messes up my mind yeah

do you wanna cam

up oh i prefer not to if that's all

right

yeah yeah that's fine okay cool yeah so

i guess we were just here to like uh

discuss veganism and such so

i guess um we can just start i guess if

you want to tell me perhaps what your

contentions are with veganism

sure so my basic idea is that in a way

vegans are bad people because instead of

accomplishing being more humane toward

animals which i don't think is possible

vegans actually degrade humanity to the

level of animals

okay so when you say vegans are bad

people that's like fine with me i'm not

not really interested in like your

contentions with vegans as individuals

but more so with like veganism

as a movement so would your uh concerns

then be that you think veganism as a

movement is sort of

bringing the value of humanity down to

that of non-human animals

absolutely yes okay well that's

interesting to me because most vegans i

know

actually don't value humans and

non-humans the same so would you mind

perhaps explaining

why you get this impression from

veganism yeah i don't think most vegans

think that animals and humans are

qualitatively

sorry quantitatively in a sense the same

as in

the same on the hierarchy or the

spectrum but in a way they see humans

and animals as

qualitatively the same they think that

basically the only difference between

humans and animals

is um a level of intelligence or a level

of complexity or a level of

uh this or that but ultimately they put

humans and animals

on the same plane of being and that's

really what i find extremely dangerous

okay um i'm probably just going to ask a

lot of questions to clarify just because

i want to make sure i understand what

you're saying

so when you say that we put them on the

same plane of being what does that mean

exactly sure um they don't they refuse

to recognize the exceptionality of human

beings as

qualitatively different beings than

animals in other words that

humans are just not humans are not for

them humans are just animals who are

more intelligent and more this more that

but there's no

qualitative uh difference with animals

only a kind of spectrum

okay i think my my limitation um when it

comes to my understanding of philosophy

might

be becoming an issue here because i'm

not sure what it means to say like

qualitative differences

oh yeah yeah i'll explain that so with a

quantitative difference

um you basically have

the same form but different quantities

of that same form

so for example a quantitative

difference um

can be height right someone is taller

than another person that's a

quantitative difference

right but width when you introduce

width uh width is not just

quantitatively different from height

it's qualitatively an entirely different

thing itself with its own spectrum so

does that make sense

um i think i'm still failing to

understand fully but

maybe i could just give you sort of my

perspective on the idea of the value of

like humans and non-humans

and then that might that might address

your concerns if that's fine

okay all right yeah sure so i don't

actually value like humans and non-human

animals equally i would say

generally value humans more but when it

comes to something like veganism and the

question of like whether we should be

killing these animals for food

um to me it's it now becomes a matter of

you know i don't value a cow as much as

i value a human but i value them both

enough to not kill and eat them right

um and i can probably draw the analogy

between maybe someone who values like

their mom

more than like a random stranger you can

value your mom more than a random

stranger but you can still

value them both enough to not kill and

eat them right

yeah and that's what i was talking about

so to me that would be putting humans

and animals on the same plane of being

you're not

treating them the same way but

ultimately

of course you prefer in the same way

that your mother is a human

right of course you prefer your mother

over other human beings

but we are extending or there is a

pretense to extending humanity to

animals

such that while we might not treat cows

the same way as humans we're also going

to ascribe to them

some degree of so-called sentience or

consciousness

and uh basically put this on the same

spectrum uh

not the same place on that spectrum but

the same spectrum as

beings right well that's probably

because humans and animals

share certain properties right and i

would say that the property of something

like consciousness or sentience would be

that although

like you were kind of alluding to

earlier i would certainly say that

cows probably possess a lower level of

sentience but

the actual property of having sentience

would be something that's shared between

them

um this is where i would have to

disagree i think words like

consciousness

and sentience are extremely poorly

defined

yeah no i would agree those terms can be

um kind of difficult

to fully flesh out but i can do my best

i guess so when i think of sentience to

me i consider what is it like to be that

thing

so if i think to myself what is it like

to be a rock well there's probably

really nothing there but

if i think to myself what is it like to

be a cow then there are certainly like

subjective experiences that are

happening

i i think that's a kind of ironically

it's kind of an anthropocentric way of

looking at animals i don't think you can

actually subjectively relate to animals

they're so

radically that i think the only the only

way you can relate to them is negatively

you can't actually

put yourself in the shoes of a cow and

interpret their feelings or their

experiences

even for animals the animal that is

probably closest to us not in terms of

similarity but in terms of compatibility

which is a dog um obviously chimpanzees

are more similar but dogs are way more

compatible with

our ocean gestures even when it came

comes to a dog

i don't think you can really uh intuit

or interpret

or empath really truly empathize

with a dog i think you can um

have some an idea in your head of what

the feeling or what

you know the experience of the dog is

and oftentimes

or sometimes that can be compatible with

how the dog

responds to that feedback but ultimately

i think

you are dealing with beings so

fundamentally and radically different

um that

no kind of uh empathy is possible

yeah so um i would agree that like

humans and animals are generally like so

different in the sense that we can't

really always fully understand kind of

what's going on with them

but i think to me it's less about being

able to understand

um what they're thinking and what

they're feeling and things like that and

more so just

being able to understand that they are

thinking and feeling to some extent even

if we don't know exactly what it is like

a cow might be thinking something it

might be feeling something

what exactly they're feeling i probably

couldn't tell you although i could infer

from their you know their behaviors and

things like that um so it's less about

saying like oh i think i can

uh properly empathize with a cow or a

dog and more so about saying

even if i couldn't empathize with them

they're still experiencing reality

subjectively

and so it seems reasonable to infer that

they have sentience

i this is where i'd have to disagree i

don't believe that they're experiencing

reality um subjectively and moreover i

don't think it's possible

to understand animal experience at all

uh i don't think i think when we say

words like feeling right i think we tend

to take for granted

how much human baggage is associated

even with a word like that what does it

really mean

to feel what does it really mean to

experience

so on and so on when it comes to animal

i just think they're animals

i just believe there's an unbridgeable

chasm

um just just real quick sorry i'm like

kind of keeping up with your child a

little bit and some people were saying

my mic

suddenly got really loud and so i don't

know if that's like an issue

um or if it's resolved at this point but

uh it's not an issue that i can hear

but i don't know is it multiple people

or

um oh they say it's fine now okay okay

we're probably good

all right um so then do you are you just

like not convinced of

the sentience of other animals then is

that kind of what the series

is okay oh that's interesting

so what would you say it is then about

human or let me think of how to word

this properly

so when i think of like who is sentient

to me i don't see any more reason to

doubt the sentience of a cow than a

human

maybe someone could provide like a

compelling argument i just personally

haven't heard it right

um so then when i hear you say that kind

of what i think is well

what is it about cows and other animals

that causes you to doubt their sentience

especially if you're not doubting it in

the case of humans

sure um when we talk about words like

sentience or consciousness

we're talking about a level of

fundamental awareness

right some kind of um

awareness of something now what is that

something

uh it's not particular objects and

things

and things within our phenomenal vision

for example it's not just grass it's not

just other animals it's just not

other beings when we use the word

awareness or conscious we're speaking

about

um some kind of awareness

of something more fundamental than one

particular object in the world or

and and uh moreover

even the ability to consciously

differentiate objects

and note i'm not saying um treat

uh different objects differently which

animals clearly do

obviously but to consciously

differentiate them

as objects as discrete and intelligible

objects

this presupposes and requires a

fundamental

uh more fundamental

stream of awareness than what

animals are capable of

okay so i think it sounded like you're

you were describing your idea of

sentience there a little bit right

yeah and to give you a better idea um i

think in the history of religion the

awareness of this

thing this fundamental being religious

religion gives description to it in the

form of

divinity of a god right um if you're not

religious

it's not actually necessary to say it's

a god philosophers uh

specifically during the um or sorry uh

the classical philosophers

like plato um would give

a description to this uh

i don't know if it would be loaded to

call it a being they would call it the

good the form of forms right

the good um and then in enlightenment

philosophy they might call it something

like the absolute object

right or cons

absolute object that gives coherence and

structure

to our reality um

so it seems very clear to me that the

difference between humans and animals

is possessing this fundamental

some kind of awareness of something more

fundamental

than our

immediate being yeah sure i would

actually agree that you know of course

generally speaking um non-human animals

have like a less complex form of

cognition than humans

um but to me that just means that

they're probably just

less sentient and to you it sounds like

you're making the claim that they're

just like not

sentient at all um precisely to me it's

not that they're less complex

it's that there's a qualitatively

different

um there's a qualitatively different

characteristic we're talking about human

beings

are aware of something animals cannot be

aware of human beings

are a form of being that is

qualitatively different from animals

okay so it sounds like perhaps we're

operating under different meanings of

the word

sentience right because if we can if i

just take a few steps back

and revisit like what kind of would i

describe sentience as i when i think of

sentience i just mean like

what is it like to be that thing like

like if i was that individual would i be

experiencing the world subjectively

and it seems like you're operating under

a different meaning where it infers some

like sort of higher level of like

self-awareness or something i think

no i think we're talking about the same

thing it's just i'm giving

additional in uh sorry i'm giving an

additional uh

level of interpretation and detail

what it is i think we're talking about

but i understand which what you're uh

proposing

to me um

animals to say that animals have a

subjective experience

implies that the animal is a subject

right in the first place and possesses a

subjective experience and so on and so

on but i don't see how this assumption

can be justified

a subject for example is

the addressee of another whether that

being is another human being or

want to go into psychoanalysis it's some

kind of um

super ego or whatever it is some kind of

way in which we define our identity

our being in relation to another

i don't see how animals can be capable

of doing this

okay so um then you think or or i should

ask you right the phrase has a question

so doesn't sound like i'm like

attributing a position to you that you

don't hold

um so do you think then that like for

any given non-human animal like a dog or

a cow or whatever

um that they're not experiencing reality

subjectively

not subjectively no i would not use the

word selectively

whether they're experiencing reality uh

thank you party chairman

rather they're experiencing reality as

an ex is a very ambiguous

question what does it mean i to to be

clear

i don't think that animals are idle

objects i think there is a difference

between a rock

and uh an animal right but

i would be very clear about pointing out

that animal being is

qualitatively unique an animal's being

is qualitatively

unique being um i recognize

i'm not trying to put humans on a kind

of

divine like level in relation to animals

i think it's very clear we possess

some kind of uh

commonality not fundamental commonality

but some kind of commonality with

animals

um but i just think that we do have a

unique humanity that makes us

not uh the same as animals

i mean yeah i would agree that you know

uh collectively humans have

characteristics that makes them unique

and set them apart from non-humans

um just i'm trying to figure out

i guess how to word my confusion

properly

um so just think for a second um

so if we consider a dog

then um would you agree that like dogs

feel like

or dogs and like suffer and feel pain

like if you kick them they'll be some

like sort of

negative physiological response to that

like they'll they'll be like a pain

response to that

i do believe that there would be a

negative physiological response but i

don't think the experience of pain

is the same as a negative physiological

response

to me pain as far as i understand it

is actually a subjective experience and

interpretation

not um intellectual interpretation

obviously a very visceral one obviously

but it's some kind of uh

interpretation of the physiological

response

that is what's painful what's what's

painful isn't so much the direct

physiological response but the

relationship between that response to

our more fundamental

awareness

um okay so you're saying that the pain

stems from the the relationship between

like what's

causing the pain like the external

factors and

the like the level of awareness that an

individual has

it's it's the experience of the

physiological

response it's not just the physiological

response itself

okay um maybe i can worry my question

better i feel like i probably

was a little bit [ __ ] sorry um

so when we think of like ourselves right

and if someone like stabs us with a

knife there's going to be this idea of

pain there

like we're not we might not be able to

like fully accurately describe it

but like we'll if someone stabs me or

someone stops you

there will be something that we call

pain so would you like if someone

stabbed a dog would you think that

there's like that same type of pain that

goes on in the dog

yeah let me clarify why i don't think it

would be the same so when a human being

gets stabbed there is a very clear

and obvious disruption and distress

at a physiological level and we

experience that

distress and we call that experience

pain but we are not one and the same

with that distress if that makes sense

like

it's not just that we're mechanically

responding

to distress we the pain comes from the

fact

that the dis distress is disrupting

uh some kind of uh

prior state of subjective harmony

this also is why pain is extremely

subjective

people can develop pain tolerances and

pain varies across different individuals

um for reasons that couldn't possibly

just be physiological difference

now whereas a dog whereas if one were to

stab a dog

obviously that's an extremely deranged

thing to do

and test to some kind of uh

psychological

problem on part of the person because

the reason they're stabbing a dog is

because

think of inflicting a non-humans

it reminds them of that but

the truth is is that i don't believe the

dog actually experiences pain

i think the dog exhibits a response to

the pain

but does not sorry exhibits a response

to the

uh distress

created by the uh the knife

but that's not the same as pain okay so

it seems like you're maybe

arguing that like if i were to stab a

dog for instance the response we would

see to that would more so

just be like um just a response to like

the external stimuli

and that we can't necessarily and for

pain from that like maybe if um

like if i had a solar powered calculator

and i brought it out into the lights and

it like

turned on that it would just be

responding to like the the

environment around it i i don't take a

mechanical view but

i don't think it would be enough to

infer pain i do agree that it wouldn't

be enough to infer

pain but i'm also not willing to take a

mechanical view that it's like

it's just like a robot which basically

input and output

uh it's probably somewhere in between

but it's not enough to be pain

um so yeah

so um you know one of the ways i know

people might have trouble understanding

this

pain is uh a feeling

we experience

sometimes without any clear

physiological

input we experience pain at very

abstract

and incorporeal um

things we experience pain maybe because

we read a text message

someone broke your heart you experience

pain

when someone betrayed you uh you

experience pain

when uh most of all

and this is something that is very clear

to me that animals aren't capable of

doing

you experience pain simply by virtue of

a kind of existential anxiety experience

pain that

you feel your life is purposeless so

nothing there's not you're not even

receiving any new stimuli by your

external environment you are just in

pain

by virtue of some kind of deeper

existential position

um is it okay if i like i want to ask

you some questions just to flesh out or

understand your position more and i want

to make it clear i'm not trying to like

redux you okay cool so um

so if you kind of take this view on like

the experience of like dogs and like

their ability to feel pain or perhaps

lack thereof then

um would you take an issue well i'm

assuming you would like take an issue if

someone just wanted to like gather up a

bunch of dogs and just like treat them

horribly like beat them or whatever

right

no yeah obviously i would yeah yeah

um so then i'm wondering like um what

exactly in your mind under your view

would characterize that action as being

wrong if you sort of take this idea that

that we can't reasonably infer like pain

or like sentience from dogs

i think the intention itself would have

to be incriminated

so why it is that someone would want to

do such a thing

clearly attest to some kind of

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sickness or whatever and that's very

clear to me

um why else would they want to do such a

thing

but another thing too is that even

exhibiting

reckless disrespect or other

life forms and other beings to me

uh implies a kind of

um lack of awareness of the fact that

this is an entirely different

being um so to me it's not just that i

think

animals are the same as robots and if

you want to get off on torturing them or

[ __ ] with them go ahead and do it and

i wouldn't find that disturbing

it's more so the fact that this is an

entirely different being which we will

never be able to understand

um and that torturing them and whatever

just for fun

exhibits a kind of uh fundamental

disrespect

for not only these other

beings but our own humanity because

after all

the line is not as thick

i mean there's a qualitative difference

but

we are not gods you know we come from

somewhere

as human beings so there's all sorts of

reasons why i think it can be justified

that people would be disturbed

at torturing animals without having a

problem with eating animals

it's the same reason uh sorry just one

last thing

it's the same reason why animals will

eat other animals but obviously you will

not

find animals torturing other animals

as a kind of display of uh hubris

um or sadism so

that's really my position okay yeah so

it sounds like when we're talking about

someone who just like

wants to like torture a bunch of dogs

for whatever reason reasons like the

thing that

it sounds like concerns you is the sort

of sick mindset behind this like the

like what would drive a person to do

that

um is that is that like a like i guess

um the sort of

malice behind the actions i guess would

that be like a fair way of

viewing your position it's both uh the

malice as well as

what that malice attests to

in the act in the practice itself which

i think

is a fundamentally false

uh false

perspective i guess i would call it a

false stance

a human being would have toward nature i

think it exhibits a level of hubris

that i think very easily

uh very easily amounts to

a lack of humanity toward other human

beings as well

okay um so like i'm trying to think of

maybe a situation in which we could

potentially account for this like if we

had someone who was just

i guess they were just going around

kicking dogs and let's say they weren't

really like thinking about it like you

know maybe sometimes you like kick a

leaf

on the sidewalk or something um let's

just say that they were just sort of

like mindlessly kicking dogs as they

walked or whatever and there wasn't any

sort of thought process of like oh i

want to inflict harm on these dogs

inflicting harm on others

makes me happy um would you would you

feel like you would take an issue with

that or would that maybe be

permissible because we've sort of

accounted for the like i guess

malicious mindset behind it you're

saying someone is like

kicking dogs why oh

sorry if you can hear the traffic noise

i don't know my mic is picking it up

um like they're just kind of like

mindlessly doing it like they're not

really

thinking about it too much like like you

know how sometimes you like kick a leaf

or a rock on the sidewalk or whatever

um let's just say there were like dogs

on the street and they were just sort of

mindlessly doing it

um like would you feel like you would

take an issue with that

i think instinctual is a loaded word

so i just want to use the common sense

meaning of that

here i think instinctually right from a

common sense perspective we don't really

treat

dogs or animals the same way as rocks so

i think if someone were to be doing it

that they would be lacking a level of

fundamental awareness

that is extreme they would that is very

abnormal for a human being

if a person was just kicking dogs the

same way they would kick

a rock just mindlessly or whatever um

going around doing that they probably

lack a level of

awareness awareness that's attest to an

even deeper

efficiency you know um

now if someone doesn't do that serially

in the same way as rocks but let's say

you know someone a farmer gets annoyed

at a dog and kicks the dog

so the dog leaves him alone or something

which is something that happens

by the way very often in developing

countries i don't really

i wouldn't make anything of it like it

is what it is i mean

they might even kick a person if they're

annoying them you know so

okay um so then your issue with with

that like that the hypothetical of like

someone just sort of like mindlessly

kicking dogs no male intent behind it

um it sounds like your concern wouldn't

be with the dogs

i think i'm not trying to like straw

manny i'm just trying to make sure i

understand

sounds like your concern would be less

with the dogs and more so like with

whatever mental faculties or lack

thereof

um are present in the person that would

prompt them to do that

i i don't i don't like drawing such a

strict division between those two things

because i think

that the mental the state of the

person's mental faculties

um and their relation to the dog

um are inter entwined you know

those things are like i grant the dog is

another being right so for someone to

treat

another being this way um

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obviously attest to some kind of issue

with their mental

facilities but i reject this view and

this

stance toward nature and toward animals

so i don't want to draw a hard

distinction but i think

if this is what you're asking to be very

clear

to me a dog cannot have

what we would call rights a dog to me

could not have

rights it doesn't mean

people in practice will see fit to

be sadistic toward dogs but for no

reason

but um to me a dog

itself i cannot understand a dog but

one of the things that i find important

to point out is that it's precisely our

distance toward dogs and our

inability to understand them that i

think can be a source of respect

we should derive our respect for animals

not because of what we can know about

them but because of what we could never

possibly know about them

[Music]

one of the things i take issue with when

it comes to vegans is that

they overly familiarize the animal world

but

i think there's a division there that

cannot be bridged

but it's also a division that should

inspire

a level of respect

okay so i guess i'm still

trying to figure out or i guess i'm

still trying to understand

like what exactly your issue would be in

the case of like kicking the dogs

mindlessly because i

i i get that it has to do with like um

what would i i guess drive a person to

do that but i think beyond that i'm

getting a little bit lost so

maybe yeah i just i would be disturbed

by it because i would reject

that behavior

i would consider that behavior um

something inhuman let's consider it

inhuman behavior but i would not

put myself in the shoes of the dog i

don't think i could do that

okay so um there are a couple of things

that that were interesting there

so you say you would reject the behavior

because it's inhuman and when you say

inhuman are you just meaning to say

that it like deviates from like how

humans generally act

both how gender humans generally act and

what i believe

um what i believe

our humanity means at a more fundamental

level and what our humanity means to me

at a more fundamental level

is a level of awareness for

the kind of abyss of others the fact

that

we cannot actually others at a certain

level

okay i think i'd like to return to that

point but i'm also

interested um because you said that you

wouldn't put yourself in the place of

the dog

i mean i was kind of wondering why that

is because i i don't believe it could

ever be possible for me to relate to a

dog

oh okay okay so it doesn't have like any

anything to do with like a concern with

how like the dog

like any sort of pain response that the

dog would have um

no no um if i started to

put myself in the shoes of animals i

would have a lot to account for

because animals are just different they

behave

in ways that that don't make sense to

human beings

okay so then so then i guess just to

reiterate if someone said well would you

put yourself in the position of that dog

you would say no if they say why um you

would just say because

you just don't understand dogs and that

would be why

you like can't empathize with them yeah

dogs are fundamentally different

creatures and

there's no way for me to relate to them

okay um i took note of something

oh no where did my thing go here it is

um so when we were talking about the

other point and you were saying like

it's inhuman to behave this way towards

dogs um he said

that what you meant by that is that it

deviates from how humans generally act

and also what our humanity means at a

fundamental level

so when so what does it mean when you

say that like what

what does it mean to deviate from what

humanity means at a fundamental level

sure um it's a complex question

um to deviate from that

would be to act in such a way

that betrays um

what human beings are fundamentally

uh and to me what humans are

fundamentally um

cannot really be neatly defined

so much as it is something that we

participate in

i can give you the reasons why i think

it would it would deviate from

what it means to be human but the

precise content of what it

means to be human i think is a specific

dialectic that by the way the word

dialectic if i have to explain that i

can explain

it's a specific dialectic between uh

being and the way

in which being

discloses itself to us opens itself

up to our experience

okay so um it sounds like you kind of

have this

maybe this idea of like humans and how

they like sort of intrinsically act

and um like the things that they tend to

value

and things like that um and so like

someone who decides to just go around

mindlessly kicking dogs is

behaving in a way that goes against that

perhaps

yeah but i also want to point out i'm

not trying to isolate specific values

and say these values

are for their own reasons fundamentally

human i think that

we can explain the actual values we have

across cultures in terms of our

humanity and how they relate to our

humanity has to go

it has to be determinate so i'm not

trying to prescribe

like this is what human means and i

impose this upon every particular

human being in the world i think

we can discern the form the fundamental

form of humanity

through the particular differences

that manifest themselves between

different human cultures and

civilizations

okay so then i guess when we're looking

at like

how you might consider um how we should

treat other animals

um it sounds like you believe we should

treat them in a way that is in alignment

with how

like humanity fundamentally is um

well it's tough to say that because that

would imply that

we're not already doing that like we

have not already been doing that

oh no i i mean um i think you can both

hold the position

that like we currently are treating

animals in alignment with how

humanity fundamentally acts and also

that if we weren't doing that

then it would be bad right um

i suppose but i i want to be clear that

when i say

we should not treat animals in a way

that fundamentally

does not align with our humanity

the content of what our humanity is is

determinant and not

prescribed um prescriptively

uh from the top down universally

sure so like you so you have like this

idea of like there's there's

like certain descriptive claims we can

make about i guess the fundamental

nature of humanity

and that if we were to act in ways that

were outside of that um towards like

other animals

then it seems like that's sort of where

you would have an issue with people's

behavior

um as as it pertains to poetry i'd be

better comfortable saying

where people act in ways that

differ from our fundamental humanity not

only am i saying we should

condemn this but that we do condemn this

um i think that i think sorry i think

i'm a little bit confused with that

did you could you maybe uh explain it

i'm getting lost sorry

i'm not um creating like a moral

precept that i'm trying to apply

to universally i'm saying uh for example

i'll make it more a little bit more

clear each culture has a specific

cultural and traditional relationship to

animals

how they relate to animals

um when people

um deviate from that

so fundamentally people find this

disturbing

okay so it's not it's not that so each

culture has a specific way of relating

to the animal world

no culture sees animals the same way

they see

um rocks but um

so it's almost like there's a finite way

in which different cultures relate to

animals and when people

fundamentally deviate from that when

people

transgress the line each culture

establishes between ourselves and

animals

that kind of chasm i mean it's we tend

to experience this as something

disturbing

is disturbing

okay so it sounds like you're also when

you said like it depends on like where

this is happening

i guess it sounds like you're you're

giving consideration to like the

different cultural practices of people

um okay yeah that makes sense um

so then oops so then if we had um like

there are cultures that

engage in like all uh practices that you

and i would probably agree are horrific

um and i'm sure that this extends to

their treatment of like other animals as

well like there are some cultures who

have

um practices where i think they take

like a goose and they

feed it or they they just give the goose

like a ton of alcohol and then they take

it by the neck and swing it around and

stuff like that it's like a marriage

ceremony

um but like to those people that would

be like a totally normal cultural

practice so would that be something that

you'd be fine with absolutely yes

i think to me this is uh

definitely really human it's not some

kind of arbitrary

sadistic act it's a determinate

um tradition that

has the weight of the humanity of all of

those people

meaning of their humanity behind it so i

have

no problem with this kind of uh cultural

practice of

banging the goose around but i would

also predict

that probably it would

become less popular

it would probably because be something

that becomes less popular but

i have no issue with it i don't have any

issue with it

okay and um if there was like um a

culture then where perhaps their

marriage ceremony involved like taking a

dog and skinning the dog alive

um would that also be something that

you're fine with or would you maybe

absolutely have other considerations no

no i would be fine okay absolutely

okay so it sounds like um

like your idea of like what it means to

act in alignment with like fundamental

humanity gives a lot of consideration to

cultural practices of people and like if

these cultural practices

um express some sort of like fundamental

nature of humans

um then then it seems like you're fine

with it of course

so for the example you just gave like

the skinning the dog right

now if this is a true cultural practice

it's a real tradition that they're doing

first of all it's a very old one it's

one that has

passed not only the test of time but in

a sense

the test of being it has a kind of

metaphysical depth

that requires a lot of care

and a lot of uh

thought to truly understand there is a

level of metaphysical wealth now is that

the same as like some guy randomly

skinning a dog for no reason because

they want to inflict pain on it and it's

funny

no if it's a cultural practice then this

has a meaning for this culture

that somehow fits within their wider

expression of uh humanity

okay and um i'm assuming that like if we

think of cultural practices that

tend to like victimize humans as opposed

to non-humans

um presumably you i i assume you have

like different standards for humans and

non-humans that would

you know warrant condemning it in the

case of like i don't know female genital

mutilation or something like that

um or or would you actually be fine with

it in the case of humans as well

well uh let me be very careful here

just because it's really easy to

misinterpret

so would i be fine with it um

if you mean would it disturb me greatly

yes it would disturb me a lot but

would i call for

america to invade this culture and teach

them the correct way

no i am the way so i'm a humanist right

but i'm not a humanist

from the perspective of european

universalism

my form of humanism is confident that

through the particular development of

this culture itself

that the inhuman

manner by which human beings are treated

and let's be clear

obviously human beings have been

human humanity i mean if you want to

look at it in a marxist way

there is a fundamental alienation

between our ourselves and our humanity

that spans

thousands and thousands and thousands of

years but i'm confident that

humanity will prevail i'm confident that

through

the determinant development of this

culture itself

internally that such practices would be

eliminated

yeah okay i think i get you like there

can sometimes be a distinction between

like

what we personally feel at first yeah

and like what we actually find immoral

and to to um to elaborate

i do no to be clear i do find it immoral

oh okay i don't think there's a

universal morality with which to impose

i find it immoral for me as almost a

prediction it's a prediction that

eventually

they will awaken to the reality of its

immorality but to be clear

when we're dealing with human beings

whether you want to talk about

certain uh horrible things like what you

mentioned or slavery which is probably

the best example

and the one that for me is the easiest

to talk about

because it is the like the history of

humanity

when we encounter different alters

that's what happens slavery right

so in the case of slavery

and this is true for all forms of

slavery in the history

of mankind especially the ones that

preceded the transatlantic slave trade

qualitatively different one upon a group

or a population being enslaved some kind

of

historical dialectic um

is initiated that is double-sided

so it's not just that empathetic and

compassionate people say ah we should

not be treating these people this way

it's that the people who are the victim

of the slavery

they um are engaged in a dialectic

with the people enslaving them they

um resist not directly but

in a sense they resist this they

initiate

uh a change in the meaning of general

humanity

and so there's an actual active

development that the slaves themselves

participate in

that leads to a new outcome with animals

this isn't the case

we have been treating animals the same

way

for forever almost right if we define

treating

animals the same as like being cruel and

not human not treating them as humans i

mean

and eating them and whatever animals

have never initiated

a dialectic genuine dialectic a real

response

to this they have never endangered very

historical

uh change at this point i think

sorry i mean interrupt at this point i

think it might be beneficial for you to

explain to me what dialectic means in

this context

excellent so dialectic is referring to

um opposites so

the idea of dialectic is that

um one perspective

right is finite and limited

and by opening one to the perspective of

another

namely one that is opposite to you you

can arrive at a

deeper insight a more holistic general

deeper insight so for example the

platonic

dialogue and greek philosophy plato

is creating characters and he sets these

characters up

he arguing with each other right so one

guy says one thing and the other guy

says another thing

and in this way a conversation is

initiated

that allows plato to arrive at a deeper

truth so instead of just having one

perspective

there's another perspective so beyond

the dialogue

dialogical form of dialectic like

through dialogue

in history the idea of dialectics is

that

forms cultures societies states

possess a relationship with their

opposite their real

opposites they're real material premises

right

which relate to them in the form of

opposites

and so there's this kind of tit for tat

and back and forth

between the two that leads to

some kind of new uh outcome

so in the case of uh the slave example

it's the relationship between master and

slave

that is not just a one-sided

relationship but it's

two so the slave has an input and the

master also has an input it's not just

that the master is the only one

who defines the relationship so this is

what the dialectic means

okay and you're saying that animals

can't have that sort of input

yeah they do not participate in a

historical dialectic with human beings

that

changes history leads to new cultures

societies and civilizations

okay so it sounds like maybe the the

point to take away from here is like in

the case of like master and slave like

the slaves have this potential to

actually i guess

make some sort of like tangible impact

on history with respect to like cultures

and society whereas

that's not the case with animals then

yeah precisely

okay

i'm just trying to i'm just trying to

think of how to like properly form my

my questions sometimes i struggle with

that um

so i'm assuming that like if there were

some sort of like um

well i get well okay if there is like

some way like uh

like how am i worth this i'm so sorry

i'm struggling

so there there certainly exists humans

that can't

like create societies and cultures like

there exists humans that are

that have like um the level of like

cognition or capacity or intelligence

whatever

of the animals whom we farm um but i'm

assuming that like if if it were a case

where we were just like mass enslaving

these humans that

that couldn't fight back um any more

than animals could and didn't have the

potential to

um change society and culture

any more than animals could i mean i'm

assuming that that you would still

extend moral consideration to them

and say that we still shouldn't enslave

them um

yeah i just take issue with the premise

so to me okay

i am a kind of eastern humanist to me

human being is not defined by the

individual

unit human being is defined by

collectively human being is this defined

by the culture the society the tradition

there is no society there is no culture

and there is uh civilization

whether it's a small tribe of

hunter-gatherers or it's

uh aztecs or it's some kind of

um civilization we have now

there is no civilization

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in which human beings are incapable of

history

every given humans every real human

being belongs to

some kind of society now they may leave

that society and go live in the woods

but ultimately this is the nature of

human beings there's no

even in the amazon where people are

living in the jungle

they have a real uh real

um historical being

they have a level of uh they are just as

so-called complex as us it's just that

they manifest that complexity in

different ways

so to me there is no human society that

is uh

at the level of animals and now there

are individual human beings

that can be born with a defect that

prevent them from

interacting participating

the full extent of most human beings

but they belong to the human society

they come

from a human being they're born of a

mother they come from

a family and we as human beings

do not treat them the same as animals

because

we recognize the contingency that

the difference between us being born in

that way

and them being born sorry in that way in

the way we were born more privileged

is a contingent difference that is

completely unknown to us

so we cannot uh treat them as human

beings

even though they are unable to manifest

the full extent

of humanity and besides no one human

being

can manifest the full extent of its

humanity human beings are collective and

social

we have different skills and abilities

and traits but it's

the unity and relationships between us

that define our humanity okay so it

sounds like maybe then you're not just

giving consideration to like the

capacity or

shouldn't say capacity like the

capabilities of like the specific

individuals but also like whether they

come from a species that possesses

these capabilities as well no no because

if you just judge it based on

capabilities one it's a kind of

individualistic human right you measure

them in

individuality too it's kind of like this

arbitrary

utilitarian view of beings and human

beings like

oh what can it what can they

do oh sorry just just to clarify when i

say capabilities i'm talking like

i'm talking about like the capability to

have the impact on history that you were

referring to earlier in terms of like

changing society and culture

and things like that it's not so much

that i want to define

abilities and capabilities as much as i

want to say

what actual relation do they possess

to our humanity um

defining that in terms of an ability

is too difficult um of course if they

are capable of participating in history

so on and so on this is an indication of

what their fundamental relationship to

humanity is

but uh it's not simply a matter of

ability

okay so maybe it's less about them

belonging to a species

that possesses the sort of traits that

you value more so just what their

relationship to that species is so like

the

humans in question that i like proposed

earlier who were like mentally

um we had like the cognition level and

such of a cow

and we were like well what if these were

the slaves instead of um like the humans

who were

slaves and you said well you still take

issue with that it sounds like the

reason you would take issue with that

would be

because of the relationship they have to

like humanity generally

maybe but kind of it's kind of a new

question so basically what you're asking

is like let's say we took all of the

disabled people

of our society and just enslave them

basically um yeah i guess that's one

this is one way of looking at it i'm

just trying to

sorry i want to clarify i know this is

kind of like a like a no no i understand

it's a hypothetical

so yeah yeah the problem i would have

with that is that

these disabled people come from a family

you know the way in which human beings

are born is not that they're born

and then it's up to some kind of

abstractly derived

universally applicable moral system how

they're treated human beings are

born in families they're born in a

determinate

way their sociality is determinate so

i don't see how a society could just uh

enslave all disabled people um

it doesn't seem possible to me like all

disabled people

would be uh enslaved moreover and here's

the funny thing

i don't think they could be enslaved

maybe a better example would be

eaten right would they be eaten all of

them eaten

would that be a better example because

to be enslaved

you have to only you know emmanuel kant

the philosopher said

actually ironically a human being is the

only

animal that requires a master

so only human beings can be enslaved

a cow can be contained

and eaten but ultimately cannot be

enslaved

okay so so then if we like kind of uh go

back to the hypothetical and why you

would take issue with like

enslaving mentally disabled people um it

sounded like the

the main reason would be that their

relationship socially to humanity

is is sort of already determined um by

virtue of the fact that they are like

born from humans into a human society

and that they are humans more or less

but it's also that they couldn't be

enslaved

if they lacked what it means to be

fundamentally human at an individual

level

uh they could be eaten maybe that would

be a better example

um because it would be possible but it

wouldn't be enslaved

okay maybe maybe better to go with the

eating hypothetical then like if we were

yeah that would also be better too yeah

i've never heard of a society in which

uh all

uh so-called disabled people are

eaten i don't even know how you would

measure that like

because again societies don't treat

every single individual

as an individual you treat someone as a

human being and just

assume a lot um

like no society just goes door to door

asking like okay

is there a turing test we can take and

see if you're human that's just not how

it works

um so i would

of course we know there are societies

that have engaged in things like human

sacrifice and so on and so on

but these are endowed with meaning they

have some kind of meaning for this

society

which is very complicated complex so a

society that

is eating disabled people would be

very bizarre to me i don't know how they

would measure that i'd be interested in

knowing how they would be able to be

to measure that and the second thing is

um

[Music]

i would okay at the level of my eastern

humanism right

i would say that this is uh

well and i'm vindicated by actual

cultures and societies so

in most cultures and societies the

reason why

this is such a disturbing thing to do is

again

this people you are eating right uh

are coming from us they are have a

mother

the the difference between

us being born this way and them being

born this way is purely contingent

uh

they are us in a way it's just that

there's some contingent reason they were

not able to

fully uh become what they in a sense are

they were not able to fully realize what

is very clearly

um what they clearly

had maybe the potential to be like they

have the structure of a man they have

the form

of a man or a human sorry uh

which basically means um

only a small contingent difference

separates us from them

okay so then i i mean initially i was

going to ask you like if

if like all of these people sort of just

um

popped into existence and weren't

necessarily born from everyone if that

would change your view at all

but it sounds like you're also kind of

giving consideration to things like

well they look like a person as well so

that so they have like

they possess certain abilities of of

humans as well

um of course uh

i mean this

so so these people would just pop into

existence

not belonging to any society right pop

into existence

and well so they would be um they would

be kind of like the humans that we were

already talking about like the humans

who are cognitively impaired

um and you know previously we're saying

that they were born from other humans

and so now i'm wondering like

if we took these same humans but the

only difference we made is that perhaps

they just like

popped into existence for whatever

reason but in all other respects

they're the same whether that would

change your view at all

uh it would but i also think this would

have profound

consequences for any civilization i mean

you're talking about

i think a new religion would emerge

around this i think new cults new

cults not in the modern sense ancient

sense

new um view of metaphysics

some kind of fundamentally new way of

relating to being

would emerge as a result like how would

people make sense of this is probably a

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