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Are EA billionaire philanthropists actually effective in their 'altruism'? (spoilers: no) (bobjacobs.substack.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/sneerclub@awful.systems
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[–] -3 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

As I understand his argument, it goes

  1. If you can suffer, you have moral value
  2. We have an obligation to not cause suffering to beings with moral value
  3. Some animals can suffer, therefore they have moral value, and we have an obligation to not cause suffering to them

You can then of course ask whether yeast can suffer, which we don't have any evidence of, but you're welcome to stop eating yeast if you feel morally obliged to anyway. Lack of evidence doesn't mean we know they don't suffer. But for the animals where we have convincing evidence that they experience suffering, such as most intelligent mammals, we all have a clear moral obligation to stop causing them harm.

Counting cells doesn't really enter the argument. Evidence of suffering does, which is not just about sentiment.

The inability to draw a perfect distinction between beings that can suffer and those who cannot doesn't stop us from identifying cases clearly on either side of that line.

What Singer eats doesn't really matter for the argument.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    You now have to argue that oxidative stress isn't suffering. Biology does not allow for humans to divide the world into the regions where suffering can be experienced and regions where it is absent. (The other branch contradicts the lived experience of anybody who has actually raised a sourdough starter; it is a living thing which requires food, water, and other care to remain homeostatic, and which changes in flavor due to environmental stress.)

    Worse, your framing fails to meet one of the oldest objections to Singer's position, one which I still consider a knockout: you aren't going to convince the cats to stop eating intelligent mammals, and evidence suggests that cats suffer when force-fed a vegan diet.

    When you come to Debate Club, make sure that your arguments are actually well-lubed and won't squeak when you swing them. You've tried to clumsily replay Singer's arguments without understanding their issues and how rhetoric has evolved since then. I would suggest watching some old George Carlin reruns; the man was a powerhouse of rhetoric.

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