Would it be morally acceptable to eat an alien?

[andysays]

There's lots of empirical evidence that suggests that animals have moral capacities, that article was just the first thing I found on google. The 'anthropomorphism' argument is a red herring, designed to reinforce a superficial divide between humans and non-human animals. Humans are animals, we share the oxytocin that forms the basis for empathy with other mammals for example. To quote from a couple of scientists who have researched animal behaviour:

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/morality_animals

Just to clarify, I don't think that advanced moral capacities are a necessary pre-condition for moral status, I merely draw attention to these recent scientific discoveries because they suggest that the arguments advanced by those that defend the killing and exploitation of non-human animals on the basis they lack moral capacity are highly suspect, to put it mildly.

And again, you link to stuff which I find totally unconvincing, based on anthropomorphic interpretations of animal behaviours, and happy-clappy stuff about "our animal brethren".

I also note that you've made no attempt to outline what your own position is or what it's based on. You haven't even answered cesare's simple question about your eating habits.

I've got no problem with you or anyone else disagreeing with me, I'm not seeking to convince you that I'm objectively correct, I'm certainly not suggesting that you should rush out and find an animal, alien or otherwise, to eat.

I hope you'll forgive me if I decline to spend anymore time in this pointless discussion.

 

[xenon]

Depends. Are they an apex hunter? If they predate on other animals, I might try one of the ones they go for. After all the tests and recipes have been worked out obviously.

 

[xenon]

The reason I say apex hunter is not because I'm agin eating a lion for example. But unless they're obviously a technological species, how will I know they're not on an equivalent sentient level to humans.

 

[Casually Red]

we could be eating little tiny ones all the time and not know it

 

[Orang Utan]

how can people possibly describe with such certainty the properties or attitudes of alien beings?

No one is. We are imagining for hypothetical situations

 

[articul8]

well, it's hypothetically possible that aliens are entirely digestible and positively want to be eaten

 

[8ball]

well, it's hypothetically possible that aliens are entirely digestible and positively want to be eaten

Like intelligent fruit.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

There's a reason that most of the animals which humans prefer to eat are herbivores or at a stretch omnivores .

Possibly humans developed the habit/tradition of eating herbivores because they're plentiful, and they don't fight back so much. I've eaten bear meat, and found it preferable to moose.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Like intelligent fruit.

Maybe aliens are already amongst us, but we perceive them as pineapples.

 

[Orang Utan]

well, it's hypothetically possible that aliens are entirely digestible and positively want to be eaten

Not in this hypothesis

 

[DotCommunist]

well then its as fruitless as one of them binary choice 'would you fuck your mum if someone was threatening to torture your whole family to death' type hypothesis

 

[Dillinger4]

Is it organic?

 

[andysays]

Is it organic?

Good question - an alien species might be silicon based, or something

 

[Orang Utan]

well then its as fruitless as one of them binary choice 'would you fuck your mum if someone was threatening to torture your whole family to death' type hypothesis

They're the best ones though

 

[8ball]

Good question - an alien species might be silicon based, or something

I think we're pretty much assuming total biological compatibility in terms of it being a foodstuff.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Good question - an alien species might be silicon based, or something

Might be bacon-based.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

And again, you link to stuff which I find totally unconvincing, based on anthropomorphic interpretations of animal behaviours, and happy-clappy stuff about "our animal brethren".

I also note that you've made no attempt to outline what your own position is or what it's based on. You haven't even answered cesare's simple question about your eating habits.

I've got no problem with you or anyone else disagreeing with me, I'm not seeking to convince you that I'm objectively correct, I'm certainly not suggesting that you should rush out and find an animal, alien or otherwise, to eat.

I hope you'll forgive me if I decline to spend anymore time in this pointless discussion.

So I post a link to an article summarising the conclusions of two recent respected scientific scholarly works suggesting that at least certain non-human animals are capable of acting morally and you dismiss it out of hand on the basis that you think one phrase used in the article is 'happy-clappy'. I'm afraid I don't believe your earlier statement that you would be happy to be proved wrong on this point. What you're doing here is setting up a non-falsifiable position whereby you justify killing and exploiting animals on the basis that they can't morally reason and then dismiss any evidence of animals demonstrating moral reasoning out of hand as 'anthropomorphism'.* I mean, do you honestly think that moral reasoning is something like an iPod: something you either have or don't have? You honestly don't think its likely that other mammals that share features of the underlying neural systems that we require for moral reasoning have any capacity to do so? At any rate, are you really sufficiently sure enough that moral reasoning is something so completely unique to human beings (let alone whether it's something that all humans possess) that it justifies killing and exploiting other species?

I did explain my position on the other recent thread, and just like on this thread you dismissed it out of hand without explaining why. To restate, my position is very simple: I'm against killing, using an economic resource, or otherwise harming, sentient beings that have some sort of subjective awareness and capacity to feel pleasure and pain when it is not necessary to do so. It is for that reason that I am a vegan, to answer Cesare's question.

* I notice that there's a lot of 'anthropomorphism' double talk in these debates - when it comes to talking about 'happy meat', 'animal welfare', 'free-range', 'humane treatment' and so forth, the defenders of meat eating are okay to impute certain human assumptions onto animals, but when it comes to certain features about animals that makes it hard(er) to justify meat eating they are dismissed as the products of a fervent anthropomorphic imagination!

 

[cesare]

Thanks for the reply

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Thanks for the reply

You're welcome, I must have missed your earlier post.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

So I post a link to an article summarising the conclusions of two recent respected scientific scholarly works suggesting that at least certain non-human animals are capable of acting morally and you dismiss it out of hand on the basis that you think one phrase used in the article is 'happy-clappy'. I'm afraid I don't believe your earlier statement that you would be happy to be proved wrong on this point. What you're doing here is setting up a non-falsifiable position whereby you justify killing and exploiting animals on the basis that they can't morally reason and then dismiss any evidence of animals demonstrating moral reasoning out of hand as 'anthropomorphism'.* I mean, do you honestly think that moral reasoning is something like an iPod: something you either have or don't have? You honestly don't think its likely that other mammals that share features of the underlying neural systems that we require for moral reasoning have any capacity to do so? At any rate, are you really sufficiently sure enough that moral reasoning is something so completely unique to human beings (let alone whether it's something that all humans possess) that it justifies killing and exploiting other species?

I did explain my position on the other recent thread, and just like on this thread you dismissed it out of hand without explaining why. To restate, my position is very simple: I'm against killing, using an economic resource, or otherwise harming, sentient beings that have some sort of subjective awareness and capacity to feel pleasure and pain when it is not necessary to do so. It is for that reason that I am a vegan, to answer Cesare's question.

* I notice that there's a lot of 'anthropomorphism' double talk in these debates - when it comes to talking about 'happy meat', 'animal welfare', 'free-range', 'humane treatment' and so forth, the defenders of meat eating are okay to impute certain human assumptions onto animals, but when it comes to certain features about animals that makes it hard(er) to justify meat eating they are dismissed as the products of a fervent anthropomorphic imagination!

Somebody already got the shank:

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Somebody already got the shank:

Was it Ant & Dec? i'm sure they were in some film where something like this happened, though I haven't actually seen it.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Was it Ant & Dec? i'm sure they were in some film where something like this happened, though I haven't actually seen it.

This is Alien Autopsy.

 

[fishfinger]

Was it Ant & Dec? i'm sure they were in some film where something like this happened, though I haven't actually seen it.

They did a "comedy" reconstruction of the events surrounding the original "alien autopsy", called Alien Autopsy.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

A better question would be: would it be morally acceptable for the alien to eat you? Imagine that it is super-duper intelligent, such that we are like pigs or lambs by comparison. How could we possibly object?

 

[kabbes]

I wouldn't eat a chimp or a dolphin. So I already draw a line based on perceived intelligence, with that line being below human. I might eat Richard Littlejohn though.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Why should humans (excluding Littlejohn) be the baseline?

 

[Santino]

He didn't say it was the baseline. The baseline is somewhere 'below' human.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

I meant baseline in the sense of the starting point to be used for comparisons. We can say 'yardstick' if you'd prefer.

 

[Santino]

What other yardstick could we possibly use?

 

[andysays]

A better question would be: would it be morally acceptable for the alien to eat you? Imagine that it is super-duper intelligent, such that we are like pigs or lambs by comparison. How could we possibly object?

It would be up to the alien to decide if it was morally acceptable to eat us, or not.

Any objection would have to be expressed in terms other than moral argument.