Two, together, not One, alone

Last night I attended a yoga practice with a teacher whom I had worked with only a couple of times before. She calls a challenging series of poses, and does so sprite-like, tending toward bubbly-ness and high animation in her voice. Sometimes, with other teachers, those kinds of things can grate on me, but they don't from her.

Anyway, reflecting on last night, it's clear to me that she designed her pose sequences with a lot of attention and understanding. The apex pose last night was not some exotic or inordinately elaborate bound arm stand, but nataranjasana -- Dancer's Pose. But with the sequence of poses preceding it, I moved more deeply into natarajasana than I've ever moved before. And, so doing, I felt/saw aspects of the pose that I've never seen before, even though I've practiced the pose many, many times in the past eight years.

So after practice, I waited for a few moments to catch a word with the teacher before leaving. When my chance came, I thanked her for the practice and told her of my unexpected experience with the pose. She replied with a pretty standard line from yoga teachers -- and one that I use often enough myself -- "it was inside you; it was your effort." But as she said it, I realized the way that line is false, and I replied, without thinking, really: "No -- it is the teacher and the student together, never just one, alone."

Though I've practiced natarajasana for years, it was only last night, under the instruction and guidance of a skilled teacher, that I experienced Yoga in the pose. Two of us, together, not just one, alone.

Pain and Suffering: Pro/Con

The last post on consciousness was a part of a larger conversation that I've enjoyed with several friends elsewhere. In response to some expressions of interest, I've requested, and those friends have kindly given their, consent to my posting, here, a larger segment of that discussion.

The formatting is a work in progress...

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Pain and Suffering: Pro/Con

Post #1
(greenfrog)
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Perfunktory,

Since I don't want to derail too far the vegetarian thread, I thought I'd respond to your "pain might be good" point (my paraphrase) with its own thread here.

Over there, Perfunktory wrote:

greenfrog wrote:
Based on your subsequent comments on this thread, I infer that you really don't stand by the idea that pain and suffering are desirable

I do feel pain and suffering are somewhat desirable. I have a good amount of value for the pain and suffering I've experienced and if I had the option, I don't think I would want those experiences to be forgotten. I think you identified this same sentiment with your quote of what Eve said.

I certainly agree that we can use pain and suffering in positive ways. That is, in essence, the reason that I believe evolution selected for consciousness in the first place -- to enable organisms to choose to override previously automatic avoidance mechanisms in situations when enduring even more pain and suffering might be adaptive.

Still, the point I was trying (ineptly) to make in that post was that the basis of morality is the belief that inflicting pain and suffering on another without a countervailing reason is wrong.

I'll try to clarify the distinction I see with a few examples of potential applications of the "pain can be ok" theory. I'll start with potential applications of that theory to another individual, then we can get a little more abstract with respect to society at large:

1. It is proper to inflict pain on another person only when the infliction of pain is a side-effect of an action that is beneficial to the person. This kind of proposition applies in situations such as a doctor might face in deciding whether to perform surgery to correct an otherwise fatal heart defect. Yes, pain is one of the results of the corrective procedure, but there is an objective being sought that, if obtained, will be more important than the pain resulting from the surgery.

Note -- doctors don't usually perform surgery without getting the patient's consent, because our society usually grants to the patient the right to make the cost/benefit decision about the cons of pain vs. the pros of heart defect correction.

In this kind of situation, with or without consent, because the pain associated with the procedure is not the direct objective of the procedure, doctors go out of their way to minimize the pain effects -- using anesthesia (local and general), as well as administering analgesics following surgery to minimize the pain the patient experiences.

2. It is proper to inflict pain on another person when the infliction of pain is the immediately intended objective, if the objective cannot be obtained as effectively using means that do not require the infliction of pain.

Note -- this is operant conditioning. I tend to think that use of negative operant conditioning performed on persons capable of providing consent without the person's actual consent is generally immoral, but I'm willing to agree that there are cases in which it is ok.

The most obvious common example of this kind of action is the use of parentally inflicted punishment to modify the actions of children. The parent identifies a behavior they want to discourage. S/he then devises a way to inflict pain on the child, whether psychological or physical. Then, the parent tries to link rhetorically the infliction of pain with the child's behavior. "I had to spank you because you spit on Jenny."

Despite the usual rhetoric that is used in such situations, the infliction of pain is not an automatic "by-product" or "natural consequence" of the child's action. Nor is the same as a doctor's causation of pain that is purely a by-product of the surgery in Item 1, above. The obvious way to distinguish between ##1 and 2 is that in #1, the doctor uses available means to minimize the by-product of pain. In #2, the pain is, itself, the immediate objective of the parent's action, and the action would be pointless to the extent that the inflicted pain were minimized.

3. It is proper to inflict pain on another person, even if it is not beneficial in any way to that particular person, so long as it is beneficial to me or to something I care about.

(Let's hold this one in abeyance for a minute and fill out the rest of the spectrum, since this one is the usual justification for inflicting pain and suffering on others with minimal or no benefit to the other.)

4. It is proper to inflict pain on another in category X because category X doesn't matter, so pain on category X is irrelevant.
This is an argument sometimes offered to justify inflicting pain on animals. Note that while "animals" might be used to fill in the "category X" designation in this reasoning, so too, might many other designations, some of which could include various subsets of humans. I would submit that whatever one may think of ##1 and 2, above, this reasoning is immoral. Inflicting pain, without intending some necessarily-linked and countervailing upside, is immoral.

Example: while walking down the street, I see a creature in category X (human, canine, or whatever). I smack the creature on the head -- causing pain -- and I do so for no reason other than that I want to smack it in the head, though I'm indifferent to whether or not my smack causes pain. Am I correct that you would consider my actions immoral, or do you see a justification for my action? IOW, are there any situations in which you would contend that my action in this regard was, itself, good?

Note, -- while I can imagine situations in which the recipient of the action might turn the experience of being smacked in the head into something good in her/his/its life, IMO, that doesn't affect the morality of the action itself. If the conclusion were otherwise, then no action would be immoral, so long as the recipient of the action might subjectively transform the experience (including the pain) into something positive.

5. It is proper to inflict pain on another because I like to inflict pain on others.
I view this reasoning as immoral, and probably psychopathic. Are there situations in which it is justifiable that I haven't thought of?

Whatever one may think of the rightness or wrongness of situations 1 and 2, in both of them, the inflictor of pain has at least a theoretical upside to benefit the sufferer of the pain offset the clear downside associated with the pain, itself.

From my perspective, as I've suggested it here, I think that 1 and 2 are potentially justifiable under commonly held views of morality, and I think that 4 and 5 are fundamentally immoral. Do you agree? If so, then we should take a closer look at 3. My sense is that you may differ with me on 4, but I'm not sure. If we're not yet on common ground about 1, 2, 4, and 5, I think we should try to resolve those "easier" cases before trying to find common ground on 3.

Also, before we waltz toward 3, are there other variants we should consider, first?
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Post #2:
(Perfunktory)
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I can say that I think I'm on the same page with you about #1, 2 and 5.

greenfrog wrote:

Am I correct that you would consider my actions immoral, or do you see a
justification for my action? IOW, are there any situations in which you would
contend that my action in this regard was, itself, good?

I can't think of any situation in which I would say your actions were good.

That being said, I'm not sure I understand the difference between #4 and 5. Is the only difference that in #5, the benefit derived is the joy of the person causing the pain?

Also, one point about #5. I can see it as morally acceptable for someone to pull a pain-inflicting prank on the other individual. I think there are good reasons to find value in those types of pranks, but I can also see good reasons for someone not finding value in such a prank.

Separately, I also think there can be room for Schadenfreude that is morally acceptable. I'm not entirely convinced of this, but if someone is taking pleasure in the consequences of another's actions, consequences that were in no way brought about by the observer, nor was there a reasonably opportunity for the observer to intervene, then I think Schadenfreude can be morally acceptable.
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Post #3:
(greenfrog)
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The only difference I see between 4 and 5 is that in 4, one is indifferent to the infliction of pain, because of the "category X" nature of the recipient of the pain, while in 5, one affirmatively enjoys causing another pain. I describe the cases differently, because one might agree with the category X argument (though I don't), but still conclude that 5 is immoral.

The distinction comes up sometimes in legal discussions of animal rights. Some contend that any "humane treatment" laws should be taken as evidence of a tacit support in society for some form of limited rights belonging to animals. Others (those who would allow type 4 conduct, but not type 5) contend that the reason type 5 conduct is prohibited has nothing to do with the animals or their experience of pain/inhumane treatment, but solely because (they argue) society has concluded that those who take pleasure in inflicting pain on animals today will take pleasure in inflicting pain on humans tomorrow. IOW, they argue that the experience of the animal is irrelevant to the rationale for humane treatment laws.

If we're on the same page for 1, 2, 4, and 5, then let's explore 3.

3. It is proper to inflict pain on another person, even if it is not beneficial in any way to that particular person, so long as it is beneficial to me or to something I care about.

There are two distinct dimensions of application 3 that I discuss below, but it's important to emphasize that application 3 assumes that the recipient of the pain does not consent to the action -- if s/he/it does consent, then we're in an entirely different moral setting:

Dimension A. Non-identity of recipient of pain and beneficiary of pain.
To justify this practice, we have to be willing to treat others as means, rather than ends -- we de-humanize (to borrow a phrase) them by denying them basic self-determination.

The US government has done this in a variety of ways, ranging from drafting people who are killed in combat to promulgating redistributive taxation systems. I'm not sure if those two examples really capture the entire spectrum of ways that our society does this, but they at least serve to illustrate that there are varying degrees of pain the US inflicts on unwilling victims to benefit others. Groups as diverse as Gandhian non-violence types and Ezra Taft Bensonian small government types have argued against the morality of some of the actions along this spectrum.

I haven't fully formulated my thinking about this set of "benefit to one vs. harm to another" cases, but I'm hard pressed to articulate an argument I can stomach to justify harming one person against her/his will because I like so much the benefit that I obtain for myself by imposing that harm on the other.

But assuming that this can be acceptable in some circumstances, we then have to address the second dimension:

Dimension B. Weighing the upside to one against the downside to another.
Once we get past the Dimension A issue, we still have to evaluate what degree of benefit should offset what degree of harm/pain/suffering.

Potential conclusions:

3.B.1. Any degree of benefit is enough to justify any degree of harm
3.B.2. A significant benefit (i.e., not soley a minimal benefit) is enough to justify any harm.
3.B.3. A significant benefit is enough to justify any harm, so long as the harm involved is limited to that required to attain the benefit.
3.B.4. Some magnitude of harm to an individual can outweigh even a significant benefit to others.
(Are there others that should be included here? I'm not sure...)

3.B.1. Any degree of benefit is enough to justify the worst degree of harm possible

I think that this position is rejected if application #4 is rejected, assuming that satisfying a mere whim to smack someone on the head is about as little benefit as one can imagine. Also, it's worth noting that, as we've seen in Iraq, there are worse things than a relatively painless death.

3.B.2. A significant benefit (i.e., not soley a minimal benefit) is enough to justify any harm.

This is the argument that gets made in connection with the "should torture be legal" hypotheticals of recent vintage. The most compelling of those hypotheticals goes something like this: Suppose that a person knows where a nuclear bomb is located, which is set to go off in five days, but the person refuses to tell you where it is. Would you authorize torture of that person (even if s/he wasn't responsible for its being built and set) to find out where it is located?

Again, if we can get over the morality of A, at some extreme of benefit to be obtained, we'd ok torture.

3.B.3. A significant benefit is enough to justify any harm, so long as the harm involved is limited to that required to attain the benefit.

Still working with the torture hypothetical, if a moderate beating is enough to obtain the information, is it ok to inflict more pain and suffering than is necessary? I recognize that in some situations, the typical response is, "no one knows how much might be required," so the torture example starts to break down. But here's where the distinction between pain and suffering, on the one hand, and death, on the other, can play into the thinking. When this principle of morality is applied to livestock[** see below], the question is not whether they're going to die -- if we get past dimension A, in some instances, the animal is going to die to become food for humans. The 3.B.3 question is this: given that the animals are going to die, is there any moral obligation to make those deaths as free of pain and suffering as possible?

While I'm skeptical that it's ethical to get past dimension A at all, if we can manage that, I think the answer to this question is unquestionably "yes, we are morally obligated to minimize the animal's pain and suffering" or, hearking back to the torture example, "yes, we are morally obligated to not inflict more pain and suffering than is needed to obtain the information about the bomb's location." Phrased this way, I don't think this is a controversial conclusion, but I'm prepared to have others tell me I'm wrong about that.

3.B.4. Some magnitude of harm to an individual can outweigh even a significant benefit to others.

Again, assuming we can get past 3.A, I think at different points along the scale of significant benefit, this should be true -- IOW, even among those benefits that we deem significant, we might still find a particular harm to another to be too great to be justified by the benefit.

So how do these various concepts play out in the moral decision for me to become vegetarian?[** see below] I think that the question is resolved no later than 3.B.3: the manner in which livestock are treated does not minimize their pain and suffering. Indeed, industrial agricultural practices appear to be calculated solely to maximize profit, in part by minimizing competitive market prices. For me, the question is actually more easily resolved at 3.B.2: I have determined that I am perfectly capable of living without eating animal flesh. I do not evaluate my pleasure at the flavor of beef as more than a whim, certainly not enough to justify my killing and eating another person. For reasons that we can explore back on the vegetarian thread, even supposing that various gradations of consciousness should factor into the level of pain I'm willing to inflict on another for my personal benefit, I don't feel that the difference in consciousness between humans and other mammals is enough to get me to conclude that my taste for meat is enough to deprive another of life.

Your thoughts?

[**][Edit: I realized a half hour ago that there is another dimension of analysis that should eventually be discussed explicitly that I assumed in this structure: that the existence of consciousness in both humans and non-humans (and therefore of pain and suffering) requires that we apply our ethical principles to our interactions with both humans and non-humans. I've structured most of this post in the context of human-to-human relationships. I elided the analysis to make the now-asterisked points about human-to-animal relationships. There may be utility in discussing that step explicitly, rather than implicitly, as I've done here.]

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Post #4:
(Perfunktory)
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greenfrog wrote:

So how do these various concepts play out in the moral decision for me to become vegetarian?[** see below] I think that the question is resolved no later than 3.B.3: the manner in which livestock are treated does not minimize their pain and suffering. Indeed, industrial agricultural practices appear to be calculated solely to maximize profit, in part by minimizing competitive market prices.

I agree, I think industrial agriculture has a long way to go in this respect.

greenfrog wrote:

For me, the question is actually more easily resolved at 3.B.2: I have determined that I am perfectly capable of living without eating animal flesh. I do not evaluate my pleasure at the flavor of beef as more than a whim, certainly not enough to justify my killing and eating another person.

I do like the taste of meat, but I wouldn't say I love it. I also don't feel like I'm engaging in this discussion to defend my right to eat a juice t-bone steak. As such, and for reasons I've tried to articulated on the vegetarian thread, I don't see my choice to eat meat as merely a whim. I feel I can respect the consciousness and life of animals and still choose to eat their meat.

greenfrog wrote:

For reasons that we can explore back on the vegetarian thread, even supposing that various gradations of consciousness should factor into the level of pain I'm willing to inflict on another for my personal benefit, I don't feel that the difference in consciousness between humans and other mammals is enough to get me to conclude that my taste for meat is enough to deprive another of life.

And I feel that my choice to eat meat is of greater overall benefit than the life I am conscientiously (though indirectly) taking. I respect your choice and feel that I better understand your thought process. I appreciate you taking such extensive time to articulate your thoughts on this issue.

greenfrog wrote:

I realized a half hour ago that there is another dimension of analysis that should eventually be discussed explicitly that I assumed in this structure: that the existence of consciousness in both humans and non-humans (and therefore of pain and suffering) requires that we apply our ethical principles to our interactions with both humans and non-humans.

I'm interested in your view of the relationships between non-humans and non-humans. Which, if any, of the above categories would you understand an animals choice to hunt and kill another animal? How do you understand a cat's choice to toy with a mouse before eventually killing it? Do you feel any responsibility (as impractical as it may be) to try to minimize the pain and suffering inflicted by animals on other animals?
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Post #5:
(greenfrog)
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Quote:

I'm interested in your view of the relationships between non-humans and non-humans. Which, if any, of the above categories would you understand an animals choice to hunt and kill another animal?

To answer your question, of course, I have to guess at what goes on in an animals' brain when it makes a decision. I would hasten to note that I don't presume that the same thoughts, notions or instincts occur in the brain of an orca and in the brain of Rascal (the bichon frisee who hangs out at our house). Nor do I even suppose that the same thoughts occur in Rascal as in Taco, the chihuahua/poodle (not a blend made in heaven) that lives down the road from us, even though they're both Canis familiaris. But with that as a preface, I suspect that much of mammal thinking occurs along the lines of #4 -- the animals distinguish between their own offspring and those that are not their offspring. Those that are not offspring are category-X, for which any action is acceptable because the animals do not identify sufficiently with those category-X-ers to provide the animal with any reason to sacrifice desire on their behalf.

Some animals that extend their notions of identity beyond offspring to an extended social group (humans, prairie dogs, cattle, yaks, dogs, horses -- there are lots of these). Sometimes, those identifications (and consequent exclusion from the category-X) go beyond even species boundaries. Hence, Rascal, a creature a friend of mine succinctly described once as "a bit of lint...with teeth," steps up to the line when he thinks my wife or I are threatened by another dog running loose in the neighborhood. (All of those facts and notions are, I think, embedded in the "familiaris" part of the species name.)

But aside from such kinds of situations, I believe most animals have a relatively narrow notion of social identity, which results from their relatively more limited (relative to humans, that is) faculties to process abstract thought.

Quote:

How do you understand a cat's choice to toy with a mouse before eventually killing it?

Type 4 thinking -- I don't imagine that a cat thinks a mouse is within the group that the cat identifies with, the group to which it extends empathy. But watching a mother cat care for and carry around her kittens, it's seems pretty clear from the outside that she is capable of extending empathy to creatures beyond herself. But not so far as the mice.

Quote:

Do you feel any responsibility (as impractical as it may be) to try to minimize the pain and suffering inflicted by animals on other animals?

Other than for animals within my immediate care (Rascal, for instance), no, I don't. We haven't had reason to get into such notions in this discussion previously, but part of my extension of identity and empathy to animals stems from my understandings and beliefs about deep ecology and Gaia theory.

In some ways, what we have been discussing so far are the micro-applications of ethics to interactions with other forms of life. There is, IMO, also a macro-application of ethics to other forms of life that merits attention. The interconnections, interdependencies, and web of relationships that exist in the world suggest to me that in some ways, it is more meaningful to speak of ourselves as a part of Gaia than as independent beings. Within the context of Gaia, humans appear to have the greatest capacity for developing consciousness (though I always remind myself when thinking such thoughts this: we really haven't any idea of what goes on in the brains of similiarly complex animals whose languages we have yet to figure out -- the whales).

I am conservative (I use that term literally, rather than politically) enough to believe that before we should even presume to make changes to "improve" the vast and complex web of relationships of life on earth, we should first understand them thoroughly. And I think we've barely begun to scratch the surface of understanding them. Having seen the mess that chronic wasting disease has made of the elk herds in Colorado, I have a deeper respect for the value (from a macro-perspective, that is) that predatory wolves serve. The Yellowstone ecosystem is largely devoid of chronic wasting disease, apparently because the wolves devour the elk that begin to contract the disease, thereby limiting its spread.

I've not sorted out how to think about the relationship between micro-ethics (which takes into account the view of the individual) and macro-ethics (which takes into account the view of the collective -- Gaia), but I suspect that the answer to your basic question lies submerged somewhere in that soup.
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Post #6:
(Perfunktory)
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greenfrog wrote:

watching a mother cat care for and carry around her kittens, it's seems pretty clear from the outside that she is capable of extending empathy to creatures beyond herself. But not so far as the mice.

I'm much less convinced that it is empathy that is motivating the mother cat to nurture her kittens. Though I do realize that your interpretation of the mother cat's actions is, as Joey would say, a more charitable interpretation, I don't feel that my different interpretation is born out of a lack of charity. Cats will reject their kittens if they smell too much like humans or anything foreign. That's a pretty harsh outcome. One that, when coupled to my observations of how a mother treats her kittens, suggests to me that most of what she is doing is instinctual.

I point this out because my personal feeling is that in many instances when humans observe animal behavior, I feel we see what we want to see. In general, I think people see animals as innocent, possibly because we don't feel animals are capable of the same moral reasoning as we are and are therefor incapable of moral transgressions. Through this same lens, I think many people further interpret the actions of animals to have noble intentions. "Of course a mother kitten takes care of her kittens, she loves them" and "dogs are so loyal and obedient because they love their masters". Now I don't intend to demean the relationships people have with animals, but I understand a dog's loyalty to be born out of it's desire for food. I also understand a dog's obedience to be a product of subservience facilitated by the position the dog sees itself in it's social hierarchy (respecting the alpha male position). That being said, I still really like dogs and cats. I particularly enjoy playing with dogs and I see many benefits to the relationships people have with animals.

To what extent does your sympathy (and/or possibly empathy) for animals inform your feelings on how justifiable it is to do things (or not do things) that cause them pain and suffering? Is the answer to my question found under your thoughts on the hierarchy of consciousness?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I sense that you are significantly affected by the pain and suffering of animals brought about by what you understand to be the morally unjust desires of humans. On the other hand, the pain, suffering and possibly even torture animals inflict upon other animals does not affect you in nearly the same way because you don't view the actions or intents of the animals to be morally unjust.
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Post #7:
(greenfrog
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Quote:

I'm much less convinced that it is empathy that is motivating the mother cat to nurture her kittens. Though I do realize that your interpretation of the mother cat's actions is, as Joey would say, a more charitable interpretation, I don't feel that my different interpretation is born out of a lack of charity.

Perfunktory,

I chose the word "empathy" intentionally, because I posit that cats have, to some limited degree, consciousness. Absent consciousness, I agree that precisely the same behavior could be generated by instinct. But as I think about that particular fact, I see absolutely no distinction between its application to animals (cats in this instance) and its application to humans. I would submit that there is no behavior that occurs in humans that cannot be similarly attributed to instinct and, fundamentally, determinism.

Do you have an objective basis for choosing to attribute the mother cat's behavior to deterministic instinct? If your decision is based, at core, on subjective factors, do you make similar attribution of instinct and determinism to the actions of other humans?

Quote:

Cats will reject their kittens if they smell too much like humans or anything foreign. That's a pretty harsh outcome.

Humans abort their fetuses quite frequently because the fetus does not conform to the humans' preferred characteristics. In some countries, similar rejections occur even following live birth. That's pretty harsh, too.

Quote:

One that, when coupled to my observations of how a mother treats her kittens, suggests to me that most of what she is doing is instinctual.

What specific actions or conditions do you conclude exclude the possibility of consciousness?

Quote:

I point this out because my personal feeling is that in many instances when humans observe animal behavior, I feel we see what we want to see.

I agree, though, as I've suggested with my queries, above, I think that this belief really doesn't tell us whether either prejudice (the one finding consciousness or the one finding solely instinct) should prevail. That's one reason that in the other post, I went into the level of detail I did about Damasio's conclusions about consciousness and brain structure. Each of us starts with a faith-based conclusion about our own consciousness -- we believe that we make decisions, rather than acting solely on instinct. Damasio has done the lab work to identify the portions of the brain and nervous system that are activated when such decision-making occurs. The fact that some non-humans have similar CNS structures is concrete, if circumstantial, evidence that the non-humans also have degrees of consciousness. Just as damage signals, when brought into consciousness, become the experience of "pain," so, too, do instinctual signals to care for another, when brought into consciousness, become love and empathy.

So I chose the word empathy because cats seem to have the requisite equipment for some degree of consciousness -- and therefore, choice -- and their behavior reflects actions that, if performed consciously, would demonstrate empathy or love.

Quote:

In general, I think people see animals as innocent, possibly because we don't feel animals are capable of the same moral reasoning as we are and are therefor incapable of moral transgressions.

I probably agree with you, if by "innocent" you mean "blameless," rather than "good." I view animals, in many but not all instances, the same way I view toddlers in many but not all instances. When either animals or toddlers act out of instinct, their actions are likely to be entirely self-serving, self-indulgent, and lacking in both wisdom and morality. When my two-year-old son smacked my ten-year-old son over the head with a claw hammer, he wasn't acting in any way I'd characterize as "good," though I do believe that he was, largely, blameless.

Quote:

Through this same lens, I think many people further interpret the actions of animals to have noble intentions. "Of course a mother kitten takes care of her kittens, she loves them" and "dogs are so loyal and obedient because they love their masters". Now I don't intend to demean the relationships people have with animals, but I understand a dog's loyalty to be born out of it's desire for food. I also understand a dog's obedience to be a product of subservience facilitated by the position the dog sees itself in it's social hierarchy (respecting the alpha male position).

Same point as above -- the same thing could be said of why you went to work this morning and submitted yourself to all the unpleasantries associated with working for a living within an organizational hierarchy. You've been operantly conditioned, Skinner-style, to do exactly what you're doing and to behave exactly as you're behaving to get your food pellet in the form of a bi-weekly paycheck. There really is no question that operant conditioning works on people, just as it works on animals like dogs. But I reject the conclusion that moral agency cannot override operant conditioning, when consciousness is applied by the subject. From a lab technician's perspective, the abberant (i.e., not-programmed-for) behavior is simply evidence of the defect of the conditioning or the subject. From the subject's perspective, it's intentional, subjective, moral-if-you-will choice.

Quote:

That being said, I still really like dogs and cats. I particularly enjoy playing with dogs and I see many benefits to the relationships people have with animals.

Me, too.

Quote:

To what extent does your sympathy (and/or possibly empathy) for animals inform your feelings on how justifiable it is to do things (or not do things) that cause them pain and suffering? Is the answer to my question found under your thoughts on the hierarchy of consciousness?

I think the answer is present, if latently, in what I've written on this thread.

If I felt no empathy for animals, I would have only intellectual, objective reasons to exclude them from #4's "category X." While I've offered a number of intellectual, objective reasons to include them within the same category as humans for at least application of basic ethical principles, my feelings mirror my rational perceptions. Once I get into #3, I use my feelings to evaluate the significance of and the weight I ascribe to my reason/need/desire to inflict pain or suffering on another. As I noted above, I evaluate my preference for the taste of beef as significantly less important to me than the continued well being of the cow that would be slaughtered to serve my appetite. My preference for the continued well being arises both from my desire to act ethically toward others, as well as my basic gut feeling of empathy.

(BTW -- cool factoid -- when cows and calves are together on rangeland that is far enough from water that the calves can't make the trip, the cows will, one or two at a time, leave their calves with the other cows and calves, make the trip to water, drink, and return. They then suckle their own calves and watch over the other calves to protect from predation while the other cows take their turns going for a drink. Group baby-sitting. Instinct? Sure, it could be only that. So, too, could the babysitting my sons do for our next-door neighbor be just instinct.)

Quote:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I sense that you are significantly affected by the pain and suffering of animals brought about by what you understand to be the morally unjust desires of humans.

I need to think about this more. I'm pretty far from convinced that what people do unknowingly is anything different than my two-year-old whacking my ten-year-old with a hammer. The two-year-old wanted attention, and he devised a way to get attention. It worked. A person who is not aware of the consciousness of an animal has no ethical reason not to eat the animal. So I'm not convinced that the human's actions are unjust, from within the human's own sphere of reference -- ignorant, but not evil.

I suppose if someone were to tell me, "yes, I understand and agree that animals are conscious, and they experience pain and suffering in meaningful degrees, and I further agree that I physically could do fine without meat in my diet, and I further agree that by purchasing meat from the grocery store down the street, I'm paying others to inflict pain and suffering on the animals so I can get a good price for t-bones and use my leftover change to load up my iPod," then I'd conclude that the person's actions were probably unjust -- though before drawing that conclusion, I'd want to ask a lot of questions to test whether the person really has thought through the implications and has no reason I haven't thought of that justifies the practice. Then, I'd probably want to ask them about why their conclusions about animals were not similarly true of their conclusions about humans, but really that sort of questioning is really more of an exercise in persuasion designed to point out inconsistencies and weaknesses in logic more than about honing my own beliefs. By that point, I'd probably have come to the conclusion that the person's actions were unjust.

But in my interactions with folks on the street or at home around my dinner table? I don't presume any of those things. Instead, I think they're acting unconsciously or that they're not as capable of (or that they don't believe that they're as capable of) living without meat as I.

Quote:

On the other hand, the pain, suffering and possibly even torture animals inflict upon other animals does not affect you in nearly the same way because you don't view the actions or intents of the animals to be morally unjust.

Ignorant, but not evil.
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Post #8:
(Perfunktory)
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greenfrog wrote:

I would submit that there is no behavior that occurs in humans that cannot be similarly attributed to instinct and, fundamentally, determinism.

I don't think I would go that far. I think there's significantly more examples of irrational behavior that contradicts instinct in humans where this is not the case with animals. But I don't think that what I'm saying here is any different than your observations about a hierarchy of consciousness.

greenfrog wrote:

Do you have an objective basis for choosing to attribute the mother cat's behavior to deterministic instinct? If your decision is based, at core, on subjective factors, do you make similar attribution of instinct and determinism to the actions of other humans?

I too believe that cats have consciousness. I tried to explain that my basis for attributing the mother cat's behavior to instinct was because I saw an opposing action that, by inference, would suggest the cat is acting out of instinct and not a conscious choice. Do you see my inference as any better or worse than yours?

FWIW, I'm guessing there are many behaviors in humans that I would more readily understand as instinct than I think you would. But that might be a poor guess.

greenfrog wrote:

Humans abort their fetuses quite frequently because the fetus does not conform to the humans' preferred characteristics. In some countries, similar rejections occur even following live birth. That's pretty harsh, too.

Yes, it is. Do you see it's harshness as proportional to the level of consciousness found in the individual?

greenfrog wrote:

Damasio has done the lab work to identify the portions of the brain and nervous system that are activated when such decision-making occurs. The fact that some non-humans have similar CNS structures is concrete, if circumstantial, evidence that the non-humans also have degrees of consciousness. Just as damage signals, when brought into consciousness, become the experience of "pain," so, too, do instinctual signals to care for another, when brought into consciousness, become love and empathy.

If I haven't been clear, I'm in agreement that animals have a consciousness. I guess we differ not only in the extent to which we understand animals to be acting according to that consciousness, but also how we should apply that information when it comes to our choice to eat meat. (Though I'm finding it hard to discern the impact either of these factors has our ultimate conclusions.)

greenfrog wrote:

I suppose if someone were to tell me, "yes, I understand and agree that animals are conscious, and they experience pain and suffering in meaningful degrees, and I further agree that I physically could do fine without meat in my diet, and I further agree that by purchasing meat from the grocery store down the street, I'm paying others to inflict pain and suffering on the animals so I can get a good price for t-bones and use my leftover change to load up my iPod," then I'd conclude that the person's actions were probably unjust -- though before drawing that conclusion, I'd want to ask a lot of questions to test whether the person really has thought through the implications and has no reason I haven't thought of that justifies the practice. Then, I'd probably want to ask them about why their conclusions about animals were not similarly true of their conclusions about humans, but really that sort of questioning is really more of an exercise in persuasion designed to point out inconsistencies and weaknesses in logic more than about honing my own beliefs. By that point, I'd probably have come to the conclusion that the person's actions were unjust.

Have you concluded that my choice to eat meat is unjust?

greenfrog wrote:

Ignorant, but not evil.

Often times people are outraged by the ignorance displayed by others because they feel the pain and suffering inflicted, even if done in ignorance, is something that could be avoided. In terms of minimizing the pain and suffering that animals inflict on other animals, is it the apparent infeasibility that prevents you from being concerned about their pain and suffering? IOW, why is it that pain and suffering done in ignorance doesn't appear to be something you feel should change with respect to animals hurting other animals?
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Post #9:
(greenfrog)
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Quote:

greenfrog wrote:
Do you have an objective basis for choosing to attribute the mother cat's behavior to deterministic instinct? If your decision is based, at core, on subjective factors, do you make similar attribution of instinct and determinism to the actions of other humans?

I too believe that cats have consciousness. I tried to explain that my basis for attributing the mother cat's behavior to instinct was because I saw an opposing action that, by inference, would suggest the cat is acting out of instinct and not a conscious choice. Do you see my inference as any better or worse than yours?

I understand your point to be that the abandonment of kittens because of scent suggested to you the converse action (caring for kittens) was more likely a function of instinct than of empathy. I offered the point that humans do such things to their offspring quite frequently. I suppose we can conclude from the similarity of cases that both humans and cats may operate out of instinct when they destroy their offspring. But the question was whether empathy/love might be the correct way to characterize the cat's experience. That instinct can override consciousness doesn't mean that consciousness (and its resulting love and empathy) is not present. My experience is that strong instincts very often do override consciousness.

Perhaps I don't understand what you mean when you say that you believe cats have consciousness. What does the cat's consciousness "contain" in your understanding of the term?

Quote:

FWIW, I'm guessing there are many behaviors in humans that I would more readily understand as instinct than I think you would. But that might be a poor guess.

If by "instinct" you mean "not the product of conscious choice" then I would agree with your perception. From my own life, I'd guess that easily less than 10% of my waking minutes each day involve actual consciousness. Almost everything I do I do without thinking, really, about what it is with an awareness and actual consideration of the alternatives available. Much of the suffering I see in the world could be significantly reduced, IMO, by simply increasing awareness and consciousness.

greenfrog wrote:

Quote:
Humans abort their fetuses quite frequently because the fetus does not conform to the humans' preferred characteristics. In some countries, similar rejections occur even following live birth. That's pretty harsh, too.

Yes, it is. Do you see it's harshness as proportional to the level of consciousness found in the individual?

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. Can you clarify? The action is only "harsh" from the perspective of one who can imagine a way less harmful to the (valued) offspring to accomplish the objective.

Quote:
greenfrog wrote:

Damasio has done the lab work to identify the portions of the brain and nervous system that are activated when such decision-making occurs. The fact that some non-humans have similar CNS structures is concrete, if circumstantial, evidence that the non-humans also have degrees of consciousness. Just as damage signals, when brought into consciousness, become the experience of "pain," so, too, do instinctual signals to care for another, when brought into consciousness, become love and empathy.

If I haven't been clear, I'm in agreement that animals have a consciousness. I guess we differ not only in the extent to which we understand animals to be acting according to that consciousness, but also how we should apply that information when it comes to our choice to eat meat. (Though I'm finding it hard to discern the impact either of these factors has our ultimate conclusions.)

I use consciousness as a meaningful way to distinguish between creatures capable of experiencing pain and suffering from those things that cannot. The presence/absence of pain and suffering is a reason I find to treat those that fit into one or the other category differently. That is the relevance of consciousness for me.

I'm guessing that you have a different criterion by which you decide when to exploit another to serve your desires. What is that criterion? Previously, I thought you were suggesting that there was no meaningful distinction between plants and animals, and so you were stuck with inflicting pain on somebody, no matter what, to live. I responded with an explanation of why I believed you were incorrect about the idea that plants could experience pain or suffering. I didn't perceive you disagreeing with my reasoning on that point, but that leaves me without a solid understanding of what principle you use to decide, for example, to pay someone to skin a cow alive in the process of providing you with a t-bone, but not to pay someone to skin alive another human for the same purpose. I believe that you have a basis on which you make those distinctions, but I need to hear more (or re-read what you've already written) to discern it.

Have you concluded that my choice to eat meat is unjust?

Nope. Still trying to understand how you reach your decision.

greenfrog wrote:

Ignorant, but not evil.

Often times people are outraged by the ignorance displayed by others because they feel the pain and suffering inflicted, even if done in ignorance, is something that could be avoided.

I think that anger in such situations is misplaced, usually a function of ego.

In terms of minimizing the pain and suffering that animals inflict on other animals, is it the apparent infeasibility that prevents you from being concerned about their pain and suffering? IOW, why is it that pain and suffering done in ignorance doesn't appear to be something you feel should change with respect to animals hurting other animals?

No. I realize that I didn't explain in detail (because I haven't thought through in detail) how the basic conservative principle applies to my sense of deep ecology, but I did offer the elk/wasting disease/wolf example to suggest how incomplete understanding can make well intentioned efforts to reduce elk suffering counterproductive.
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Post #10:
(Perfunktory)
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greenfrog wrote:

That instinct can override consciousness doesn't mean that consciousness (and its resulting love and empathy) is not present. My experience is that strong instincts very often do override consciousness.

I completely agree with this.

greenfrog wrote:

Perhaps I don't understand what you mean when you say that you believe cats have consciousness. What does the cat's consciousness "contain" in your understanding of the term?

I don't know that I can effectively answer your question because I'm not sure I know. It's easier for me to look at particular actions or instances and make a cursory judgment than to describe how and to what extent I feel an animals consciousness extends. I feel the same way about plants. I suspect that there are several aspects of animal/plant consciousness that are all together different than our own.

greenfrog wrote:

I'm not sure I understand what you are asking. Can you clarify? The action is only "harsh" from the perspective of one who can imagine a way less harmful to the (valued) offspring to accomplish the objective.

Do you use your hierarchy of consciousness to form your judgment as to the morality of the individuals choice to kill? (I don't think I'm succeeding at expressing my question.)

greenfrog wrote:

I'm guessing that you have a different criterion by which you decide when to exploit another to serve your desires. What is that criterion?

I'm not sure I use a different criterion as much as I think I assign a different level of importance when assessing the cost to benefit.

greenfrog wrote:

Previously, I thought you were suggesting that there was no meaningful distinction between plants and animals, and so you were stuck with inflicting pain on somebody, no matter what, to live.

Through this discussion of pain and consciousness I would say that your understanding of my initial position is where I still find myself. The idea that I'm unable to discern between the ultimate difference between eating plants and eating animals includes my views and understanding of pain and consciousness. I see myself as a consumer no matter what I eat. My existence comes at a cost. The consciousness of animals impacts me to the extent that I feel I want their pain to be minimized, but I also feel that taking their life to sustain my own, despite the fact that it's not necessary, is an acceptable sacrifice.

greenfrog wrote:

Perfunktory wrote:

Often times people are outraged by the ignorance displayed by others because they feel the pain and suffering inflicted, even if done in ignorance, is something that could be avoided.

I think that anger in such situations is misplaced, usually a function of ego.

Interesting, because this is pretty much how I understand PETA's choice to compare the killing of animals to the Holocaust.
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Post #11:
(greenfrog)
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Perhaps we can get to the difference between our perspectives this way:

Assuming for a moment that it was lawful to choose either one, for what reason(s) would you choose to eat beef, but not human?
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Post #12:
(Perfunktory)
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I would choose beef because I have greater value for the life of a human.
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Post #13:
(greenfrog)
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Are there reasons that you value one more highly than another, or is it just a non-reasoned gut feeling?
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Post #14:
(Perfunktory)
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I value the human life more because I feel the potentialities of his/her life are infinitely greater than that of the cows.
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Post #15:
(greenfrog)
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What are the specific "potentialities" you have in mind?
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Post #16:
(Perfunktory)
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Becoming as God.
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Post #17:
(greenfrog)
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What factual basis have you used to decide which beings to include in the category of "god-like potential" and which to exclude?
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Post #18:
(Perfunktory)
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When Noah had all the animals on the ark, my understanding is that he gave them all the divinity aptitude test (DAT).

No, I've no factual basis.
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Post #19:
(greenfrog)
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Interesting conclusion.
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Post #20:
(Perfunktory)
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To the discussion or just that question?
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Post #21:
(greenfrog)
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Which would you prefer?

As I understand your response to the prior questions, it was this: you conclude it proper to inflict pain and suffering on a particular group (non-humans) to serve your own, non-life-threatening interests (you like to eat their meat), while you conclude that it would be wrong to inflict pain and suffering on a different group (humans) even if you liked to eat their meat.

I further understand your most recent response to my most recent question to be this: Your decision to inflict suffering on one group, while it would be wrong to inflict suffering on the other group, is based on beliefs that either lack correspondence to or are actually inversely correllated with the facts I've identified.

If I've got your understanding right, with respect to this subject, the common ground between us appears pretty narrow.

Did I get it right? If not, please advise. If I did, what questions do you believe remain open and useful to explore?
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Post #22:
(Perfunktory)
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greenfrog wrote:

As I understand your response to the prior questions, it was this: you conclude it proper to inflict pain and suffering on a particular group (non-humans) to serve your own, non-life-threatening interests (you like to eat their meat), while you conclude that it would be wrong to inflict pain and suffering on a different group (humans) even if you liked to eat their meat.

I would characterize my thought process a bit differently. I recognize that my existence comes at a cost. Even if I choose to only eat plants, my existence will still indirectly impact the quantity and quality of animal lives and consciousness. My choice to eat meat, meat that comes from animals who were created for the express purpose to be eaten, does not have to result in a net loss of consciousness.

greenfrog wrote:

I further understand your most recent response to my most recent question to be this: Your decision to inflict suffering on one group, while it would be wrong to inflict suffering on the other group, is based on beliefs that either lack correspondence to or are actually inversely correllated with the facts I've identified.

Unless you're talking about the poor practices of industrial agriculture (a point on which I agree with you), I'm not sure I understand what you mean that my beliefs are inversely correlated to the facts you've identified. My understanding is that I interpret the facts you've identified to mean significantly different things.

greenfrog wrote:

If I've got your understanding right, with respect to this subject, the common ground between us appears pretty narrow.

That may be the case, though I really appreciate having this discussion with you.

greenfrog wrote:

If I did, what questions do you believe remain open and useful to explore?

I'm still interested in why you are less concerned about the suffering animals inflict on other animals. Seeing as you've devoted so much time and thought to this conversation, and that you've indicated that it might take more time and thought than you care to give at this time, might I suggest that if you that, at a later time, possibly after you have pondered this issue passively or in whatever way suits you, that we engage in this discussion some time later.
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Post #24:
(Ignorant Sage)
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Perfunktory wrote:

I'm still interested in why you are less concerned about the suffering animals inflict on other animals. Seeing as you've devoted so much time and thought to this conversation, and that you've indicated that it might take more time and thought than you care to give at this time, might I suggest that if you that, at a later time, possibly after you have pondered this issue passively or in whatever way suits you, that we engage in this discussion some time later.

I'm neither green nor a frog, nor a vegetarian - but it would seem to me that there are a number of reasons why this might be the case.

First, differing levels consciousness and capacities for choice.

Second, ability to pursuade. Our ability to persuade animals is more limited than our ability to persuade people.

Third, sphere of influence. Related to the second, but more explicitly we live in the human sphere. While we might occasionally enter into "the wild" so to speak, most of us don't live there. Greenfrog's (or PETA's) sphere is humanity and can reasonably hope to impact human behavior. Influencing every bear out there is less possible

Fourth, biological requirements. Some animals are carnivores; humans are not.

Fifth, much of their "cruelty" is a biological requirement for survival; scent may indicate sickness, pollution, or 'otherness'; so scarce resources shouldn't be spent on that offspring. Playing with prey before killing it provides extra honing of reflexes that increase future odds of catching prey, etc., etc. Many aspects of human behavior that we now find undesirable (aggression, rape, etc.) may have once served a purpose but are no longer necessary because of our civilazations advances. Perhaps eating meat is one of those formerly necessary/advantageous part of human behavior that we no longer need.

Sixth, the question is problematic in that there seems to be an underlying idea that "other animals are cruel and hurtful to animals, why is it such a big deal if I am". Their cruelty doesn't of itself mitigate ours.

Perfunktory wrote:

My choice to eat meat, meat that comes from animals who were created for the express purpose to be eaten, does not have to result in a net loss of consciousness.

How confident are you that the animals you eat were created expressly to be eaten?

First, not animals are suitable for eating - what were they created for?

Second, are we not taught that animals were created to have joy - the same thing we are taught man was created for?
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Post #25:
(Perfunktory)
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Ignorant Sage wrote:

How confident are you that the animals you eat were created expressly to be eaten?

I'm talking about the farmer's choice to bring in a bull stud to impregnate cows.

Ignorant Sage wrote:

Second, are we not taught that animals were created to have joy - the same thing we are taught man was created for?

But what about D&C 49:18-21?
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Post #26:
(cheapcontact)
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Perfunktory wrote:

My choice to eat meat, meat that comes from animals who were created for the express purpose to be eaten, does not have to result in a net loss of consciousness.

How do you know that because a farmer brought in a bull stud to impregnate cows the resulting animal's express purpose is only to be eaten. Suppose there was a society that impregnated women with the express purpose of eating the babies, would you feel the same way?
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Post #27:
(Perfunktory)
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Isaiah 11

Quote:

6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den.

9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

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Consciousness, Suffering, Animals and Plants

This is a bit afield of yoga postures, but it bears on Yoga with a capital "Y."

I prepared most of this in response to a question by a friend who asked, in essence, "Why should I care more about the suffering of animals than I do about plants, which also respond when they are harmed?"

In responding to that question, I had to tease out my thinking about some of the issues relating to my decision to go vegetarian. I post the response here to see what others think about the subject.

As I think of responding to the question, my thinking subdivides along the following lines:

1. What is required to experience pain and suffering?
2. Are there factual bases to conclude that animals experience pain and suffering?
3. Are there factual bases to conclude that plants experience pain and suffering?
4. Based on answers to those questions, are there conclusions I can or should draw about how I should respond ethically to such situations?


1. What is required to experience pain and suffering?
This is the question that sent me off on a couple of weeks of background reading. I had read Antonio Damasio’s book, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, several years ago, and I remembered enough to recall that his thinking was relevant to this question, but I’d forgotten the details of his thinking. I’m a little more refreshed on the concept now, and if you’ll bear with me, I’ll review some of it here. Damasio is a neurologist who has studied (like all neurologists, apparently) people with various kinds of brain lesions. One of the people he studied had episodes during which he lacked consciousness, which Damasio carefully defines as awareness of self. Damasio recounts observing and interacting with the patient during those periods – though not “conscious” of himself as a self, the person was not lying on the floor catatonic – he could stand, walk around the room, drink coffee from a mug. But he did not have any notion of himself as a person. His sensory perception was functional – he could see, hear, feel, etc. But he was not aware that he was seeing, hearing, feeling. When I read this, it took me a while to process what, exactly, Damasio was getting at. To the extent I’ve succeeded, his key points (for the purposes of this discussion) are these:

There is a difference between experiencing a stimulus that causes a response and experiencing pain and suffering. Losing consciousness does not require shutting down of sensory perception. Think of Terri Schiavo movies. But without consciousness, there is no perception of pain. Accordingly, once the anesthesiologist puts me out, the surgeon cutting me open no longer worries about using local anesthetic for pain control purposes. When there is no “self” to perceive the stimulus as pain, there is no pain, per se. The same is doubly true of “suffering,” which is mental anguish associated with the perception and anticipation of pain, and other second-order kinds of experiences, all of which have basic consciousness as a pre-requisite condition.

If Damasio is right (and I think he pretty clearly is, though it took me a while to figure out exactly what he was saying), then pain and suffering are significantly different than simply stimulus/response. The tricky part to this is that stimulus/response developed, evolutionarily, well before consciousness did. Organisms evolved to flee from external factors that made holes in the organisms long before those organisms developed consciousness in any meaningful degree. The mechanisms that run those operations are no more alive than a light switch is alive. The light turns on when the system receives the stimulus of the switch being flipped. So, too, biological damage-avoidance mechanisms can operate without anything more than mechanics. That makes, sense, since it’s evolutionarily a good idea to keep one’s cellular membranes intact, to say nothing of avoiding becoming a dinosaur’s meal. I say all this to make this point: we have to be pretty careful in thinking about pain and suffering. Because damage-avoidance developed before consciousness did, responses that conscious beings make to painful stimuli are often identical to the responses that non-conscious beings make to organism-damaging stimuli, without ever perceiving anything like pain.

Once consciousness did develop, it created the ability to override the automatic responses triggered by stimuli. That had the potential to be very advantageous from an evolutionary perspective – it would allow an organism to keep fighting, even in situations in which it was being damaged. In a world where there is competition for limited resources, disabling the automatic “flee” mechanism was useful. Unfortunately, that same consciousness had the unfortunate effect of disconnecting organism-threatening stimuli from the automatic organism-protecting responses. In such an environment, it’s easy to see why the organism with emerging consciousness was benefited by developing a decidedly unpleasant signal to indicate damage to the organism – pain. Theoretically, there’s nothing necessary about damage to the organism being signaled by pain to consciousness. Instead, theoretically, damage could have been signaled by any other arbitrary perception – say a vision of a particular color or perception of a particular sound or smell. But pain – a signal that conscious beings innately dislike and want to avoid – was more adaptively advantageous. The organisms for whom the damage signal was a psychically neutral color, sound, or smell didn’t have a perception that would cause them to avoid the damaging stimulus. But pain turned out to be very useful, precisely because it was unpleasant to conscious beings. When that evolutionary change happened, it enabled the organisms to weigh in the balance the possibility of avoiding the pain against the possibility of advantages to be gained by suffering the pain. At that point – bingo – you have the LDS version of Eve: And Eve … heard all these things and was glad, saying: “Were it not for our transgression we never … should have known good and evil…”

2. Are there factual bases to conclude that animals experience pain and suffering?

With Damasio’s model of consciousness in mind (excuse the pun), it’s worth exploring what it takes to have a sense of “self.” This process requires a couple of inferences, but not wildly excessive ones. But, again, it’s useful to me to start with basics. First, because of the way reality is constructed, we can only experience our own subjectivity. In other words, we can never be 100% certain that beings other than ourselves are really conscious. Everyone else might simply be very elaborately programmed stimulus-response mechanisms. Despite this possibility, we use inference to conclude that organisms that have similar structures to us and that display similar responses to ours do so because they, too, experience subjectivity – i.e., they have a sense of “self” just like I do. This isn’t an insignificant assumption – it’s the basis on which we conclude, from an ethical perspective, that it’s wrong to squash another person without a good reason to do so, while it’s not wrong to squash a rock without a good reason to do so. Despite the significance (and I’ll come back to it later for all the reasons that may be becoming obvious at this point), it’s a pretty basic inference, and it’s a pretty common one.

What are the similar structures that help fortify the inference that other humans have subjective senses of “self”? To respond to this question, I resort, again, to Damasio’s studies – this time, studies of people with brain lesions that appear to have taken away those people’s senses of “self.” I will leave you to read Damasio’s entire book, if you’re interested in the details (and hypotheses – this is hardly finished science). In short, Damasio concludes that to have consciousness – including a functional sense of “self” – one must have, intact, at least the portions of the brain that are used to sense the body (visceral perception and emotion perception, among others), as well as the portions that perceive an object that is not the body (sensory perception), and the portion of the brain that retains in (short-term, at least) memory the relationship between the body and the object. Lacking (or having lesions that eliminate) any one of those three systems, patients do not have a sense of self – even if they are awake and able to focus attention on objects, they lack consciousness.

Do other organisms besides myself have each of those three systems? Yes. Most humans have all of them. A number of non-human animals clearly do, too. Using the assumption that like objective structures and like observable actions are reasonable evidence of like subjective experience, at least some non-human animals are conscious beings. If they’re conscious beings, they can experience pain and (perhaps to more attenuated degrees) suffering. It’s not clear that all creatures with brains have the structures required for consciousness, and some pretty likely don’t. But a brain is the starting point in the required structures for our style of consciousness.

3. Are there factual bases to conclude that plants experience pain and suffering?

Answering this question highlights the importance of the like-structures-lead-to-like-experiences inference. Is it possible that other, non-similarly-designed things have developed senses of “self,” but use entirely different physical structures to do so? Certainly. There are lots of examples in evolutionary biology of convergent adaptation – different organisms developing similar structures to adapt to similar environments. The easy and obvious example is that of the relatively streamlined body shapes of fish and whales. Clearly, the pressures of the particular environmental niche (water) had significant and similar effect on the two differently-originating populations. So just as a water environment could cause development of streamlined body shape in very differently constructed populations, so, too, could the environmental pressures that caused the development of consciousness in (at least some) brain-possessing population cause the development of consciousness in creatures that lack central brain-like structures. In this regard, an interesting possibility would be the relatively intelligent mollusks – octopi and cuttlefish, which have distributed nervous systems, rather than centralized nervous systems.

But so far as we can tell (and that’s an important qualification), while plants are certainly capable of stimulus/response processes (every cell has them), they lack the structures from which we can reasonably infer that they have consciousness that would enable them to perceive stimuli as pain, let alone the more abstraction-creating aspects of mind necessary for suffering. Might there be a mechanism for consciousness that doesn’t include any nervous system at all? Of course. The human immune system pretty clearly has sensory elements and “memory” elements without involving the use of neurons. (I’ve not heard a suggestion that the immune system also has decisional elements, so I tend not to think of that particular system as independently conscious, though it clearly relates to and interacts with the consciousness of normally functioning humans.) But I’m not familiar with any well reasoned argument that plants have such consciousness. FWIW, the non-replicability of the experiments reported in books like The Secret Life of Plants makes me suspect defective procedures, rather than consciously alive sunflowers. The accounts that, upon predation-type harms, acacia trees emit chemicals that make their own remaining foliage and the foliage of surrounding acacia trees less palatable to acacia-tree-eaters is a fascinating demonstration of the interdependence of organisms, and of communication, but nothing in the accounts I’ve seen suggests the more elaborate notions required for consciousness, and, therefore, for the experience of pain or suffering.

4. Based on answers to those questions, are there conclusions I can or should draw about how I should respond ethically to such situations?

To get to ethical conclusions from facts, I have to add in values that help give shape to the ethical questions. Without the values, the facts of animal pain and suffering are nothing more than facts. So to the foregoing mix of facts and inferences, I add the following values:

(1) Any degree of consciousness is, itself, both beautiful and sacred to me. As a point of departure, it is the only aspect of existence that I identify as “self,” and I don’t view consciousness as distinctively “me.” IOW, when I perceive my own consciousness, I perceive it to be an artificially divided subset of the consciousness manifest in all other conscious beings. Consciousness is, simply, the way the universe is aware. Though the conditions to which it is exposed and the opportunity for development differ significantly from person to person to animal to animal, the consciousness I experience is not essentially different than that which you or any other person or animal experiences. Memories, instincts, emotions, everything else changes, sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly. Consciousness is the only true constant. Seeing it in my own subjective experience and seeing it manifested and fostering its development in the lives of others is the core of my spiritual practice. My recognition of consciousness in others is the basis on which I identify with them – I believe mistreatment of humans is wrong because humans have consciousness – they are subject beings, to borrow a phrase from Arosophos. They are ‘selves.’ I believe mistreatment of animals is wrong for exactly the same reason. I could go on at much greater length about this, if helpful, but I’ll stop with that as an intro. If you’re interested in the applications of this value in my life, let me know, and we can discuss it further.

(2) Pain and suffering are real experiences of subjective beings, and they are, by definition, negative experiences that – perhaps because of the nature of consciousness, perhaps because of the nature of our peculiar psychology – tend to wreak havoc on consciousness itself. Without training, few people learn to respond positively to pain and suffering, though it seems that there are great souls every now and again who do. While there are ways of using pain and suffering to accomplish good – meditation is one of those ways, but that’s a different subject – intentionally causing another to experience pain and suffering that does not confer create some countervailing benefit works against the value that I place on consciousness. Also, it triggers my sense of empathy – I suffer when I witness another suffering. I rejoice when I witness another experiencing joy. I believe it morally wrong to harm others without, at least, a good reason for doing so.

There are probably other values that could factor into the question, but I think those two will get me as far as I need to go in response to your question. (And, if you’re still reading, you probably just guffawed and asked yourself, “Might he actually go longer than he already has???”)

So when I combine the facts, inferences, and the values, I arrive at these conclusions:

Industrial farming practices

Current industrial farming practices in the US cause incredible pain and suffering on livestock animals that I have good reason to believe have consciousness. So far as I can tell, the only countervailing good that is generated by inflicting that pain and suffering on animals is a marginally lower price for meat. I’ve established to my own satisfaction that I can live – quite well and quite healthily – without eating meat. Given that, there’s very little to weigh in the balance with the pain and suffering that are undeniably caused by my participation in the agricultural system that uses industrial farming practices. Do I like the taste of meat? Yes. Do I like it enough to justify skinning live and conscious creatures? No. Do I like low prices? Yes. Do I like low prices enough to justify skinning live and conscious creatures to keep prices low? No.

Plants v. Animals

As I noted above, the pain and suffering issue itself is based on an inference – that others like me have subjective experience – that they’re not just sophisticated automatons. That inference is pretty common among humans, as it forms the basis for almost all ethical principles I can think of for interacting with other humans. I’ve explained why that inference is logically and reasonably extendible to at least some animals. (I haven’t tried to detail the various lab experiments that have been devised and conducted to test the hypothesis – some are pretty interesting and compelling, but in the end, they still depend upon the same core inference.) I’ve also explained why that particular inference does not support the same conclusion respecting plants. Might I be wrong? Of course.

But, even if your original point were correct – that plants suffer just as animals do – there’s still a kind of logic to preferring a vegetarian diet, so long as self-preservation counts in the scheme of things (I discuss why I think it does, below): fewer plants are destroyed if I eat the plants themselves than if I consume livestock that consume plants. (Though others on this thread have questioned this, the basic principle is unquestionable. It’s really just an application of the 2nd law of thermodynamics to the food chain.)

Hierarchy of Consciousness

Is it right for one conscious being to kill and eat another, even if no pain or suffering is involved? I don’t know. There is an easy case against inflicting pain and suffering on animals. The “ethics” of paying someone to inflict mind-numbing pain and suffering on an animal so I can have shrink-wrapped t-bones on the grill are pretty easy to reject. But supposing death can be inflicted without pain and suffering? This is a much harder question for me than the previous ones were. I suspect that if I had to answer the question of whether I think that there is a hierarchy, I’d answer that I think there is. A manifestation of consciousness that is more developed is of greater value to me than one that is less developed. A manifestation of consciousness that has greater potential for development is more valuable to me than one that has less potential for development.

But note that these are incredibly – horribly, perhaps – notions of value. In theory, the concepts could apply equally to different humans. That potential makes me very uncomfortable with them. I don’t want to justify eating children (less developed) vs. adults (more developed), nor eating people with limited mental faculties (less potential) vs. those without such limitations (greater potential). But the fact is that I value people who apparently cannot live without consuming meat more than I love animals. I’m dubious that such a position is morally justified, but I live with it, nonetheless.

I do what I can to persuade those who don’t believe they can live without meat that it’s entirely possible – at least it is for almost everyone. I’m familiar with a few people for whom a vegetarian diet just hasn’t worked. If I were in that position, I’d probably eat meat, too.

I do what I can to persuade those who believe that they can live without meat, but who don’t want to give up the char-broiled t-bone, that there are better ways of pursuing joy than indulging cravings for a particular food, particularly given the pain and suffering of others that is involved in serving that craving.

And I offer this as a rule I live by: if you choose to eat animal flesh, choose animals that are less likely to experience pain and suffering. Fish? Yes, maybe. How do you feel about clams?

The shadow of succeeding

A reminder of how oblivious I can be.

I've known for several years that I'm mildly bi-polar. And I know that I'm not on meds. Even so, I trust my own perceptions, foolishly, at times.

Last week was the culmination of a couple of really hard weeks of yoga workouts. I'd been in strength-building mode, and I'd worked everything as hard as I could, and I was loving every minute of it. When that was added to the snow-shovelling we've been doing so much of here in Denver, the result was a constantly aching right shoulder -- the one the doc operated on in August.

So last Friday, I find myself in (yet another) yoga class, and the shoulder collapses on me. It loses stability. It hurts sharply, and I spend about half the class in seated meditation: angry, disappointed, hurt, frustrated, sad. Mindful? Not in the slightest. In short, a mess.

Though I hate it, I lay off practice Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. As I progress through those days, it occurs to me that not only does my shoulder hurt a lot, I realize that I'm actually depressed.

This is a good thing, because I have a practice for what to do when I'm depressed. I notice what my mind is up to, and I watch it trail down the pretty familiar mind paths of depression. I don't get attached to those thoughts -- just watch them. I make sure that I get exercise -- though I do it on an elliptical trainer, since everything's still snowbound, and since I have to avoid screwing with my shoulder. On Monday, I set up an appointment with the surgeon to see if I've retorn the cartilage. By Monday night, the shoulder feels, actually, a lot better, though it still makes crunchy sounds at times. The depression lifts.

On Tuesday, I find a yoga class, and I behave, respecting my shoulder. On Wednesday, I find another yoga class, and I behave, respecting my shoulder. And today is Thursday, and my shoulder feels quite nice, thank you very much. Still makes odd, new sounds, so I'm glad to have the doctor's appointment next Monday. But I'm through the depression woods, and I can see the other side of the forest.

What I need to figure out, though, is how to avoid getting attached to the elevated-everything experience that goes along with manic episodes to the same extent I've learned to avoid getting attached to the depressed-everything experience that goes along with the other end of the spectrum.

For me, what makes it particularly hard to avoid attaching to elevation is the deeply-ingrained belief that everything ought to be good and happy and growing and progressing and developing and up. When I finally experience those things, I fall into the deception that I've attained what deep down I think ought to be.

Now that is a get-thee-behind-me moment I should recognize next time.

Any guess of my chances?

Confluence

Confluence: the meeting point of disparate streams, events, or ideas.

Two weeks ago, I underwent a surgery to fix long standing problems in my right shoulder. The surgeon drilled and bored and burned and scraped and riveted and sutured and went on to the next patient. I remember bits and pieces of the events. It was outpatient surgery and I asked the anesthesiologist to leave out the stuff that makes me forget everything that happened. Still I was drugged to the gills, so my memory is sketchy. But I’ve got the scars and the pain and the weakened and painful shoulder, so I doubt it was all just made up.

As you might imagine, Down Dogs are no longer my preferred posture.

But as kismet, fate, karma, God, the Field, or just sheer luck would have it, I found myself this week teaching my first solo yoga classes. The best part was that the students are all true beginners. That allows me to set aside my self-consciousness, as they don’t really know any better.

A few notables: with my right humerus essentially limited to motions at or below shoulder height, and pretty particular even about some of those, I can’t demo nice, proper versions of lots and lots of poses. With each class, I had newcomers, so I started with a refrain of “please evaluate my instructions in light of your own knowledge of your own body. If I ask you to do something that doesn’t seem right, don’t do it.” Then I noted that I’m far from able-bodied at this point myself, and as I demo-ed various poses, I’d explain the modifications I was making for myself so that they wouldn’t mistake my versions of the poses as the “right” ones.

So is a decrepit teacher better than an entirely fit one? Possibly. Perhaps not for those who must see a perfecting physical body in front of them in order to find the discipline to return each week to the mats. But for real people with real (defective) bodies and a reasonable approach to the practice…