Animals still don't matter, but maybe I'd have a better life if they did. Original video: th-cam.com/video/yMmr5P8WLew/w-d-xo.html On pessimism: th-cam.com/video/ADiOPuujcdQ/w-d-xo.html
You're definitely right about how different psychological constitutions push people to different moral views. For whatever reason, my motivation in ethics has always been empathy. I don't take myself to be unusually good or saintly at all, and I can certainly act without full regard for others. When I do, sooner or later I feel guilty though. And the guilt isn't from the fact I may have broken a rule or something. (I don't think I'm moved much at all by the idea of "rules", which might play into me being a consequentialist.) The guilt is felt directly from the idea that I may have hurt someone else. So it's no huge surprise I guess that after I encountered the area of animal ethics in undergrad, I eventually went vegan. I hesitated a lot and had some selfish attitudes at first, but when I did eventually commit, I never looked back. Given my psychology, it definitely adds to my happiness to act in congruence with my empathy. Though you and I are quite different, I do share the same skepticism about how much of our views are born from rational processes versus our psychologies, and also how much of our phycology is up to us. I tend to be a bit optimistic and think that if we want to change some parts of ourselves, we can with enough time and intention. But admittedly I'm not a living proof of that - again, I think I mainly just came this way. So even though I do find your view on the moral status of animals (or any non-rational being) very mistaken and cruel, I don't view you as a bad person. Your moral intuitions are not under your control. Truthfully, I am FAR more annoyed at people who are not vegan but claim to care about non-rational beings (or any other inconsistency) than I am with someone who outright admits they don't care. There is something refreshing about that honesty, especially when it's coupled with a curiosity as to whether that's the best way to be. But it would be absurd to blame you for your phycological constitution, and I respect and admire your ability to be frank about it, even if some people would be judgmental. I can report, though, that my life as a more empathic person who has a pretty easy time making deep relationships is not constant euphoria haha. There were some things I related with in your pessimism video. When I think about it though, my life tends to suck the most when I'm just selfishly pursing my own projects and shutting people out (which I have a habit of doing). I also have a pretty bad form of OCD, and that has put me in some rough places. I've read a lot of David Benatar and am still thinking through anti-natalism. I would say that I do remember my past more positively than it likely was, and so my answer to "do I on the whole have a good life" is probably skewed a bit. But even if I compensate by estimating the goodness of my life a bit lower than it strikes me during reflection, I can comfortably say I feel like my existence is good for me. Overall I am glad I was born. Life could be much better, no doubt! But very are some very rich and meaningful things I can hold on to, and it's safe to say they all involve relationships - especially relationships where I've managed to be to some degree self-sacrificial. I have often wondered, if tomorrow I woke up and was the only sentient being in existence, how many days I'd go before committing suicide. Life without any possibility of knowing or being known by other sentient beings hits me as a hellish and utterly meaningless life. That likely sounds strange to you though! I don't at all think less of anyone to whom it does. Sorry for the essay, just figured you might find a rambling from someone with a fairly different psychology interesting. Again, I admire your ability to self reflect and view yourself objectively as possible. When it comes to more analytic people like myself (and I assume you are one as well), I think we could benefit by applying the same methods of analysis we try to use in philosophy to our own thought patterns and emotional lives. One last thing: I think there are some promising attempts to ground animal rights by means other than moral intuition. Granted, perhaps here I am rationalizing just like you are worried you do, but for example I recall in Peter Singer's "The Expanding Circle" an objection to egoism (and ultimately any moral view short of sentientism) that was made purely on rational considerations. It was basically the accusation that egoism is arbitrary, and any consistent application of reason would lead us to consider all interests equally. If you have done a video on this particular topic/objection, let me know. Whether or not Singer's argument succeeds, I don't know. My only point here is that it isn't obvious to me that emotion is the only possible motivation for a pro animal rights view. I think there may very well be features of sentientism that are preferable for rational reasons, in particular. Not that I think you have explicitly disagreed with this, but it seems implied sometimes. Welp, again sorry for the essay - hope some of it was interesting. Enjoyable video as usual!
I don't have a lot to say in response, but yes, that was definitely interesting! Thanks for that. About egoism, I have a couple of videos on ethical egoism; I talk briefly about the arbitrariness objection in the second: th-cam.com/video/4o-lJ3yQQp4/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/rjiQXRU5D4E/w-d-xo.html Also videos on Stirnerite egoism: th-cam.com/video/BtDxBjfWoPc/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/_5qmDOf5SSk/w-d-xo.html
> I've read a lot of David Benatar and am still thinking through anti-natalism. The kinds of people who are persuaded by David Benatar are often people who I'd want to spread their genes. Makes me think about Idiocracy, but with empathy and caring about suffering being the traits that are selected against (Idiocracy is of course a quite hyperbolic movie): th-cam.com/video/sP2tUW0HDHA/w-d-xo.html. > I have often wondered, if tomorrow I woke up and was the only sentient being in existence, how many days I'd go before committing suicide. Life without any possibility of knowing or being known by other sentient beings hits me as a hellish and utterly meaningless life. I don't find myself thinking that at all. Relations with other sentient beings is a source of meaning/well-being for me, but it's also something I feel like I could do ok without. Also, I do form connections with people, and am not particularly "cold" I think, but there are many people who are warmer than me and who care more than me about maintaining relationships and so on. But at the same time I care a lot about wild-animal suffering, often think about insect suffering and wish we could prevent it, etc. Mostly mentioning this so as to provide another anecdotal datapoint in regards to people who have empathy as the primary motivation behind their values.
@@KaneB I have an objection to the construction of your argument to imply that different psychologies might trigger the construction of different moral systems and therefore a morality shouldn't be built on a moral system. Basically you made two examples: a person feeling sympathy for other living beings (like animals) and a person feeling hate for other living beings (the homosexuals). But this argument of yours presupposes that sympathy/empathy and hate are both inborn... In my opinion, hate towards a precise category is most likely acquired and not inborn. And Im not saying this out of being an optimistic or idealistic person: the opposite, I have a very low opinion of mankid and usually identify as a misanthrope and defend my natural right to care about myself first. However, I think the example you made (homophobia) is not an inborn feature, because it's not a psychological constitution, but rather the consequence of experience in this world One could argue that all psychological constitutions are somewhat inborn and somewhat acquired. Ok... but homophobia is totally not a psychological constitution like having more or less empathy... If you get what Im saying, you're quoting two things as equal on the same level, when they belong to different categories, different levels of ontology
Strangely enough, ever since i changed my moral beliefs to a belief that, for everyone, pain is bad. So, i realized that my suffering that is equal to another’s is just as bad. This made me motivated to act in ways to promote such a normative belief. But, before such a belief, i was lackluster in empathy, thought of others suffering as just whiny bitches, and thought that others are on their own. I’ve changed since I believed in the normative truth that pain is bad.
Me too. I mean, this didn't make me always motivated to help people or animals, but when I see someone suffering is like a alarm ring: "they need help".
but how do you "choose to believe" in any normative system? surely you have your moral belief because it's what you think is true or accurate of the world, not because you want to feel better ?
@@indikulkarni7781 She didn't said she changed her believe to be more empathetic person. She's said it was a consequence of it. But there's something weird happening here. A believe changing motivation. My guess is when you believe something is objective bad, this make you look to other people and feel sad about the badness they are living and maybe this motivate people to want to help. When nothing is objective bad, you look to sad people or animals and may think: " Maybe this is not bad to them, maybe they even enjoy this, let it happen. "
That would be gold. Another suggestion: Perhaps ask yourself could make for a good discussion? He and Kane B seems to have sort of the same (non) feelings for animals.
I like your suggestion that your logical views support an emotional position, which predates any consciously formed logic. So, as you say, if your emotional connection was different, your logical argument might be different, but your conclusion might be the same. Your reflection on the driver of your ideas and logic appears important. For, I gather from the evidence you present that you are not able to change your emotional position, but are honest and open enough to elucidate how it drives your conscious thinking. If this is true for others and suspect it might be then, for me, the type of reflecting you showed is as important, as the logic of any argument you make.
@@justus4684 yeah i know, my point is that theres no difference between animals and humans other than semantics regarding this argument..... I was hoping someone may get wat I'm trying to convey instead of writing an essay in the comments
@@theforcewithin369 Is there a difference between cats and dogs? Now, is there a difference between ants and crows? Now, is there a difference between monkeys and humans? The right answer to all of these questions is “yes”, which defeats your whole point.
It’s interesting because though it is true that with a lack of genuine care for other people’s suffering, empathy just seems to get in the way of our reasoning. However, empathy can also be seen, despite being fundamentally self reflective or selfish any way, as a perspective on other people’s suffering that’s not necessarily just unpractical. It’s, like you said, likely an empathic person gets joy and satisfaction out of seeing others experience joy, or bringing them it. It also gives them that perspective that makes reasoning about ethics come to life. If you are some kind of a utilitarian, this, in good balance, can be positively instrumental. Like intuition.
Not a lot really. Obviously, it doesn't ring true with respect to my own experience. As for humans in general: if we're constructing a hypothetical "state of nature" then we can imagine humans being whatever way we like. I don't think we can infer much of interest from this. If we're making a claim about what real humans are like, then it's a matter for psychologists, anthropologists, etc. I don't think the empirical evidence is likely to come down on Rousseau's side here, partly because I'm inclined to a social constructionist account of emotion (of the sort defended by Lisa Barrett).
Aw man, I reached the same conclusions as you did before stumbling on your channel. Once I get ahold of 50 pounds that I'm free to spend i'll surely use them to have a one on one conversation with you. It really feels like you're the only person that sees things from my perspective
I think I can relate to the notion that emphathy isn't really what pushes my moral judgements. I've always viewn ethics more as a problem to solve. I'd probably be an egoist if that didn't seem absurd to me so I've arrived at utilitarianism instead to have atleast some goal to fall back on
I recall In one of the interviews Peter Singer mentioned that emotionally he doesn't care much about animals too. I think i'm lower than average on empathy as well and don't have extermelly close friends, but things that drag my life enjoyment down are completely unrelated to human relationships.
What do you think about bernard williams essay critiquing the argument from marginal cases? Its interesting, i dont think its completely successfull, but it ddfends a different priority on humanistic projects than on animal welfare successfully in my opinion
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in essence, your view is: you still don't have sympathy and care towards other species, but understand that you'll probably be better off if you do, because your life would be a little more happier possibly. Interesting commentary, I like your content.
It seems then that testing personal wellbeing on basis of variables like ethical position, etcetera is a necessary condition for those persons who happen to inhabit a marginal social position, and not by rational choice within the modernization of globally branded Coca-Colaization of selves that extends arguably into all our institutions.
As a person who was given a bit too much empathy, I felt pretty sad that you feel your life is not that great (I have been there too for other reasons). An option is always that to see a mental health professional (I did) sometimes it can pay off. Maybe you might even turn into a boring Utilitarian like me XD
Don't take this the wrong way - but are you the right person to claim that you have "too much empathy"? How is that empathy measured? And what would - or do - third parties think about your claim? In any case, do you have "too much empathy" for literally everyone and even every animal? Do you emphasise with, for example, those people you strongly politically disagree with? What about child molesters or Nazis? Indeed do you have empathy for the people who criticise your views on your own empathy?
If you care to everyone in this world of suffer, you will be sad. Become a uilitarian is not a way to make someone happy lol Maybe a rule utilitarian lol
Lie in bed at night and think hard about your mortality, then the fact that everyone else you know is going the same way. If that isn't cause for pessimism, I don't know what is. It's not an illness to be unhappy about your existential situation. It is completely rational. No doctor can help with that, though we may be able to find temporary relief through therapy or 'medicating' ourselves.
Your video is very honest and open. That may displease some viewers and please others. In any case, is your main position this?- *If emotions (tacitly or secretly) drive one's moral positions, then there's nothing much to be said for them (despite mentioning Hume positively). That said, you yourself openly admit that your own psychological nature (whatever it is) may be the main motivation for your moral position on animals and on other things.* So at least admitting to one's emotional motivations or dispositions is better than simply denying them and claiming some kind of objective (or realist) status for one's moral positions. Perhaps you're suffering from autism or sociopathy. I don't mean that judgmentally - I'm just raising the possibility. You may be like a philosophical Sheldon Copper or something. The problem is, though, it may be too neat and tidy to put you - or anyone else - in any of these boxes. That said, there are neurophysiological underpinnings to such "conditions".. You can't, as you say, completely lack empathy or emotions. For a start, you need an emotional reason to commit to "being logical". You wouldn't even see the virtue of being logical without that emotional fire to drive the commitment to it. This is something that even mathematicians have admitted. That is, rather than mathematics being the purest of the pure forms of cognitive activity - it too is driven by feelings and emotions. So why be logical? Indeed you mentioned being "sincere" - Why be sincere? You also clearly displayed an emotional reaction to those moral positions which emphasise "punishment". (No doubt you have the arguments against them too.) The emotional underpinnings of (to take fictional and extreme examples) Dr Spock and Sheldon Cooper are clear too - and in many ways. I suppose an entirely logical being would only be concerned with its own survival . And even pleasure and success would be irrelevant without at least some kinds of emotional underpinning.
Autism might be right. I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome when I was younger. Having said that, I've never felt as if it's had much influence on my life, and when I've read about it, I'm not sure it rings true of my own experience. I don't think I'm any kind of sociopath -- there are just too many differences with respect to other behavioural tendencies. I agree that I don't completely lack empathy or emotions. I just seem to be fairly low on the prosocial emotions, and I very rarely form lasting connections with people... or even brief connections, for that matter. It wouldn't be surprising if this is indicative of an underlying psychological deviancy that also drives my lack of concern for animals. I don't really know, though.
i dont really get this view. I dont need to be emotionally attached and have deep respect and admiration for people in wheelchairs to be against randomly shooting them in the back of the head. I can just respect their right to life from reason.. infact i respect animal rights and I dont even like animals, i dont like being around them, I dont like pets, i sort of have contempt for animals in general as dumb pointless creatures...but that doesnt influence if I think its right or wrong to neglect their right to life.. so you are saying because you dont have empathy or deep emotional attachment to animals, therefore it follows that you dont care about their rights? i dont understand that conclusion. I am sure you probably dont have deep emotional attachment to certain groups of humans, disabled people, certain minorities or ethnicities, in those cases are you also indifferent about neglecting those human rights? Weird
the arguments for AR are powerful because usually whenever anyone tries to argue against them, they arrive at saying insane shit like its not wrong to factory farm human beings, or beings that are very similar to humans, or they say shit like they dont care about human rights, so if theres some group of feral human children as long as they dont have a nametag its ok to murder and eat them, or they say stuff like they dont think jeffrey dahmer is immoral, or they say things like theres nothing wrong with torturing puppies and kittens --they just turn into absolute clowns and start dealing with absurdities as a way to ad-hoc rationalize their weak minded addiction to mcdonalds or something.. its so pathetic!
"Our intention is . . . to wake up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord." - John Cage
I once met John Cage in, of all places, Huddersfield in West Yorkshire (England). He had just been out picking mushrooms on Marsden Moor. I met him during the Contemporary Music Festival. He was a very strange man. And that was reflected in both his views and, more relevantly, in his music... Then again, you may be referring to another John Cage.
You could think about relationship as contract too. You care about their happiness as long they care about your. This could solved your relationship problems. But if you don't have consideration about anyone happiness you will never have deep relationships. Love is like you have someone you can count when you need help. There's many things we need from other people, like having sex, or when you seek, when you can't defeat a enemy by yourself.. So love have this reciprocal self-interest value. Know that someone truly cares about your happiness and value what you do to then is another feature of love people like, don't feel alone in the universe, know that something you do matters, at list to some people. This part I don't know if you can have, maybe you can, maybe what's missing in you life is experience in relationships.
Man, you have got to talk to Alok Kanoja from healthygamergg, that would be the most amazing conversation and I think he could be insightful for you on this topic
Funny thing is, I have more empathy for non-human animals than humans. I often think it is easier to generate happiness in animals than in us intuitively from a utilitarian standpoint (I realize the epistemic impossibility there of definitively knowing animals to be happy). I may just be a depressed individual, but how hard it is to make a human happy in today’s environment push me to favor some anti natalist views specific to human species (contra antinatalism for all species). There are tricky instances where antinalism for a certain species may make sense. For instance, some people believe that hamsters should never be pets, and the most effective way to end that is just to stop breeding hamsters all-together. Is there intrinsic positive value to life? Or is it happiness alone that matters.
Destiny talks about this issue in a really similar way he has the same kind of lack of empathy and applies it to morality in the same sort of contractural way
Unlike you though he is more inclined to ‘endorse’ being this way, he accepts that people are different but he claims to be generally a happy person so he would say it’s a good way to be at least for some people… so it’s interesting that you connect this attitude with your unhappiness
You can also pretend to believe in other believes to maximize your well-being. A version of Nozik Machine to desires theorists. The funny conclusion is bout hedonist and subjevists would accept lies sometimes. One because this may maximize pleasure, other because this may maximize getting what they want lol
is normative ethics necessarily grounded in personal psychology in your view then? Even leaving moral realism and meta ethics aside, is there no way to approach moral issues from a purely rational point of view?
Interesting video Kane. I hope this doesn't come across as rude or disrespectful, but the way you spoke of your mom passing reminded me of Meursault in The Stranger. At the same time, I've met people that were quite emotional or caring and when it came to the death of their parents, they were just sort of accepting of it. People respond in all sorts of ways to that kind of thing. I did want to ask about the sympathy that you have for other humans though, you say that it may be the consequence of self-interest. That you are sympathetic towards the homeless because you can imagine your future self in a similar situation and so it follows that you don't want that sort of thing to exist in society because that could be you. Maybe you can do this better than I can, but what if we imagine some hypothetical where we exclude the possibility that you could end up in a situation like that, does your sympathy for them still exist? What about something like cobalt mining? It seems really unlikely that you would ever find yourself in a situation like that, do you have sympathy for those people?
Yeah, I have sympathy in those cases... at least, I think I do. I have a negative reaction, at least: I consider such situations to be bad, and I would prefer it if the world were such that nobody had to live like that. But I'm not sure we can conclude anything about the underlying psychological motivation for this reaction. Yes, I know that it's very unlikely that I would be forced into cobalt mining. But this kind of propositional knowledge sometimes has a tenuous relationship to one's emotional reactions. I know that flying is a far safer way to travel than driving a car, but even so, when I get on a plane, I experience far more anxiety related to safety than when I'm driving. When I read about the conditions of cobalt miners, or when I think about homeless people even in hypothetical scenarios in which there's no risk to myself, I'm presented with a vivid picture of other rational agents living in appalling conditions. It's immediately obvious that it would be against my self-interest if the society in which I live changed such that these outcomes might be a genuine risk for me. That's going to prompt an emotional reaction, even if intellectually try to bracket it.
I want to make sure that I am understanding you correctly here Kane, I'll try to summarise: Even though these hypotheticals pose no risk to you, the thought of them elicits an emotional response that is risk-averse. Is that fair? If we base our morality on concern regarding rationality, where we currently exclude animals because they aren't as rational as humans. Is there not a sort of threat there where we may, at least hypothetically, begin down an even more exclusionary path regarding rationality. Maybe it's not just the case that we should exclude animals, but we should also exclude some humans on the same grounds that they just aren't quite rational enough or the means to make them more rational isn't worth the effort. This is going to be a more extreme hypothetical, but what if we have IQ purgers or disability purgers that just begin killing people if they don't meet a particular threshold of rationality? The hypothetical that I am trying to construct here is one in which the exclusion of animals on rational grounds leads to some potential risk for yourself. My assumption is that this hypothetical won't elicit an emotional response from you akin to the previous homeless/cobalt hypotheticals. If so, why? Is it too far removed? I don't know how far our conversation will go. So, I guess I'll end this comment by at least giving my own position here. I can't seem to get around the idea that pain is intrinsically wrong, it's not a desirable state in and of itself. Instrumentally it is good or bad depending on the context. I guess I'm following Sidgwick here in that because pain is intrinsically bad, I'm not just aiming at my own pain - I'm aiming at pain itself and how it impacts others. Is there not a sort of self-interest view possible here? If we only aim at a part of pain, at my pain - then, do we risk others doing the same? Do we risk reducing people's compassion and empathy for others that experience pain by not considering animals? Does that put you at risk?
@@frasertierney7044 >> Even though these hypotheticals pose no risk to you, the thought of them elicits an emotional response that is risk-averse. Is that fair? Maybe. I'm not entirely sure. The trouble is that we're now dealing with facts about my psychology to which I don't have any reliable access. >> Is there not a sort of threat there where we may, at least hypothetically, begin down an even more exclusionary path regarding rationality Sure, but that's always a threat. No matter what your moral views are, or how broadly you're willing to extend moral consideration, there might always be people who want to restrict moral consideration in ways that you find problematic. Also, note that everybody is exclusionary regarding rationality in at least some respects. Rationality makes a difference, even if you don't think it makes all the difference. >> Do we risk reducing people's compassion and empathy for others that experience pain by not considering animals? Yeah, this is something worth bearing in mind, and might be a good reason for favouring animal rights even from my point of view. However, this also has to be weighed against potential losses (e.g. we would lose the benefits of using animals in medical research).
FWIW I'm probably above average in compassion and I was also attracted to right wing libertarianism for a while and I think my views have usually been something vaguely liberty-centred.
Here is a related thought that I haven't seen covered elsewhere, but which obviously must've been conceived of and pondered upon deeply by others, so if anyone could give a name to it so I could look into refutations and such I would much appreciate. Anyway, so in my view "you" is just a a conscious experience in a given moment, but I don't see a rational reason to identify with the collection of temporally separate conscious experiences that is typically referred to as "you". But it seems that you, even if you don't have compassion toward spacially seperate conscious experiences you do have deep compassion and care about the situation in which the temporally seperate conscious experience that will occur in relation to the sense perceptions of your body, is that really different in kind to compassion for others? If you have this compassion and take it as a value and want to construct a coherent moral framework ought you not to care also for other humans and even animals
The video is fine, but I'm not sure how this specifically deal with animal rights. It seems to me like the topic of how inherent psychological states influence our approach to morality is different from the topic of animal rights.
It's probably wrong to say you don't care at all. I assume you would prefer that animals not suffer. Imagine nothing else changes and you press a button then things that hurt animals would no longer hurt them, but you had to walk like 2 miles to press it. You wouldn't do it?
@@KaneB Not even to be a team player towards humans that do care? My own moral code is a compromise between lots of different inclinations, but most of all I'm an hedonistic utilitarian who cares strongly about how good/bad the world is to live in for all sentient beings. But if I can do things that are really fantastic from the perspective of the value systems of many other humans (or avoid things that are really terrible from their perspective) - well, I would care more than nothing about that, and I would certainly do so if the cost to myself and my own values is low enough. For example, if we look away from pain and mental trauma and costs and lost utility from good lives and so on, I don't see anything wrong with abortions - like, I don't see it as inherently wrong because I classify it as "murder" or anything like that But if I could walk 2 miles to magically remove from the world the aspect of abortions that abortion-opponents worry see as a moral horror but without changing much else about the world - well, I'd do that. I view "I will respect your moral values when it's at low cost to my own, and hopefully you'll do the same towards me" as sort of analogous to "I'll not kill you unless I have what I see as a really good reason, and hopefully you'll act the same way towards me".
@@TorBarstad In more realistic scenarios, the fact that other humans care about animals, and would like to reduce animal suffering, does make a difference to my behaviour. But with thought experiments like this, I try to engage without considering the impact on humans, because it seems like the point is to elicit judgments specifically about animal welfare. In this particular case, it was explicitly said that "nothing else changes" -- so presumably, pushing the button isn't going to make a difference to what any human thinks or feels. In that case, I have no reason whatsoever to push it. For me this scenario is similar to: "if you could walk 2 miles to push a button that would move Alpha Centauri 10 meters to the left, would you do it?"
No problem. Just like intelligence, your capacity for empathy is set in stone and hardwired shortly after birth. You can not train it, not empathy itself (as a simulation thereof is not empathy), as it's the vessel, not contents of vessels. It's so fundamental to the psyche. My earliest childhood memories are about animal concerns, animal empathy. Tell me again how much I had to be shaped by working class third parties, or even "taught critical thinking" (apparently people of lower IQ than us have to be this taught, in adulthood). There was no further reflection needed, and with 9 I decided to be vegetarian. As said, hardwired. Like hardcore. Just please don't get offended when I regard and epithet you as "psychopath", because I think no empathy whatsoever for animals puts one handsomely in that category. Aside from that, our personalities seem to be comparable. I am also a disinterested loner. I have made like one online friend in 17 years of internet, and one in the same period IRL. I am rational and not emotionally puppeteered to a fault. Don't assume empathy always correlates with that. It does not in me.
I'm a vegan and I wonder all the time why cannister don't just say they don't care about animal rights. It's the only sensible reason and likely the true psychological reason. That said, if you saw someone setting a bag of kittens on fire, would that not perturb you? If you genuinely don't care, I get it, but I'm kind of curious.
How do you know that you can't become "constituted differently" through enough effort / practice, a la Aristotle? If you think your life is bad but there might be this potential for it to be good, why put your efforts towards anything else?
have you tried to hold the moral positions of happy people? how much time could you pretend holding them such that it stops being insincere? can a man behave insincerely for decades? I am troubled by how much weight a supposedly private moment of consciousness (like an immediate apprehension of "this makes me feel so and so") appears to play here. I am troubled by it, I do not have a rebuttal, of course there is a sense in which people get immediately affected by a movie like Hachiko and some people don't (have you seen it?), but taking that kind of experience as the ground for all moral stances ("there is people who just feel in such and such a way. if you do, then you can support animal rights, etc") makes me wary of this being a case of what Wittgenstein named 'one-sided diets' of philosophical examples.
@@Jorge-xf9gs Ask what you want, though if you want to attribute a disorder to me, you might as well go with the one I was diagnosed with when I was a kid -- Asperger syndrome.
A fact of the universe, one less studied and which remains to be brought to the forefront of moral philosophy, is that being right and being happy are mutually exclusive points of vantage.
I think you are substantially correct about why your life sucks, but I also suspect you can become more capable of forming fulfilling connections and being a caring and compassionate person to a more normal degree. In P B's comment, he gave a fascinating account of how he trained himself to experience more empathy, and while I wouldn't try to generalize from his case, I would not be surprised if that kind of change is possible for you as well. You may be affected by issues from your past, for example, that have closed you off to meaningful connection, and those may be issues that you can resolve by means of introspection or therapy. I also think that the meaningfulness you might find in life through the development of meaningful connections would help to relieve your fear of death, because you would find yourself being put to good use as a whole being, and valuing the significance of your life beyond its effects within your own experience. In my own case, I still really, really don't want to die because I love life, and the prospect is still pretty unpleasant, but I am largely reconciled to it and can contemplate it without distress because I have and freely invest in these connections. It means a lot to me that, while annihilation is inevitable, at least I have not gone to waste, and I will be survived by something I've put into the world that I value for its own sake. I hope you don't mind me going on like this about something so personal. I think what you've been doing with this channel is very interesting and worthwhile, and I hope you find it rewarding.
>> In P B's comment, he gave a fascinating account of how he trained himself to experience more empathy Yeah, that was interesting, but his method apparently involved "a deliberate choice of traumatizing myself and Ptsd"... I'm not gonna do that. In fact, I doubt I'll put in any effort whatsoever. If I could take a pill that would transform my attitudes, maybe I'd do that. But this isn't something I'm interested in actually working on. >> You may be affected by issues from your past, for example, that have closed you off to meaningful connection This seems extremely unlikely to me. I had a very positive upbringing.
Always am a little perplexed by you in terms of your pessimism. Considering John Cage is such a hero of yours. He describes deriving a lot of happiness from the utter weirdness and peculiar quality of the world generally. So much so that a theme in his work is to try to extend the mundane itself into the realms of the aestheticly pleasurable. This can be endlessly amplified until all of existence is an aesthetic object that just pumps out aesthetic pleasure. This doesn't require empathy or relationships with people or animals, but provides a potentially endless source of happiness. I wonder to what extent art moves you, I'm predisposed to be overwhelmingly moved by art, and tend to see it everywhere. And I've always naturally prefered aesthetics to people, but I also naturally prefer animals to people. But this puzzlement about you is mainly how you don't find the general fact of existence utterly bizarre, I always think its weird particularly for philosophers to not have that wonder on board... if you found the general fact of existence generally baffling and insane, it could be an endless source of happiness even without liking people or animals.
I find art pleasurable, and Cage's work and ideas in particular are very rewarding. I think that engaging with Cage had a notable influence on my attitude to art and aesthetics. But for me, that's only one aspect of life. Anyway, it's not as if I agree with Cage on everything!
@@KaneB I know you don't agree with him on everything. But why do you see your emotional attitudes as seemingly fixed and so hard to alter? And why do you agree with Hume about everything but take your "self" so seriously?
@@unknownknownsphilosophy7888 >> why do you see your emotional attitudes as seemingly fixed and so hard to alter? I dunno, maybe they're not. I'm not really sure where I would start with trying to alter them though. >> And why do you agree with Hume about everything but take your "self" so seriously? I don't feel like I do take it seriously. Honestly, my predicament is kind of amusing to me, which is one reason why I was motivated to make this video.
@@KaneB Yeah, you're on to something in saying "this predicament is amusing to me" you should play that out further and amplify that some more and see what happens
I would be interested in: What trait or traits of the humans would have to change to those of an animal, to let you have the same or a similar attitude towards animals in terms of supporting their killing financially?
Have you watched the original "Animals Don't Matter" video? It's in the pinned comment. I think I make my views pretty clear there. But whether an entity is granted moral consideration isn't dependent only on its intrinsic traits. It's also dependent on what rules with respect to that entity would promote flourishing for rational agents. So from my point of view, there is no determinate answer to your question.
I will be honest, I am not philosophicaly educated, but I occassionally watch and enjoy your videos. So in that light am not sure of my comments value, but… Empathy, in my book is not a matter of is or isnt but a matter of skill. Sure like in all disciplines we have certain given advantages, but to a certain degree one can learn anything. The example with a homeless person for example was in fact a empathetic signal not a projection or maybe. Empathy means putting yourself in the others shoes, which you did. Now if you would have given him something, that would be an act of sympathy. As with many of your other points this example ilustrates to me that you might have a tendency to repress your emotions with reason, or rather logic? (Since i dont believe rational / reasonable has to equal logical.) Am going on and on, dont want to psychoanalyze you or whatnot, but that to me seems like the case. There might be ton of reasons for that and I guess its probably not like I figured out something youo dont already know. Now you also said that you dont care about animals, but you lived or have lived with brothers dogs. If you were home alone with them and you would hear one or more scream in pain, would you act? Its not two miles, its not some strange dog you dont know…Would you be in distress and act in order to stop the suffering?
>> If you were home alone with them and you would hear one or more scream in pain, would you act? Its not two miles, its not some strange dog you dont know…Would you be in distress and act in order to stop the suffering? I'd help them, but only because my brother cares about them. If my brother died or something, the first thing I'd do is give the dogs away. I don't care about them at all and their presence in the house makes my life worse.
@Otávio Rapôso Comments like this are so rude and close-minded that the charitable interpretation is that they can't possibly be sincere. But then I remember that there are plenty of folks who act rude and close-minded sometimes, including me. So I'll assume that you're expressing your actual opinion, despite how stupid it is. With that in mind: Fuck off.
@Otávio Rapôso Sure; honest opinions can be rude though. Accusations of insincerity are rude in my view. Which isn't to say that people shouldn't make them, but usually when somebody does, I'll be rude in turn. >> Maybe some kind of fear at the threath of public inconsistency? Or need for human attention? I don't think either of those things are hidden forces. I generally aim to avoid inconsistency, public or otherwise; and obviously one of the motivations of all my videos is to get attention -- if I didn't care about that, I wouldn't go to the trouble of uploading anything. I don't see why either of these things would make me insincere in the views I express. I expect that almost everybody interested in philosophy who uploads things to youtube shares the goals of consistency and attention.
@Otávio Rapôso >> I meant hidden in the sense that there're deeper driving forces that make you say what you say, beyond reflection, and you don't aknowledge them for what they are doing This seems completely trivial. Yeah, everybody's behaviour will have causes that they're unaware of. >> I think you want attention in such a ultimate sense that it poisons your very philosophical views I don't know what this means. I think it's true that my philosophical views are influenced by my underlying psychological drives. Indeed, that was exactly the point I was making in this video! But again, this is true for everybody. I'm not sure what it means to say that the views are thereby "poisoned". >> Same thing for the fear of public inconsistency which is more about the feeling of being consistent in public than as an epistemic virtue I see consistency is an epistemic virtue in general, regardless of whether we're talking about public statements or a person's private views. If anything, it's more important in a public statements. It doesn't really matter what's going on inside people's heads. >> you clearly have an issue with at least being called insencere in public. You seem to care more about that than you say you care about your familiar bonds In social interaction, I follow a "tit for tat" principle. I prefer civil discussion for several reasons, so I try to avoid initiating rudeness. If others are rude to me, I'll be rude back.
I've lived with animals for most of my life because I share a house with my brother, and he enjoys having dogs. For me it's a compromise -- my life would be better if it was pet-free. I mean, it's not a big deal, because I've always been very clear that I won't spend any time working for them: I won't walk them, I won't feed them, etc. My brother is solely responsible for them.
Philosophy seems to be your signature strength (Seligman) , but does not seem to connect with you constructing a meaningful and purposeful life? Perhaps you may need to give your mind a break. Explore Professor Steve Hayes first populariser of ACT - "Get Out Of Your Mind and Into Your Life"? Explore why you think you are constituted psychologically the way you describe - also the word "happy" is bounded around everywhere. Suggest also reading "The Happiness Trap" by Russ Harris. It is possible, with much respect, that you are constituted with some high functioning Asberbers/Autism spectrum qualities? No idea, just perhaps an issue you may like to explore? Or maybe not, your ruthless self honesty is admirable however. Straying away from psychology, Schopenhauer thought our very own existence can be a source of suffering in itself. Could write more but that's enough.
Animal agriculture is a disaster for humanity. I don't think you need to care about animals to endorse reducing the consumption of animal products. However, I really, *really* like eggs and diary, and I'm pretty sure our future is screwed at this point no matter I do. So I'm vegetarian, but I doubt I'll ever go vegan.
@@guy-iw2qh Yes, it would be better if everybody went vegan. But there are other things I'm weighing up here. For example: (1) Giving up eggs and dairy would be a significantly greater sacrifice for me than giving up meat. I don't really care about meat. Giving it up didn't make much difference to my life. But I love eggs and dairy. (2) There are lots of things a person can do to reduce their environmental impact. After all, why stop at veganism? You could do even more for the environment by rejecting industrialized agriculture in general. I don't expect other people to sacrifice everything, so I'm not going to hold myself to that standard either. (3) I very much doubt that we're going to make any significant changes until it's too late. So I can't help but feel like I'd be making a sacrifice for nothing. If we're screwed anyway, I might as well enjoy myself.
No. I have very few of the personality traits associated with psychopathy. If you're looking for a disorder, some sort of high-functioning autism is more likely (I was diagnosed with Aspergers).
I like your self awareness. And I am not sure why do I not hate you for being so unsympathetic toward animals, but I don't. Maybe because you are cute, I am not gay tho.
I think because he doesn't sees animal suffering as good. He just don't see it as bad, horrible, sad... But I think many people in his life would be afraid of him because the low empathy and his honest about it. Actually many people are like him, but they pretend do be more empathetic persons to not be discriminated because of this. If more people were honest about it, maybe we would find ways to be more understand about that and not treating them as monster or be afraid of them. Maybe you gay, dude, we are very understand people here, you can be honest, we will not discriminate you here.
Kane, given that your ethical theory is egoistic (as I think), I've been wondering how you justify stances such as veganism. Sure, it's in your interest to live in a world where the climate hasn't been destroyed, but one person abstaining from eating meat doesn't seem to have an appreciable effect on the probability of that. So given that it's also in your interest to eat the tasty meats, it seems like you're giving up more than you're getting. But then I found out that you're a proud 1-boxer with regard to Newcomb's problem, and a thought occurred to me. Maybe your reasoning runs something like this: P1: The rational decision is the one that correlates with the best outcome for the chooser, whether or not the decision is causally related to the outcome. P2: A world in which even I, a person not morally opposed to animal torture, go vegan is far more likely to be a world in which most people give up meat and thus the environment is not destroyed. C: It is rational for me to go vegan, even though I don't see a causal link between that choice and a preferred outcome for myself. Is this more or less your thinking? If so, it's an interesting way of getting egoistic ethical judgments to line up more with "traditional" moral judgments (like "if veganism is good for humanity as a whole, one should go vegan") than they otherwise would.
My issue, if you can call it that is that your answer to the marginal case seemed insufficient. I dont care in many ways. I dont feel bad for the deer in the nature documentary. I just can't justify killing animala for food.
What about if you saw a human being eaten alive? Do you think we should intervene to help? If so, what justifies the different treatment of the human and the deer?
@@KaneB I dont think the person is being "wronged", but that is due to the animals mental capacity. I would want to save them. I guess my answer would be along the line of Peter Singers expanding circle of care. It would be do to having more responsibility to the human. I am not sure speicisum is totally unavoidable, but we may have control over the level of it.
That sounds a bit "stirnerian" worldview to me (as a neutral statement), even though it is an biological-mental-condition. And after l whatched couple times animal rights-video, l have began to agree with you, at least what comes to that animals cannot ever be at same level as humans, as they are always as used living objects, whether it be slave cattle, leader-following dogs, or cats with some kind of strange relationship with humans, which varies from friendly to passive-aggressive.
It's interesting that you took this to be one step closer. I would have thought it would seem more like one step further away. When somebody defends an anthropocentric approach to ethics, what's the motivation for that? For most people, it's because they enjoy engaging in practices that require them to discount the interests of nonhuman animals. But this isn't an attitude that they're able to hold in general. Most people do have sympathetic feelings for animals, and this manifests in their moral views (consider the views most people have towards bullfighting). So they have to draw arbitrary lines, ignore information, or just be outright inconsistent. No doubt this behaviour is annoying animal rights advocates, but it also means you have a bridge to them. In my case though, my moral views seem to be a product of a genuinely deviant psychology. It's not as if I'm even motivated to defend any particular practices, because I grant that abolishing animal agriculture (at least, industrialized animal agriculture) would be enormously beneficial to humanity. I don't know how you could make me care about animals without radically altering my basic drives, and how could you do that?
@@KaneB You mentioned that you are moved by human suffering. Even if you have some skepticism about how genuinely altruistic those feelings are, that seems like a part of your current psychological makeup. You've heard this line of argument many times, but it seems to me that if suffering in ALL humans moves you, there's a bridge for you. This is simply because some humans, if injured or born in a particularly severe way, could end up cognitively equivalent to a dog. If a human like that was tortured, and that suffering moved you at all, then we have a case where your attitudes differ between two psychologically identical beings, and the only difference is what body they happen to have. You'd be discriminating based on looks. I would think having or lacking moral consideration for someone based purely on how they look is vulnerable to a charge of being arbitrary or irrational in some way. But hey, maybe you aren't moved by the suffering of any cognitively impaired humans.... If you are, though, seems like that intuition can't consistently differ between two cases when the only difference is aesthetics
@@KaneB how can you be certain that this aspect of your psychology is fixed and unchangeable? I sometimes notice that things I value for practical reasons can become valuable in and of themselves over time.
@@skube_yo I could end up with impaired cognitive capacities; I couldn't end up turning into a dog. If I lived in a world in which humans sometimes did turn into dogs, maybe I'd have a different attitude toward canine welfare.
@@ianhruday9584 I'm not certain about that. It's more that (a) I'm not sure where we'd even start with trying to alter my basic drives and (b) even if there was some way of doing this, I just wouldn't bother putting the work in, at least not at the moment. There are too many other goals that I'm more interested in pursuing, that I already have nowhere near enough time for.
Your example seems to be odd as the deer suffers its death through predation but the dragon would also suffer starvation if it could not eat. With respect to your compassion. Consider that you have no reason to care that you could become homeless, you just need to be the exception which you currently are. With respect to sympathy and empathy I can't say, that's just how your brain work. As for your central argument. Yes I think your life would be more fore filling if you attempted to cultivate deep relationships. These sorts of relationships provide motivation for existence, which you don't seem to lack, and points of nucleation for happiness. They can also provide relief from stress.
I don't think you should need empathy to care about animals morally (though of course in practice it helps). Even an anti-realist can consider moral arguments and change their views accordingly. All that's needed is to believe that suffering is bad and that (some) animals can suffer. Since suffering is bad to you and suffering presumably feels just as bad to animals, one might consider that enough to generalize the badness of suffering to any being who experiences it. And even if that sounds like BS, I guess I'd at least claim that you should care about animal suffering for prudential reasons. If somehow you're wrong and animal suffering does matter morally (e.g. if somehow moral realism is correct, your "true" reflected preferences actually do care about animals, or some unknown unknown), then factory farming and the horrors of nature are really big problems that need to be addressed. But if you're right, then they just don't matter. This suggests that the expected value of ignoring animal suffering is negative. Even if there's only a tiny chance that you're wrong, you should probably play it safe and try to reduce their suffering (since the cost to you would be much smaller in comparison). Regardless, this was a really interesting video. You seem very self-reflective and honest :)
>> Even if there's only a tiny chance that you're wrong, you should probably play it safe and try to reduce their suffering Interesting point, but why is that playing it safe? What if my "true" preferences are that I actually desire to impose suffering on animals? With that in mind, I have just as strong a reason, per your argument, for going out of my way to increase animal suffering.
@@KaneB Fair point. If you're equally likely to see animal suffering as a moral good, then it'd cancel out. But I think even from your perspective, it should seem at least more likely that animal suffering is bad than good. Some reasons for this are that: 1) many other people believe animal suffering is bad but less believe it to be good (which is evidence because you share with them a somewhat similar brain/environment, and if you give any weight to moral realism you should assign some probability that they got it right and you didn't) 2) suffering is bad when it happens to you so that could be an indication that it's bad when it happens to others. Maybe you think there's a .5% chance that animal suffering is bad and a .1% chance that it's good, for example. In this case, the expected value of preventing animal suffering still dominates so you should work on it for prudential reasons.
I highly doubt your life sucks because you somewhat lack empathy which further prevents you from forming stronger bonds with others. It is my observation that us humans in general aren't that great. Therefore forming strong bonds with one another often leads to drama, disappointment, inequality and downright misery. Consequently reducing one's happiness. One is often better off alone with a limited amount of social interactions.
In b4 your massive depressive implosion due to overwhelming lack of human connection and no understanding of compassion for yourself or others. Compassion is a learned skill, btw. As much if not more than it is an innate predisposition.
Try fostering some rescued animal & see how you get on (I appreciate that long-term committed relationships are probably beyond possible at present). The focus on sympathy & suffering is wrong. You don't have to give a damn about any animal to respect their rights. Singer's influence has generally been rejected by the rights based movement as being non-rights. Don't know what happened to you in childhood, or whether it is genetics but, boy, you need a better therapist than talking to TH-cam. Or go fall in love & then get your heart broken open.
>> Try fostering some rescued animal & see how you get on Why the fuck would I do that? I hate living with animals. >> you need a better therapist than talking to TH-cam The reason why I make these videos is that (a) they can be done very quickly, unlike the lecture videos, and so are an easy way of generating regular content and (b) people seem to be interested in what I have to say. It has nothing to do with therapy.
@@KaneB Why? To learn how to love, & experience the unconditional love that they are capable of back. I don't know you beyond what you've said about yourself on two videos about AR, but if you've not on the autistic spectrum, you've got some serious issues in the heart department.
@@jonahwhale9047 I'm capable of love. I'm not interested in "loving" animals and frankly, the idea of that strikes me as both ridiculous and gross. I mean, I'm not gonna judge others if they're into that, but it's not for me.
@@KaneB God know what theoretical conception you have of love. "Capable", so says the guy who went thru uni without making any friends, or lovers by the sound of it, sufficient enough to want to keep their phone number. Your primary reaction suggests your idea of it is all about you, instead of extending yourself for a hurt or damaged other, & fixing them. Fencing only fostering a rescue rather than adopting. How about starting my looking into how many words there are for love in Latin, & trying a few of the new ones? As for "gross"? Yes, for sure, the best loving is dirty, or requires you getting down in the dirt for someone else. I'm more concerned, however, about your misconception of animal rights as something to do with suffering & sympathy. That's a D- fail straight away.
@@jonahwhale9047 >> so says the guy who went thru uni without making any friends, or lovers by the sound of it I've been in long-term romantic relationships before. >> instead of extending yourself for a hurt or damaged other, & fixing them That's right, I'm definitely not interested in "fixing" people (or animals). >> about your misconception of animal rights as something to do with suffering & sympathy I think there are ways of justifying animal rights that do not rest on appeals to suffering and sympathy, so I'm not sure what you take the "misconception" here to be. It sounds like you might have missed the point of this video somewhat.
The only real question is whether or not you’re happy with your position, and it sounds like you’re not. I don’t think emotions have to cloud your judgments. You can correct for emotional bias the same way you correct for any bias. Why not see a Therapist? It might help.
To be clear, I'm not saying that emotions necessarily cloud one's judgments. I just think there might be some benefits to the way I happen to be constituted. One of these is that standard responses of compassion and sympathy might, in some circumstances, lead people to think and act in ways that I'd say are problematic.
Watch Dominion(documentary), Forks over Knives, Seaspiracy, The Game Changers, Earthlings, and Gary Yourofsky's The Most Important Speech You Will Ever Hear(on TH-cam). Go vegan 💚
Anthropocentrism. If you don't care about animals, why do you care about humans? Because they're like you? Egocentrism. But you do care about humans. So care about them, just not anthropocentrically. But that means caring about animals, too, (doesn't it?).
Well, he sorta cares about humans. It's funny that he's so interested in reading shit written by other humans be has stunted empathy towards human animals.
I think you're way too unsceptical of your own moral attitudes. People are extremely malleable and unless you are literally a clinical psychopath you could me a much more compassionate person with different life circumstances. A lot of compassion is learned behavior.
Animals still don't matter, but maybe I'd have a better life if they did. Original video: th-cam.com/video/yMmr5P8WLew/w-d-xo.html
On pessimism: th-cam.com/video/ADiOPuujcdQ/w-d-xo.html
You're definitely right about how different psychological constitutions push people to different moral views. For whatever reason, my motivation in ethics has always been empathy. I don't take myself to be unusually good or saintly at all, and I can certainly act without full regard for others. When I do, sooner or later I feel guilty though. And the guilt isn't from the fact I may have broken a rule or something. (I don't think I'm moved much at all by the idea of "rules", which might play into me being a consequentialist.) The guilt is felt directly from the idea that I may have hurt someone else. So it's no huge surprise I guess that after I encountered the area of animal ethics in undergrad, I eventually went vegan. I hesitated a lot and had some selfish attitudes at first, but when I did eventually commit, I never looked back. Given my psychology, it definitely adds to my happiness to act in congruence with my empathy.
Though you and I are quite different, I do share the same skepticism about how much of our views are born from rational processes versus our psychologies, and also how much of our phycology is up to us. I tend to be a bit optimistic and think that if we want to change some parts of ourselves, we can with enough time and intention. But admittedly I'm not a living proof of that - again, I think I mainly just came this way. So even though I do find your view on the moral status of animals (or any non-rational being) very mistaken and cruel, I don't view you as a bad person. Your moral intuitions are not under your control. Truthfully, I am FAR more annoyed at people who are not vegan but claim to care about non-rational beings (or any other inconsistency) than I am with someone who outright admits they don't care. There is something refreshing about that honesty, especially when it's coupled with a curiosity as to whether that's the best way to be. But it would be absurd to blame you for your phycological constitution, and I respect and admire your ability to be frank about it, even if some people would be judgmental.
I can report, though, that my life as a more empathic person who has a pretty easy time making deep relationships is not constant euphoria haha. There were some things I related with in your pessimism video. When I think about it though, my life tends to suck the most when I'm just selfishly pursing my own projects and shutting people out (which I have a habit of doing). I also have a pretty bad form of OCD, and that has put me in some rough places. I've read a lot of David Benatar and am still thinking through anti-natalism. I would say that I do remember my past more positively than it likely was, and so my answer to "do I on the whole have a good life" is probably skewed a bit. But even if I compensate by estimating the goodness of my life a bit lower than it strikes me during reflection, I can comfortably say I feel like my existence is good for me. Overall I am glad I was born. Life could be much better, no doubt! But very are some very rich and meaningful things I can hold on to, and it's safe to say they all involve relationships - especially relationships where I've managed to be to some degree self-sacrificial. I have often wondered, if tomorrow I woke up and was the only sentient being in existence, how many days I'd go before committing suicide. Life without any possibility of knowing or being known by other sentient beings hits me as a hellish and utterly meaningless life. That likely sounds strange to you though! I don't at all think less of anyone to whom it does.
Sorry for the essay, just figured you might find a rambling from someone with a fairly different psychology interesting. Again, I admire your ability to self reflect and view yourself objectively as possible. When it comes to more analytic people like myself (and I assume you are one as well), I think we could benefit by applying the same methods of analysis we try to use in philosophy to our own thought patterns and emotional lives.
One last thing: I think there are some promising attempts to ground animal rights by means other than moral intuition. Granted, perhaps here I am rationalizing just like you are worried you do, but for example I recall in Peter Singer's "The Expanding Circle" an objection to egoism (and ultimately any moral view short of sentientism) that was made purely on rational considerations. It was basically the accusation that egoism is arbitrary, and any consistent application of reason would lead us to consider all interests equally. If you have done a video on this particular topic/objection, let me know. Whether or not Singer's argument succeeds, I don't know. My only point here is that it isn't obvious to me that emotion is the only possible motivation for a pro animal rights view. I think there may very well be features of sentientism that are preferable for rational reasons, in particular. Not that I think you have explicitly disagreed with this, but it seems implied sometimes. Welp, again sorry for the essay - hope some of it was interesting. Enjoyable video as usual!
I don't have a lot to say in response, but yes, that was definitely interesting! Thanks for that.
About egoism, I have a couple of videos on ethical egoism; I talk briefly about the arbitrariness objection in the second:
th-cam.com/video/4o-lJ3yQQp4/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/rjiQXRU5D4E/w-d-xo.html
Also videos on Stirnerite egoism:
th-cam.com/video/BtDxBjfWoPc/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/_5qmDOf5SSk/w-d-xo.html
> I've read a lot of David Benatar and am still thinking through anti-natalism.
The kinds of people who are persuaded by David Benatar are often people who I'd want to spread their genes. Makes me think about Idiocracy, but with empathy and caring about suffering being the traits that are selected against (Idiocracy is of course a quite hyperbolic movie): th-cam.com/video/sP2tUW0HDHA/w-d-xo.html.
> I have often wondered, if tomorrow I woke up and was the only sentient being in existence, how many days I'd go before committing suicide. Life without any possibility of knowing or being known by other sentient beings hits me as a hellish and utterly meaningless life.
I don't find myself thinking that at all. Relations with other sentient beings is a source of meaning/well-being for me, but it's also something I feel like I could do ok without. Also, I do form connections with people, and am not particularly "cold" I think, but there are many people who are warmer than me and who care more than me about maintaining relationships and so on. But at the same time I care a lot about wild-animal suffering, often think about insect suffering and wish we could prevent it, etc. Mostly mentioning this so as to provide another anecdotal datapoint in regards to people who have empathy as the primary motivation behind their values.
@@KaneB
I have an objection to the construction of your argument to imply that different psychologies might trigger the construction of different moral systems and therefore a morality shouldn't be built on a moral system.
Basically you made two examples: a person feeling sympathy for other living beings (like animals) and a person feeling hate for other living beings (the homosexuals).
But this argument of yours presupposes that sympathy/empathy and hate are both inborn...
In my opinion, hate towards a precise category is most likely acquired and not inborn. And Im not saying this out of being an optimistic or idealistic person: the opposite, I have a very low opinion of mankid and usually identify as a misanthrope and defend my natural right to care about myself first. However, I think the example you made (homophobia) is not an inborn feature, because it's not a psychological constitution, but rather the consequence of experience in this world
One could argue that all psychological constitutions are somewhat inborn and somewhat acquired. Ok... but homophobia is totally not a psychological constitution like having more or less empathy... If you get what Im saying, you're quoting two things as equal on the same level, when they belong to different categories, different levels of ontology
Compassion can be cultivated.
Strangely enough, ever since i changed my moral beliefs to a belief that, for everyone, pain is bad. So, i realized that my suffering that is equal to another’s is just as bad. This made me motivated to act in ways to promote such a normative belief.
But, before such a belief, i was lackluster in empathy, thought of others suffering as just whiny bitches, and thought that others are on their own. I’ve changed since I believed in the normative truth that pain is bad.
Me too.
I mean, this didn't make me always motivated to help people or animals, but when I see someone suffering is like a alarm ring: "they need help".
but how do you "choose to believe" in any normative system? surely you have your moral belief because it's what you think is true or accurate of the world, not because you want to feel better ?
@@indikulkarni7781 She didn't said she changed her believe to be more empathetic person. She's said it was a consequence of it.
But there's something weird happening here. A believe changing motivation. My guess is when you believe something is objective bad, this make you look to other people and feel sad about the badness they are living and maybe this motivate people to want to help.
When nothing is objective bad, you look to sad people or animals and may think: " Maybe this is not bad to them, maybe they even enjoy this, let it happen. "
It's really a shame that cosmicskeptic doesn't want to discuss this issues with you. I hope he will reconsider one day.
Has Cosmic said that?
@@almusquotch9872 Kane B said he has emailed cosmicskeptic to get in touch but he didn't respond. He might have just missed it tho
That would be gold.
Another suggestion: Perhaps ask yourself could make for a good discussion? He and Kane B seems to have sort of the same (non) feelings for animals.
Now he's had a similar discussion with destiny. Kane b would be more well equipped which I would like to see
I like your suggestion that your logical views support an emotional position, which predates any consciously formed logic. So, as you say, if your emotional connection was different, your logical argument might be different, but your conclusion might be the same. Your reflection on the driver of your ideas and logic appears important. For, I gather from the evidence you present that you are not able to change your emotional position, but are honest and open enough to elucidate how it drives your conscious thinking. If this is true for others and suspect it might be then, for me, the type of reflecting you showed is as important, as the logic of any argument you make.
This video made me understand profoundly why you defend moral antirealism.
I can really relate with you, and I have watched some of your videos and they are really good. I hope on seeing some more :)
I'm really liking these kind of videos.
We are animals
“We suffer more often in imagination that in reality.” - Seneca
When talking about animals, most of the time, people refer to non-human animals
@@justus4684 Yep. Polysemy is a thing!
@@justus4684
yeah i know, my point is that theres no difference between animals and humans other than semantics regarding this argument.....
I was hoping someone may get wat I'm trying to convey instead of writing an essay in the comments
@@justus4684
So
Fucking
What
@@theforcewithin369
Is there a difference between cats and dogs?
Now, is there a difference between ants and crows?
Now, is there a difference between monkeys and humans?
The right answer to all of these questions is “yes”, which defeats your whole point.
How deeply do you value your ability to think rationally?
Would you sacrifice it for something else? For example, for a happy life?
It’s interesting because though it is true that with a lack of genuine care for other people’s suffering, empathy just seems to get in the way of our reasoning. However, empathy can also be seen, despite being fundamentally self reflective or selfish any way, as a perspective on other people’s suffering that’s not necessarily just unpractical. It’s, like you said, likely an empathic person gets joy and satisfaction out of seeing others experience joy, or bringing them it. It also gives them that perspective that makes reasoning about ethics come to life. If you are some kind of a utilitarian, this, in good balance, can be positively instrumental. Like intuition.
What are your thoughts on Rousseau's concept of primal pity/compassion? meaning in his Discourse on Inequality.
Not a lot really. Obviously, it doesn't ring true with respect to my own experience. As for humans in general: if we're constructing a hypothetical "state of nature" then we can imagine humans being whatever way we like. I don't think we can infer much of interest from this. If we're making a claim about what real humans are like, then it's a matter for psychologists, anthropologists, etc. I don't think the empirical evidence is likely to come down on Rousseau's side here, partly because I'm inclined to a social constructionist account of emotion (of the sort defended by Lisa Barrett).
Aw man, I reached the same conclusions as you did before stumbling on your channel. Once I get ahold of 50 pounds that I'm free to spend i'll surely use them to have a one on one conversation with you. It really feels like you're the only person that sees things from my perspective
I think I can relate to the notion that emphathy isn't really what pushes my moral judgements. I've always viewn ethics more as a problem to solve. I'd probably be an egoist if that didn't seem absurd to me so I've arrived at utilitarianism instead to have atleast some goal to fall back on
I recall In one of the interviews Peter Singer mentioned that emotionally he doesn't care much about animals too.
I think i'm lower than average on empathy as well and don't have extermelly close friends, but things that drag my life enjoyment down are completely unrelated to human relationships.
That could potentially explain why he encourages human beings to have sex with animals 😆
@@heartfeltteaching Huh? Last time I seen his interview, he said it's not the worst thing in the world, but it shouln't be encouraged.
Question:
How does this affect your enjoyment of art, which is often focused on empathy?
No doubt my tastes in art are influenced by my psychological constitution. But there are all sorts of reasons to engage with art.
Man, I wanna give you a hug
What do you think about bernard williams essay critiquing the argument from marginal cases? Its interesting, i dont think its completely successfull, but it ddfends a different priority on humanistic projects than on animal welfare successfully in my opinion
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in essence, your view is: you still don't have sympathy and care towards other species, but understand that you'll probably be better off if you do, because your life would be a little more happier possibly.
Interesting commentary, I like your content.
Yes, that's pretty much it.
more happier....
@@annankldun4040 oops typo
It seems then that testing personal wellbeing on basis of variables like ethical position, etcetera is a necessary condition for those persons who happen to inhabit a marginal social position, and not by rational choice within the modernization of globally branded Coca-Colaization of selves that extends arguably into all our institutions.
As a person who was given a bit too much empathy, I felt pretty sad that you feel your life is not that great (I have been there too for other reasons). An option is always that to see a mental health professional (I did) sometimes it can pay off. Maybe you might even turn into a boring Utilitarian like me XD
Don't take this the wrong way - but are you the right person to claim that you have "too much empathy"? How is that empathy measured? And what would - or do - third parties think about your claim? In any case, do you have "too much empathy" for literally everyone and even every animal? Do you emphasise with, for example, those people you strongly politically disagree with? What about child molesters or Nazis? Indeed do you have empathy for the people who criticise your views on your own empathy?
If you care to everyone in this world of suffer, you will be sad. Become a uilitarian is not a way to make someone happy lol
Maybe a rule utilitarian lol
Lie in bed at night and think hard about your mortality, then the fact that everyone else you know is going the same way. If that isn't cause for pessimism, I don't know what is. It's not an illness to be unhappy about your existential situation. It is completely rational. No doctor can help with that, though we may be able to find temporary relief through therapy or 'medicating' ourselves.
Your video is very honest and open. That may displease some viewers and please others. In any case, is your main position this?-
*If emotions (tacitly or secretly) drive one's moral positions, then there's nothing much to be said for them (despite mentioning Hume positively). That said, you yourself openly admit that your own psychological nature (whatever it is) may be the main motivation for your moral position on animals and on other things.*
So at least admitting to one's emotional motivations or dispositions is better than simply denying them and claiming some kind of objective (or realist) status for one's moral positions.
Perhaps you're suffering from autism or sociopathy. I don't mean that judgmentally - I'm just raising the possibility. You may be like a philosophical Sheldon Copper or something. The problem is, though, it may be too neat and tidy to put you - or anyone else - in any of these boxes. That said, there are neurophysiological underpinnings to such "conditions"..
You can't, as you say, completely lack empathy or emotions. For a start, you need an emotional reason to commit to "being logical". You wouldn't even see the virtue of being logical without that emotional fire to drive the commitment to it. This is something that even mathematicians have admitted. That is, rather than mathematics being the purest of the pure forms of cognitive activity - it too is driven by feelings and emotions. So why be logical? Indeed you mentioned being "sincere" - Why be sincere? You also clearly displayed an emotional reaction to those moral positions which emphasise "punishment". (No doubt you have the arguments against them too.)
The emotional underpinnings of (to take fictional and extreme examples) Dr Spock and Sheldon Cooper are clear too - and in many ways. I suppose an entirely logical being would only be concerned with its own survival . And even pleasure and success would be irrelevant without at least some kinds of emotional underpinning.
Autism might be right. I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome when I was younger. Having said that, I've never felt as if it's had much influence on my life, and when I've read about it, I'm not sure it rings true of my own experience. I don't think I'm any kind of sociopath -- there are just too many differences with respect to other behavioural tendencies.
I agree that I don't completely lack empathy or emotions. I just seem to be fairly low on the prosocial emotions, and I very rarely form lasting connections with people... or even brief connections, for that matter. It wouldn't be surprising if this is indicative of an underlying psychological deviancy that also drives my lack of concern for animals. I don't really know, though.
i dont really get this view. I dont need to be emotionally attached and have deep respect and admiration for people in wheelchairs to be against randomly shooting them in the back of the head. I can just respect their right to life from reason.. infact i respect animal rights and I dont even like animals, i dont like being around them, I dont like pets, i sort of have contempt for animals in general as dumb pointless creatures...but that doesnt influence if I think its right or wrong to neglect their right to life.. so you are saying because you dont have empathy or deep emotional attachment to animals, therefore it follows that you dont care about their rights? i dont understand that conclusion. I am sure you probably dont have deep emotional attachment to certain groups of humans, disabled people, certain minorities or ethnicities, in those cases are you also indifferent about neglecting those human rights? Weird
the arguments for AR are powerful because usually whenever anyone tries to argue against them, they arrive at saying insane shit like its not wrong to factory farm human beings, or beings that are very similar to humans, or they say shit like they dont care about human rights, so if theres some group of feral human children as long as they dont have a nametag its ok to murder and eat them, or they say stuff like they dont think jeffrey dahmer is immoral, or they say things like theres nothing wrong with torturing puppies and kittens --they just turn into absolute clowns and start dealing with absurdities as a way to ad-hoc rationalize their weak minded addiction to mcdonalds or something.. its so pathetic!
That Hume joke made my day hahaha
"Our intention is . . . to wake up to the very life we’re living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord." - John Cage
I once met John Cage in, of all places, Huddersfield in West Yorkshire (England). He had just been out picking mushrooms on Marsden Moor. I met him during the Contemporary Music Festival. He was a very strange man. And that was reflected in both his views and, more relevantly, in his music... Then again, you may be referring to another John Cage.
@@paulaustinmurphy I'm referring to the one and only John Cage to whom you're referring. I too am a very strange man. So I can relate.
I think the part of us that thinks about our thinking can't feel.
You could think about relationship as contract too.
You care about their happiness as long they care about your. This could solved your relationship problems.
But if you don't have consideration about anyone happiness you will never have deep relationships.
Love is like you have someone you can count when you need help. There's many things we need from other people, like having sex, or when you seek, when you can't defeat a enemy by yourself.. So love have this reciprocal self-interest value.
Know that someone truly cares about your happiness and value what you do to then is another feature of love people like, don't feel alone in the universe, know that something you do matters, at list to some people. This part I don't know if you can have, maybe you can, maybe what's missing in you life is experience in relationships.
Man, you have got to talk to Alok Kanoja from healthygamergg, that would be the most amazing conversation and I think he could be insightful for you on this topic
Oh this should be interesting!
Funny thing is, I have more empathy for non-human animals than humans. I often think it is easier to generate happiness in animals than in us intuitively from a utilitarian standpoint (I realize the epistemic impossibility there of definitively knowing animals to be happy). I may just be a depressed individual, but how hard it is to make a human happy in today’s environment push me to favor some anti natalist views specific to human species (contra antinatalism for all species). There are tricky instances where antinalism for a certain species may make sense. For instance, some people believe that hamsters should never be pets, and the most effective way to end that is just to stop breeding hamsters all-together. Is there intrinsic positive value to life? Or is it happiness alone that matters.
Destiny talks about this issue in a really similar way he has the same kind of lack of empathy and applies it to morality in the same sort of contractural way
Unlike you though he is more inclined to ‘endorse’ being this way, he accepts that people are different but he claims to be generally a happy person so he would say it’s a good way to be at least for some people… so it’s interesting that you connect this attitude with your unhappiness
You can also pretend to believe in other believes to maximize your well-being. A version of Nozik Machine to desires theorists. The funny conclusion is bout hedonist and subjevists would accept lies sometimes. One because this may maximize pleasure, other because this may maximize getting what they want lol
is normative ethics necessarily grounded in personal psychology in your view then? Even leaving moral realism and meta ethics aside, is there no way to approach moral issues from a purely rational point of view?
Interesting video Kane.
I hope this doesn't come across as rude or disrespectful, but the way you spoke of your mom passing reminded me of Meursault in The Stranger. At the same time, I've met people that were quite emotional or caring and when it came to the death of their parents, they were just sort of accepting of it. People respond in all sorts of ways to that kind of thing.
I did want to ask about the sympathy that you have for other humans though, you say that it may be the consequence of self-interest. That you are sympathetic towards the homeless because you can imagine your future self in a similar situation and so it follows that you don't want that sort of thing to exist in society because that could be you. Maybe you can do this better than I can, but what if we imagine some hypothetical where we exclude the possibility that you could end up in a situation like that, does your sympathy for them still exist? What about something like cobalt mining? It seems really unlikely that you would ever find yourself in a situation like that, do you have sympathy for those people?
Yeah, I have sympathy in those cases... at least, I think I do. I have a negative reaction, at least: I consider such situations to be bad, and I would prefer it if the world were such that nobody had to live like that. But I'm not sure we can conclude anything about the underlying psychological motivation for this reaction. Yes, I know that it's very unlikely that I would be forced into cobalt mining. But this kind of propositional knowledge sometimes has a tenuous relationship to one's emotional reactions. I know that flying is a far safer way to travel than driving a car, but even so, when I get on a plane, I experience far more anxiety related to safety than when I'm driving. When I read about the conditions of cobalt miners, or when I think about homeless people even in hypothetical scenarios in which there's no risk to myself, I'm presented with a vivid picture of other rational agents living in appalling conditions. It's immediately obvious that it would be against my self-interest if the society in which I live changed such that these outcomes might be a genuine risk for me. That's going to prompt an emotional reaction, even if intellectually try to bracket it.
I want to make sure that I am understanding you correctly here Kane, I'll try to summarise:
Even though these hypotheticals pose no risk to you, the thought of them elicits an emotional response that is risk-averse. Is that fair?
If we base our morality on concern regarding rationality, where we currently exclude animals because they aren't as rational as humans. Is there not a sort of threat there where we may, at least hypothetically, begin down an even more exclusionary path regarding rationality. Maybe it's not just the case that we should exclude animals, but we should also exclude some humans on the same grounds that they just aren't quite rational enough or the means to make them more rational isn't worth the effort. This is going to be a more extreme hypothetical, but what if we have IQ purgers or disability purgers that just begin killing people if they don't meet a particular threshold of rationality?
The hypothetical that I am trying to construct here is one in which the exclusion of animals on rational grounds leads to some potential risk for yourself. My assumption is that this hypothetical won't elicit an emotional response from you akin to the previous homeless/cobalt hypotheticals. If so, why? Is it too far removed?
I don't know how far our conversation will go. So, I guess I'll end this comment by at least giving my own position here. I can't seem to get around the idea that pain is intrinsically wrong, it's not a desirable state in and of itself. Instrumentally it is good or bad depending on the context. I guess I'm following Sidgwick here in that because pain is intrinsically bad, I'm not just aiming at my own pain - I'm aiming at pain itself and how it impacts others. Is there not a sort of self-interest view possible here? If we only aim at a part of pain, at my pain - then, do we risk others doing the same? Do we risk reducing people's compassion and empathy for others that experience pain by not considering animals? Does that put you at risk?
@@frasertierney7044 >> Even though these hypotheticals pose no risk to you, the thought of them elicits an emotional response that is risk-averse. Is that fair?
Maybe. I'm not entirely sure. The trouble is that we're now dealing with facts about my psychology to which I don't have any reliable access.
>> Is there not a sort of threat there where we may, at least hypothetically, begin down an even more exclusionary path regarding rationality
Sure, but that's always a threat. No matter what your moral views are, or how broadly you're willing to extend moral consideration, there might always be people who want to restrict moral consideration in ways that you find problematic. Also, note that everybody is exclusionary regarding rationality in at least some respects. Rationality makes a difference, even if you don't think it makes all the difference.
>> Do we risk reducing people's compassion and empathy for others that experience pain by not considering animals?
Yeah, this is something worth bearing in mind, and might be a good reason for favouring animal rights even from my point of view. However, this also has to be weighed against potential losses (e.g. we would lose the benefits of using animals in medical research).
@@KaneB Thanks for the conversation Kane. I only recently found your channel, I appreciate the content and sincerity.
FWIW I'm probably above average in compassion and I was also attracted to right wing libertarianism for a while and I think my views have usually been something vaguely liberty-centred.
I’ll go on a date with you x
Here is a related thought that I haven't seen covered elsewhere, but which obviously must've been conceived of and pondered upon deeply by others, so if anyone could give a name to it so I could look into refutations and such I would much appreciate. Anyway, so in my view "you" is just a a conscious experience in a given moment, but I don't see a rational reason to identify with the collection of temporally separate conscious experiences that is typically referred to as "you". But it seems that you, even if you don't have compassion toward spacially seperate conscious experiences you do have deep compassion and care about the situation in which the temporally seperate conscious experience that will occur in relation to the sense perceptions of your body, is that really different in kind to compassion for others? If you have this compassion and take it as a value and want to construct a coherent moral framework ought you not to care also for other humans and even animals
The video is fine, but I'm not sure how this specifically deal with animal rights. It seems to me like the topic of how inherent psychological states influence our approach to morality is different from the topic of animal rights.
It's probably wrong to say you don't care at all. I assume you would prefer that animals not suffer. Imagine nothing else changes and you press a button then things that hurt animals would no longer hurt them, but you had to walk like 2 miles to press it.
You wouldn't do it?
I genuinely don't care at all. I wouldn't even consider walking 2 miles to do that. I have no preference about whether or not animals suffer.
@@KaneB Not even to be a team player towards humans that do care? My own moral code is a compromise between lots of different inclinations, but most of all I'm an hedonistic utilitarian who cares strongly about how good/bad the world is to live in for all sentient beings. But if I can do things that are really fantastic from the perspective of the value systems of many other humans (or avoid things that are really terrible from their perspective) - well, I would care more than nothing about that, and I would certainly do so if the cost to myself and my own values is low enough. For example, if we look away from pain and mental trauma and costs and lost utility from good lives and so on, I don't see anything wrong with abortions - like, I don't see it as inherently wrong because I classify it as "murder" or anything like that But if I could walk 2 miles to magically remove from the world the aspect of abortions that abortion-opponents worry see as a moral horror but without changing much else about the world - well, I'd do that. I view "I will respect your moral values when it's at low cost to my own, and hopefully you'll do the same towards me" as sort of analogous to "I'll not kill you unless I have what I see as a really good reason, and hopefully you'll act the same way towards me".
@@TorBarstad In more realistic scenarios, the fact that other humans care about animals, and would like to reduce animal suffering, does make a difference to my behaviour. But with thought experiments like this, I try to engage without considering the impact on humans, because it seems like the point is to elicit judgments specifically about animal welfare. In this particular case, it was explicitly said that "nothing else changes" -- so presumably, pushing the button isn't going to make a difference to what any human thinks or feels. In that case, I have no reason whatsoever to push it. For me this scenario is similar to: "if you could walk 2 miles to push a button that would move Alpha Centauri 10 meters to the left, would you do it?"
That kind of apathy is hard to wrap my head around.
No problem. Just like intelligence, your capacity for empathy is set in stone and hardwired shortly after birth. You can not train it, not empathy itself (as a simulation thereof is not empathy), as it's the vessel, not contents of vessels. It's so fundamental to the psyche.
My earliest childhood memories are about animal concerns, animal empathy. Tell me again how much I had to be shaped by working class third parties, or even "taught critical thinking" (apparently people of lower IQ than us have to be this taught, in adulthood). There was no further reflection needed, and with 9 I decided to be vegetarian. As said, hardwired. Like hardcore. Just please don't get offended when I regard and epithet you as "psychopath", because I think no empathy whatsoever for animals puts one handsomely in that category.
Aside from that, our personalities seem to be comparable. I am also a disinterested loner. I have made like one online friend in 17 years of internet, and one in the same period IRL. I am rational and not emotionally puppeteered to a fault. Don't assume empathy always correlates with that. It does not in me.
Bruce
I'm a vegan and I wonder all the time why cannister don't just say they don't care about animal rights. It's the only sensible reason and likely the true psychological reason.
That said, if you saw someone setting a bag of kittens on fire, would that not perturb you? If you genuinely don't care, I get it, but I'm kind of curious.
How do you know that you can't become "constituted differently" through enough effort / practice, a la Aristotle? If you think your life is bad but there might be this potential for it to be good, why put your efforts towards anything else?
have you tried to hold the moral positions of happy people? how much time could you pretend holding them such that it stops being insincere? can a man behave insincerely for decades? I am troubled by how much weight a supposedly private moment of consciousness (like an immediate apprehension of "this makes me feel so and so") appears to play here. I am troubled by it, I do not have a rebuttal, of course there is a sense in which people get immediately affected by a movie like Hachiko and some people don't (have you seen it?), but taking that kind of experience as the ground for all moral stances ("there is people who just feel in such and such a way. if you do, then you can support animal rights, etc") makes me wary of this being a case of what Wittgenstein named 'one-sided diets' of philosophical examples.
It's obviously impossible to diagnose someone over a TH-cam video, but this sounds a hell of a lot like Schizoid Personality Disorder.
Would you mind if I made you a few personal questions?
@@Jorge-xf9gs Ask what you want, though if you want to attribute a disorder to me, you might as well go with the one I was diagnosed with when I was a kid -- Asperger syndrome.
Kane, could you possibly be an INTP? That personality type is not expected to score high on empathy.
11:18
You maybe shouldn't bring your lack of empathy up at the first date
Could be a turn off😅
I don't think this is going to be a problem, since I'm not getting any dates in the first place, lol.
A fact of the universe, one less studied and which remains to be brought to the forefront of moral philosophy, is that being right and being happy are mutually exclusive points of vantage.
Hard disagree.
I think you are substantially correct about why your life sucks, but I also suspect you can become more capable of forming fulfilling connections and being a caring and compassionate person to a more normal degree. In P B's comment, he gave a fascinating account of how he trained himself to experience more empathy, and while I wouldn't try to generalize from his case, I would not be surprised if that kind of change is possible for you as well. You may be affected by issues from your past, for example, that have closed you off to meaningful connection, and those may be issues that you can resolve by means of introspection or therapy.
I also think that the meaningfulness you might find in life through the development of meaningful connections would help to relieve your fear of death, because you would find yourself being put to good use as a whole being, and valuing the significance of your life beyond its effects within your own experience. In my own case, I still really, really don't want to die because I love life, and the prospect is still pretty unpleasant, but I am largely reconciled to it and can contemplate it without distress because I have and freely invest in these connections. It means a lot to me that, while annihilation is inevitable, at least I have not gone to waste, and I will be survived by something I've put into the world that I value for its own sake.
I hope you don't mind me going on like this about something so personal. I think what you've been doing with this channel is very interesting and worthwhile, and I hope you find it rewarding.
>> In P B's comment, he gave a fascinating account of how he trained himself to experience more empathy
Yeah, that was interesting, but his method apparently involved "a deliberate choice of traumatizing myself and Ptsd"... I'm not gonna do that. In fact, I doubt I'll put in any effort whatsoever. If I could take a pill that would transform my attitudes, maybe I'd do that. But this isn't something I'm interested in actually working on.
>> You may be affected by issues from your past, for example, that have closed you off to meaningful connection
This seems extremely unlikely to me. I had a very positive upbringing.
I’m an overly empathetic person and probably the polar opposite of Kane when it comes to these things but I don’t enjoy life
Always am a little perplexed by you in terms of your pessimism. Considering John Cage is such a hero of yours. He describes deriving a lot of happiness from the utter weirdness and peculiar quality of the world generally. So much so that a theme in his work is to try to extend the mundane itself into the realms of the aestheticly pleasurable. This can be endlessly amplified until all of existence is an aesthetic object that just pumps out aesthetic pleasure. This doesn't require empathy or relationships with people or animals, but provides a potentially endless source of happiness. I wonder to what extent art moves you, I'm predisposed to be overwhelmingly moved by art, and tend to see it everywhere. And I've always naturally prefered aesthetics to people, but I also naturally prefer animals to people. But this puzzlement about you is mainly how you don't find the general fact of existence utterly bizarre, I always think its weird particularly for philosophers to not have that wonder on board... if you found the general fact of existence generally baffling and insane, it could be an endless source of happiness even without liking people or animals.
I find art pleasurable, and Cage's work and ideas in particular are very rewarding. I think that engaging with Cage had a notable influence on my attitude to art and aesthetics. But for me, that's only one aspect of life. Anyway, it's not as if I agree with Cage on everything!
@@KaneB I know you don't agree with him on everything. But why do you see your emotional attitudes as seemingly fixed and so hard to alter? And why do you agree with Hume about everything but take your "self" so seriously?
@@unknownknownsphilosophy7888 >> why do you see your emotional attitudes as seemingly fixed and so hard to alter?
I dunno, maybe they're not. I'm not really sure where I would start with trying to alter them though.
>> And why do you agree with Hume about everything but take your "self" so seriously?
I don't feel like I do take it seriously. Honestly, my predicament is kind of amusing to me, which is one reason why I was motivated to make this video.
@@KaneB Yeah, you're on to something in saying "this predicament is amusing to me" you should play that out further and amplify that some more and see what happens
I would be interested in:
What trait or traits of the humans would have to change to those of an animal, to let you have the same or a similar attitude towards animals in terms of supporting their killing financially?
Have you watched the original "Animals Don't Matter" video? It's in the pinned comment. I think I make my views pretty clear there. But whether an entity is granted moral consideration isn't dependent only on its intrinsic traits. It's also dependent on what rules with respect to that entity would promote flourishing for rational agents. So from my point of view, there is no determinate answer to your question.
@@KaneB
Presumably something has to change about the being so that it is treated differently under those flourishing promoting rules.
I will be honest, I am not philosophicaly educated, but I occassionally watch and enjoy your videos. So in that light am not sure of my comments value, but… Empathy, in my book is not a matter of is or isnt but a matter of skill. Sure like in all disciplines we have certain given advantages, but to a certain degree one can learn anything. The example with a homeless person for example was in fact a empathetic signal not a projection or maybe. Empathy means putting yourself in the others shoes, which you did. Now if you would have given him something, that would be an act of sympathy. As with many of your other points this example ilustrates to me that you might have a tendency to repress your emotions with reason, or rather logic? (Since i dont believe rational / reasonable has to equal logical.) Am going on and on, dont want to psychoanalyze you or whatnot, but that to me seems like the case. There might be ton of reasons for that and I guess its probably not like I figured out something youo dont already know. Now you also said that you dont care about animals, but you lived or have lived with brothers dogs. If you were home alone with them and you would hear one or more scream in pain, would you act? Its not two miles, its not some strange dog you dont know…Would you be in distress and act in order to stop the suffering?
>> If you were home alone with them and you would hear one or more scream in pain, would you act? Its not two miles, its not some strange dog you dont know…Would you be in distress and act in order to stop the suffering?
I'd help them, but only because my brother cares about them. If my brother died or something, the first thing I'd do is give the dogs away. I don't care about them at all and their presence in the house makes my life worse.
@Otávio Rapôso Comments like this are so rude and close-minded that the charitable interpretation is that they can't possibly be sincere. But then I remember that there are plenty of folks who act rude and close-minded sometimes, including me. So I'll assume that you're expressing your actual opinion, despite how stupid it is. With that in mind: Fuck off.
@Otávio Rapôso Sure; honest opinions can be rude though. Accusations of insincerity are rude in my view. Which isn't to say that people shouldn't make them, but usually when somebody does, I'll be rude in turn.
>> Maybe some kind of fear at the threath of public inconsistency? Or need for human attention?
I don't think either of those things are hidden forces. I generally aim to avoid inconsistency, public or otherwise; and obviously one of the motivations of all my videos is to get attention -- if I didn't care about that, I wouldn't go to the trouble of uploading anything. I don't see why either of these things would make me insincere in the views I express. I expect that almost everybody interested in philosophy who uploads things to youtube shares the goals of consistency and attention.
@Otávio Rapôso >> I meant hidden in the sense that there're deeper driving forces that make you say what you say, beyond reflection, and you don't aknowledge them for what they are doing
This seems completely trivial. Yeah, everybody's behaviour will have causes that they're unaware of.
>> I think you want attention in such a ultimate sense that it poisons your very philosophical views
I don't know what this means. I think it's true that my philosophical views are influenced by my underlying psychological drives. Indeed, that was exactly the point I was making in this video! But again, this is true for everybody. I'm not sure what it means to say that the views are thereby "poisoned".
>> Same thing for the fear of public inconsistency which is more about the feeling of being consistent in public than as an epistemic virtue
I see consistency is an epistemic virtue in general, regardless of whether we're talking about public statements or a person's private views. If anything, it's more important in a public statements. It doesn't really matter what's going on inside people's heads.
>> you clearly have an issue with at least being called insencere in public. You seem to care more about that than you say you care about your familiar bonds
In social interaction, I follow a "tit for tat" principle. I prefer civil discussion for several reasons, so I try to avoid initiating rudeness. If others are rude to me, I'll be rude back.
Can you do something about the background and the whole camera angle and so on please
You should get a pet, if you can.
I've lived with animals for most of my life because I share a house with my brother, and he enjoys having dogs. For me it's a compromise -- my life would be better if it was pet-free. I mean, it's not a big deal, because I've always been very clear that I won't spend any time working for them: I won't walk them, I won't feed them, etc. My brother is solely responsible for them.
@@KaneB You don't have any interest in being a pet owner?
@@11kravitzn None whatsoever.
@@KaneB ah well. It's kinda fun. You seem more like a cat person.
Philosophy seems to be your signature strength (Seligman) , but does not seem to connect with you constructing a meaningful and purposeful life? Perhaps you may need to give your mind a break. Explore Professor Steve Hayes first populariser of ACT - "Get Out Of Your Mind and Into Your Life"? Explore why you think you are constituted psychologically the way you describe - also the word "happy" is bounded around everywhere. Suggest also reading "The Happiness Trap" by Russ Harris. It is possible, with much respect, that you are constituted with some high functioning Asberbers/Autism spectrum qualities? No idea, just perhaps an issue you may like to explore? Or maybe not, your ruthless self honesty is admirable however. Straying away from psychology, Schopenhauer thought our very own existence can be a source of suffering in itself. Could write more but that's enough.
I was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome when I was a kid, so yes, that's possible.
Come to the vegan side, we have acceptable alternatives.
Animal agriculture is a disaster for humanity. I don't think you need to care about animals to endorse reducing the consumption of animal products. However, I really, *really* like eggs and diary, and I'm pretty sure our future is screwed at this point no matter I do. So I'm vegetarian, but I doubt I'll ever go vegan.
Based on his reason for being a vegetarian, I don't think he's far off from it since dairy and eggs are pretty environmentally degrading as well!
@@KaneB oh haha thanks for clarifying!
@@guy-iw2qh Yes, it would be better if everybody went vegan. But there are other things I'm weighing up here. For example: (1) Giving up eggs and dairy would be a significantly greater sacrifice for me than giving up meat. I don't really care about meat. Giving it up didn't make much difference to my life. But I love eggs and dairy. (2) There are lots of things a person can do to reduce their environmental impact. After all, why stop at veganism? You could do even more for the environment by rejecting industrialized agriculture in general. I don't expect other people to sacrifice everything, so I'm not going to hold myself to that standard either. (3) I very much doubt that we're going to make any significant changes until it's too late. So I can't help but feel like I'd be making a sacrifice for nothing. If we're screwed anyway, I might as well enjoy myself.
@@KaneB yeah that makes sense i think, thanks for the clarification.
Would you call yourself a psychopath?
No. I have very few of the personality traits associated with psychopathy. If you're looking for a disorder, some sort of high-functioning autism is more likely (I was diagnosed with Aspergers).
I like your self awareness.
And I am not sure why do I not hate you for being so unsympathetic toward animals, but I don't. Maybe because you are cute, I am not gay tho.
I think because he doesn't sees animal suffering as good. He just don't see it as bad, horrible, sad... But I think many people in his life would be afraid of him because the low empathy and his honest about it. Actually many people are like him, but they pretend do be more empathetic persons to not be discriminated because of this.
If more people were honest about it, maybe we would find ways to be more understand about that and not treating them as monster or be afraid of them.
Maybe you gay, dude, we are very understand people here, you can be honest, we will not discriminate you here.
@@jacklessa9729 I am not gay dude I watched straight porn just yesterday night before sleeping.
Really risky joke dude hahaha
Kane, given that your ethical theory is egoistic (as I think), I've been wondering how you justify stances such as veganism. Sure, it's in your interest to live in a world where the climate hasn't been destroyed, but one person abstaining from eating meat doesn't seem to have an appreciable effect on the probability of that. So given that it's also in your interest to eat the tasty meats, it seems like you're giving up more than you're getting. But then I found out that you're a proud 1-boxer with regard to Newcomb's problem, and a thought occurred to me. Maybe your reasoning runs something like this:
P1: The rational decision is the one that correlates with the best outcome for the chooser, whether or not the decision is causally related to the outcome.
P2: A world in which even I, a person not morally opposed to animal torture, go vegan is far more likely to be a world in which most people give up meat and thus the environment is not destroyed.
C: It is rational for me to go vegan, even though I don't see a causal link between that choice and a preferred outcome for myself.
Is this more or less your thinking? If so, it's an interesting way of getting egoistic ethical judgments to line up more with "traditional" moral judgments (like "if veganism is good for humanity as a whole, one should go vegan") than they otherwise would.
My issue, if you can call it that is that your answer to the marginal case seemed insufficient. I dont care in many ways. I dont feel bad for the deer in the nature documentary. I just can't justify killing animala for food.
What about if you saw a human being eaten alive? Do you think we should intervene to help? If so, what justifies the different treatment of the human and the deer?
@@KaneB I dont think the person is being "wronged", but that is due to the animals mental capacity. I would want to save them. I guess my answer would be along the line of Peter Singers expanding circle of care. It would be do to having more responsibility to the human. I am not sure speicisum is totally unavoidable, but we may have control over the level of it.
That sounds a bit "stirnerian" worldview to me (as a neutral statement), even though it is an biological-mental-condition. And after l whatched couple times animal rights-video, l have began to agree with you, at least what comes to that animals cannot ever be at same level as humans, as they are always as used living objects, whether it be slave cattle, leader-following dogs, or cats with some kind of strange relationship with humans, which varies from friendly to passive-aggressive.
Here we go baby. One step closer to the ever encroaching "why the interests of nonhuman animals matter" video.
It's interesting that you took this to be one step closer. I would have thought it would seem more like one step further away.
When somebody defends an anthropocentric approach to ethics, what's the motivation for that? For most people, it's because they enjoy engaging in practices that require them to discount the interests of nonhuman animals. But this isn't an attitude that they're able to hold in general. Most people do have sympathetic feelings for animals, and this manifests in their moral views (consider the views most people have towards bullfighting). So they have to draw arbitrary lines, ignore information, or just be outright inconsistent. No doubt this behaviour is annoying animal rights advocates, but it also means you have a bridge to them. In my case though, my moral views seem to be a product of a genuinely deviant psychology. It's not as if I'm even motivated to defend any particular practices, because I grant that abolishing animal agriculture (at least, industrialized animal agriculture) would be enormously beneficial to humanity. I don't know how you could make me care about animals without radically altering my basic drives, and how could you do that?
@@KaneB You mentioned that you are moved by human suffering. Even if you have some skepticism about how genuinely altruistic those feelings are, that seems like a part of your current psychological makeup. You've heard this line of argument many times, but it seems to me that if suffering in ALL humans moves you, there's a bridge for you. This is simply because some humans, if injured or born in a particularly severe way, could end up cognitively equivalent to a dog.
If a human like that was tortured, and that suffering moved you at all, then we have a case where your attitudes differ between two psychologically identical beings, and the only difference is what body they happen to have. You'd be discriminating based on looks. I would think having or lacking moral consideration for someone based purely on how they look is vulnerable to a charge of being arbitrary or irrational in some way.
But hey, maybe you aren't moved by the suffering of any cognitively impaired humans.... If you are, though, seems like that intuition can't consistently differ between two cases when the only difference is aesthetics
@@KaneB how can you be certain that this aspect of your psychology is fixed and unchangeable? I sometimes notice that things I value for practical reasons can become valuable in and of themselves over time.
@@skube_yo I could end up with impaired cognitive capacities; I couldn't end up turning into a dog. If I lived in a world in which humans sometimes did turn into dogs, maybe I'd have a different attitude toward canine welfare.
@@ianhruday9584 I'm not certain about that. It's more that (a) I'm not sure where we'd even start with trying to alter my basic drives and (b) even if there was some way of doing this, I just wouldn't bother putting the work in, at least not at the moment. There are too many other goals that I'm more interested in pursuing, that I already have nowhere near enough time for.
Your example seems to be odd as the deer suffers its death through predation but the dragon would also suffer starvation if it could not eat.
With respect to your compassion. Consider that you have no reason to care that you could become homeless, you just need to be the exception which you currently are. With respect to sympathy and empathy I can't say, that's just how your brain work.
As for your central argument. Yes I think your life would be more fore filling if you attempted to cultivate deep relationships. These sorts of relationships provide motivation for existence, which you don't seem to lack, and points of nucleation for happiness. They can also provide relief from stress.
so basically, "I'm a sociopath, but don't be sociopaths..."
what a miserable existence you must live if eggs and dairy what you depend on for happiness
Unfortunately, I don't get happiness from those things either. But they sure help to make the lack of happiness more bearable.
I don't think you should need empathy to care about animals morally (though of course in practice it helps). Even an anti-realist can consider moral arguments and change their views accordingly. All that's needed is to believe that suffering is bad and that (some) animals can suffer. Since suffering is bad to you and suffering presumably feels just as bad to animals, one might consider that enough to generalize the badness of suffering to any being who experiences it.
And even if that sounds like BS, I guess I'd at least claim that you should care about animal suffering for prudential reasons. If somehow you're wrong and animal suffering does matter morally (e.g. if somehow moral realism is correct, your "true" reflected preferences actually do care about animals, or some unknown unknown), then factory farming and the horrors of nature are really big problems that need to be addressed. But if you're right, then they just don't matter. This suggests that the expected value of ignoring animal suffering is negative. Even if there's only a tiny chance that you're wrong, you should probably play it safe and try to reduce their suffering (since the cost to you would be much smaller in comparison).
Regardless, this was a really interesting video. You seem very self-reflective and honest :)
>> Even if there's only a tiny chance that you're wrong, you should probably play it safe and try to reduce their suffering
Interesting point, but why is that playing it safe? What if my "true" preferences are that I actually desire to impose suffering on animals? With that in mind, I have just as strong a reason, per your argument, for going out of my way to increase animal suffering.
@@KaneB Fair point. If you're equally likely to see animal suffering as a moral good, then it'd cancel out. But I think even from your perspective, it should seem at least more likely that animal suffering is bad than good. Some reasons for this are that:
1) many other people believe animal suffering is bad but less believe it to be good (which is evidence because you share with them a somewhat similar brain/environment, and if you give any weight to moral realism you should assign some probability that they got it right and you didn't)
2) suffering is bad when it happens to you so that could be an indication that it's bad when it happens to others.
Maybe you think there's a .5% chance that animal suffering is bad and a .1% chance that it's good, for example. In this case, the expected value of preventing animal suffering still dominates so you should work on it for prudential reasons.
I highly doubt your life sucks because you somewhat lack empathy which further prevents you from forming stronger bonds with others. It is my observation that us humans in general aren't that great. Therefore forming strong bonds with one another often leads to drama, disappointment, inequality and downright misery. Consequently reducing one's happiness. One is often better off alone with a limited amount of social interactions.
In b4 your massive depressive implosion due to overwhelming lack of human connection and no understanding of compassion for yourself or others.
Compassion is a learned skill, btw. As much if not more than it is an innate predisposition.
Try fostering some rescued animal & see how you get on (I appreciate that long-term committed relationships are probably beyond possible at present). The focus on sympathy & suffering is wrong. You don't have to give a damn about any animal to respect their rights. Singer's influence has generally been rejected by the rights based movement as being non-rights.
Don't know what happened to you in childhood, or whether it is genetics but, boy, you need a better therapist than talking to TH-cam. Or go fall in love & then get your heart broken open.
>> Try fostering some rescued animal & see how you get on
Why the fuck would I do that? I hate living with animals.
>> you need a better therapist than talking to TH-cam
The reason why I make these videos is that (a) they can be done very quickly, unlike the lecture videos, and so are an easy way of generating regular content and (b) people seem to be interested in what I have to say. It has nothing to do with therapy.
@@KaneB Why? To learn how to love, & experience the unconditional love that they are capable of back. I don't know you beyond what you've said about yourself on two videos about AR, but if you've not on the autistic spectrum, you've got some serious issues in the heart department.
@@jonahwhale9047 I'm capable of love. I'm not interested in "loving" animals and frankly, the idea of that strikes me as both ridiculous and gross. I mean, I'm not gonna judge others if they're into that, but it's not for me.
@@KaneB God know what theoretical conception you have of love. "Capable", so says the guy who went thru uni without making any friends, or lovers by the sound of it, sufficient enough to want to keep their phone number.
Your primary reaction suggests your idea of it is all about you, instead of extending yourself for a hurt or damaged other, & fixing them. Fencing only fostering a rescue rather than adopting.
How about starting my looking into how many words there are for love in Latin, & trying a few of the new ones?
As for "gross"? Yes, for sure, the best loving is dirty, or requires you getting down in the dirt for someone else.
I'm more concerned, however, about your misconception of animal rights as something to do with suffering & sympathy.
That's a D- fail straight away.
@@jonahwhale9047 >> so says the guy who went thru uni without making any friends, or lovers by the sound of it
I've been in long-term romantic relationships before.
>> instead of extending yourself for a hurt or damaged other, & fixing them
That's right, I'm definitely not interested in "fixing" people (or animals).
>> about your misconception of animal rights as something to do with suffering & sympathy
I think there are ways of justifying animal rights that do not rest on appeals to suffering and sympathy, so I'm not sure what you take the "misconception" here to be. It sounds like you might have missed the point of this video somewhat.
The only real question is whether or not you’re happy with your position, and it sounds like you’re not. I don’t think emotions have to cloud your judgments. You can correct for emotional bias the same way you correct for any bias. Why not see a Therapist? It might help.
To be clear, I'm not saying that emotions necessarily cloud one's judgments. I just think there might be some benefits to the way I happen to be constituted. One of these is that standard responses of compassion and sympathy might, in some circumstances, lead people to think and act in ways that I'd say are problematic.
Watch Dominion(documentary), Forks over Knives, Seaspiracy, The Game Changers, Earthlings, and Gary Yourofsky's The Most Important Speech You Will Ever Hear(on TH-cam). Go vegan 💚
Anthropocentrism. If you don't care about animals, why do you care about humans? Because they're like you? Egocentrism. But you do care about humans. So care about them, just not anthropocentrically. But that means caring about animals, too, (doesn't it?).
Well, he sorta cares about humans. It's funny that he's so interested in reading shit written by other humans be has stunted empathy towards human animals.
I think you're way too unsceptical of your own moral attitudes. People are extremely malleable and unless you are literally a clinical psychopath you could me a much more compassionate person with different life circumstances. A lot of compassion is learned behavior.
This is the kind of video one posts before shooting a wedding.
this is an insane thing to say