Consciousness And Moral Status Reading Group: Week 11

Consciousness And Moral Status Reading Group: Week 11 === ###### tags: `Animals` `Ethics` `Psychology` :::info - **Reading:** Loughnan, S., & Piazza, J. (2018). Thinking morally about animals. Atlas of moral psychology, 165-174. - **Date:** Oct 13, 2020 12:00 PM (LONDON) - **Host:** MM - **Reference:** - [Last week meeting](/@tanzor/value10) ::: I didn't understand: --- - [name=UK] "People have a tendency to withdraw mind from people who are suffering (Kozak, Marsh, & Wegner, 2006)", - I would’ve expected it to be the opposite. Just looking at Kozak et al.’s abstract, it seems that denying a mind is done in the sense of agency of their actions, and not in their ability to perceive pain or suffer in general. I found it interesting: --- - [name=MM] The word 'mind' and 'attributing mind' is used instead of 'consciousness' (The word consciousness is never mentioned in the text!). What is the difference between the two concepts, if any? - [name=ND] "To the extent that people feel secure or insecure in their own moral identity, they may think differently about animals. If such an account were true, thinking morally about animals would be inexorably tied to thinking morally about the self." - page 172. - [name=Anna] Animals were put into the same morally ambiguous/moral grey area as spirits and God. - The idea that animals that are seen as more dangerous and harmful suffer dclinations in moral standings. Could this be because it taps into our more primal instincts to kill or be killed? - [name=UK] The correlation between prevalence of vegetarians and prejudice towards them by meat eaters. - that people withdraw mind from people who are suffering - How there is very little evidence if cuteness decreases or increases meat consumption I wanted to discuss together: --- - [name=ND] Loughnan & Piazza argue that various psychological factors have an influence on the moral judgement of animals. Does this mean that there is no way to achieve an objective assesment? Does a philosophy of morality always remain subjective, influenced by the authors own culture, experience, prejudice and sense of personal morality? - [name=MM] So far we thought about how beliefs about consciousness (should) affect moral judgments, but this reading suggests that moral judgments (as well as moral practices) also affect beliefs about consciousness/mind. - The role of cognitive dissociation in meat consumption, specifically as highlighted by the quote 'manipulating an animals intelligence serves to decrease its perceived edibiliyt...though this does not apply to animals currently being consumed as food in the perceiver's culture' Random thoughts here: --- - anything goes here - [name=ND] Some people think that eating agressive animals will make them more agressive and this is seen as a good thing?? - [name=MM] I loved the fact that 'we attribute more mind to a dog when we need to understand its behaviour.' - [name=Anna] Considering the given evidence that individuals that ead meat ascribe less moral worth to animals than non-meating people, how would animal ethics change if the world suddently turned vegetarian/vegan? ## Notes