> If Caplan wants to respond to this, or to my beliefs in general, I would prefer he start with the four arguments against the constraint/preference distinction, which I think are the crux of our disagreement.
Thirded. Scott argued repeatedly and very convincing against the "gun-to-the-head-test" that seems central to the Caplan distinction of constraint vs. preference. I am actually not that sure it is. It may help to remember that our preferences are constrained, too; as Einstein paraphrased Schopenhauer: “A man can do as he will, but not will as he will.” - I see a possible agreement along the lines: It is helpful to think about some mental issues also as preferences, as far as they actually can be influenced by incentives. As the LGBT-'explosion' seems to show. As a lot of drug-taking does. As even schizophrenics seem to be able to show. And find incentives that promote the "better" behavior. (Including among those loitering north of Hanover train station.)
I would be very happy to see a hundred-thousand dead insect on my car after one drive. Happy for the insects. It would mean "insects are doing very well again". When I was a kid, insects on the windshields were an issue. Bygone times. - Oh, and "unimaginable torture" was the stuff us boys did to them in the yard. A quick death on a car-front does not come close. - And visiting the grandparents is not a "minor benefit", compared to the "premature death" of a mayfly (literally one-day-fly/ "Eintagsfliege" in German). Matthew Adelstein seems deeply confused. Time for Erik Hoel: https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/eating-meat-is-good-says-the-philosopher
Note that you haven't given an argument against what I say in the article. As I say, I don't think that there is an ethical problem with killing insects. My claim is that it would be wrong if it inflicted tons of suffering on others for the sake of small benefits. You haven't argued against that.
Oh, hello. Sorry, I was only referring to the quote. Looking now into your post: a) your first quote of Caplan sounds silly. I check the link, turns out Caplan was "quoting" an idea he commented in the very next sentence as: "As stated, I freely admit that the Argument from Hypocrisy seems laughable." (Yes, he tries to "flesh it out" then- but that is not the version you quote.)
b) words have meanings. Even the verb "torture", which you seem to like so much. It includes the AIM to cause pain (for some purpose, even if just sadistic pleasure. Not a synonym for hurting or killing. Even when eating dead pigs, aka pork, I never wanted them do feel bad. Nor did the farmer. (Sure, it may still be a crime worse than the holocaust, as you claim in your last post: "Factory farming is the worst crime in history" - but not "torture").
c) I may admit, there is some good reasoning against pork (esp. when chicken is cheaper). And a Jain-monk might well refrain from using fast vehicles that are likely to kill insect. Some try to avoid hurting bacteria, I heard. - If that sounds confusing: I am far from being a first-class writer/thinker. As are most. Erik Hoel is first class (read his post, comment there). Scott, peace be upon him, is. Even Caplan. Sorry, I went with your text now just halfway - the opportunity costs to continue are too high.
a) Oh oops, you are right, I think I just accidentally copy and pasted the wrong one. Will fix after I type this comment. Thanks!
b) I don't think this is true. One quick google definition is to "inflict severe pain or suffering on." On your view, if a person ripped out another's fingers with pliers, but their aim was to make them scream rather than to cause them pain, that wouldn't be torture. But that's false.
c) I think you shouldn't harm conscious beings. This doesn't apply to all beings (E.g. bacteria). I argue for this here https://benthams.substack.com/p/some-arguments-for-sentientism. I think Hoel is not first class on this topic, though I generally like him. The argument from desert is weird; if you bread evil people into existence and then torture them for being evil, that's obviously wrong.
Beware quick google definition searches: dictionaries have gone down hill sharply in the past 50-60 years. Most these days fail to make the distinctions between words that matter, settling for "pretty close" at best.
Also, your example of the fingers is kind of silly, isn't it? Why do they want to make the other person scream if not as a signal of how much pain they have intentionally inflicted? If they merely wanted a scream there are lots of ways to do that short of tearing off a finger, starting with asking politely and including sticking with a pin or just pinching hard with pliers. If we are to interpret their goals, clearly it was to inflict pain even if they claim they merely wanted to hear a scream.
You might want them to scream just as an end in and of itself. I agree that citing dictionaries isn't helpful--one should look at our linguistic intuitions rather than a dictionary.
Again, even if they simply wanted a scream in and of itself (which is highly suspicious on its own) they chose one of the most painful and destructive ways of doing so. If someone pulls off your finger and says it wasn't because they wanted to cause you harm, but just wanted to hear you scream, firstly, they are lying to you, and secondly they are clearly insane. What sane person feels it is fine to compel a scream from someone, just for the sake of hearing it, via a highly destructive and painful method?
"Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties." Wikipedia key-word to distinguish from "hurt": deliberate ("hurt" can be accidental or deliberate). - We can agree, that at least some animals can be tortured, too. I even agreed already to: Catching a harvestman ('daddy longlegs'), ripping off its/his/her six legs, than its wings, than lightening the body with a match - yep, call it "torture". Smashing a million of mayflies on a car-ride from NY to LA: you may call it murder, I may not. Calling it "torture" is wrong.
I can’t speak for anyone else but the only reason I’d be disturbed by someone torturing insects is because it may be an indicator of sadism, akin to stabbing stuffed animals. I don’t think insects can be said so suffer meaningfully enough to an extent that they warrant any practical consideration.
One thing I rarely see mentioned in the debate about animal treatment is the possibility that ethical intuitions can change depending on circumstances. For example, I guess that I'd be less interested in reducing animal suffering if I was poorer. I try to buy more ethically raised and slaughtered meat because I can. This also implies that ethical vegetarians should be hyper-capitalists rather than badgering people with simplistic, controversial, strong-deontological claims.
I'm the person who wrote the reply to Caplan. I would call myself a hypercapitalist. But the fact that some intuition can change and be more widely shared by richer people does not mean that it isn't true. It's possible that rich people were more opposed to Nazism (I don't know much about the empirical claim), but that wouldn't discredit the claim that it's wrong to kill Jewish people. I think it's wrong to inflict tons of pain and suffering on others for small benefits; that seems obvious. If a person doesn't grasp that elementary truth, I think they're missing an elementary part of moral reality.
Yes, that logic is valid and I think some ethical intuitions are closer to strong-deontological claims (e.g. murdering babies, etc.). However, I don't think your analogy applies to eating meat; specifically, your claim that it's "for small benefits". Given that we're omnivores, it seems prima facie justified for omnivores to eat meat for health and the burden of proof lies on those proposing an alternative diet. You're welcome to cite any evidence that you think is strong enough for this, but I'll just admit up-front that my prior against nutritional science is very high; most of it (on all sides, including the meat eating sides) is incredibly bad and confounded science.
However, I am willing to meat in the middle and I think there is a good argument that if it's reasonably affordable for a person, there is a decent argument that they should only eat meat with the highest, independently certified welfare standards (e.g. as recommended by the ASPCA).
Eating a burger at the margin produces only trivial benefits. I review the health evidence here. It seems like if the best nutrition science says that something is healthy, and you think it's okay to not do it even when it involves torturing others, the burden of proof is on you to cite more than general skepticism of nutrition. https://benthams.substack.com/p/factory-farming-delenda-est
> Eating a burger at the margin produces only trivial benefits.
I'm proposing that an alternative to convincing people to stop eating meat is convincing them to eat well-certified, humanely raised and slaughtered meat.
> I review the health evidence here.
Your review of the health evidence seems very one-sided which suggests dogmatism.
> It seems like if the best nutrition science says that something is healthy
Safely concluding this requires steelmanning.
By the way, just to highlight one thing in your post:
> Even the supposedly high welfare farms kill the pigs by beating them to death against concrete—totally legal industry practice.
It is true that many producers misuse the terms "humane" and "high welfare" and this is called humanewashing. There are multiple "humane" certifications which are bad. However, there is a consensus between the ASPCA, AWI, and Farm Forward non-profits that there are good certifications out there, including only pasture-raised animals (e.g. Animal Welfare Approved) and some producers slaughter onsite without transport. See the ASPCA's Meat, Eggs and Dairy Label Guide as an example.
//I'm proposing that an alternative to convincing people to stop eating meat is convincing them to eat well-certified, humanely raised and slaughtered meat.//
As a simple counter-example, your blog post doesn't even mention Vitamin B12 deficiency. Perhaps you might have some argument for why Vitamin B12 deficiency claims are incorrect or overblown, but my meta-point is that lacking even a discussion of this topic (and that's just the tip of the iceberg) is epistemically unsound.
I don’t think any serious moral system includes everything as an other whose suffering matters, e.g., no one is worried that rocks might suffer. I doubt many people would care about the suffering of a bacterium. So the question becomes, what criteria do we use to exclude some others? Two obvious possibilities suggest themselves, but neither seems very satisfactory: can it suffer at all; is there a good reason that it’s suffering matters? The first is hard to operationalize, the second perhaps makes people uncomfortable with its subjectivity.
With power comes responsibility. If we prohibit certain uses of animals, we are taking responsibility for them. But then we would be liable for any damage they do, and blameworthy if they are malnourished or face other problems that they will inevitably face in the wild. If we claim the right to control their use, but refuse to take responsibility for them, we are just busybodies, seeking power but evading responsibility. Not eating meat or advocating that others stop does not require taking responsibility for anything. Prohibiting other people from eating meat would cross the line.
Of course, the US (and probably most societies) has many busybody laws where the legislature exerts power without accepting responsibility, so perhaps my argument will seem unpersuasive.
It seems like everyone whose suffering matters. If we learned that Rocks felt pain, it would be wrong to hurt them. But if you set an intelligence threshold, you should still conclude that animals are above the relevant threshold. https://benthams.substack.com/p/contra-caplan-on-animals
This argument relies on he implies step that rich people "should" be free-market fundamentalists. There's nothing about anyone's personal circumstances that compels them to have a particular worldview; in practice obviously different bits of society have different beliefs on average, but that's an empirical observation, not a moral imperative.
My argument is that if someone wants to promote animal welfare, they should promote independently certified, humanely raised animal products. The fastest way humans know to bring a product to market is capitalism. "Should" here is assuming that the goal of a vegetarian or vegan is to reduce animal suffering.
For what it's worth, I don't think Scott is being unfair to you, and the longer this bizarre "debate" goes on the more I update confusedly in the direction of "Caplan isn't willing to debate subject matter experts in their own domain."
Maybe you have your reasons. I would have loved to see them explained here, but without them I guess I'll just continue being confused about your preferences.
The psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, in his seminal book, "The Road Less Traveled", defined mental health as a "dedication to reality at all costs" which does imply preference, except that as the earlier commenter pointed out, something physical is influencing perceptions, no?
Adelstein seems hopelessly confused about the role social technologies like morality and ethics play in the world. What is the value of his values? Do insect-bleeding-hearts (or ethical vegans) form impressive moral communities? Or, to adapt Tom Stoppard's "Jumpers," what are their domestic lives like?
What I do have is the intuition that going out of your way to torture insects is wrong. But it isn't wrong because such a person cares too little about insects, rather they care too much. Frankly, I am almost as dismayed by someone who wouldn't drive for fear of hurting insects, as someone who pulls the wings off flies. Neither strike me as likely friends or objects of emulation.
I'm a moral realist, as is Caplan. So I think that there are things we should do regardless of how efficient they are as social technologies. The reason not to eat meat is that it's wrong--not about the effects it would have on our society.
I guess I don't understand what it is you think you are claiming is true of the world when you say that mental illnesses isn't a constraint but a preference.
I mean ultimately, when it comes down to it, talk of constraints and preferences are idealizations. If you cut open a person's brain you won't find preferences or constraints. You'll just find biology. At a sufficently reductionist level you can no more do what isn't dictated by the arrangement of your nuerons than you can fly.
So when we classify something as a preference as opposed to a constraint it's an idealization and has to be evaluated on whether it's a good way to help us manage complexity in the world.
And I don't think you deny that the things that are archetypal mental illnesses differ to some degree from other preferences. For instance, while not totally immune to incentives it's alot harder to deter skizophrenia induced violations of rules than it is to deter violations based in more normal preferences. It's more common for people to have meta-preferences of wanting to not have those dispositions etc.
So it seems like the best possible version of your argument can't hope to prove they are just like other things we call preferences. Sure, you can argue they are different in important ways from things we call constraints. Fair enough, but that can't hope to show the concept is illusory or even unhelpful. At best you could say it doesn't map nicely into our idealization. in terms of constraints and preferences.
The comment section on Scott's Substack has been disappointing lately. ACX, and back in the day SSC, used to follow his example of trying to deal charitably with disagreements. It is still probably better than many, especially more likely to remain polite, but I’ve been disappointed by some hasty takes.
I haven’t really done my homework on the Scott vs.Bryan controversy, but it seems even Scott is being less careful on that topic. Maybe I have misunderstood him.
Which reminds me, I did scan Bryan's journal article on applying choice theory as an alternative to diagnosis of mental illness, and I failed to find out what he thinks is at stake. What does he think ought to change if we accept his argument? I don’t see why we should object to having people treat their unwanted preferences in the ways we currently treat mental illness. Is it just a matter of what should health insurance pay for? Change the precedents about malpractice so that doctors feel less compelled to institutionalize patients involuntarily?
Perhaps it's a shame Caplan didn't read our lengthy discussion over there. But of course I might very well maintain my charitably-reversed-Bulverism even if Caplan were to clearly state that he's not just trying to shift how we deal with mental illness in a way that would be positive for everyone.
What's at stake is actually understanding reality clearly, for one thing. But if you mean pragmatically, then yes, health insurance and hospital protocols around mental health would be drastically impacted by the false belief that all mental illness is just about preferences.
I don’t think that is what Caplan thinks is at stake.
I don’t see how it follows. Insurance is a bureaucratic nightmare, so just about anything could result from a change in theory. But I don’t see why it would be necessary logically. If “mental illness “ is actually just “preferences“, and we want to cover mental illness, why wouldn’t we want to cover preferences? Can the insurance companies continue charging what they charge if they suddenly exclude all these categories? In any particular case they would like to, but I don’t think they want to eliminate an entire category. Eliminate category equals reduce premiums.
This is not what we observe when we look at how badly covered mental health issues are by health insurance. Instead we see them eliminating as many categories of care they can legally get away with, and it doesn't affect their ability to sell health insurance because people need health insurance whether or not they need mental health care, and there are no incentives to be the one health insurance company that's willing to cover more than your competitors are.
An uncharitable summary of what you’re saying would be, “insurance coverage of mental illness is really terrible. Therefore, if it wasn’t categorized as mental illness, it would be covered even more terribly.“ It is not clear why this should follow.
I am having trouble coming up with the charitable summary. Am I off-base? By that logic, there really ought to be no coverage at all, of either mental illness or unwanted preferences.
Who is telling the insurance companies, “this is a disease, so you have to cover it”? If anyone at all is saying that, it is the government. Why couldn’t the government say the same thing about unwanted preferences?
“insurance coverage of mental illness is really terrible. Therefore, if it wasn’t categorized as mental illness, it would be covered even more terribly.“
Far from uncharitable, this is an accurate summation of my perspective, yes.
"It is not clear why this should follow."
It's equally unclear to me why it wouldn't? If your perspective is that by not being categorized as mental illness, it must by necessity be covered better than the current terrible state, *that* very much doesn't follow either, as there are many things that are not "mental illness" that insurance covers even worse (as in, not at all).
"By that logic, there really ought to be no coverage at all, of either mental illness or unwanted preferences."
No, that doesn't follow at all. You're injecting some presupposition or assertion into the logic chain, and I'm confused as to what it is.
"If anyone at all is saying that, it is the government."
Indeed, it is the government.
"Why couldn’t the government say the same thing about unwanted preferences?"
This is a strange question. Why couldn't the government say the same thing about covering video games, or steak dinners, or flights to Hawaii? Of course they theoretically "could." It sounds like what you're asking is why they *wouldn't,* and to answer that I can only point to their lack of having a reason to.
The reason they say to cover mental health is because 1) there's a generalized belief among professionals that mental illness is similar enough to physical illness that it should be covered similarly and 2) effort by mental health advocates lobbying to make it so. Should professionals all for some strange reason decide this wasn't true anymore, some new justification for why health insurance should include mental health would need to be found.
Maybe it would be, but I see no reason to expect it to.
My point here is not that it wouldn’t, but that I don’t understand your case that it would. In a previous response, I sort of made a case that it wouldn’t, but in this specific response I’m just saying, oh you’ve shown that coverage is really terrible, but what is it about Its terribleness that makes you think it would have to get worse if we changed the way we thought about it?
“ If your perspective is that by not being categorized as mental illness, it must by necessity be covered better than the current terrible state, *that* very much doesn't follow either”
I agree.
“[“By that logic, there really ought to be no coverage at all,”]
“No, that doesn't follow at all. You're injecting some presupposition or assertion into the logic chain, and I'm confused as to what it is.”
You described a race to the bottom, where all the insurance companies want to get rid of any sort of coverage for mental illness. But you don’t show why they stop short of just getting rid of all mental illness coverage. Perhaps the alternative hypothesis is that they add things or delete things as they expect them to positively affect their profits or their regulatory situation. But then that would mean that there are some things that are advantageous to cover and things that are disadvantageous to cover and you can’t make these sort of broad conclusion that you want to make.
Perhaps the charitable version of your hypothesis would be, insurance companies don’t want to ensure certain phenomena because they are not really insurable, except if you bundle them together with a bunch of other things, resulting in something that is actually insurable.
” I can only point to their lack of having a reason to.”
What is their reason for forcing insurance companies to cover mental illness now? Assuming that Caplan is correct and mental illness is actually mis-analyzed unwanted preference, the same logic would apply, because it is still the same phenomenon. We are just analyzing it differently.
The claim seems to be, all mental illness ultimately has a physiological cause, we just don’t yet know what that cause is in some cases. If we know it doesn’t have a physiological cause, insurance wouldn’t/shouldn’t cover it. But they should/will cover things we do not yet know the cause of. Preferences, although they are also perhaps physiological, should not be covered, perhaps because they might change.
“The reason they say to cover mental health is because there's a generalized belief among professionals that mental illness is similar enough to physical illness that it should be covered similarly. Should professionals all for some strange reason decide this wasn't true anymore, some new justification for why health insurance should include *mental* health would need to be found.”
Another possibility is that we would just replace current beliefs with a generalized belief among professionals that unwanted preferences are similar enough to physical illness that it should be covered similarly.
Or maybe the entire mess is such a mess because insurance companies are trying to triangulate between signals about how to profit , what government wants, what employers (who pay some of the bill ) want, and what actual insured persons want.
I still see no logical necessity that changing the category of mental illness leads to less coverage. There must be some additional premises.
Thank you for creating a space for good old-fashioned, all-out argumentation. Like back in the days before women decided that vigorous arguments are "mean." I feel like I'm at the Columbia Club at 2pm in full tweed attire with my collar unbuttoned. At last, a place where we can pound the table and joyfully jab our fingers at one another..
Assuming that Caplan is, for the sake of taking his hypothesis further, absolutely spot on, a query that comes to mind is: why would someone settle for a preference that is inimical to their survival (in the qualitative sense)? Of it is obvious (which isn't) that certain mental health debilitating states are ultimately a matter of deep preference, it isn't by implication obvious why that particular preference should be chosen by a suffering individual (except the individual himself agrees that his preference doesn't harm his wellbeing). Caplan talks about using incentive or threat as a litmus test to determine whether a mental health condition is responsive to self-willed change. But rather than using an incentive or threat (a gun to the head), why not present the person with a known effective tool for opting out of the condition and see if the person would use it or not? Of course, the reason why this isn't considered is because most of these mental illnesses cannot be said to respond to treatment in the same way a cold would respond to a drug. It is then easy to argue that the mentally afflicted person doesn't want to get better because he has a preference for his illness. Could this argument have been made for malaria before quinine was discovered? Or for infection before the discovery of the germ theory? Caplan's argument would then seem to have a metaphysical merit as long as it is not obvious to us yet that these psychoemotional afflictions can indeed be treated medically or surgically. Thus, Scott will never be able to convincingly change Caplan's mind about his position.
Dunno, honestly. There are "treatments" for many m.i. - and some work for some. Sure, there are "They tried to make me go to Rehab - But I said no, no, no" - but then rehab is no miracle cure. There are those who do try cures that do help some (hypnosis vs. nicotine/tobacco) - but may still be dishonest about their "intent to get healed". Boris Johnson took that new drug to slim - and wrote he could not stand it. Scott linked to it: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12203407/BORIS-JOHNSON-Wonder-drug-hoped-stop-raids-cheddar-chorizo-didnt-work-me.html
And as Joanne Greenberg alias Hannah Green and Mark Vonnegut wrote: there are upsides to be schizo, too. - Still, reconsidering his "gun-to-the-head-test" would do Caplan good. No one can change Caplan's mind, but he himself.
Adelstein's understanding of the Many Worlds theory that he uses in one of his examples is off. Quantum events do not create universes. The many universes always existed, they just weren't different until the events diverged. Wearing polarized sunglasses to the beach wouldn't create new worlds, it would just create tint, imperceptible differences in existing ones.
This is, of course, even assuming the theory is true, it is hotly disputed in physics.
I'm relying on Schwitzgebel's interpretation of the theory. And I think that whether it actually creates other worlds is disputed. Regardless, my claim is that if it did create worlds, it would make most pro-natalists hypocrites, but that would give a person no reason to think pro-natalism is false.
In Scott's article, he says,
> If Caplan wants to respond to this, or to my beliefs in general, I would prefer he start with the four arguments against the constraint/preference distinction, which I think are the crux of our disagreement.
Will you respond to these four arguments?
Seconded, I felt like Scott was being pretty fair in the facts of his complaints, regardless of the tone.
Thirded. Scott argued repeatedly and very convincing against the "gun-to-the-head-test" that seems central to the Caplan distinction of constraint vs. preference. I am actually not that sure it is. It may help to remember that our preferences are constrained, too; as Einstein paraphrased Schopenhauer: “A man can do as he will, but not will as he will.” - I see a possible agreement along the lines: It is helpful to think about some mental issues also as preferences, as far as they actually can be influenced by incentives. As the LGBT-'explosion' seems to show. As a lot of drug-taking does. As even schizophrenics seem to be able to show. And find incentives that promote the "better" behavior. (Including among those loitering north of Hanover train station.)
Thanks for linking to my article!
Always an excellent sign of intellectual integrity to post those with whom you disagree. Appreciate you Bryan.
I would be very happy to see a hundred-thousand dead insect on my car after one drive. Happy for the insects. It would mean "insects are doing very well again". When I was a kid, insects on the windshields were an issue. Bygone times. - Oh, and "unimaginable torture" was the stuff us boys did to them in the yard. A quick death on a car-front does not come close. - And visiting the grandparents is not a "minor benefit", compared to the "premature death" of a mayfly (literally one-day-fly/ "Eintagsfliege" in German). Matthew Adelstein seems deeply confused. Time for Erik Hoel: https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/eating-meat-is-good-says-the-philosopher
Note that you haven't given an argument against what I say in the article. As I say, I don't think that there is an ethical problem with killing insects. My claim is that it would be wrong if it inflicted tons of suffering on others for the sake of small benefits. You haven't argued against that.
Oh, hello. Sorry, I was only referring to the quote. Looking now into your post: a) your first quote of Caplan sounds silly. I check the link, turns out Caplan was "quoting" an idea he commented in the very next sentence as: "As stated, I freely admit that the Argument from Hypocrisy seems laughable." (Yes, he tries to "flesh it out" then- but that is not the version you quote.)
b) words have meanings. Even the verb "torture", which you seem to like so much. It includes the AIM to cause pain (for some purpose, even if just sadistic pleasure. Not a synonym for hurting or killing. Even when eating dead pigs, aka pork, I never wanted them do feel bad. Nor did the farmer. (Sure, it may still be a crime worse than the holocaust, as you claim in your last post: "Factory farming is the worst crime in history" - but not "torture").
c) I may admit, there is some good reasoning against pork (esp. when chicken is cheaper). And a Jain-monk might well refrain from using fast vehicles that are likely to kill insect. Some try to avoid hurting bacteria, I heard. - If that sounds confusing: I am far from being a first-class writer/thinker. As are most. Erik Hoel is first class (read his post, comment there). Scott, peace be upon him, is. Even Caplan. Sorry, I went with your text now just halfway - the opportunity costs to continue are too high.
a) Oh oops, you are right, I think I just accidentally copy and pasted the wrong one. Will fix after I type this comment. Thanks!
b) I don't think this is true. One quick google definition is to "inflict severe pain or suffering on." On your view, if a person ripped out another's fingers with pliers, but their aim was to make them scream rather than to cause them pain, that wouldn't be torture. But that's false.
c) I think you shouldn't harm conscious beings. This doesn't apply to all beings (E.g. bacteria). I argue for this here https://benthams.substack.com/p/some-arguments-for-sentientism. I think Hoel is not first class on this topic, though I generally like him. The argument from desert is weird; if you bread evil people into existence and then torture them for being evil, that's obviously wrong.
Beware quick google definition searches: dictionaries have gone down hill sharply in the past 50-60 years. Most these days fail to make the distinctions between words that matter, settling for "pretty close" at best.
Also, your example of the fingers is kind of silly, isn't it? Why do they want to make the other person scream if not as a signal of how much pain they have intentionally inflicted? If they merely wanted a scream there are lots of ways to do that short of tearing off a finger, starting with asking politely and including sticking with a pin or just pinching hard with pliers. If we are to interpret their goals, clearly it was to inflict pain even if they claim they merely wanted to hear a scream.
You might want them to scream just as an end in and of itself. I agree that citing dictionaries isn't helpful--one should look at our linguistic intuitions rather than a dictionary.
Again, even if they simply wanted a scream in and of itself (which is highly suspicious on its own) they chose one of the most painful and destructive ways of doing so. If someone pulls off your finger and says it wasn't because they wanted to cause you harm, but just wanted to hear you scream, firstly, they are lying to you, and secondly they are clearly insane. What sane person feels it is fine to compel a scream from someone, just for the sake of hearing it, via a highly destructive and painful method?
"Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties." Wikipedia key-word to distinguish from "hurt": deliberate ("hurt" can be accidental or deliberate). - We can agree, that at least some animals can be tortured, too. I even agreed already to: Catching a harvestman ('daddy longlegs'), ripping off its/his/her six legs, than its wings, than lightening the body with a match - yep, call it "torture". Smashing a million of mayflies on a car-ride from NY to LA: you may call it murder, I may not. Calling it "torture" is wrong.
I can’t speak for anyone else but the only reason I’d be disturbed by someone torturing insects is because it may be an indicator of sadism, akin to stabbing stuffed animals. I don’t think insects can be said so suffer meaningfully enough to an extent that they warrant any practical consideration.
“ I think most people have the abstract ethical intuition that you shouldn’t inflict unimaginable torture on insects for the sake of minor benefits.”
(Remembers all those times, as a kid, playing with bugs in the yard)…
One thing I rarely see mentioned in the debate about animal treatment is the possibility that ethical intuitions can change depending on circumstances. For example, I guess that I'd be less interested in reducing animal suffering if I was poorer. I try to buy more ethically raised and slaughtered meat because I can. This also implies that ethical vegetarians should be hyper-capitalists rather than badgering people with simplistic, controversial, strong-deontological claims.
I'm the person who wrote the reply to Caplan. I would call myself a hypercapitalist. But the fact that some intuition can change and be more widely shared by richer people does not mean that it isn't true. It's possible that rich people were more opposed to Nazism (I don't know much about the empirical claim), but that wouldn't discredit the claim that it's wrong to kill Jewish people. I think it's wrong to inflict tons of pain and suffering on others for small benefits; that seems obvious. If a person doesn't grasp that elementary truth, I think they're missing an elementary part of moral reality.
Yes, that logic is valid and I think some ethical intuitions are closer to strong-deontological claims (e.g. murdering babies, etc.). However, I don't think your analogy applies to eating meat; specifically, your claim that it's "for small benefits". Given that we're omnivores, it seems prima facie justified for omnivores to eat meat for health and the burden of proof lies on those proposing an alternative diet. You're welcome to cite any evidence that you think is strong enough for this, but I'll just admit up-front that my prior against nutritional science is very high; most of it (on all sides, including the meat eating sides) is incredibly bad and confounded science.
However, I am willing to meat in the middle and I think there is a good argument that if it's reasonably affordable for a person, there is a decent argument that they should only eat meat with the highest, independently certified welfare standards (e.g. as recommended by the ASPCA).
Eating a burger at the margin produces only trivial benefits. I review the health evidence here. It seems like if the best nutrition science says that something is healthy, and you think it's okay to not do it even when it involves torturing others, the burden of proof is on you to cite more than general skepticism of nutrition. https://benthams.substack.com/p/factory-farming-delenda-est
> Eating a burger at the margin produces only trivial benefits.
I'm proposing that an alternative to convincing people to stop eating meat is convincing them to eat well-certified, humanely raised and slaughtered meat.
> I review the health evidence here.
Your review of the health evidence seems very one-sided which suggests dogmatism.
> It seems like if the best nutrition science says that something is healthy
Safely concluding this requires steelmanning.
By the way, just to highlight one thing in your post:
> Even the supposedly high welfare farms kill the pigs by beating them to death against concrete—totally legal industry practice.
It is true that many producers misuse the terms "humane" and "high welfare" and this is called humanewashing. There are multiple "humane" certifications which are bad. However, there is a consensus between the ASPCA, AWI, and Farm Forward non-profits that there are good certifications out there, including only pasture-raised animals (e.g. Animal Welfare Approved) and some producers slaughter onsite without transport. See the ASPCA's Meat, Eggs and Dairy Label Guide as an example.
//I'm proposing that an alternative to convincing people to stop eating meat is convincing them to eat well-certified, humanely raised and slaughtered meat.//
I agree that's an improvement over the status quo, but there are practical worries--see here https://benthams.substack.com/p/against-eating-happy-animals
//Your review of the health evidence seems very one-sided which suggests dogmatism.//
The health literature is one-sided!
> The health literature is one-sided!
As a simple counter-example, your blog post doesn't even mention Vitamin B12 deficiency. Perhaps you might have some argument for why Vitamin B12 deficiency claims are incorrect or overblown, but my meta-point is that lacking even a discussion of this topic (and that's just the tip of the iceberg) is epistemically unsound.
I don’t think any serious moral system includes everything as an other whose suffering matters, e.g., no one is worried that rocks might suffer. I doubt many people would care about the suffering of a bacterium. So the question becomes, what criteria do we use to exclude some others? Two obvious possibilities suggest themselves, but neither seems very satisfactory: can it suffer at all; is there a good reason that it’s suffering matters? The first is hard to operationalize, the second perhaps makes people uncomfortable with its subjectivity.
With power comes responsibility. If we prohibit certain uses of animals, we are taking responsibility for them. But then we would be liable for any damage they do, and blameworthy if they are malnourished or face other problems that they will inevitably face in the wild. If we claim the right to control their use, but refuse to take responsibility for them, we are just busybodies, seeking power but evading responsibility. Not eating meat or advocating that others stop does not require taking responsibility for anything. Prohibiting other people from eating meat would cross the line.
Of course, the US (and probably most societies) has many busybody laws where the legislature exerts power without accepting responsibility, so perhaps my argument will seem unpersuasive.
It seems like everyone whose suffering matters. If we learned that Rocks felt pain, it would be wrong to hurt them. But if you set an intelligence threshold, you should still conclude that animals are above the relevant threshold. https://benthams.substack.com/p/contra-caplan-on-animals
This argument relies on he implies step that rich people "should" be free-market fundamentalists. There's nothing about anyone's personal circumstances that compels them to have a particular worldview; in practice obviously different bits of society have different beliefs on average, but that's an empirical observation, not a moral imperative.
My argument is that if someone wants to promote animal welfare, they should promote independently certified, humanely raised animal products. The fastest way humans know to bring a product to market is capitalism. "Should" here is assuming that the goal of a vegetarian or vegan is to reduce animal suffering.
For what it's worth, I don't think Scott is being unfair to you, and the longer this bizarre "debate" goes on the more I update confusedly in the direction of "Caplan isn't willing to debate subject matter experts in their own domain."
Maybe you have your reasons. I would have loved to see them explained here, but without them I guess I'll just continue being confused about your preferences.
The psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, in his seminal book, "The Road Less Traveled", defined mental health as a "dedication to reality at all costs" which does imply preference, except that as the earlier commenter pointed out, something physical is influencing perceptions, no?
Adelstein seems hopelessly confused about the role social technologies like morality and ethics play in the world. What is the value of his values? Do insect-bleeding-hearts (or ethical vegans) form impressive moral communities? Or, to adapt Tom Stoppard's "Jumpers," what are their domestic lives like?
What I do have is the intuition that going out of your way to torture insects is wrong. But it isn't wrong because such a person cares too little about insects, rather they care too much. Frankly, I am almost as dismayed by someone who wouldn't drive for fear of hurting insects, as someone who pulls the wings off flies. Neither strike me as likely friends or objects of emulation.
I'm a moral realist, as is Caplan. So I think that there are things we should do regardless of how efficient they are as social technologies. The reason not to eat meat is that it's wrong--not about the effects it would have on our society.
I guess I don't understand what it is you think you are claiming is true of the world when you say that mental illnesses isn't a constraint but a preference.
I mean ultimately, when it comes down to it, talk of constraints and preferences are idealizations. If you cut open a person's brain you won't find preferences or constraints. You'll just find biology. At a sufficently reductionist level you can no more do what isn't dictated by the arrangement of your nuerons than you can fly.
So when we classify something as a preference as opposed to a constraint it's an idealization and has to be evaluated on whether it's a good way to help us manage complexity in the world.
And I don't think you deny that the things that are archetypal mental illnesses differ to some degree from other preferences. For instance, while not totally immune to incentives it's alot harder to deter skizophrenia induced violations of rules than it is to deter violations based in more normal preferences. It's more common for people to have meta-preferences of wanting to not have those dispositions etc.
So it seems like the best possible version of your argument can't hope to prove they are just like other things we call preferences. Sure, you can argue they are different in important ways from things we call constraints. Fair enough, but that can't hope to show the concept is illusory or even unhelpful. At best you could say it doesn't map nicely into our idealization. in terms of constraints and preferences.
The comment section on Scott's Substack has been disappointing lately. ACX, and back in the day SSC, used to follow his example of trying to deal charitably with disagreements. It is still probably better than many, especially more likely to remain polite, but I’ve been disappointed by some hasty takes.
I haven’t really done my homework on the Scott vs.Bryan controversy, but it seems even Scott is being less careful on that topic. Maybe I have misunderstood him.
Which reminds me, I did scan Bryan's journal article on applying choice theory as an alternative to diagnosis of mental illness, and I failed to find out what he thinks is at stake. What does he think ought to change if we accept his argument? I don’t see why we should object to having people treat their unwanted preferences in the ways we currently treat mental illness. Is it just a matter of what should health insurance pay for? Change the precedents about malpractice so that doctors feel less compelled to institutionalize patients involuntarily?
Perhaps it's a shame Caplan didn't read our lengthy discussion over there. But of course I might very well maintain my charitably-reversed-Bulverism even if Caplan were to clearly state that he's not just trying to shift how we deal with mental illness in a way that would be positive for everyone.
What's at stake is actually understanding reality clearly, for one thing. But if you mean pragmatically, then yes, health insurance and hospital protocols around mental health would be drastically impacted by the false belief that all mental illness is just about preferences.
I don’t think that is what Caplan thinks is at stake.
I don’t see how it follows. Insurance is a bureaucratic nightmare, so just about anything could result from a change in theory. But I don’t see why it would be necessary logically. If “mental illness “ is actually just “preferences“, and we want to cover mental illness, why wouldn’t we want to cover preferences? Can the insurance companies continue charging what they charge if they suddenly exclude all these categories? In any particular case they would like to, but I don’t think they want to eliminate an entire category. Eliminate category equals reduce premiums.
This is not what we observe when we look at how badly covered mental health issues are by health insurance. Instead we see them eliminating as many categories of care they can legally get away with, and it doesn't affect their ability to sell health insurance because people need health insurance whether or not they need mental health care, and there are no incentives to be the one health insurance company that's willing to cover more than your competitors are.
An uncharitable summary of what you’re saying would be, “insurance coverage of mental illness is really terrible. Therefore, if it wasn’t categorized as mental illness, it would be covered even more terribly.“ It is not clear why this should follow.
I am having trouble coming up with the charitable summary. Am I off-base? By that logic, there really ought to be no coverage at all, of either mental illness or unwanted preferences.
Who is telling the insurance companies, “this is a disease, so you have to cover it”? If anyone at all is saying that, it is the government. Why couldn’t the government say the same thing about unwanted preferences?
“insurance coverage of mental illness is really terrible. Therefore, if it wasn’t categorized as mental illness, it would be covered even more terribly.“
Far from uncharitable, this is an accurate summation of my perspective, yes.
"It is not clear why this should follow."
It's equally unclear to me why it wouldn't? If your perspective is that by not being categorized as mental illness, it must by necessity be covered better than the current terrible state, *that* very much doesn't follow either, as there are many things that are not "mental illness" that insurance covers even worse (as in, not at all).
"By that logic, there really ought to be no coverage at all, of either mental illness or unwanted preferences."
No, that doesn't follow at all. You're injecting some presupposition or assertion into the logic chain, and I'm confused as to what it is.
"If anyone at all is saying that, it is the government."
Indeed, it is the government.
"Why couldn’t the government say the same thing about unwanted preferences?"
This is a strange question. Why couldn't the government say the same thing about covering video games, or steak dinners, or flights to Hawaii? Of course they theoretically "could." It sounds like what you're asking is why they *wouldn't,* and to answer that I can only point to their lack of having a reason to.
The reason they say to cover mental health is because 1) there's a generalized belief among professionals that mental illness is similar enough to physical illness that it should be covered similarly and 2) effort by mental health advocates lobbying to make it so. Should professionals all for some strange reason decide this wasn't true anymore, some new justification for why health insurance should include mental health would need to be found.
Maybe it would be, but I see no reason to expect it to.
“It's equally unclear to me why it wouldn't?”
My point here is not that it wouldn’t, but that I don’t understand your case that it would. In a previous response, I sort of made a case that it wouldn’t, but in this specific response I’m just saying, oh you’ve shown that coverage is really terrible, but what is it about Its terribleness that makes you think it would have to get worse if we changed the way we thought about it?
“ If your perspective is that by not being categorized as mental illness, it must by necessity be covered better than the current terrible state, *that* very much doesn't follow either”
I agree.
“[“By that logic, there really ought to be no coverage at all,”]
“No, that doesn't follow at all. You're injecting some presupposition or assertion into the logic chain, and I'm confused as to what it is.”
You described a race to the bottom, where all the insurance companies want to get rid of any sort of coverage for mental illness. But you don’t show why they stop short of just getting rid of all mental illness coverage. Perhaps the alternative hypothesis is that they add things or delete things as they expect them to positively affect their profits or their regulatory situation. But then that would mean that there are some things that are advantageous to cover and things that are disadvantageous to cover and you can’t make these sort of broad conclusion that you want to make.
Perhaps the charitable version of your hypothesis would be, insurance companies don’t want to ensure certain phenomena because they are not really insurable, except if you bundle them together with a bunch of other things, resulting in something that is actually insurable.
” I can only point to their lack of having a reason to.”
What is their reason for forcing insurance companies to cover mental illness now? Assuming that Caplan is correct and mental illness is actually mis-analyzed unwanted preference, the same logic would apply, because it is still the same phenomenon. We are just analyzing it differently.
The claim seems to be, all mental illness ultimately has a physiological cause, we just don’t yet know what that cause is in some cases. If we know it doesn’t have a physiological cause, insurance wouldn’t/shouldn’t cover it. But they should/will cover things we do not yet know the cause of. Preferences, although they are also perhaps physiological, should not be covered, perhaps because they might change.
“The reason they say to cover mental health is because there's a generalized belief among professionals that mental illness is similar enough to physical illness that it should be covered similarly. Should professionals all for some strange reason decide this wasn't true anymore, some new justification for why health insurance should include *mental* health would need to be found.”
Another possibility is that we would just replace current beliefs with a generalized belief among professionals that unwanted preferences are similar enough to physical illness that it should be covered similarly.
Or maybe the entire mess is such a mess because insurance companies are trying to triangulate between signals about how to profit , what government wants, what employers (who pay some of the bill ) want, and what actual insured persons want.
I still see no logical necessity that changing the category of mental illness leads to less coverage. There must be some additional premises.
Thank you for creating a space for good old-fashioned, all-out argumentation. Like back in the days before women decided that vigorous arguments are "mean." I feel like I'm at the Columbia Club at 2pm in full tweed attire with my collar unbuttoned. At last, a place where we can pound the table and joyfully jab our fingers at one another..
Assuming that Caplan is, for the sake of taking his hypothesis further, absolutely spot on, a query that comes to mind is: why would someone settle for a preference that is inimical to their survival (in the qualitative sense)? Of it is obvious (which isn't) that certain mental health debilitating states are ultimately a matter of deep preference, it isn't by implication obvious why that particular preference should be chosen by a suffering individual (except the individual himself agrees that his preference doesn't harm his wellbeing). Caplan talks about using incentive or threat as a litmus test to determine whether a mental health condition is responsive to self-willed change. But rather than using an incentive or threat (a gun to the head), why not present the person with a known effective tool for opting out of the condition and see if the person would use it or not? Of course, the reason why this isn't considered is because most of these mental illnesses cannot be said to respond to treatment in the same way a cold would respond to a drug. It is then easy to argue that the mentally afflicted person doesn't want to get better because he has a preference for his illness. Could this argument have been made for malaria before quinine was discovered? Or for infection before the discovery of the germ theory? Caplan's argument would then seem to have a metaphysical merit as long as it is not obvious to us yet that these psychoemotional afflictions can indeed be treated medically or surgically. Thus, Scott will never be able to convincingly change Caplan's mind about his position.
Dunno, honestly. There are "treatments" for many m.i. - and some work for some. Sure, there are "They tried to make me go to Rehab - But I said no, no, no" - but then rehab is no miracle cure. There are those who do try cures that do help some (hypnosis vs. nicotine/tobacco) - but may still be dishonest about their "intent to get healed". Boris Johnson took that new drug to slim - and wrote he could not stand it. Scott linked to it: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12203407/BORIS-JOHNSON-Wonder-drug-hoped-stop-raids-cheddar-chorizo-didnt-work-me.html
And as Joanne Greenberg alias Hannah Green and Mark Vonnegut wrote: there are upsides to be schizo, too. - Still, reconsidering his "gun-to-the-head-test" would do Caplan good. No one can change Caplan's mind, but he himself.
Too bad I can’t Tweet a fucking screenshot. Damn. Why don’t we do to Substack what we did to the Internet in the 90s?
Oh! The enshittification of Substack has already begun? Great. Way to go, boys. 🙄
Adelstein's understanding of the Many Worlds theory that he uses in one of his examples is off. Quantum events do not create universes. The many universes always existed, they just weren't different until the events diverged. Wearing polarized sunglasses to the beach wouldn't create new worlds, it would just create tint, imperceptible differences in existing ones.
This is, of course, even assuming the theory is true, it is hotly disputed in physics.
I'm relying on Schwitzgebel's interpretation of the theory. And I think that whether it actually creates other worlds is disputed. Regardless, my claim is that if it did create worlds, it would make most pro-natalists hypocrites, but that would give a person no reason to think pro-natalism is false.
> the claim about the world is counterintuitive
I intuit that intuition is unreliable. Have you ever considered focusing your mind?
What does this mean?
I replied to somebodys comment about intuition. I dont know why it displays as a reply to you.