Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[psyreporter]

Arjand, moss balls are no more pets than house plants but they are, at least, more pet-like than pet rocks.

The difference may be found in the fact that moss balls appear to express intelligence through movement, to such an extent that it gives rise to the potential to bond with a human. While there may be people who feel emotionally attached to rocks, the aspect that enables people to bond with a moss ball is their apparent intelligent responsiveness.

Intelligence does not equal sentience. Thus, a chess computer can - without sentience - defeat a human chess grandmaster. A slime mould, without sentience, can navigate.

I wonder if that statement is correct. While the concept sentience from a 'human emotion' perspective is limited to a specific scope and as such may not apply to all forms of natural intelligence, natural intelligence requires awareness which in my option equals 'manifestation of sentience'.

Intelligence of a chess computer is an extension of human intelligence. It is evidence of human sentience. The origin is the human.

The question yet to be answered is what possible advantage would there be to plants to feel pain? The costs of sentience in nature are extreme, with a brain that comprises about 2% of a body's weight using about 20% of the total resources used by the body. So there needs to be a great reason to feel that pain.

Emotions such as pain connect the individual to something that precedes it (from the individual's perspective: something that lays beyond it).

My consideration is:

1) if the goal is to serve the purpose of life...

2) since the purpose of life is unknown, the value of another person, animal or plant in relation to the purpose of life cannot be known beforehand, thereby by definition requiring a base level of respect to serve the purpose of life.

If 'life' cannot be defined it cannot be considered a factor, which means that life cannot be assigned a value. When life is inexplicable, one could just as well consider life meaningless or an effect of pure randomness. It would be possible for life to be reduced to nothing that requires consideration other than that on individual or corporate level.

My argument is that it is important to not factor out life, if only by acknowledging it as a (yet) unknown. You could see it as a demand for humility in the face of what cannot be known beforehand.

The purpose of life can be considered "good". "good" cannot be assigned a value because valuing itself is derived from the necessary ability to distinguish, which is appropriated from "good". It means that "good" cannot amount to anything empirically as it precedes the senses.

Pain is necessarily preceded by valuing. It can be implied that for valuing to be possible it requires a distinguish ability, and by the nature of value, valuing appropriates its distinguish ability from that what can be indicated as "good". Because something cannot be the origin of itself, "good" cannot be valued.

By the realness of pain, "good" is real.

By the nature of valuing, "good" cannot be valued and thus cannot be proven to exist using empirical science.

With regard to the purpose of life. Considering that value follows "good", value cannot be an end or purpose by itself as it would result in corruption.

A result applicable to "good" can be evaluated as value. It could be considered the origin of value and the essence of purpose. Value follows from the discovery of "good" and thus the valuer (the human) can find purpose in the serving of life by discovering what is "good".

It explains why Aristotle considers philosophical contemplation the highest human virtue (i.e. the purpose of life). It is a strive to serve life: the discovery of "good" from which value follows.

Considering that for the concept value to exist, it is required that "good" existed beforehand, it follows that a purpose of life is essential for value to be possible.

From the essentiality of the purpose of life it can be derived that a basis of respect is required for plants and animals since they will logically serve life similar to humans do and their discovery of "good" will result in intrinsic value relative to the purpose of life that no valuer can know beforehand.

My argument is that you cannot stand above life as being life and that you can only serve life. A basis of respect for Nature (plants and animals) may be essential for Nature to prosper.

In animals, pain motivates them to quick action. Great pain is traumatic for sentient beings. Yet a plant's life strategy is to always allow damage to happen before responding. In this instance, fine sensing without pain that triggers a rapid reflex response would seem most advantageous.

If reflex response needs no sentience. Thus, tree branches do not grow into each other, but they grow unabated into objects that are sensed as "other". This would require fine chemical sensing, like that of nanoscale bioelectric chemical sensors (which are not sentient).

I do not believe that plants allow damage to happen and merely respond like a machine. The example in my previous post shows that plants have their strategies to pro-actively wear of an attack by predators and even 'scream' in the face of stressful events.

Animal nerve signal is an innate plant stress signal
A study has found that a plant in 'pain' will release strong smelling organic compounds into the air, which other plants pick up as a sign of an imminent threat and then try to protect themselves.
http://serious-science.org/animal-nerve ... ignal-4468
https://phys.org/news/2015-07-stressed-animal-like.html

Plants feel pain too! Researchers find an ultrasonic 'scream' is emitted when stems are cut or if species are not watered enough
The plants also seemed to respond with different intensities of sound to different sources of stress.
The team observed that tobacco plants let out a louder sound when they were deprived of water than when they had their stems cut.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... upply.html

Plants don't need to be sentient to be valued and treated with respect. They are, like all life, complex and fascinating. As a general ethical rule, if something is highly ordered - be it a human or other animal, a tree, a rock formation, a building or a functioning machine, etc - ideally we would need a compelling reason to disturb that order.

The human is of highest value to the human. It will evaluate its environment in relation to itself. If the human wants to move a mountain to serve long term interests (e.g. to build a big science experiment inside a mountain), then perhaps, it cannot be said that it is immoral.

Morality may revolve around the consideration "think before you act".

Will the human notice the animals and plants that are destroyed when building a science experiment? Will it address the issue as good as it can or be negligent?

[Belindi]

arjand wrote:

What is the purpose of a moss ball? Why would it roam the north pole in herds? It may be difficult for humans to see value in the existence of a moss ball. From the perspective of a moss ball however, there could be interests at play that span hundreds of thousands of years. Perhaps a moss ball plays a role in the creation of new animals. As it appears, owners of a moss ball pet feel emotionally attached and are awed by their intelligence / apparent responsiveness (i.e. potential for meaningful interaction that is comprehensible within the human realm).

We will never know what mossballs purpose to do. I doubt if they purpose anything, but like plants they probably act from sort of instinct. You may be right who knows.

Meantime, it's urgent that we allocate rights to sentient animals which we know for a fact are capable of feeling fear , pain,and distress. So it is silly to argue about mossballs when there is actual work to be done on relieving farm animals of their current status as commodities.

[psyreporter]

We will never know what mossballs purpose to do. I doubt if they purpose anything, but like plants they probably act from sort of instinct. You may be right who knows.

The value that the moss ball creates could be significant from diverse perspectives. Some that ultimately affect the human may, like a butterfly effect, originate from a complex interaction between multiple species (as part of a natural eco-system).

It may be possible to see a moss ball like a pioneer on its own unique level. It managed to crawl on land, create a herd formation and roam the complex ice and rock landscape of the north pole. As it appears even, moss balls are able to bond with humans who consider them 'pets'.

As mentioned in my previous post: the motive to explore the applicability of plant morality is the simple theory that, since the value of another person, animal or plant in relation to the purpose of life cannot be known beforehand, it by definition requires a base level of respect to serve the purpose of life.

The applicability of plant morality is evident from the consideration that the question "What is 'good' for a plant?" is valid.

Meantime, it's urgent that we allocate rights to sentient animals which we know for a fact are capable of feeling fear , pain,and distress. So it is silly to argue about mossballs when there is actual work to be done on relieving farm animals of their current status as commodities.

That would be a political issue. This topic is intended to question whether moral consideration for plants is applicable and it is also intended to denote the fact that there may be a factor at play that prevents attention (from vegans) for the well being of plants.

Vegans are seen as a group of humans that have attention for ethics, more so than others. In essence, they fulfill a certain guiding role for humanity as a whole. Therefor, if for some reason attention for the well-being of plants is excluded with vegans and animal-rights activists, who will be capable of taking it up for plants?

Philosopher Michael Marder, a research professor at the University of the Basque Country, mentioned the following response from animal rights activists to his argument that plants are sentient beings.

Philosopher: Plants are sentient beings that should be eaten with respect

His claim that a plant is an “intelligent, social, complex being” has been contested by some biologists, but a stronger reaction has come from animal-rights activists who fear their cause is undermined by extending a duty of respect to plants.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/unth ... -1.1965980

In summary: when one learns that vegans and animal-rights activists may be ignoring the well being of plants, one wonders: who remains that could potentially protect plants if that would ultimately prove to have been essential?

The topic is therefor also intended to investigate whether a potential bias in 'ethical consideration' with vegans and animal-rights activists could have a certain (unintended) effect for the well being and security of plants.

People who feel inclined to consider animal ethics may be the only persons of whom it is to be expected to be capable of considering plant morality. So the (potential) issue of principled rejection of the idea, if present, could have profound implications.

With regard the interest of humanity. It may be essential that humans will have been capable of discovering plant sentience if it exists, to even consider forging a fruitful, i.e. friendly, relation with alien species, if the goal is to prevent survival to be subject to mere random chance or 'luck'.

Morality may be important for plants - and nature as a bigger whole - to prosper when human science evolves further, for example considering the developments in synthetic biology and GMO.

Exponential growth introduces unique and serious risks by which morality may be vital to prevent potential fatal flaws in human evolution.

[Sy Borg]

In animals, pain motivates them to quick action. Great pain is traumatic for sentient beings. Yet a plant's life strategy is to always allow damage to happen before responding. In this instance, fine sensing without pain that triggers a rapid reflex response would seem most advantageous.

If reflex response needs no sentience. Thus, tree branches do not grow into each other, but they grow unabated into objects that are sensed as "other". This would require fine chemical sensing, like that of nanoscale bioelectric chemical sensors (which are not sentient).

I do not believe that plants allow damage to happen and merely respond like a machine.

I've written a lot here and do not expect you to hang off my every word, but I did stress earlier on that I do not see the machine analogy to be valid. I do not believe in "biological machines". We make machines and biology is, as you stress, alive.

But alive does not mean sentient. Do you think that nanobacteria are sentient, that they feel pain?

Sorry for the brevity, Arjand, I have some chores. Will return to chat more later.

[psyreporter]

I've written a lot here and do not expect you to hang off my every word, but I did stress earlier on that I do not see the machine analogy to be valid. I do not believe in "biological machines". We make machines and biology is, as you stress, alive.

My apologies, you mentioned it specifically.

I have deliberately avoided comparing automatic behaviours of life with machines, because it's invalid and backward thinking. Machines are primitive echoes of wild nature, not the other way around. Since I see us all as parts of the Earth, we - including human society and its things - are all parts of nature, despite our affectations of independence. So microbes and plants do not resemble the operation of machines, rather machines can be thought of as both dumbed-down and domesticated biology and complexified geology.

But we can refer to automatic behaviours that are not mediated by a mind. Are there are plants behaviours that are not automatic, that can be influenced by mentality?

I considered that non-sentience and the notion of automated behavior would be equal to 'machine'-like behavior. If a plant would merely respond, then, how would that be 'intelligent'?

Maybe we can clarify this by looking at our own pain. Why do complex animals feel pain, rather than respond automatically to damage? Wouldn't life be easier if we simply had neutral sensations to report incidents or damage rather than pain and suffering? Might such neutral, or relatively neutral, sensations exist in other organisms?

Pain connects an individual to something that precedes it (from the individual's perspective: something that lays beyond it). Pain therefor serves a purpose beyond mere informative sensation.

Plants my have impressive (and ironic) capabilities but I cannot see any evolutionary advantage to plants feeling pain, as opposed to simply acting on stimuli directly, without the mediation of a mind that can suffer.

Why does a plant exist vs why do animals feel pain? The plant likely has a similar difficulty to find purpose in life and is unlikely a product of random chance. From such a perspective, it may be logical that a plant is similarly guided by emotions such as pain.

But alive does not mean sentient. Do you think that nanobacteria are sentient, that they feel pain?

A bacteria is likely able to experience something similar to pain but its spirit may reside in the collective. Individual bacteria self-terminate in complex attack strategies so they are likely able to turn off pain.

Bacteria are proven to be at the root of complex human thought and emotions. That may be an indication that emotions such as pain are present in bacteria.

(2016) Gut bacteria and the brain: Are we controlled by microbes?
Although the interaction between our brain and gut has been studied for years, its complexities run deeper than initially thought. It seems that our minds are, in some part, controlled by the bacteria in our bowels.
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/312734

[Belindi]

We will never know what mossballs purpose to do. I doubt if they purpose anything, but like plants they probably act from sort of instinct. You may be right who knows.

The value that the moss ball creates could be significant from diverse perspectives. Some that ultimately affect the human may, like a butterfly effect, originate from a complex interaction between multiple species (as part of a natural eco-system).

It may be possible to see a moss ball like a pioneer on its own unique level. It managed to crawl on land, create a herd formation and roam the complex ice and rock landscape of the north pole. As it appears even, moss balls are able to bond with humans who consider them 'pets'.

As mentioned in my previous post: the motive to explore the applicability of plant morality is the simple theory that, since the value of another person, animal or plant in relation to the purpose of life cannot be known beforehand, it by definition requires a base level of respect to serve the purpose of life.

The applicability of plant morality is evident from the consideration that the question "What is 'good' for a plant?" is valid.

Meantime, it's urgent that we allocate rights to sentient animals which we know for a fact are capable of feeling fear , pain,and distress. So it is silly to argue about mossballs when there is actual work to be done on relieving farm animals of their current status as commodities.

That would be a political issue. This topic is intended to question whether moral consideration for plants is applicable and it is also intended to denote the fact that there may be a factor at play that prevents attention (from vegans) for the well being of plants.

Vegans are seen as a group of humans that have attention for ethics, more so than others. In essence, they fulfill a certain guiding role for humanity as a whole. Therefor, if for some reason attention for the well-being of plants is excluded with vegans and animal-rights activists, who will be capable of taking it up for plants?

Philosopher Michael Marder, a research professor at the University of the Basque Country, mentioned the following response from animal rights activists to his argument that plants are sentient beings.

Philosopher: Plants are sentient beings that should be eaten with respect

His claim that a plant is an “intelligent, social, complex being” has been contested by some biologists, but a stronger reaction has come from animal-rights activists who fear their cause is undermined by extending a duty of respect to plants.

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/unth ... -1.1965980

In summary: when one learns that vegans and animal-rights activists may be ignoring the well being of plants, one wonders: who remains that could potentially protect plants if that would ultimately prove to have been essential?

The topic is therefor also intended to investigate whether a potential bias in 'ethical consideration' with vegans and animal-rights activists could have a certain (unintended) effect for the well being and security of plants.

People who feel inclined to consider animal ethics may be the only persons of whom it is to be expected to be capable of considering plant morality. So the (potential) issue of principled rejection of the idea, if present, could have profound implications.

With regard the interest of humanity. It may be essential that humans will have been capable of discovering plant sentience if it exists, to even consider forging a fruitful, i.e. friendly, relation with alien species, if the goal is to prevent survival to be subject to mere random chance or 'luck'.

Morality may be important for plants - and nature as a bigger whole - to prosper when human science evolves further, for example considering the developments in synthetic biology and GMO.

Exponential growth introduces unique and serious risks by which morality may be vital to prevent potential fatal flaws in human evolution.

I agree my stance about animal welfare and animal rights is political. Moral philosophy is closely allied to politics. Even some would-be dictators try to justify their decisions. We imply political decisions are moral or immoral .

The most important issue from metaphysics is human responsibility; and human responsibility bears on acting as immediately as reason allows. Politics is the channel for philosophical action.

I agree that love and respect for plants is like love and respect for animals and that each of those loves reasonably depends on the other.However we have to be practical when we are making laws and practicality demands relative claims to allocated rights. Animals that are the most like us i.e. sentient and sharing the most genes should be allocated early attention to their welfare and rights.

Happily for others besides vegans farm animal welfare and ecological welfare are in the same boat.

[Pattern-chaser]

Do you think that nanobacteria are sentient, that they feel pain?

The way this topic keeps returning to pain worries me. It's taken me this long to work out why. This topic is about morality, asking whether plants deserve to be considered the same (in moral terms) as animals. But if we drill down just a little bit, we see the apparent assumption that, if plants (or animals) cannot feel or experience pain, it's OK for humans to do what they like with them.

It's like our 21st century businesses assume that if they do not break the law, their conduct is automatically acceptable in a moral sense. Not-behaving -badly is not the same as behaving well, IMO. Some living things experience pain, others probably don't. But is this alone an acceptable standard by which to judge our conduct toward other living things? "Oh, they don't feel pain, so what we do to them is fine."

My worry is that we concentrate on pain (and only that) to decide whether we may hurt them or not. I think there's more to being alive - to being a living thing - than the ability to experience pain. This is what's been bothering me. Does it bother you?

[N.B. I'm addressing all contributors here, not just Greta.]

[psyreporter]

I agree my stance about animal welfare and animal rights is political. Moral philosophy is closely allied to politics. Even some would-be dictators try to justify their decisions. We imply political decisions are moral or immoral .

The most important issue from metaphysics is human responsibility; and human responsibility bears on acting as immediately as reason allows. Politics is the channel for philosophical action.

I agree that love and respect for plants is like love and respect for animals and that each of those loves reasonably depends on the other.However we have to be practical when we are making laws and practicality demands relative claims to allocated rights. Animals that are the most like us i.e. sentient and sharing the most genes should be allocated early attention to their welfare and rights.

Happily for others besides vegans farm animal welfare and ecological welfare are in the same boat.

Ethics is essentially politics. Morality (moral philosophy) is something else in my view.

According to Aristotle, philosophical contemplation is the greatest human virtue. It is the discovery of "good" from which value follows.

Is the formulation of ethics moral? Aristotle's idea that philosophical contemplation is the highest human virtue may indicate that ethical claims may not be virtuous. Virtue is in contemplation, not in the contemplated (i.e. a determination).

What is "good" in relation to humans? Ethics can serve this quest and form a basis for an ethical human life, e.g. animal ethics and the formulation of animal-rights.

What is "good"? Ethical claims can undermine morality and therefore fail to provide an answer. Morality can be found in contemplation, as a balancing act through which one can be convinced that everything has been done to achieve the best result, while remaining aware that one may need to discover new insights to adjust or change ones perspective. Morality arises from valuing and uses theory as reasoning. Ethics stems from theory.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell was opposed ethical claims because, in his view, ethics results in violence. Ethics is essentially a fixative claim to good and bad that legitimizes violence against what is claimed to be "bad".

According to Bertrand Russell ethical philosophy offers little more than self-serving argument to justify violence. He developed a disgust of all ethical claims.

Philosophers and Pigs

Russell told one colleague that the talk (On Scientific Method in Philosophy, Oxford) ‘was partly inspired by disgust at the universal outburst of “righteousness” in all nations since the war began. It seems the essence of virtue is persecution, and it has given me a disgust of all ethical notions.
...
In private, Russell referred to the essay as ‘Philosophers and Pigs’.
...
Russell’s antiwar protest was so extensive that it would cost him both his job and, for a time, his personal freedom. His theoretical antidote to the irrational, sectarian vitriol between European nations was to try to show how logic could function as an international language that could be used impartially and dispassionately to adjudicate disputes. His theoretical antidote was, in other words, analytic philosophy.

‘The truth, whatever it may be, is the same in England, France, and Germany … it is in its essence neutral’

(2020) The politics of logic - Philosophy at war: nationalism and logical analysis
https://aeon.co/essays/philosophy-at-wa ... l-analysis

I personally have no interest in politics. I understand that politics is a method to derive meaningful change from a human perspective, however, I am personally just interested in theory (outside the scope of the human) and have no intention or interest to change anything.

From my (non-politically oriented) perspective, the respect that is at question is a base level of respect (core concept) that could equally apply to plants, animals and humans. The human perspective could use such a 'core concept' to create a vision for its future, and to formulate corresponding values in which plants and animals may be treated in specific ways. The perspective that the human creates could differ by geographic region, culture, time and by many complex factors.

I am personally not interested in the creation of a human perspective (e.g. a 'political ideology'). Naturally, I care for the well being of plants and animals, but my consideration that respect for plants and animals is essential for human evolution is purely theory.

[psyreporter]

I've written a lot here and do not expect you to hang off my every word, but I did stress earlier on that I do not see the machine analogy to be valid. I do not believe in "biological machines". We make machines and biology is, as you stress, alive.

Do you believe that plants are philosophical zombies?

[Pattern-chaser]

I've written a lot here and do not expect you to hang off my every word, but I did stress earlier on that I do not see the machine analogy to be valid. I do not believe in "biological machines". We make machines and biology is, as you stress, alive.

Do you believe that plants are philosophical zombies?

This is what I've been trying to get at. This topic is really about whether we can (morally) use or abuse living things. And we try to tell ourselves that these things, albeit living, are without 'feeling', so it's perfectly alright for us to use them as we see fit. We seek to lose our understandable moral concerns by pretending it's all fine, because the living things aren't "sentient", or some similar thing. Like Greta, 'I do not believe in "biological machines". We make machines, and biology is alive'.

[psyreporter]

I've written a lot here and do not expect you to hang off my every word, but I did stress earlier on that I do not see the machine analogy to be valid. I do not believe in "biological machines". We make machines and biology is, as you stress, alive.

Do you believe that plants are philosophical zombies?

Once again my apologies for forgetting your post regarding your perspective on biological machines. When I wrote my reply, I was listening to a MindScape podcast of Sean Carrol with philosopher David Chalmers (who introduced the term Hard problem of consciousness) that mentioned that when one considers something (e.g. plants) to be automata, that it would be equal to considering them "machines".

David Chalmers said the following in Episode 25 @ 16:12 "consciousness is one of the things that we value. A) it is one of the central properties of our minds. B) many people think that it is actually what gives our minds meaning and value. If we weren't conscious, we didn't have subjective experience and then we would be basically automata to whom nothing has any meaning or value, so I think that when it comes to the question, once we develop more and more sophisticated AI's, the question of whether they are conscious is going to be absolutely central to how we treat them, wether they have moral status, whether we should care whether they continue to live or die, whether they have rights and so on.

I think that many people think if they are not having subjective experiences then they are basically machines.

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/po ... imulation/

[Sy Borg]

Do you believe that plants are philosophical zombies?

This is what I've been trying to get at. This topic is really about whether we can (morally) use or abuse living things. And we try to tell ourselves that these things, albeit living, are without 'feeling', so it's perfectly alright for us to use them as we see fit. We seek to lose our understandable moral concerns by pretending it's all fine, because the living things aren't "sentient", or some similar thing. Like Greta, 'I do not believe in "biological machines". We make machines, and biology is alive'.

Here we three agree. This is one of the few areas where I am at odds with the scientific community, because it seems to me that that being alive inherently means some degree of qualia. However, it seems that brains act as amplifiers, exponentially increasing the intensity and depth of qualia as compared with brainless organisms.

So I think that to be a plant or microbe probably feels like something, but not very much by our lofty mammalian standards. Ultimately, when we decide what to kill to survive, vastly less suffering will be perpetrated by killing plants rather than animals. A being that does not have a head full of strategies probably does not need searing agony to get their attention and spur them into protective action; mild irritation would be enough to trigger responses.

[Belindi]

I agree my stance about animal welfare and animal rights is political. Moral philosophy is closely allied to politics. Even some would-be dictators try to justify their decisions. We imply political decisions are moral or immoral .

The most important issue from metaphysics is human responsibility; and human responsibility bears on acting as immediately as reason allows. Politics is the channel for philosophical action.

I agree that love and respect for plants is like love and respect for animals and that each of those loves reasonably depends on the other.However we have to be practical when we are making laws and practicality demands relative claims to allocated rights. Animals that are the most like us i.e. sentient and sharing the most genes should be allocated early attention to their welfare and rights.

Happily for others besides vegans farm animal welfare and ecological welfare are in the same boat.

Ethics is essentially politics. Morality (moral philosophy) is something else in my view.

According to Aristotle, philosophical contemplation is the greatest human virtue. It is the discovery of "good" from which value follows.

Is the formulation of ethics moral? Aristotle's idea that philosophical contemplation is the highest human virtue may indicate that ethical claims may not be virtuous. Virtue is in contemplation, not in the contemplated (i.e. a determination).

What is "good" in relation to humans? Ethics can serve this quest and form a basis for an ethical human life, e.g. animal ethics and the formulation of animal-rights.

What is "good"? Ethical claims can undermine morality and therefore fail to provide an answer. Morality can be found in contemplation, as a balancing act through which one can be convinced that everything has been done to achieve the best result, while remaining aware that one may need to discover new insights to adjust or change ones perspective. Morality arises from valuing and uses theory as reasoning. Ethics stems from theory.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell was opposed ethical claims because, in his view, ethics results in violence. Ethics is essentially a fixative claim to good and bad that legitimizes violence against what is claimed to be "bad".

According to Bertrand Russell ethical philosophy offers little more than self-serving argument to justify violence. He developed a disgust of all ethical claims.

Philosophers and Pigs

Russell told one colleague that the talk (On Scientific Method in Philosophy, Oxford) ‘was partly inspired by disgust at the universal outburst of “righteousness” in all nations since the war began. It seems the essence of virtue is persecution, and it has given me a disgust of all ethical notions.
...
In private, Russell referred to the essay as ‘Philosophers and Pigs’.
...
Russell’s antiwar protest was so extensive that it would cost him both his job and, for a time, his personal freedom. His theoretical antidote to the irrational, sectarian vitriol between European nations was to try to show how logic could function as an international language that could be used impartially and dispassionately to adjudicate disputes. His theoretical antidote was, in other words, analytic philosophy.

‘The truth, whatever it may be, is the same in England, France, and Germany … it is in its essence neutral’

(2020) The politics of logic - Philosophy at war: nationalism and logical analysis
https://aeon.co/essays/philosophy-at-wa ... l-analysis

I personally have no interest in politics. I understand that politics is a method to derive meaningful change from a human perspective, however, I am personally just interested in theory (outside the scope of the human) and have no intention or interest to change anything.

From my (non-politically oriented) perspective, the respect that is at question is a base level of respect (core concept) that could equally apply to plants, animals and humans. The human perspective could use such a 'core concept' to create a vision for its future, and to formulate corresponding values in which plants and animals may be treated in specific ways. The perspective that the human creates could differ by geographic region, culture, time and by many complex factors.

I am personally not interested in the creation of a human perspective (e.g. a 'political ideology'). Naturally, I care for the well being of plants and animals, but my consideration that respect for plants and animals is essential for human evolution is purely theory.

So ivory tower.

[Belindi]

This is what I've been trying to get at. This topic is really about whether we can (morally) use or abuse living things. And we try to tell ourselves that these things, albeit living, are without 'feeling', so it's perfectly alright for us to use them as we see fit. We seek to lose our understandable moral concerns by pretending it's all fine, because the living things aren't "sentient", or some similar thing. Like Greta, 'I do not believe in "biological machines". We make machines, and biology is alive'.

Here we three agree. This is one of the few areas where I am at odds with the scientific community, because it seems to me that that being alive inherently means some degree of qualia. However, it seems that brains act as amplifiers, exponentially increasing the intensity and depth of qualia as compared with brainless organisms.

So I think that to be a plant or microbe probably feels like something, but not very much by our lofty mammalian standards. Ultimately, when we decide what to kill to survive, vastly less suffering will be perpetrated by killing plants rather than animals. A being that does not have a head full of strategies probably does not need searing agony to get their attention and spur them into protective action; mild irritation would be enough to trigger responses.

I agree about degrees of qualia. However I think degrees of qualia is insufficient fact to justify lack of political will to improve animal welfare.

[psyreporter]

The simple theory that, since the value of another person, animal or plant in relation to the purpose of life cannot be known beforehand, it by definition requires a base level of respect for others (Nature) to serve the purpose of life, would naturally result in the consideration of what is "good" for a being (animal or plant) and thus the natural consideration of the essentiality of their happiness.

One can then argue that humans should choose wisely when they have the capacity to do so. A greater capacity in intelligence and empathy for animals may come with new responsibilities.