The Glade 4.0

I haven't claimed that they're justified by utilitarian philosophy at all. RD claimed that it was immoral, and I pointed out that there is, in fact, a moral system behind it. It's moral within that system; that's what RD needs to argue against. I didn't make the law, nor decide the basis for it; I'm just relating it. It certainly is moral, defensible, and based on reason since utilitarianism is all of those things, even though I don't agree with it.

Aside from the fact that utilitarianism is a moral system of reasoning, not a philosophy, I've stated in the past that I don't agree with it because of the fact that it can be so readily manipulated. It seems you've forgotten that.. sort of like you managed to conveniently "remember" a history of me having a problem with that computer security guy I never heard of before. Is this simply a matter of you not recallingg that, or is this becoming a habit?

Furthermore, absolutely none of this has anything to do with the posts from Khross you cited, which are entirely about Khross pontificating about how we supposedly don't have a justice system based on the rule of law, based on his claims about the body of work of the scholars he listed. Aside from the fact that this is just another case of Khross making a sweeping claim about a large number of writers who magically all seem to say just what he needs them to, the fact remains that it's entirely irrelevant.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I already explained exactly how it's based on utilitarian reasoning. If you're relying on the extreme oversimplfication of "the greatest good for the greatest number" tthat might explain it, though. The fact is that a human infant will, normally, develop into a being that is capable of understanding and appreciating future benefit and pleasure while a dog never will.

Furthermore, if a human infant attacked someone in such a manner as to cause a reasonable fear of physical harm, the same self-defense principles would apply. Human infants however, can't do that. Dogs can. To put this another way, some cultures eat dogs, but don't eat infants. Are you offended by these cultures, and do you think they ought to change simply in order to avoid offending this concept of not thinking humans are special?

If the concern is us thinking "human = special", well, so what if we do? Morality exists as a result of our thoughts. It's not like we're offending the universe by thinking that. If we run into another sapient species (arguably, we have) then we can always extend that to them too, which would probably be a good idea.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I was pondering a post mentioning this, and you beat me to it. I, however, was going to use it as an example.

At least 1/3rd of the human population (most of Asia - probably more) treat dogs and cats no better than chickens. Furthermore, we, in our great love for ham, treat pigs the same way. Pigs are just as smart, loyal and tameable as dogs. But bacon is yummy. So we overlook it.

In fact, the only reason we ever treat animals in a kind way is because we anthropomorphize them. We sometimes use our human quality of empathy to ascribe our own thoughts and feelings to creatures that are really completely alien to us. This isn't a problem, but I believe a balanced, well adjusted person can turn this on or off at will.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

That's the point, though - they aren't completely alien to us. Ascribing human-like emotions (and, to a more limited extent, thought processes) to other animals isn't an anthropomorphic delusion; rather, failing to recognize that other animals actually do have similar emotions (and some similar thought processes) is the delusion. We're just another animal with a more developed, but not utterly different, brain.

So, although I agree that "anthropomorphizing" dogs while treating pigs like nothing more than a source of meat is hypocritical/delusional, I think the delusional part of that inconsistency is the failure to recognize pigs' similarities to dogs and, ultimately, to humans.

That's the thing. No one is "failing to recognize the similarity". It's that all it is, is similarity. That similarity does not somehow obligate us to provide them with whatever arbitrary level of legal protection you claim.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I'm not debating that humans are just another animal. Animals are also completely alien to each other. The predator doesn't agonize over the emotions of its prey. Make no mistake about it, we are predators. Groups like PETA, are, fortunately for us, evolutionary dead ends.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

So basically you're not saying anything, then. You claim that the law is based on utilitarianism, but you offer no reason or evidence to support that claim. What is the history of this law? Who passed it, and what were their stated reasons?

In any case, even if it should happen to be true that this law was based on utilitarian thought, you've offered nothing to support the idea that utilitarian thought is either reasonable or moral. And on that note, you've apparently conflated these two things. Can a thing not be reasonable, but immoral? Moral but unreasonable?

But none of that even matters since your statements are self-annihilating. You've conceded that utilitarianism is wrong, so RD doesn't need to argue against jack. You aren't arguing in good faith; you're just being a dick to RD simply because you don't like his politics. He's arguing against the law and/or law enforcement, so he must be wrong! Quick! Any argument will do, up to and including arguments that you believe -- and will admit to believing -- are false!


You can't be serious. This isn't even pedantic hair-splitting, you're just plain wrong.

Pay special attention to 3 and 4. For that matter 5, but that's another argument.

It helps to actually know what words mean before you use them.


Believe or not, I don't hinge on your every word. But whatever you may have said in the past with respect to utilitarianism doesn't really matter since you're using it as an argument now. As for the other thing, it was an error on my part. I acknowledged that and apologized as soon as it happened. So yeah...classy reopening that in a completely unrelated thread.


Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill have absolutely everything to do with utilitarianism. Like I said, you're trying to argue out of both sides of your mouth. Either their thoughts and opinions matter or they don't. Decrying their opinions as worthless and then tossing them in RD's face is, well...either attributable to stupidity or malice. I'll let you take your pick.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

I pointed out the specific utilitarian reasoning behind it. It wasn't as if someone sat down and said "Ok, what animal protection laws should we pass based on Utilitarian ethics", rather that it's a law that conforms to them naturally. I've not "conflated" anything either.



I haven't "conceeded" that it's wrong at all. I said I personally disagree with it. I didn't make the law. RD stated that it was indefensible and immoral; I pointed out that there is, in fact, a moral system that justifies it. You see, some of us are able to understand how moral systems other than the ones we personally use work. I notice that you don't seem at all bothered by the fact that RD just made a blanket pronouncement that the law was morally wrong and indefensible without a single shred of argument as to why.

Oh wait.. that's not the real issue, is it? This is just a smokescreen for the typical Appeal to Motive regarding this topic. You're just being a dick because I'm not arguing against law enforcement. Quick! Any argument will do!



Definition 8 makes pretty much every field of inquiry "philosophy". Very well, I will concede thatthere is a definition of "philosophy" under which, utilitarianism might be one. Evidently, so is psychology
(see definition 3) and everything else. It's amazing what you can do with a word that has multiple definitions, isn't it?



It's hilarious that you come in to start an argument with nothing more than your silly "fail" picture, post a completely irrelevant snippet of Khross appealing to authority, and all for what's the transparently obvious purpose of taking issue with me for breaking the Glade Commandment of "Though Shalt Not Dispute In Any Way Complaints About Law Enforcement" and then try to talk about how I'm not being "classy". Accusations of "lack of class" are the final refuge of someone who is just looking for an excuse to pick a fight.

Second, I don't expect you to "hang on my every word", but it's pretty interesting that you don't remember things I did say on more than one occasion, and yet had no problem "remembering" my opinion on an obscure computer security expert. Your apology was accepted at the time.

Third, the fact of the matter is that RD claimed the law was "immoral and indefensible." There exist systems of thought that defend the law and explain an underlying morality for it.



Well, since I cited neither man, I'm not "tossing them in his face". But never mind the fact that I said that Khross's post has nothing to do with what you're talking about, not that Mill or Bentham have nothing to do with Utilitarianism. Never mind that, right? Let's just keep moving the goalposts around.

Amazing as it may seem to you, one does not need to particularly give a **** about the personal writings and opinions of specific individuals in order to be able to discuss the concept insofar as it pertains to a practical everyday issue. Utilitarianism is a specific type of reasoning. It is perfectly valid to engage in reasoning on a certain topic without needing to give credence to the personal opinions of every single past author that had something to say on it. One need not cite Alexander Graham Bell in order to discuss telephones.

But then, no one ever really cites these writers actual works, nor explains how what they wrote supports a position, nor provides an argument based on the writer's past arguments or discussions. You haven't, and Khross didn't either. Instead, all we get is references to the names of the writers, or to even to broad categories of writing and thought like "phenomenology" or "moral realism" or "cultural criticism" and an assertion that basically amounts to somewhere in the depths of those writer(s) works, or the volume of work on that subject is something that somehow proves someone wrong. If anyone challenges this nonsense, we get crap about "well I just don't have the time to deal with your refusal to accept blah blah blah" and "go read it and then come back" and so forth... and that's not just Khross doing this either. You're doing it right here. You haven't pointed out any error I actually made in my understanding of utilitarianism; you're just ***** that I don't personally agree with it and that I don't accept Mill or Bentham.

Of course, there's probably nothing wrong with Bentham or Mill's reasoning on utilitarianism. However, since the relevant portions haven't been cited by you or Khross in either this topic or that one, there's no particular reason I should give them any credence - or rather, there's no reason I should give any credence to the idea that they necessarily say what anyone else claims they said, especially since I doubt very much that either spoke to the specifics of police officers shooting dogs versus using less-lethal means on them. I don't believe pepper spray or TASERs existed in either man's lifetime, now, did they?

Simply citing the names of various famous writers is just blatant appeal to authority. If there's an argument to be made with their thinking as a basis, by all means, present it. It should not rely on the prominence of the man's name in philosophical thought as a form of support; the argument should stand on its own.

If that isn't bad enough, we get references to things like this obscure "body of knowledge" that Khross claims exists when Talya points out a dictionary definition to him. All of a sudden oh no, dictionaries are no good! They're reductive! There's a "body of knowledge" you have to be aware of to know what the word really means, and until 5 years ago, "imaginary" meant something different (and unspecified)! What this "body of knowledge" might be, and where one might get access to it are unspecified, but evidently the people writing the dictionary don't know about it.

Or we get Aizle being told what his statements mean because of the way he mechanically constructed them. We all know the really important discussion to be had is if someone is being "dishonest" because they didn't make their statements incontrovertibly clear from the standpoint of their precise mechanics!

Furthermore, this excuse of "it's not worth it", "I don't have time when you're just going to reject it" and all the other excuses to come in and derail and generally **** up the thread. If you, or anyone else, don't have time to make a reasoned argument based on the writings of these various philosophers and support it, then I certainly don't have time to go read through the body of their work, try to figure out which part might pertain to the matter at hand, divine how it is you're using it to support your argument and then try to refute it, only to restart this nonsense with the next reply or next topic and the next writer, of whom there is a near-endless supply.

It's amazing how widely applicable this is, too. Any topic can pretty much be de-railed into linguistics or philosophy because they both involve how we think about and how we discuss the other issues. It's absolutely perfect. Any position can be rejected out of hand by simply claiming that some author, or better yet, some "body of knowledge" contradicts it! If, by chance, someone does happen to have access to their own writer or source of knowledge on a given topic (or has the gall to know more about it than people with no experience in that field), well, those can just be rejected out of hand too! I mean, obviously if DE or someone else doesn't accept Mill's or Kant's take on things (or worse, filtered through some posters' lens) that's clearly a travesty, but Kenyesian economics (or anything else) can be rejected as Obviously Wrong (tm). All we need is approval from the few posters that like reading about linguistics and philosophy! Remember, it's only ok to question authorities if Khross or Stathol says it's ok!

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I wouldn't have faulted the police for pulling the trigger in either of these situations. Its nice they used another option, but particularly in the first case, that dog could well have gone out and attacked someone else. A wounded (or in this case, just hurting) animal can be a danger to others.