That’s the irony of it. If we are to blame institutions, it was the State that murdered Floyd, not the private citizen. Yet here we have people destroying the property and livelihoods of fellow Americans.

NOS, by burning down a TGI Fridays you're fighting capitalism which in turn helps dismantle systemic racism. It's a nuanced argument - you need a college degree to understand.

Read my first post in the thread. I said that there's blame on both sides. The reason I focused on the looting is, well, because much of the commentary here is actually pro-looting. I've already been over this with you, Streetlight.

Maybe it's because of people like you, who, instead of highlighting police violence against protests, the arresting of journalists, the inflammatory language used by a certain fuckwit President and so on, the first thing you post about is fucking Target. You're part of the very problem you've identified.

If the forum was 100% pro-cop I'd be challenging them. I'm challenging you - and people like you who support the rioting - because you're insane. I ended our conversation because I can't really reason with someone who supports complete anarchy and burning everything down and doesn't care about the people harmed. It's about making a statement, I get it.

But I also don't feel that in a situation where the law itself is corrupted that tactical violence against powerful interests, including corporate interests, is necessarily unjustified.

By "the law" do you mean the institution of law enforcement or the written law? Regardless, I don't see how local businesses - even powerful ones like Wal-Mart - have anything to do with what Chauvin did to Floyd.

You can make a utilitarian argument that weighs the material loss of large companies (like Target) against the gain of systemic change that reduces levels of violence by security forces against minorities.

Ok, so how many Targets and sporting good stores and bars do we need to destroy before we've attained systemic change? Maybe I should be doing some looting! Apparently I would just be assisting racial equality and combating systemic injustice.

And you can make an inferential argument that draws a chain of causation from injury to powerful interests to political change.

Is this change going to go in your direction or will it cause a conservative backlash? All I know is that the rioters have turned a substantial portion of the country less sympathetic to the movement and more concerned with personal safety from rioters.

But the more important question to focus on is how do we get the police (and others) in the US to stop feeling like they have a licence to brutalize and mistreat minorities (and the poor and homeless, I might add).

Now this is a good question, and I can tell you that throwing molotov cocktails or assaulting police officers and destoying their vehicles is DEFINITELY not going elicit the response you're hoping for. You're not going to get a more compassionate police force by intimidating them. I support body cameras and transparency. Maybe encourage the creation of programs where cops go into these inner city neighborhoods and maybe coach basketball or involve themselves in the community somewhere.

Not focusing on that makes it look like you're not interested in what's significant here.

I'm interested in both sides of the problem but in this thread commentators are like 100% on one side here with many commentators actually supporting the destruction of property and assault of business owners. It's completely absurd. If everyone was 100% pro-cop I'd be arguing with them.

Because police brutality is directed at people and "lawless rioting" is directed at property and guess which one I care about

Would you like it if you spent years saving up to start your own business and establish your own source of income only to see it burned down by rioters? This is what happened to a bar that was owned by a black fireman who spent his life saving up for it. People are out of work now due to their workplaces being destroyed and communities are being destroyed by these rioters.

If you want to treat police like they're all monsters I could just take the other side and treat the protesters like they're all murdering business owners, looting stores, and assaulting police officers and civilians. They've got assaults on camera.... if you want to play it that way we can play it that way.

Why not just make it simple and condemn police brutality while also condemning lawless rioting?

No, that's the metaphor I'm going to use to towards who are burning down stores and assaulting business owners who try to defend their stores. The protests themselves are fine and warranted.

Billionare wealth soared during COVID, and you think the loss of a Target is the issue? Tell me another kneeslapper.

I never said it was THE issue, I'm saying it's AN issue.

But then again, it's not an issue for you or me. We haven't been put out of work because our workplace has been destroyed. We aren't responsible for feeding their child or paying their bills - that's their own problem to deal with. Maybe in your race to revolutionize the system and destroy capitalism try not stepping on the necks of some of America's most vulnerable workers by making their situation even worse than it already is.

Go put more lower wage workers out of jobs by destroying their workplaces, they can always go loot another store. You're really standing up well for civilization here. Stickin' it to the man.

There are 'few other options' because America is a systemically shit place

there are 'few other options' for entry level worker because a) they don't have many skills or certifications and b) we're in the year of coronavirus which has nothing to do with capitalism or socialism.

but congratulations on putting more of this country's lower skilled, entry level, and vulnerable population out of work. who cares if they have one less source of income? that's their problem to deal with now - not yours or mine. you really stuck it to the man here. racial equality has been solved and the CEO of target now supports afro-socialism and dissolving the police force.

And you think this is because what? Because people burned down a Target? You think that's why people have 'few other options'?

...because many of them are sales associates at a target. have you ever worked as a sales associate in retail? it's an entry level job.

In any case no one is really getting hired right now. They likely out of work because their workplace was destroyed. There are consequences for actions. Delivery companies which may have been already struggling now have one less customer.

If I could pick either fascists or centrists to be all collectively drowned at sea, I'd go with centrists, because at least then everyone would know who the enemy is.

nice to know that i'm talking to a reasonable person here.

Yeah, sorry, I 'don't trust' people whose first instinct is to defend Target in the wake of all that's happened.

Go back and read my post above the Target one.

All those minimum wage, non-heatlhcare covered jobs Oh NO.

Who do you think gets hired for these jobs? It's entry level workers with likely very few other options. Our unemployment rate is absurdly high and you seem to have no problem adding to it as long as it's minimum wage jobs or lower wage jobs.... it's like impossible to reason with you because you just don't care about these individuals who are out of work now. You're just hyper focused on trying to hurt the elite.

You do realize target is made up of individuals, right? And that many of those individuals are the front-line, entry level workers who likely live paycheck to paycheck or near to it and are now out of work? And you do realize that consumers may need to pay more for goods now? But none of this matters to you, we need to burn the corporations now. It's just a matter of principle, I get it.



I don't see where you're going with this.

Destroying the property of a multibillion dollar company that stole employee wages is hardly "violence"

Yeah, keep punching up. The CEO of Target and the board of directors will really get the message now. Meanwhile, you've got all the (presumably lower or lower middle class) entry-level target workers out of a job and the people of the community have one less place to shop and will likely need to travel further now and possibly pay more elsewhere. But we showed the rich!

Seems to me the only reasonable position on this is obviously to be shocked and upset by the Floyd murder, upset about police brutality, but also upset by the rioter's destruction and their targeting of innocent businesses as well as business owners which had nothing to do with the murder. I see both sides at fault here and I don't trust people who focus solely on one side of the problem.

I just don't know of any capitalist theorists who would present capitalism this way. I know of many who would argue that some degree of competition is good and necessary for capitalism, but is different from demanding every company have equal market share and equal revenue.

Peter Thiel in "Zero to One" makes an interesting case where he basically said he tried to avoid competition and instead just find a niche that no one else was doing. I think there's a genuine debate to be had over this topic even among capitalists.

I wouldn't agree with this conception of capitalism. It seems way too strict and unrealistic.

It would imply that in one given industry - lets say the restaurant industry - each separate company (McDonalds, BK, Wendys, all the way up to the world class restaurants) would receive both an equal share of the revenue and of the market which just doesn't make sense. That's not how things work in reality.

Note that capitalism involves a free market with multiple equal players. That is not what we have in many cases in our glorious new global economy. Neoliberalism developed as liberals become the apologists for oligarchy.

Equal in regard to market share? Revenue? Or do you just mean things ought to be competitive?

That’s true about personal needs, but are personal needs important enough for the general health of the community and future wellbeing?

You mean if everyone was to just follow their personal needs would that be enough for a health community and ensure well being? Is that what you're asking? I'd say not necessarily. I feel like what we're missing here is culture. There's always a culture involved, and that culture can be helpful or harmful to ensuring those things you mention.

The state as you define it might belong in the background creating and enforcing laws but that idea of the state is a political tool, or mechanism, for the managing of the real state, which is the population at large.

You're saying the "real" state is the population?

The Australian Aboriginal culture is regarded as the oldest culture in the world and yet I don’t imagine they survived all that time through the concept of individuality. But it serves our modern culture to believe in the idea of individuality, it drives the economy.

My question is still, if we can, which should we choose?

Yes, in ancient times you couldn't just go off into the woods and form your own empire or even really survive. Of course community is needed - we all exist in communities for the most part unless someone wants to self-isolate, but I don't think that's really what's meant by "individualism." When I think "individualism" I more think freedom within a society - especially societies which strongly encourage its members to conform to a certain mold (think religious societies or maybe military societies or others).

Your question - which should we choose - is a good one, and it's debated. I see the two choices as on a spectrum and I think we likely need to find some middle ground. I think culture should exist it's fine if its pushes some messages, but ultimately the individual should be free to make his/her own choices (within reason) and be free to break from or challenge the culture if they wish. The individual should almost always be able to challenge the collective. The sole exception I can think of to this would be military societies where it's not acceptable for, say, a Private to challenge a General.

I would have thought selfishness was the defining neo-liberal notion. Not that selfishness was not present in classical liberalism, but that in neo-liberalism it is elevated to the core virtue.

We might need to define our terms here . Plenty of capitalists (myself included) will agree that humans are by and large self-interested, but this is different from "selfish." "Selfish" has a more moral flavor to it in that it implies that someone is overly self-interested or greedy to the point where money or power is all they want. If we go with this definition then I don't agree that capitalism views selfishness as a virtue or a facet of human nature.

Capitalism really just lays down the rules; it doesn't seem a fundamental transformation of the human condition like communism does. I view capitalism as largely amoral.

Like @fdrake I'm probably some sort of shoddy Marxist. Societies are always trying to shape ""human nature", and to some extent they are successful, for better and for worse, of which there are many examples.

This seems reasonable - sure, societies and cultures often try to shape people, fair enough. Personally, and you might disagree, but I wouldn't say that capitalism itself is trying to transform human nature.

By the way, shaping and trying to transform human nature may very well be a good thing. I'm not treating it as if it's necessarily a negative yet here. I am however starkly opposed to the vision that Marxism has in mind for human nature.

I've found that a reasonably tolerant, reasonably stable, reasonably affluent society produces reasonably good results, for me, at least. An intolerant, unstable, and poor society is likely to produce more of the same. Virtuous cycles and vicious cycles beget more virtuous and vicious cycles.

Seems reasonable insofar as we don't completely abandon some level of personal responsibility if we're evaluating the people within these cultures.

Marxists will also quarrel with the notion that there is such a thing as "human nature". Clearly, and irrefutably, we are a species which manifests various characteristics -- just like Canadian geese, grey wolves, and porpoises do. In that way there is certainly "human nature". We use very complex language, for instance, and we use it a lot. We have a central nervous system with certain characteristics -- emotional, cognitive, and sensory capabilities. More "human nature".

I understand that there is a wide variety of people and cultures out there. One thing that I have noticed and that I asked fdrake was about this notion of family and personal attachment: Namely, across cultures and societies parents seem to grow a special attachment to their children and children to their parents. Maybe after that comes loyalty to the community, and then the state, then the country, etc. etc. This is a barrier to Marxism, which is an internationalist doctrine which seeks to unity humanity as a collective.

Personally, I do believe in a human nature. I believe men are not angels, and despite however advanced we get as a culture we'll just have to deal with that fact that people will think and do bad things. I'm not saying that "humanity is evil" or "fallen" or whatever. I'd also group family attachments in that human nature category, and I think the costs for breaking this one whether it's through raising children collectively or dissolving the trust between families in an attempt to strengthen loyalty to the collective are really quite severe.

People have better experiences, behave better, behave more peacefully, in a society which meets basic human requirements and affords available rich cultural experiences (like food, clothing, shelter, care, and the opportunity and means for self expression).

So maybe one should support a universal basic income as opposed to trying to go full Marxist and kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

I don't know your actual positions so this point isn't aimed specifically at you, but we can address these issues in ways besides breaking down the fundamentals our society and making radical, coercive changes.

For me (and I'm probably some shoddy flavour of Marxist), human nature is stuff like: we have knees, we have language, we can solve problems, we use tools, we live in communities, we have social rituals associated with sex.

How about the general human tendency to value one's family and community above the rest of humanity? Marxist or socialist societies - whatever you'd want to call it have aimed at deconstructing the family unit in order to move humanity towards a more global, universal outside stripped from family or old cultural ties.

Do Marxists hold that human nature should be molded?

Yes. We are to control our own evolution by molding the systems that shape it. Capitalism is relic of history and should be thrown in the dustbin ASAP according to Marxists. Any honest Marxist will believe in trying to shape human nature away from what it has been.

I think much of liberal philosophy is predicated on an unchanging human nature that includes selfishness or at least self interest and the belief is that we ought to build our systems around that rather than the Marxist view that the system itself molds human nature.

Ideally, the individual because the individual is best informed about their own personal needs, i.e. they are their best personal advocate. The state generally belongs in the background creating and enforcing laws that allow individuals to peacefully go about their daily lives and keep public services running. The caveat to this is when there is a crisis that threatens the population and the state needs to come forth and fight it so things can return back to normal.

Jesus Christ, this recent interview with Charlamagne the God:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOIFs_SryHI

If you don't support me "then you ain't black." He also refers to the interviewer as "man" 3 times and ends the interview with "see ya later pal." Do you think he'd be addressing a white crowd like this? Particularly a wealthy white crowd? It's just strange to me.

I didn't ask you to. My post was all about your waffling on animal and human moral value.

What waffling did I do? We're on a forum, you can quote me on it. I thought that I've always been clear that my suspicion here - what I'm inclined to - is the view that humans do have a more elevated moral worth than animals. Show me where I'm contradicting myself.

Pick a position please and then please actually try to make your case. First you use an example to show that they are not of the same worth, then you admit that your example cannot really prove anything about their moral value, and then you go back to saying they're not of the same worth as though you've made a case for that somehow, which you haven't... I mean... what exactly is your point? Or do you even know anymore?

I don't need to pick a position in regard to meat eating vs. vegetarianism. I didn't create this thread with the idea that people were going to come along and try to defeat my argument. I didn't even make much of an argument in the OP; I just speculated that any ethical justification of meat eating presupposes speciesism (i.e. the idea the humans have an elevated moral worth over that of animals) and this speciesism makes sense to me. That's it. We could accept speciesism and still argue that meat eating is wrong.

One of the issues with natural rights is that they're more or less only extant or operant if a given group of humans endorses and enforces them (where force as moral maintenance tends to be less necessary the more universally agreeable the status quo is).

I feel like there are two issues here that are separate and need to be disentangled.

A) Whether natural rights exist as a matter of actual truth.
B) Whether we can enforce these natural rights or whatever we perceive them to be.

We could have A and not B but we could also have B without A if we're just enforcing made up rights. "A" is a matter of philosophy while B is a matter of enforcement.

If natural rights exist then we have is a rule: Do not do X. Like any other rule, it could be enforced or not. Normally we don't say a rule which isn't enforced in a certain instance "isn't a rule."

Throughout this discussion I've been making the point that animals don't have as much moral worth as humans. I don't see how I'm being contradictory.

Again, the extreme scenario doesn't help you determine moral value AT ALL under normal circumstances. It tells you nothing about how cows or humans should be treated in non-life-or-death scenarios.

I know, I was only seeking to address the question of moral worth. I stated in my OP that I believe meat eaters need to acknowledge their own speciesism. I believe speciesism is a presupposition to meat eating, but as far as I can tell I don't think it's a bad one.

I do believe we should treat animals well in their day to day life. I do believe humans have ethical duties to animals, but I don't think an animal can have a moral duty.

We don't determine ethical value based on extreme scenarios though.

We could make it 1 to 1 instead of 100 to 100, it's the same thing.

That's like me saying, who would you save, your son or your daughter, and whoever you don't save has no ethical value and under all circumstances, not just these fringe ones, should be slaughtered and eaten.

Son or daughter is asking about specific people and I don't have a son or daughter so I couldn't answer. We could ask "would you rather save a man or a woman" or "would you rather save a white person or a black person?" in both cases my answer is indifference.

With this question I'm only talking about the question of whether the two have equal moral value or ought to be valued equally. It doesn't follow from this that the one who doesn't get saved has no ethical value nor am I seeking to validate the morality of meat eating here.

We do owe ethical duties to animals. I just think that treating cows or frogs as having the exact same value as humans is insane. In theory it might sound great, but what it would practically translate into is that if we had to make a choice between saving 100 humans or 100 frogs we'd remain totally indifferent.

Once you accept that it's now just a matter of finding some way to justify it, if there is one.

Potential to do what exactly? Are you really going to base a system of ethics on any given individual's ability to "potentially" create a Mona Lisa or an Etude in C Minor? Or is your bar a little lower than that?

Potential to make the world a better place, to form positive connections/relationships, potential to create something beautiful, etc.

The reason I ask is because I do not see a bar of potentiality that would be able to encompass all of the humans we'd want to protect, including all mentally and physically disabled persons, that would not simultaneously encompass cows.

Maybe we run into problems with this standard when it comes to the very severely disabled - maybe. Even if someone has a disability that doesn't make them useless. Sure a mentally disabled person isn't going to be the next Einstein but focus on the things s/he can do. Even if someone's in a coma maybe they have the potential to become better.

I don't think such organizations enforce legal rights.

NGOs do and can enforce legal and/or natural rights. A recent example of this was there was a spate of attacks against Jews in New York earlier this year and in response the Guardian Angels stepped up their presence in Jewish neighborhoods around New York. That's enforcement, and the stepping up of their presence in those areas is a clear attempt to protect the population. Increased presence is certainly one means of enforcement, and in this case we'd call this enforcing a right that is both legal and natural.

There are also NGOs which protect the rights of vulnerable populations when there isn't a legal protection. In other words, the right they are protecting here is natural. For example French resistance fighters in WWII.

This is why you don't base your practical ethics on some possibility which may arise in 10 million years which wouldn't involve any of the participants of the ethical scenario.

Isn't there also the potential that the cows turn into an extremely intelligent, powerful species and wage war on the humans? Shouldn't we get a head start on that and eliminate them then?

When we make moral decisions in the real world we're dealing with actual, flesh and blood beings in the here and now. In the current reality that we face humans have that potential that we don't see in cows.

I'm not really talking about the species I'm talking about the individual.

If one tries to find out why we balk at hurting our own kind we reach the conclusion that it all has to do with the ability to feel pain and suffer.

I think it's more than that. Especially in the case of killing, you're ending that being's potential. Humans have potential, cows don't. It's not just about ability to feel pain. Closely related to potential is cognitive and creative abilities.