You can 'program' humans that way too. Doesn't mean they aren't slaves and it doesn't mean it isn't bad.
And anyway I suspect that your use of the word suffering implies a rather narrow definition of suffering that counts only material suffering as important.
I actually don’t think that’s too relevant of a question. If there’s a high amount of suffering and cruelty, along with a mental philosophy that allows for happiness in spite of that (for the survivors), that still doesn’t make the suffering ok. To say otherwise is to take a step toward justifying slavery if the slaves are conditioned to be happy…
All moral judgements around suffering are only applicable to humans and things that share a common-enough ancestor with humans. It's not really for you to decide whether a hunk of silicon is "suffering". You may as well draw a frowny face on a piece of paper and recoil in horror at your creation of suffering.
The notion that suffering is caused by the subjugation of one class at the hands of another is an abstraction. That doesn't mean it's wrong -- it is almost certainly right with respect to a given time and place -- but to pursue that abstraction as if it has absolute validity (as if it is all-encompassing) is what I'm criticizing.
Suffering is not a desire that humans invent. It's hard-coded into every evolved creature so that the creature then goes on to do things to avoid said suffering. The source of these things that the creature is wanting is distinctly non-human.
There was no council of people who have decided that moving animals need to consume energy in the form of food, and that they would feel pain if they do not consume enough of this energy in time. Yet here it is, and every creature is enslaved by it.
Adult, well-read humans blessed with mental faculties are at times able to cheat the mental pathway and come up with ways to not have it show up at the forefront, but there's nothing self-inflicted about suffering, and assigning quasi-religious themes to this process is not doing us any favors.
What is suffering? Can you define it objectively/empirically?
If there is indeed such a phenomenon, then why should I care about the suffering of non-humans?
Granted, it may be a very bad idea to ignore the suffering of some superhuman AI that was recently invented... don't piss off your godlings after all or they'll smite you. But animals? If suffering made chicken taste better, I don't see any problem with Torture Nuggets.
So if suffering isn't ethically inacceptable, then torture of human beings is also OK for you? To me it seems that what you're saying essentially means that you just don't have any morality at all.
With suffering I mean the subjective experience of "bad" feelings, which I fo think is inherently bad. I'd imagine you try to optimize your life in a way such that you avoid "bad" feelings.
Most of the human suffering in this concept comes from being able to think, compare and ideas about the good life and then those thoughts create the suffering. The actual physical suffering is limited, although present.
Cows can‘t do that and don‘t have the point of reference to compare. I doubt even humans could unless they are raised to be taught all the cultural norms and what‘s good and bad.
I am attempting to reject an absolute statement that I find dangerous by showing a very basic and boring counterexample. If suffering is a conscious decision, it is such in all cases where suffering occurs, and suffering occurs in animals.
"Suffering in humans" is not concrete. You would need to create a distinction between "suffering in humans" and "suffering in animals" and explain where it differs and what is special about it and I don't see any such definition, so I am going to go with "suffering in general".
Many people here are talking about physical pain, which animals can also suffer from, so it doesn't seem obvious to me that your definition of "suffering" would be some kind of a special definition that shares nothing with suffering in animals.
You are likely trying to say some kind of a thing where humans are special and have special mental controls and so when a human feels pain they have more means of control about it than an animal can. This is all well and good but then we get into issues like children or people with limited cognitive capacity. The line between human and animal quickly becomes thin and we're back to square one, the square where saying that suffering is a choice is egregiously wrong and the statement must be qualified.
It seems to me that you're trying to move some goalposts around.
suffering - "the state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship."
Introducing new definitions like yours is just an implicit attempt to advance anthropocentric exclusivity, pretty much the re-worded equivalent of that religious dogma of "only humans have soul"
Out of honest curiosity: What is your take on human life, then? A sittuation, let's say, where I cause you suffering in order to improve the quality of my life? Or vice versa?
And anyway I suspect that your use of the word suffering implies a rather narrow definition of suffering that counts only material suffering as important.
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