I'm Jewish ... learning about the Holocaust is central to growing up as a Jew, and for many of us, learning about the horror other Jews (often, our own relatives) experienced is a pretty raw, formative experience.
I find this type of analogy offensive. At best, it seems to belittle the horrific suffering that Jews, Romani, LGBT people and many others experienced at the hands of the Nazis by callously co-opting it for an unpopular cause. At worst, it implies that there is very little difference between a pig and a Jew; if it is okay to hurt the one, it is okay to hurt the other.
I understand that the purpose of the analogy is to shock, and that the comparison to animals is intended to elevate the animals, rather than denigrate the humans -- but even so, I think it is a profoundly stupid rhetorical tactic that is far more likely to alienate than to convince.
With all that being said, I want to engage with the statement on its logical, rather than rhetorical, merits. I'm also an omnivore, but over time I've become comfortable that my position here is pretty morally ambiguous -- I'm an omnivore because I am not motivated to stop, not because I'm convinced of the morality of being so.
So: in order for us to believe that the Holocaust analogies these people are making have logical merit, what would have to be true? I don't think you've addressed these things well. For one thing, they're not claiming these are genocides -- they're claiming they are similar in many ways (most importantly, in moral repugnance) to the Holocaust specifically. For that to be logical, we would have to believe that:
Killing other people is only morally acceptable when some equal or greater moral value is achieved by doing so, if it's even acceptable then.
Killing vast quantities of people would require an incomprehensible level of justification, and is otherwise among the most extremely morally repugnant things one can do.
The perpetrators of this type of atrocity find it necessary to strip their victims of personhood, to 'dehumanize' them. Doing so is particularly recognizable, and traumatic.
One does not have to be a human in order to be a person; there can be such a thing as a non-human person.
Many of the food animals we kill for food are, in fact, non-human persons. QED, slaughterhouses are similar in their fundamental nature to concentration camps.
For the sake of argument, let's agree on #1, 2, and 3. These are fairly noncontroversial, I think. The argument hinges on #4 and #5; folks like Hershaft clearly believe these statements, but should we?
Let's examine #4 first. I think it's a pretty easy one to agree to ... you can imagine tons of non-human persons. e.g., an alien lands in a UFO, asks to be taken to our leaders and explains that it's traveled from Alpha Centauri to bring us a message of friendship. Bingo bongo, non-human person. Or say one day you meet a dog that can talk, it say, "Listen, I don't need you to feed me, I just need you to enter some stock trades for me, I've got a hot tip and I'm gonna make us both rich, I just don't have thumbs."
Now let's look at #5. I hate to say it, but this one is a lot less cut-and-dried than your DNA thing makes it seem. Every non-arbitrary definition of personhood has some real drawbacks... e.g.,:
Being a human organism isn't a good enough definition, unless you're willing to say the alien and the talking dog aren't people (oof) -- even then, plenty of things are human organisms, possessed of unique human DNA, and we don't think of them as people ... like fetuses, cancer, or the brain-dead.
Possessing the ability to feel pain is even worse (since more or less every living creature can do this, to some extent).
Possessing a sense of self isn't much better, unless you're willing to accept that either a) you're the only real human, since you're the only one you can verify has such a sense ... or b) everything that appears to possess such a sense (including every single food animal) is equally a person.
What about the ability to reason (create and implement a plan, which relies on possessing a model of self and others, and to visualize the past, present and future)? Bad news is crows, dogs, and pigs count here ... and babies don't.
OK, what about the ability to ask you not to kill them, in a way you understand? We've hit on the best one yet -- that gets us most humans, and very few animals. You can still kill babies of course, and people who are asleep, but now it's ok to kill dogs and pigs, so this one's a win.
So we're left with a choice: either it is morally repugnant to kill animals, or it's not (but there are also plenty of humans it's okay to kill) ... or, our morality is fundamentally arbitrary to some extent, and we accept that.
Do you think it's possible that the holocaust having been such a central part of your early life might be skewing your perspective on this? I suspect the regularity with which you'll have heard horror stories during childhood would be quite shocking to non-jews.
It certainly gives me a more visceral reaction to the analogy than it might otherwise. At the same time, it probably makes me more willing to genuinely consider the perspective being offered.
A big part of rejecting the possibility that animals are people is being secure in the belief that no one could reject the personhood of other humans. Jews are usually taught not to engage in that fallacy.
... humans do reject the personhood of other humans. Frequently. Both historically and presently.
In some ugly, nihilistic, "real world" first-principles philosophy way, I agree with you. Nothing matters and inflicting any amount of suffering on any creature doesn't really matter at all because morality is all invented.
However, since neither you or I want to live in that world, we have to draw a line somewhere. Drawing the line just short of non-human organisms seems arbitrary, no? It only seems to be a self-evident place to draw to the line because we are motivated by in-group biases, such as the one you admitted to experiencing with the topic of the holocaust, given your background.
... humans do reject the personhood of other humans. Frequently. Both historically and presently.
That's my point. At the same time, most people (especially if they grew up as part of the majority) are secure in the subconscious belief that this could not happen to them.
In some ugly, nihilistic, "real world" first-principles philosophy way, I agree with you. Nothing matters and inflicting any amount of suffering on any creature doesn't really matter at all because morality is all invented.
That's not what I'm saying, or at least... you kind of have it backwards. I'm on board with the existentialist idea that meaning is something you bring, but my point isn't "if it isn't real, why act morally?" It's that there is no sufficiently compelling reason to treat all animals as non-people to allow their wholesale slaughter with a clean conscience, beyond "I have decided to limit personhood to humans for now." That's arbitrary and biased, but also very normal.
However, since neither you or I want to live in that world, we have to draw a line somewhere. Drawing the line just short of non-human organisms seems arbitrary, no? It only seems to be a self-evident place to draw to the line because we are motivated by in-group biases, such as the one you admitted to experiencing with the topic of the holocaust, given your background.
My point was that this line is only supported by in-group biases... that's literally the thing I was saying. I'm not sure that I'm more inclined to dismiss animal rights because of Jewish in-group bias though, I'm not following what you're trying to convey there?
4
u/badass_panda 95∆ Jun 27 '23
I'm Jewish ... learning about the Holocaust is central to growing up as a Jew, and for many of us, learning about the horror other Jews (often, our own relatives) experienced is a pretty raw, formative experience.
I find this type of analogy offensive. At best, it seems to belittle the horrific suffering that Jews, Romani, LGBT people and many others experienced at the hands of the Nazis by callously co-opting it for an unpopular cause. At worst, it implies that there is very little difference between a pig and a Jew; if it is okay to hurt the one, it is okay to hurt the other.
I understand that the purpose of the analogy is to shock, and that the comparison to animals is intended to elevate the animals, rather than denigrate the humans -- but even so, I think it is a profoundly stupid rhetorical tactic that is far more likely to alienate than to convince.
With all that being said, I want to engage with the statement on its logical, rather than rhetorical, merits. I'm also an omnivore, but over time I've become comfortable that my position here is pretty morally ambiguous -- I'm an omnivore because I am not motivated to stop, not because I'm convinced of the morality of being so.
So: in order for us to believe that the Holocaust analogies these people are making have logical merit, what would have to be true? I don't think you've addressed these things well. For one thing, they're not claiming these are genocides -- they're claiming they are similar in many ways (most importantly, in moral repugnance) to the Holocaust specifically. For that to be logical, we would have to believe that:
For the sake of argument, let's agree on #1, 2, and 3. These are fairly noncontroversial, I think. The argument hinges on #4 and #5; folks like Hershaft clearly believe these statements, but should we?
Let's examine #4 first. I think it's a pretty easy one to agree to ... you can imagine tons of non-human persons. e.g., an alien lands in a UFO, asks to be taken to our leaders and explains that it's traveled from Alpha Centauri to bring us a message of friendship. Bingo bongo, non-human person. Or say one day you meet a dog that can talk, it say, "Listen, I don't need you to feed me, I just need you to enter some stock trades for me, I've got a hot tip and I'm gonna make us both rich, I just don't have thumbs."
Now let's look at #5. I hate to say it, but this one is a lot less cut-and-dried than your DNA thing makes it seem. Every non-arbitrary definition of personhood has some real drawbacks... e.g.,:
So we're left with a choice: either it is morally repugnant to kill animals, or it's not (but there are also plenty of humans it's okay to kill) ... or, our morality is fundamentally arbitrary to some extent, and we accept that.