this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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I don't know about spacecowboy, but I do. I still eat crabs, but I don't think I'm superior to them morally just because I'm more intelligent or something. We're just animals eating each other.
What I mean when I say moral is, I don't see why it's wrong if a bunch of invertebrates are subjugated, in pain, or die in order to provide something that improves the lives of humans. It's not sad, it's a good thing. "Oh but the crabs get stressed out, and 30% might die", yeah, who cares, they're crabs.
Sure, I'm a human, and I have a particular perspective on these things. But, we are special. Anyone who considers a trolley problem with a crab on one track, and a human on the other and honestly says, "hey it doesn't matter humans aren't special", that's, unappealing. In a purely academic, cosmic, arrangement of particles sense, OK, nothing is special. But in that condition, the suffering of animals isn't even a question worth considering.
The fact that so many accounts in this thread are going out of their way to give weight to the well-being of invertebrates, in a conversation about human well-being, is baffling.
Should we be using existing clotting factors in medical settings that don't rely on the blood of an endangered species that lives in an incredibly volatile habitat? Probably, but crab discomfort is at the very bottom of the list of reasons why.
Because some people see morality not as something that's subjective but believe it is a moral objective truth that suffering should be reduced as much as possible.
That's not more or less rational than to believe humans are somehow 'special'.
For the sake of argument, let's take for granted your statement, that 'suffering should be reduced as much as possible'.
If the discomfort of a single crab can prevent worse discomfort/suffering/death of many other beings, and results in reduced net pain, then the utilitarian line of reasoning seems to be that we might actually be morally obligated to take blood from crabs.
Sure, but the question was why humans in the first place have trouble with seeing suffering. And the reason is that we naturally seem to have a tendency of making moral judgements in the favour of being against suffering.
It's often not easy to decide which decision leads to the best outcome. And people have a tendency to react more to what they are seeing now than to judge the bigger picture.
So, while the outcome may be the same (whether you believe the pain of animals doesn't matter or that you accept there isn't a better solution at the moment) the way people react is influenced by their moral compass.
I don't understand the point you're trying to make above.
In this case specifically, the outcome isn't unclear. Let's call the crab's pain one unit of pain. Assume that unit can directly alleviate 20 units of pain across a handful of other beings. The utilitarian ought to prefer avoiding 19 units of net pain, than allowing 19 units of net pain to occur.
I read your initial post to be some sort of utilitarian moral argument, roughly, that less pain is better. Or something like that. That argument, in this case in particular, leads in the opposite direction than I think you want.