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.
Disclosure - Before you had replied, I edited out the word 'psychotic' above, felt it was unfair.
Cheers, thanks for the thoughtful and reasonable reply. I agree with most of what you say. & it circles something I think about a lot but haven't made much sense of (if there even is sense to make if it), which is, the role of bad feelings in moral decision making.
I think though, the compassion line should be drawn somewhere, sometimes, with moral reason as a guide. To dip into the quagmire of philosophical thought experiments, you know, what if certain humans produced this special clotting factor, and we had to bleed them to get it, and it came with a risk of their mortality? I think reasonable people could agree, that would be an entirely different question to grapple with. So, you know, I would say it does matter, it's not a black & white thing, where either everything is worthy of compassion or nothing is. The circumstance can, should, dictate the moral approach. Eating meat, fighting in wars, there might be a right or wrong that's worth determining there. And knowing that, the moral and the practical are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
And totally, I expect people to have differences when it comes to compassion. Suppose I'm just surprised at the outpouring of love for the gross horseshoe crab, in spite of its real usefulness for global human health. Or at least my understanding of it, which I admit, is not very deep.
I've read good moral arguments for a veganism. I think it's the right thing to do when it comes to diet. For what it's worth, this isn't really a discussion about diet.
It isn't a decision between a lentil burger and a beef burger, this is an animal resource that can assist in saving human lives. There are other clotting factors used in medicine, and that's great, let's use and develop those. But suppose something more lethal and dangerous than COVID comes along, and vaccines need to be produced quickly and globally. I think it would be foolish to wince if we needed to take crab blood to roll out a program that would save human lives.
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.
Ripple effects, sure, I'm with you there, sustainability considerations, which I haven't seen anyone mentioning ITT.
I completely disagree with you about the status of humanity. Is it really your view that the well-being of a crab has equivalent moral status to your own well-being?
Thanks for the link and info.
Not a reply directly to you, but to contrast the dominant view in the thread - what would it matter if even 100% of the crabs died? Sustainability considerations aside - a crab died for my delicious salad, who cares if they die for a life saving vaccine? Who cares if it's painful and disorienting for the crab, it's a crab. As humans, why should we prioritize crab life and well-being over our own?
I agree on the point that minority governments on the whole are a good thing for the country. Parties should be kept in check. I feel like my tax dollars are fairly spent when politicians are obligated to negotiate and develop consensus. All this incessant posturing in the House is a waste of every citizen's time and money. But minority governments also lead to blood-boiling accidental absurdities like the BQ holding the reins on matters of national interest.
I have to say that I'm tired of the fear narrative that gets reeled out around elections in this country. No major party has a view to radically transform Canada. In the grand scheme of things, the three major parties are moderate, and I'm not convinced that any of them are literally dangerous. And so, the bland fruit that grows from the tree of our national politics, while not lethally poisonous, is not necessarily nutritious either.
electoral reform
If only some fresh party leader would make that a key promise of their platform. Surely they would use their majority government to make good on that promise.
Even though I align with the party on most of their platform, I cannot vote for the LPC under any circumstances, due to their history of broken promises, scandals, ethics violations, horrible handle on foreign policy, blatant disregard for demographics that brought them Parliamentary majorities, lack of a constructive, modern vision for the nation, lack of sincerity, the list goes on and on.
In light of all that, what is it about this particular moment that has Liberals getting their knives out? Of all the times to question a leader, why now exactly? Is this a polling thing? Am I out of the loop?
One variable that I think doesn't get looked at seriously is class size and school funding. Ask any North American teacher, and you'll get a grim assessment on the trajectory of schooling since the 90's. When teachers have more students than they can handle, it's no surprise that things get out of hand.
I'd argue that part of the solution is more teachers per student. This enables better relationships between faculty and students, and better opportunities for mentorship. Build more schools, hire more teachers, pay them well, make school a place where teachers want to be, and where kids can thrive.
But reforming the existing system is a hot potato that neither the left nor right wants to hold, so, here we are. The system itself is degraded to the point that it doesn't have the resources to self-correct. We need vision, wisdom, funding, and leadership, to steer things in a new direction. I think that would go a long way in preventing a misguided kid from fermenting the idea that murdering people, or their own classmates, is an answer to their problems.
I don't mean to paint school shootings as simply a rebellion against a malfunctioning system, but, we really need to look at the system and make sure it's serving the students that have no choice but to be there.
“Our plans are competitively sensitive and we do not plan to discuss them publicly before they are launched in our stores,” she added.
Read: we have done nothing so far, and are not actually committing to doing anything in the future.
This is interesting, and I didn't think of it this way.
But, if the only way welfare administration can be streamlined is to give everyone money, I'd feel guilty about taking it. Wouldn't be hard to find a way to spend $2k, sure, but knowing I didn't truly need it to make ends meet, while other people did, & maybe would have been helped even more if they had some of my share? Ach, it wouldn't feel right. It would be cool if the program was opt-out, and people who chose to opt out got a break in some other way, maybe on taxes that go to retirement savings. Maybe that's a horrible idea, I don't know.
Anyway cheers, thanks for explaining, I appreciate it.
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.