Is it okay to kill animals? Interview with Professor Shelly Kagan

Katrien Devolder interviews Professor Shelly Kagan (Philosophy, Yale) about when it is permissible to kill animals.

[@vladmaiorov1072]

It has already been said, but I'd like to repeat: more Shelly Kagan! His course on Death was most insightful and interesting. And it would be great if we could watch his course on Animal Ethics too.

[@jacob6039]

Shelly Kagan is an exemplary teacher! I wish to personally meet him one day.

[@davidmireles9774]

Why don’t I see Shelly anymore on KZbin? All his stuff is years old. Like darn

[@Alex-zc9ty]

brilliant interview. more of him please.

[@maxfield_wall]

This is a great interview, thank you!

[@sebah1991]

I really enjoy listening to Shelly Kagan. I don't always agree with him but his arguments here and his course on death have really changed the way I think about philosophical issues as a whole. I hope he will do more videos in the future.

[@jbrassard100]

I enjoyed watching Shelly talk through the moral calculations relevant to the child vs. lion dilemma. This is something that seems to be common to all sophisticated handling of moral questions, far removed from the unthinking, intuition-based answers most people tend to give. Shelly answered the question of the moral status of the human fetus in the negative. To my mind this was because, to phrase things slightly differently, the coefficient that is the fetus' future potential may not be zero but the variable that is its agency/sentience is zero. That makes a certain amount of sense, but I then wonder how Shelly would handle the following hypothetical. He is stranded in space and requires raw materials to repair his ship or he will die. By chance, his ship comes within range of an alien seed ship carrying the last remnant of an advanced race. The ship does not carry any life aboard and will instead assemble from base elements the next incarnation of its creators on a suitable planet. Does he not have to consider the moral status of the future civilization that would otherwise prosper when he raids the ship for materials to make his repairs? What about the goals the previously actualized civilization had for the ship? Does it matter how morally virtuous the aliens were and likely would be? I would appreciate anyone's take on how you or Shelly would answer.

[@MofoWoW]

I imagine that Shelly would insist that the product of any number multiplied by zero will equal zero, no matter how large that number is. Hence, even though the potentiality of the moral status of the seeds on that ship is extremely high, its actual, present moral status (at the time of Shelly’s coming across them) is still zero. Perhaps Shelly would have more nuance in his reply, but I imagine that something like that this would be his answer simply because it is consistent with what he talks about in the video, and he seems to be concerned with logical consistency. Anyway, great thought experiment! I hope my answer helped!

[@sjoukje5323]

Hi there, I really enjoyed this video and think it is really interesting. Thanks for making this accessible to the world :) If I were to use some arguments or the thought experiment of the fairy godmother in an essay, how could I use this video as a source. Am I aloud to use quote the thought experiment in my essay? Would this be unacademic or would I be not aloud to use it because of copyright issues?

[@PracticalEthicsChannel]

Hi there, as long as you make clear that the thought experiment is Shelly Kagan's, and refer to the video - that should be fine! Glad you enjoyed the video!

[@esdet105]

Sjieke dinges, hier! Goeie, frisse vragen, dank je! Wat ik mis is een /amorele/ benadering van het doden van dieren, vanuit het uitgangspunt dat we dieren zijn die andere dieren behandelen, zonder noodzakelijk een morele dimensie in te brengen in de beoordeling van de behandeling van die andere dieren. Katten vangen vogels zonder na te denken aan de morele aspecten van het doden ervan. Overleving vereist voor een deel objectivering (in contrast met subjectivering).

[@queenisforever1]

Shelly Kagan's is such a balanced and insightful approach, please upload the video files if possible

[@HammerFitness1]

Is there anyway for students of philosophy to reach out and speak with Dr Kagan?

[@jakekhawaja636]

Yale philosophy faculty. His email is on the website: [e-mail] I think.

[@someguy2135]

Another scenario similar to the innocent lion vs. the child conundrum would be sacrificing a pig to harvest an organ to save a human who needs one to survive. I am a vegan, but I am glad that my brother was able to benefit from receiving a heart valve from a pig. Ideally, he could have had a human donor who died in an accident, but I assume that wasn't an option.

[@linuxisbetter0]

modern day Socrates

[@dafuqmr13]

No he's a fraud

[@paulcaronplaisance7000]

@@dafuqmr13 how ? Enthrall me with your acumen

[@____7752]

*facepalm*

[@addsalz]

MOAR!! 😊

[@epitoky]

So many questions as I listen: Would “the pig” consider themselves of lower status to you? If the only way to stay alive is to eat you, is that permissible? What is a “semi-vegetarian”? ...

[@RagingBlast2Fan]

It's not status, it's value. This isn't an arbitrary decision based on prominence in society. It's the determination that conscious agents are more valuable than conscious non agents, and they are more valuable than unconscious automatons who feel pain, and they are more valuable than unconscious automatons who don't feel pain. That's a rough sketch I've just made up for you. It's not perfectly defined by any means. The key thing here is that if the pig were capable of contemplating what it is to eat me then it would be permissible to eat me. What is weird in your saying that though is that pigs don't contemplate the moral permissibleness of what they eat. They do not have moral duties. This demonstrates the difference between agents and non agents in itself. Since the two of us are on the same "hierarchy" as Shelly defines it then the obvious answer would be no, you do not have the right to eat me, as I am a person just as you are.

[@philisdriving1]

go vegan!

[@user-ed7pu5uj3q]

Yeah, brother!!!

[@tantiwahopak101]

Why is the screen black and white?

[@monb.2017]

Becasue the video belongs to 1932 when there were no animal rights. Today we have the animal rights and protect them. No no i was joking. Even today we don't give shit about animals, we don't respect them and care for their lives but the video is shot in 1932 though.

[@johnparadise3134]

I was going to ask the same question. I do not believe, as a matter of fact, I know for sure-as we all do-that this video was not shot in 1932. But, the question remains, why was this video shot in black-and-white?

[@ruminatingenigma4649]

Because there are no colours

[@someguy2135]

Picture a farm that raises animals for slaughter. They decide to make extra money by charging people who want to mistreat the animals because they enjoy it. Kicking pigs, for example. They should be prevented from doing so by animal cruelty laws, I would hope. Torturing animals because some people might enjoy it is not allowed because it causes unnecessary suffering in animals. We do not need to eat animals, so the suffering of animals in factory farms is unnecessary and is only done for taste pleasure.

[@HammerFitness1]

If a living being does not have any capacity for conscious experience, and there is no societal suffering that would arise out of them dying, is it permissible to kill them for food?

[@Corvid_Moon]

AKA: Eating plants instead of conscious beings (animals) whom we know with certainty suffer. Context: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mZbVgZqbZb-Cqqs

[@mikaeljohnsson4034]

Is Shelly Kagan vegetarian? Or vegan?

He says "semi-vegetarian"... Either he's not that serious about what he argues or there's a catch that i missed.

[@christ669]

from wikiquote: "A vegetarian in his everyday life, [Yale philosophy professor Shelly Kagan] orders meatless meals when he flies. Airlines, however, sometimes fail to deliver on such requests. If that happens, and he is offered a meat meal that he knows will be thrown out if he doesn't eat it, he'll eat it. In these circumstances-in contrast to buying meat at the supermarket-his consumption of meat seems to make no difference to the demand for it."

[@401Northwestern]

@@christ669 what if he isn't offered a meat meal when he flies? Does he request it?

[@401Northwestern]

@@christ669 eating meat that they would.otherwise throw out doesnt seem to be a good justification for eating it. I guess it depends on his reasons for not eating meat.

[@RagingBlast2Fan]

@@401Northwestern It's clearly a good justification for it. The pig has already died to provide that meal. There is no reason not to eat it apart from feeling personally disgusted in the act of it, which is not apparent to me that one should be.

[@user-ko3sd4cb2g]

did he answer the queation on is'nt the choice of what matter too human center, why choice something we are good at , i think you mean why choice cognitive capacity to adding into account, isn't animal other good at sth that we dont have the same capacity. then choice cognitive for the moral status isn't fair for animal

[@RagingBlast2Fan]

6:30

[@rodericblack4657]

"over the course of *her* life" oh how noble and progressive of you

[@Animal_lives_matter]

I don't find the lion eating a baby scenario very difficult to deal with. The lion's life is not worth more than the baby's life, therefore it's justified to kill the lion to save the baby. A harder scenario would be if the lion's life had equivalent value to the life of its prey.

[@Chris-Ian]

How do you determine how much worth does a sentient being's life has?

[@Animal_lives_matter]

@@Chris-Ian One criteria might be how much remaining life span they have.

[@Chris-Ian]

@@Animal_lives_matter The baby can grow up to be a mass murderer. Or it can die the very next day. But lets say the baby has 80 years ahead of it, so what?

[@Animal_lives_matter]

@@Chris-Ian Actually I don't think we need to go there. Let's take it back to my original comment. If we can agree that a lion's life is not worth MORE than a human's life, then why would it be wrong to kill the lion to save the human? It seems we could only say it's wrong if a lion's life is worth MORE than the human's life. Because, even if their lives are equally valuable, we're free to discriminate however we want, since neither outcome would be any better or worse than the other. This allows us to irrationally discriminate in favour of our own species, since doing so wouldn't be worse than discriminating in favour of lions. But as far as lions go, I don't consider it a bad thing if they went extinct, given how many other animals have to be intentionally* killed to sustain the life of just one lion, and how morally wrong it is to condemn hundreds of animals to being eaten alive. I recently viewed footage of animals being eaten alive (slowly, from the legs up, while fully conscious) and it's much worse than I thought. Nature documentaries don't show you that. They just show the lion with its jaws around its prey's neck, and the prey is unconscious. This is not a true depiction of the reality. *I note that intentional killing is morally distinct from unintentional or accidental death due to natural causes or unpredictable circumstances.

[@Chris-Ian]

@@Animal_lives_matter Nature is fucked up in the first place. But if the baby is not vegan and grows up as a carnivore it will be responsible for equal amount of deaths and suffering of other sentient beings.