[alancalverd]

Here's the problem. Humans being animals are unable to synthesise their bodily materials from simpler chemicals. We have to eat stuff that was previously alive. I've read a couple of SF books where the destination planet appeared to be populated entirely by plants, so no vegan moral problems. Except that said plants (at least one just looked like grass) had evolved a hive consciousness* and didn't want to be eaten.

In this simplest possible case: one animal, one food, you can't define a universal goal.


*I apologise for using a word that I can't define, but I'm sure you know what you understand by it!

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

What's the future of those plants?
They could go extinct right away.
Or they could evolve into something better at survival. But their fate is sealed with the destruction of their home planet. Except if they can build a multiplanetary society. There is no restriction that they must do it by themselves. They can cooperate with other species, genera, or even phyla and domains. Bacterial ancestor of mitochondria may seem unlikely to do something significant in planetary biosphere. But their descendants who formed endosymbiosis with some species of archaea end up ruling the earth and open a chance to build a multiplanetary society.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

The moral of the story is, we shouldn't make unnecessary efforts to make someone else's lives worse off. On the other hand, we must be ready to make necessary sacrifices when no better alternatives are available to preserve the existence of future conscious entities. We must set our priorities straight, and make decisions according to science based evidences, so we can act effectively and efficiently to achieve the universal terminal goal.

[Eternal Student]

to achieve the universal terminal goal.

   The universe has a goal?   Who set that goal for the universe?
Hang on a moment, John says he can't remember what happened last Friday night.   Maybe it was him.

But seriously, I've enjoyed looking through your thread.  Best wishes to you.

[alancalverd]

What's the future of those plants?

If we don't invade their planet, they can continue to enjoy life, praise their god and indulge in uninhibited random sex with strangers, all within their entirely alien moral code. There cannot be a single moral code that encompasses both plants and animals. 

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

What's the future of those plants?

If we don't invade their planet, they can continue to enjoy life, praise their god and indulge in uninhibited random sex with strangers, all within their entirely alien moral code.

How do we know that they enjoy their lives?
When they extinct with the destruction of their planet, then basically that's it. Their arbritrary moral codes would become meaningless.

There cannot be a single moral code that encompasses both plants and animals. 

Why not? They both came from common ancestors, at least for the earthlings.
You are not likely to find their commonality if you start with prying on their differences instead.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Sam Harris on Choices without Free Will

He points out the confusion between determinism and fatalism.

Reasoning is possible not because you're free to think however you want, but because you're not free. To be convinced by an argument is to be subjugated by it. It's to be forced to believe it, regardless of your preferences.
...
Reasoning is all about constraints.
...
Whether you understand something or not isn't under your control. But the difference matters.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mosquito-genetically-modified-us-florida-keys-pest-control-zika-dengue
The U.S.’s first open-air genetically modified mosquitoes have taken flight
After long debate, Oxitec pits a GM mosquito against a Florida invasive species spreading Zika and dengue

The first genetically modified mosquitoes that will be allowed to fly free outdoors in the United States have started reaching the age for mating in the Florida Keys.

In a test of the biotech company Oxitec’s GM male mosquitoes for pest control, these Aedes aegypti started growing from tiny eggs set out in toaster-sized, hexagonal boxes on suburban private properties in late April. On May 12, experiment monitors confirmed that males had matured enough to start flying off on their own to court American female mosquitoes.

This short-term Florida experiment marks the first outdoor test in the United States of a strain of GM male mosquitoes as a highly targeted pest control strategy. This strain is engineered to shrink local populations of Ae. aegypti, a mosquito species that spreads dengue and Zika (SN: 7/29/16). That could start happening now that the GM mosquitoes have reached mating age because their genetics makes them such terrible choices as dads.

The mosquitoes now waving distinctively masculine (extra fluffy) antennae in Florida carry genetic add-ons that block development in females. No female larvae should survive to adulthood in the wild, says molecular biologist Nathan Rose, Oxitec’s chief of regulatory affairs. Half the released males’ sons, however, will carry dad’s daughter-killing trait. The sons of the bad dads can go on to trick a new generation of females into unwise mating decisions and doomed daughters (SN: 1/8/09).

Despite some high-profile protests, finding people to host the boxes was not hard, Rose says. “We were oversubscribed.” At public hearings, the critics of the project typically outshout the fans. Yet there’s also support. In a 2016 nonbinding referendum on using GM mosquitoes, 31 of 33 precincts in Monroe County, which comprises the Keys, voted yes for the test release. Twenty of those victories were competitive though, not reaching 60 percent.

The males being released rely on a live-sons/dead-daughters strategy. That’s a change from the earlier strain of Oxitec mosquitoes. Those males sabotaged all offspring regardless of sex. The change came during the genetic redesign that permits an egg-shipping strategy. Surviving sons, however, mean the nonengineered genes in the new Oxitec strain can mix into the Florida population more than in the original version.

Traditional pesticides can mess with creatures besides their pest targets, and some critics of the GMO mosquitoes also worry about unexpected ecological effects. Yet success of the Oxitec mosquitoes in slamming the current pests should not cause some disastrous shortage of food or pollination for natives, Yee says. Ae. aegypti invaded North America within the past four centuries, probably too short a time to become absolutely necessary for some native North American predator or plant.

Do you agree with the decision? Why or why not?

[alancalverd]

Quote
There cannot be a single moral code that encompasses both plants and animals. 
Why not? They both came from common ancestors, at least for the earthlings.

Unless you have evolved "the pig that wants to be eaten", it is pretty clear that  animals eat other animals that try to run away, or plants that have evolved spikes and poisons to put off grazing animals.

My hypothetical veg-only planet will not have evolved any defence because it hasn't experienced any animals. A bit like native Americans having no tolerance for influenza or bullets.   

[alancalverd]

Ae. aegypti invaded North America within the past four centuries, probably too short a time to become absolutely necessary for some native North American predator or plant.

That can be considered absolute justification for eliminating the buggers. There is no doubt that eliminating the vectors for parasitic diseases is a Good Thing and potentially more effective than treating the human victims, which can lead to drug-resistant mutations. The only question remaining is whether the GM males can do any other harm before they destroy the next generation of females.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Quote
There cannot be a single moral code that encompasses both plants and animals.
Why not? They both came from common ancestors, at least for the earthlings.

Unless you have evolved "the pig that wants to be eaten", it is pretty clear that  animals eat other animals that try to run away, or plants that have evolved spikes and poisons to put off grazing animals.

Alternatively, you can evolve the ability to survive and thrive without having to kill pigs. The motivation for it can be based on efficiency, which is a universal instrumental goal.

My hypothetical veg-only planet will not have evolved any defence because it hasn't experienced any animals. A bit like native Americans having no tolerance for influenza or bullets.   

Plants also compete for finite resources, such as sunlight, water, and minerals. Plants can also be parasites. I think you need to reconsider your hypothesis.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Ae. aegypti invaded North America within the past four centuries, probably too short a time to become absolutely necessary for some native North American predator or plant.

That can be considered absolute justification for eliminating the buggers. There is no doubt that eliminating the vectors for parasitic diseases is a Good Thing and potentially more effective than treating the human victims, which can lead to drug-resistant mutations. The only question remaining is whether the GM males can do any other harm before they destroy the next generation of females.

What's the reason for you to say that a thing is absolutely good? It baffles me that sometimes you say that morality is exclusively for humans, but the other times you say that they are meaningless, and even said that their extinction would be a good thing for the earth.

[alancalverd]

Alternatively, you can evolve the ability to survive and thrive without having to kill pigs.

If you don't eat animals, you have to eat plants. The only living things that can synthesise their structural materials from nonliving sources are called plants. Fortunately there are enough animals around to convert the plants (and smaller animals) back to carbon dioxide and water, so the cycle can continue. 

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Alternatively, you can evolve the ability to survive and thrive without having to kill pigs.

If you don't eat animals, you have to eat plants. The only living things that can synthesise their structural materials from nonliving sources are called plants. Fortunately there are enough animals around to convert the plants (and smaller animals) back to carbon dioxide and water, so the cycle can continue. 

I think we need to align our use of terminologies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant

Plants are mainly multicellular organisms, predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, plants were treated as one of two kingdoms including all living things that were not animals, and all algae and fungi were treated as plants. However, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria). By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (Latin name for "green plants"), a group that includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns and their allies, hornworts, liverworts, mosses, and the green algae, but excludes the red and brown algae.

Prokaryotes lack mitochondria and chloroplasts. Instead, processes such as oxidative phosphorylation and photosynthesis take place across the prokaryotic cell membrane.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prokaryote

[alancalverd]

No problem. By excluding fungi and bacteria they have narrowed the definition to only those things that don't eat previously living material, which is what we were told at school defines a plant.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

Don't forget that some plants are carnivorous.

[alancalverd]

You get the point. Equilibrium does not mean an absence of competition.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

My point is that without a universal terminal goal, there is no universal moral standard, and we can't say if a moral rule is universally good or bad. We would be forced to say that each moral rule has their own goodness, including those that are racist, misogynistic, relativistic, nihilistic, masochistic,etc.

[alancalverd]

My point is that without a universal terminal goal, there is no universal moral standard, and we can't say if a moral rule is universally good or bad.

And there being no possibility of a UTG, there is no UMS.

[hamdani yusuf (OP)]

My point is that without a universal terminal goal, there is no universal moral standard, and we can't say if a moral rule is universally good or bad.

And there being no possibility of a UTG, there is no UMS.

How do you proof that there is no possibility of universal terminal goal?
Without universal moral standard, we can't say if any moral rule is better or worse than any other moral rules. You can't say that ancient Jewish moral rules are better or worst than Nazi's moral rules, nor with modern secular democratic moral rules.
Every action would be equally justified by their own moral standard. Jewish' genocide would be justified by their tribal moral standard. Nazi's holocaust would be justified by their racist/facist moral standard. ISIS' actions would be justified by their theological moral standard. Even Ted Bundy's serial rapes and murders would be justified by hedonistic moral standard. Charles Whitman's mass shooting would be justified by nihilistic moral standard. They are equally good by relativistic moral standard.
You can only say that your moral standard is better than the others by showing that yours is more aligned with the universal moral standard, at least in some specific aspects.