Or, most obviously—just because people know something is the right thing to do, it doesn’t mean they will automatically start doing it! Not even if they identify as “rationalists”.
If my worldview was, “animals are inferior and their suffering is irrelevant”.
Wouldn’t that be an irrational ‘axiom’ to start from though? Maybe the inferior part works, but you can’t just say their suffering is irrelevant. If you go off the basis that humans matter just because than that’s a case of special pleading saying humans are better because they are human. There suffering may be less but it isn’t irrelevant because they can suffer.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/2p5/humans_are_not_automatically_strategic/
Welcome!
If my worldview was, “animals are inferior and their suffering is irrelevant”.
Wouldn’t that be an irrational ‘axiom’ to start from though? Maybe the inferior part works, but you can’t just say their suffering is irrelevant. If you go off the basis that humans matter just because than that’s a case of special pleading saying humans are better because they are human. There suffering may be less but it isn’t irrelevant because they can suffer.
Why?
Do humans matter? Why do humans matter? I think you might be leaping a conclusion or a few here.