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Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

timesonline.co.uk

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Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#51

Post by jacquesm »

elblanco wrote: post #44
jacquesm wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would want evidence of bidirectional conversation before calling them "people". There are plenty of people that are not capable of that in any way that most people would recognize. The dog analogy comes to mind: Dogs are smarter than people because they understand us but we do not understand them. edit: We seem to place the onus of proving your intelligence and your ability to communicate on others before giving…

> The dog analogy comes to mind: Dogs are smarter than people because they understand us but we do not understand them. Having owned a dog, a cat and numerous small animals, I can say that I think that at times I was definitely able to have a two-way conversation with most of the higher animals, but not the lower. I think the Guinea Pig I had when I was 8 was about as low down the evolutionary scale as I could have a…

Yep. Some animals even show 'empathy', the ability to figure out your emotional state by observing you and changing their behaviour accordingly.

But it doesn't give them people rights any more than a Dolphin asking for a fish does.

On the other hand even if they weren't intelligent at all we'd still have some moral obligations towards them.

Heck, I know people I'd gladly trade for a Dog or a Dolphin for that matter.

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#52

Post by jacquesm »

elblanco wrote: post #48
jacquesm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you are still trying to treat Dolphins as human persons. Dolphins could not violate human law since they are not human. International implies nations, Dolphins probably would not recognize nations. For an encore, with a wink to Douglas Adams, they might not even recognize humans as particularly intelligent.

Of course we both know that mice are in charge. :) I think though, what this shows is that there is the potential for a very interesting and lively debate as to how far something like "non-human person" extends. If we don't hold them liable to any kind of responsibility for particular extensions of rights beyond what we'd show any other animal, then are we not just treating them like another animal -- and thus the ne…

I think your right about that (besides the mice being in charge, which we take as given).

The funny thing here is that this is all fine and good as long as we're dealing with inferior intellects, wait what happens if a superior intelligence should come across us and decides to capture and domesticate us and treat us like food.

I'm pretty sure we'd be arguing for equal rights for animals :)

I really don't remember the title of the story, I think it was a short story in an anthology, it read as a 'care and feeding of your khod' or something like that.

The basic idea was that the story was told from the viewpoint of an alien species that kept the obviously non-intelligent khod as a food stock. Lots of rules were laid down about how you should treat your khod if you wanted to get the most mileage out of them.

Particular care should be taken when slaughtering the khod, never do this in front of other khod that you do not intend to slaughter right away.

Only at the end of the story you realize the khod are captive humans.

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#53

Post by anigbrowl »

hyperbovine wrote: post #20
nudist wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a scientific judgement? How can you say it's OK to kill plants but not "animals," considering they are made of essentially the same thing? Where is the line? It's fairly easy to trace the evolution of the nervous system from simple single-celled organisms to modern animals. Moral repugnance is a purely human invention.

Plants and animals are made of essentially the same thing? Plants have no nervous system and absolutely no capacity for suffering. It is impossible to inflict pain on a plant. By contrast, most animals are capable of experiencing physical and even mental anguish. Once you admit this, good luck trying to build a coherent moral argument for why human suffering should be abhorrent while all other forms of animal sufferi…

I'll cheerfully refute it: lower animals do have the capacity to feel pain (so we shouldn't be cruel) but not, it appears, the capacity to hypothesize about the future - that is, pigs don't suffer anxiety over the probability of ending up getting slaughtered for bacon when they're sufficiently bulky.

this is a major qualitative difference between us and other animals (that we know about).

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#54

Post by itistoday »

grellas wrote: post #25
itistoday wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article is not discussing the ethical question of "mistreatment", but rather that of legal rights. This is an important distinction. Anyone can advocate for dolphin rights, but, as scientists who have done research on dolphins, they are in a position to make ethical arguments against keeping dolphins in a zoo for public entertainment. The rationale behind these arguments are grounded firmly in science. You have t…

The legal rights distinction, in my view, does not alter the basic point - ethics determines how are laws are shaped and, while science can furnish the data points, it goes no further to help us determine the ethical outcome. For example, the researchers are said to argue that it is "morally unacceptable" for dolphins to be killed by accident by humans while fishing. Of course, laws might be passed making it a misdem…

Scientists may opine but no special deference ought to be paid to their ethical judgments simply because they are scientists.

I agree with you. I'm sure the scientists mentioned in the article do as well.

Let's not attack each other with straw-men, we'll be here all day. The article never suggested that due to their status as "scientists" they are somehow better equipped to handle ethical issues.

The article simply said that they were planning on making ethical arguments related to the legal rights of dolphins, based on their research and their findings.

There is nothing wrong with that.

As the intelligence level of dolphins is not common knowledge, nor is it even well understood by the scientific community at large, their input on the matter is of importance if only for the purpose of facilitating and informing the discussion of any possible legal rights that dolphins should have.

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#55

Post by hyperbovine »

anigbrowl wrote: post #53
hyperbovine wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plants and animals are made of essentially the same thing? Plants have no nervous system and absolutely no capacity for suffering. It is impossible to inflict pain on a plant. By contrast, most animals are capable of experiencing physical and even mental anguish. Once you admit this, good luck trying to build a coherent moral argument for why human suffering should be abhorrent while all other forms of animal sufferi…

I'll cheerfully refute it: lower animals do have the capacity to feel pain (so we shouldn't be cruel) but not, it appears, the capacity to hypothesize about the future - that is, pigs don't suffer anxiety over the probability of ending up getting slaughtered for bacon when they're sufficiently bulky. this is a major qualitative difference between us and other animals (that we know about).

Well, if you concede the cruelty point, then you are pretty much in agreement with the animal liberation school; I'm unclear what's being refuted. The point is not that eating other animals is wrong--some believe so (not me), but it's a tough argument to swallow. Only that we have no right to make them suffer.

I think people often confuse the two because if you buy into the animal liberation argument, then the first thing to go is all the beef, pork, poultry, eggs and dairy that come from factory farming, i.e. everything. So functionally you wind up vegetarian, if not vegan. Now that we're seeing more places like Polyface Farms, Neeman Ranch, etc. open up, hopefully that situation will change in the future.

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#56

Post by nradov »

jacquesm wrote: post #51
elblanco wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The dog analogy comes to mind: Dogs are smarter than people because they understand us but we do not understand them. Having owned a dog, a cat and numerous small animals, I can say that I think that at times I was definitely able to have a two-way conversation with most of the higher animals, but not the lower. I think the Guinea Pig I had when I was 8 was about as low down the evolutionary scale as I could have a…

Yep. Some animals even show 'empathy', the ability to figure out your emotional state by observing you and changing their behaviour accordingly. But it doesn't give them people rights any more than a Dolphin asking for a fish does. On the other hand even if they weren't intelligent at all we'd still have some moral obligations towards them. Heck, I know people I'd gladly trade for a Dog or a Dolphin for that matter.

Domesticated dogs appear to have "empathy" with humans because over thousands of generations, the ones who acted that way got fed and bred more.

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#57

Post by hyperbovine »

nudist wrote: post #39
hyperbovine wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plants and animals are made of essentially the same thing? Plants have no nervous system and absolutely no capacity for suffering. It is impossible to inflict pain on a plant. By contrast, most animals are capable of experiencing physical and even mental anguish. Once you admit this, good luck trying to build a coherent moral argument for why human suffering should be abhorrent while all other forms of animal sufferi…

Pain? When you poke a Euglena[1] with a pin while looking at it under a microscope, its sensors detect an intrusion and immediately start flapping the flagella (the thing it uses for locomotion, analogous to a leg) to get out of the way. That's a super-simple nervous system. Many plants do this as well, using a slow production of chemicals which move branches and leaves. As you get more advanced, going up the biologi…

I admit that I had never heard of the Euglena before, although the same article seems to be suggesting that the very characteristics you have pointed out cause some scientists to want to classify it as an animal. The suggestion being that the hallmark of "animality" is the ability to feel things.

In any case, I do not (intentionally) consume a great deal of Euglena, so I will content myself with pointing out that grains, vegetables, and fruit upon which I rely to replace the inhumane bounty of factory farming never bled, farted or blinked, and never will. I'm not trying to sound like a holier-than-thou vegetarian here; I'm not, and I have always made a point of not judging how others approach this issue. But if you're going to deconstruct my reasoning, the use of a red herring is discouraged.

As to your last question, the answer is "yes", and the case has been made in the book I mentioned far better than I can here. If you equate breaking a window with killing a dolphin, bear, or chimp, well, that speaks volumes.

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#59

Post by nitrogen »

nradov wrote: post #56
jacquesm wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. Some animals even show 'empathy', the ability to figure out your emotional state by observing you and changing their behaviour accordingly. But it doesn't give them people rights any more than a Dolphin asking for a fish does. On the other hand even if they weren't intelligent at all we'd still have some moral obligations towards them. Heck, I know people I'd gladly trade for a Dog or a Dolphin for that matter.

Domesticated dogs appear to have "empathy" with humans because over thousands of generations, the ones who acted that way got fed and bred more.

Selective pressures on early humans "caused" them to behave as though they were experiencing emotion and demonstrating a sense of self, because those were the ones that got more food and produced more offspring. If dogs have evolved to demonstrate some of the behaviors humans do, how can anyone prove that they are simply mimicking those behaviors instead of actually experiencing the same neurochemical reaction we do?

It seems to me this could easily slide into a philosophical zombie argument. If dogs continue to be bred for human-like qualities for thousands more years, and eventually come to mimic nearly every human behavior, are they any different from humans at that point? Or are they actually just zombie animals demonstrating behavior without actually "experiencing" anything?

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#60

Post by hyperbovine »

ugh wrote: post #26
elblanco wrote: post #17

Good, we should then start making them liable for violations of laws as well. Dolphin researchers know for example that some dolphins like to form gangs and go around harassing other dolphins and forcing themselves sexually on female dolphins. Should we also send out the police patrol and lock them up?

I realize that this is supposed to be a joke, but there is an answer to your question and it is (of course) no. Our law could easily deal with dolphins that enjoy human rights protection. Babies are given the full protection of human rights, yet they cannot vote, cannot drive and cannot be made responsible for any crime they may commit. Why not give certain animals a similar status?

You are totally correct. This is known as "argument from marginal cases" and the contortions people must enter to get around your argument are frequently hilarious. See http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/10/magazine/an-animal-s-place...
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