71–80 of 173 posts
I feel certain that in the near future we will discover animals are a lot smarter and more emotionally developed than we currently realize, and future generations will look back on our treatment of them with disgust.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if suffering isn't ethically inacceptable, then torture of human beings is also OK for you? To me it seems that what you're saying essentially means that you just don't have any morality at all.
I take the view that morality is herd instinct in the individual, and that it is more productive to look at it as a sociological phenomenon instead of resurrecting platonic idealism. Whatever the herd deems good is Good, whatever the herd deems evil is Evil. There is no objective morality written on stone tablets that we can consult to determine that torture is Evil or that killing animals is wrong. That's why we hav…
> At issue is the definition of empathy. “This work is not evidence of empathy — defined as the ability to mentally put oneself into another being’s emotional shoes,” says Povinelli. “It’s good evidence for emotional contagion and that animals are motivated to coordinate their behaviour so that distress is reduced, but that is nothing new.”
(Emphasis mine)
How could this definition of empathy possibly be proven for non-humans? Or in fact, how could it be proven for anyone but yourself?
Additionally, they present an alternate hypothesis to explain the findings: That the captive rat was somehow causing distress to the free rat and the free rat was solely motivated to reduce that distress without any concern for the other rat. While that's a valid hypothesis, it doesn't seem to hold the occam's razor test for me - especially as they admit themselves that they don't know what this distress-causing mechanism could be. (They suggest alarm calls or pheromones but couldn't find any yet)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why? We seem to have plenty of moral compunctions about lots of other biological realities. Do we, in practice? Can you go into more detail? > Most people agree that they do not want to suffer. That's what makes it evil. It's not a difficult concept. Did we ask the animals too? Maybe the pig consensus is different. If most people agree they do not want to pay taxes, do taxes become evil? There is no objective reaso…
> Do we, in practice? Can you go into more detail? Treating diseases, reducing violence, caring about the rights of the disenfranchised, sitting here on HN talking about how we treat animals. > There is no objective reason to consider 'most people agree on x' as some kind of objective moral imperative. I didn't say "most people agree" to imply that something is "objectively" true because most people agree with it. I…
Diseases are not regarded as a moral problem; violence considering morally acceptable in pursuit of the right socially-approved causes, the 'rights of the disenfranchised' have nothing to do with the intersection of morality and biological reality, and the same for HN.
> I didn't say "most people agree" to imply that something is "objectively" true because most people agree with it. I said it because the definition of suffering as evil is fairly common sense, because it's an experience that anything conscious shares (given a developed enough nervous system), and nothing conscious wants, tautologically due to the definition of the word.
It isn't tautologically true at all. Anyone can look around and see plenty of people that want to suffer. There are different reasons; some, to punish themselves, some, in pursuit of some other interest, some, for the sake of their religion, and so on and so forth. In fact, I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone alive who was not inflicting on themselves some amount of suffering for some reason.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious, could you kill an animal and cut it up? Do you realize you pay people to do this every time you buy meat? Are you cool with that?
I have, and it's not really a big deal. Humans and many other great apes are opportunistic carnivores. The idea that we should have moral compunctions about biological reality seems absurd to me, and I have yet heard any argument than "suffering is evil; animals experience suffering; killing animals necessitates their suffering; therefore eating animals is evil." I don't deny the second proposition, I deny the first,…
Your argument as seen by me, ends on a cliff-hanger: Because great apes are omnivores they eat meat which is a biological reality. It is biological reality for humans to eat meat so it is okay to eat meat...
Question: Why does biological reality make things ok in a way that does not boil down to an appeal to nature?
I feel certain that in the near future we will discover animals are a lot smarter and more emotionally developed than we currently realize, and future generations will look back on our treatment of them with disgust.
If an animal can't communicate complex thought, he is just an animal. No matter how "smart" or "emotionally developed" they appear. Until then it's just instinct. And if the day ever arrives, it can just be seen as an evolutionary step for the species, and not as proof that they where intelligent all along.
I feel certain that in the near future we will discover animals are a lot smarter and more emotionally developed than we currently realize, and future generations will look back on our treatment of them with disgust.
Just as we have Seed Banks in the world, I believe we ought to have Animal Arks. These are very large open habitats with difficult to pass barriers. Little human involvement is permitted and trespassing carries an instantaneous death penalty. I see this as the only plausible way to prevent the disappearance of Rhino, Elephant, Cheetah and many other animals that you had plastic toys of when you were a child. Those an…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I take the view that morality is herd instinct in the individual, and that it is more productive to look at it as a sociological phenomenon instead of resurrecting platonic idealism. Whatever the herd deems good is Good, whatever the herd deems evil is Evil. There is no objective morality written on stone tablets that we can consult to determine that torture is Evil or that killing animals is wrong. That's why we hav…
Suppose the "subject", the one who experiences all your perceptions, all your qualia, is the same subject who experiences all qualia of every entity (see open-individualism). If this is true, then all suffering is YOU suffering. Would this change your opinion?
In fact, I actually think that would be a very dangerous attitude to take, since I would believe that the only person who would be suffering by my taking any means necessary to change the world however I like it would be me, who would of course be perfectly willing to do so.
> The idea that we should have moral compunctions about biological reality seems absurd to me Why? We seem to have plenty of moral compunctions about lots of other biological realities. Otherwise, why do anything at all? As humans, we have so far not acted in a manner that implies we're completely OK with biological realities. We keep trying to change them. Hopefully, it will continue this way. Most people agree that…
> Why? We seem to have plenty of moral compunctions about lots of other biological realities. Do we, in practice? Can you go into more detail? > Most people agree that they do not want to suffer. That's what makes it evil. It's not a difficult concept. Did we ask the animals too? Maybe the pig consensus is different. If most people agree they do not want to pay taxes, do taxes become evil? There is no objective reaso…
You can go ahead and spout off arguments about us being biological primal carnivores but that isn't very persuasive considering that the defining aspect of intellect has always been a higher sense of understanding of good and evil, and manipulating the environment to support the greater good.
And thus, inflicting pain on beings like us, for extra entropy on taste bud receptors, seems rather low class and savage. Its one thing to kill. Its an entirely different thing to buy products from a supermarket that come from a pipeline of some of the worst acts against a conscious entity one could imagine themselves waking up in. What separates you from those animals today? Merely luck. When it is luck that decides the outcome of rather uneven circumstances, people rally against it. Intelligence presupposes that consciousness is not a choice, so is punishing someone because they sprouted into the wrong mammal type something that should be deemed okay?
Do onto others as one would want done onto self. We are experiencers first, animals second, and humans third, lets not deny the absolute tragedy that is the conscious experience of millions of livestock. Death is not the enemy of moral virtue but cruel and unusual life surely is.
I feel certain that in the near future we will discover animals are a lot smarter and more emotionally developed than we currently realize, and future generations will look back on our treatment of them with disgust.