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Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

lse.ac.uk

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Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#151

Post by nemo44x »

adamcharnock wrote: post #4

Even as a meat eater I’m pretty shocked that this recognises them as sentient and yet does not ban their slaughter (aside from boiling them alive etc). Maybe I’ve read too much science fiction, but eating sentient beings seems Bad.

I disagree. So long as we don’t torture them I see no problem in consuming other creatures. “One bad day” is a good guideline for how animals should be harvested for food.

So long as they aren’t in physical pain during their life, I don’t think animals really care or even understand their situation. For instance, a bunch of cattle don’t wonder about how their lives would be better if they were free range. They just live in the moment with no concept of “a better life” or “freedom”. We project our feelings on them which they don’t have the ability to reason about.

Physically hurting them during their short lives is wrong because they do feel physical pain. We shouldn’t scare them. But they wouldn’t even exist if they weren’t made for food.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#152

Post by spaetzleesser »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #5
adamcharnock wrote: post #4

Even as a meat eater I’m pretty shocked that this recognises them as sentient and yet does not ban their slaughter (aside from boiling them alive etc). Maybe I’ve read too much science fiction, but eating sentient beings seems Bad.

I mean, we know cattle, sheep, chickens and pigs are sentient yet we consume them. Why would we make an exception for octopods and shellfish?

And we make a lot of them go through hell for their whole lifespan.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#153

Post by willis936 »

bumby wrote: post #139
willis936 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To make it simpler: consider the lobster. It's not a pest yet still isn't considered above being boiled alive for no reason other than "that's what paw deid".

There is some thought backed neuroscience that lobsters can't feel pain in the human conception of it because of the lack of a neocortex. I don't know how well that can be tested, but it goes beyond justifying it because "that's what paw deid"

A lobster being boiled behaves the same way a cow or dog or human behaves when being boiled. Seems strange to make the cutoff for acceptable treatment based around a wishy-washy ill-defined notion of "Can this thing that is very different than me feel pain? I promise I am not biased by the fact that I have vertebrae."

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#154

Post by colechristensen »

elcano wrote: post #122
ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Octopi is not the correct plural. Octopus is of greek origin, not latin. Thus, its greek plural is octopodes. And thus, since we don't tend to use greek plurals in english, the other proper plural is octopuses. Octopi is what's known as a hypercorrection. "A hypercorrection is non-standard use of language that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer wh…

I wonder if the trend of using the 'Latinx' term falls under the hypercorrection definition or there's something else to describe it. I'm not passing judgement on the inclusiveness intention, but the English word for Latino and Latina is just Latin, which doesn't have gender. There's no need to mix linguistics with algebra and add a gender variable to the latin word.

Coming from gendered languages, most Hispanics either don’t know about Latinx at all and the ones that do, most of them think it’s inappropriate. It is a bit strange to try to remove gender from a word for people who mostly speak a gendered language. It seems mostly to be a virtue signaling thing among a rather small almost exclusively American, english as first language subculture.

A bit like the bathroom I saw in a coffee shop that listed all the different kinds of people that were acceptable to use the single occupancy one toilet one sink room. Trying too hard to be inclusive can be an insult to the actual issues at hand.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#155

Post by shakna »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #124
shakna wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The line for sentience is a very low bar to hurdle. Trees may demonstrate sentience [0]. The larger problem is that people are generally thinking of sapience, but sapience tends to be defined in axiomatic terms, so we don't have a clear understanding of what it requires or means. [0] https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1469-...

I don't see how your link supports trees potentially being sentient.

I can't really answer you clearly without knowing what definition of sentience you expect to be correct. Especially as I've already noted most people think of sentience as sapience, which it isn't.

Trees respond to both negative and positive stimuli, and relay that information to other plants around them, exchanging information about them. They take both reactive and proactive stances in regards to both negative and positive stimuli - which may be sentience.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#156

Post by nemo44x »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #5
adamcharnock wrote: post #4

Even as a meat eater I’m pretty shocked that this recognises them as sentient and yet does not ban their slaughter (aside from boiling them alive etc). Maybe I’ve read too much science fiction, but eating sentient beings seems Bad.

I mean, we know cattle, sheep, chickens and pigs are sentient yet we consume them. Why would we make an exception for octopods and shellfish?

1) Find animals (behaviors) some people eat (do) but most don’t.

2) Make an appeal to some emotion to politically limit their harvest (acceptability).

3) Expand this program to the next least popular animal (behavior), repeat, etc.

4) Congrats, you’ve changed public opinion on what animal to eat (behavior) is moral and ethical. This is the formula of progressivism.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#157

Post by chimpansteve »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #89
drekk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's done to pigs, chickens, and cows is a terribly low bar to clear. I suppose lighting an ant on fire with a magnifying glass isn't cruel because it happens quickly. Personally how quickly an innocent being capable of suffering and happiness is killed doesn't factor into whether I call it cruel. Morality might be subjective, but the alternative requires accepting that needless, preventable death and suffering is…

The vegan argument is definitely a legitimate one, and not something I was trying to refute. A lot of meat eaters have these strange ideas about what is and isn't cruel (the classic being "hunting is evil but eating farmed meat is totally OK"), ostensibly based on reducing unnecessary suffering but also completely devoid of hands-on understanding of what actually happens. I will disagree with you on this point, thoug…

As someone who grew up on a small beef farm in the UK but is also very picky about the source of the meat he eats, my personal anecdotal experience is that vegan or meat eater, the problem is that the vast majority of people have never been within 100m of livestock, and have zero comprehension of where their food actually comes from or how it arrives in their nice refrigerated trays.

The cows on my dad's farm probably had a better life than the dogs. There's a definite argument to made that they had a better life than me, and I was from a very happy and loving household. The same could not be said for the large scale conglomerate farm up the road. It's a distinction most people are simply incapable of making, because they just aren't exposed to it.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#158

Post by leephillips »

elcano wrote: post #122
ryan_j_naughton wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Octopi is not the correct plural. Octopus is of greek origin, not latin. Thus, its greek plural is octopodes. And thus, since we don't tend to use greek plurals in english, the other proper plural is octopuses. Octopi is what's known as a hypercorrection. "A hypercorrection is non-standard use of language that results from the over-application of a perceived rule of language-usage prescription. A speaker or writer wh…

I wonder if the trend of using the 'Latinx' term falls under the hypercorrection definition or there's something else to describe it. I'm not passing judgement on the inclusiveness intention, but the English word for Latino and Latina is just Latin, which doesn't have gender. There's no need to mix linguistics with algebra and add a gender variable to the latin word.

“something else to describe it”

The best summing-up I’ve seen is: linguistic colonialism.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#159

Post by sillysaurusx »

bardworx wrote: post #141
ErikVandeWater wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how your link supports trees potentially being sentient.

Disclaimer: i don’t have a dog in the fight…or a branch on a tree, in this context. Sentient is defined as able to perceive or feel things. The paper linked discusses how trees can “communicate” and “feel” based on release of specific chemicals. An exert from the introduction: “Recent research has revealed that plants can sense their neighbours without direct physical contact; mechanisms for this include detection of…

I feel like Star Trek handled the question much better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol2WP0hc0NY

Intelligence, self-awareness, and consciousness seem like three reasonable requirements. I don't really buy the "consciousness" requirement, but it's a stab at what most people associate with sentience.

Calling trees sentient is just nonsense. And I mean that literally. I try not to dismiss people's work out of hand, but there's a certain line of philosophical thought whose best rebuttal is to ignore it.

Re: Octopuses, crabs and lobsters to be recognised as sentient beings under UK law

#160

Post by shakna »

glenstein wrote: post #142
NineStarPoint wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can react to negative stimuli. The question of if that means something can "feel" in the sense we tend to mean it isn't easy to answer.

I mean, my tendon in my knee can "react" to "negative stimuli" when a doctor strikes it with a rubber hammer. I guess the question is about how these words are being used, and whether they're referring to automatic biological reflexes or something like a conscious experience, sentience, or sapience, depending on how you use the terms.

Sentience always requires more than just reaction, but a memory component. That is, it can take a proactive response to avoid that negative stimuli in the future. However, measuring both of those is generally very difficult, and so determining if something is sentient can be difficult.

The bar for sentience is basically, "is it more than automatic". Which is fairly low and easy to clear. It doesn't even require that there be consciousness.

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