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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

#281

Post by post_from_work »

deanCommie wrote: post #269

Context: I'm not a hypocrite. I eat a lot of meat. I would put very strong money down that by the time most people reading these comments are in an old folks home with their grandchildren, the vast majority of the population will consider consumption of all meat unethical. I don't think it will be illegal yet (just extremely regulated, and expensive - not the least bit because the carbon footprint of meat production…

>>>And they'll ask us uncomfortable questions we won't have good answers for. Didn't you know about the health risks at the amounts you were consuming?

Yup. Didn't care. Bacon-wrapped filet mignon tastes THAT good. Some things are worth the risk. Like driving too fast, riding motorcycles, or skydiving.

>>>Didn't you know about the carbon footprint?

Same answer here...

>>>Most importantly, didn't you have ample evidence of consciousness, personality, and sentience in every way that is reasonable to us?

And here too.

>>>We didn't eat dogs but considered pigs and cows different? Why?

I actually HAVE eaten dog. It's a specialty delicacy in Korea.

I think most of the world isn't anywhere close to taking the conscientious Western approach to animal flesh.

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

#282

Post by michaelmrose »

donatj wrote: post #268
tekromancr wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So according to your philosophy; you wouldn't object to being tortured, after all, it's just signals being registered by a biological computer in your head.

Billions of years of evolutionary survival instinct would have my body grasping at all straws, releasing chemicals and likely having negative affects on my physiology and mental state for the rest of my life. Clearly that isn’t anything anyone wants. If I had no memories of the experience, and it had no long term physical affects on me, I would be indifferent, obviously, because I don't know about it. If I were to di…

By this logic that no suffering is actionable in any fashion because all who suffer suffer temporarily. This is trivially truth in a nothing actually matters in a long enough run sort of way but not philosophically meaningful.

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

#283

Post by imgabe »

jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #272
imgabe wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides what's necessary? It's not really "necessary" to eat a lobster at all. Maybe we should just live in mud huts, eating the bare minimum amount of soybeans and rice to keep us just alive. That would inflict the minimal amount of "unnecessary" suffering. But then, why is it even necessary that we should be alive? All living things suffer at one point or another, whether it was necessary or not. There is no gr…

We don't need to live in mud huts, I'm pretty sure houses can be vegan. Also it doesn't need to be all or nothing, we can simply reduce suffering. I don't understand the logic of "we can't eliminate suffering, so might as well maximize suffering by boiling animals to death."

If someone actually cared about reducing suffering, there are far more egregious sources of it in the world that could be addressed. Worrying about lobsters suffering in boiling water for 2 seconds before they die is the plastic straw ban of reducing suffering.

If you don't want to boil lobsters, then don't boil lobsters. Just don't kid yourself into thinking that introducing a ban on it is some kind of great victory for reducing suffering in the world.

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

#284

Post by int_19h »

imgabe wrote: post #262
jacquesm wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but Lions lack - for want of a better term - options, whereas we humans have plenty of options. We decide to boil living creatures alive, their feelings be damned because we like their taste better that way. But that's a very conscious choice to inflict harm. In the court of ethics the Lion was just eating, the human being was inflicting unnecessary pain.

Who decides what's necessary? It's not really "necessary" to eat a lobster at all. Maybe we should just live in mud huts, eating the bare minimum amount of soybeans and rice to keep us just alive. That would inflict the minimal amount of "unnecessary" suffering. But then, why is it even necessary that we should be alive? All living things suffer at one point or another, whether it was necessary or not. There is no gr…

Empathy is that thing which makes suffering exist in your mind when it exists in others. And even among the non-sentient animals, it can extend to other species. The reason why we have to take it further than they do is because we have the mental capacity to construct a self-consistent system of ethics out of it.

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

#285

Post by msravi »

donatj wrote: post #268
tekromancr wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So according to your philosophy; you wouldn't object to being tortured, after all, it's just signals being registered by a biological computer in your head.

Billions of years of evolutionary survival instinct would have my body grasping at all straws, releasing chemicals and likely having negative affects on my physiology and mental state for the rest of my life. Clearly that isn’t anything anyone wants. If I had no memories of the experience, and it had no long term physical affects on me, I would be indifferent, obviously, because I don't know about it. If I were to di…

>> If I were to die from it, I see no advantage to a painless death over a painful death...

Those minutes/hours/days spent experiencing pain do count. You speak as of the after-effects but make it seem that an advantage in living the process itself doesn't count.

That's like saying that we're all going to die anyway and there's no advantage to how we live our lives. So why bother with anything?

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

#286

Post by xupybd »

adriand wrote: post #25
chrisweekly wrote: post #11

Crabs and lobsters are basically bugs, whereas an octopus is a creative, playful, intelligent creature with amazing capabilities. It seems strange to group them together.

I assume that Dr Jonathan Birch, Associate Professor at LSE’s Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, and his team of scientists didn’t encounter this insightful perspective when they reviewed “over 300 scientific studies” in order to arrive at their conclusions… In seriousness though, this comment is a prime example of speciesism. Even if it were true that these crustaceans were “basically bugs” how doe…

My philosophy is humans are special because I'm human. Other animals are not the same but I'd rather not hurt them without good reason. I'm not sure it's a rational part of me, I suspect a more instinctual part that doesn't like to see an animal suffer.

Sometimes the good reason to hurt an animal is to eat them. I've come to peace with hunting for food.

I could be wrong but it works for me.

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

#287

Post by donatj »

msravi wrote: post #285
donatj wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billions of years of evolutionary survival instinct would have my body grasping at all straws, releasing chemicals and likely having negative affects on my physiology and mental state for the rest of my life. Clearly that isn’t anything anyone wants. If I had no memories of the experience, and it had no long term physical affects on me, I would be indifferent, obviously, because I don't know about it. If I were to di…

>> If I were to die from it, I see no advantage to a painless death over a painful death... Those minutes/hours/days spent experiencing pain do count. You speak as of the after-effects but make it seem that an advantage in living the process itself doesn't count. That's like saying that we're all going to die anyway and there's no advantage to how we live our lives. So why bother with anything?

> living the process itself doesn't count

What reason do you have to believe otherwise. What does it count towards?

What counts is in missed opportunity. Missed abilities to affect the world around you before you leave. Pain at the very end doesn't alter that much at all.

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

#288

Post by tagrun »

Not trying to argue it's OK to subject animals to unnecessary pain (it shouldn't be!), but from a pure logical consistency standpoint, are there many non-sentient animals? Why is it OK to not recognize mosquitos, rats, termites, deers, ants, etc etc which meet painful demise by humans as sentient animals while making exceptions for a few?

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

#289

Post by blackearl »

adriand wrote: post #25
chrisweekly wrote: post #11

Crabs and lobsters are basically bugs, whereas an octopus is a creative, playful, intelligent creature with amazing capabilities. It seems strange to group them together.

I assume that Dr Jonathan Birch, Associate Professor at LSE’s Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science, and his team of scientists didn’t encounter this insightful perspective when they reviewed “over 300 scientific studies” in order to arrive at their conclusions… In seriousness though, this comment is a prime example of speciesism. Even if it were true that these crustaceans were “basically bugs” how doe…

I have to assume you wouldn't counter any termites, roaches, or wasps invading your home.

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

#290

Post by xvilka »

lanevorockz wrote: post #212
xvilka wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even something small as jumping spiders can be quite smart. They certainly deserve some respect. And live boiling is common for crustaceans. Terrible practice, sentient or not.

Boiling is supposed to be painless and it’s meaning behind “boiling a frog alive”.

My small experience with being burned by hot or acidic liquid tells me exactly the opposite.
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