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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

#691

Post by glenstein »

shkkmo wrote: post #686
glenstein wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the well established definition Well, I don't think so. I like to think I've studied enough philosophy to be at least somewhat reasonably acquainted with the term, and it wasn't striking me as "well established." And I did a bit of googling yesterday that also seemed to suggest the "well established definition" being used here is not consistent with any of the normal definitions. And just now I consulted the Stanfor…

I can't find a single source that doesn't align with the definition provided by moeris. It can be phrased in many ways but the underlying concept is well established. People who are unfamiliar with the words may confuse sentience with sapience, but they are quite distinct concepts and not interchangeable. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/sentient https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sentient…

>with the definition provided by moeris

I think I agree with you that the definition provided by moeris is basically on track, and it accords with everything in the links you shared. I would also recommend you review the term as it exists in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

So that's all good. However, you said something along the lines of "doesn't even require that there be consciousness" and merely "more than automatic" which struck me as not being quite right, and that is the idea that I wanted to challenge. I think all the links you shared make some reference or another to consciousness, which to me makes them different from "not requiring consciousness." So I'm not sure how you are looking at those links and seeing something that comports with "not requiring consciousness" and I'm also not seeing how your version of sentience comports either with those or what moeris said. I'm surprised you would look up and post all those links without noticing this, especially in a conversation where that's exactly the thing at issue.

At best, I think you could say, the heartland, normal, well established definition makes reference to some amount of conscious experience, and it is certain fringe definitions could maybe be read as not requiring that. And I think even that would be an exceptionally generous interpretation of the thing you are spuriously claiming is a "well established definition."

>That last one makes some big assumptions

I really don't think it does. It's not making any assumptions about brains, it's taking a position on what sentience means. Maybe brains do a lot of stuff, some of which falls within our idea of sentience, and some of which doesn't. Again, all the definitions you link to are about sensation against the backdrop of consciousness. Meanwhile, only the last of the three of your proposed options was clearly suggesting consciousness. So I don't understand what assumption you think I am or am not making about brains. I don't think the other two options agree with the dictionary definitions you linked to, so I'm not really sure you should be in a position of confidently declaring that those are a "well established definition."

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

#692

Post by glenstein »

shakna wrote: post #684
glenstein wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>However, measuring both of those is generally very difficult, and so determining if something is sentient can be difficult. That makes sense. So then, we should probably be very cautious about statements that openly entertain such possibilities given that they may be hard to substantiate meaningfully. >The bar for sentience is basically, "is it more than automatic". Which is fairly low and easy to clear. It doesn't…

> Huh, every definition I've seen when I read about this stuff in college, and that I currently see when I google, explicitly relates in some way to consciousness. And anything that means "reaction" "sense" "detect" in a sense pertinent to sentience meant some kind of conscious sensing, conscious reacting. Did the definition change at some point? You're sort of there, and sort of not. Sentience does require feeling,…

Claiming sentience requires mere feeling and that such cases fall into a different category than consciousness is an interesting intellectual exercise, and I'm quite familiar with that exercise, but as I said in a different comment, I don't think that's actually as consistent with normal definitions as you appear to believe.

>Sentience requires that the subject can desire pleasure, and desire to avoid pain, but neither of those things explicitly requires conscious thought.

I understand this as a recently popular argument that exists in the ether, and at best I can say I think there are numerous problems with it, although it's a legitimate and interesting idea. Whatever it is though, it's certainly not accepted mainstream usage of the term in normal circumstances, it's more a position in an argument seeking to draw distinctions between biological reflexes at one extreme and full blown consciousness at the other.

>Collective behaviours, like in trees, can exhibit desire and can show pain, without the need for a consciousness to exist.

I think that is only the case if you water down the meaning of words like desire and pain in such away that estranges them from sentience, which of course, makes it problematic to invoke the words, used in that way, to illustrate case examples of sentience.

I also have to note that I'm finding it pretty condescending of you to declare that I'm "sort of there, sort of not," and then repeating back to me some pretty bog standard material I'm perfectly familiar with as if its new information, and concluding by endorsing a fringey-at-best definition that is not, despite your protestations to the contrary, the usual or accepted meaning of the term.

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

#693

Post by causasui »

cheese_goddess wrote: post #690
causasui wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If animals weren't factory farmed they'd just be wild" is a hilarious misrepresentation of the cause and effect of how farmed animals come to be, and I assume you know that and are being disingenuous. "Vegan propaganda" ok Cheese Goddess. These animals not existing is preferable to the hell they endure on factory farms.

> "If animals weren't factory farmed they'd just be wild" is a hilarious misrepresentation of the cause and effect of how farmed animals come to be, and I assume you know that and are being disingenuous. "If animals weren't factory farmed they'd just be wild" is a dirty lie that you said yourself and I never did. You put it in scare quotes to say that they're my words, but they're yours and you're the one who's outri…

> "If animals weren't factory farmed they'd just be wild" is a dirty lie that you said yourself and I never did.

... yet earlier...

> Because without farming they'd live in the wild

Seems pretty cut and dry.

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

#694

Post by jallen_dot_dev »

cheese_goddess wrote: post #689
jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a rhetorical question, I don't actually care what the number is because it's diminishingly small. Farmers breed their animals, they're not filling the ranks of their livestock by going out and rescuing wild animals. I'm not talking about livestock that wander off the farm. And you're not silly. I said the argument is silly. We all can make silly arguments from time to time when we don't really think a line of re…

Alright, thank you for your honesty and for making an effort to have a sensible discussion. Yes, farmers don't populate their herds with wild animals. I didn't understand then what you meant by "rescue". Without using the word "rescue" though, it is the case that humans did take in those animals and protected them and nurtured and cared for them, when they first domesticated them. Entire subspecies of animals are liv…

I'm glad we can find common ground about the evils of factory farming. You're right, my perspective comes from America where 99% of animals are factory farmed. I do take less issue with the small scale sort of farming you describe (although personally I still wouldn't consume it, because I think food can be healthy and delicious without it).

My worry is the trend is not going in the right direction. The world is eating more and more meat, the rest of the world adopting the Standard American Diet. This level of consumption can only continue by expanding factory farming. Especially as we add a couple of billion more people over the coming decades and they want to eat meat like the rich countries do. Most people just don't care where their food comes from (not all, I take it you are among the few who do care). So the way I see it, the only way out is for people to really change how they see food and whether we should be eating animals at all. Because they're not going to take the effort to figure out where and how their meat/dairy came to be every time they eat it.

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

#695

Post by boston_clone »

glenstein wrote: post #683
boston_clone wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as far as the example itself is concerned, you're just not engaging with it at all That's because I feel that it's a deliberate mischaracterization of reality and is being used to insulate a false equivalence against criticism. I'm wondering a bit of the same that you are - when the topic of harmful farming practices is the primary focus, why did we deflect to "well, what about if a building was on fire?" Where are…

>That's because I feel that it's a deliberate mischaracterization of reality As I already said before and explained at length, it's a hypothetical example intended to illustrate a principle pertinent to the question of speciesm, in direct response to a comment that was about speciesm. I am not sure what "reality" you feel is being mischaracterized by directly speaking to an issue raised by the commenter. I honestly c…

Again, I don't think your point was perfectly relevant. I believe that's why multiple people were picking on that particular nit.

I'm sorry I can't better help you understand which things I feel were mischaracterizations or conflated; it seems we're bound to be stuck at some lower levels of disagreement.

At least we can agree on not understanding each other! And, I suppose, that factory farms are a problem. Cheers!

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

#696

Post by boston_clone »

cheese_goddess wrote: post #671
rsj_hn wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a lot more likely that in 50 years, per capita animal consumption will be higher than today, simply because the subgroups that tend to favor vegetarianism are shrinking as a share of the overall global population (and tend not to have as many children), whereas global income is increasing. Certainly global meat consumption has been on the rise, going from 150 Billion kilograms in 1990, to more than 350 b…

It's interesting to note that despite the best efforts of the animal rights movement and the increased numbers of people choosing vegetarian or vegan options in recent years (so it seems, I've read many articles that say so) meat production and consumption has continued to increase steadily over the years: https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production#meat-production https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-meat-consump…

Looks like the US is trending down in consumption for the last ~7 or so years of available data plotted; nice!

It'd be interesting to see data from beyond 2013 included in that chart, though. Thanks for sharing!

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

#697

Post by cheese_goddess »

jallen_dot_dev wrote: post #694
cheese_goddess wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, thank you for your honesty and for making an effort to have a sensible discussion. Yes, farmers don't populate their herds with wild animals. I didn't understand then what you meant by "rescue". Without using the word "rescue" though, it is the case that humans did take in those animals and protected them and nurtured and cared for them, when they first domesticated them. Entire subspecies of animals are liv…

I'm glad we can find common ground about the evils of factory farming. You're right, my perspective comes from America where 99% of animals are factory farmed. I do take less issue with the small scale sort of farming you describe (although personally I still wouldn't consume it, because I think food can be healthy and delicious without it). My worry is the trend is not going in the right direction. The world is eati…

I agree that the trend is in a worrying direction. It's certainly worrying me.

I think though it'd be much harder to convince most people to give up on meat and dairy than it would be to convince them to take responsibility for their food, where it comes from and how it's grown or raised. And I think it's the people who aren't vegans who have to have this discussion. I don't mean that as an attack on vegans, but I don't think that continuing to eat meat, even in a sustainable manner, is something that agrees with vegan ideals. So it's going to have to be meat eaters who change things. Or else things won't change.

I guess I agree that most people take their food for granted. I don't know how that changes. Maybe we need a popular movement of activism from meat eaters :) I guess that sounds like a joke but there's small things like that, like the Slow Food movement. They're just not very popular...

Thanks for the discussion.

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

#698

Post by cheese_goddess »

causasui wrote: post #693
cheese_goddess wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "If animals weren't factory farmed they'd just be wild" is a hilarious misrepresentation of the cause and effect of how farmed animals come to be, and I assume you know that and are being disingenuous. "If animals weren't factory farmed they'd just be wild" is a dirty lie that you said yourself and I never did. You put it in scare quotes to say that they're my words, but they're yours and you're the one who's outri…

> "If animals weren't factory farmed they'd just be wild" is a dirty lie that you said yourself and I never did. ... yet earlier... > Because without farming they'd live in the wild Seems pretty cut and dry.

Yeah, pretty cut and dry: I say "farming", you say "factory farming".

Friendly advice? Learn to have a discussion like an adult.

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

#699

Post by glenstein »

boston_clone wrote: post #695
glenstein wrote: post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That's because I feel that it's a deliberate mischaracterization of reality As I already said before and explained at length, it's a hypothetical example intended to illustrate a principle pertinent to the question of speciesm, in direct response to a comment that was about speciesm. I am not sure what "reality" you feel is being mischaracterized by directly speaking to an issue raised by the commenter. I honestly c…

Again, I don't think your point was perfectly relevant. I believe that's why multiple people were picking on that particular nit. I'm sorry I can't better help you understand which things I feel were mischaracterizations or conflated; it seems we're bound to be stuck at some lower levels of disagreement. At least we can agree on not understanding each other! And, I suppose, that factory farms are a problem. Cheers!

And again, I'm sorry but I find that to be spurious, for reason's I've explained at length. You seem to feel there's too much conceptual distance between the hypothetical about speciesm and a comment about speciesm it was replying to.

So far as I can tell, what you are really objecting to is not my comment but to the idea of communicating through hypothetical examples.

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

#700

Post by boston_clone »

glenstein wrote: post #699
boston_clone wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I don't think your point was perfectly relevant. I believe that's why multiple people were picking on that particular nit. I'm sorry I can't better help you understand which things I feel were mischaracterizations or conflated; it seems we're bound to be stuck at some lower levels of disagreement. At least we can agree on not understanding each other! And, I suppose, that factory farms are a problem. Cheers!

And again, I'm sorry but I find that to be spurious, for reason's I've explained at length. You seem to feel there's too much conceptual distance between the hypothetical about speciesm and a comment about speciesm it was replying to. So far as I can tell, what you are really objecting to is not my comment but to the idea of communicating through hypothetical examples.

Correct! Well, at least the hypothetical you provided for the reasons that I provided. Conceptual distance is a good way to put it, though!
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