41–50 of 76 posts
Peter Singer, mentioned in the article has a great (and influential) book published in 1979 called Practical Ethics , if you’re interested in this topic you should definitely check that out. If you’ve never listened to the Philosophy Bites podcast, here’s a relevant episode on the status of animals: https://philosophybites.libsyn.com/christine-korsgaard-on-th... Also here’s a thought: unnecessary harming of an entity…
Morality surrounding suffering depends on personal feeling and has no basis in practical life except inasmuch as one might calculate that an interest group will act on such a feeling. For instance: I can be recruited to save a dog from suffering, but not to save a spider. It’s not reason that drives me here, but feelings alone. My rational parts understand that my existence is predicated on non-rational equipment. I am not ashamed of this, and neither should you be.
No one lives except by occupying space and resources, and refraining from actions (such as killing yourself to feed hungry worms) that would otherwise create pleasure and ease suffering of some other creature. Life under finite resources is inherently tragic.
The coming of oxygen to the atmosphere of Earth was a disaster for anerobic bacteria! We’re not going to repeal oxygen!
As I age, I find that I want to avoid gratuitous harm of animals— even pests. I am less cruel than I used to be. But I have no justification for changing, and have no argument to make about it.
I never intentionally harm a single insect... except flies and mosquitos. I hope they do feel the pain as they deserve it! Other than that I respect all of them.
I used to feel the same way but watching a flock of birds spend 30 minutes picking at every wriggling thing they see crawling in the dirt changed my perspective.
I never intentionally harm a single insect... except flies and mosquitos. I hope they do feel the pain as they deserve it! Other than that I respect all of them.
This short video clip, no sound needed was enough to convince me the answer is very likely no. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3Hq7zTb1J4
Peter Singer, mentioned in the article has a great (and influential) book published in 1979 called Practical Ethics , if you’re interested in this topic you should definitely check that out. If you’ve never listened to the Philosophy Bites podcast, here’s a relevant episode on the status of animals: https://philosophybites.libsyn.com/christine-korsgaard-on-th... Also here’s a thought: unnecessary harming of an entity…
Why is it bad for its effect on you?
If you start destroying things for pleasure, your psyche may/probably will change.
A parallel question I’ve seen: are training bonsais cruel?
Capability to feel pain doesn’t have anything to do with this, in my mind.
But many organisms demonstrate behaviors which are reactive to stimuli, and can be called sentient, but those organisms don’t necessarily possess cognitive abilities which demonstrate self-consciousness. I disagree that sentience should ever have been included as determinant of consciousness, and only demonstrating self-consciousness defines an inner mental state that is more than just a sum of chemical reactivity. So, I don’t think insects have any awareness other than impulses driven by genetic programming.
That said, insects of all types, including mosquitoes, sustain ecosystems through their existence, which are vital for food chains and so on. I don’t think insect control should be put off necessarily because insects feel pain (because they don’t feel pain in the way that a self-aware animal does), but because overdoing insect control can ruin ecosystems which people need to live.
Most insects do not exhibit the classic signs of pain responses (the new findings discussed in this New Yorker article, notwithstanding). For example insects generally don't groom or guard an amputated limb. This puzzling (lack of) response can be explained as being aligned with their reproductive strategy: they reach breeding age quickly and die soon after. Thus, it's better not to waste energy avoiding limb loss for a future that won't happen.
Despite this lack of sentience, insects can be quite intelligent and learn complex cues and behaviors. Other invertebrates that look superficially like insects, prawns for example, have quite different life cycles and lifespans and often do exhibit signs of pain / sentience.
Basically pain/sentience emerge when there is a reason for the organism to protect the body from damage, and does not evolve (or is subsequently lost!) when there are more important short term goals. One wonders, for example, whether salmon experience pain when they fling their bodies up rivers, over and onto rocks, damaging them horribly in the process: all for purposes of spawning.