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Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#181

Post by Evbn »

gort wrote: post #141
nathan_long wrote: post #6

>> They believe dolphins and whales are sufficiently intelligent to justify the same ethical considerations as humans. I don't have a problem with extending legal protection to dolphins, but I do think that "intelligence" as the criteria is morally problematic, at least if it's the sole criteria. For instance, could a person with Down's Syndrome be denied protection from murder? The Christian worldview holds that hum…

> For instance, could a person with Down's Syndrome be denied protection from murder? Since nobody seems to have given a straight answer to this, I will. Someone with Down's Syndrome easily counts as an intelligent being, and is not even close to any borderline. I suppose your question assumes that, since intelligence comes in degrees, any value based on it must also come in degrees. But instead, most people who see…

OK, is it wrong to kill a stranger in a coma or PVS? They are less intelligent than dogs.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#182

Post by Evbn »

papsosouid wrote: post #163
Osmium wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough; I didn't intend to put words in your mouth. I was responding to what you said about "ignoring animal abuse when it happens to pigs" and just providing a counterpoint to that: that not everybody is ignoring it, and that there's no reason why we should ignore it either (because it's not an "ethical dilemma" -- a "dilemma" presupposes we can't both reduce the suffering of pigs and continue to eat them, exce…

I realize not everyone ignores it, but I was speaking to the question of law. It is perfectly legal to do things to a pig that will land you in jail if you do them to a dog. And then there's plenty of things that are not legal to do to a pig, that you can do anyways because the law isn't enforced. It does pose an ethical dilemma. Of course we can reduce the suffering of pigs. Yet we choose not to. We choose not to, b…

Weird, it's like the law is some sort of bizarre compromise of thousands of points of view, and not an infallible and consistent moral guide. I wonder how that happened.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#183

Post by Evbn »

crusso wrote: post #108
jlgreco wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you are suggesting basically just amounts to "dolphins cannot be a part of society because currently society only includes humans, and dolphins are different than humans." We are proposing a re-definition .

What you are suggesting ... That's not in the least what I'm suggesting. Dolphins cannot participate in our society by agreement. They don't understand what participating is. They're captured or born in captivity and then trained to perform a few tricks. They are beautiful and fascinating, but they have no contributions to make to the fiber of our society that can't be made by other animals, machines, or even simple…

Black people aren't functioning members of our society either, said Jefferson Davis.

Poor people don't contribute to our fiber of society in a way that can't be replaced by machines, said Mitt Romney.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#184

Post by Evbn »

pyre wrote: post #75
johnnyg wrote: post #9

Sorry, but I'm going to need a Dolphin declaration of independence, armed revolution and ability to self sustain through value creation first.

A baby can't self-sustain, is it ok if I kill it? Someone that is brain-dead can't self-sustain, are there no legal/ethical qualms if I pull the plug? Are disabled people open season for abuse because they are 'lesser' than the rest of us?

You are being rhetorical, but the answers are obvious to the many people who engage in these antisocial behaviors.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#185

Post by Evbn »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #158
papsosouid wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making a whole lot of unfounded assumptions. Who says those that escape knew the fate of those that didn't? Who says they have a choice as to where to go? Perhaps they need to be in that area at that time because that is where their food is at that time. The options you present are not even remotely close to exhaustive, yet you hide behind their totality for your excuse to avoid considering the issue at all.

Dolphins are among the freest creatures in the ocean, traveling vast distances in little time and pretty much independent. And I'm sure something drives them to be in that bay at that time; its just not a higher intelligence, by all the evidence. Thus the tendency to reinforce: dolphins are dumb animals. So this argument isn't 'considering the issue at all'? Then what's it about? Some other issue? Would a personal at…

And Rwandans are clearly subhuman unintelligent for trying to return home after the war instead of wandering across African desert in new directions.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#186

Post by Evbn »

jlgreco wrote: post #97
philwelch wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, we interbred.

Which admittedly does not necessarily suggest any form of mutual recognition. Instances of cultural exchange I think are more suggestive. Perhaps the better question is, if Neanderthals were to somehow come back and enter the modern world, would we accept extending some sort of ethical consideration to them? I think we undoubtedly would. The current deficient of other species that we all accept as special in some way…

One of them has become a lawyer, and another sells car insurance.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#187

Post by Evbn »

olalonde wrote: post #19
dfgonzalez wrote: post #4

Rights come with Obligations, so as long as they pay their taxes too, I'm OK with this

Don't most countries have fishing quotas within territorial waters as well? Not sure dolphins and whales will be happy with this.

Show me one dolphin who has exceeded quota.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#189

Post by JoeAltmaier »

papsosouid wrote: post #166
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One more try: dolphins may not be very intelligent because they cannot or won't communicate between themselves. Or their ethics are unfathomable to us because they don't seem to value dolphin life as humans do human life. Got it? That's the entirety of the argument. If you'd like to address that argument, great. If you just want to agitate for dolphin right by shouting down argument, then fell free, I'm done.

I got your argument. And addressed it. In the first post. You have made two additional posts which have added absolutely no information to the first, and have not addressed the flaws of your argument. Again, there are many other explanations for what you observe besides "dolphins are dumb" and "dolphins don't care about each other". Given that we have evidence of dolphins being smart, and them caring about each other…

Ah! A post actually related to the argument! SO now we can have a discussion.

Dolphins are of course very 'dumb'; its taken years of hard research to come up with any evidence of intelligence, and its all indirect. Why we even bothered? Probably because of their large-ish brain, which turns out is an elaborate visual cortex (ok, sonar cortex, same thing).

They play; they have family units, at least for a while. Is this intelligence? Crows do all that too; many other mammals also.

Caring for humans is anecdotal. My favorite one is, people adrift from shipwreck get pushed to shore by dolphins. This suffers from observer bias - dolphins love to play with floaty things, and push them around. All the sailors pushed out to sea don't tell their storey.

May dolphins be intelligent? Ok, sure. But as they don't have societies, inventions, any more language than many birds, their intelligence is very much more similar to other 'lower' animals than human.

Maybe its a different kind of intelligence? That's reaching, kind of making up things to fit a desired conclusion, but ok. Then the 3rd argument in my original post: its a kind of intelligence that doesn't extend to saving one anothers' lives. If even one escaped dolphin mentioned "I got out of there; all my family are missing, plus two other pods I know of; maybe we should stay away from that bay", we would have fabulous evidence of an intelligent society sharing the planet with us. Observably not happening, so one could conclude (I never said I conclude this, thats your projection) that they are of an intelligence too small to permit that communication. In fact, occams razor damands this conclusion.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#190

Post by JoeAltmaier »

Evbn wrote: post #185
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dolphins are among the freest creatures in the ocean, traveling vast distances in little time and pretty much independent. And I'm sure something drives them to be in that bay at that time; its just not a higher intelligence, by all the evidence. Thus the tendency to reinforce: dolphins are dumb animals. So this argument isn't 'considering the issue at all'? Then what's it about? Some other issue? Would a personal at…

And Rwandans are clearly subhuman unintelligent for trying to return home after the war instead of wandering across African desert in new directions.

This bay is 'home'? To a creature free to roam the ocean at will, live anywhere with equal facility? THe analogy doesn't hold.
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