Reductio ad absurdum isn't helping your case. You haven't made an argument, just assertions. Why would giving some rights to a non-human animal break "logical consistency"? Just saying it does is meaningless, provide an argument.
Do a grep through this thread for my userid. I've made my argument in several places. Basically, acquiring human status requires interactive and consensual participation in a relationship/society. Exhibiting some rudimentary social behaviors doesn't qualify as accepting the responsibilities along with the rights accorded with status.
Yes, and lots of people pointed out how that argument is just a red herring. You didn't come back with an actual argument, so pointing back to the fallacious one doesn't accomplish anything.
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.
What is with the totally misplaced and unnecessary snark? I was not criticizing the law, I was pointing out what purpose it is meant to serve (people).
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 th…
Adding "yeah but I don't believe science" to your non-argument doesn't improve it. You are still making the same baseless assumptions, just with the addition of suggesting that you alone possess the knowledge required to determine the intelligence of dolphins, and all those people who spent their lives studying them are dumbasses.
> 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.
People can wake up from coma, I take it. But in cases where damage to the brain is so extensive that we can reasonably say all capacity for future thought has been lost, the primary worry really is just for the wishes of the family.
The medical establishment, at least where I live, tends to take the view that there's no intrinsic value in trying to prolong the life of such a body.
While theorizing tests of animal psyche and self-awareness might be helpful to the purpose, but what we humans forget is the preciseness of agent Smith's evaluation of us: "I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with th…
So tired of this meme. Humans are like a virus in the way that every species on the planet is like a virus. Look no further than invasive species to see that any form of life given the ability to expand it's population will do exactly that. The majority of species reach what we view as 'an equilibrium' because they run into the constraints of their environment on a scale small enough for us to make note of, but human…
I totally agree with you here. Just saying that probably treating dolphins as people might not help (or be enough), considering that the size of planet would remain constant but we'll double our density soon.
We need to be very careful here. There are those (not myself) who would contend that a fetus is a "person", thereby implying that abortion is "murder". I disagree with that, but if we say cetaceans are "persons" than is whaling then "murder"? Are we calling the Eskimo tribes who to this day hunt whales as part of their cultural tradition "murderers"? I am all for conservation, don't get me wrong, but willy-nilly thro…
Are we calling the Eskimo tribes who to this day hunt whales as part of their cultural tradition "murderers"? Would you call the cannibalistic tribes who hunt neighbouring tribes and eat them in holy rituals murderers?
Yes, I call cannibalistic tribes murderers (provided any still exist, hopefully not). But my point is to not rush to make simplistic categories. My attitude on these and related issues is that it is enough work, more than enough work, for me to figure out how to live my own life ethically, without spending energies casting judgements upon others. Personally, I would never hunt dolphins or whales - I don't like hunting anyway and would not do that, heck, I take insects outside when I find them inside rather than stepping on them, lol - more seriously, yes, I find this research very compelling and for these reasons the concept of harming sentient beings is very troubling to me, and would not want to hunt a dolphin or a whale any more than, say, a visitor from another planet. That said, these are still complex issues which science can inform upon, but we need also to understand that in nature, in biology, one's own species is the priority, and so the "better angels of our nature" may and hopefully do go towards wanting humane treatment for more sentient creatures, but also let's not get on a bully pulpit on sensitive and complex matters. Again, I have found it is hard enough to try and be an ethical person for oneself, without trying to be judge and jury over others. That is my only point with the Eskimo tribe reference. :-)