21–30 of 75 posts
That's a ways off I'm afraid though. It's important to see that these are obviously non-related issues but I don't have much hopes for our stance towards Dolphins as long as we haven't learned to do this with each other.
I strongly recommend the movie The Cove . It's much more entertaining and less depressing than you would expect. Available via DVD or bittorrent. http://www.thecovemovie.com/ (flash site so I can't link directly to the trailer)
The movie is actually quite depressing, but I was happy to find out after watching that the practice has, at least temporarily, stopped.
And yes, it's absolutely amazing that an activist film such as this worked. How often has that happened in the history of documentary filmmaking? I think it's a shoe-in for the best documentary Academy Award this year.
Marino and Reiss will present their findings at a conference in San Diego, California, next month, concluding that the new evidence about dolphin intelligence makes it morally repugnant to mistreat them. It is morally repugnant to mistreat animals regardless of the intelligence of the animal and being a scientist has nothing to do with making such a judgment, since it is not a scientific judgment but an ethical one.…
I totally agree and after reading the article I was going to post this exact same comment but you beat me to it. I would say that it is just as morally repugnant or in fact more morally repugnant to mistreat an animal that is not intelligent. It is not like lack of intelligence makes it alright to mistreat an animal.
I'm far from convinced. On the one hand, their shape and their environment explains why they never copied the concept of technology from us. On the other, it does nothing to prevent them having art, literature, math, or creating a pidgin and talking to us. And on the third hand, we anatomically modern humans spent our first 150,000 years doing essentially sod all, so we can hardly complain. I would want evidence of b…
Marino and Reiss will present their findings at a conference in San Diego, California, next month, concluding that the new evidence about dolphin intelligence makes it morally repugnant to mistreat them. It is morally repugnant to mistreat animals regardless of the intelligence of the animal and being a scientist has nothing to do with making such a judgment, since it is not a scientific judgment but an ethical one.…
The article is not discussing the ethical question of "mistreatment", but rather that of legal rights. This is an important distinction. Anyone can advocate for dolphin rights, but, as scientists who have done research on dolphins, they are in a position to make ethical arguments against keeping dolphins in a zoo for public entertainment. The rationale behind these arguments are grounded firmly in science. You have t…
For example, the researchers are said to argue that it is "morally unacceptable" for dolphins to be killed by accident by humans while fishing.
Of course, laws might be passed making it a misdemeanor to kill a dolphin accidentally in such a context and perhaps make the perpetrator pay a fine. Or they might make it a felony and impose jail time as well. Or they might say that mens rea or evil intent is a required element of the crime. Or any one of many other variations. Or the laws might simply state that there is no culpability if a human who is fishing happens to kill a dolphin.
The above represents a broad range of potential judgments on a legal issue that is ultimately an ethical question (what we ought to do) affected by a scientific truth (what is empirically verifiable) whose discoverers are in no better position than is any other intelligent person to opine. Scientists may opine but no special deference ought to be paid to their ethical judgments simply because they are scientists.
Good, we should then start making them liable for violations of laws as well. Dolphin researchers know for example that some dolphins like to form gangs and go around harassing other dolphins and forcing themselves sexually on female dolphins. Should we also send out the police patrol and lock them up?
Our law could easily deal with dolphins that enjoy human rights protection. Babies are given the full protection of human rights, yet they cannot vote, cannot drive and cannot be made responsible for any crime they may commit. Why not give certain animals a similar status?
I'm far from convinced. On the one hand, their shape and their environment explains why they never copied the concept of technology from us. On the other, it does nothing to prevent them having art, literature, math, or creating a pidgin and talking to us. And on the third hand, we anatomically modern humans spent our first 150,000 years doing essentially sod all, so we can hardly complain. I would want evidence of b…
By your standards plenty of disabled people would not qualify as people.
Human minds in dolphin bodies would quickly work out similar hacks. The fact that dolphins don't is what makes it hard to qualify them as people.
Marino and Reiss will present their findings at a conference in San Diego, California, next month, concluding that the new evidence about dolphin intelligence makes it morally repugnant to mistreat them. It is morally repugnant to mistreat animals regardless of the intelligence of the animal and being a scientist has nothing to do with making such a judgment, since it is not a scientific judgment but an ethical one.…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
By your standards plenty of disabled people would not qualify as people.
Absolutely the opposite - disabled people are a perfect illustration of why humans are definitely "people". We work around our difficulties. Can't hear? Use sign language. Can't speak? Write it down. Human minds in dolphin bodies would quickly work out similar hacks. The fact that dolphins don't is what makes it hard to qualify them as people.
There are plenty of people that are not capable of that in any way that most people would recognize.
The dog analogy comes to mind: Dogs are smarter than people because they understand us but we do not understand them.
edit:
We seem to place the onus of proving your intelligence and your ability to communicate on others before giving them the moniker 'sentient' or 'intelligent'. By laying an arbitrary ('good enough for you') marker and saying 'jump over that and I'll accept you) we judge everybody by our own norms, whereas that is not a good way to look at any of these issues at all.
A nice example from the animal kingdom would be the ant, the bee or the termite. As a single individual they're not going to pass an intelligence test by human standards any time soon. But as a collective they exhibit very complex behaviour that could possibly qualify as intelligent.
To put up a barrier for Dolphins to prove they're intelligent makes intelligence a linear affair, cross the threshold and you're 'in'.
But plenty of people exist that could not cross that same threshold, even by employing the tricks you mentioned.
For instance, there is a state of being called 'locked in'.
A person is 100% aware of their environment but also 100% paralyzed. By your standards these people would not qualify as people because they are wholly incapable of communication.
Good, we should then start making them liable for violations of laws as well. Dolphin researchers know for example that some dolphins like to form gangs and go around harassing other dolphins and forcing themselves sexually on female dolphins. Should we also send out the police patrol and lock them up?
I realize that this is supposed to be a joke, but there is an answer to your question and it is (of course) no. Our law could easily deal with dolphins that enjoy human rights protection. Babies are given the full protection of human rights, yet they cannot vote, cannot drive and cannot be made responsible for any crime they may commit. Why not give certain animals a similar status?
Babies are lent their basic rights against their future obligations, and the difference is made up by their parents. Babies and children are extended fewer rights because of their decreased ability to service the resulting obligations, too, so your example isn't even all that great as children's rights are necessarily quite curtailed.
Certainly our law could easily deal with obligationless-psuedorights enjoyed by animals, but our society can not deal with them having true rights. Dolphins can be extended unilateral protection, but they can't have actual rights until they can also discharge the resulting obligations.
Some would define "right" to include this sort of "unilateral protection" but I think that strips us of a valuable word, and encourages category errors as what are "unilateral protections" one minute silently get upgraded to "rights" (as I have defined them) the next. I am quite certain this is considered desirable by animal "rights" advocate, even if they are not consciously using this exact line of thought. I'm fairly confident that if you asked, animal rights activists would not care to be classified as animal-"unilateral protection" advocates.
(Moreover, giving dolphins rights would just be an open invitation to yet more corruption, in the form of "legal representatives" of the en-righted animals suing in the legal system for some recompense or other which oh-so-coincidentally will go back in the pockets of the representatives. If we're really lucky we'll set up a parallel "animal's right court" so the whole system can be set up as a rent-extraction racket. There is in fact an upper limit on how much of this sort of corruption we can tolerate as a society.)
(Applying my definition of "right" to the current discussion of a "health-care right" is an interesting exercise left to the reader. For every right, the question of "where's the corresponding obligation?" must be answered.)