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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

#371

Post by obedm »

koonsolo wrote: post #352
emptysongglass wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the Buddha, one should not kill any sentient being, sentient being defined as made up of the five skandhas: matter, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness. I had a very easy time following this rule until my houseplants were attacked by spider mites and almost simultaneously my rats attacked by a different species of mites. How does one watch the beings (I don't apply "being" to the p…

“What happens when you tune your instrument too tightly?” the Buddha asked. “The strings break,” the musician replied. “And what happens when you string it too loosely?” “When it’s too loose, no sound comes out,” the musician answered. “The string that produces a tuneful sound is not too tight and not too loose.” “That,” said the Buddha, “is how to practice: not too tight and not too loose.”

Gorgeous.

I'm a strong atheist but Buddhism has always been the religion I've respected the most. At least the philosophical aspect of it.

I used to struggle with this too. To this day I use a box to pick up spiders or mosquitoes and take then outside instead of killing them. But I wouldn't doubt killing termites to save my plants.

We kill everyday. When we walk, or drive the car. We're powerful giants. But we can be respectful giants.

It doesn't absolve us from our "sins", but it's far better than nothing.

I think it can be narrowed down to "be respectful". Letting your rats die would be disrespectful to them. Killing a spider that isn't harming you is disrespectful to them. Walking on top of ants you know are there is disrespectful to them.

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

#372

Post by rlonn »

crucialfelix wrote: post #341
rlonn wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admire the jainist (?) philosophy of not killing, but it does seem incredibly impractical, to the point of being stupid even. How do you avoid killing mites on the ground when you go out for a walk?

They sweep the ground in front of them with a broom. To be precise, the monks do this, and the laity work as jewelers in Manhattan and support the monks financially.

Which obviously does nothing but rearrange the mites on the ground before they’re stepped on, and makes me think they’re hypocrites for adopting a useless measure to make it seem like they actually care. If it is true.

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

#373

Post by bradwood »

tagrun wrote: post #288

Not trying to argue it's OK to subject animals to unnecessary pain (it shouldn't be!), but from a pure logical consistency standpoint, are there many non-sentient animals? Why is it OK to not recognize mosquitos, rats, termites, deers, ants, etc etc which meet painful demise by humans as sentient animals while making exceptions for a few?

Yeah. Plus chowder?!

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

#374

Post by pontifier »

nomorecommas wrote: post #81
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really want to be terrified, consider the possibility that most animals have no idea what a food chain is. So by extension - if in fact we weren't at the top of the food chain, would we even know?

Okay HP Lovecraft. Hey you should write a story about that!

It writes itself... You could almost take the original study and just change the subject to people. It was very difficult for me to read.

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

#375

Post by Closi »

tagrun wrote: post #288

Not trying to argue it's OK to subject animals to unnecessary pain (it shouldn't be!), but from a pure logical consistency standpoint, are there many non-sentient animals? Why is it OK to not recognize mosquitos, rats, termites, deers, ants, etc etc which meet painful demise by humans as sentient animals while making exceptions for a few?

> Why is it OK to not recognize mosquitos, rats, termites, deers, ants, etc etc which meet painful demise by humans as sentient animals while making exceptions for a few?

It is not generally seen as morally acceptable to crush/kill a dog under the same circumstances that you would crush/swat a mosquito, so there needs to be some differentiation between these two in law. Both have protections, but the dog has more protections because it has been put in the category of sentient creatures.

It’s worth noting that both rats and deers on your list are already classed as sentient in the existing legislation passed in May (at least as far as I can tell, as it covered all vertebrates), and it’s clear that from a practical standpoint ants, termites and mosquitos need to be treated differently.

Above all else though it’s a legal definition rather than a social or biological distinction.

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

#376

Post by ramblerman »

emptysongglass wrote: post #307
tagrun wrote: post #288

Not trying to argue it's OK to subject animals to unnecessary pain (it shouldn't be!), but from a pure logical consistency standpoint, are there many non-sentient animals? Why is it OK to not recognize mosquitos, rats, termites, deers, ants, etc etc which meet painful demise by humans as sentient animals while making exceptions for a few?

According to the Buddha, one should not kill any sentient being, sentient being defined as made up of the five skandhas: matter, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness. I had a very easy time following this rule until my houseplants were attacked by spider mites and almost simultaneously my rats attacked by a different species of mites. How does one watch the beings (I don't apply "being" to the p…

> Evil men will do evil deeds but to get a good man to do evil deeds takes religion.

I'm kind of surprised that this is a dillema for you. I.e. that you would rather watch the pets under your care, potentially in a confinement you placed them in get eaten up by mites, than intervene.

And that the driving force for that inaction is somehow compassion. It sounds more like confusion.

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

#377

Post by kataklasm »

post_from_work wrote: post #281
deanCommie wrote: post #269

Context: I'm not a hypocrite. I eat a lot of meat. I would put very strong money down that by the time most people reading these comments are in an old folks home with their grandchildren, the vast majority of the population will consider consumption of all meat unethical. I don't think it will be illegal yet (just extremely regulated, and expensive - not the least bit because the carbon footprint of meat production…

>>>And they'll ask us uncomfortable questions we won't have good answers for. Didn't you know about the health risks at the amounts you were consuming? Yup. Didn't care. Bacon-wrapped filet mignon tastes THAT good. Some things are worth the risk. Like driving too fast, riding motorcycles, or skydiving. >>>Didn't you know about the carbon footprint? Same answer here... >>>Most importantly, didn't you have ample eviden…

yikes.

Bacon-wrapped filet mignon is worth sacrificing the only planet we have? You don't care about your carbon emissions at all? We are introducing such big amounts of greenhouse gasses just from our consumerism lifestyle and the convenience of it all is big enough to just "[not] care". And then you brag about having eating dogs like this post couldn't get any worse. When this is the mindset and opinion of average people, which I'm pretty sure it is then we're at a loss for fixing this mess we're in.

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

#379

Post by jkepler »

RansomStark wrote: post #356
gruez wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does an arduino have sentience? It can certainly sense stuff via its gpio pins. As for "feelings", I don't know, would having a state machine that transitions between "happy" and "sad" based on gpio inputs count?

That's an interesting question, or at least it might be in the future, as it cuts right to the heart of what it means to be alive. Right now no, an Arduino can't be sentient because it's not alive. If at some future point an Arduino could tick all the "is alive" boxes [0]: - homeostasis - organisation - metabolism - growth - adaptation - response - reproduction Then yes, there would be a good case for the Arduino bei…

> The definitions although seemingly scientific are simply a re-enforcement of the biblical idea that the world was created for us, and that we can essentially do as we please . . .

That's a historic misinterpretation of biblical teaching on the place of people on the world. Genesis 1 gives humanity dominion over the creation, but given that Genesis 2 parallels that command with the twin verbs, "tend and keep" (or sometimes "guard and defend"), the idea can't permit wanton destruction[1]. Rather, humans, made in the image of God the King, have a royal calling to work for the flourishing of life in all the earth.

We're called, not to do as we please, but to do what pleases the Creator. Thus, Proverbs speaks of the tender mercy of a righteous person towards his or her animals, and contrasts it with the cruelty of the wicked. Deuteronomy's rules for warfare forbid destroying fruit trees, for they're the means of sustaining life.

Historically speaking, many of the evangelical Christians who joined Wilberforce to campaign against British slavery also started the first humaine societies, anti-child-labor groups, and the first women's rights organizations.

The Bible calls humanity to compassionate care for all life, including plants, animals and unborn humans.

[1] Lynn White's essay, The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis (1967. Science 155: 1203-1207), contributed to this idea that Christianity caused our ecological crisis. However, Francis Schaeffer's 1970 book in responce to White's essay, Pollution and the Death of Man, explains the Bible's actual teaching on humanity's calling to steward creation for God's glory.

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