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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

#41

Post by crusso »

swombat wrote: post #14
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…

Their view is not that intelligence makes your life more worthwhile, but that there is a threshold of species intelligence which makes that species "persons". Note the focus on a species, rather than individuals.

When cetaceans let us know that they will mutually honor some sort of Interspecies Protective Treaty, I will be the first in line to support the move that they should have similar protections to people.

Until then, I don't want to see such beautiful intelligent creatures harmed -- but murder/manslaughter charges would be inappropriate if one were inadvertently killed.

The current animal protection/endangered species protection rules are sufficient.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#42

Post by jlgreco »

brink wrote: post #36
dharmach wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your opinion is correct but don't drag Christianity here. Christianity did enough violence on the name of non-violent Jesus. Better you talk of universal human values.

He has the right to talk about whatever he likes. This is an open discussion.

I don't think he was asserting he lacked the right, merely suggesting that he refrain from exercising it.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#43

Post by duck »

w1ntermute wrote: post #25
jawns wrote: post #15

I'd be a lot more sympathetic to the cause of treating dolphins as if they had human rights if we first agreed to treat all humans as if they had human rights.

Yep, slavery exists to this day in many parts of Africa and India. That should be our first concern.

To be clear, it exists in most/all countries, even here in the states thanks to human trafficking.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#44

Post by slowpoke »

w1ntermute wrote: post #25
jawns wrote: post #15

I'd be a lot more sympathetic to the cause of treating dolphins as if they had human rights if we first agreed to treat all humans as if they had human rights.

Yep, slavery exists to this day in many parts of Africa and India. That should be our first concern.

Our first, yes, but not our only. Otherwise, dolphins and whales might be extinct soon. There's nothing preventing you from supporting both, say, Amnesty International and Sea Sheperd, or Médecins Sans Frontières and Greenpeace - or all of them. This is not a binary decision.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#45

Post by jlgreco »

sethbannon wrote: post #37
njl wrote: post #27

I'm very comfortable with this in the general case; I feel guilty eating bacon because pigs seem pretty smart. Still, rights always come paired up with responsibilities. Do we then try dolphins for rape or murder? Rather than saying certain categories of animals should have the same rights as humans, maybe we'd be better off saying certain categories of animals deserve a higher level of ethical and legal consideratio…

A 10 month old has no responsibilities. Certainly, though, she has rights.

A rather limited set of rights to be sure. Children, unless emancipated, lack a great deal of the rights that adults enjoy.

Perhaps this is the best way to legally consider dolphins. They have approximately the same rights as human children, until any one of them decides to ask for more.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#46

Post by sethammons »

TomGullen wrote: post #21

> It is based on years of research that has shown dolphins and whales have large, complex brains and a human-like level of self-awareness How did they conclude dolphins and whales are self-aware comparatively to humans? That seems like quite a large claim to make and the argument significantly hinges on this. I wasn't aware of any scientific method to prove self awareness.

A program a watched a long time ago showed researchers working with dolphins. They would draw something with a marker on the side of the dolphin, and then it would race to an underwater mirror and contort its body to view the mark. The researchers said that this demonstrated self-awareness. As for being compared to humans, meh. I donno.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#48

Post by crusso »

sethbannon wrote: post #35

I applaud this. It's time we stop drawing the line of where rights begin and end at the species barrier and start taking a characteristics based approach. What are the characteristics of a human that lead us to say one should have rights? If other species share those characteristics, they too should be granted those rights.

As a species, humans agree to basic rules of conduct that form an implied Social Contract.

Can any non-human species do that?

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#49

Post by Jach »

swombat wrote: post #12
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.

I think it could easily be argued that the dolphins' way of life is more sustainable than ours... Probably not the best line of argument!

In the long term? No way. Only humans have the potential to spread themselves off this rock and throughout the solar system and beyond. Dolphins are limited to where we take them.

Re: Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

#50

Post by mmahemoff »

TomGullen wrote: post #21

> It is based on years of research that has shown dolphins and whales have large, complex brains and a human-like level of self-awareness How did they conclude dolphins and whales are self-aware comparatively to humans? That seems like quite a large claim to make and the argument significantly hinges on this. I wasn't aware of any scientific method to prove self awareness.

You also need scientific experiments in order to argue that humans are self-aware. Indeed, young humans aren't self-aware, hence Piaget's classic experiments on development to show the emegence of self-awareness.

The article does allude to a couple of experiments in the article ("pass" option if they can't answer a question, self-recognition in a mirror). I agree it needs to be studied in more depth to make these assumptions and certainly to confer new rights.

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