Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons' • Hacker News Board

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#71

Post by jacquesm » Mon, Jan 04, 2010, 1:19 PM UTC

brl wrote: post #64

jacquesm wrote: post #21

Personally I think it would be great if humans started treating other humans categorically in an ethical way. 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.

To me this is quite obviously a very related issue. As long as people refuse to recognize the moral interests of animals, it is not logically consistent for them to respect moral obligations to other humans. The moral distinction between animals and humans is a completely arbitrary prejudice and should be immediately identified as such by anybody with even a basic understanding of evolutionary biology. Humans are ani…

> Humans are animals.

I wished that was a universally accepted truth, alas that is very much not the case (not in the least in the US).

Somehow we seem to have gotten it in to our heads that we are special instead of simply evolved.

And then there are subsets of all humans that think that they in turn are even more special. Go figure...

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#72

Post by jerf » Mon, Jan 04, 2010, 4:17 PM UTC

ugh wrote: post #46

jerf wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rights come with obligations; those who can't discharge those obligations get their rights taken from them. That's not a moral statement, either; that's a descriptive statement of what the current situation is. That is the way it is because it must be that way. Rights are, ultimately, the power to draw on the resources of others in the society (even "the right to free speech" is nothing more and nothing less than the…

Well, a nice definition of rights, but also one I don’t share. In my mind rights don’t come with obligations, and I would argue that many (for example) constitutions share that definition with me. (I know the German one does. It’s less clear with the US constitution but in context I would say it does – you know, all the talk about inalienable rights and stuff.) It’s kinda pointless to argue about definitions so I’ll…

It's not a definitional matter. You can't have a right if nobody is obligated to honor it. Someone can walk up to you and say you have the right to free speech, but if in fact you say something the government doesn't like, you get tossed in jail, and nobody defends you, including the government, then you don't have the right to free speech, no matter how much you are told you do.

Mistaking being told you have rights for actually having rights is extraordinarily dangerous. An amazing number of so-called "rights" enshrined in Constitutions around the world are of this nature, and it's both sad and funny when somebody waves around, say, the Chinese constitution [1] and claims that it actually means that the Chinese have free speech (article 35) or freedom of religious belief (article 36), both of which are transparently false. People have died or been imprisoned for life for making that mistake. You may have the "right", but nobody has the obligations... so you in fact do not have the right. Just words.

(One of the great innovations of the Anglo-Saxon legal system was not just saying the word "right", but taking it seriously. Many countries around the world have learned how to say the word "right", far fewer have actually discovered how to follow up on it.)

[1] http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/constitution/constitution.... - in fact this entire document is a steaming pile of bullshit rights that don't actually exist.

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#73

Post by Locke1689 » Mon, Jan 04, 2010, 7:14 PM UTC

davepeck wrote: post #12

Locke1689 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We make moral judgements to the contrary every day. Our implicit acceptance that humans are "worth more" than other animals acknowledges both an innate desire to defend one's own species over all others, but also that a heirarchy of superiority. For example, you would object to a massacre of puppies but would not over a massacre of bacteria. The question lies in how you decide superiority. Thr religious tend to belie…

> I define my heirarchy by the ability of the species to comprehend the universe and its disruptiveness to other species. This is probably equally arbitrary, but it has at least some logic behind it. I have a very similar view of the world, and when a friend tried to get me (last night!) to put it on firm logical footing, I was unable to. Why should our ability to comprehend the universe be the yardstick by which we…

Well, if you're not religious then any foundation must be arbitrary. With no religious presence, the universe has no fundamental meaning or purpose. Therefore, there is no underlying truth or morality that grounds our existence or any other being's existence.

As to why the capability to accumulate knowledge is my ultimate goal, one would turn to my belief that knowledge is the ultimate goal. In essence, I believe that knowledge is something which is unequivocally good in every and all instances. The choices we make with that knowledge are our own, but knowledge in and of itself is purely positive -- one of the few things that I think are. Therefore the pursuit of knowledge is a good and noble endeavor. As Asimov says, "[t]here is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere."

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#74

Post by Locke1689 » Mon, Jan 04, 2010, 7:19 PM UTC

netcan wrote: post #43

Locke1689 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We make moral judgements to the contrary every day. Our implicit acceptance that humans are "worth more" than other animals acknowledges both an innate desire to defend one's own species over all others, but also that a heirarchy of superiority. For example, you would object to a massacre of puppies but would not over a massacre of bacteria. The question lies in how you decide superiority. Thr religious tend to belie…

I think you are going backwards & trying to find rational justification for how you feel or act already. Why is average intelligence for the species you basic qualifier? Why not intelligence of the individual? I think we are fundamentally speciest and there is no way around it.

Intelligence of the individual matters equally. It just so happens that individuals of a species have intelligences which tend to clump about the species mean fairly closely (low standard deviation).

I think we are fundamentally speciest and there is no way around it.

Of course we are; that's an evolutionary necessity. Even discarding that, to believe that anything is inherently "wrong" or "right" must be based on some fairly arbitrary code if you don't have a god to back you up. Without religion, there is no universal morality, thus some arbitrary decision must be made. The only difference is how arbitrary and what logic is based upon that.

Re: Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'

#75

Post by netcan » Mon, Jan 04, 2010, 10:54 PM UTC

Locke1689 wrote: post #74

netcan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are going backwards & trying to find rational justification for how you feel or act already. Why is average intelligence for the species you basic qualifier? Why not intelligence of the individual? I think we are fundamentally speciest and there is no way around it.

Intelligence of the individual matters equally. It just so happens that individuals of a species have intelligences which tend to clump about the species mean fairly closely (low standard deviation). I think we are fundamentally speciest and there is no way around it. Of course we are; that's an evolutionary necessity. Even discarding that, to believe that anything is inherently "wrong" or "right" must be based on so…

It just so happens that individuals of a species have intelligences which tend to clump about the species mean fairly closely (low standard deviation).

How about babies? Anyway, would you advocate that outliers with low intelligence should be considered morally inferior?