04 Oct 10
1 edit
Originally posted by KellyJayLook, I'm not going to sift through your dung heap of a post. I grow tired of playing correspondence to your blitz. The questions you ask have been answered. Read the previous page again.
I read it, and I think it is a meaningless point, I use a knife and fork it does not
change what I am doing. I would not eat anything I didn't want to eat simply
because I'm using a knife and fork. I can take you to different parts of the world
where people are eating all manner of creatures from insects to all manner of
animals, and they are not using rushing of teeth and so
on either, can I get answers from you on those questions?
Kelly
04 Oct 10
1 edit
Originally posted by Green Paladin“...I think emotion is an appropriate response to animal abuse. ...”But I find your reasoning for it rather over-emotional and completely over-the-top.
I think emotion is an appropriate response to animal abuse. It's only speciesism and compartmentalisation that cause others to respond differently.
The main reason for cooking meat is not to “disguise” it but to make it easier to digest.[/quot nk killing a fly is as 'bad' as as murdering a human?
Are flies sentient?
Yes, but if the animal has been given a good life and then was killed painlessly then that is not animal “abuse”.
"...How do you explain the revulsion that most people feel at the idea of killing and eating an animal in the way Plutarch described? Do you attribute this to the fear of indigestion? ..."
No I do not. Most people would not be comfortable with the idea of eating meat raw and that doesn't change the fact that the main reason for cooking meat is not to “disguise” it but to make it easier to digest becuase, generally, it IS easier to digest cooked.
“...chickens are forced into slave labour: the product of which is their bodies....”
What slave “labour” are they forced to do to make their own bodies other than eat with they will do anyway?
I can believe there is often animal cruelty in many meat-farm methods which I am against but that doesn't change the fact it is possible to have meat-production without animal cruelty.
“...Are flies sentient? ...”
Are chickens sentient?
There are good reasons to go vegi but these are not it.
04 Oct 10
Originally posted by Green Paladin“...Humans are animals, Kelly. ...”We don't use our teeth and hands like animals, we use our brains it isn't a disassociation or abstraction. So you do only eat plants you don't use tools either?Do you cloth yourself too, do you drive a car for travel, do you live in a cave and only eat what you can pick or pull from the earth? Come on get real here!
The point was not wh ...[text shortened]... posts? I, like Singer, believe that those animals that can suffer should be accorded value.
Yes, and most animals are not humans with a human ability to comprehend and fear that they might die next month etc.
05 Oct 10
Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
“...I think emotion is an appropriate response to animal abuse. ...”
Yes, but if the animal has been given a good life and then was killed painlessly then that is not animal “abuse”.
"...How do you explain the revulsion that most people feel at the idea of killing and eating an animal in the way Plutarch described? Do you attribute this to the ...[text shortened]... ? ...”
Are chickens sentient?
There are good reasons to go vegi but these are not it.
Yes, but if the animal has been given a good life and then was killed painlessly then that is not animal “abuse”.
Animals have interests, none of which include having their lives prematurely curtailed and their flesh divided up, ending up on the end of a fork. You make it sound like animal agriculture is some sort of hospitality industry where animals would gladly trade in their lives for being put up for a while. Where as long as you end up replacing the animal with another of its kind there is no moral transgression. This specious argument has tones of the "inscrutability of Chinamen" about it: "Well, they all look the same" and seems to rest on ignorance and discrimination. There is nothing fundamentally different between our pets and farm animals yet very few people would consider their pets replaceable. We know that they have distinct personalities, emotional states and rational ability. We love and respect the one but eat the other.
The images we are fed by the media of cows grazing beatifically in rolling pastures ostensibly impatient to be eaten is a gross fiction. Traditional farms, while certainly better than factory farms, are the scenes of "branding, castration, dehorning, tail docking, separation of mothers from young, diseases, parasitic infestations, predation, and [of course] slaughter" (Fox 1999:169).
No I do not. Most people would not be comfortable with the idea of eating meat raw and that doesn't change the fact that the main reason for cooking meat is not to “disguise” it but to make it easier to digest becuase, generally, it IS easier to digest cooked.
Whether digestibility is the "main reason" for cooking meat is neither here nor there. The fact is that cooking does disguise meat through abstraction - and this was Plutarch's point. There are other omnivores that do not cook their food with functioning digestive systems. Are ours dissimilar to theirs?
As an aside, let's say you did prove your point (and as I have noted this wouldn't disprove mine). You actually found some evidence that the "main reason" for cooking meat was so that we could digest it. Wouldn't that further the argument for vegetarianism?
What slave “labour” are they forced to do to make their own bodies other than eat with they will do anyway?
You were incredulous when I analogised factory farms to Auschwitz-Birkenau using the mechanisation of death as a contact point. However, your criticism only served to strengthen my analogy: they are culled using gas and "enslaved" against their interests in the most appalling conditions. Do you really think chickens, in their natural environment, just stand around all day? Chickens engage in dust-bathing, preening, searching for food, laying eggs (about 20 seasonally), perching, courtship, etc. - you know, regular chicken stuff.
In factory farms chickens' beaks are seared off with a hot blade because they are packed so close together that they start to peck at each other; they are housed in tiers with the ones above defecating on those below; they have been selectively bred to produce 300 eggs a year and so much more flesh that they have trouble walking. Many never leave the building until the day they are taken to be slaughtered. We are at the point that chickens' bodies are on the verge of biological collapse and the sheer scale and intensity of the violence is increasing each year. Life for a chicken really is "nasty, brutish, and short".
I can believe there is often animal cruelty in many meat-farm methods which I am against but that doesn't change the fact it is possible to have meat-production without animal cruelty.
Animals are not property nor are they a resource to be exploited or managed.
Are chickens sentient?
Yes. http://www.upc-online.org/thinking/sentient.html
Yes, and most animals are not humans with a human ability to comprehend and fear that they might die next month etc.
I've already alluded to this when I mentioned our greater capacity for suffering.
There are good reasons to go vegi but these are not it.
I'm sorry my arguments fail to convince you. I'm not sure on which one of us that reflects more poorly.
05 Oct 10
Originally posted by Green PaladinI'll take that one, Kelly, if you don't mind. First off, let's get the semantics out of the way: Humans are in the kingdom Animalia, but for purposes of this post, they are differentg. Yes, a human being ("a", as in "one"😉 is worth more than many animals. Not EVERY animal--you could postulate some ridiculous impossible situation where every animal on earth died and it would mess up the ecosystem so badly that we (the humans) would die as a result. But, in common sense terms, one human = any number of animals when it comes to keeping a human alive. If baboon heart-to-humans transplants had been successful, there would be farms of baboons as far as the eye could see in parts of the country, and you could probably get one as easily as you could get a $20 bill from your ATM. And rightly so. A human life is more important than that of any animal. (This doesn't mean I'm for killing whales to get proucts for an expensive perfume, or crippling sharks just so some fatcat can eat a weak soup with a fin in it.) I'm talking only about life/death issues. If chimps blood could cure Alzheimer's, AIDS, etc, but it would require testing that would kill chimps, it's more than worth it.You are warped in my opinion if you think animals are on the same level as any human being. They are living creatures but every human no matter the sex or the color they are worth more to me than any number of animals.
I've just had a closer look at this comment. What exactly do you mean here? You seem to be saying, "Even if you account ...[text shortened]... rson, such as race or gender, a human is still worth any number of animals." Is this correct?
06 Oct 10
Originally posted by Andrew HamiltonSo in your opinion there is really no difference between humans and other animals
“...Humans are animals, Kelly. ...”
Yes, and most animals are not humans with a human ability to comprehend and fear that they might die next month etc.
with respect to value? Not trying to be insulting, trying to figure out how you
view things, Pally wouldn't answer that.
Kelly
07 Oct 10
1 edit
Originally posted by Green Paladin“....Animals have interests ...”Yes, but if the animal has been given a good life and then was killed painlessly then that is not animal “abuse”.
Animals have interests, none of which include having their lives prematurely curtailed and their flesh divided up, ending up on the end of a fork. You make it sound like animal agriculture is some sort of hospitality industr onvince you. I'm not sure on which one of us that reflects more poorly.
What does that mean? That is rather vague.
“...You make it sound like animal agriculture is some sort of hospitality industry where animals would gladly trade in their lives for being put up for a while. Where as long as you end up replacing the animal with another of its kind there is no moral transgression. This specious argument ...”
That was not my argument. That is not my position.
“...As an aside, let's say you did prove your point (and as I have noted this wouldn't disprove mine). You actually found some evidence that the "main reason" for cooking meat was so that we could digest it. Wouldn't that further the argument for vegetarianism? ...”
No, because it is irrelevant.
“...they are culled using gas and "enslaved" against their interests ...”
What exactly do you mean by “ "enslaved" against their interests”?
“...Animals are not property nor are they a resource to be exploited or managed. ...”
That is a highly subjective assertion. Can you somehow show 'evidence' or 'logic' to support this assertion?
“...Are chickens sentient?
Yes. http://www.upc-online.org/thinking/sentient.html ...”
Err, that doesn't demonstrate that they are sentient:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience
“...Sentience is used in the study of consciousness to describe the ability to have sensations or experiences, known to Western philosophers as "qualia". ...”
I can make some robots and give each one its own apparent 'personality' (differences in behaviour responders ) and scream “ouch!” if damaged and show many other apparent 'signs' of 'awareness' but it would not be aware of anything! The observed behaviour of an animal cannot be used as proof or evidence that an animal is aware of its own sensations and emotions; how could you know that those “ sensations and emotions” are just automatic physiological responses/states (similar to the automatic behaviour from a programmed robot ) that the animal is not consciously aware of?
We only know that the similar behaviour of humans corresponds to awareness because each of us experiences such awareness so that it is an empirical fact that we humans have such awareness but that does not mean that similar behaviour observed in animals must correspond to similar awareness.
07 Oct 10
Originally posted by KellyJay“...So in your opinion there is really no difference between humans and other animals
So in your opinion there is really no difference between humans and other animals
with respect to value? Not trying to be insulting, trying to figure out how you
view things, Pally wouldn't answer that.
Kelly
with respect to value? ...”
What! I am saying the exact opposite!
Although the “value” is, admittedly, subjective, I never-a-less put a much greater 'value' on a human life than that of an animal (esp if that animal has a tiny brain such as a fly etc ).
07 Oct 10
Originally posted by Andrew HamiltonThank you
“...So in your opinion there is really no difference between humans and other animals
with respect to value? ...”
What! I am saying the exact opposite!
Although the “value” is, admittedly, subjective, I never-a-less put a much greater 'value' on a human life than that of an animal (esp if that animal has a tiny brain such as a fly etc ).
Kelly
08 Oct 10
Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
“....Animals have interests ...”
What does that mean? That is rather vague.
“...You make it sound like animal agriculture is some sort of hospitality industry where animals would gladly trade in their lives for being put up for a while. Where as long as you end up replacing the animal with another of its kind there is no moral transgression. Th ...[text shortened]... imilar behaviour observed in animals must correspond to similar awareness.
What does that mean? That is rather vague.
Nonhuman animals have an interest to carry on living, an interest to not be confined, and an interest to not suffer - just like human animals. Their interests are to carry out their species-specific behaviour that 3.8 billion years of evolution has provided them with.
No, because it is irrelevant.
You're right about that!
What exactly do you mean by “ "enslaved" against their interests?
See above.
That is a highly subjective assertion. Can you somehow show 'evidence' or 'logic' to support this assertion?
The burden of proof rests with you to prove that animals are property. And appeals to our historical exploitation of nonhuman animals don't pass muster as Feminism and the Civil Rights movement have shown.
Err, that doesn't demonstrate that they are sentient:
Seriously? The professional opinion of a poultry ethologist is not good enough?
"Sentience is the ability to feel or perceive ... the ability to have sensations or experiences."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience
"Q: Can chickens and turkeys feel pain?
A: Absolutely. It is indisputable that poultry are capable of feeling pain. All poultry species are sentient vertebrates and all the available evidence shows that they have a very similar range of feelings as mammalian species. Poultry can suffer by feeling pain, fear and stress."
http://www.upc-online.org/thinking/sentient.html
QED
I can make some robots and give each one its own apparent 'personality' (differences in behaviour responders ) and scream “ouch!” if damaged and show many other apparent 'signs' of 'awareness' but it would not be aware of anything! The observed behaviour of an animal cannot be used as proof or evidence that an animal is aware of its own sensations and emotions; how could you know that those “ sensations and emotions” are just automatic physiological responses/states (similar to the automatic behaviour from a programmed robot ) that the animal is not consciously aware of?
We only know that the similar behaviour of humans corresponds to awareness because each of us experiences such awareness so that it is an empirical fact that we humans have such awareness but that does not mean that similar behaviour observed in animals must correspond to similar awareness.
So now you're going to go with this line of solipsistic argument? This is the kind of thinking that Dr Johnson would refute with his big toe. I expect that you spend your free time campaigning to have that farcical British institution, the RSPCA, abolished.
Many factors point to nonhuman animals feeling pain: "writhing, facial contortions, moaning, yelping or other forms of calling, attempts to avoid the source of the pain, appearance of fear at the prospect of its repetition, and so on"; unlike robots, sentient creatures' brains are organic having developed along an evolutionary path in which the ability to feel pain confers survival advantages; similar physiological reactions as human animals including "an initial rise of blood pressure, dilated pupils, perspiration, an increased pulse rate, and, if the stimulus continues, a fall in blood pressure".
"To say that they feel less because they are lower animals is an absurdity; it can easily be shown that many of their senses are far more acute that ours--visual acuity in certain birds, hearing in most wild animals, and touch in others; these animals depend more than we do today on the sharpest possible awareness of a hostile environment."
http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer03.htm
08 Oct 10
1 edit
Originally posted by Green Paladin“...Nonhuman animals have an interest to carry on living, an interest to not be confined, and an interest to not suffer - just like human animals ...”What does that mean? That is rather vague.
Nonhuman animals have an interest to carry on living, an interest to not be confined, and an interest to not suffer - just like human animals. Their interests are to carry out their species-specific behaviour that 3.8 billion years of evolution has provided them with.
[quote]No, because it i ent."
http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer03.htm
Again, you use of the word “interest” is vague.
It can be said, I think without being too vague, that they have evolved to have a predisposition to behave in certain ways that, within the typical environment they live in, maximise their chances of survival. -but what exactly does it mean to say “animals have an “interest” to carry on living”? -they evolved to have a predisposition to behave in certain ways that help them survive but, “interest” in living? In what way is it in their “interest” to live? In what way do they 'need' to live? A human wants to live and so you could say that they have an emotional 'need' to live, but, the typical animal (possibly excluding the really intelligent ones such as some of the whales and some of the higher primates) are unlikely to have any concept of death and so they do not have an emotional 'need' to 'live'. The reason why a rabbit runs from a fox is not because of fear of 'death' but because of blind instinct.
“...Their interests are to carry out their species-specific behaviour that 3.8 billion years of evolution has provided them with. ...”
You have some strange ideas; in what sense is it 'in their interest' to do what they have evolved to have a predisposition to do?
-I mean, do they get some sort of mystical 'reward' from evolution merely by staying alive and passing on their genes?
“...The burden of proof rests with you to prove that animals are property. ...”
Whether you define something as 'property' is a matter of legality and definition of what you mean by “property” and how you 'should' define a word such as “property” is highly subjective and a definition cannot be “proven” nor “dis-proven”.
“...And appeals to our historical exploitation of nonhuman animals don't pass muster as Feminism and the Civil Rights movement have shown. ...”
There is no rational connection; there is no evidence that most animals (excluding humans) are aware of their own emotional states of their brain so there is no obvious reason why we 'should' give them the same legal rights as the rest of us.
“...Err, that doesn't demonstrate that they are sentient:
Seriously? The professional opinion of a poultry ethologist is not good enough?
"Sentience is the ability to feel or perceive ... the ability to have sensations or experiences."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience
"Q: Can chickens and turkeys feel pain?
A: Absolutely. It is indisputable that poultry are capable of feeling pain. All poultry species are sentient vertebrates and all the available evidence shows that they have a very similar range of feelings as mammalian species. Poultry can suffer by FEELING pain, fear and stress." ...” (my emphasis)
Yes, I read that, and it is pseudo-science. So exactly what evidence can there be that “Poultry can suffer by FEELING pain, fear and stress.” -now think about this VERY carefully before answering this! -how can you have evidence of what an animal is actually “FEELING”? Answer, you can't. Science can only observe an animal's behaviour and physiological responses BUT real science can NOT show “evidence” of what they are “FEELING”!
“...unlike robots, sentient creatures' brains are organic...”
-which is irrelevant; what difference does it make what the brain is made of? Exactly how does the brain being “organic” help it to have “awareness” or “feelings” etc. Can you explain the causal connection in detail of how the brain being organic can cause it to be able to have “awareness” or “feelings”?
“.... having developed along an evolutionary path in which the ability to FEEL pain confers survival advantages;...” (my emphasis)
There may be a physiological state of the brain that analogously corresponds to what we would call “pain” in an animal such as a fly when it is injured but it does not logically follow that it must “FEEL” that brain state that analogously corresponds to what we would call “pain”. In other words, it may have no conscious awareness of any kind of “pain” even if, through blind instinct, it is taking avoidance action.
“....similar physiological reactions as human animals including "an initial rise of blood pressure, dilated pupils, perspiration, an increased pulse rate, and, if the stimulus continues, a fall in blood pressure". ...”
That does not mean that when a non-human animal has/does any of these things that it is consciously AWARE of having fear or pain; how would you know that all these physiological and behavioural responses are not just something the non-human animal has evolved to do automatically and with NO conscious awareness of what it is doing? -just because these physiological and behavioural responses in humans corresponds to states of awareness of pain etc. does not logically mean that the same must be true for all non-human animals.
“..."To say that they feel less because they are lower animals is an absurdity ...”
To talk about an animal being a “lower” animal is a bit vague so I am not sure what is meant by this but, having said that, I would intuitively find it hard to imagine that an animal such as a nematode which has a microscopically small brain with just a few thousand cells has a brain with the capacity and necessary sophistication and complexity to have conscious awareness of its own brain states such as 'fear' and 'pain'. And what about those animal microbes that have a singe brain cell as a whole brain? Can they have a brain that has the necessary sophistication and complexity to have conscious awareness of its own brain states such as 'fear' and 'pain' even though their brains only have one-cell?
There is absolutely no scientific evidence that most non-human animals have any kind of “awareness” or “mind” no matter what behaviour is observed in them. Obviously, just because there is no evidence of such a thing doesn't mean no animal has some kind of “mind” or “awareness” but science can only study what it can observe and any “science” that says it has “evidence” for the existence of “feelings” or “awareness” or “mind” in non-human animals is not real science but pure pseudo-science.
Perhaps this will help to explain what I am talking about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism
09 Oct 10
1 edit
Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
“...Nonhuman animals have an interest to carry on living, an interest to not be confined, and an interest to not suffer - just like human animals ...”
Again, you use of the word “interest” is vague.
It can be said, I think without being too vague, that they have evolved to have a predisposition to behave in certain ways that, within the typical e ing about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaviorism
Again, you use of the word “interest” is vague.
It can be said, I think without being too vague, that they have evolved to have a predisposition to behave in certain ways that, within the typical environment they live in, maximise their chances of survival. -but what exactly does it mean to say “animals have an “interest” to carry on living”? -they evolved to have a predisposition to behave in certain ways that help them survive but, “interest” in living? In what way is it in their “interest” to live? In what way do they 'need' to live? A human wants to live and so you could say that they have an emotional 'need' to live, but, the typical animal (possibly excluding the really intelligent ones such as some of the whales and some of the higher primates) are unlikely to have any concept of death and so they do not have an emotional 'need' to 'live'. The reason why a rabbit runs from a fox is not because of fear of 'death' but because of blind instinct.
For someone who claims that the innermost feelings and states of mind of nonhuman animals is unknowable you take a bewilderingly strong position on them.
You have some strange ideas; in what sense is it 'in their interest' to do what they have evolved to have a predisposition to do?
-I mean, do they get some sort of mystical 'reward' from evolution merely by staying alive and passing on their genes?
Do human animals have interests? Did we evolve? Do we exhibit species-typical behaviour whose frustration results in suffering? What categorical distinction applies to human animals that doesn't apply to nonhuman animals? Your second question doesn't deserve being answered.
There is no rational connection; there is no evidence that most animals (excluding humans) are aware of their own emotional states of their brain so there is no obvious reason why we 'should' give them the same legal rights as the rest of us.
So should mentally deficient humans qualify for moral consideration? How about infants? Do you deny that they can feel pain? Should we restrain babies' heads and place ovencleaner in their eyes like we do to rabbits? Should we shock them with electricity and then irradiate and gas them like we do monkeys? Or place them in steel isolation chambers the minute they are born in an effort to induce psychopathy? Should we eat them?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draize_test
Yes, I read that, and it is pseudo-science. So exactly what evidence can there be that “Poultry can suffer by FEELING pain, fear and stress.” -now think about this VERY carefully before answering this! -how can you have evidence of what an animal is actually “FEELING”? Answer, you can't. Science can only observe an animal's behaviour and physiological responses BUT real science can NOT show “evidence” of what they are “FEELING”!
The professional opinion of a poultry ethologist is pseudoscience? The only pseudoscience at work here is your requirement for the evidence of the emotional states of nonhuman animals. "[H]ow can you have evidence of what an animal is actually “FEELING”? Answer, you can't": this is unfalsifiable. How do we know that anyone else besides ourselves feel emotion? You may as well be arguing for a brain-in-a-vat scenario.
-which is irrelevant; what difference does it make what the brain is made of? Exactly how does the brain being “organic” help it to have “awareness” or “feelings” etc. Can you explain the causal connection in detail of how the brain being organic can cause it to be able to have “awareness” or “feelings”?
I notice that you try to protect your position by requiring me to "explain ... in detail" how consciousness arises in organic life forms; something not even neuroscientists or philosophers of mind are capable of doing.
"Although human beings have a more developed cerebral cortex than other animals, this part of the brain is concerned with thinking functions rather than with basic impulses, emotions, and feelings. These impulses, emotions, and feelings are located in the diencephalon, which is well developed in many other species of animals, especially mammals and birds.
We also know that the nervous systems of other animals were not artificially constructed--as a robot might be artificially constructed--to mimic the pain behavior of humans. The nervous systems of animals evolved as our own did, and in fact the evolutionary history of human beings and other animals, especially mammals, did not diverge until the central features of our nervous systems were already in existence. A capacity to feel pain obviously enhances a species' prospects for survival, since it causes members of the species to avoid sources of injury. It is surely unreasonable to suppose that nervous systems that are virtually identical physiologically, have a common origin and a common evolutionary function, and result in similar forms of behavior in similar circumstances should actually operate in an entirely different manner on the level of subjective feelings." [My emphasis]
http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer03.htm
There may be a physiological state of the brain that analogously corresponds to what we would call “pain” in an animal such as a fly when it is injured but it does not logically follow that it must “FEEL” that brain state that analogously corresponds to what we would call “pain”. In other words, it may have no conscious awareness of any kind of “pain” even if, through blind instinct, it is taking avoidance action.
I specifically excluded flies from this conversation about sentience. Remember? I'm talking about vertebrate life forms with nervous systems similar to human animals.
That does not mean that when a non-human animal has/does any of these things that it is consciously AWARE of having fear or pain; how would you know that all these physiological and behavioural responses are not just something the non-human animal has evolved to do automatically and with NO conscious awareness of what it is doing? -just because these physiological and behavioural responses in humans corresponds to states of awareness of pain etc. does not logically mean that the same must be true for all non-human animals.
I'm not talking about "all non-human animals" (as you know) but only those ones that we have very good reason to believe experience pain.
To talk about an animal being a “lower” animal is a bit vague so I am not sure what is meant by this but, having said that, I would intuitively find it hard to imagine that an animal such as a nematode which has a microscopically small brain with just a few thousand cells has a brain with the capacity and necessary sophistication and complexity to have conscious awareness of its own brain states such as 'fear' and 'pain'. Can they have a brain that has the necessary sophistication and complexity to have conscious awareness of its own brain states such as 'fear' and 'pain' even though their brains only have one-cell?
There is absolutely no scientific evidence that most non-human animals have any kind of “awareness” or “mind” no matter what behaviour is observed in them. Obviously, just because there is no evidence of such a thing doesn't mean no animal has some kind of “mind” or “awareness” but science can only study what it can observe and any “science” that says it has “evidence” for the existence of “feelings” or “awareness” or “mind” in non-human animals is not real science but pure pseudo-science.
Human metacognitive ability is not necessary to experience basic emotions like pain. Have you considered that being able to rationalise their experience enables human animals to cope better with pain than nonhuman animals?
The anthropocentric requirement that nonhuman animals be like humans to have moral status is just the sort of thinking that motivates sexists, racists and homophobes: why can't they be more like me? Man is not the measure of all things. Nonhuman animals are just that; and they have just as much right to carry out their lives according to their nature as humans have to carry out theirs. The morally significant way in which they are similar to us is their capacity to suffer and experience pain.
I've been arguing here in good faith, Andrew. Responding to your objections with evidence and reason. But it seems that you're content to shift the goalposts at every turn: first you acknowledged that animals feel pain with remarks like, "I can believe there is often animal cruelty in many meat-farm methods", "if the animal has been given a good life and then was killed painlessly then that is not animal 'abuse'", and "I don't like the idea of factory farming". Then you adopt the absurd position of denying that animals can feel pain (this means that you can have no moral objection to someone taking a blowtorch to a live animal for entertainment, a dog say). After I provide evidence that suggests that animals do, in fact, feel pain you shift the goalposts once again requiring them to be conscious of their emotional states to the same degree that humans are. Your argument is viciously circular: in order to have moral status nonhuman animals must be like humans; nonhuman animals are not like humans therefore they do not have moral status. On top of this you deliberately misrepresent my position by using flies and nematodes as an example when it is clear that I've been arguing for sentient vertebrate species. You've rejected the considered opinion of a poultry ethologist without any countervailing evidence, called my attempts to clarify "vague", and backtracked shamelessly until your position has devolved into solipsism.
Frankly, I've got better things to do than jump through your hoops. Good day.
09 Oct 10
Originally posted by Green PaladinIt is all a matter of value, as I was attempting to get out of you.
[quote]Again, you use of the word “interest” is vague.
It can be said, I think without being too vague, that they have evolved to have a predisposition to behave in certain ways that, within the typical environment they live in, maximise their chances of survival. -but what exactly does it mean to say “animals have an “interest” to carry on living”? - ...[text shortened]... an jump through your hoops. Good day.
At some point, do you value them as much as you do humans?
If you do okay fine! If you value all life that? If you do fine!
If you value them because they are life, it is okay, if you value them because
they are food, as far as I'm concern that is okay too. With you it may not be
that food enters into it, but as the world in every area of life is concern life
devours life here.
Kelly