That’s one interpretation, at least. Shelley finds a new item in a disturbing PETA ad campaign. I really don’t understand what they’re doing; putting up all these ads to associate meat and butchery and experimentation with sex seems counterproductive. What if the ads work, and everybody starts getting horny every time they go by the meat counter at the grocery? I really don’t want to have to waste my time fending off mobs of randy young men and women whenever I whip out a scalpel, either.*
The ad also makes a ridiculous scientific claim—par for the course for PETA—that “the cognitive abilities of a chicken rival that of cats, dogs, and even young humans.” I think the only way they could get that answer is if their baseline was a measurement of the cognitive abilities of PETA publicists.
*The alternative is even worse; what if every time you had sex you couldn’t get dead chickens out of your mind?
“the cognitive abilities of a chicken rival that of cats, dogs, and even young humans.”
If that’s true, then I suggest eating young humans should be ok.
-“I can’t stand your children.”
-“Then just eat the vegetables.”
You are right, that is soooo PETA. What really annoys me (to say the least) is that “animal rights” groups such as PETA get lumped with environmentalists in the media – I’ve seen articles with titles to the effect of, “Environmentalists pitted against another…” Of course, the goal of the media is to create controversy where none may exist, but PETA are the anti-environmentalists – they believe that the rights of individual animals trump the rights of other organisms in the environment. This of course leads them to crazily illogical campaigns, such as one in Hawaii to destroy hundreds (or thousands?) of feral cats in the Volcanoes National Park area to help protect native birds. Why cats who were released by irresponsible humans have more ‘rights’ than the birds that evolved in that habitat is beyond me.
I don’t think they are lying outright. I would bet that pharyngula stage humans have no more intelligence than chickens at that stage.
This seems pretty par for the course for peta unfotunetly.
I am all for treating animals well before eating them, and in many cases factory farms are not a good thing. but this is just silly.
Am I just weird to want my food to have lived well before being slaughtered humanely?
Chickens are actually incredibly stupid compared to all other birds (parrots and corvids are on top, with pigeons coming close). But even if the PETA claim is correct – how would they know? From animal experimentation, of course.
My favorite discussion ever on PETA ad campaigns was this post “Is PETA the same group as Operation Rescue?” over at Pandagon. Amanda picked out six things in common.
1.They think grossing you out is an argument.
2. They think women are just bodies to be manipulated for their ends instead of full human beings. (see state of the union ad)
3.Both exploit tender young women as cheap labor for their cause.
4.Both prefer to advocate for “victims” that are silent and therefore can be projected onto. (I mean chickens? c’mon)
5.Both have a strong, irrational loathing for science.(chickens are as smart as kids e.g., as well as every argument I’ve ever seen the ARAs make on scienceblogs in which they explain to scientists how our jobs can be done with computers rather than animals and animal products)
6.Neither seems to care that much about the real life well-being of the objects of their advocacy as they claim to care. (Peta kills about 60% of the animals they capture – also fits with biotunes’ comment)
I think she’s dead on. They use just the same kind of idiot denialist tactics as the fundies and right-wingers. Anything to accomplish an their goal, any lie, any distortion, and exploitation of fellow humans becomes ok.
This gives whole new meaning to “finger-lickin’ good.”
the cognitive abilities of a chicken rival that of cats, dogs, and even young humans.”
If that’s true, then I suggest eating young humans should be ok.
This is, BTW, one of the strongest arguements against animal torture, eating meat, etc. The general idea is detailed HERE
Let’s face it, the mental capacity of a chicken/dog/cat might actually rival that of a human newborn.
You get used to it after a while.
The ad also makes a ridiculous scientific claim–par for the course for PETA–that “the cognitive abilities of a chicken rival that of cats, dogs, and even young humans.”
Is this really “ridiculous?” This article, for example, seems to suggest that the claim is at least plausible (I suppose “young humans” might be a bit of stretch–although not if it refers to human fetuses or perhaps newborn babies).
I’m a member of PETA. I don’t agree with everything they do or everything their spokespeople say. But I do think they do far more good than harm, more good than any other animal rights or animal welfare organization. They have a solid record of real accomplishment at improving the treatment and well-being of animals.
At least based on the description of the study in that article, the results most certainly don’t support their conclusion.
It’s actually kind of an interesting article though. Usually behaviorists are trying to poo-poo cognition and show how things can all be explained with simple behavioral principles. These guys are instead taking a pretty simple behaviorist style task and attributing all sorts of cognitions to it.
At least based on the description of the study in that article, the results most certainly don’t support their conclusion.
Care to elaborate?
The only thing I agree with Ingrid Newkirk about is PETA overtly opposes abandoning unwanted cats to feral colonies.
“They have a solid record of real accomplishment at improving the treatment and well-being of animals.”
Does that include killing dogs in the back of a van and dumping them at the local grocery store?
OK, I’m never having sex again. [I probably wasn’t anyway, but this just cinches it.]
Does that include killing dogs in the back of a van and dumping them at the local grocery store?
No.
So, wait, does this mean I’m supposed to go throw paint on my parents while they’re having sex? I’m so confused…
Well a well marbled prime ribeye does get me pretty excited….
“Care to elaborate?”
The rest of my post pretty much says it. There’s no necessary “knowledge of the future” or any kind of sophisticated cognitive processes necessary to delay response to a stimuli.
Does my dog have a lexicon because she understands the command “sit”?
Uh, oops. Forgot to close a blockquote tag there. Sorry. PZ if you can fix that please.
jbark,
The author of the study is quoted as saying that it shows that hens have “awareness of the near future,” not “knowledge of the future.” Of course, no one can definitively prove that any other being is conscious or self-aware, not even other human beings. We infer it from their behavior.
Chimp,
Here’s what Newkirk says about PETA’s controversial campaigns:
You may not like comparing factory farms to Nazi death camps, but it does seem to be effective at getting people’s attention and support for factory farming reforms.
“Well a well marbled prime ribeye does get me pretty excited….”
I like raw cow flesh warmed to room temperature and a dash of Worchestershire Sauce added. Mmm, yummy.
‘Awareness’ is what I meant. None is necessary for that task.
All behavioral research, of animals and humans, involves inferences of mental processes from observable behavior. That doesn’t get you off the hook in making invalid inferences that go beyond the data.
To be fair, I’m actually guessing the actual study is not as obviously flawed as that news article would make it appear to be. But then, they’d hardly be the first to overinterpret animal behavior either.
I think once you say “I’m a member of PETA” you need to say “we”, not “they”. Think of it like that: “we” do these things … and maybe you will reconsider being a member. If not, mayber you will reconsider giving money to groups you don’t care to be identified with. If neither, maybe you will accept your complicity/support and own up to it.
I hate it when the ACLU defends the KKK. But we do it (“they” – I just belong, I’m not a lawyer) for reasons I support, so I say “we”. If if comes to the point I can’t say “we” any more, I’ll quit being a member.
I know this is tangential at best, but it’s something that bugs me, so I say it.
So any comparison that raises awareness is fair? The end justifies the means?
I haven’t been too happy with PETA since one of their local reps told me it would be more ethical to let a human die than to allow them to accept animal parts to save their lives.
My wife’s Mitral valve had just been replaced with a pig’s valve at the time.
It’s all to do with raised states of conciousness. Just as atheists consider themselves to have a higher state of conciousness than superstitious religious people, so do us vegans when comparing ourselves to meat eaters. Just as the human world will no doubt be completely secular one day (if we manage to survive that long) I also believe it will be a vegetarian world also. We will regard meat eating as being in the same category as long forgotten primitive practices such as witchcraft, cannibalism, slavery, etc.
So, next time you are sneering at dumb fundies for their stupid beliefs and topsy-turvy values, remember that there are vegans who think of meat-eaters in exactly the same way. We would like you to consider raising your conciousness in just the same way that you would like religeos to do.
jbark,
‘Awareness’ is what I meant. None is necessary for that task.
None is necessary for any task. You couldn’t prove that anything else is “aware” from studying its behavior, either.
All behavioral research, of animals and humans, involves inferences of mental processes from observable behavior. That doesn’t get you off the hook in making invalid inferences that go beyond the data.
What data would justify an inference of awareness?
.
(shrug) Maybe. Maybe we’ll invent a way to have a nice juicy steak that doesn’t come attached to a cow. Maybe we’ll stuff all the cows into cow-sized tubes and plug them all into a “Cow-Matrix” where they’ll lead happy lives running free in green pastures right up until we pull the plug.
I can’t see all vegans going strictly vegetarian, there are too many burger, chicken, and turkey substitutes in the vegan section of my local grocery store. It seems to me that vegans spend way too much time trying to replicate the taste of flesh.
If someone figured a way to make plants produce meat I think the whole vegan thing would just stumble to a halt.
(I would love someone to genetically engineer a steak tree! I’d grow one right next to the barbeque! Ooh! A desk made from the wood would smell like teriyaki!)
Calladus –
That “growing meat” thing might actually happen.
http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/release.cfm?ArticleID=1098
Jason, that’s not my job.
The job of the researcher is to convincingly show that simpler explanations of a behavior have been ruled out. And that’s really always the 64 thousand dollar question when it comes to experiments trying to show higher level cognitive abilities in things that can’t talk to us.
Read the chimp language literature a bit if you want to REALLY see how sticky the issue can get. And if birds are really your thing, read up on the research on Alex, the grey parrot, where you’ll see just how much work has gone into ruling out “simple” explanations of his behavior.
And as for your opening retort, B.F. Skinner’s corpse is smiling somewhere. Cognition smognition.
So any comparison that raises awareness is fair? The end justifies the means?
No, I don’t think the comparison is fair, and it does bother me. But I don’t really feel strongly against it either. I agree with Newkirk that one of the most difficult problems is simply getting people’s attention and motivating them sufficiently to agitate for change through boycotts and petitions and the like. And I think PETA’s campaigns are very effective at doing that, which is partly why PETA arouses such hostility from those who don’t want to upset the status quo. Thirty years ago, Peter Singer wrote a book (Animal Liberation) in which he made a rational, comprehensive argument for animals rights, and described in clinical detail the horrors of modern factory farming. The book was very influential in creating the modern animal rights movement. But it doesn’t have the kind of mass-mobilizing effects that something like a PETA meat-is-murder campaign does. I think all big social reform movements need both sober, restrained intellectual argument of the kind provided by Singer and on-the-ground, in-your-face mass protest. PETA serves the second function.
Seems like PETA is coming at this from the entirely wrong angle. There’s no need to make up nonsense about chickens being as smart as humans when commercial poultry farming is already an environmental disaster and an excellent vector for zoonotic disease.
jbark,
What data would justify an inference of awareness?
Bah! The Jains make PETA look like pikers.
The difference is that humans (and probably a few animal species) are moral agents, and therefor have rights.
Any animals that are not moral agents are not entitled to “rights”. They should, however, be entitled to humane treatment by thoe animals that are moral agents. That gets into a whole can of worms, because it PETA claims that animals have rights, then they are claiming that they are moral agents… so what are they going to do about how cats treat mice of (more realisticly,) how orcas treat seals? So far humans (in aggregate, individuals vary) are the only species that shows any concern for the emotional state of their food.
I aLSO find it amusing how much “moral superiority” is attached to one’s diet. The whole kosher thing comes to mind, plus all the newage fads.
Oh, and what’s wrong with cannibalism?
Any animals that are not moral agents are not entitled to “rights”.
Well, that’s one theory. A newborn baby is not a moral agent, as far as we know. It cannot distinguish right from wrong and act on that distinction. Do you therefore believe that babies don’t have rights, any rights at all?
You’ve all seen the PETA stripper, right?
http://www.peta.org/feat/stateoftheunion/f-stateoftheunion.asp
Do you therefore believe that babies don’t have rights, any rights at all?
What rights do you think a newborn should have? Why? And what do you intend to do about the cats’ relationship with mice?
We would like you to consider raising your conciousness in just the same way that you would like religeos to do.
I see George just beat me to it, but how exactly does objectifying women by having them talk about PETA while stripping raise anything but a penis here and there?
Bird Advocate: I prefer oysters… you get to eat them ALIVE, bwa ha ha! ;-)
but how exactly does objectifying women by having them talk about PETA while stripping raise anything but a penis here and there?
How is stripping *not* objectification?
Graculus,
What rights do you think a newborn should have?
The right to life and the right not to be tortured, for example. Again, are you saying you believe babies don’t have any rights? Also, your terminology is very confusing. You say that animals are “entitled” to humane treatment but don’t have the right to humane treatment. What’s the difference? (Even more confusing is your “entitled to rights” construction.) What’s the difference between a right and an entitlement?
And what do you intend to do about the cats’ relationship with mice?
Nothing, really. I don’t think my own cat has ever even seen a mouse.
All behavioral research, of animals and humans, involves inferences of mental processes from observable behavior.
that’s not quite correct. A lot of the study of animal behavior involves inference, OTOH, an awful lot involves direct experimentation, both behaviorally and physiologically.
For example, there is quite a bit of research studying mental processes by monitoring brain activity directly. Speaking of cats, I do recal some studies on vision in cats directly on point. In studying exactly how visual images were obtained, in what form, and how they were processed, accurate predictions of behavioral responses in given situations could be made. That’s not inferential.
Not only that, but the particular studies that come to mind were prime candidates for PETA attacks when i was a grad student, since the procedures involved in actually measuring data on visual processing were rather invasive (details might disturb some, so I won’t go into them unless asked to).
anyway, I just want to nip in the bud the idea that the study of animal behavior is entirely based on inference.
The same is true of humans, BTW, hence we can determine the physiology behind schizophrenia, and treat it accordingly (as a very simplistic example).
Graculus, I guess my sentence structure was a bit wonky; I meant it as objectifying women by having them strip whilst talking about PETA, as the stripping has nothing to do with the message and everything to do with getting attention by playing to the most base denominator of attention-getting.
I disagree.
First of all, should we treat animals ethically? Of course we should. Do we? No. People DON’T want to think about the horror that is the miserable lives of our livestock these days. Remember, this did not use to be the case. Family farms were completely different and much more ethical than factory farms.
Second, chickens do feel pain and fear and such. The farm where I have my observatory keeps free range chickens and they are lovely animals. I’m not saying their assertion in regards to their cognitive abilities is 100% accurate, but I am uncomfortable with people deciding that torture is fine if you are a chicken.
We can do better, many of us vote with our dollars to do better and PETA is, in a way, like the ACLU — their mission is pretty much above reproach. Their methods may be hit or miss.
Finally, I think it is a pretty good ad. People should be more concerned about how factory farms treat animals.
Disclaimer: I’m not a vegetarian or a PETA member.
Any animals that are not moral agents are not entitled to “rights”. They should, however, be entitled to humane treatment by thoe animals that are moral agents. That gets into a whole can of worms, because it PETA claims that animals have rights, then they are claiming that they are moral agents… so what are they going to do about how cats treat mice of (more realisticly,) how orcas treat seals? So far humans (in aggregate, individuals vary) are the only species that shows any concern for the emotional state of their food.
LOL. a few months back, a previously regular poster on PT by the name of Carol Clouser told us of her plans to stop hyenas from attacking zebras, because evidently the way hyenas attack zebras is “crueller” than the way lions do.
no, I’m not kidding, and evidently there was a large section of PETA adherents in her area that agreed.
so, to answer your question, don’t doubt that right now, as I write this, there is at least one group of PETA followers that is literally trying to change how predators and prey interact in the wild.
I guess they not only realized the logical endpoint of the argument you detailed, but agreed with it.
Well, penises respond to stimuli, and their becoming erect indicates an awareness of future events (copulation). Clearly penises are intelligent, possibly more intelligent than dogs or young humans. Hence, PETA should start a campaign to ensure humane treatment.
I can see it now. Free range penises! No more keeping them cooped up and only let out to be used by humans! PETA is deeply concerned about the plight of penises nationwide!
Which, of course, everyone will simplify to “PETA loves the cock.”
(Sorry. Some things just can’t be taken seriously.)
What data would justify an inference of awareness?
Something a bit more substantial than training chickens to wait for seeds for 22 seconds.
hmm, but have you tested them as independent agents?
http://www.anysonglyrics.com/lyrics/k/kingmissile/detatchablepenis.htm
Ichthyic,
Predictions of behavior (or “behavioral responses”) that are confirmed by observation are obviously not inferences. But claims about awareness and other mental states drawn from observations of behavior are. The issue is what observations are needed to justify an inference of temporal awareness.
I don’t understand the reasoning behind the bizarre claim that a being has rights only if it’s a moral agent, or the claim that animals don’t have rights because they kill other animals in the wild. Babies aren’t moral agents, and human beings have been killing other animals (not to mention other humans) for all of recorded history. Are we therefore to conclude that human beings don’t have rights either?
Something a bit more substantial than training chickens to wait for seeds for 22 seconds.
Well, don’t keep us in suspense. How much more substantial? 23 seconds? Or are you thinking of something else entirely?
The final line of that PETA thing reads “but whatever as long as it tastes good, right?”
Well, my answer to that is “yep.”
Sorry to be blunt, but that’s the answer. I eat chickens because they taste good, just like I eat apples because they taste good. Presumably, when I start tasting good, something will come along and eat me.
@Jason
Thanks for trying to address the questions but I have a serious issue with the defense of terrorists like PETA and the ALF.
I still can in no way think that comparing the slaughter of some 6 million (give or take) Humans is even close to the discussion of animal farms. Do I think that the best care to lessen the suffering on animals to the extent that they are bound to be our food should be taken? Yes. Do I think it is still morally ok for humans to eat other animals and use them for research? Yes. But in no way will you ever convince me that the weight is the same as the destruction of millions of humans. And excusing the actions of PETA and the ALF and the bombers they support because they’re just trying to raise awareness is insane. The ends justify the means now?
That is very telling on the character of those who make such claims… and defend them. Do you defend PETA’s support of the terrorists organization the ALF? They’re just trying to raise awareness as well? PETA and Newkirk has supported and known ahead of time of some of their terrorist actions. Are arsons and bombings are a legitimate way to a move political currents? By giving support to the groups or being complacent in these acts they are responsible as well. Indefensible.
Do you support the process that led to PETA itself destroying or neglecting some over 10,000 animals?
Newkirk and her ilk are a cult that supports terrorists who put a on value human life that is less than that of animals. By supporting bombers who risk human lives this is factually true. Anti-Abortion murderers act the same way and excuse their actions with the same disgustingly flawed logic.
PETA and Newkirk’s admitted statements about Nazi Death camps are only a window into the workings of the organization, their support of the ALF and arsonists like Coronado are a wide open door.
Do you Jason, think that the life of an animal has the same worth as a human?
@ Michael
So are their methods excused? Do they get a pass because they have what some people thinks is a warm and fuzzy ideal? The PETA / ACLU analogy is false. The ACLU works within the law to uphold the constitution and the rights there in, PETA supports those who work outside the law. Please don’t confuse the two.
. But claims about awareness and other mental states drawn from observations of behavior are.
I was specifically addressing the depiction of behavior of animals and humans in general being entirely based on inference, as the poster (JBark) I was addressing said.
That clarified, yes, the description of behavior by analogy is entirely inferential. If I note apparent similarity between a given animal’s behavior and a human’s, conclusions based on such observations are entirely inferential. However, if I then determine by experiment that the behaviors are enitirely predictable under similar circumstances, is that still inferential? We could dissect studies of altruism, for example. Is the description of altruism in animals entirely inferential? I certainly wouldn’t say that, given the various studies that have been done.
I don’t understand the reasoning behind the bizarre claim that a being has rights only if it’s a moral agent,
heh, I go far in the other direction. frankly, I don’t even buy the idea of moral agents to begin with, since rights as typically defined are only applicable to those that define them to begin with. Thus, if there is only one “moral agent” wrt human rights, why even invent the concept of moral agent to begin with?
whoever or whatever one ascribes “rights” to, in the end the real point is “We hold these truths to be self-evident”
IOW, the ascribing of rights is entirely dependent on who is doing the ascribing (and that’s true even between different human populations, let alone between humans and different species).
ascribing human rights to animals is therefore entirely hubris IMO, and leads exactly to the kind of ridiculous (but factual) activities of the insane PETA supporters who wanted to “save the zebras from the hyenas” I noted above.
Note that this is a logical argument, and not an emotional one, and I do not discount out of hand peoples emotions in attempting to make decisions about how an animal should be treated. There are also pragmatic reasons for good animal husbandry that have nothing to do with “rights”.
Evolving Squid – You claim that when you start tasting good something will come along and eat you. Well, guess what – you already do taste good. So good, in fact, that wild animals that eat one human are hunted and killed because humans are so very tasty that those animals always come back for more. Of course, what you said doesn’t follow logically. The logical conclusion to your “argument”, is that if human flesh (“long pig”) tastes good (you like pork? you have a sweet tooth?), then you will eat it. So why don’t you?
Secondly, your flippant remark of eating chickens “because they taste good” is precisely the same argument rapists use. Please try to come up with a less self-centered rationalization.
Several of you may be interested that PETA didn’t come up with the comparison of slaughterhouses to concentration camps:
“Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re only animals.”
-Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), German Jewish philosopher forced into exile by the Nazis
Rev. BigDumbChimp,
I’d be interested in the evidence you have that Ingrid Newkirk has known beforehand of the “terrorist” acts committed by “ALF”. I suspect the DHS would also be interested.
Secondly, who is ALF? I think you’ll find that if you do your research diligently, you’ll find no actual organisation there, more of a name-umbrella under which individuals may perform their acts of liberation. Specifically, the ALFSG is simply a way to announce achievements of liberation-minded individuals. And you should also note ALFSG’s clear rule: “TO take all necessary precautions against harming any animal, human and non-human.” (from http://www.hedweb.com/alffaq.htm).
For purposes of comparison of various organisations, I see Ingrid Newkirk and PETA being more frequently compared with Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood. Generally by those people who would lob bombs at abortion clinics.
Personally, I find many of PETA’s ad campaigns very clever and well focused (although this one has it sadly backwards), but I’m rather unimpressed with some of the tactics employed by some of their agents (I don’t know enough to judge whether it’s endemic or not).
. So good, in fact, that wild animals that eat one human are hunted and killed because humans are so very tasty that those animals always come back for more.
hmm, not so sure about your logic here.
have you ever considered the alternative explanation that the reason the animal attacked the human to begin with is ’cause we move slow and have few natural defenses?
hence, one would expect that if we also tasted good, we’d be the preferred prey of every carnivore large enough to do something about it.
I’d conclude the exact opposite, actually. given how ubiquitous we are and how slow we move, we must taste absolutely terrible given how rarely carnivores actually hunt humans.
heck even white sharks typically spit out a human after the first bite.
chimp,
And excusing the actions of PETA and the ALF and the bombers they support because they’re just trying to raise awareness is insane. The ends justify the means now?
Whoa there, cowboy. I didn’t say anything about “excusing bombers.” You need to pay closer attention to what I actually write.
Do you defend PETA’s support of the terrorists organization the ALF?
I find it hard to respond to questions containing this kind of vague and unsubstantiated assertion. Give me a link to a credible source describing support by PETA for something you find objectionable, and I’ll tell what I think of it. As I said earlier, I don’t support everything PETA does or every statement or claim I’ve seen by PETA spokespersons, but I do think the organization does far more good than harm.
Do you support the process that led to PETA itself destroying or neglecting some over 10,000 animals?
The opinion piece you link to here (by conservative political columnist Debra J. Saunders, who I don’t consider to be a reliable source) discusses euthanizing stray and rescued animals. I do not oppose the practise in principle. I don’t know enough about the cited incidents to say whether I think PETA acted inappropriately in each case. Bear in mind that ordinary animal shelters euthanize around 3 or 4 million animals every year. I consider this tragic, but I’m not sure they have a better alternative. The real cause of the problem is commercial animal breeders who produce more animals than there is demand for, people dumping their unwanted pets, labs abandoning unwanted test animals, etc.
Do you Jason, think that the life of an animal has the same worth as a human?
No, but with exceptions. A think the life of a healthy adult chimpanzee can be worth more than the life of an anencephalic human baby, for example.
For those here with a scientific mind-set, you may be interested in reading this article comparing herbivore and carnivore physiology with human physiology:
http://www.vegsource.com/veg_faq/comparative.htm
Turns out that we evolved as herbivores. So us eating meat is “unnatural”. Oh, and for the biblical literalists here, one of the few places where Genesis almost agrees with science is where it claims that god created Man as a herbivore (Genesis 1:29). Of course, they forgot that we’re also well suited to eating green leafy vegetables (Genesis 1:30). Oh well. And then the infallible one changed his mind after the flood. But still. Let’s focus on the perfection that was in the beginning here, shall we?
May I recommend to those interested in this topic (not PETA but animal rights and how these reflect on human society generally) Carol Adams’ excellent book, The Sexual Politics of Meat? Also, Jeffrey M. Masson’s When Elephants Weep. I went through my own stage of getting all verklempt over the subject whenever it got brought up, mostly because dealing with a majority of people who seemed so completely uncaring about such matters was a real eye opener. The fact is, people very often don’t want to think about where their meat comes from, how it is “produced”, or about what the lives of “farm animals” is generally like. I say this as one who has in fact been to a slaughterhouse and studied the matter in depth (years ago [and, no, the conditions have not improved]): the meat industry is one without conscience, compassion, or concern — and not only where the animals it slaughters are concerned; it is a cruel industry to all involved in it save the rich bastards who never bother to drop by and smell the entrails.
Aside from the cruelty to the animals (human and non-human) being something you ought to be concerned about, aside from the poor treatment of the workers, aside from the health issues from the farm to your plate, there is also the damage to the environment. Please, feel free to check it out for yourself.
At the very least, if you are going to continue to eat meat, you should be pushing for better treatment for all involved. And perhaps you might consider too that something died for no better reason than that you wanted to eat it. Wanted; didn’t have to (in most cases).
Btw, PETA can go (collectively) jump in a lake. I’ve heard the arguments about the good they do outweighing the bad, but I don’t buy it. I know what people feel about them and how they react to their tactics, and it ain’t pretty. They come off as being particularly American in their belligerent, arrogant, self-righteous behavior, and they tarnish truths that can stand on their own without the foolish antics to “support” them.
well, hmmm.
The way I see PETA is simply a bunch of confused individuals who make alot of decisions based on emotion. No one likes to see animals suffer and we should prevent it whenever possible. Having said that I am a predator. I desire and on some level need/find tasty/enjoy flesh. In this regard I am no different than any other predator on Earth. For me to live and gain protein other organisms will die.
If others choose to be vegetarian so be it but I feel they are intentionally denying part of their human identity.
what if every time you had sex you couldn’t get dead chickens out of your mind?
You could turn it into high art …
Ichthyic,
ascribing human rights to animals is therefore entirely hubris IMO, and leads exactly to the kind of ridiculous (but factual) activities of the insane PETA supporters who wanted to “save the zebras from the hyenas” I noted above.
I don’t see anyone ascribing human rights to animals (maybe, in some cases, equal rights). I think all beings with the capacity to suffer and to experience enjoyment or happiness have rights, and that the type and magnitude of those rights is basically proportional to the magnitude of those capacities. This is not limited to human beings and animals, but would also apply to extraterrestrial beings or sentient machines if we ever discover/create them.
I actually prefer the terminology Singer uses in his arguments, which describe “interests” rather than rights, and which are built around the principle of “equal consideration of interests.” For reasons that have never been clear to me, applying the word “rights” to non-human animals seems to freak a lot of people out, but the language of rights is so much a part of our moral discourse that I don’t think we can really abandon it.
Also, I see nothing wrong in principle with the desire to reduce the amount of suffering animals experience in the wild, from either predation or disease or starvation or anything else. There are, and may always be, very strong practical limits to what we can or should do to reduce this suffering, but I certainly don’t see anything to ridicule about the goal itself.
icthyic,
I have solid evidence to back up my claims regarding predators preferring human flesh! Not only is it anecdotal, but it’s also n-th hand. Actually, I think I got it from a Hardy Boys book. At least it’s a less than 2000 year old fictional source, so I should get credit for that…
Having said that, that is at least a part of the rationale used for hunting those animals that have attacked humans.
I know what people feel about [PETA] and how they react to their tactics, and it ain’t pretty.
Yeah, they react by joining the organization and by participating in boycotts, petitions and other kinds of direct action that have had the effect of improving the welfare of millions of animals. If there is another organization that has been remotely as successful in advancing the welfare of animals, please identify it.
genuine coffee spewing moment.
thanks.
no comment.
I think all beings with the capacity to suffer and to experience enjoyment or happiness have rights, and that the type and magnitude of those rights is basically proportional to the magnitude of those capacities.
talk about inference.
talk about inference.
no comment.
You missed my point. If you ask someone, “Should we treat animals ethically?” almost everyone will answer yes. If you ask people “Should we protect civil liberties?” almost everyone will answer yes. In a broad sense, there is not much to argue with. The devil is in the details.
I’m not really pro- or anti- PETA, but I do believe we are going astray with factory farms.
I am shocked, on the other hand, that Righties are so anti-ACLU. Like, wtf is wrong with protecting civil liberties?
Your parents have sex, don’t eat chickens… if thats not a non-sequitor I don’t know what is.
but I certainly don’t see anything to ridicule about the goal itself.
well, i certainly see some to ridicule, depending on the intended goal (again, saving zebras from hyenas comes to mind as just one of the more extreme examples), but so far I’m seeing an awful lot more to ridicule in the method.
What’s wrong with the goal of saving zebras from hyenas?
#71 – talk about inference.
no comment.
no, jason, that only works when there is an obvious contradiction, as was present in your statement.
the way you used it was just…
ridiculous? non-sequitor?
both?
What’s wrong with the goal of saving zebras from hyenas?
you mean aside from what the hyenas think about it?
I’m gonna assume you’re joking.
jason, that only works when there is an obvious contradiction
I don’t know why you used it, then.
Ichthyic,
you mean aside from what the hyenas think about it?
No, including what the hyenas think about it.
I’m gonna assume you’re joking.
That’s a false assumption.
uh, so you don’t see the contradiction in starting off your sentence by saying nobody is ascribing animals human rights, and ending it by saying they are ascribing them equal rights???
we’re done.
good luck with that learning disability.
uh, so you don’t see the contradiction in starting off your sentence by saying nobody is ascribing animals human rights, and ending it by saying they are ascribing them equal rights???
That’s right. “Human rights” means the rights of humans. “Equal rights” means rights of equal type or magnitude. Perhaps you could describe what you consider to be the contradiction. Although I should also point out that your paraphrase above is somewhat different to what I actually wrote.
My Google-fu has not been up to the task of turning up anything on this alleged PETA campaign to save zebras from hyenas other than another forum that jokes about the idea, so if anyone could point at any actual falsifiable sources, that would be of interest. Otherwise we should perhaps just pretend nobody said nuttin’.
My Google-fu has not been up to the task of turning up anything on this alleged PETA campaign to save zebras from hyenas other than another forum that jokes about the idea,
Well, we all know how this goes. Someone tells a joke or makes something up, others read and repeat it, and somewhere along the way it attains the status of “fact.” Thus are internet urban legends born. People ought to be more skeptical of things they read on the web, and not believe everything that flatters their prejudices.
Biotunes wrote:
Quite right, we shouldn’t interfere. Let Nature take its course.
Feral cats introduced to park. Cat population soars through ready availability of native birds as prey. Native birds wiped out. Cat population crashes. Surviving cats abandon park for places with more abundant food. Volcanoes National Park left for humans to enjoy undisturbed by hungry cats or noisy birds. Problem solved.
Yeah, they react by joining the organization and by participating in boycotts, petitions and other kinds of direct action that have had the effect of improving the welfare of millions of animals. If there is another organization that has been remotely as successful in advancing the welfare of animals, please identify it.
I take your point, and they have had their successes, certainly (and who’d deny that was a good thing?). However, in my personal experience over the years I have met far more people who react poorly to them than positively. When explaining to people that I am vegetarian, I have often enough been asked, rather pointedly, if I’m “one of those PETA people”. Mind you, I’ve defended PETA in the past and donated money to them. But (in reference to a comment way up the page somewhere) I found at some point that I was no longer able to say “we” in reference to PETA because I was uncomfortable with their tactics. So, sure, PETA has had and will likely continue to have successes, but I wonder how much more successful they would have if they stepped away from the Hyde Park theatrics and pursued their agenda in some other fashion? They’re going to be disliked pretty much no matter what (like Greenpeace), but there’s being disliked by your natural opponents and being disliked by superficial onlookers whose numbers are far greater. I don’t want to defend PETA, I want to defend animal rights.
I am so glad Brian O’Connor decided not to deleted his blog once he quit blogging because it is a huge repository of detailed informaiton on PeTa shenanningans. Sorta like TalkOrigins.org is for creationist claims. Just a link and send the True Believers there and end the conversation.
Also, if one is looking for a more apt comparison to ACLU it is ASPCA. Much of animal cruelty discovered and exposed by ASPCA was then hijacked and touted as their own by PeTA.
The most important distinciton one HAS to make in these debates is between Animal Rights (AR) and Animal Welfare (AW). The former is lunacy, the latter is a worthwhile cause.
Read how Brian explains the difference between AR and AW here and the logical goal of the AR movement here
Too late at night to write HTML correctly. Let me try again:
AR vs. AW
Animal Rights: The Human Face of its Core Principle
um, getting back to the idea of penis rights again, just in case nobody had ever heard the attempts of this particular penis to escape on its own (I linked to the written story, earlier), here you can hear it immortalized in song:
http://fortyfivemovie.com/mp3/lamisc/dp/King%20Missle%20-%20Detachable%20Penis.mp3
The poor guy telling the story thinks its all about him.
thinks he “misplaces it”, when really it is just crying out for personal freedom!
The most important distinciton one HAS to make in these debates is between Animal Rights (AR) and Animal Welfare (AW). The former is lunacy, the latter is a worthwhile cause.
yup.
That IS kinda the core of the debate in this thread.
Mysh-
you’re very close.
you got the jokes about what Carol said, and even got the right website (PT), but not that she was dead serious. If you want, I can probably dig up where she first mentions it, and the association with PeTA, or you can just dig around there a little deeper, and you’ll likely find it on your own.
no hoax. really.
She even cites the relevant philosophical history behind her conclusions (though fails to see how erroneous the conclusions are, which is why it’s really quite funny).
PETA USED to be an organization devoted to animal welfare (over 20 years ago, really), now it is mostly a haven for people with very radical ideas born of more anthropomorphism than logic.
anybody who has ever had to fill out an animal use protocol in order to do animal research sees the end result of PeTa’s influence on academia.
the history of the animal use protocol itself is telling.
as an example of how most of these folks think, suffice it to say that the PETA folks only considered fish to be animals after the first 3 years or so after the protocol was forced on the university where I was initially doing my graduate work.
IIRC, the only things to be considered “animals” at first were mammals.
then the birds were added, then the reptiles, then the fish.
not sure what its up to now. I wonder if they consider insects to be animals yet?
Turns out that we evolved as herbivores.
That list is bollocks. They completely ignore any evidence that does not suport their “thesis”, and deliberately misrepresent evolutionary theory.
But let’s play with a couple of the points:
“When eating, a mammalian carnivore gorges itself rapidly and does not chew its food.”… Obviously this person has never had dinner with a teenage male human.
“According to evolutionary theory, the anatomical features consistent with an herbivorous diet represent a more recently derived condition than that of the carnivore.”… If you go back to bacteria/archaea eating other bacteria/archaea before there were plants, sure, but if you are going to play those games every trait since chemoautotrophy is more recently derived. That doesn’t mean that we are supposed to lie around in hot springs to “eat”. As far as human evolution goes, this is completely wrong, our remote ancestors were not carnivores.
“According to evolutionary theory, carnivore gut structure is more primitive than herbivorous adaptations.”… No. You shouldn’t link to such tripe from a biology blog, really. There is nothing “primitive” about having only one stomach, any more than it is more “primitive” to not have feathers.
“This is exactly the situation we find in the Bear, Raccoon and certain members of the Canine families.”… Compares animals that have adapted from pure carnivory to omnivory, ignores omnivores that adapted from herbivores. Apparently does not realize that evolutionary theory expects different adaptations and features (depending on ancestry as well).
“An animal which captures, kills and eats prey must have the physical equipment which makes predation practical and efficient.”.. who says we don’t? This person is assuming large game hunting as the immediate adaptation. The other omnivorous primates eat insects, small game and other primates.
“The human gastrointestinal tract features the anatomical modifications consistent with an herbivorous diet.”… Actually, compared to our relatives, we are adapted the other way.
So, how about some actual evidence that references human evolution, not the evolution of cats, bears and cows? Here’s a few:
-The carbon isotope ratio in early fossil hominids demonstrates that we ate the things that ate grass. Maybe termites, but we sure as hell didn’t eat grass.
-The primates that are most closely related to humans (chimpanzees and bonobos) hunt and eat meat, indicating that meat eating (and hunting) is a derived trait.
-Humans absorb iron from meat easily, but very little from plant sources.
Our evolutionary history says “omnivore”.
coturnix,
Thanks for the links to such fascinating reading on Brian O’Connor’s site. It’s always nice getting the impression that someone has a bit of an axe to grind, and getting it confirmed (in this case by him enthusing about the infamous McIntyre/McKitrick study). Brian seemed very happy beating up on a few individuals in the dreaded AR movement, and frequently implying he was more on the AW side of things, while simultaneously linking to hunting advocacy sites. I can’t think of anything that would do more to enhance the welfare of an animal than to be winged or even killed by a, doubtlessly compassionate, hunter.
What it came down to for me was that in our advanced society we do not need any animal products to live, anymore than we need that 108″ flatscreen HDTV. So the question became: Does my right to frivolous enjoyment outweigh any animal’s right to life?
-The carbon isotope ratio in early fossil hominids demonstrates that we ate the things that ate grass. Maybe termites, but we sure as hell didn’t eat grass.
From what I have read in various pop-science descriptions of actual archaelogical finds, it seems very likely that meat eating was a main distinction between those of our ancestors that started the path towards the evolution of humans, and those that didn’t. The more concentrated protein in meat allowed our ancestors more time for other endeavours, and some finds have indicated that eating meat may have been instrumental in the growth of the brain.
(Aside: As I mentioned earlier, we can now easily get everything we need from plant (and fungus) sources, so the question is no longer one of necessity, but rather of ethics.)
-The primates that are most closely related to humans (chimpanzees and bonobos) hunt and eat meat, indicating that meat eating (and hunting) is a derived trait.
IIRC, it depends very much on the tribes. Some that hunt may have only developed this behaviour in very recent history. Many will eat insects, which require no effort to obtain, but won’t eat any mammalian flesh. I’m not sure I agree that meat eating of other primates is necessarily an indication of a derived trait (although this is certainly not an area in which I have any expertise), but it seems to me that I’ve read elsewhere (on this blog) that similar traits can develop independently.
I (obviously) don’t know enough about the other items you mentioned to respond usefully, so I’ll just thank you for the comments you did make.
I’ve mulled over the animal rights problem for years.
I’ve never found a particularly convincing argument that the life of a human should be considered innately more valuable than any other living being.
There are good arguments. I’m not sure that there is a particularly convincing one.
It has a lot to do with how it is you derive this value. Most of the arguments that I’ve come across haven’t really cut it for me.
Take the “moral agent” argument mentioned above. A counter to that argument would be a human baby, as mentioned above, also. I can’t see that that’s a bad argument. Obviously a human baby shouldn’t be eaten or tortured because of its lack of moral sense. Certainly a baby has potential to become a moral agent. It certainly may be able to develop a sense of right and wrong. It could just as easily develop a mental illness that keeps that from happening. Does that then make that human an “animal?” I don’t believe most of the people here would say that. Someone might, though.
Furthermore, how is it that we are certain that non-human animals are not moral agents? I don’t know that we can be certain.
But again, that argument isn’t very convincing in the first place.
There are other derivations of value that are just as equally problematic. Some claim that “all life” has value. I certainly don’t find that argument particularly convincing. I doubt anybody here would, either. It’s hardly an argument. But it’s not much worse than the moral agent argument.
I don’t know that I subscribe to the idea that non-human animals should have rights as humans do. I’m not sure if it would be even possible to defend those rights in any practical manner. But to reject the idea out of hand based on specious arguments isn’t a particularly reasonable position.
What makes humans so different that they should be afforded rights and protections that other animals shouldn’t have?
phat
Coturnix: re links.
Good stuff that. It prompts me to note that I do not use the term “animal rights” in the way disparaged by Brian. It seems to me that one’s credibility is severely undermined, if not outright destroyed, by behavior that contradicts one’s basic, implicit tenets. If you say that human and non-human animals are equal in terms of value and then you devalue human animals, then you have devalued all animals.
I apologize for the oversimplification (I’m rather tired presently), but I hope the point is still clear. I could never defend the unnecessary killing of any human any more than I could defend the unnecessary killing of any animal, and what I would define as “necessary” would have to do with immediately or imminently dangerous circumstances (with the exception of a woman’s right to obtain an abortion, for reasons too complex to enter into here).
That said, I think it’s important to note that I do have a species-centric view of the world. If a person is being attacked by a mountain lion, I’m going to shoot the mountain lion. I am human, and I am biased toward human life. But I’d like to think that I am intelligent even in my bias. I know enough about ecology and the interplay of species to know that what I do in the world — as a human being, a member of the most dominating species on the planet — can and often will have an effect on me in the short or long term. I hardly need point out the obviousness of this when the scale considered is that of humanity itself.
I’m not sure how well I’ve expressed myself in this comment, but I need to get some sleep.
Hi. Mr Raised Conciousness here… ;-) Another two cents worth:
Cent one: I can barely believe the comments about protecting mice from cats, zebras from lions, etc. I thought we’d have a better standard of thinking on Pharyngula. The point is, we humans have developed sufficiently that meat eating is a CHOICE. The same cannot be said of a cat or a lion which is just following instinct. That is the entire reason I am a vegan – because I have a CHOICE in the matter and I choose the path of least suffering. It also makes the carnivore/herbivore argument irrelevant to me. So what if I am designed to be omnivore? I’m still excercising my moral choice.
Cent two: To the people who find it funny to taunt veggies with jokes about juicy steaks, etc. Well, we’re not upset by this kind of thing. We just think it’s pretty weak humour that reflects badly on the teller. Reminds me of those people who at one time would have made jokes about ‘dumb negras’ when the subject of emancipation was raised.
Cent three: If your only justification for meat eating is ‘Hey, but it tastes good’. Well, just step back a second, and reflect on how that must sound as a justification for anything. Is that how far you can think?
Come up with a good argument for meat eating and I might even respect your position.
Hmmm. 3 cents worth for the price of 2. Now that’s what I call value.
Having had to look up who PETA are – right …
They’re animal right loonies.
We have them too, though they’ve overreached themselves recently.
Ok – animal rights ………
For the Cat, or the mouse?
For the Falcon or the Sparrow?
For the Shark or the Seal?
When they have an answer to that one, I’ll listen.
Meanwhile, I know I’m an Omnivore, and I intend to enjoy it …..
I’m all for humane treatment of animals, particularly those intended to be our food. I’m also in favor of people eating less meat altogether, because it just isn’t healthy to eat as much meat as we Americans do. However, what I can’t stand is the moral high horse some vegetarians (such as those in PETA) take about it, because the fact is that living means killing something else for food one way or another. What makes bacterial life not as protected as animal? Why not plant life? Fine, if you’re all about the cute mammals, what about all the mice and bunnies that get chomped under the combine while harvesting your veg? There’s just no way to avoid it; eating food means killing other living things.
After reading all these comments, I think it’s safe to say that PETA members are the left-wing equivalent of right-wing religious fundamentalists.
Cowboy? Good one.
Ok sorry if I was too vague. You’ve said you are a member of PETA, so you give funds to them, membership, donations? I’m not sure how it works but I assume that you give your money to PETA? If not, you at least are aknowledging your support for them.
Do you deny that PETA has given funds and/or other support to the ALF, specifically for legal defense of certain people like Rodney Coronado? By PETA giving support to the ALF and ELF they are supporting the terrorist acts of these groups. Giving money to PETA is giving money to them. Giving support to PETA is giving support to who they support. There are plenty of animal welfare groups out there, why choose an organization who not only excuses the destruction of property and the risking of human life but actually supports it?
Do you think that the acts of the ALF or ELF using arson or bombings to destroy research facilities is a valid form of protest?
Do you Jason, think that the life of an animal has the same worth as a human?
These kinds of weighing/balancing discussions are pointless. The animals we slaughter for food are treated really, really terribly. We should all be trying to change that.
End of story.
Re Matt @8:
The blogpost you link to includes this definition:
“Specieism- the prejudice towards the interest of ones [sic] own species and against those of other species.”
…and this resulting conclusion:
“This position seem unjustified to me.”
Perhaps the surfeit of evolutionary biologists here will set me straight, but isn’t this definition of “specieism” really just another way of saying “pro-survival behavior”? By what standard is it unjustified to favor your own species over others? Are there any examples in nature of species whose behavior consistently favors the survival of other species over their own? (And if so, why aren’t they extinct?)
Re Tom @28:
Why tag “witchcraft” as a primitive practice? I guess most Pharynulites would consider all religions examples of primitive practice, but there’s recent (though admittedly anecdotal) evidence that Wicca is less so than other religions you don’t put on your list:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/18/AR2007021801396.html
This guy apparently concluded that, despite its “primitive” image, Wicca represented a higher order of awareness (i.e., was more humane) that what he’d seen (as a chaplain, no less) of Christianity and Islam. Go figure, eh?
Re Mysh @56:
You ask Evolving Squid why s/he doesn’t eat humans, if they taste so good. The reason is presumably the same reason any predator might forego otherwise desirable prey: Humans have developed defenses (physical, legal, cultural) against being eaten that make the cost too high for the potential gratification. The pork chop in the Stop & Shop down the street won’t fight back, or throw me in jail, or brand me as a deviant and cause my community to ostracize me; the “long pig” next door will do all of these. QED.
Re Me @whateverthisis:
I have no patience, generally, with movements that devalue human rights in favor of the “rights” of the natural environment, be it PETA, or the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Human_Extinction_Movement), or any other radical environmental groups. Even though the “Deep Ecology” movement claims to treat humans as an “integral part of their environment” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology), in practice these folks seem to treat humans as enemies of “nature”… almost as external invaders (sort of the way right wingnuts view government… but I digress…).
In fact, we really are integral to the environment, and we have no less right to manipulate that environment for our benefit than any other species. That we have greater capability to master the world around us is the result of either natural processes (the majority Pharyngula view, I presume) or a divine grant of dominion. Either way, I can’t see how we have any responsibility to “nature” other than to manage it in ways that are good for us. Which is to say, good stewardship.
Now, I happen to think any enlightened view of what’s good for our species requires us to protect the natural environment to a significant degree (can you say “global warming?” I knew y’could), and to eschew gratuitous cruelty to animals, and to conform to a number of behaviors that the PETA crowd would probably approve of (however incidentally); I don’t think the enlightened view requires me to forego a juicy steak or a bacon-and-eggs breakfast. YMMV.
(Tech aside: In the past I’ve tried to embed links in comments here using the same HTML syntax I’m familiar with from other blogs — including my own — and had no luck. The link text ends up marked, but there’s no working link behind it. I’ve noticed in this thread that at least one other commenter is having the same problem, but others seem able to make links work. Could somebody point to a source for the correct tagging syntax? TIA….)
The point is, we humans have developed sufficiently that meat eating is a CHOICE.
1) Yes, a choice. Not drinking alcohol is a choice, too. Some people ascribe moral value to these choices, and I do not believe that is justified.
2) Some medical conditions do not allow it, not to mention all the life-saving medications made from animals. Speaking as a Canadian, veganism and winter don’t mix, either. Regular vegetarianism isn’t such a problem (allows dairy, etc).
So what if I am designed to be omnivore? I’m still excercising my moral choice.
The linked website claimed that we were evolved to be herbivores, it was just a fisking of that particularly bad argument.
You make moral choices based on your diet, I make moral choices based on other criteria.
As for your other cents, I have not and do not “taunt veggies” or use the “argument from yummy”.
Come up with a good argument for meat eating and I might even respect your position.
Compared to plants, animal products are highly efficient sources of certain things that are required, that is why traditional vegetarians use animal products (eg dairy)… they also live in climates that are much more conducive to vegetarianism. Cold climates require more readily accessible fats, etc. Each human population has evolved and adapted itself to certain diets, there is no “one size fits all”. Without animal products you have to spend a lot more time and effort getting a proper balance. I prefer other mental excercises.
The argument for veganism is supposedly a moral argument, yet does not include any considerations of the values of non-animal eukaryotes, bacteria or archaea. The Jain holy men wait for the fruit to fall from the tree before considering it OK to eat, and sweep the path before them to avoid stepping on insects. Obviously this “morality” of diet is a continuum. Of course, that makes me question whether it is a real morality or an assumed one, like not eating pork and shellfish.
I don’t find the arguments *for* veganism to be very sound. I agree that most Westerners eat far too much meat, and that factory farming is a horror. But those specifics are invalid arguments against meat-eating in general.
Like it or not, we are animals ourselves and must eat or die. Therefore the “all life is sacred” position doesn’t work. A line has to be drawn somewhere.
What I don’t like about PETA is they can’t see that their line-drawing is just as arbitrary as anyone else’s. I’d prefer not to eat a primate (unless it was the only way to avoid starvation) but I’m ok with eating any other living being. They prefer not to eat a metazoan (or is it a vertebrate? What’s their position on eating, or otherwise killing, arthropods or molluscs?) but are ok with eating any other living being. Other people have other positions.
Why should PETA’s be privileged? What makes a cow or a clam more sacred than a carrot? I don’t insist on privileging *my* position and harassing monkey hunters. It’s a personal preference, not a moral law.
I have no patience, generally, with movements that devalue human rights in favor of the “rights” of the natural environment, be it PETA, or the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement
“VHEMT Supporters are not necessarily in favor of human extinction, but agree that no more of us should be created at this time…VHEMT is naturally in opposition to involuntary extinction of any species, as well as any efforts encouraging human extermination.”
You think this is an extreme position? Oy.
There’s no point debating or discussing with AR believers, because you either accept their axioms and are compelled to act accordingly, or you don’t. It’s like attempting to debate with a Christian about original sin; either you accept that original sin exists and all the ramifications thereof, or you don’t and the entire idea of discussing it is a farce.
“What’s wrong with the goal of saving zebras from hyenas?”
Aw gee! Why don’t we rescue the field-mice from the owls and snakes? Or the termites from the anteaters? Or the dragonflies from the chameleons? Or the rabbits from the foxes? Or the jellyfish from the dolphins?
…BECAUSE IT’D MESS UP THE GODDAMN ECOSYSTEM, YOU TARD!!!
FOOD WEB! PREDATOR-PREY RELATIONSHIPS!!! POPULATION CHECKS!!! AAAAARRRAAAAAAGHHHHHH!!!!!
*casts FFVII Meteor on Jason*
Well, it’s really generous of VHEMT that the don’t advocate the wholesale extermination of humanity. Instead, they want us to all voluntarily decide to stop procreating — to “go gentle into that good night” — based on the idea that we are inherently a pestilence on the Earth. What could possibly be extreme about that?
Oy, indeed!
Take the “moral agent” argument mentioned above. A counter to that argument would be a human baby, as mentioned above, also. I can’t see that that’s a bad argument. Obviously a human baby shouldn’t be eaten or tortured because of its lack of moral sense. Certainly a baby has potential to become a moral agent. It certainly may be able to develop a sense of right and wrong. It could just as easily develop a mental illness that keeps that from happening. Does that then make that human an “animal?” I don’t believe most of the people here would say that. Someone might, though.
Everyone here would agree that all humans are animals. We sure as hell ain’t plants or bacteria. This is a biology blog, “animal” is just a taxonomic category.
Anyway, by the same argument that accords newborns rights then blasocysts have rights. This is one of the anti-choice arguments. Do sperm have rights? (Hums a few bars of the obvious)
Personally, I don’t see newborns as having rights, they are accorded priviledges based on their potential to become moral agents. That’s species chauvanism, too. My position against animal torture does not mean that I think they have rights, it means that I am a moral agent.
Newborns, infants and children are consistently denied rights accorded to adults by every society going and their own parents. Free speech and habeus corpus are pretty obvious ones. They are also not held responisible for their actions until they become moral agents. Those whose mental condition precludes them being moral agents are also not (supposedly) held responsible.
And, BTW, I believe that behavioural studies indicate that there are non-human animals that are in the running for “moral agent” status. I would be agree accord rights to them.
mysh: So good, in fact, that wild animals that eat one human are hunted and killed because humans are so very tasty that those animals always come back for more.
While this may have been meant as a joke, there is a fairly straightforward rebuttal:
AFAIK, most predator attacks on humans happen either when humans invade the predator’s territory, and/or when the humans have depleted the local prey animals so badly, that the top predators start getting desperate. (Usually, they start by attacking human livestock.) Remember that (recent) humans are fairly big animals, and we live in groups that defend themselves fiercely. Predators would much rather hunt critters whose main defense is hiding or running away!
Of course, what you said doesn’t follow logically. The logical conclusion to your “argument”, is that if human flesh (“long pig”) tastes good (you like pork? you have a sweet tooth?), then you will eat it. So why don’t you?
based on the idea that we are inherently a pestilence on the Earth. What could possibly be extreme about that?
We *are* a “pestilence” upon the Earth at our current population. And obviously you missed the humour part.
“returning Earth to its natural splendor and ending needless suffering of humanity are happy thoughts — no sense moping around in gloom and doom.”
Oh yes, I also remembered the other thing that makes the “hey, we’re just raising your consciousness like Dawkins says, lol!” argument invalid: atheists don’t send nailbombs to churches or dig up Christians’ dead grandmothers and hold them hostage.
And obviously you missed the humour part.
No, I really didn’t; I meant to be going along with the [Conservapedia-approved spelling]humor[/Conservapedia-approved spelling] part. Should’ve thrown in a few smilies, I suppose; sorry for any confusion.
I take your point, and they have had their successes, certainly (and who’d deny that was a good thing?). However, in my personal experience over the years I have met far more people who react poorly to them than positively.
Well, your personal experience talking to people is not a reliable measure of PETA’s effectiveness. They have a record of accomplishment at improving the well-being of animals that no other animal rights or animal welfare organization has come close to matching, as far as I am aware. PETA’s impact on the fast food industry alone has probably done more to reduce the suffering of animals than anything the ASPA or the Humane Society have done in their entire history. McDonald’s is the largest purchaser of beef, pork and chicken in the United States, and PETA’s impact on the animal welfare standards imposed by McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and other fast food corporations on their suppliers has improved the lives of hundreds of millions of animals.
But seriously…
Graculus quotes from the VHEMT (they pronounce it “vehement,” you know) site:
“…returning Earth to its natural splendor…”
All kidding around aside, my serious point is that the works of humankind are part of — perhaps the apogee of — Earth’s “natural splendor.” Regardless of our historical adherence to false dualities, even the most “artificial” human works are the end result of natural selection, and just as eligible to be considered “natural wonders” as any waterfall or redwood tree.
This practice of placing humanity in opposition to “nature” — which the Deep Ecology adherents do in practice even though, ironically, they intend to be advancing an integrative philosophy — is teh bogus. It’s a manifestation of a perverse sort of species self-loathing… and the fact that PETA and radical environmental groups so visibly adopt apparently anti-human positions has the unfortunate effect of giving right-wingnuts a club with which to beat legitimate environmentalists.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard the “environmentalists hate humans” trope from otherwise rational people. It’s more than “unfortunate,” actually: Discrediting the U.S. mainstream environmental movement has potentially devastating consquences for the whole frickin’ planet.
Oy!
But seriously, what ARE we going to do about overpopulation? The fact that Christian Fundamentalists are sceaming at us to have more and more babies and that they think contraception is Satan’s work isn’t helping.
There’s no point debating or discussing with AR believers, because you either accept their axioms and are compelled to act accordingly, or you don’t.
This ignores the fact that anti-AR folks also have axioms (e.g., “Non-human animals are not worthy of moral concern”), and are acting accordingly. If operating on the basis of axioms is irrational, then neither side has a monopoly on that.
That said, I think that grossly misrepresents a reasonable AR position, which I think arguably can be constructed from a few basic and defensible premises.
To expand on Chris’s point above, is there a fundamental difference between killing a wheat stalk and killing a clam? Plants may communicate with each other, and have specific negative reactions to being harmed. I doubt anyone could demonstrate that a bivalve has more self-awareness or experience of pain than a plant. So it comes down to drawing a somewhat arbitrary line.
For me, chimps are too close to sentience to treat as food. However, chickens and turkeys cause me no guilt. I’m against unduly torturing animals that can feel pain (or plants, for that matter, I suppose), but I think it’s possible to raise and slaughter farm animals humanely.
However, I’m still more disturbed by how the human workers at slaughterhouses are treated than I am by the suffering inflicted on the cows there.
To expand on Chris’s point above, is there a fundamental difference between killing a wheat stalk and killing a clam?
It depends on the principles involved. I’m vegetarian because I think it is inconsistent for me to value sentience and consciousness in humans but not non-human organisms, and given the negligible sentience of clams, I’m not too troubled by their demise. But I think that chickens do have enough to make them objects of moral concern, and certainly cows and pigs (perhaps the smartest non-primate land animals) do as well. For me, it’s easiest to simply draw a line at “animals”, but that doesn’t mean that I (and probably many other animal rights advocates) don’t recognize gradiations within that category, just as I recognize gradations within humans.
“This ignores the fact that anti-AR folks also have axioms (e.g., “Non-human animals are not worthy of moral concern”), and are acting accordingly”
……..
……..
Dude.
We have horses. We have dogs. We have cats. We have birds. We have animals we love very much, commonly referred to as pets (sorry, COMPANION ANIMALS) and we freaking think they are worthy of moral concern.
WE DO NOT HATE NON-HUMAN ANIMALS.
We just don’t go around anthromorphizing them willy-nilly, or saying things like:
“It is time we demand an end to the misguided and abusive concept of animal ownership. The first step on this long, but just, road would be ending the concept of pet ownership.”
— Elliot Katz, President, In Defense of Animals, “In Defense of Animals,” Spring 1997
“The life of an ant and the life of my child should be accorded equal respect.”
— Wayne Pacelle, Senior Vice-President oF HSUS, formerly of Friends for Animals, The Associated Press, Jan. 15, 1989
“We have no ethical obligation to preserve the different breeds of livestock produced through selective breeding. … One generation and out. We have no problem with the extinction of domestic animals. They are creations of human selective breeding.”
— Wayne Pacelle, Senior Vice-President oF HSUS, formerly of Friends for Animals; Quoted in Animal People, May, 1993
We have animals we love very much, commonly referred to as pets (sorry, COMPANION ANIMALS) and we freaking think they are worthy of moral concern.
Good, then all we are discussing are the details of that concern.
And, for the record, I don’t feel compelled to defend the looney statements of radicals, any more than I expect non-AR folks to defend cannibalism. Let’s actually debate the issue, rather than quote-mine.
Who do you define as “non-AR folks”, Tulse? Just wanna clarify. So far it seems to consist of “anybody who eats meat.”
Who do you define as “non-AR folks”, Tulse? Just wanna clarify. So far it seems to consist of “anybody who eats meat.”
You claimed that people who advocate animals rights cannot be argued with, because they have “axioms”. My point is simply that everyone who has thought about this issue, pro or con, comes at it with “axioms” — they are not the exclusive property of animal rights advocates.
And yes, anyone who has actually thought about the issue and still eats meat would not qualify as an “animal rights advocate” — there are plenty of thoughtful meat eaters who admirably advocate for animal welfare, but that is a somewhat different issue.
The day my cat stops killing mice is the day I get another cat.
(I will keep the first one.)
So today we’ve had:
a. one post horrified – horrified! – that among other things, cops sometimes shoot dogs
b. one post mocking – haha! – PETA for suggesting that a chicken might be more intelligent or self aware than a newborn baby.
Cognitive dissonance much?
Someone else already said it, and more directly, but I will say it anyway. Every time I hear this BS I am reminded of the usual argument from religion, which states: “I am a member of Christianity. I don’t agree with everything they do or eveything their spokespeople say. But I do think they do far more good than harm, more good than any other belief system or charitable organization. They have a record of real accomplishment at improving the morals and well being of people.”, except all the ones who they killed or whose lives they fucked up by replacing what ever belief was already their will their own ideology. There is a damn good reason why, unlike Greenpeace, whose founders are all eitehr dead, retired or now working for the forest service doing “real” work to help save things, that PETA still has the same leadership. They where never about sane and rational solutions, but have been crackpot, nuts from day one. So there is no reason for PETA’s leadership to disavow such blatent lunacy and go find more useful work with some “sane” group. Its like if some fool claimed that he didn’t always agree with everything Pat Robertson said, but still donated money to his mega church, on the grounds that “Christians” tend to do a lot of good things. So what?!? That doesn’t make Robertson “Christianity”, or mandate that all the relatively sane members of that belief system who *do* manage to do some good things have to call themselves Robertonians. But, somehow, because 80% of the lay people in PETA do good things, PETA as a whole gets all the credit for it, and the complete batshit insane crap dribbling out of the mouths of its main leadership is waved aside as “irrelevant”. Its not. Anymore than being a liberal with some vague belief in a diety, who does actively try to make the world better, *should* in a sane and rational world mean that you have to claim membership of a religion that included(ed) the Inquisition, the Crusades, people like Rebertson, the religious right, or any of the vast number of other people who claim to be trying to save the world, by screwing it up even more.
Pick a side. If you are on PETA’s side, then you automatically condone “everything” they are doing. If you are not on their side, then call yourself something else, and admit that nearly everything PETA has *accomplished* has been the result of its “sane” members acting independently of the main group, while its leaders do nothing but whine incessently about how, “Its not enough and we now need to save puppies from possible euthenization, by killing 60% of them!” This lunatic idea that you can be a member of, and/or support, *some* actions of an organization dedicated to some of the most insane stupidity imaginable, yet not get proverbial blood on your hands for doing so is complete BS, no matter if you are talking about animal rights or faith based initiatives. Its all the same, “Yeah, they do a lot of bad things, but I only support the good ones, which I *want* to believe there are more of, but can’t prove there are.”, BS.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/staffordshire/4181743.stm
D (#128):
Yeah. Tell us what exactly a and b have to do with each other. And please notice that PETA didn’t use “newborn baby” in their ad, they used “young human”. You know, if you have a point beyond just thinking you’re clever.
OK, do so.
I only ask because most of the attempts I’ve seen either boil down to “speciesism is bad because it is bad”, overreliance on the word “suffering” without ever bothering to define it, or a variety of category errors.
Kagehi,
I think Christianity does more harm than good, but I would reject it even if I thought the opposite because I consider its major claims of truth to be unjustified and most likely false. I think PETA does more good than harm. Far more good than harm, in fact. I’ve provided a list of some of the PETA’s major accomplishments at improving the welfare of animals. I haven’t seen any serious attempt by any of PETA’s critics here, including you, to substantiate the claim that it does more harm than good, just lots of ostentatious expressions of outrage and unsourced or irrelevant claims of various isolated incidents of harm.
I also unequivocally reject your claim that “if you are on PETA’s side, then you automatically condone ‘everything’ they are doing.” In fact, I think this claim is absurd. I support lots of organizations and causes, but that doesn’t mean I support everything any of those organizations does, or everything any fellow proponent of the causes I support says or does.
Thats just so bizarre. You are a predator. Period. An omnivorous predator but a predator no less. You are built to eat flesh. There is no frivolous enjoyment in eating a good dietary item.
So today we’ve had:
a. one post horrified – horrified! – that among other things, cops sometimes shoot dogs
b. one post mocking – haha! – PETA for suggesting that a chicken might be more intelligent or self aware than a newborn baby.
Cognitive dissonance much?
Don’t be obtuse. Do you think that if the police were in the habit of shooting chickens on drug raids, PZ would be OK with that?
And that’s not what PETA said – they said “cognitive abilities of a chicken rival that of cats, dogs and even young humans”.
Chris,
What makes a cow or a clam more sacred than a carrot?
I don’t think they are. I don’t really believe in the concept of “sacredness” or “sanctity” at all. It’s a religious idea that I reject. I do believe that cows, and perhaps also clams, but not carrots, have rights, because cows have the capacity to suffer and carrots do not.
last I checked, newborn babies ARE “young humans”. For that matter, I’d be astonished if hens or sheep or whatever didn’t vastly outperform (say) three month old babies in tests of cognitive function.
Anyhow, the tension I was trying to tease out is simply that inherent in PZ’s concurrent high valuation of dog (pet animal) lives and low valuation of chicken (or pig or cow or other farm animal) lives. That position can of course be justified, but it takes some work. Certainly it is hard to ground in any sense of animal welfare (note the word; I do not really buy the notion of animal rights) or suffering minimization.
OK, OK. Now, what animals have the capacity to suffer?
Mammals and reptiles can suffer.
Let’s go a bit further…
Invertabrates? Well, octopus and squid might, but what about earthworms? Snails? Jellyfish? Sea stars? Sand dollars? Barnacles?
Let’s go even further. What about parasites like mosquitoes, ticks, tapeworms, fleas, and bot flies? Liver flukes? Heartworms? Inquiring minds want to know.
For that matter, I’d be astonished if hens or sheep or whatever didn’t vastly outperform (say) three month old babies in tests of cognitive function.
So what? Do you think eating hens or sheep but not babies is hypocritical?
Anyhow, the tension I was trying to tease out is simply that inherent in PZ’s concurrent high valuation of dog (pet animal) lives and low valuation of chicken (or pig or cow or other farm animal) lives. That position can of course be justified, but it takes some work. Certainly it is hard to ground in any sense of animal welfare (note the word; I do not really buy the notion of animal rights) or suffering minimization.
The emotional attachment people have for their family pets is the whole point of not casually offing the dogs. It minimizes the suffering of the family not to have their dog shot on a whim. OK?
This has little to do with animal welfare. Imagine that the dog is shot by the police and dies instantly, with little suffering. What is the difference between this and the owner having the dog put down?
Now, what animals have the capacity to suffer?
Any animal with a nervous system capable of transmitting pain signals and the neural machinery necessary to register the sensation of pain. I don’t think there’s any serious doubt among scientists expert in the field that cows, pigs, chicken, sheep and other common land animals used for food possess these neurophysiological features. Whether simpler animals such as shellfish can experience pain seems to be an open question. No serious scientist that I am aware of believes that carrots or stalks of wheat can experience pain.
Hey now…I’ve seen a chicken play tic-tac-toe AND baseball at our old B&I Circus store here in Seattle (yes, the one that held Ivan the Gorilla for years). If that’s not smarts I don’t know what is.
that belong to someone else, frequently for no good reason
In the first place, I invite them to provide evidence; I didn’t see any in their original claim.
In the second place, even if that were true, we know that a newborn baby is highly likely to develop into something much more intelligent and self aware than a chicken; and that development can often be achieved without risking the life or health of any other human being.
Not really, no. If someone wants to kill and eat their own dog, I admit that I would find this creepy; but I don’t think it should be illegal, any more than killing and eating your own cow or chicken. If someone wants to kill their neighbor’s dog, regardless of whether or not they intend to eat it, that’s a problem, and abuses of police power make it even more of a problem.
overreliance on the word “suffering” without ever bothering to define it
Are you really unclear about the meaning of “suffering?” This definition from the American Heritage Dictionary seems as good as any for the purposes of this discussion:
Any being that has the capacity to suffer or to experience enjoyment or happiness has interests, and therefore has rights.
“In the first place, I invite them to provide evidence; I didn’t see any in their original claim.”
Don’t count on it, ever. These types respond to requests for proof the same way Dracula responds to crucifixes.
“To feel pain or distress; sustain loss, injury, harm, or punishment”
There’s nothing in that definition that obviously excludes plants. An unwatered plant is distressed.
And you’ll need to define “feel pain” in a way that includes clams but not carrots.
jbark,
There’s nothing in that definition that obviously excludes plants. An unwatered plant is distressed. And you’ll need to define “feel pain” in a way that includes clams but not carrots.
See my earlier post on the neurophysiological requirements for the experience of pain. In whatever strange sense you seem to think that carrots could be said to “feel pain” or plants “feel distress,” I don’t recognize it as “suffering” of a kind that would qualify carrots or plants as having interests or rights.
I only ask because most of the attempts I’ve seen either boil down to “speciesism is bad because it is bad”, overreliance on the word “suffering” without ever bothering to define it, or a variety of category errors.
OK, then:
“Suffering” is the subjective experience of pain. From our current understanding, some sort of neurological capacity is necessary to have subjective experience, and from the continuity of evolution, we can presume that creatures like homo sapiens have similar (although simpler) capacities. I’m certainly comfortable granting that carrots don’t feel pain, and for that matter that earthworms and clams aren’t likely to either, as those organisms don’t have the neurological machinery necessary for conscious experience. But chimpanzees certainly do, and my dogs certainly do, and likely, to a lesser degree, reptiles and birds do.
That said, my concern isn’t so much with suffering, but with the capacity for subjective experience. I think that it is that quality that is necessary to be worthy of moral concern, and moreover, I think that in many cases with humans (e.g., the severely mentally delayed) it is effectively a sufficient quality. And all of the organisms that I mentioned above, if they experience pain, have subjective experience.
“Speciesism” isn’t bad because it’s bad, it’s bad because it essentially denies the evolutionary connection of humans to other organisms, and presumes just like the religious fundamentalists that there is something inherently special in just being human. It runs on an unargued premise that only people are worthy of moral concern, and is all the more problematic in those who don’t believe in religion, because at least those who think God exists can claim human uniqueness because of souls.
I think that one important principle in ethics is that ethical distinctions should only be made on the basis of ethically relevant differences, and that such differences cannot just be assumed. For example, we presume that racism is bad because degree of skin melanin is a morally irrelevant difference. Speciesism is similarly “bad” because it argues that humans deserve special treatment without providing a moral justification for it.
As I pointed out above, there are a variety of organsims that have seemingly relevant capacities that are similar to humans — certainly, apart from genetics and evolutionary history, a chimpanzee has more cognitive abilities, and presumably a more complex subjective life, than a profoundly mentally retarded baby. So what morally relevant criteria allow us to treat chimpanzees as objects, but such babies as entities of moral concern? If there is none, then to treat the baby better than the chimp is speciesism.
“Any animal with a nervous system capable of transmitting pain signals and the neural machinery necessary to register the sensation of pain.”
Squid might, but then cephalapods (sp?) have highly sophisticated central nervous systems.
But I digress. You’re the one who said clams can feel pain. Or suffer, both claims are equally silly. On that note, why can’t carrot plants suffer too?
Speciesism is similarly “bad” because it argues that humans deserve special treatment without providing a moral justification for it.
Do you think killing a human is basically the same as killing any other animal fulfilling your criteria of subjective experience? If not, why do humans deserve special treatment?
Why can’t carrots be armed with Green Laser Pointers, so they can commit acts of terrorism against low-flying airplanes?
You’re the one who said clams can feel pain.
No, I didn’t say that. In fact, I just said that whether shellfish are capable of experiencing pain seems to be an open question.
On that note, why can’t carrot plants suffer too?
I already told you, in the very post you just quoted.
You’re a waste of time. You don’t even read the answers to your own questions.
Speciesism is an invidious social prejudice, like racism and sexism and homophobia. If we were to one day encounter a species of extraterrestrials equal in cognitive ability to ourselves but lacking our technology and military power, or discover a tribe of humans of a species thought to be extinct of equal cognitive ability to homo sapiens, I wonder how we would treat them. Hopefully, not as disgracefully as the way we currently treat animals.
Speciesism is an invidious social prejudice, like racism and sexism and homophobia.
The solution to racism, sexism and homophobia has been trying to ensure that races, sexes and other groups are treated equally and have equal rights. How would you apply this to speciesism?
The solution to racism, sexism and homophobia has been trying to ensure that races, sexes and other groups are treated equally and have equal rights. How would you apply this to speciesism?
The solution to racism, sexism and homophobia has been to trying to ensure that individuals are treated equally without regard to their race, sex or sexual orientation. The solution to speciesism is to treat individuals equally without regard to their species. And I do mean “species,” not “cognitive ability” or somesuch.
Do you think killing a human is basically the same as killing any other animal fulfilling your criteria of subjective experience?
I don’t think that any other animal generally has a capacity for as rich a subjective experience as humans, but yes, if they did, I would think those acts are equivalent. For example, I think killing a brain-dead human being is less morally wrong than killing an adult gorilla. I think that aborting a human fetus is less morally wrong than killing a dog. And, as Jason suggested, I think that killing a living Neaderthal, or a Vulcan, would be just as morally wrong as killing a homo sapien. If you don’t believe that, then I’d be interesting in what the moral distinction is that you’re drawing.
Brain-dead humans and (sufficiently early) fetuses are red herrings, they have no subjective experience.
Jason wrote: The solution to speciesism is to treat individuals equally without regard to their species. And I do mean “species,” not “cognitive ability” or somesuch.
Tulse wrote: If you don’t believe that, then I’d be interesting in what the moral distinction is that you’re drawing.
I’m not talking about living Neanderthals or Vulcans since those don’t exist. Is killing a mouse equivalent to murder? What rights should mice share with humans?
If you both are thinking more in the direction of great apes than mice or frogs I tend to agree, but replacing “human” with “human-like in cognitive ability” or “as rich a subjective experience as humans” is just as chauvinist. Why is Cognitivism better than Speciesism?
Brain-dead humans and (sufficiently early) fetuses are red herrings, they have no subjective experience.
So you agree that subjective experience is a morally relevant criterion? (And, given the violent disagreement around both euthanasia and abortion, I’d hardly say these examples are irrelevant.)
I’m not talking about living Neanderthals or Vulcans since those don’t exist.
Of course they don’t exist, but it is precisely these kind of thought experiments that clarify the ethical principles at work. If you think killing these kind of entities is wrong, then it is clearly not that they are human, but that they possess some quality that makes them worthy of ethical concern. What is that?
Is killing a mouse equivalent to murder?
Not the murder of an adult human, no — adult humans have a far richer subjective life than do mice. But is killing a mouse worse than killing an anencephalic baby? Perhaps. Worse than killing a fetus? Definitely.
If you both are thinking more in the direction of great apes than mice or frogs I tend to agree
Why? What ethical principle are you using?
but replacing “human” with “human-like in cognitive ability” or “as rich a subjective experience as humans” is just as chauvinist. Why is Cognitivism better than Speciesism?
Because it is a principle that seems to make our ethical reasoning consistent. And my benchmark is not “human-like” abilities, but simply the possession of subjective experience. As I noted earlier, I think this quality is certainly necessary for an entity to be worthy of ethical concern, and that in many cases our everyday moral reasoning suggests that it is sufficient. In other words, I don’t think this is a special principle that has been imported into ethics, but one of the foundations of it.
But is killing a mouse worse than killing an anencephalic baby? Perhaps. Worse than killing a fetus? Definitely.
So if you would happen to be in a car crash with a pregnant woman who is also carrying a mouse in a cage, which of these outcomes would be best:
1) she miscarries and the mouse survives
2) the mouse dies and the fetus survives
What about research that might save human lives and involves killing mice?
So if you would happen to be in a car crash with a pregnant woman who is also carrying a mouse in a cage, which of these outcomes would be best:
1) she miscarries and the mouse survives
2) the mouse dies and the fetus survives
If the woman wanted to carry the child to term, her interests (not that of the fetus) would have to be considered. To be clear, if she were driving to a clinic to get an abortion, then the mouse surviving would be the preferable outcome, which certainly suggests that it is the woman’s interests, and not that of the fetus, that is at issue. All else equal, a mouse is worth more than a fetus.
What about research that might save human lives and involves killing mice?
What about research that might save human lives but involves killing gorillas? What about research that might save human lives but involves killing prisoners?
Only someone with absolutely no real life experience of chickens could think they have anything at all you could call cognitive ability. They’re nasty, dirty, vicious and stupid. And the ones I knew were all free range so that argument won’t fly.
MKK–grew up on farms
I hate to say it but there are chickens that are pretty smart. I’m not saying all of them because lets face it, these guys are bred for tasty meat, not brains. On the other hand there are smart chickens out there, and they respond to conditioning well enough to learn simple tricks. These include playing tick tack toe (or going through the motions while the computer plays, I can’t tell which without examining the relevant machine), doing simple “ball through the hoop” type exercises and so on. But as inteligent as a dog, cat or young human? I don’t think so. Unlike pigeons they can’t be trained to successfully pick out a Matice from similar paintings and unlike parrots they can’t learn another language. As for the issue of subjective experience, conciousness or whatever you want to call it, that’s a very fuzzy area because although we can test animals based on what we view as conciousness experiments these are definitely biased in favor of what humanity views as conciousness. For example the ability to recognize one’s reflection has been found in species that people don’t really recognize as intelligent/concious but is absent in species, like the Bottlenose Dolphin, which are definitely intelligent (and which have recently been found to refer to each other by name and even gossip about each other). The obvious flaw in the reflection experiment is that it requires the individual to be from a species that recognizes individuals primarilly by sight, whereas many animals recognize individuals by smell or call, but not by sight.
Unless our species has radically changed from, say, 100 years ago than ya we’d treat them like animals if they were less technologically developed than us (lets face it, we always have), not only that, but we’d likely wipe them out quickly unless they were immediately useful to us. If they were more technologically advanced we’d treat them like devils. Sure some weirdos would probably try to understand them, but lets be honest with ourselves, humanity is a species that tries to wipe out its competition.
With PETA, I’d have to agree that I detest them. I find them particularly irksome because I’m interested in conservation, the last thing I want is a group dedicated to releasing alien species into the environment. PETA is also throwing all this money around that could be going to worthy causes like increasing the level of punishment for those found trafficing in endangered species and smuggeling animals. Leveling dams to allow wild fish free travel in blocked rivers (OK, this one borders on terrorism). Setting up protected areas that include refueling stations for migrating birds. Educating people about the dangers of letting their beloved pet run around out doors (most of the dangers being the ones inflicted by Precious on the local populations). PETA’s also not facing a fact that I’m well aware of, if we were banned from eating or otherwise using the products of domestic farm animals than the vast majority of those animals would immediately be killed. There’d be no point in keeping them and they’d just be using up valuable crops that could be used for feeding the newly vegetarian population.
As for whether a plant can feel pain, I think if any can it would be stuff on the bush/tree level, since those are the ones that would most benefit from such an ability.
As for whether a plant can feel pain, I think if any can it would be stuff on the bush/tree level, since those are the ones that would most benefit from such an ability.
Huh? Why?
Relax and stare at the carrots…the carrots…the carrots…
*glazed expression* Must…purchase…Famicom…
@ Jason
I’m not sure if you are specifically ignoring my comments about the ties of Newkirk and Peta to the ALF and the ELF or if you didn’t see them. Regardless, please tell me how you can support a group that has given financial aid and other forms of support to convicted arsonists who actively promote and education on how to build fire bombs like Rodney Coronado? When your membership dues (I assume there are dues) go to a group that puts the value of making a statement over that of human life that taints the entire organization no matter how much perceived or actual good they have done for animal welfare. Specifically address the actions of those groups and why you can excuse them. By supporting PETA and Newkirk you are supporting them.
@ dzd
Thanks for the link. That’s pure insanity.
That should read
“Regardless, please tell me how you can support a group that has given financial aid and other forms of support to convicted arsonists who actively promote and educate on how to build fire bombs like Rodney Coronado?”
To be clear, if she were driving to a clinic to get an abortion, then the mouse surviving would be the preferable outcome, which certainly suggests that it is the woman’s interests, and not that of the fetus, that is at issue.
What if she wants to put down her mouse or some other pet, since she won’t have time to care for it once the baby comes? She does not want to give the mouse away since none of her friends want it, and it might end up being mistreated. What are the “interests of the mouse” here?
“What about research that might save human lives and involves killing mice?”
What about research that might save human lives but involves killing gorillas? What about research that might save human lives but involves killing prisoners?
You are not answering the question. Are you saying all those situations are exactly equivalent? There is never more justification for killing a mouse than killing a prisoner? What about the mice killed by combine harvesters for our food production?
And one reason the great apes are so precious is that they are on the brink of extinction. If there were millions of them raiding crops in Africa and killing and eating human babies (gorillas won’t do this but chimps do), would you send in the UN peacekeeping force? Put them on trial for crimes against humanity/animality?
An interesting phenomenon that illustrates some ideological similarities between the animal rights and anti-abortion movements:
Karl Beuchner of the band Earth Crisis
http://www.section3.com/interviews/earthcrisis.shtml
“We want to prevent problems, unnecessary suffering, and killing. That is why we concern ourselves with abortion. In a lot of ways it is very similar to animal liberation – an individual innocent being in a helpless situation and cannot defend itself in any way, or even speak out.”
Hardline: an offshoot of straightedge that includes animal liberation and anti-abortion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardline_%28syncretic_movement%29
An interesting phenomenon that illustrates some ideological similarities between the animal rights and anti-abortion movement
That’s just quote-mining, Colugo — I’d hardly call “hardline” a major movement. Here, let me provide a different quote:
“Those concerned with right for animals should also be concerned for rights of women to choose what happens to their bodies.” — Tulse
What if she wants to put down her mouse or some other pet, since she won’t have time to care for it once the baby comes? She does not want to give the mouse away since none of her friends want it, and it might end up being mistreated. What are the “interests of the mouse” here?
The interests of the mouse (or alternatively, responsibilities of the owner) are that its life be respected. An animal should not be discarded simply because it is inconvenient. (And there are plenty of animal shelters and Humane Societies that will take unwanted pets, including rodents.)
Are you saying all those situations are exactly equivalent? There is never more justification for killing a mouse than killing a prisoner?
I’m saying that we clearly do already make distinctions — we think that killing prisoners for research is wrong, no matter how many people would be helped (and this thinking has not always been the case, as history shows). Likewise, I think many people would say that killing gorillas would seem wrong, no matter how people might be helped. I don’t think that raw utilitarianism is acceptable to most people. And yes, I have very serious problems with the use of animals in research. What makes a mouse in a lab any different than the mouse that someone else has as a pet, other than their history?
If there were millions of them raiding crops in Africa and killing and eating human babies (gorillas won’t do this but chimps do), would you send in the UN peacekeeping force? Put them on trial for crimes against humanity/animality?
Cute quip, but of course gorillas aren’t capable of engaging in moral reasoning, and therefore can no more commit “crimes” than two-year-olds. That said, if millions of massively strong two-year-old humans were killing and eating babies in Africa, I’d certainly use force, including lethal force, to stop them. We do this all the time with adult humans — it’s called war. Just because I believe that non-human animals are worthy of ethical consideration doesn’t mean I think their rights automatically override the rights of animals that happen to be human.
What makes a mouse in a lab any different than the mouse that someone else has as a pet, other than their history?
What makes either of those different from a wild mouse that’s run over by a truck or a combine harvester?
What makes either of those different from a wild mouse that’s run over by a truck or a combine harvester?
Not much, just as there is not much difference between the kids that go to nice private schools in the US and those who are indentured into making carpets for 16 hours a day in the Third World that those US parents buy. Humans aren’t at all consistent in the way they apply rights to each other — why should you be surprised that there are inconsistencies in the way ethics is applied to animals?
And, as I said before, just because animals have rights doesn’t mean that human animals don’t. I do think that effort should be made to carry out agricultural practices humanely (and my parents own a farm, so I do have some experience here).
This has really been a fascinating discussion. I think it boils down to struggling with how we distinguish between people and animals (with a nod to the biologists that I understand people is a special class within animals)… unless the folks worrying about carrots are serious, in which case we’re distinguishing between people and not people.
This, BTW, would be no problem for most religious folks: They would simply say that whatever has a soul is people; whatever doesn’t, isn’t; and God (or the gods) tells them which is which. For those of us who rely on reason, however, it’s a somewhat thornier question. Life’s a bitch, eh?
FWIW, I think the ability to feel pain is a red herring: Pain bears on the question of cruelty, of course, but I’m not ready to accept the idea that everything that feels pain is a person. Instead, I believe (that is, I think I believe) personhood is related to self-awareness… which only kicks the can down the road: Now we have to define self-awareness.
It might have something to do with language… but I don’t know enough about ape sign-language studies or whalesongs or parrots’ production of speech or, for that matter, domesticated animals’ response to symbolic commands to say much about that. I think self-awareness involves the ability to form the concept “I” and develop ideas about the relationship between “I” and “not-I”… but I don’t know whether the physical capability to produce a symbol that means “I” is part of it, nor how we can know whether an organism that can’t physically produce such a symbol is self-aware. Maybe chickens are having very high-level telepathic conversations about existentialist theory, and we just can’t “hear” them, eh?
But perhaps self-awareness is a meaningless concept: Perhaps we’re all just animals, and the “morality” of killing members of other species derives solely from our ability to do so and the degree to which doing so benefits our species. I definitely don’t buy the equation of “speciesism” with racism or sexism or ageism, because I think the relationship between different species is of a different order than those between individuals and groups within a species. BUT… I’d have a hard time defending that on a scientific basis, because I lack the background. Any of you biologists care to comment?
Finally, for people who believe, as one commenter recently noted, that “science fiction is there to learn from,” I commend to your attention Robert Heinlein’s short story “Jerry Was a Man,” which bears directly on this conversation, and his novel Time Enough for Love, which deals with (among many other weird things) the concept of sentience in computers, including several a couple of sentient computers whose personalities are “installed” in cloned human bodies.
PS: Who says “[t]here is no frivolous enjoyment in eating a good dietary item”? I get frivolous enjoyment from my food all the time. Even meat. Especially meat. YMMV ;^)
Windy,
I’m not talking about living Neanderthals or Vulcans since those don’t exist.
I don’t think you know that. But what if they do exist? Do you think it would be ethical to treat them in the same way that we treat animals, simply because they are of a different species? If race is not an ethically relevant characteristic, why is species?
Is killing a mouse equivalent to murder?
No.
What rights should mice share with humans?
The right not to be tortured, for example. (And not “should,” but “do”).
Bill Dauphin,
FWIW, I think the ability to feel pain is a red herring: Pain bears on the question of cruelty, of course, but I’m not ready to accept the idea that everything that feels pain is a person.
So what if it’s not a person? Anything that can experience pain has an interest in avoiding pain. Why is it ethical to consider the interests only of human beings (or only of “persons”), and not those of other species too? I very much doubt you really believe this. Do you think it’s ethical for a human to torture a cat for pleasure?
Perhaps we’re all just animals, and the “morality” of killing members of other species derives solely from our ability to do so and the degree to which doing so benefits our species.
Well, we are all animals. Are you seriously suggesting that “might makes right?” That the mere fact of having the power to treat something in a certain way makes it ethical to do so?
Ahem.
http://www.helpinganimals.com/wildlife_livingWithRoaches.asp
I guess my question of wether arthopods deserve equal rights has already been answered.
Remarks, Jason?
I guess my question of wether arthopods deserve equal rights has already been answered.
Remarks, Jason?
I don’t see anything in your link suggesting that “arthopods deserve equal rights.”
Jason:
No, I think you missed my point (or, more charitably, perhaps I didn’t express it well): I wasn’t saying cruelty isn’t a moral concern; I was saying it’s a moral concern separate from the morality of killing other organisms for our own use. Imagine for the sake of argument that my distinction between people and not-people is valid. Imagine further that within the set of not-people there is a valid distinction to be made between those that can feel pain (e.g., cats, to borrow your example) and those that can’t (e.g., carrots).
Now, the point I was trying to make was that even if you believe it’s morally acceptable for people to kill not-people for their own uses, the question of whether it’s moral to cause those not-people that can feel pain excess pain in the process is a separate issue. Thus, I think, the folks in this thread who have offered the ability to feel pain as the appropriate discriminator between organisms it’s OK to kill and those that must not be killed are missing the point.
In no way did I mean to be arguing in favor of cruelty to animals. Quite the opposite, I was trying to explain how it’s logically consistent for an unrepentant leather-wearing carnivore like me to even so be concerned about animal cruelty.
Well, I’m seriously suggesting that if you reject any distinction — whether on spiritual or cognitive or whatever basis — between people and not-people, you may be left with nothing else. If humans are just another species of animals with no special status vis-a-vis the other animals, then on what basis do humans have any more moral responsibility to respect the rights of other animals than lions do to respect the rights of zebras? Why do lions eat zebras? Because they can, and because it is, on balance, good for lions that they do. If you want to call that “might makes right,” I can’t really argue with you… but if you’re asserting that humans have an obligation to adopt “more moral” behavior than lions, you’re going to have to explain on what basis you make that distinction.
I’ve offered sentience as a possibility; religious folks would talk about the soul. What’s your proposed dividing line between humans and “red in tooth and claw” nature?
I don’t think you know that. But what if they do exist? Do you think it would be ethical to treat them in the same way that we treat animals, simply because they are of a different species? If race is not an ethically relevant characteristic, why is species?
We could attempt to communicate with Neanderthals or Vulcans and reach some kind of agreement on how to conduct our affairs, like we do with other people. This is profoundly different from dealing with gorillas or mice.
Is killing a mouse equivalent to murder? -No.
But killing a person of a different race is murder. So why do you accept species-based discrimination here? Why doesn’t the race example apply?
What rights should mice share with humans? -The right not to be tortured, for example. (And not “should,” but “do”).
Yes, laws against cruelty to animals already exist in many places. Most people believe that we need to utilize animals for various purposes but that we should limit their suffering. Since you don’t feel that the life of a mouse is worth the same as a human, what exactly is the profound difference here?
Windy,
We could attempt to communicate with Neanderthals or Vulcans and reach some kind of agreement on how to conduct our affairs, like we do with other people.
So I assume that’s a “No, it would not be ethical to treat them in the same way that we treat animals, simply because they are of a different species.”
So why is it ethical to treat animals in the way we do on the grounds that they are a different species? If race is not an ethically relevant characteristic, why is species?
But killing a person of a different race is murder. So why do you accept species-based discrimination here?
I don’t. The reason I believe that killing a mouse is not equivalent to killing a person is not because mice and humans are different species but because of differences in their interests.
Windy,
Yes, laws against cruelty to animals already exist in many places. Most people believe that we need to utilize animals for various purposes but that we should limit their suffering. Since you don’t feel that the life of a mouse is worth the same as a human, what exactly is the profound difference here?
I don’t know. You asked what rights mice share with humans and I gave you an example of such a right. If you agree with me on this point, terrific.
Your discussion is somewhat confusing because you seem to be equating rights with laws. The reason I say mice “do” have the right to humane treatment rather than that mice “should” have the right to humane treatment is not that it is true as a factual matter that laws against animal cruelty are on the books but because I believe mice are entitled to be treated humanely, regardless of what the law actually states. Laws serve only to secure rights, not create them.
The reason I believe that killing a mouse is not equivalent to killing a person is not because mice and humans are different species but because of differences in their interests.
What? Mice don’t have an interest not to be killed? Or they have less of an interest? How do you know?
Bill Dauphin,
I agree that the right to life is different right from the right not to be subjected to suffering. But if you are concerned about cruelty to animals, even as an “unrepentant leather-wearing carnivore” you should most definitely be concerned about the way the animals that are used to provide leather and food in our society are treated, because that treatment subjects them to an enormous amount of suffering.
Well, I’m seriously suggesting that if you reject any distinction — whether on spiritual or cognitive or whatever basis — between people and not-people, you may be left with nothing else.
I don’t reject any distinction between people and not-people, but even if I did I don’t understand why you think that would leave me with nothing else than the ethical principle of might makes right.
Follow-up to Jason:
I think the distinction I’m trying to pin down between people and not-people bears on your question to Windy:
If the distinction is not between humans and other species of animals but instead between people and not-people. Once (if) we determine what it means to be people, we will then apply the ethical standards appropriate to other people to whatever species meet the criteria, and we will apply the ethical standards appropriate to not-people to the species that don’t.
This, BTW, is the answer to the tactic of offering evidence of language and other human-like behavior in this or that animal (dolphins, chimpanzees, etc.) as “proof” that animals generally deserve the same moral status as humans. I would say if you prove to me that cetaceans (for example) are people, you’ve only proven to me that cetaceans are people, not that there’s no difference between animals and people. (BTW, the cetaceans-are-people scenario is not uncommon in science fiction; e.g., Larry Niven’s World of Ptavvs.)
Similarly, if (when) we meet extraterrestrial beings, the right question will not be “are they human?” but rather “are they people?”
Because it may turn out that people-ness is biologically determined, and AFAIK the biological differences between species are of a fundamentally different order than those between individuals or groups within species (I know there’s some controversy over whether the term you used — “race” — has any factual significance, so I’m avoiding it). If there’s a valid ethical distinction between people and not-people, and it’s also true that some species are people and others are not, then species is ethically relevant, isn’t it?
Windy,
What? Mice don’t have an interest not to be killed? Or they have less of an interest?
Less of an interest.
How do you know?
I don’t “know.” Interests are not facts but concepts that inform ethical principles. I attribute less of an interest to mice because of their lesser cognitive abilities.
If race is not an ethically relevant characteristic, why is species?
Sure, but my point is that questions about how the animals we use are treated are separate from questions about whether we have any moral right to use animals in the first place.
And mixing questions like this seriously muddies the debate: Logically, the solution to “animals are being treated cruelly” should be something like “let’s treat them more humanely”… but in debates like this one, it often ends up instead being “animals are being treated cruelly; therefore, we should all become vegans.”
That sort of (literally) mixed-up thinking bugs the Hell out of me. It’s the same sort of mindset right-wingers use when they take this or that poorly functioning government program as an excuse to argue for broadly defunding government, or neo-Luddites do when they point to this or that ethically or environmentally troublesome technology as a justification for advocating a general retreat from modern technology.
If we can manage to avoid blurring together questions that are logically separate, perhaps we’ll start getting clearer, more effective answers. Well, I can dream, can’t I?
If race is not an ethically relevant characteristic, why is species?
Sorry, that’s a dead end. You already accept differential treatment of species based on “cognitive ability”. Different species have different cognitive abilities so your version is just speciesism with a PC twist.
What if a race of humans did have “lesser cognitive abilities”, would that justify differential treatment?
Bill Dauphin,
AFAIK the biological differences between species are of a fundamentally different order than those between individuals or groups within species
I don’t know what this means. What differences of a “fundamentally different order” are you referring to? If race is not an ethically relevant characteristic, why is species? And if species is ethically relevant, in what ways and to what degree is it ethically relevant?
Windy,
Sorry, that’s a dead end.
That statement is non-responsive to my question. If race is not an ethically relevant characteristic, why is species?
You already accept differential treatment of species based on “cognitive ability”. Different species have different cognitive abilities so your version is just speciesism with a PC twist.
Huh? Speciesism is different ethical treatment on the basis of species. Different ethical treatment on the basis of cognitive ability is not speciesism. You are confusing two different criteria for different treatment.
What if a race of humans did have “lesser cognitive abilities”, would that justify differential treatment?
Possibly, yes. It would depend on the nature and magnitude of the difference.
Bill Dauphin,
If there’s a valid ethical distinction between people and not-people, and it’s also true that some species are people and others are not, then species is ethically relevant, isn’t it?
No, of course not. The ethically relevant characteristic in that case would be personhood (“people”-hood), not species. The existence of a correlation between species and personhood does not make species ethically relevant. Two beings of different species may both be persons, and within a single species one being may be a person and another not.
Jason, are you reading all the way through the posts you’re responding to? You seem to be asking the same questions repeatedly without giving serious consideration to the answers that have been offered you.
OK, I’ve already announced that I’m not a biologist (I don’t even play one on TV). Here, fearlessly offered in the presence of real scientists, is an excerpt from the wiki on Species: “A species generally consists of all the individual organisms of a natural population that are able to interbreed, generally sharing similar appearance, characteristics and genetics due to having relatively recent common ancestors.”
Are you seriously saying you don’t understand the difference between that sort of grouping and, say, “humans from northern Europe with fair skin and light hair”? Geez! Even the most virulent racists don’t claim that human “races” can’t interbreed, or that they don’t share “similar … appearance, characteristics, and genetics.” Can’t you understand that it’s a different kind of difference?
Let me put a finer point on it: Suppose for some reason — whether reevaluation of their cognitive abilities, or maybe just divine revelation — we concluded that pigs qualified as “people.” In that case I think it’s very likely that we’d consider all pigs people; I think it’s very unlikely that we’d decide that pigs with dark hair are people but pigs with light hair are not.
Please don’t tell me you really think there’s no difference between racial distinctions and species distinctions; that would be awfully disappointing.
See above. If biological capabilities such as cognitive ability or nervous system function (e.g., ability to experience pain) have ethical relevance, why wouldn’t species be more likely to be ethically relevant than “race”?
What if a race of humans did have “lesser cognitive abilities”, would that justify differential treatment?
Well, we already treat individual humans with “lesser cognitive abilities” differently — for example, the severely mentally delayed are not judged competent to make their own medical decisions, or held accountable for crimes, and various other cognitive impairments are grounds to restrict privileges like driving. If there was a “race” of humans that nonetheless had the mental capacities of chimpanzees, I can certainly see treating them differently (e.g., not giving them the right to bear arms, or to drive, or to even to vote).
I agree that the extremist AR equivalence of “a boy is a dog is a fish” is silly and undefensible. But there are plenty of thoughtful advocates of animal rights that don’t recognize such equivalence, just as society in practice doesn’t recognize equivalence across all biologically human individuals.
Bill Dauphin,
Are you seriously saying you don’t understand the difference between that sort of grouping and, say, “humans from northern Europe with fair skin and light hair”?
No, I didn’t say any such thing. I asked you what you meant by “differences of a ‘fundamentally different order.'” Based on your Wiki quote, I assume your answer is differences in the ability to interbreed. That is, members of different races within a species can interbreed, but members of different species cannot. Is that what you mean, or an example of what you mean, by “differences of a ‘fundamentally different order’?”
Assuming it is, the obvious question is why you think this difference is ethically relevant. Why is the ability to interbreed any more ethically relevant than, say, skin color or facial features? If we disovered a species of extraterrestrials with green skin, or a tribe of neanderthals that had somehow survived since the last ice age, why would the fact that we could not interbeed with them be any more relevant to the way we ought to treat them than the fact that they have a different skin color or facial features than us?
Let me put a finer point on it: Suppose for some reason — whether reevaluation of their cognitive abilities, or maybe just divine revelation — we concluded that pigs qualified as “people.” In that case I think it’s very likely that we’d consider all pigs people;
I seriously doubt that. I doubt we’d consider pig embryos or pigs born without a brain to be people. But I’m not sure what relevance you think your claim above has to the question of why species is ethically relevant anyway.
Gosh, I was hoping this wasn’t what you meant. It would be presumptious of me to accuse you, personally, of being a racist, but this line of thinking certainly could be used to justify racist policies.
Just to be clear, my discussion of the people/not-people distinction was based on the predicate assumption that it has some biological basis. If it doesn’t, all bets are off… but if it does… well, all members of a species by definition share basically the same biology, so I would expect any species to either all be people or all be not-people. (As an aside, I assume we’ll treat immature or developmentally damaged members of a “people” species as people, even if they individually lack the attributes of personhood. As a further aside, by “immature members,” I do not mean gametes, zygotes, embryos, or unborn fetuses. YMMV.)
If, OTOH, you imagine that personhood is randomly distributed across populations, or that it’s divinely granted according to the inscrutable will of God… well, then there’s almost no possbility of talking about it rationally, is there?
Huh? Speciesism is different ethical treatment on the basis of species. Different ethical treatment on the basis of cognitive ability is not speciesism. You are confusing two different criteria for different treatment.
In animals, cognitive ability is significantly correlated with species. Therefore discriminating on cognitive ability leads to speciesism in practice. Your distinction is like saying that discrimination based on skin colour alone is not racism.
Jason: If race is not an ethically relevant characteristic, why is species?
Windy: What if a race of humans did have “lesser cognitive abilities”, would that justify differential treatment?
Jason: Possibly, yes. It would depend on the nature and magnitude of the difference.
And voilà, you have answered your own question. Because the differences between races are much less significant in nature and magnitude than differences between species.
You would find racial discrimination justified, if human races had as large differences in cognitive ability as mammalian species. Since this is not actually the case, your emotional appeal “racism=speciesism” is off the mark.
[sigh] Jason, not only are we leapfrogging each others’ responses, but we’re getting repetitive. I’ll make this my very last post in the thread, and I’ll try to keep it relatively brief; you can have the last word if you want.
I’ve never been suggesting that either interbreeding or skin color determines personhood, or drives our ethical evaluation. What I am saying is that once you’ve decided the ETs are “people,” in the absence of extraordinary evidence to the contrary you’re going to treat all of them (i.e., the entire species) as people, regardless of the normal sorts of physical variation that occur within a species. You won’t (or at least, I should hope you won’t) arbitrarily decide that the ET who has green skin and purple spots, but who is otherwise biologically the same, is somehow not a person.
You mentioned cats in a previous post. I assume you have a standard for what constitutes ethical behavior toward cats, and that standard may or may not be different from your standard for ethical behavior toward humans. I presume you don’t vary your ethical behavior with cats based on whether they’re longhaired or shorthaired, Siamese or Persian. I assume you don’t apply people-ethics to some cats, but not others, based on their breed; I similarly assume you don’t apply cat-ethics to some people, but not others, based on their race.
That’s what I’ve been trying to say, and if you don’t get it, I guess we have nothing else to talk about.
Bill Dauphin,
Gosh, I was hoping this wasn’t what you meant. It would be presumptious of me to accuse you, personally, of being a racist,
It most certainly would.
but this line of thinking certainly could be used to justify racist policies.
I have no idea how you think anything I have said could be used to justify racist policies.
Just to be clear, my discussion of the people/not-people distinction was based on the predicate assumption that it has some biological basis.
You also seem to be assuming that if that distinction has some biological basis, then either all members of a species qualify as people or none do. That assumption is obviously not true. “Biological basis” does not mean the same thing as “species.” There are obviously numerous ways in which “people” could be defined on “some biological basis” such that some members of a species qualify as people and others don’t, and such that members of different species qualify.
Bill Dauphin,
I’ve never been suggesting that either interbreeding or skin color determines personhood, or drives our ethical evaluation.
Yes you have. You suggested that species but not race is an ethically relevant characteristic, on the grounds that the differences between species are of a “fundamentally different order” than the differences between races within a species. When I asked you to identify these differences of a fundamentally different order, you cited the ability to interbreed. But now you seem to be denying that you think the ability to interbreed is ethically relevant. It’s hard to figure out what your position or argument is on the relationship between species and ethical treatment from your conflicting statements. Do you think species is ethically relevant or don’t you? If you do, what is it about species that you think is ethically relevant? In what ways and to what degree do you think species is ethically relevant? I say that species is NOT ethically relevant, because the differences between species are no more relevant to the way we ought to treat a being than the differences between races within a species.
You mentioned cats in a previous post. I assume you have a standard for what constitutes ethical behavior toward cats, and that standard may or may not be different from your standard for ethical behavior toward humans.
Yes.
I presume you don’t vary your ethical behavior with cats based on whether they’re longhaired or shorthaired, Siamese or Persian.
That’s right. I don’t consider breed (race) or hair length to be ethically relevant in either cats or people.
Windy,
In animals, cognitive ability is significantly correlated with species. Therefore discriminating on cognitive ability leads to speciesism in practice.
No, discriminating based on cognitive ability would lead in practise to treating most members of some species differently than most members of some other species, but only to the extent that cognitive ability and species are correlated (many different species have similar cognitive abilities). It is different in principle from discriminating based on species (speciesism), because species and cognitive ability are different characteristics. Our current society is saturated in speciesist thinking and policy, though fortunately that’s starting to change.
And voilà, you have answered your own question. Because the differences between races are much less significant in nature and magnitude than differences between species.
Really? What are these differences between species that you believe are much more ethically significant than the differences between races? List them, and explain why you think they are much more ethically significant. As Bill Dauphin noted, the defining characteristic (more or less) of a species is the ability to interbreed. Why is this characteristic ethically relevant?
OK, I promised to shut up, and I will… but only if you leave me out of your arguments with others and refrain from misrepresenting what I’ve said:
I did NOT say any such thing: The definition I quoted mentioned ability to interbreed as one part of the definition of “species.” That is in no way equivalent to me saying the ability to interbreed is “the defining characteristic.” Not even “more or less” so.
More broadly, the wiki I quoted describes “species” as roughly translatable to “type” and lists as one of the reasons “species” is an important concept that “[i]t often corresponds to what lay people treat as the different basic kinds of organism – dogs are one species, cats another.” (my emphasis)
To the extent that “personhood” is “ethically relevant” AND “personhood” is correlated with the differences in basic kind (e.g., nervous system complexity) associated with “species” but not correlated with the more trivial individual variations associated with “race” or “breed” (e.g., complexion or eye color), then “species” is more ethically relevant than “race.”
Disagree with this formulation if you will, but please do not willfully misrepresent my position any further.
Sooooooo….
exactly where SHOULD we draw the line of non-speciesism, Jason? It HAS to be drawn somewhere. For instance, we certainly can’t treat stepping on ants like it were homocide.
Here is the primary problem with anthromorphizing animals willy-nilly: the vast majority of animals do NOT have any humanlike characteristics whatsoever. In fact, over 90% of all animals on Earth (bacteria and other microoganisms are not considered animals) are arthropods and other invertabrates. Most of them (except for the cephalapods) are about as self-aware as…wait for it…a carrot.
Whoops, meant to say that microorganisms are grouped into thier own families and not considered to be part of the classical “animal” family (except maybe protozoa; it’s been a while since I’ve checked). My argument still stands though.
But back to the point:
WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE?
AR people seem so reluctant to answer this question.
A jellyfish is an animal, is it not?
A cow is an animal, is it not?
So where is the line dividing the two? Or is there one?
Bill Dauphin,
I did NOT say any such thing: The definition I quoted mentioned ability to interbreed as one part of the definition of “species.”
The definition you quoted is as follows: “A species generally consists of all the individual organisms of a natural population that are able to interbreed, generally sharing similar appearance, characteristics and genetics due to having relatively recent common ancestors.” If you really believe my paraphrase of this definition (“the defining characteristic (more or less) of a species is the ability to interbreed.”) is a significant distortion of the text you quoted, just replace my paraphrase with that text. It makes absolutely no difference to my argument. You seem to be straining to find things to get upset about.
To the extent that “personhood” is “ethically relevant” AND “personhood” is correlated with the differences in basic kind (e.g., nervous system complexity) associated with “species” but not correlated with the more trivial individual variations associated with “race” or “breed” (e.g., complexion or eye color), then “species” is more ethically relevant than “race.”
No, species is no more ethically relevant than race. One characteristic is not more ethically relevant than another simply because it is more strongly correlated with a third characteristic that is ethically relevant. Species may be a more reliable statistical proxy for cognitive ability than race or breed, but that doesn’t mean it’s any more ethically relevant than race.
Part of the reason we treat animals so badly is that we focus so much on species and so little on cognitive ability. Ethically, we tend to divide the living world into two categories: human beings, and everything else. That is what leads us to treat chickens and pigs as if they had no more interests or rights than beetles and oysters.
Part of the reason we treat animals so badly is that we focus so much on species and so little on cognitive ability. Ethically, we tend to divide the living world into two categories: human beings, and everything else. That is what leads us to treat chickens and pigs as if they had no more interests or rights than beetles and oysters.
More hyperbole. Most people think that boiling or eating live oysters is permissible, while doing the same for chickens and pigs is considered horrible.
Windy,
Most people think that boiling or eating live oysters is permissible, while doing the same for chickens and pigs is considered horrible.
I guess you don’t know much about what goes on in factory farms.
I guess you don’t know much about what goes on in factory farms.
Parents having sex?
Actually, the recent report of the animal protection agency in my country says nothing about pigs or chickens being boiled alive. Yet I doubt we are less “speciesist” by your standards. So apparently the problem isn’t so much “speciesism”, it’s that people don’t know what happens in factory farms.
windy,
Parents having sex?
No, the kind of barbaric cruelty described here, for example.
Actually, the recent report of the animal protection agency in my country says nothing about pigs or chickens being boiled alive.
That might be remotely relevant if being boiled alive were the only way in which humans cause animals to suffer. It isn’t. In fact, I doubt that boiling animals alive causes more than a tiny fraction of the pain and suffering human beings inflict on animals.
Yet I doubt we are less “speciesist” by your standards. So apparently the problem isn’t so much “speciesism”, it’s that people don’t know what happens in factory farms.
Speciesism is a huge problem. So is a lack of knowledge and understanding of modern industrial agicultural practises. That is why organizations like PETA devote so much time and effort to publicizing the enormous amount of suffering inflicted on animals in factory farms.
By the way, windy, I’m still waiting for your argument in support of speciesism (or, as you call it, “speciesism”). You seem to believe that the fact that a being is a different species from you, but not the fact that a being of your species is a different race from you, ethically justifies treating it in ways you would consider unethical if it were of the same species as you. Can you provide a clear and concise argument in support of this position?
And I am still waiting for *you*, Jason, for you to respond to “where do you draw the line?”
At what point in the animal kingdom does it become appropriate to be “specist”, if ever? We can’t endow ticks and tapeworms with the same rights as human beings, so there has to be a line drawn SOMEWHERE.
…right?
That might be remotely relevant if being boiled alive were the only way in which humans cause animals to suffer.
Now you are just being obtuse. You claimed that people generally have as little regard for the suffering of chickens and pigs as for oysters. That’s obviously false.
By the way, windy, I’m still waiting for your argument in support of speciesism (or, as you call it, “speciesism”). You seem to believe that the fact that a being is a different species from you, but not the fact that a being of your species is a different race from you, ethically justifies treating it in ways you would consider unethical if it were of the same species as you. Can you provide a clear and concise argument in support of this position?
Can you offer one for yours first? You admit that mice and chickens have “less interests” than humans: this is just speciesism by a different name.
Let’s say that the first step in eliminating speciesism is to ensure that our treatment of great apes and humans at their level of cognitive ability is similar. How would you go about this? Those humans are either children or mentally retarded. We obviously need to protect and feed our children, but what justifies putting mentally retarded people in homes and leaving apes to fend for themselves in the wild? Should we release inmates capable of gathering their own food into the wild? Or should we capture all chimps to ensure that they don’t hurt themselves or starve? Should we stop chimps from killing other chimps?
Laser,
I generally ignore posts I consider too silly to bother with. You still don’t seem to understand the distinction between species and cognitive ability, and I lack the patience to try to explain it to you in a way you can understand. I don’t really know what the question “Where should we draw the line of non-speciesism?” is even supposed to mean. For the reasons I have already explained, speciesism is not necessary to ethically justify different treatment of humans and ants, or of any other two groups of beings with different cognitive abilities. If you still don’t understand the argument, never mind.
windy,
You claimed that people generally have as little regard for the suffering of chickens and pigs as for oysters. That’s obviously false.
How is it “obviously false?” Did you read my link about the horrific suffering visited upon chickens and pigs in factory farms?
Can you offer one for yours first? You admit that mice and chickens have “less interests” than humans: this is just speciesism by a different name.
Either you still don’t understand what the term “speciesism” means, or you are deliberately misrepresenting it. Mice and chickens have less interests than humans because they have less cognitive ability than humans, not because they are different species than humans.
windy,
Let’s say that the first step in eliminating speciesism is to ensure that our treatment of great apes and humans at their level of cognitive ability is similar. How would you go about this? Those humans are either children or mentally retarded. We obviously need to protect and feed our children, but what justifies putting mentally retarded people in homes and leaving apes to fend for themselves in the wild?
There is no “first step” in eliminating speciesism. Eliminating speciesism involves any number of “steps,” many of which can be, and in some cases are being, performed simultaneously. The equivalence in cognitive ability you draw between apes and children or “the mentally retarded” at “their level” is simplistic and false. There are many dimensions to cognition and many different degrees and kinds of mental disability. Equal ethical treatment without regard to species does not imply rounding up all wild apes and putting them in the same type of environment as certain human beings to whom you attribute “their level” of cognitive ability. Depriving wild apes of their natural environment, their social relationships with others, and their physical freedom may be harmful to their overall welfare even if it were accompanied by benefits such as a more reliable food supply or greater protection from predation. Numerous considerations would apply to any real-world policy.
Should we release inmates capable of gathering their own food into the wild?
No.
Or should we capture all chimps to ensure that they don’t hurt themselves or starve?
No.
Should we stop chimps from killing other chimps?
Depends on what kind of intervention you mean exactly.
Again, I’m still waiting for your argument in support of speciesism. If race is not an ethically relevant characteristic, why is species?
OK, I do *not* like where this is going. Earlier in the thread you said “What’s wrong with saving zebras from hyenas?” and before you pull that “oh, you’re making that up” crap on me, SCROLL UP TO COMMENT #75. In case your memory needs refreshing:
What’s wrong with the goal of saving zebras from hyenas?
Posted by: Jason | February 20, 2007 11:52 PM
then…
Ichthyic,
*you mean aside from what the hyenas think about it?*
No, including what the hyenas think about it.
*I’m gonna assume you’re joking.*
That’s a false assumption.
Posted by: Jason | February 20, 2007 11:57 PM
And now…
*Should we stop chimps from killing other chimps?*
Depends on what kind of intervention you mean exactly.
Posted by: Jason | February 22, 2007 08:59 PM
I’m just sayin’.
Laser, you’re hopeless. Apparently, you now think there is some kind of contradiction or conflict between support for the goal of saving certain animals from being killed by other animals, and opposition to particular kinds of intervention to achieve that goal. There isn’t. It’s the same kind of position as, say, support for the goal of preventing domestic violence and opposition to the method of doing so by government video surveillance of private homes. To be in favor of a goal is not to support every possible means of achieving that goal. If you weren’t so busy trying to pull “gotchas” on me and spent more time thinking about the questions and arguments I describe perhaps a useful exchange with you would be possible, but right now you’re just a waste of time.
It’s the same kind of position as, say, support for the goal of preventing domestic violence and opposition to the method of doing so by government video surveillance of private homes
in other words, just like the rest of your tiresome rants, it all boils down to extreme anthropomorphism run amok.
*sigh*
I suppose you consider conservation biology and environmentalism to be equivalent as well.
my real question is:
why on earth are you continuing to persist in your “argument” day after day, when I will bet good money that you don’t actually do anything to follow up on your “arguments” in reality.
or have you gone out to save seals from killer whales? zebras from hyenas?
unless you’re just mentally masturbating here, you have a lot of work to do!
go man go!
We’re saving a whale in your name, Ichthyic. We named it “Homer.”
Again, I’m still waiting for your argument in support of speciesism. If race is not an ethically relevant characteristic, why is species?
I can’t believe you are this dense. YOU YOURSELF justify differential treatment of chimps and retarded humans BY SPECIES DIFFERENCES regardless of COGNITIVE ABILITY. Why don’t you practice what you preach?
Or let me turn the question around for you: If cognitive ability is an ethically relevant characteristic, what’s wrong with “The Bell Curve”?
Those of you wondering where to draw the line need to know that there are only two kinds of creatures in this world.
Animals and Daleks.
And with respect to non-Daleks, there is only one policy:
Exterminate! Exterminate!
Shorter Jason:
Speciesism is equivalent to human racism! Yes it is! Wait, no it’s not. Yes it is! No it’s not! Is! Isn’t! Is! Isn’t!
It’s Jason, the amazing Human Yo-Yo!
windy,
YOU YOURSELF justify differential treatment of chimps and retarded humans BY SPECIES DIFFERENCES regardless of COGNITIVE ABILITY.
No I don’t. (Sorry, I mean NO I DON’T.). Your apparent belief that the cognitive abilities of chimps and other apes can be crudely equated to those of immature or mentally disabled human beings is simplistic and false, as is your apparent belief that equal ethical treatment regardless of species implies the obligation to provide the same living environment for apes and certain humans. It doesn’t even imply an obligation to provide the same living environment for all members of a single species of normal cognitive ability. I know now that you’re just grandstanding here and have no serious interest in the real-world implications of a non-speciesist view of apes, but those who are might want to take a look at the Great Ape Project.
I had a post on here that apparently disappeared. I’m pretty sure I screwed that up. It’s too bad. But it probably doesn’t matter.
I certainly don’t consider myself an animal rights activist. But I think it’s important for people to consider what biases they may have and may have learned.
Think of humanism in terms of a similar problem.
Religious people make claims about the existence of a personal deity and all of that. They make claims.
People who claim that non-human animals do not have “rights” or should not have “protections” should do what they can to back up those claims. In other words, people who claim that humans should be afforded certain rights and protections, specifically because they make existential and value claims based on those existential claims, have a responsibility to back up those claims in a reasonable manner.
It’s not much different than the claims made by religionists who claim that “faith” must have some special dispensation.
Give me an argument and we’ll discuss it.
phat
We’re saving a whale in your name, Ichthyic. We named it “Homer.”
do you need a tissue yet, Jason?