I don’t know why we should assume that creatures with such different nervous systems “dream.” Perhaps it is doing something analogous, or perhaps it’s just bored or showing off.
If I could do this, I’d work on my sense of rhythm. What is “dreaming” anyway, and how is that different from “humming to yourself.”
“Pardon me but would you mind if I eat some mushrooms and put the Yoshida Brothers’ “Kodo” on while you do that?” I feel like it’s naughty to ask a sentient creature to serve as your entertainment.
How do you know when an octopus is asleep?
Jack dreams. Often, why not an octopus. Sometimes Jack makes eating noises when he dreams, sometimes his legs twitch like he’s running and sometimes he makes barking sounds when he dreams. Humans don’t understand our own brains, we are not yet qualified to make proclamations about other intelligent creatures.
If said creature isn’t harmed in any way or even benefit from such a deal, then I see no problem with it.
Andreas Avester@#3:
If said creature isn’t harmed in any way or even benefit from such a deal, then I see no problem with it.
I’m not sure to what degree I believe in “rights” but if I do, then I do not adopt a human supremacist view, saying, in effect, that only humans have or can have rights. As a nihilist who is unconvinced by arguments i’ve heard so far regarding “rights” (I do not think they are endowed by a creator, or inalienable, and I don’t even understand where they come from; I think Mill gets them horribly wrong and Rawls assumes them) I feel that we. individually, decide what “rights” we extend to others – and, in my case, the more intelligent a creature seems, the more autonomy I feel it should be granted, which means that in my interactions with it I should make a good faith attempt to gain consent. That’s problematic with an octopus, less problematic with a dog.
As Ridana points out at #1: How do we know it’s asleep?
How do we know it’s dreaming? Octopus nervous systems are very different from a human or a dog’s. They may experience something akin to sleep, or perhaps it’s doing something akin to meditating, dancing, or humming along to music.
Humans seem to me to be really shitty at observing other animals’ desires; we don’t even do a good job with other humans.
Marcus @#4
So far I agree.
I somewhat disagree. I mean, my criteria for what rights I’m willing to grant some species of animals differs. Getting consent is impossible from majority of animals. I cannot talk with an octopus and I cannot have any idea about how it feels or what it wants. Even getting consent from a dog is hard. For example, when my dog nudges my hand, she isn’t consenting to me petting her. I raised her since she was a puppy and I trained her to respond positively to getting petted. She likes getting petted, because I raised her to like it. A dog cannot consent to getting petted just like a 7 years old child cannot consent to having sex with their father—there’s an immense power imbalance and one party can easily manipulate the other’s behavior so as to make it look like the other is consenting.
Thus instead I try to determine whether I am causing the animal any harm. An octopus seems to not care at all whether some human is observing it or no. Thus staring at it seems harmless and fine. Theoretically, there might be other ways how the octopus could get hurt (maybe the aquarium is too small, maybe its diet is inadequate), but staring in itself doesn’t seem problematic. Just like an octopus doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to appreciate the right to vote in human parliament elections, it also doesn’t have the intellectual capacity to appreciate the right not to be stared at or the right not to be utilized for human entertainment. However, an octopus has a nervous system and it can feel pain, thus it is capable of appreciating the right not to be hurt or tortured. Hence I’m willing to grant an octopus the right not to be hurt, but not the right not to be stared at. I don’t see a reason to grant an animal some right that it cannot possibly appreciate or utilize due to its limited intellect.
As for autonomy, I think that many species of animals don’t care about it the way humans do. A tiger in the wild has more autonomy than a house cat, but my observations indicate that cats are pretty happy with their lives. In some ways, their lives are objectively better than those of their wild ancestors—cats never experience prolonged hunger, their illnesses and injuries are taken care of by professional veterinarians, their deaths are usually painless (being put to sleep at an old age is much better than all the painful ways how animals die in the wild). If my pet doesn’t seem to care about autonomy and appears to be happy, then I see no reason to worry about their autonomy either. Of course, here I’m not talking about various species of wild animals who do show signs of stress when put into cages. And I also know that occasionally some pets are abused by their owners. In such cases there definitely exists harm for the animal.
To sum up: if some animal indicates that they have a capability to feel pain, then it’s better not to injure it; if some animal shows signs of stress or discomfort from being put in a cage, then it’s better not to put it there, and so on. But if an animal shows no signs of distress because of humans doing some action, then whatever.
And at the end of the day my own desires sometimes override what rights I’m willing to grant some animal. I’m not a vegan, which means that I regularly hurt some animals for the sake of getting food on my plate. I won’t torture an animal for amusement, I will try to avoid hurting it when possible, but I will eat it even when said animal would prefer not to be eaten. Of course I prefer my meal to be slaughtered painlessly and having had an enjoyable and stress free life, but I just care more about my own need to get a dinner.
Interesting arguments. My personal moral philosophy regarding animals can be summed up as “It is wrong to cause suffering, unless refraining from causing suffering seriously inconveniences me.” Driving a car causes suffering to the bugs I squish along the way, but walking everywhere would seriously inconvenience me; getting the rats out of my attic inconveniences them, but leaving them there inconveniences me more, etc.
However, refraining from eating them is actually a pretty minor inconvenience to me, all things considered, so it is a morally correct thing to do. YMMV, of course.
Vegetarianism doesn’t seem logical for me. Logically, veganism makes more sense if you are concerned about animal wellbeing. In a factory farm where animals are kept in poor condition they suffer regardless of why they are kept there. A cow doesn’t care whether her owner wants milk or meat. A chicken doesn’t care whether it’s raised for eggs or meat. In either situation the animals suffer just as much.
On the other end of the spectrum, in a farm where animals are kept in good conditions, it doesn’t matter either. Back when I was a kid, I spent summers in the countryside where my grandfather’s neighbors had a couple of farm animals. They were a family who kept one cow, a few chickens, and some rabbits. All the animals seemed content with their lives there. The way I see it, as long as the animal doesn’t suffer, there’s no problem with keeping it and using it for human needs. And the thing is that every animal humans keep ought to be killed (preferably painlessly) at some point anyway. Letting a dairy cow die a natural death caused by old age is inhumane. Getting old is painful for everybody, including cows and chickens that are kept for milk or eggs. Thus I don’t think that raising and painlessly slaughtering an animal at some point of its life is necessarily bad as long as said animal doesn’t suffer during their lifetime.
Anyway, a vegetarian diet might be sustainable, but I see it as illogical. A vegan diet, while more logical, is unsustainable for many people. I have heard way too many ex-vegans talking about how they developed nutrient deficiencies and got sick because of their diets. Of course such ex-vegan apostates are always criticized by still-vegans for failing to take some mineral/vitamin supplement or failing to get the vegan diet right. But still, if some diet is so hard to get right that people routinely develop nutrient deficiencies, then I sure as hell don’t want to have such a diet. Never mind that some people have allergies or other health reasons why a vegan diet cannot work for them.
By the way, personally I managed to develop a pretty severe nutrient deficiency merely by eating very little meat for half a year. At that time I had little money and meat is expensive, so I hardly ate any sticking to cheap foods only. The result was an iron deficiency that took some doctor visits to diagnose and fix.
Of course, it’s not all or nothing. Eating meat once per week is better than eating it every day. The former option means that fewer animals will die. But still, it’s pretty inevitable that I will cause some animal suffering. Oh well, at least I have no children, so I get to claim that in the long term I will cause fewer animal deaths than a vegan who makes babies.