Animal Rights
- Thread starter alanwc
- Start date
Could you state what your views are on this matter?
I'd say that animals should be treated like people to a degree. Since they are not given any ways to take care of themselves humans must step in and do it for them. They have to be treated as we want ourselves to be treated, without neglect or torment and kept in good healthy condition as we should be as well. Animals that are mistreated should be helped and those that hurt them should be punished but not as severely as humans are but close.This is about domecticated animals mainly. Other types of animals should also be protected as well like elephants that are endangered or other wild animals.
I'd say that animals should be treated like people to a degree. Since they are not given any ways to take care of themselves humans must step in and do it for them. They have to be treated as we want ourselves to be treated, without neglect or torment and kept in good healthy condition as we should be as well. Animals that are mistreated should be helped and those that hurt them should be punished but not as severely as humans are but close.This is about domecticated animals mainly. Other types of animals should also be protected as well like elephants that are endangered or other wild animals.
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life is life is life is life. If the basis of being respected as a being tht deserves its own life is based on intellegence, then mentaly retarted or just plain stupid people should be shoved in little cages, forced to eat others, be pumped full of antibiotics and growth hormones and then slaughtered and served in McDonalds.
The practical questions
Up here in the Pacific Northwest, we have an occasional issue in which a cougar or other wild animal attacks and maims—or even kills—a human being. These attacks result from unchecked residential development pushing into the animals' habitats. This is hardly unique to my area; this sort of thing regularly happens across the nation and around the world.
As I said recently, put the cougar on trial instead of just shooting it. I will acquit.
And, yes, give the cows their day in court. Keep me off the jury, and the bovine chances increase from nil to 1/(∞-1).
Meanwhile, what sentence should the dog face for the sexual assault of humping my leg? If my cat scratches me, should I file assault charges? Maybe assault and battery? What about domestic violence?
It is unquestionable that, for diverse reasons, humans generally treat animals poorly. But those who suggest a formless sense of equality have rarely thought through the practical implications of what they suggest, speak nothing of the philosophical basis for their assertions.
Recently, near Seattle, wildlife authorities recovered a young black bear that seemed stuck in a creek near a home. PAWS attempted to treat the animal after closer examination revealed that someone had shot it.
The bear has since been euthanized.
Practical question: Why euthanize? This is a curious question insofar as some of us argue for a human's "right to die". From that perspective, the bear would appear to have a right to evade suffering denied humans. From another perspective, though, euthanizing the bear was an easy, inexpensive way out, and no way to treat a living thing.
Practical question: Who is liable for the expenses of treatment and rehabilitation, if the bear is not euthanized? I mean, really, that must be expensive.
Practical question: How much should the local authority spend investigating the shooting? Should the crime lab spend time and money matching ballistics? Should the police take that data, track down the suspected shooter, and carry out an investigation to prosecute him or her?
Practical question: What should the shooter be charged with? Presuming that the shooter did not call wildlife authorities (as there is no record of such a call taking place), would self-defense qualify? (e.g., 911, what is your emergency? "Someone just tried to kill me. I shot him. He's wounded.")
Practical question: What sentence would be appropriate for this "crime"? I mean, I suppose it depends on the charge, but should attempted ursan murder demand equivalent, greater, or lesser punishment than, say, paralyizing a human in a drive-by?
Right now, as it stands, because a bear is just a bear, and not covered by any mythical assertion of equality, the shooter would likely face a cruelty to animals charge, which isn't particularly severe around here, and it likely wouldn't be filed, as all the shooter would have to say is, "I thought the bear was attacking me."
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Notes:
Associated Press. "Paralyzed Issaquah bear euthanized". The Seattle Times. November 12, 2010. SeattleTimes.NWSource.com. November 30, 2010. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013416184_apwaissaquahbear1stld.html
Up here in the Pacific Northwest, we have an occasional issue in which a cougar or other wild animal attacks and maims—or even kills—a human being. These attacks result from unchecked residential development pushing into the animals' habitats. This is hardly unique to my area; this sort of thing regularly happens across the nation and around the world.
As I said recently, put the cougar on trial instead of just shooting it. I will acquit.
And, yes, give the cows their day in court. Keep me off the jury, and the bovine chances increase from nil to 1/(∞-1).
Meanwhile, what sentence should the dog face for the sexual assault of humping my leg? If my cat scratches me, should I file assault charges? Maybe assault and battery? What about domestic violence?
It is unquestionable that, for diverse reasons, humans generally treat animals poorly. But those who suggest a formless sense of equality have rarely thought through the practical implications of what they suggest, speak nothing of the philosophical basis for their assertions.
Recently, near Seattle, wildlife authorities recovered a young black bear that seemed stuck in a creek near a home. PAWS attempted to treat the animal after closer examination revealed that someone had shot it.
The bear has since been euthanized.
Practical question: Why euthanize? This is a curious question insofar as some of us argue for a human's "right to die". From that perspective, the bear would appear to have a right to evade suffering denied humans. From another perspective, though, euthanizing the bear was an easy, inexpensive way out, and no way to treat a living thing.
Practical question: Who is liable for the expenses of treatment and rehabilitation, if the bear is not euthanized? I mean, really, that must be expensive.
Practical question: How much should the local authority spend investigating the shooting? Should the crime lab spend time and money matching ballistics? Should the police take that data, track down the suspected shooter, and carry out an investigation to prosecute him or her?
Practical question: What should the shooter be charged with? Presuming that the shooter did not call wildlife authorities (as there is no record of such a call taking place), would self-defense qualify? (e.g., 911, what is your emergency? "Someone just tried to kill me. I shot him. He's wounded.")
Practical question: What sentence would be appropriate for this "crime"? I mean, I suppose it depends on the charge, but should attempted ursan murder demand equivalent, greater, or lesser punishment than, say, paralyizing a human in a drive-by?
Right now, as it stands, because a bear is just a bear, and not covered by any mythical assertion of equality, the shooter would likely face a cruelty to animals charge, which isn't particularly severe around here, and it likely wouldn't be filed, as all the shooter would have to say is, "I thought the bear was attacking me."
____________________
Notes:
Associated Press. "Paralyzed Issaquah bear euthanized". The Seattle Times. November 12, 2010. SeattleTimes.NWSource.com. November 30, 2010. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2013416184_apwaissaquahbear1stld.html
Do they? It is my impression that PETA advocates equal treatment for animals where they have equal concerns. For example, humans are consider to have an interest in not being arbitrarily deprived of their lives at the whim of another being. And so we have laws against murder (for example). It seems to me that, given the choice, many animals would not want to be arbitrarily deprived of their lives to satisfy another's whims, either. Therefore, it follows that such animals ought to be given equal consideration to human beings in this respect.
To compare another right at random, humans have an interest in determining who governs them, and so they have a right to vote. But most animals don't seem very interested in politics, or even capable of understanding it. Which suggests that the right to vote may not be an important animal right. It may be justifiable not to treat non-human animals equally in this respect.
So, as you can see, the position is a bit more nuanced than what you've put. Each particular right depends on interests, both for humans and animals. And we ought to treat like as like. If there are important differences, then there may be an argument for different treatment.
Most people haven't really given a lot of considered thought to the matter. A lot of people think they are "above" or "better than" mere non-human animals, with no justification at all. And some people are just selfish and think that their desires should trump everybody else's rights.
All the rights that humans have where the animals have the same interests.
Please link to this research.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Without getting sidetracked into the credibility of this research (after all, the so-called creation "scientists" claim to have "research" too), let's not forget that computers can be programmed to appear to do the same thing.
At some point we have to invoke the principle of benevolent mastering, the parent-child relationship. Dogs, like children, yearn to be free to eat only sweets and to frolic in the middle of the nearest highway. Just as we don't grant children the same rights as adults to "follow their bliss," we couldn't very well grant them to most of the non-human animals either.
Dogs may have no interest in politics, but a benevolent master will vote their proxy, and try to elect a government that enacts the kind of laws that brought down Michael Vick. (An American football star who was running a dog-fighting ring between seasons, in one of the most-tracked news stories of the past couple of years.)
We have spent 12,000 years building civilization, resulting in a (usually) better life for humans, as well as for the other members of our multi-species community, notably dogs and cats. But we're the only ones who can maintain and administer it. Even though the way we maintain and administer it has a profound effect on the welfare of the other species, and therefore by definition they have an "interest" in how it is maintained and administered, we have no choice but to act as their proxies and do our best to vote on their behalf.
It seems to me that there's a considerable difference between wild and domesticated animals in this respect. Which is precisely that domesticated animals have had their will to independence systematically bred out of them. I see little reason to think that wild animals have no interest in their governance - they often fight about it rather dramatically.
Again, this seems to bifurcate depending on whether we're talking about wild or domesticated animals.
The interests of domesticated animals are necessarily altered - often, fundamentally - through the process of domestication. The interest in freedom, for one obvious example. This poses a troubling complication to your framework, in that certain of those animal interests are mutable through human intervention, and so the question of whether interests provide a stable basis on which to construct rights arises. I suppose we can go and declare animal domestication to have been immoral retroactively, but that doesn't really provide a useful guide for what to do now. To take a hypothetical example, is the suitable response to a domestic animal's interest in not experiencing pain to enshrine that as a right, or to (hypothetically, of course) breed that interest out of the species entirely?
And to consider the case of wild animals, we have the other side of the coin: the granting of rights by a government would require the defense of those rights not only from humans, but also from other (wild) animals. Ignoring questions of practicality, this would represent an unprecedented intervention in the natural order, likely involving the wholesale elimination of anything that could be reasonably called "wilderness," along with many entire species of animals. This would reduce all formerly wild animals into a state of quasi-domestication and so quite literally enthrone man as the master of all animals and ultimate arbiter of their fates - something at quite a variance with your rejection of speciesist supremacism and not, in my view, a healthy or respectful way of relating to nature.
A talking weasel notes that you also think humans are above other animals, based on the justification of greater capacity for rights-inducing interests (voting, for example). Said weasel goes on to observe that such justification is only a mild rephrasing of the reasoning I myself recently gave for regarding humans as superior, which was met with hostile derision by yourself.
I would like to know what is your opinion?
At one point the number of stray dogs has grown.
Women,cycllists have been attacked and bitten and even a child was killed.
Authorities have taken measures to catch dogs and kill them. (euthanasia)
There was a great demonstration to defend the dogs, with screaming, chained to the fence even hunger strikes, etc.
Authorities have stopped the action and they agreed the dogs be taken by the members of organizations the defense animal rights.
These dogs were taken and released again on the streets.
After wich the authorities ,with all the opposition of the organizations, were euthanized the dogs.
So I agree that prohibit abuse of animals but no more.
Are people for which matter more animals than people or make a equality between animal and man.
With these guys I do not agree.
quadraphonics:
You seem to be under some mistaken impression that I would be interested in engaging with you on a topic where you have, both here and in another thread, amply demonstrated that you are able to do little other than hurl profanities and personal insults.
I hope that impression is now corrected. Have a nice day.
You seem to be under some mistaken impression that I would be interested in engaging with you on a topic where you have, both here and in another thread, amply demonstrated that you are able to do little other than hurl profanities and personal insults.
I hope that impression is now corrected. Have a nice day.
I don't see where I've hurled any profanities or personal insults in this thread. On the contrary, my one and only post here was topical, respectful and made in good faith. How, or if, you wish to respond is of course your prerogative, although I'll thank you not to mischaracterize serious content as personal invective - it's weak and disrespectful, and so does nothing for your standing.
My impression is that you have an interest in taking good-faith input seriously (and, moreover, being seen to do so), frequently undercut by an urge to belittle when challenged. Nothing here has called that impression into question. My response to such (here and elsewhere) has always followed a simple script: begin by voicing my perspective, substantially and in good faith, and then track your response. To the extent that you respond respectfully and in good faith, I do the same. To the extent that you respond disrespectfully with personal insult, I escalate.
Since I am confident in my ability to out-troll you (and trolling is not something that someone of your station and pretensions can afford to be seen engaging in to begin with), this is win-win for me. Either we have a substantive discussion, or you embarass yourself in the process of avoiding such. This same approach has worked reliably several times now, so if I were you I'd formulate a suitable response. The ideal, of course, would be to eschew the pigheadedness in favor of the sort of reasoned discourse you claim to champion. Failing that, the next best strategy would be to simply ignore me.
That latter tactic seems to be what you're aiming for here, but you've made the mistake of inventing a pretext to do so (in order to duck the associated cost of being seen to ignore serious input, presumably). But that only digs the hole deeper - better to just ignore me outright and eat the cost of doing so, than be seen pretending that my previous post was some sort of profane personal attack.
Bottom line is that you can't have it both ways, and to the extent that you attempt such, you are easily undermined by a simple, amply demonstrated tactic. By now, I doubt that I'm the only one employing it. I hope you will bear this situation in mind, and so live up to your pretensions of seriousness and maturity. We badly need those in positions like yours to do so, if there is ever to be any hope of such becoming a norm around here. If not, well, there's always lulz.
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
You overgeneralize. I can tell that your personal experience with animals has been superficial. Many species are in fact very servile. It's common (although not universal) in animals with the pack-social instinct to defer completely to the pack leader. Humans simply establish themselves in that position of authority. Even herd-social species are not all that independent--after all, the term "herd instinct" in English has become a metaphor for blindly going where everyone else is going. Many herd-social species have a lead cow whose only job is to lead them to the next grazing area, and they all follow her.
Only certain species, not all. In a herd, anyone who doesn't want to follow the lead cow is welcome to go off in her own direction, and anyone who would rather follow her will not be stopped.
Solitary species are a different story. Cats have simply made the rational decision that they'd rather sleep 16 hours per day in a warm house and eat food that somebody else killed, and occasionally allow humans to fawn over them, instead of butchering their own food and sleeping 16 hours per day outdoors. Although plenty of domestic cats sleep outdoors and occasionally hunt for fun.
Most food animals are pack- or herd-social, with all the baggage that comes with that instinct and happens to work to our advantage. It would, by definition, be very difficult to keep a flock or herd of solitary animals confined in a paddock; they would constantly fight over territory. So they would not be useful to keep.
You're anthropomorphizing. Only solitary animals tend to value "freedom," but only because they're uncomfortable having another of their kind too close because there isn't enough food to go around. I'm sure one of the reasons cats grudgingly tolerate each other's company is that humans have remade the world so it's a cornucopia of food for them and they don't have to compete. Everywhere we build a village, much less a city, becomes a huge rodent colony, able to support a much denser population of cats than could ever have existed in the Paleolithic Era.
Humans certainly have the capacity to be superior, but we don't always live up to it.
What country is this??? Stray dogs are still dogs and regard humans as the alphas in the community. They must be literally starving to sink to the level of attacking humans. Or else rabid! Even in India, not one of the world's more prosperous countries, homeless dogs get along well with the human population and humans set out food for them if there isn't enough garbage to rummage through.
A stray dog was seriously wounded in the Mumbai massacre. The people in the neighborhood picked him up and took him to a veterinarian, and an anonymous wealthy person underwrote his medical care. For days his progress was the story on everyone's lips. When he finally recovered and was set loose, there was rejoicing. A person interviewed said (paraphrased, I don't have the quote handy), "This dog is a symbol of the Indian people. We prayed for him. The fact that we show this much kindness to a dog should tell you how we feel about the way other people should be treated. We could not allow the terrorists to take this away from us."
Dogs are not pets.This is not their mission.
Child two year old killed by stray dogs.tvr.ro
Start by irresponsible people who feed them.This increases the number of dogs. youtube.com or youtube.com
I suggest you not meet this dogs at night. youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com
But how about bears?
Brasov is one of the largest cities in Romania.
A man was killed by a bear. youtube.com
A bear walked into a building. youtube.com , youtube.com
Our Bears: youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com
Child two year old killed by stray dogs.tvr.ro
Start by irresponsible people who feed them.This increases the number of dogs. youtube.com or youtube.com
I suggest you not meet this dogs at night. youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com
But how about bears?
Brasov is one of the largest cities in Romania.
A man was killed by a bear. youtube.com
A bear walked into a building. youtube.com , youtube.com
Our Bears: youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com , youtube.com
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Concerning the matter of animal rights, I ultimately "side" largely with James here--and such have been my convictions for the better part of my lifetime; however, I find the arguments of James (whose views seem mostly compatible with Peter Singer's), as well of those arguments addressing the issue from certain other persectives, such as those of Tom Regan and a number of contemporaries, unfortunate--precisely because they are "arguments." In fact, I find most such "arguments" pertaining to ethical concerns coming from those steeped in a predominantly Analytical tradition to be rather weak and ineffectual.
In my opinion, far more effective--insofar as forming convictions by things other than "personal experience"--is certain literature (particularly J.M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello and The Lives of Animals, among others), song and verse, and the writings of thinkers somewhat less concerned with "verifiable assertions" and "propositional attitudes" and whatnots (or at least voicing a more nuanced take on such). For those interested especially in matters pertaining to (non-human) animals, and frustrated or bored by Singer's brand of utilitarianism, Regan's neo-Kantianism, etc., amongst the best are Derrida's The Animal That Therefore I Am (as well as Points... and Of Spirit), Giorgio Agamben's The Open, and most anything by Donna Haraway, Cary Wolfe, or Vicki Hearne.
But most pertinent to this thread (and that thread from a few days back which this seems almost a continuation of) are some of Cora Diamond's thoughts. Over the past 30-odd years, Diamond has addressed animal rights, animal welfare, and the varied cominglings and confusions thereof from a sort-of neo-wittgensteinian perspective. In "Anything But Argument?" she quotes from Onora O'Neill's review of Stephen Clark's The Moral Status of Animals:
Rather, having a heart... already so inclined would seem the more pertinent quality. But, lacking this, is an "argument" really going to convince those not so inclined? I mean, to reasonably bright and worldly folks, that animals have interests, desires, a will, the capacity to feel pain and/or anxiety, unique and comparable intelligences and proclivities, etc. should hardly be much of a revelation. And even if it is for some, most reasonably intelligent individuals (whatever is meant by that) will likely be receptive to such knowledge. Sure, such things may be hard to digest for some, but I've personally found that those sorts tend not to satisfy my criteria for being "reasonably educated and worldly" anyways. We can debate particularities regarding "consciousness" (as per Dennett, Donald Davidson, John Searle, et al), capacity for language or metacommunicative/metalinguistic capabilities (Bateson, et al), orientation towards or cognisance of death, the ability to form (and abide) "moral contracts," whether animals are weltarm or not weltbildung, until we are blue in the face; but I don't think that these matters really factor for most people into their determination of how animals ought to be regarded. Just as those of us who are pro-choice do not deny that a fetus is alive, and those of us who favor decriminalization or legalization do not deny that sometimes drugs are "dangerous," or make people do "bad things"...
But what does it really mean to have a "heart... so inclined"? More recently Diamond has refined her position, as she expresses in "The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy." The essay includes a reading of Coetzee's The Lives of Animals, in which the (fictional) novelist Elizabeth Costello is invited to give a lecture at a college. Her lecture addresses our treatment of animals, but her approach is far removed from what many would expect of a philosopical discourse: "She sees our reliance on argumentation as a way we may make unavailable to ourselves our own sense of what it is to be a living animal." I can't know for certain what it is like to be a bat, but I also have no idea as to what it is like to be you--or even if you in fact really do think/feel/exist... In fact, being rather autistic, I've long struggled in the same fashion as did Wittgenstein:
What I find especially odious about arguments from the likes of Singer, et al, is the idea of making categorical determinations of "worthiness" based on our rather limited understandings and some rather arbitrary and nebulous "attributes" which someone determines to be more valuable or meaningful. While acquiring as much knowledge and understanding of others is certainly a "good thing," frankly, I make my determinations of "worthiness" based upon who matters the most to me--and more often than not, my dog means a hell of a lot more to me than do most people. YMMV.
Diamond writes of the ways in which the thinker's understanding of the issue becomes deflected when framed in the language and modalities of philosophical scepticism. In our efforts to ponder, fathom, or embrace a difficult reality--or the difficulty of reality--we become further deflected from the reality, not unlike being thrown out of that which we wish to inhabit. And this is very much what the philosophizing of many an animal rightist accomplishes: turning the reality into a set of "facts." And it is for this reason that Wittgenstein emphasizes showing, or demonstrating, by bringing words back from the metaphysical to their everyday use. I suppose that one might argue, perhaps, that this is what PETA is trying to do. I'm sceptical; but if such is in fact the case, I would suggest that even a mediocre advertising agency has a better grasp on this than do the folks at PETA.
I do realize that I am introducing a non-argument, and what can essentially be construed as an appeal to the heart, on what is ostensibly a science forum; but I find the idea of arguing about ethics in a rigid, scientific manner somewhat amusing anyways.
In my opinion, far more effective--insofar as forming convictions by things other than "personal experience"--is certain literature (particularly J.M. Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello and The Lives of Animals, among others), song and verse, and the writings of thinkers somewhat less concerned with "verifiable assertions" and "propositional attitudes" and whatnots (or at least voicing a more nuanced take on such). For those interested especially in matters pertaining to (non-human) animals, and frustrated or bored by Singer's brand of utilitarianism, Regan's neo-Kantianism, etc., amongst the best are Derrida's The Animal That Therefore I Am (as well as Points... and Of Spirit), Giorgio Agamben's The Open, and most anything by Donna Haraway, Cary Wolfe, or Vicki Hearne.
But most pertinent to this thread (and that thread from a few days back which this seems almost a continuation of) are some of Cora Diamond's thoughts. Over the past 30-odd years, Diamond has addressed animal rights, animal welfare, and the varied cominglings and confusions thereof from a sort-of neo-wittgensteinian perspective. In "Anything But Argument?" she quotes from Onora O'Neill's review of Stephen Clark's The Moral Status of Animals:
Of this view of how ethical discussions ought proceed, Diamond remarks:
When making a moral plea, whom are we trying to "convince"? Well, obviously everyone, but realistically we can only hope to convince those with the requisite capacities for being convinced in the first place, i.e., those capable of "following the argument" and entertaining it's implications. Diamond, in discussing those not capable of being "convinced" of something through, say, reading a novel, names certain particular incapacities: "a very limited moral imagination; an intelligence inadequately trained and incapable of recogninzing irony." Of the latter, one has to wonder about the persons who came up with the PETA campaigns featuring naked, second-rate "celebrities." And while being amenable to reason and receptive to new, and possibly "controversial," information are certainly requisite capacities, they are hardly the only--or even the most important--essential qualities. (And here I'll refrain from a critique of "reason" and those zealously beholden to some such curious notion of a pure, impartial, and objective reason, and wholly blind and oblivious to the litany of atrocities committed in the name of this much vaunted "reason"--Foucault and Karl Popper, among others, having done a fine job at this already.)
Rather, having a heart... already so inclined would seem the more pertinent quality. But, lacking this, is an "argument" really going to convince those not so inclined? I mean, to reasonably bright and worldly folks, that animals have interests, desires, a will, the capacity to feel pain and/or anxiety, unique and comparable intelligences and proclivities, etc. should hardly be much of a revelation. And even if it is for some, most reasonably intelligent individuals (whatever is meant by that) will likely be receptive to such knowledge. Sure, such things may be hard to digest for some, but I've personally found that those sorts tend not to satisfy my criteria for being "reasonably educated and worldly" anyways. We can debate particularities regarding "consciousness" (as per Dennett, Donald Davidson, John Searle, et al), capacity for language or metacommunicative/metalinguistic capabilities (Bateson, et al), orientation towards or cognisance of death, the ability to form (and abide) "moral contracts," whether animals are weltarm or not weltbildung, until we are blue in the face; but I don't think that these matters really factor for most people into their determination of how animals ought to be regarded. Just as those of us who are pro-choice do not deny that a fetus is alive, and those of us who favor decriminalization or legalization do not deny that sometimes drugs are "dangerous," or make people do "bad things"...
But what does it really mean to have a "heart... so inclined"? More recently Diamond has refined her position, as she expresses in "The Difficulty of Reality and the Difficulty of Philosophy." The essay includes a reading of Coetzee's The Lives of Animals, in which the (fictional) novelist Elizabeth Costello is invited to give a lecture at a college. Her lecture addresses our treatment of animals, but her approach is far removed from what many would expect of a philosopical discourse: "She sees our reliance on argumentation as a way we may make unavailable to ourselves our own sense of what it is to be a living animal." I can't know for certain what it is like to be a bat, but I also have no idea as to what it is like to be you--or even if you in fact really do think/feel/exist... In fact, being rather autistic, I've long struggled in the same fashion as did Wittgenstein:
(Culture and Value)
What I find especially odious about arguments from the likes of Singer, et al, is the idea of making categorical determinations of "worthiness" based on our rather limited understandings and some rather arbitrary and nebulous "attributes" which someone determines to be more valuable or meaningful. While acquiring as much knowledge and understanding of others is certainly a "good thing," frankly, I make my determinations of "worthiness" based upon who matters the most to me--and more often than not, my dog means a hell of a lot more to me than do most people. YMMV.
Diamond writes of the ways in which the thinker's understanding of the issue becomes deflected when framed in the language and modalities of philosophical scepticism. In our efforts to ponder, fathom, or embrace a difficult reality--or the difficulty of reality--we become further deflected from the reality, not unlike being thrown out of that which we wish to inhabit. And this is very much what the philosophizing of many an animal rightist accomplishes: turning the reality into a set of "facts." And it is for this reason that Wittgenstein emphasizes showing, or demonstrating, by bringing words back from the metaphysical to their everyday use. I suppose that one might argue, perhaps, that this is what PETA is trying to do. I'm sceptical; but if such is in fact the case, I would suggest that even a mediocre advertising agency has a better grasp on this than do the folks at PETA.
I do realize that I am introducing a non-argument, and what can essentially be construed as an appeal to the heart, on what is ostensibly a science forum; but I find the idea of arguing about ethics in a rigid, scientific manner somewhat amusing anyways.
parmalee:
That's a good post. I don't entirely agree with you, but I understand the position.
Any kind of moral reasoning, in the end, requires empathy - the ability to imagine yourself in another person's shoes. If you can do that, then you can begin to see things from their perspective - to sort out what they might desire and value, and what their interests might be.
Most people living in cities in the modern, western world, are almost completely divorced from the world of the farm animals they happily consume. They've never spent any time sitting on a fence just watching a herd of cattle. They've never had a lamb follow them around. They've never put a chicken to bed at night.
Under such circumstances, it is easy to create an abstraction of what you imagine a farm animal is. What happens is that we give our children lots of books when they are small that present an idealised and imagined world of the farm, with friendly animals that have no fear of being killed and eaten or otherwise exploited. But there's a massive disconnect between this rosy picture and the reality of the steak that we buy from the local supermarket in its santised plastic wrap and foam tray. And so we avoid connecting the steak with the cow almost as a matter of course. And if we do ever fleetingly consider the connection, then it is easy to rationalise about how that cow's life didn't really mean anything, and how at the end of the day cows don't really matter or count for anything except a resource for human exploitation, like the oil we dig out of the ground. Because a cow can't really think or feel - not the way we do.
And when we never see the workings of a factory farm, or a puppy mill, or a battery hen farm, then we can delude ourselves that there's really no harm involved in eating animals. We can imagine those animals from the children's books, soaking up the sun as they range freely and without a care.
I guess the question is: how do you get through to somebody who has no empathy or real understanding? It's so very hard to do. If there's a small proportion of such people who can be convinced by rational argument, then I think it's worth trying to convince them that way. And it's not as if the rational arguments are weak. I think that if people are going to be inconsistent with their own stated principles, particular in how they treat humans vs. non-human animals, then such inconsistency ought to be brought out in the open for all to see it for what it is. It may not shame people into doing the right thing, but at least it shines light on the pretense and the self-deception.
That's a good post. I don't entirely agree with you, but I understand the position.
Any kind of moral reasoning, in the end, requires empathy - the ability to imagine yourself in another person's shoes. If you can do that, then you can begin to see things from their perspective - to sort out what they might desire and value, and what their interests might be.
Most people living in cities in the modern, western world, are almost completely divorced from the world of the farm animals they happily consume. They've never spent any time sitting on a fence just watching a herd of cattle. They've never had a lamb follow them around. They've never put a chicken to bed at night.
Under such circumstances, it is easy to create an abstraction of what you imagine a farm animal is. What happens is that we give our children lots of books when they are small that present an idealised and imagined world of the farm, with friendly animals that have no fear of being killed and eaten or otherwise exploited. But there's a massive disconnect between this rosy picture and the reality of the steak that we buy from the local supermarket in its santised plastic wrap and foam tray. And so we avoid connecting the steak with the cow almost as a matter of course. And if we do ever fleetingly consider the connection, then it is easy to rationalise about how that cow's life didn't really mean anything, and how at the end of the day cows don't really matter or count for anything except a resource for human exploitation, like the oil we dig out of the ground. Because a cow can't really think or feel - not the way we do.
And when we never see the workings of a factory farm, or a puppy mill, or a battery hen farm, then we can delude ourselves that there's really no harm involved in eating animals. We can imagine those animals from the children's books, soaking up the sun as they range freely and without a care.
I guess the question is: how do you get through to somebody who has no empathy or real understanding? It's so very hard to do. If there's a small proportion of such people who can be convinced by rational argument, then I think it's worth trying to convince them that way. And it's not as if the rational arguments are weak. I think that if people are going to be inconsistent with their own stated principles, particular in how they treat humans vs. non-human animals, then such inconsistency ought to be brought out in the open for all to see it for what it is. It may not shame people into doing the right thing, but at least it shines light on the pretense and the self-deception.