What makes humans worth more then animals?

[Princess Luna]

religious bullshit aside the answer i almost always hear is the ability to reason , however if you determine worth by the ability to reason wouldn't that mean children and people who suffer from mental retardation are worth less then an average adult?

[Quail]

This thread has shitstorm potential, but I'm going to give a quick reply anyway.

I value humans over other animals because I'm a human, and I want humans to continue as a species and live comfortably. Don't get me wrong though, because I don't eat meat, and I don't agree with causing unnecessary suffering to other species. Humans can survive and minimise the harm they inflict upon other species. My point is though, that if it came down to saving a human or saving an animal, I'd tend to save the human (unless the human was some arsehole like Nick Griffin).

Some people would say that it is "speciesist" to put humans above other animals, but I don't think that "speciesism" is in any way comparable to any discrimination against humans, especially racism. Race is a social construct, whereas species most definitely is not. I'm sure that pretty much any animal would want to put the survival of its own species above that of others. Any animal that didn't would most likely die out due to not acting in its own interests.

[Hit The North]

Human beings are only of more "value" than other animals from the point of view of certain calculations and reflecting particular social interests.

[Kuppo Shakur]

Humans have more value to me because I am a human.
If I were a kangaroo, then kangaroos would have more value to me.
It's pretty much as simple as that.

[Fawkes]

We're "worth more" because doing things in the interests of our own species, regardless of the impacts it may have on other species, equates to doing things in the interest of ourselves.

[Princess Luna]

so if humans are not worth more then animals (beyond personal perspectives) , then should torturing a dog and torturing a human be on the same moral level?

[Nolan]

Humans are humans? Why is it even up for questioning?

[Fawkes]

so if humans are not worth more then animals (beyond personal perspectives) , then should torturing a dog and torturing a human be on the same moral level?

Who is this being addressed to? There only are personal perspectives, nothing is inherently of more value than something else, only what is attributed to it by us.

[Tablo]

Humans > all other Animals > plants (lowest because lolcats are adorable)

:sleep:

[Princess Luna]

Who is this being addressed to? There only are personal perspectives, nothing is inherently of more value than something else, only what is attributed to it by us.
there must be some kind of logic behind the idea that killing a human is worse then killing a dog , someone could say killing white person is worse then then killing a black person but they must have some kind of logic backing the claim that a life of a white person is worth more then the life of a black person or else the entire claim is bullshit even though its that person's perspective

[Fawkes]

there must be some kind of logic behind the idea that killing a human is worse then killing a dog , someone could say killing white person is worse then then killing a black person but they must have some kind logic backing the claim that a life of a white person is worth more then the life of a black person or else the entire claim is bullshit even though its that person's perspective

Killing a human is worse than a dog cause we are humans and most of us don't want to get killed.

[Princess Luna]

Killing a ________ is worse than a _____ cause we are _______ and most of us don't want to get killed.
now all someone has to do is insert what ever bullshit believes they have , and they can use that same logic as a argument in support of it

[Nolan]

Troll thread. Probably a nazi.

[FreeFocus]

Worth more in what sense? The importance that you would place on each in a scenario where you can only save one? I would hope that everyone would save the human (unless it's an asshole). We are humans. If it's a life .vs. life situation and you can only save one, it shouldn't even be up for debate.

When it comes to saying animals exist for us to use (which reeks of religiosity, by the way), or have no interests or rights, there's a sensitive and intense debate there. My position is that torturing animals and killing tens of billions a year in factory farms is unacceptable.

[Princess Luna]

Troll thread. Probably a nazi.
if i was a Nazi , why would i be arguing the idea that in order to decide value of living things you need logic backing your claim, you can't just pull shit out of nowhere like Nazi's do........

[Lyev]

Well, Marx's view, which is adapted from Feuerbach, is that humans "distinct from brutes" are aware of their own existence not only as individuals but as part of a whole species, i.e., as a species-being. Therefore, with our understanding of humankind like this, to live in a highly competitive and divided society (a class society, capitalism) is contrary to this tendency in us to see ourselves as species-beings.

Although, this doesn't do too well to address concerns over 'animal rights' or vegetarianism. Put it this way: I am vegetarian, and my brother also has disability similar to Down's syndrome; I certainly wouldn't kill/eat him, obviously. Maybe that was a bad example - it's pretty clear to see why animals aren't on the same level (in pretty much every aspect) as humans. Animal's emotions are nowhere near as complicated, multifaceted, diverse etc. etc. etc. as human ones are. That is abundantly clear.

[Aeval]

now all someone has to do is insert what ever bullshit believes they have , and they can use that same logic as a argument in support of it

Not at all, we are humans, that is a fact, it is only logical that a human would value the life of another human more than that of another animal, if that were not the case then it'd be a bit of an evolutionary fuck up. Inserting something else in to there, be it race, gender, sexuality, whatever, doesn't change the fact that the other person is still a human just like us.

Now, I think Fawkes' sentence may be a little too simplistic - what if the human was a dictator who had been systematically oppressing and even murdering people and the dog in question belonged to your neighbour's kid? There could technically be situation where one might value the life of an animal over that of a human, but it would be rare and would have to be a specific human. In general though a human life will be worth more to another human than an animal's.

You'll note that we then tend to list things in order of how similar they are to us (because we are empathic animals and we project our characteristic on to other animals who look or behave similarly). You could therefore see this valuation as a continuation of what we do with people: I value the life of my partner, family and close friends above other people - then would come other friends - then people I vaguely know - then people you feel you have some connection with even though you've never met (here's where people tend to care more about someone dying from their country or even town than from far away) - then other people - then we move on to intelligent, social mammals who display similar characteristics to ourselves - then other cute mammals...and so on all the way down to things like moss and bacteria which I'm sure most people don't give a shit about killing. It's not "speciesist" or anything like that, it's just how we work, we can't care equally about everything in the world, it would probably make our heads explode.

[Broletariat]

now all someone has to do is insert what ever bullshit believes they have , and they can use that same logic as a argument in support of it
Actually they couldn't.

More directly on topic. Humans are the only animals as far as I know that even have the concept of "value."

[Black Sheep]

They aren't objectively."Worth of a species" is not a term/characteristic of nature.
We, as humans, define axiomatically humans to be superior.Because we are humans.

I don't think there's more to this than the obvious.

[Princess Luna]

Well, Marx's view, which is adapted from Feuerbach, is that humans "distinct from brutes" are aware of their own existence not only as individuals but as part of a whole species, i.e., as a species-being. Therefore, with our understanding of humankind like this, to live in a highly competitive and divided society (a class society, capitalism) is contrary to this tendency in us to see ourselves as species-beings.

Although, this doesn't do too well to address concerns over 'animal rights' or vegetarianism. Put it this way: I am vegetarian, and my brother also has disability similar to Down's syndrome; I certainly wouldn't kill/eat him, obviously. Maybe that was a bad example - it's pretty clear to see why animals aren't on the same level (in pretty much every aspect) as humans. Animal's emotions are nowhere near as complicated, multifaceted, diverse etc. etc. etc. as human ones are. That is abundantly clear.
what if someone got in a car wreck and became totally brain dead , he can not think , feel , or talk and the only thing keeping him alive is life support, whats morally different about killing and eating him and killing and eating a cow *note* i am not in ANYWAY endorsing cannibalism it is just a hypothetical question

[Fawkes]

now all someone has to do is insert what ever bullshit believes they have , and they can use that same logic as a argument in support of it

That's not the case though. I'm white. If a black person gets killed over a white person, that in no way is of any help to me, nor does it set a precedent beneficial to me. We're all humans, the rest are largely social constructs.

[Rafiq]

so if humans are not worth more then animals (beyond personal perspectives) , then should torturing a dog and torturing a human be on the same moral level?

Well the fact that someone would torture anything shows how fucked up they are them self.

But are you asking whether I'd prefer having a dog or a human tortured? Definitely the dog.

[Rafiq]

What makes humans more important than trees?

[Princess Luna]

Well the fact that someone would torture anything shows how fucked up they are them self.

But are you asking whether I'd prefer having a dog or a human tortured? Definitely the dog.
i agree , but there must be a logical reason why you should pick the dog to be tortured over the human (regardless of his state of mind) beyond the argument "Human lives are worth more then animals because because human lives are worth more"

[Luisrah]

what if someone got in a car wreck and became totally brain dead , he can not think , feel , or talk and the only thing keeping him alive is life support, whats morally different about killing and eating him and killing and eating a cow *note* i am not in ANYWAY endorsing cannibalism it is just a hypothetical question

The difference is that the first is no different from a plant, and the second is still an animal.

An animal has sensations, it can see, listen, etc. while a human whose brain has ''died'' is nothing more than a plant.

Now the difference could be that eating a fellow human isn't that much of an evolutionary step forward. But most of it is probably social construction.

The thing extremist animal lovers need to realize (in my opinion) is that we are omnivores, and an omnivore diet seems to be more beneficial than a vegetarian one. Not eating animals just because the poor things can feel when we hit them is just stupid, no offense.

Of course I don't support animal suffering, and I think that whenever an animal dies to feed a human, it should die with as little pain as possible.
And over that, lets never forget that in the wild, animals die in worse conditions than what we can do. Heck, some animals are even alive to see the lions eating them.

Humans are conscious of themselves, have aspirations, dreams. Any other animal has none of these, and their fear for the loss of their life is nothing but survival instinct. Our fear of death is survival instinct+many things that make us human (I don't want to die before I do this or that, go here or there, etc)

[Fawkes]

Some of the people posting in here have been kind of asses. Can we not belittle someone who was just asking a question? Obviously it's not that simple if they're having trouble understanding it, so stop being douches and try to help them get a better understanding of it.

[Aeval]

i agree , but there must be a logical reason why you should pick the dog to be tortured over the human (regardless of his state of mind) beyond the argument "Human lives are worth more then animals because because human lives are worth more"

but people have already answered you question: human lives are worth more than animal's because we, the people denoting this "value", are human. That is literally it :)

That is why the life of a child or someone with severe mental disabilities is still of more value to us, because they are a human and so are we, therefore we want to look after our own, if we didn't then particularly when it comes to children we would die out as a specie. It is a useful evolutionary feature for us to value other humans above other animals, and in fact giving a shit about other animals what so ever comes from the fact that we project our own emotions and characteristics onto them. We need to care about people (and animals) to different degrees in order to be able to form complex relationships with each other, if we didn't value certain people (and animals) above another then we'd either have to not give a shit about anyone, human or non-human, dying (meaning we aren't able to form the necessary relationships for survival) or we'd care about everything equally as much which would probably make us all suicidal with grief.

incidentally:


an omnivore diet seems to be more beneficial than a vegetarian one.

have you got a source for that or did you just pull it out of your backside? A healthy balanced diet is a healthy balanced diet, whether those vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats etc are coming from an animal source or a plant source what matter is that they are balance. A veggie's diet which consists of processed crap is less beneficial than an omnivore's which includes plenty of fresh and varied food, equally a balanced, varied veggie or vegan diet consisting of all the things we need is more beneficial than an omnivorous diet which is just fatty, salty junk food - what matters is that you get all your nutrients, not where those nutrients come from.

[Hit The North]

there must be some kind of logic behind the idea that killing a human is worse then killing a dog

Not if you're a dog.


, someone could say killing white person is worse then then killing a black person but they must have some kind of logic backing the claim that a life of a white person is worth more then the life of a black person or else the entire claim is bullshit even though its that person's perspective


Well, apart from the fact that the claim is bullshit, it would probably only be a claim made by white people.

[Hit The North]

That's not the case though. I'm white. If a black person gets killed over a white person, that in no way is of any help to me, nor does it set a precedent beneficial to me. We're all humans, the rest are largely social constructs.

It's all social constructs, anyway, that's the point.

[Rafiq]

i agree , but there must be a logical reason why you should pick the dog to be tortured over the human (regardless of his state of mind) beyond the argument "Human lives are worth more then animals because because human lives are worth more"

Well that's simple.

Humans have more to contribute toward the field of 'thought' in general.

A human has the potential to create, fix, build, and even destroy.

Dogs can do some of those things, but not nearly as advanced as a Human.

Besides, I wouldn't know what it's like being a dog, and it's this simple: I'm a human, naturally, I am bound to helping and saving other humans.

If dogs wanted to help other dogs, I'm sure they could do that.

Do you want to know why humans are 'worth more'?

Because dogs did not create a revolutionary forum and right now dogs are not discussing how oppressed and discriminated they are.

Simple as that.

[Technocrat]

They aren't objectively."Worth of a species" is not a term/characteristic of nature.
We, as humans, define axiomatically humans to be superior.Because we are humans.

I don't think there's more to this than the obvious.

Nailed it.

There is no such thing as objective "value."

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Leopards don't know their spots are beautiful. They are beautiful to people, because beauty is a human concept.

Value is also a human concept. Animals have no value outside of what we give them.

[NGNM85]

There are really two primary reasons why we place a higher value on humans, as opposed to other life forms. The philosophical justification is that humans are sentient beings. We should place a higher premium on sentient life for several reasons;

First, because sentient beings are capable of unique degreees of suffering inaccessible to non-sentient life.

Second, because every sentient being is a unique consciousness, with the seemingly infinite possibilities and permutations that allows. Every sentient being is a ‘judge of the universe.’, which brings me to my final point;

Third, sentience is, as far as we can presently tell, exceptionally rare. It's very likely there is life on other planets, we very possibly have, unknowingly, discovered planets that harbor some form of life. However, by all indications, sentient life is exceedingly rare, possibly (Although, I doubt it.) nonexistent, in the rest of the universe.

In addition to these philosophical reasons, we have, as part of our survival instinct, a biological imperative to protect and preserve human life. It’s perfectly sensible.

[TC]

All answers come down to:

1. self interest (cause its in my interest to value humans more, i'm a human, humans make me happy, take care of me, etc)

2. speciesism (cause I"m a human). This takes two forms, it can either be a claim that humans are superior without rational justification, or it can be a claim that humans should be given preference without rational justification.

3. Arbitrary characteristics shared by most humans and some animals (reason, intelligence) where in order to exclude the animals people like to eat, one must set the 'bar' as it were higher than many humans (the developmentally disabled, infants, old people with dimentia) etc...the inclusion of the later group of humans then demands reference to either self interest or speciesism.

4. Collective interest (its better for humans that way) - which is of course 100% question begging since it assumes that what is good for humans is what counts.

5. The dogmatic idiotic answer (there is no reason to ask the question/humans are worth more just because) - not a serious philosophical answer that exists in the philosophical literature but a popular response among people too juvenile to take the question seriously.

6. Appeal to greater range of interests (Humans can suffer more from deprivation since our potential quality of life and range of experiences is greater) - perhaps the most coherent answer, one furnished in some places by Singer - the problem with this answer is that a. it might justify saving a human over saving an animal when forced to choose between the lives of the two, but it wont justify killing animals just to eat them. It also relies on valuing human-specific experiences above the experiences general to humans and animals or specific to some animals, and there are rarely good ways of doing this, except in appeal to speciesism or arbitrary personal preference.

7. The denial of scientific reality ("only humans are sentient!" only sentients matters) - this relies on total ignorance on the part of the person making the claim, since in realty, we know that most animals are capable of experiencing subjecting states, sensations, perceptions, feeling pain, pleasure, etc, and are therefore sentient in the correct, dictionary definition of the word sentient. That there should be some special definition of the word "sentient" that relies on totally undefined features supposedly unique to humans so that the word can conform to how it is used (apparently) by certain non-philosopher academics and science fiction writers, is of course, arguing semantic nonsense and has no baring on the real philosophical question. Its just a misuse or misapplication of the term.

[TC]

This thread has shitstorm potential, but I'm going to give a quick reply anyway.

Yes frankly from my experience I don't think revleft is a sufficiently developed environment for discussion to handle this topic - it comes down to nasty short posts, ad hominem, and obvious fallacies and the internet version of shouting.



Some people would say that it is "speciesist" to put humans above other animals, but I don't think that "speciesism" is in any way comparable to any discrimination against humans, especially racism. Race is a social construct, whereas species most definitely is not.

This is not strictly true. Skin color is most certainly a material phenomenon, as are identifiable clines - and these of course have genetic correlates. The fact that they are given social significance and categorised into discreet races, that is of course socially constructed...

...but the problem arises that the same is actually true for species. Why is the inability to interbreed fertile young the demarcation of species - why not the inability to interbreed at all the demarcation (which would make tigers and lions, horses and donkeys, etc, of the same species) - well of course you can give an explanation for that - but it is a narrative explanation that exposes what features you value (because then they can't reproduce multiple generations, etc). A racist could similarly give a narrative explanation for why races matter (I wont venture to make one since we can all imagine potential racist propaganda on this issue).

Moreover, while gender is a social category, sex is just as genetic, biological, and material as species...surely this does not excuse sexism.


I'm sure that pretty much any animal would want to put the survival of its own species above that of others. Any animal that didn't would most likely die out due to not acting in its own interests.

1. Since when does what you (or any animal) want to do inform on what one should do morally?

2. This is empirically untrue, many animals (including humans!) kill members of their own species for self interest - You need to remember that evolution works not by the survival of species as a whole, or even the survival of individuals, but by the reproduction of genes: sometimes there is a genetic selective advantage in protecting members of ones own species and sometimes there is a genetic selective advantage in killing members of ones own species.

3. This is argument from psudo-nature - it confuses what (supposedly) is for what ought to be.

4. As Singer has pointed out - the argument works just as well for nations, ethic groups, and self-defined races: they too can enhance their collective self interests at the expense of other groups and those that don't do so effectively will often 'die out' (see the history of european colonialism, the aztecs, mongolian history, etc, for reference).

[Ele'ill]

Excellent topic but for the love of god can we just merge this thread in with the other one :bored:

[Ele'ill]

Leopards don't know their spots are beautiful. They are beautiful to people, because beauty is a human concept.

Value is also a human concept. Animals have no value outside of what we give them.

When fish posture one will back down because it's aware that it is smaller than it's adversary. Humans don't know their certain areas smell interesting and give internal biological information because we're not developed in that area as animals.

Jesus fucking christ, here we go.

[DuracellBunny97]

It is important to respect all life, but animals don't write literature, run countries or advance medical science. If you are saying that animals should not be needlessly killed, then I'm on board, however, if you are implying we should slow medical science, simply to avoid animal testing, the I am in disagreement.

[TC]

Excellent topic but for the love of god can we just merge this thread in with the other one :bored:

Please don't -

a. the other thread was bloated and got really scummy. Lets let it be over. Moreover its hard to launch into threads when they get too long and it discourages new contributors who don't want to read however many pages long it was.

b. this thread is in philosophy and not science/technology and thus will likely have a different audience and mix of contributors and exposure.

c. The question of whether humans are more valuable than animals is a separate question from whether mass murder of animals deserves holocaust analogies which was the original question posed in the other thread (granted the other thread became a thread about the acceptability of eating factory farmed meat, but that is still a different topic) - lets let this one have its own evolution. I think the subject of "animals" in general is big enough for multiple discreet topics.

[Ele'ill]

It's looking very similar to how the other one ended.

[TC]

It is important to respect all life, but animals don't write literature, run countries or advance medical science.
Neither do most people...I'm guessing neither do you.

You gave a modified version of "answer 3":



3. Arbitrary characteristics shared by most humans and some animals (reason, intelligence) where in order to exclude the animals people like to eat, one must set the 'bar' as it were higher than many humans (the developmentally disabled, infants, old people with dimentia) etc...the inclusion of the later group of humans then demands reference to either self interest or speciesism.

Except while most versions of this answer are at least savvy enough to pick a characteristic shared by most people - you managed to pick a group of arbitrary characteristics that very few people possess!

The fact is most people don't do much of cultural or scientific or political significance with their lives.

Of course if you modify your case to argue that people at least are capable of doing these things - it doesn't save the position since many humans are in fact incapable of these things.


If you are saying that animals should not be needlessly killed, then I'm on board, however, if you are implying we should slow medical science, simply to avoid animal testing, the I am in disagreement.

So should we test on people who don't write literature, run countries, or advance medical science?

If not then, then it really has nothing to do with writing literature, running countries, or conducting medical science research...

[Fawkes]

It's looking very similar to how the other one ended.

Yeah, but it's not like RevLeft is any stranger to threads that bare striking similarities to one another. The majority of the non-news related threads on this site could probably fit into a rotating cycle of 30-40 or so topics anyway. Plus, perhaps I can actually participate in this thread unlike the last one (ironic considering that I made it).

[MarxSchmarx]

The fact is we have circles of concern - in our own lives, many of us consider immediate family members "worth" more than somebody we'd never met living on the other side of the world. We are invested emotionally in the human race, quite a bit less emotional about primates, and even less emotional about fellow vertebrates like herring. And many of us have no compunction about smashing a cockroach.

Even the vegan fanatic will kill plants and fungi to live - and when you observe a paramecium or an amoeba under the microscope, poking it around and such, their response is almost vaguely "animalistic".

The fact remains that the charge of "specieism" is neither more nor less defensible than our other moral sensibilities. Put another way, there is no rationale for condemning "specieism" but not, say, "Kingdom-ism". And although it would be tempting to take the analogy to back to racism, for other human beings there is the very real aspect of being able to communicate, empathize, socialize, etc... - in short, all the raw sensory material that create our emotional investment talked about earlier - that readily let us expand our circle of concern to individuals of different races.

Notably, such sensory experiences are with very, very, very few exceptions absent in non-humans - and when they are observed (as in some gorillas raised in captivity, e.g.), it's really quite debatable how much they are us projecting our values onto other organisms

[Ele'ill]

Yeah, but it's not like RevLeft is any stranger to threads that bare striking similarities to one another. The majority of the non-news related threads on this site could probably fit into a rotating cycle of 30-40 or so topics anyway. Plus, perhaps I can actually participate in this thread unlike the last one (ironic considering that I made it).

I was wondering why you didn't post in it. Why didn't you?

Just to clarify, I don't necessarily mind thread repeats I just don't like thread repeats on topics that have yielded 20+ pages in the recent past on topics that that I feel passionate about. Take my complaints well salted, for what that expression is worth, I don't mean anything antagonistic by them.

[Fawkes]

I was wondering why you didn't post in it. Why didn't you?

http://www.caecilian.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/yvonne.jpg
Right around when I made the thread I went down and by the time I came back up, this happened:


Moreover its hard to launch into threads when they get too long and it discourages new contributors who don't want to read however many pages long it was.

[black magick hustla]

there is no logical necessity of an "ought to" from a description of states of affairs. in short, ethical statements are not of the same nature as statements about the world. i simply don't care about animals. i eat them and civilzation is built upon the destruction of their homes and i could care two shits about them. the only way one can be convinced to sympathize with animals is to appeal to them emotionally not scientifically or logically, because as i said before, there is simply no true facts about the world that by deduction will imply that animals need to be respected and treated like humans (nor there is a scientific reason why i should care for other humans, i simply feel like it). the problem with vegans trying to argue for animal rights is that they try to tackle the issue as if it were a scientific issue while in reality it is not.

in more nonserious and less formal terms middle class people are obsessed with animals idk why and treat them like people. my dad grew up with nothing and in shithole slums he doesn't care about animals at all. when i visit mexico there are barely any vegan restaurants and most people will think you are insane for refusing perfectly good and serious food. i think sociologically veganism is certainly the response of a population that is extremely alienated from nature - i.e. white suburbanites. people who grow up with animals eat them. this is not an argument but it is an attempt to understand the phenonmena sociologically.

[Widerstand]

Race is a social construct, whereas species most definitely is not.

Species, just as race, is a biological category created by biologists (humans). It most certainly is a social construct. What you are talking about is probably that there are clearly defined criteria for what makes a species and there are clear distinctions between species, which don't exist between human races (they exist between dog races, however, and it's not impossible that one day they can be found between humans too).


so if humans are not worth more then animals (beyond personal perspectives) , then should torturing a dog and torturing a human be on the same moral level?

Yes, you shouldn't torture either. This is a pretty shitty example though, I can't think of any situation where one would be forced to either torture a dog or torture a human.


Well, Marx's view, which is adapted from Feuerbach, is that humans "distinct from brutes" are aware of their own existence not only as individuals but as part of a whole species, i.e., as a species-being. Therefore, with our understanding of humankind like this, to live in a highly competitive and divided society (a class society, capitalism) is contrary to this tendency in us to see ourselves as species-beings.

Consider that Feuerbach was not the end-all of all biology and philosophy, and consider that it's not very clear what Marx means by species-being - for example Holloway's explanation of the term sounds rather different from yours.


Animal's emotions are nowhere near as complicated, multifaceted, diverse etc. etc. etc. as human ones are. That is abundantly clear.

If it's "abundantly clear" I'm sure you can show scientific evidence for it?



Value is also a human concept. Animals have no value outside of what we give them.

Neither have humans.


All answers come down to:

1. self interest (cause its in my interest to value humans more, i'm a human, humans make me happy, take care of me, etc)

2. speciesism (cause I"m a human). This takes two forms, it can either be a claim that humans are superior without rational justification, or it can be a claim that humans should be given preference without rational justification.

3. Arbitrary characteristics shared by most humans and some animals (reason, intelligence) where in order to exclude the animals people like to eat, one must set the 'bar' as it were higher than many humans (the developmentally disabled, infants, old people with dimentia) etc...the inclusion of the later group of humans then demands reference to either self interest or speciesism.

4. Collective interest (its better for humans that way) - which is of course 100% question begging since it assumes that what is good for humans is what counts.

5. The dogmatic idiotic answer (there is no reason to ask the question/humans are worth more just because) - not a serious philosophical answer that exists in the philosophical literature but a popular response among people too juvenile to take the question seriously.

6. Appeal to greater range of interests (Humans can suffer more from deprivation since our potential quality of life and range of experiences is greater) - perhaps the most coherent answer, one furnished in some places by Singer - the problem with this answer is that a. it might justify saving a human over saving an animal when forced to choose between the lives of the two, but it wont justify killing animals just to eat them. It also relies on valuing human-specific experiences above the experiences general to humans and animals or specific to some animals, and there are rarely good ways of doing this, except in appeal to speciesism or arbitrary personal preference.

7. The denial of scientific reality ("only humans are sentient!" only sentients matters) - this relies on total ignorance on the part of the person making the claim, since in realty, we know that most animals are capable of experiencing subjecting states, sensations, perceptions, feeling pain, pleasure, etc, and are therefore sentient in the correct, dictionary definition of the word sentient. That there should be some special definition of the word "sentient" that relies on totally undefined features supposedly unique to humans so that the word can conform to how it is used (apparently) by certain non-philosopher academics and science fiction writers, is of course, arguing semantic nonsense and has no baring on the real philosophical question. Its just a misuse or misapplication of the term.

good post.



Even the vegan fanatic will kill plants and fungi to live - and when you observe a paramecium or an amoeba under the microscope, poking it around and such, their response is almost vaguely "animalistic".

Amoeba do not have a nervous system (neither do fungi or plants).

I would seriously love to see how their response is "almost" "vaguely" (so basically not at all?) "animalistic" (whatever the fuck that means?).



The fact remains that the charge of "specieism" is neither more nor less defensible than our other moral sensibilities. Put another way, there is no rationale for condemning "specieism" but not, say, "Kingdom-ism". And although it would be tempting to take the analogy to back to racism, for other human beings there is the very real aspect of being able to communicate, empathize, socialize, etc... - in short, all the raw sensory material that create our emotional investment talked about earlier - that readily let us expand our circle of concern to individuals of different races.

Actually there are reasons to not care about "Kingdomism". Neither plantae nor fungi nor protista nor monera can be said to have the capacity for feeling emotions or pain/pleasure (whereas mostly all animals do, by having nervous systems and by observable responses to these stimuli).

[NGNM85]

All answers come down to:


1. self interest (cause its in my interest to value humans more, i'm a human, humans make me happy, take care of me, etc)

2. speciesism (cause I"m a human). This takes two forms, it can either be a claim that humans are superior without rational justification, or it can be a claim that humans should be given preference without rational justification.

First of all, the whole concept of ‘speciesism’ is based on a fundamental misconception, but I’ll get to that.

As I mentioned, part of our preference for the human species is just a natural inclination that arises from our hardwired survival imperative. This is not selfish, nor is it illegitimate. Humans have human priorities, because they are humans. In fact, it makes perfect sense for humans to have human priorities. Also, no other species behaves any differently, in this respect.


3. Arbitrary characteristics shared by most humans and some animals (reason, intelligence) where in order to exclude the animals people like to eat, one must set the 'bar' as it were higher than many humans (the developmentally disabled, infants, old people with dimentia) etc...the inclusion of the later group of humans then demands reference to either self interest or speciesism.

Intelligence is, largely, morally irrelevant.


4. Collective interest (its better for humans that way) - which is of course 100% question begging since it assumes that what is good for humans is what counts.

If you are a human then it certainly does.


6. Appeal to greater range of interests (Humans can suffer more from deprivation since our potential quality of life and range of experiences is greater) - perhaps the most coherent answer, one furnished in some places by Singer - the problem with this answer is that a. it might justify saving a human over saving an animal when forced to choose between the lives of the two, but it wont justify killing animals just to eat them.

It would in scenarios where the humans’ life depended on eating the animal, at the very least.


It also relies on valuing human-specific experiences above the experiences general to humans and animals or specific to some animals, and there are rarely good ways of doing this, except in appeal to speciesism or arbitrary personal preference.

No, that’s inaccurate. You don’t have to value experiences which are inaccessible to animals more, if you assign the same value to every experience an entity is capable of experiencing, humans still win. In fact, you could assign a lesser value to the experiences that are so far, as we know, limited to humans and they would still come out ahead.


7. The denial of scientific reality ("only humans are sentient!" only sentients matters) - this relies on total ignorance on the part of the person making the claim, since in realty, we know that most animals are capable of experiencing subjecting states, sensations, perceptions, feeling pain, pleasure, etc, and are therefore sentient in the correct, dictionary definition of the word sentient. That there should be some special definition of the word "sentient" that relies on totally undefined features supposedly unique to humans so that the word can conform to how it is used (apparently) by certain non-philosopher academics and science fiction writers, is of course, arguing semantic nonsense and has no baring on the real philosophical question. Its just a misuse or misapplication of the term.

First of all, if you’re going to argue with me, at least have the courage to direct you’re comments to me personally, and don’t engage in this catty sniping-by-proxy.

I’m very much concerned about science, in fact, I’m only concerned about science because there is nothing that can be said to be ‘outside’ of science.

You know exactly what I mean. You aren’t stupid. You have some very, very stupid ideas, but you are not a stupid person. This playing dumb is really tedious and counterproductive. Pretending you don’t understand what I’m saying is a sorry substitute for an argument. It isn’t 'totally undefined,' you know exactly what I mean, not the least because I’ve explained it. (Even then I was merely confirming what you already know.) Also, if you really are so keyed up about verbiage (If so, one would think the atrocious abuse of language that regularly occurs throughout the internet, including this, forum would have pushed you to a psychotic break.) I have, repeatedly, invited you to substitute an emotionally acceptable replacement.

Also, you repeat the lie, which you know isn’t true, that this usage of the word is limited to science fiction writers. I gave you the examples of world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking (I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of him.) Michio Kaku (Who isn't too far behind, and is also a physicist.), and Ray Kurzweil, (Inventor? Entepreneur? Futurist? Take your pick.) you can also add physicist Brian Greene, (Author of Fabric of the Cosmos, etc.) and Oxford professor/philosopher Nick Bostrom. I would be willing to provide specific citations, as well as additional, renowned scholars, philosophers, scientists, etc., but I trust the point is made.

Sentience, in the sense I use it, is not necessarily unique to humans. It’s very possible, even likely, there are other sentient lifeforms in the universe at this moment. It’s almost as likely that we will eventually, perhaps within our lifetimes, create an artificial intelligence, or ‘strong AI’, which will also be sentient, and will be entitled to all the rights and considerations we expect for ourselves. Just because humans are the only known organisms to possess this trait, does not make it intrinsically human.

[Widerstand]

First of all, the whole concept of ‘speciesism’ is based on a fundamental misconception, but I’ll get to that.


Where? Did you forget it? Did I miss it?



As I mentioned, part of our preference for the human species is just a natural inclination that arises from our hardwired survival imperative.

Source, evidence, etc.


Also, no other species behaves any differently, in this respect.

Did you just make that up?

http://dogsinthenews.com/stories/060929a.php
http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/behavior/Spring2001/Ewart/Altruism.html

[Widerstand]

there is no logical necessity of an "ought to" from a description of states of affairs. in short, ethical statements are not of the same nature as statements about the world. i simply don't care about animals. i eat them and civilzation is built upon the destruction of their homes and i could care two shits about them. the only way one can be convinced to sympathize with animals is to appeal to them emotionally not scientifically or logically, because as i said before, there is simply no true facts about the world that by deduction will imply that animals need to be respected and treated like humans (nor there is a scientific reason why i should care for other humans, i simply feel like it). the problem with vegans trying to argue for animal rights is that they try to tackle the issue as if it were a scientific issue while in reality it is not.

in more nonserious and less formal terms middle class people are obsessed with animals idk why and treat them like people. my dad grew up with nothing and in shithole slums he doesn't care about animals at all. when i visit mexico there are barely any vegan restaurants and most people will think you are insane for refusing perfectly good and serious food. i think sociologically veganism is certainly the response of a population that is extremely alienated from nature - i.e. white suburbanites. people who grow up with animals eat them. this is not an argument but it is an attempt to understand the phenonmena sociologically.

Considering that you explain all of your dislikes with "it's something white people do!" or "it's something middle class people do!", or preferably "it's something white middle class people do!" I'm not at all surprised that the only argument you have is an ad hominem against vegans and a "but it just is because I say so!".

[NGNM85]

Where? Did you forget it? Did I miss it?

I’ve said it several times, this was the most recent;
http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1969662&postcount=133

Judge Posner gave a more lengthy exposition in his protracted argument with Peter Singer in Slate magazine;

“You ask how it is that our moral norms regarding race, homosexuality, nonmarital sex, contraception, and suicide have changed in recent times if not through ethical argument. This is a large question to which I cannot do justice in the space allotted me. But let me note, first, that philosophers have not been prominent in any of the movements to which you refer. Thurgood Marshall, Earl Warren, and Martin Luther King Jr. had a lot more to do with the development of an antidiscrimination norm than any academic; and the most influential feminists, such as Betty Friedan and Catharine MacKinnon, have not been philosophers either. As far as our changing attitudes toward sex are concerned, the motive forces were again not philosophical or, even, at root, ideological. They were material. As the economy shifted from manufacturing (heavy, dirty work) to services (lighter, cleaner), as contraception became safer and more reliable, as desire for large families diminished (the substitution of quality for quantity of children), and as the decline in infant mortality allowed women to reduce the number of their pregnancies yet still hit their target rate of reproduction, both the demand for women in the labor market and the supply of women in the labor market rose. With women working more and having as a consequence greater economic independence, they demanded and obtained greater sexual independence as well. Nonmarital, nonprocreative sex, including therefore homosexual sex, began to seem less "unnatural" than it had. At the same time, myths about homosexual recruitment were exploded; homosexuality was discovered to be genetic or in any event innate rather than a consequence of a "life style" choice; and so hostility to homosexuals diminished. The history of our changing sexual mores is more complex than this, but this sketch will give a flavor of how I prefer to explain social change. Ethical argument plays no role in the explanation.”
http://www.slate.com/id/110101/entry/110303/


Source, evidence, etc.


I think you misunderstood. I was simply affirming that living organisms have a hardwired sense of self-preservation. That’s like saying 'Water is wet.'


Did you just make that up?


http://dogsinthenews.com/stories/060929a.php
http://www.bio.davidson.edu/people/vecase/behavior/Spring2001/Ewart/Altruism.html

You also might have included Koko the Gorilla and her cat. First, these are isolated cases, I don’t see any evidence of a species that is uniformly hard-wired to preserve other species before it’s own, without any self-interest. This is also likely a misfiring on the part of the dogs who are naturally programmed to care for young.

Also, I would say we should make something of an exception for dolphins, as well as certain apes like chimpanzees, or gorillas, elephants, etc., animals that have a really unusual degree of cognitive capabilities. I actually would favor extending greater legal protections for these animals, for this reason. However, I would say we should be providing extra legal protection for elephants, and gorillas anyways, because they are endangered species.

[black magick hustla]

Considering that you explain all of your dislikes with "it's something white people do!" or "it's something middle class people do!", or preferably "it's something white middle class people do!" I'm not at all surprised that the only argument you have is an ad hominem against vegans and a "but it just is because I say so!".

the whole first paragraph is an attempt to tackle the issue you dummy, there is all sorts of literature pointing out that these attempts at logical chopping ethics as if ethics is a sort of science are misguided. in fact all the ethical attempts at "supporting objectively" the good treatment of animals are dogmatic because the people using them have a pretense of authority and truth (heh its rational) while in reality is completely nonsensical and it only works if the premises of that ethical system are accepted unless you are some sort of moral realist. the truth is that veganism is an expression of a segment of people that are the most alienated from nature and animals. it does not come into being in communities were there contact with animals except with very specific eastern examples (some aspects of hinduism)

http://www.sorites.org/Issue_19/formosa.htm

[MarxSchmarx]

Even the vegan fanatic will kill plants and fungi to live - and when you observe a paramecium or an amoeba under the microscope, poking it around and such, their response is almost vaguely "animalistic". Amoeba do not have a nervous system (neither do fungi or plants).


So? A nervous system is just an entirely contingent anatomical and physiological feature to process and coordinate responses to stimuli - amoeba, fungi, and plants certainly have this capability, it's just not the same system animals have.




I would seriously love to see how their response is "almost" "vaguely" (so basically not at all?) "animalistic" (whatever the fuck that means?).


Good, go have a look at it.




The fact remains that the charge of "specieism" is neither more nor less defensible than our other moral sensibilities. Put another way, there is no rationale for condemning "specieism" but not, say, "Kingdom-ism". And although it would be tempting to take the analogy to back to racism, for other human beings there is the very real aspect of being able to communicate, empathize, socialize, etc... - in short, all the raw sensory material that create our emotional investment talked about earlier - that readily let us expand our circle of concern to individuals of different races.
Actually there are reasons to not care about "Kingdomism". Neither plantae nor fungi nor protista nor monera can be said to have the capacity for feeling emotions or pain/pleasure (whereas mostly all animals do, by having nervous systems and by observable responses to these stimuli).

Again, pain/pleasure are just a particular form of physiological responses to stimuli - there is no reason to prioritize one form of response over the other - or, at least, no more reason than to prioritize the fact that for examples cockroaches can't communicate their empathy and suffering to us the way we can. If the lack of a particular physiological reason is grounds enough for killing another another organism, the lack of the ability to communicate (or potentially communicate, as in the case of a person in a coma) say solidarity, love, thought, etc... should be grounds enough for killing another organism, using this argument. "Specieism", when contrasted to such a consistent defense of "Kingdom-ism", appears quite, well, humane.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Because i have a comprehensive brain, with comprehensive thought and emotion. Because humans are capable of things all other animals are not.

Would I shoot someone to eat? No. Would I shoot a moose to eat? Yes.
Will that moose be thinking about its family, friends and ideals? No.

If a human is the same worth as an animal, then i'm a fascist communist.

[Fawkes]

Maybe I missed something or am being too simplistic, but how does the level of intelligence, emotions, and communication between non-human animals factor into how humans should live their lives and whether or not we should care that they feel pain?


Will that moose be thinking about its family, friends and ideals? No.
Animals are conscious of their relations to other animals. I have goats and some get along better with some than others, the point though is that I see no reason for this to be relevant to how I live my life and what actions I partake in.

[Vanguard1917]

Leopards don't know their spots are beautiful. They are beautiful to people, because beauty is a human concept.

Value is also a human concept. Animals have no value outside of what we give them.

Precisely.

[The American]

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/600629/2/istockphoto_600629-thumb-up.jpg
^^^^^ the only reason we're superior

[Amphictyonis]

I don't eat bacon or pork because I had a pet pig and they have emotions like dogs. Smart beings those pigs are. I've had a chicken and felt no 'connection' with it. Sounds weird I guess but for me, personally, I won't eat pork because of the bonding experience I had witha pig when I was a kid. Some people in India worship cows and to eat one is unspeakable. In China dogs are on the menu.

I suppose most people don't have a problem eating animals that don't have any outward human qualities. Some people I'm sure, most people in the west, wouldn't eat chimpanzees. Fish seem to be the most obvious when it comes to lack of (seemingly) human qualities (intelligence/emotions/feelings). I eat lots of fish and chicken but will eat beef every now and then. I suppose if I ever bond with a cow I'll quit beef for good.

[Amphictyonis]

Precisely.
Our lives have no meaning besides the meaning we choose to give it. Exstistentialist thought of the day. :)

[Kuppo Shakur]

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/600629/2/istockphoto_600629-thumb-up.jpg
^^^^^ the only reason we're superior
I guess that makes monkeys more superior than us.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

There is no defence.

The simple fact is one of nature - I am a human, therefore I value human life more than animal life. It's wrong, but just like a Capitalist is a Capitalist, a human is indeed, a human.

[Hit The North]

There is no defence.

The simple fact is one of nature - I am a human, therefore I value human life more than animal life. It's wrong, but just like a Capitalist is a Capitalist, a human is indeed, a human.

But if you were a nomad who depended for his living on his herd of cattle, you might very well value the life of your cows over the life of some other humans - particularly if said humans were planning to prey on your herd. So it is not a simple fact of nature. It is a complex fact of your social relations.

If it was the case that humans, simply by dint of being human, valued other human life, there would be no war, no murder.

[Dr Mindbender]

You have to draw a line somewhere. If you equate the life of a human to that of a dog, on the basis that a dog is an animal what not equate to a rat or a poisonous snake that is capable of doing harm to your family? Furthermore, why stop at animals? Why not value the lives of the salmonella bacteria or other life threatening organisms? Do we stop washing our hands?

We value human life more because of the social interaction, increased value to our own living experience and environment that only other humans can bring us. In fact, its even been proposed that we should be actively pursuing the extinction of some animals, point in case the species of mosquito carrying the malaria bug. Its predicted the planned extinction of this creature would save several million lives a year with an affordable change to the ecosystem.

[Dimentio]

religious bullshit aside the answer i almost always hear is the ability to reason , however if you determine worth by the ability to reason wouldn't that mean children and people who suffer from mental retardation are worth less then an average adult?

I believe that both humans and animals have a certain dignity, though human dignity should stand above animal dignity. It is idiotic to talk about human "worth", since "worth" implies an economic value, and shows the depths of perversion to which the market system has lowered human mentality.

[Dr Mindbender]

I believe that both humans and animals have a certain dignity, though human dignity should stand above animal dignity. It is idiotic to talk about human "worth", since "worth" implies an economic value, and shows the depths of perversion to which the market system has lowered human mentality.

If humans and animals have dignity by the same merit, perhaps then it is reprehensible then to talk about the worth of animals therefore the trade of pets and farm animals must be outlawed immediately.

All i know is for 8 hours a day, and 40 hours a week i am allocated with an arbitrary 'worth'.

[ZeroNowhere]

There is no defence.

The simple fact is one of nature - I am a human, therefore I value human life more than animal life. It's wrong, but just like a Capitalist is a Capitalist, a human is indeed, a human.Something wrong is something wrong, though. What you 'naturally value', in whatever sense, is irrelevant.

Additionally, a capitalist who does not exploit ceases to be a capitalist, a human who does not 'value human life more than animal life' does not cease to be human. I don't think that one may solve moral problems by reference to primal urges, as in the variants of the 'she was asking for it' excuse for rape.

[Victus Mortuum]

All morality is subjective. You'll do what you desire. Stop separating the subject from the object. You haven't read your Nietzsche.