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furiouskoala posted:It's strange to see how many people think rights and duties are inextricably linked; there are plenty of human beings with rights and no corresponding duties. Not everyone is a fan of tin pot dictators  Cantorsdust posted:See, this is the problem that I have. Most animals will withdraw, escape, etc in response to some noxious stimulus. Is that pain? Plants, too, will sometimes withdraw from noxious stimuli, the mimosa plant being chief among them. Is that pain? If you've ever taken a close look at insects, you can tell that they are little more than biological robots. They march around, they follow a few simple rules, and they keep marching even if they lose a leg. Do they really experience pain? You know what? This is actually a good post and makes a better distinction between pain and suffering than many other arguments for animal rights, especially compared to people making the case for insect rights (this is actually a thing  )
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Dec 7, 2014 11:15
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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Cantorsdust posted:Is pain what we as humans truly dislike, or is it suffering? Something I've always noticed about drinking alcohol while I'm in physical pain is that it doesn't actually reduce the sensation of pain the way a proper analgesic like acetaminophen does, it just makes me not mind it. It's still there but it stops being bothersome, somehow. Torka fucked around with this message at 11:36 on Dec 7, 2014 |
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Dec 7, 2014 11:31
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furiouskoala posted:It's strange to see how many people think rights and duties are inextricably linked; there are plenty of human beings with rights and no corresponding duties. The bestowal of rights on a being is dependent on them being moral agents. According to Kantian ethics, at least, moral agency is dependent on a being's ability to perform their duties. So in this sense, rights and duties are actually intrinsically linked. e: moreso, the idea of moral agency is not a test to be performed on any individual organism. It's a classification based on the participants in a moral community as a whole. When we say "all humans have rights" we are really saying "All humans, which are beings that can participate in morality, have rights." So when you look at an individual human you give him the rights bestowed on ALL humans not just that one man in himself. The reason the metaphysical argument of personhood (The character of 'consciousness' of an individual being) falls apart, is because it doesn't allow for the variations in consciousness among a group. If a human falls below the intelligence of a primate due to brain injury, does that make him have less rights? or does that give that primate more rights than that man? It's a clumsy theory that makes no logical sense. Rexicon1 fucked around with this message at 16:59 on Dec 7, 2014 |
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Dec 7, 2014 16:39
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Rexicon1 posted:
This is a general flaw in just about all philosophical rights theory; it's also why libertarian theory breaks down. The theories just can't handle why we accord more rights to a disabled human or an infant than to an ape that knows 200 words of sign language. See, e.g., Peter Singer.
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Dec 7, 2014 17:12
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:: Its my general problem with a theory based on utilitarianism like the way singer does. "Value" is not a contiguous thing that can be quantified in the way Singer likes to do
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Dec 7, 2014 17:18
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Torka posted:Something I've always noticed about drinking alcohol while I'm in physical pain is that it doesn't actually reduce the sensation of pain the way a proper analgesic like acetaminophen does, it just makes me not mind it. It's still there but it stops being bothersome, somehow. There's an entire class of anesthetics that basically operate on this principle: the dissociative anesthetics, including ketamine and PCP. They don't directly block peripheral pain signals like lidocaine or induce unconsciousness like propofol or halofurane or whatever. Instead, you don't perceive the pain as applying to you. With higher doses, you can lose your sense of self entirely. The pain is there, but it doesn't have any attachment to your body. Again, this might seem like a basic point that pain =/= the perception of pain, but it really is central to any animal rights/mistreatment argument. I won't deny that animals experience pain. It's a highly useful evolutionary trait. But what do they think about it? My argument is that if you don't have a sense of self, you can't actually suffer from the pain.
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Dec 7, 2014 18:10
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Cantorsdust posted:There's an entire class of anesthetics that basically operate on this principle: the dissociative anesthetics, including ketamine and PCP. They don't directly block peripheral pain signals like lidocaine or induce unconsciousness like propofol or halofurane or whatever. Instead, you don't perceive the pain as applying to you. With higher doses, you can lose your sense of self entirely. The pain is there, but it doesn't have any attachment to your body. What are you defining as "sense of self". I've read a bunch of cognition psychology papers and I still have a very hard time figuring out how to determine what creatures have a "sense of self". Are you saying that they have the ability to identify that what is happening is happening to them? Are you thinking about second-order cognition where they are able to think about themselves as separate from everything else? It's important to understand these terms that we often take for granted in order to avoid specious arguments about "self". There's the idea of self-concept vs. self-awareness vs. self-knowledge and each has its own implications.
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Dec 7, 2014 18:38
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Rexicon1 posted:What are you defining as "sense of self". I've read a bunch of cognition psychology papers and I still have a very hard time figuring out how to determine what creatures have a "sense of self". Are you saying that they have the ability to identify that what is happening is happening to them? Are you thinking about second-order cognition where they are able to think about themselves as separate from everything else? It's important to understand these terms that we often take for granted in order to avoid specious arguments about "self". There's the idea of self-concept vs. self-awareness vs. self-knowledge and each has its own implications. That's the hard part, and I certainly won't claim to know the answer. I'm not familiar with what that functioning might be called in psychology. I guess the function that I'm referring to is that of the parietal lobe, where various sensory information is processed to form a coherent mental model of one's own body. That's why you can get parietal lobe lesions leading to hemineglect or foreign limb sensation, etc where you either aren't aware of part of your body or don't recognize part of your body as "you." That is, unless the animal is developed enough to create a mental model of themselves and identify with it, it's hard to imagine that there's a distinct entity suffering as opposed to a more machine/robot-like stimulus-response to pain without "suffering" involved. That's why I would consider tests of self-awareness like the mirror test to be important for determining a creature's moral significance. I would still prefer to err on the side of caution--it's certainly possible that there are other animals with a good mental model of themselves who don't pass the mirror test for whatever reason, and we need to determine how to identify those or prove that the mirror test has good correlation.
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Dec 7, 2014 19:25
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Cantorsdust posted:as humans truly dislike, or is it suffering? And how many animals suffer? I would argue few others, if any. Personally, I would refrain from hurting anything with a demonstrable sense of self. Dolphins, gorillas, etc. Anything that passes a mirror test or shows empathy for others. But many animals, even if they experience pain, don't really suffer. I don't worry about them nearly as much. I am certain that many animals feel pain and fear. I think that for them to suffer, though, requires a level of self-awareness that few likely posess. Suffering is more than just experiencing pain, even terrible pain. It's knowing that you're in pain, and wishing you weren't - or fearing death or future pain. I do not think, for example, chickens or cows are capable of any of this. Apes, almost certainly. Dolphins and elephants probably. Squirrels? I seriously doubt it.
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Dec 7, 2014 19:29
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The "sense of self" thing is the latest argument now that tool use can't be used as an arbitrary dividing line between us and the other animals. I don't think a sense of self is as rare as people would like to believe, and I think a creature could have a developed sense of self without necessarily responding to itself in a mirror. Pretty much any animal that engages in deception or stealth has to have at least some concept of itself as a being in relation to it's environment and awareness of how others perceive it. I don't think a cat that is slowly and carefully stalking through the tall grass, watching carefully where it places it's paws to avoid making sound, is just a biological robot running through programming. Or that those male deer that like to taunt lions by hopping close to them for no apparent reason - biologists explain the behavior by saying it shows that the males have good genes by surviving risky behavior and makes them more attractive to mates, but those deer aren't robots, they are almost certainly experiencing the same exhilaration that humans experience when we do risky stuff to show off for mates, and an awareness of how it must appear to others is part of that. Mammals all seem to have the complete set of emotions human have. Mammals feel love, fear, anger, etc. They experience fun when they play, and it certainly looks like that "Aww, it's so cute" feeling we experience when we look at baby mammals is present in many other species of mammals that have shown care to baby animals outside their species. We have 5 year old dog that appears to adore the new kitten we adopted, he plays with it, grooms it, and gets anxious when he's worried about it. I used to have a german shepherd that would carefully catch my gerbils and bring them to me in his mouth when they escaped their cage. Even if they don't have a stream of consciousness monologue going on in their heads because they lack language, they seem to fall within the range of normal human empathy. Thinking along those lines made me realize that all mammals should be protected from unnecessary suffering, but then realizing that a LOT of that behavior is also found outside of the mammals, among crocodilians, birds, and even some fish. It made me want to draw the line at vertebrates, but then you have octopi... I don't think a non-arbitrary line can be drawn to separate humans from other animals. Draw the line at the edge of our species, we have apes smarter than many humans. Draw the line at mammals and you have to deal with parrots and corvids. Draw the line at tetrapods and you have to address fish that build nests and care for their young. Draw the line at vertebrates and you are arbitrarily excluding molluscs that seem much more intelligent than many of vertebrates. And what about hive animals? An individual ant may be very similar to a robot (though recent research shows they do appear to do a lot of decision making based on their own desire to be productive vs. their desire to be around other ants), but an anthill as a whole acts as a single organism that can adapt and learn. Bees vote on where their next hive will be in a system similar to both the democratic process and the internal thought processes of humans. I think lifeforms that don't have specialized nerve cells or brains may not be worth protecting from suffering, as there doesn't appear to be a mechanism for experiencing suffering. That might be where I have to draw my line.
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Dec 7, 2014 19:42
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ClearAirTurbulence posted:I think lifeforms that don't have specialized nerve cells or brains may not be worth protecting from suffering, as there doesn't appear to be a mechanism for experiencing suffering. That might be where I have to draw my line. Jellyfish? They have nerves. e: Hive organisms? Self-organisation along simple rules does not necessitate animals (or any sort of awareness), I see no reason to rate a honey bee more highly than a solitary bee. suck my woke dick fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Dec 7, 2014 |
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Dec 7, 2014 20:38
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blowfish posted:Jellyfish? They have nerves. I would rate a honey bee hive higher than a solitary bee. Even if we did avoid needlessly killing animals that we considered "alive" enough to be worth protecting, one could justify keeping a bee hive and doing things that you know are certainly going to kill a few of the bees, but not being allowed to just destroy the hive as a whole. ClearAirTurbulence fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Dec 7, 2014 |
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Dec 7, 2014 20:54
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ClearAirTurbulence posted:Bees vote on where their next hive will be in a system similar to both the democratic process and the internal thought processes of humans. Could you reference this? It sounds fascinating, whatever it is.
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Dec 7, 2014 23:15
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Peel posted:Could you reference this? It sounds fascinating, whatever it is. http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/12/decision-making-bee-swarms-mimics-brains http://www.nbb.cornell.edu/seeley.shtml Bees advertise their finds of potential sites for establishing a new hive and convince other bees to join them and stop other bees from advertising their choice until enough bees have voted for one site (or they deadlock and take forever to sort themselves out). Compare this to excitatory and inhibitory neuronal signalling.
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Dec 8, 2014 01:42
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Sounds like it's time to give bees rights of personhood.
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Dec 8, 2014 02:09
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ClearAirTurbulence posted:Bees vote on where their next hive will be in a system similar to both the democratic process and the internal thought processes of humans. This doesn't really imply intelligence. When the lead node of my elasticsearch cluster goes down, the other nodes vote on a new leader. They're programmed to do it. I think the earlier comparison of bees to simple robots is apt.
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Dec 9, 2014 07:24
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blowfish posted:http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2011/12/decision-making-bee-swarms-mimics-brains Do they have bee runoffs? 
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Dec 9, 2014 08:19
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drilldo squirt posted:I agree severely mentally retarded people are no better than animals.
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Dec 9, 2014 16:34
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Jesus christ this thread
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Dec 9, 2014 18:36
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WorldsStrongestNerd posted:The point, you retard, is not that mentally deficient people are animals, but that certain intelligent animals should be raised to and have the same protections as retards. I don't think drilldo squirt should be granted any special protections or rights 
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Dec 9, 2014 19:03
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Iowa Snow King posted:Jesus christ this thread Animals are things, with human feelings, emotions and super powers.
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Dec 9, 2014 19:28
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WorldsStrongestNerd posted:The point, you retard, is not that mentally deficient people are animals, but that certain intelligent animals should be raised to and have the same protections as retards. I find that insulting to retards :iamafag:
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Dec 9, 2014 20:12
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WorldsStrongestNerd 2016: certain intelligent animals should be raised to and have the same protections as retards
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Dec 10, 2014 02:05
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:The theories just can't handle why we accord more rights to a disabled human or an infant than to an ape that knows 200 words of sign language. See, e.g., Peter Singer. Typically, those theories say that neither apes nor infants have "rights." However, persons still often owe duties to them and thus can't abuse them, must feed them, etc.
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Dec 10, 2014 03:36
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I think we can all agree - gently caress wasps. But seriously I'm positive all mammals feel the same basic emotions - fear, surprise, anger, joy, sadness, and disgust (and various combinations of them.) For that reason, if you have a choice between being a dick to a mammal and not being a dick to a mammal, don't be a dick.
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Dec 10, 2014 08:10
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blowfish posted:I find that insulting to retards :iamafag: This unironically.
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Dec 10, 2014 08:35
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Xibanya posted:I think we can all agree - gently caress wasps. I'm still going to eat them.
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Dec 10, 2014 08:36
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Xibanya posted:I think we can all agree - gently caress wasps. Wasps (and yellow jackets) are literally the worst living things on the planet and everyone should kill them at every possible opportunity.
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Dec 10, 2014 11:58
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Twelve by Pies posted:Wasps (and yellow jackets) are literally the worst living things on the planet and everyone should kill them at every possible opportunity. Ok good enjoy drowning in a sea of caterpillars
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Dec 10, 2014 12:03
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blowfish posted:Ok good enjoy drowning in a sea of caterpillars At least caterpillars turn into things that are fairly pleasing to look at and won't try to murder you. Realpost though, I came across this little article about animal intelligence and it actually surprised me quite a bit as far as elephants go. http://jonlieffmd.com/blog/wise-animals-2 One of the key things that was mentioned and actually makes me ask some hard questions regarding personhood of animals is just how *human* some of the shown behaviors were. Elephants in particular are capable of creating art (with different individuals showing differing levels of skill, however you judge that), gathering allies for tasks (one had a child stolen from her and built up something akin to a warband or the like and took her child back by force) and exhibit mourning (including placing sticks and leaves and such at the site of the deceased, coming back to it for years. Tribute, basically.) I'm not sure I'm willing to list them as equals or give them full personhood as an adult human would have, but giving them rights similar to a human child? I can't find a good argument against that.
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Dec 10, 2014 12:39
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drilldo squirt posted:Do you eat the meat even though you think its wrong? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaqktZ8N0MQ
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Dec 10, 2014 16:57
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Rorac posted:At least caterpillars turn into things that are fairly pleasing to look at and won't try to murder you. Except for all the caterpillars which will give you anaphylactic shocks, have anticoagulants and make you bleed out, or destroy your kidneys so you die a slow and painful death Not to mention the moths that release defensive hair and cause asthma in people living in the general area.
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Dec 10, 2014 17:09
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Rorac posted:Elephants in particular are capable of creating art (with different individuals showing differing levels of skill, however you judge that) I thought this was shown to be trainers basically torturing the elephant to learn a specific pattern through reinforcement learning.
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Dec 10, 2014 17:12
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We recognise ourselves in animals too easily.
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Dec 10, 2014 17:49
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drilldo squirt posted:I'm still going to eat them. Won't it sting your mouth?
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Dec 10, 2014 18:16
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Rorac posted:At least caterpillars turn into things that are fairly pleasing to look at and won't try to murder you. The best elephant behavior is the one where they go around murdering any lion cubs they can find to preemptively defend their young. Like humans, elephants realize that cats are dicks and can't be reasoned with.
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Dec 10, 2014 21:25
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Can we all at least agree that just because a thing does an action like people do, does not make them people?
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Dec 10, 2014 22:00
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Xibanya posted:Won't it sting your mouth? Sorry I was referring to mammals we normal eat.
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Dec 11, 2014 00:55
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I think killing a monkey is hosed so I wont eat one. I'm ok with killing a cow so I would eat it.
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Dec 11, 2014 00:57
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Rexicon1 posted:Can we all at least agree that just because a thing does an action like people do, does not make them people? 
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Dec 11, 2014 01:05
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