Where do you draw the line?

[tsig]

I'm probably weird. I'm completely anti pet. It comes across to me as slavery on the part of the animal. Domestication is humans shoving their way onto animals and it creates a cycle of abuse because anyone can own a pet. And people are jerks.

I think we've done enough experimenting. I've never understood why we don't use death row inmates for experiments. Allow the person to pay his debt to society by being experimented on. If he lives he goes free.

To kill again?

 

[icerat]

Umm no. There is no limbic reaction for starters. Amoebas and plants share no characteristics to complex nerve functions which include pain, suffering, in fact, and feeling at all!

There you go anthrocentricising again

That's like saying their search for light using photoreceptor cells is a reaction/communication that implies happiness, with no proof of it.

No, you are the one who is applied special "meaning" to pain

Thanks but you're wrong, it's wholly anthropomorphizing your feelings of "reaction to pain" and then their "reaction to <blank>" as if they're even close to synonymous.

Again, you're getting it in the wrong direction. What I'm saying is that our reactions are a lot more like animals (less like an amoeba of course) than that animals/amoebas have reactions a lot like ours.

We're giving special meaning to things that don't, in my opinion, necessarily deserve it.

As for the limbic system, research clearly indicates that we respond to pain quite some time before it gives a damn, and that little amoeba is a lot more "intelligent" than you give it credit for

So far your argument seems to be "sometime after the event we have a conscious awareness of it"?

This runs in to the problem, discussed extensively elsewhere, that we have no idea what the heck "consciousness" is, or if it even exists.

 

[SusanB-M1]

An impossible question and I do not know where I'd draw a line; the only thing I'd say is that it worries me greatly when I hear that societies like the RSPCA have funds which would last them years, whereas the NSPCC does not.

 

[Aepervius]

Where do I draw the line ? At homo sapiens, and its eventual decsendant species. Every other specie get only basic "do not intentionally make suffer or limit as much the pain as possible" right. Food cattle ? Limit pain of growing or slaughtering. Pet ? Ditto. Animal are a resource. That is it.

 

[Lowpro]

There you go anthrocentricising again



No, you are the one who is applied special "meaning" to pain



Again, you're getting it in the wrong direction. What I'm saying is that our reactions are a lot more like animals (less like an amoeba of course) than that animals/amoebas have reactions a lot like ours.

We're giving special meaning to things that don't, in my opinion, necessarily deserve it.

As for the limbic system, research clearly indicates that we respond to pain quite some time before it gives a damn, and that little amoeba is a lot more "intelligent" than you give it credit for

So far your argument seems to be "sometime after the event we have a conscious awareness of it"?

This runs in to the problem, discussed extensively elsewhere, that we have no idea what the heck "consciousness" is, or if it even exists.

Wait that's ridiculous to go so far because it becomes a semantics game. How "smart" amoebas are doesn't matter when it comes to the actual limbic system response to pain which is suffering, fear, and other emotions which WE empathize with as pain.

Amoebas and plants to not feel that. They do not feel anything synonymous because they don't have the capacity to.

That's not anthropocentric, and to think so is actually anthropomorphic.

Thank you and cut it out now, you're insulting introductory biology.

 

[HansMustermann]

I think it must be said, though, that even humans didn't really have most of those rights until very recently on a historical scale. Keeping humans as slaves (in conditions arguably is worse than most pets have it) is something that's IIRC still not completely extinct, but until the 19'th century it still even passed for something just normal even in the most civilized parts of the world.

And then there were the chain-gangs where people were treated often much worse than any slaves ever. Because, you know, slaves cost something to buy and it's not very rational to destroy a resource you bought instead of using it for some return on investment. Whereas chain-gangs cost nothing at all.

Though, make no mistake, "return on investment" for slaves also sometimes meant sadistic entertainment. E.g., we have such testimonies as, "The overseer's name was Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I have known him to cut and slash the women's heads so horribly, that even master would be enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slave holding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin."

Or similar testimonies about people who used to argue that slaves should be whipped now and then even if they did nothing wrong, just to remind them who's boss. Or of people who used to find any excuse to whip slaves savagely, e.g., even for just _looking_ dissatisfied. (No ####? Someone whipped regularly and on a whim isn't looking extatic about his/her situation? Go figure.)

Even for free people, we used to not give all that much of a damn about putting some in a dangerous situation that end up killing a few. E.g., just dumping several tons of water on a bunch of extras in the filming of Noah's ark, to the extent that three extras actually drowned. E.g., actually giving the extras in a battle reenactment sharpened swords (hey, it beats painting them with fake blood, right?) and actually setting on fire the ship they're on. On water deep enough to drown in if you jump in armour out of a burning ship.

So, really, it's quite unexpected how recent it is to give two craps about even fellow humans. And a lot _still_ pine for those days when these damned pinko commie liberals or statists hadn't yet given laws and allowed unions to prevent doing that kind of crap to people. Animals? I think animals have a long wait ahead of them there.

Though TBH I think the situation of most pets is actually more comparable to early 20'th century factory workers, except without the part about being half starved and working 12 hour shifts in dangerous conditions. Sure, it's not ideal, but there is no indication that Fluffy would rather be starving outside and having a life expectancy of a couple of years at most. And the fact is that a lot can and do go out and come back.

I don't think most animals have complex philosophical ideas. Even in humans, who have _much_ more complex brains, according to Piaget it takes six years or more to even start with the abstract thinking IIRC. That's more than a cat's total life expectany outdoors.

The average pet has some basic needs like food, company, safety, comfort, etc, and no sign of getting too philosophical about where it gets them. Coming back to that weird big guy who gives you food and a warm, safe place to sleep in, can't be all that depressing or, again, those who can go out through a pet door wouldn't come back.

 

[Piggy]

You missed the point entirely. The only reason you care is because you feel empathy, as I do for my girlfriend (Not married) so if you wanted to experiment on her, I'd likely punch you in the throat. But a chimpanzee is NOT my spouse and is not empathized as such.

Well, then I did miss your point, which seemed to be that since painful things happen to animals anyway, why not torture them if it's useful to us?

So now I see that your argument is empathy. In other words, in-group/out-group difference.

Other species are different from us in many ways, so their pain doesn't matter as much as our pain.

Similar arguments can, of course, be made for other races, other tribes, other religions, other nations, other sexual orientations, and so forth.

The empathy argument boils down to an argument from bigotry.

 

[Trent Wray]

I recommend all of Barry's books, btw.

Hmm .... I'll have to check some out

If you're running drain cleaner into the eyes of a rabbit while it is awake, you probably need to step back and look at how your life arrived at such a point.

You just ruined a perfectly good Easter tradition ....

 

[Resume]

The empathy argument boils down to an argument from bigotry.

Indeed. My cheeseburger tomorrow is indicative of my anti-bovine attitude today.

 

[Piggy]

Indeed. My cheeseburger tomorrow is indicative of my anti-bovine attitude today.

Fwiw, I have no problem with hunting or with eating meat.

There are several reasons for that.

For one, if people don't hunt deer around here, then a lot more deer are going to suffer more than they would by being shot.

And of course, we're omnivores. We eat meat.

That said, there are better and worse ways to treat cows. If we can devise ways to kill them that are less painful, we should do it. (And lots of folks are.)

By comparison, look at how horses are often treated in Spain. It's awful.

No, you can't avoid pain, and you can't avoid causing pain to others. And nature sure doesn't care whether we or any other animal suffers.

But still, I think we should be up front that torture of an animal is torture of an animal, whether it's some anonymous chimp or rabbit, or your pet dog, or your sister.

I think it's worth asking whether the outcomes are justified in those terms.

 

[Piggy]

Hmm .... I'll have to check some out

Not necessarily to you, my friend, since you're obviously already a fan.

I just can't help putting in a plug for the guy.

 

[Piggy]

So you're an interesting example of a potential case study, you think it's incredibly wrong to experiment on animals, and I don't. You think that it'd require serious brain damage to consider it, while I with my brain intact think it's already fine.

It's interesting, but I'm also a biologist, not a historian (I assume you are) and as a biologist I have this ditty to throw your way; how far down the chain of evolved forms of animals does pain equal suffering? Most animals that can experience pain do not have the complex nervous system to actually "suffer". Does THAT make any difference to your stance? I'd assume it shouldn't, but then do you think experimentation on algae, bacteria, complex echinodermata and all the way up to reptiles, birds, some mammals...

I don't actually think it's "incredibly wrong to experiment on animals". I just think we need to be honest about what we're doing when we do.

I mean, it's not like I'm demanding that anyone stop rewiring the brains of ferrets. Maybe I should, I dunno.

So am I lazy? Am I a hypocrite? Probably.

It does get terribly depressing at times, tho, when I realize how much suffering has gone into the discoveries I'm reading about.

I will call you out on this, tho:

Most animals that can experience pain do not have the complex nervous system to actually "suffer".

This is total baloney, if you're talking about, say, mammals and birds.

 

[HansMustermann]

Well, I'm not against methods of making slaughtering more humane. After all, if I can get the same steak with less pain for the animal, it won't taste any worse or anything.

I'm just curious about how that would be done. At least in the USA, the approved methods are a handful, and each of them regulated to heck and back exactly under the rule that they must not cause more pain or excitement than necessary. The ones approved are:

- carbon monoxide. Basically we know that even in humans it doesn't hurt,unless you know you're being killed with it. People have been basically for example unintentionally killed by a gas leak or someone else's CO suicide, and they didn't struggle or anything. No idea how much that's used for animals, though.

- gunshot. Basically, bullet to the head. If done correctly, the shockwave effectively destroys the brain. The animal is dead for all purposes before being bled.

- captive bolt. Same idea, but with a captive bolt instead of a bullet. Think, basically driving a chisel into the brain at high speed, except it never completely detaches from the gun. If used correctly, it turns most of the brain into mush, except the brain stem. IIRC that's the most used method for slaughtering cattle, sheep, etc.

- electricity. Basically zaps the brain unconscious, before bleeding the animal. IIRC it's used extensively with chicken.

And they're regulated even to the effect of where you shoot that bolt into the animal's head, by species.

As far as I know, the EU too has very strict requirements that the animal be "stunned" unconscious (and usually effectively dead) before being bled.

So, how would you improve on that?

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

In response to the OP, I don't think I can draw a hard and fast line based on species. I don't like experiments done on chimps one bit, but if we could kill fifty chimps and by so doing find a cure for HIV/AIDS I'd consider it a bargain we should take.

Interesting. It just occurred to me (And even though I'm asking you this question, I'm only doing so out of curiosity, and so, would like to hear other people's opinions) What if it was fifty people we had to kill instead, to find the definite cure for HIV/AIDS? Would you consider it?

Myself, I think it would depend: If we could make sure that those fifty people are, say, the worse criminals and psychopaths then yes, I would use them. It would be kinda like a death row with an additional scientific/medicinal benefit for mankind.

But I wanna hear other people's answers on this: Would you consider killing fifty humans if it meant finding the cure for HIV/AIDS?

 

[Trent Wray]

Interesting. It just occurred to me (And even though I'm asking you this question, I'm only doing so out of curiosity, and so, would like to hear other people's opinions) What if it was fifty people we had to kill instead, to find the definite cure for HIV/AIDS? Would you consider it?

Myself, I think it would depend: If we could make sure that those fifty people are, say, the worse criminals and psychopaths then yes, I would use them. It would be kinda like a death row with an additional scientific/medicinal benefit for mankind.

But I wanna hear other people's answers on this: Would you consider killing fifty humans if it meant finding the cure for HIV/AIDS?

IDK ... but to add to the mess: would someone who deliberately goes around giving AIDS/HIV to others be "worthy" of a cure that was found at the expense of 50 people's lives? Or would only unintentional victims of AIDS/HIV be "worthy"?

Spock's "the good of the many, out weigh the need of the one" is sometimes, perhaps, easy to see the reasoning behind.

Until it's viewed from a ratio of 1:1.

 

[Trent Wray]

Likewise ... and this might esp. apply to those who hold the stance there are no gods * ... should we go around and try to stop animals from killing each other? You know, try to get lions on a steady diet of beans and rice or jambalaya instead of flesh? **











* this is due to the believers argument, "Well, god made animals carnivorous. We didn't create murderous animals, god did," ... yet the atheistic view would be that not only were animals not created, but neither were humans. So since we weren't "created this way" ... yet we have a problem with our own behavior concerning killing ... why don't we try and stop the other animals from doing what we deem immoral as well? Esp. if we are just a variation on a theme, just like them. Neither of us were created, yet we think we know how "it should be" for ourselves, so why stop there?

** i.e., they could be renamed, "jambalions" (I couldn't resist)

 

[Resume]

Likewise ... and this might esp. apply to those who hold the stance there are no gods ... should we go around and try to stop animals from killing each other? You know, try to get lions on a steady diet of beans and rice or jambalaya instead of flesh? *










* i.e., they could be renamed, "jambalions" (I couldn't resist)

What kind of jambalaya doesn't have andouille? (Or kielbasa?)

And why as someone who doesn't believe in gods is it my responsibility to stop animals from killing each other?

 

[Trent Wray]

What kind of jambalaya doesn't have andouille? (Or kielbasa?)

Yeah I know .... I just couldn't stay away from the play on words . Dirty rice, or beans and rice didn't fit with "lions" ... but jambalaya was in a similar ball park

And why as someone who doesn't believe in gods is it my responsibility to stop animals from killing each other?

Because perhaps you already try to stop animals from killing each other ... humans are animals are we not? So why try to stop us if you're not going to try and stop everyone and everything? (for example).

The believers argument is often, that we are separate and unique from other animals, and it is our "right" to have lordship over them since they are inferior. God made them to be how they are, and god made us to be how we are. We are not allowed to kill each other indiscriminately unless we have a good, god-allowed or god-given clearance to go ahead. But god's cool, overall, with us killing other animals, just not ourselves, because we are supposed to have "morals" and this and that. So a believer might not see that a lion killing a hyena is immoral, since lions were "made that way" and a human is fundamentally different .... a human is supposed to behave as a child of god, etc and so forth. The rules are different for animals as opposed to humans. Plus, we have been given "lordship" over animals to use as we see fit (god given).

Take away concrete moral laws and edicts given by a Creator ... and all we are left with is humans being animals just like every other living animal. The rules that apply to other animals should apply to us also. We are all "equal" ... variations on a theme.

So given that ... why the hell do we care why we kill anything? Do we care whether or not the lion kills a gazelle? Do we care whether or not whale eat plankton? If we view it immoral that we do killing, as animals ... why don't we view it as immoral that other animals do the same thing? So if we are going to have laws and rules governing when and how we can kill something, and whether or not it's even morally appropriate ... why don't we do the same with everything else?

In my eyes, it's the atheist still making a distinction, unconsciously, that the rules SHOULD be different for human beings as opposed to other animals. For whatever reason. It's a sort of "blocking out mentally" of creating all these rules and guidelines for our species, but not for other species as well, even though we communicate, interact with, and rely upon other species for survival, just like we do ourselves. Why not start enforcing murder trials on sharks? Or, why not try and substitute their diet with something other than flesh? We could stop the killing of innocent fish.

There is something irrational about the idea that I am like other animals, yet I hold my species to a specific "moral code" concerning my interaction with other species, but I don't hold those species to the same moral code when they interact with me.

I'm not saying any of this is my actual stance ... I'm just looking at it from the POV of the argument itself as to perhaps why both believers and non believers still make this distinction between "us and them" when it comes to animals, and how we are offended by our own behavior but not that of other animals.

 

[Resume]

Because perhaps you already try to stop animals from killing each other ... humans are animals are we not? So why try to stop us if you're not going to try and stop everyone and everything? (for example).

The short answer is that like Whitman, I contradict myself. I'm a "specieist" for lack of a better term. I can understand the hypocrisy but still want tomorrow's hamburger. I share a brotherhood with my brothers and don't consider a Bonobo my brother, even though some feel they should be classified within the human genus.

 

[Trent Wray]

The short answer is that like Whitman, I contradict myself. I'm a "specieist" for lack of a better term. I can understand the hypocrisy but still want tomorrow's hamburger. I share a brotherhood with my brothers and don't consider a Bonobo my brother, even though some feel they should be classified within the human genus.

Which raises another question I was wondering ...

How many of us would willingly admit, "I'm a hypocrite" ?