lets get philospohical...

Sapsorrow

Just throwin this out there for the sake of a new debate I think we need one!

What do you think of the idea of sentience and the concept of a hierarchy of sentience? (ie: does a cat feel more emotion/pain/pleasure than an insect or is that only our perception?)

How does this affect the moral implications of vegetarianism and veganism?

Why do I cry for a dead cat or dog on the road but not for a dead bug? Is this just human nature or a fundamental flaw in our philosophy?

Do you think we 'inflict' emotionality onto our domesticated animals or do we simply nurture a positive instinct already inherent in animals?

Is it imoral to keep pets or is it a symbiotic relationship like those naturally occuring in the wild or maybe something more evolved even?

Salvodor Herb

Nice Topic:)
Well my opinion,i dont recognise hierarchy,
now they tricky one sentience,first of i belive all living beings consciousness,

i belive that the amount of emotion/pain/pleasure comes down to the intelligence of the living beings,the abilty and of what extent in which the creature can explore them
However the amount of hurt felt is the same..as you can only be hurt in what you know.
i know i would be hurt if i seen a dead dog or cat because i have had relationship with either before and can relate to them,with a bug it would hurt but there is no relation there so it would be less than that of a cat or dog
its wrong for "some" people to have pets thats for sure.

what are your ideas on this khrys?

Sapsorrow

What do you think of the idea of sentience and the concept of a hierarchy of sentience?

I think the obvious answer is that physical pain sensation depends on the nervous system of the creature in question. Emotionally I feel that warm blooded creatures are more naturally emotional and that this makes them more vunerable and important in terms of animal welfare but feel free to critique me on that! I also recognise that I personally am conditioned to feel more empathy for some animals than others and that although this is probably a normal reaction to culture but not necessarily rational or fair.


How does this affect the moral implications of vegetarianism and veganism?

Presumably how you answer the above question reflects the type of vegetarian you are (ie: lacto, ovo, pesca, vegan etc..) It also leaves us open to criticism from non-vegetarians which we have seen over and over again in this forum (uh but what about when a spider that crawls into your mouth at night and bacteria and.... and....) I think at the end of the day if people choose to eat fish but not chicken for example that's still a positive measure whether a fish is equal to the chicken or not. Like I said though it does leave us open to being called hipocrites!


Do you think we 'inflict' emotionality onto our domesticated animals or do we simply nurture a positive instinct already inherent in animals?

I personally have to go with nurture not nature here, 'love' or 'affection' is a survival instinct that is inherent to the science of evolution.

Is it imoral to keep pets or is it a symbiotic relationship like those naturally occuring in the wild or maybe something more evolved even?

In my opinion it both depends on the animal and the person. If the person provides an appropriate environment and provides the animal with care, food, shelter and love and the animal is happy then there should be no prob, panthers being walked on leads onthe beachs of LA is a totally different story though.

Sorry I know I started this thread but my brain is far to sober at this stage in the week for any really in depth philosophzin the rest of ye's'll do a better job I know

smegmar

I think animals can be grouped in levels of conscience awareness.
it's all to do with brain capacity. humans dolphins and some other mammals have the highest levels and we naturally feel attached to those because they can show emotions as we do, a dog whimpering etc etc.
I don't think it's fair to make moral decisions on this, e.g "I only eat animals below 45cc brain capacity".

Everything has a survival instinct so fears pain and death, the more aware that it is imminent the more fear there is. A pig is suffering when it is butchered in a factory is the exact same fear as a human after a life threatening injury. It is immoral to inflict this pain and fear on any animal.

Now if you a human were in a position of starving to death, I believe, it is fair to kill an animal in the most humane way possible quickly and without frightening the animal. That's only however in extreme circumstances after all other options have been exhausted.

Tar.Aldarion

Oh my, myself and my veggie friends have heated debates like these, and I love chatting to them about it.

khrystyna100 wrote:

What do you think of the idea of sentience and the concept of a hierarchy of sentience? (ie: does a cat feel more emotion/pain/pleasure than an insect or is that only our perception?)

Various levels of sentience exist, I have no doubt about it. It is a continuum between species and think of it on a graph, with a simpler lifeform near the bottom and a human further along. Not only will this varying sentience happen between different species but also in the same one. However differing sentience in the same species, like between two humans, is minute.

This begs the question of worth, what makes something more valuable than something else, that they are alive in and of itself, that they feel pain, that they are aware, can reason? and so on. This is very hard to pin down, and I don't see any species as more valuable than another. Most would differ on this I imagine, my mind has changed throughout my life on this. Dog, human, spider, these are all the same worth to me. What humans have is a subjective view of things and evolutional conditioning. So yes, as you say, one may feel that one animal is more worthy of your despair than another but I do not feel this is rational. We also would have the ability to empathise more with a species similar to us like mammals, as opposed to a reptile etc. However if I love one human more than another due to emotional contact, I realise this is subjective but would not wish to have it another way. It all comes down to something I can not really pin down exactly, what are the defining characteristics that make something sentient or of worth.

Which matter more? Does ability ro feel pain have the same worth as the ability to reason and be self aware? What about if/when we create AI(Think Data in Star Trek ) that is capable of reasoning but can not feel pain? Can pas theTuring test and so forth. Is that life form worth less than something that can feel pain, does feeling pain really even matter? Questions like this are thought about too much by me. After all we are machines too, jsut electrochemical ones instead of mechanical. We both respond to voltages coursing through us.

I used to believe that the worth of something came down to how much pain it can feel, be it physically to pychologically, by then being processed in the cerebrum for humans or the brain stem for something like fish. This would also have been combined with reasoning, and so on but now I disagree that you need both.

How does this affect the moral implications of vegetarianism and veganism?

This could possibly affect it in such a way that if you believe there to be a continuum of sentience/worth, with you believing that this can make an animal less or more valuable than another. You could judge a lifeform to not be above the line where something is considered sentient, and therefore eat flesh.

It will also affect it on a more day to day basis, as to whether you are a vegan, veggie etc and why. As for criticisms like a spider going into your mouth when asleep, these are just non sequiturs which I would dismiss. I would see the way humans live at the moment meaning that animals have to die for us no matter what, whether it be by crops harvesting or by animals being culled etc. what is important to me is not being moral absolute, but minimising the pain and death of animals.

Why do I cry for a dead cat or dog on the road but not for a dead bug? Is this just human nature or a fundamental flaw in our philosophy?

Because of how we evolved and because of the society we grew up, nature and nurture. It is not objective, it's our mere subjectivity. Our reactions due to upbringing and nature, such as an irrrational fear of spiders etc that would be commonplace in people. It's also got to do with being able to relate to a species more than another and the ability to form emotional bonds with species similar to you.

Do you think we 'inflict' emotionality onto our domesticated animals or do we simply nurture a positive instinct already inherent in animals?

I don't think we inflict emotionality onto them, we are not personifying with an animal if it also has that trait anyway. Make no mistake, every species is different, but we are just different, not special or better than another in my view. I may have a greater range of brain capacity than an animal, and it may be a faster, stonger or have a better immune system, but because my particular talent is intelligence, I don't think that I am better than them. Nor am inflicting my traits onto a similar mammalian speicies just because it's intelligence is not as high as ours. At the core we are the same, we reason, feel and react.

Is it imoral to keep pets or is it a symbiotic relationship like those naturally occuring in the wild or maybe something more evolved even?

I do not agree with the domestication of animals that happened, but I think we have a duty to look after those that have been domesticated, dogs etc, now that they are dependent on us for welfare. As for it being morally wrong to have a pet, I wouldn't see my animals as pets, just animals that live with me, I see no problem with sharing a relationship with an animal for both of our good, but do with one being subservient to us.

Sapsorrow

Very nice answer Tar!

Tar.Aldarion

Most of my childhood friends are veggie now and we have many debates about things like this. It made me really happy when after talking to a friend about this stuff he said I was his rolemodel when becoming vegetarian haha. I really enjoy talking about things like this when drunk, so never get me started.

Sapsorrow

point noted for next meetup! Not too worried though all we'd have to do is tell one moderately funny joke and you'd be gigglying yer butt off fer de rest of the night keeping the neighbours awake!

Tar.Aldarion

All you have to do is moderately make fun of my moderate amount of daily laughing and the moderator moderately bans you.


Oh wait, I'm meant to keep these things on topic, is there any points people strongly er disagree with, um, yes yes.

Sapsorrow

lol ok ok all bow down to the lada tara! All hail!