5 ms·

Marino and Reiss will present their findings at a conference in San Diego, California, next month, concluding that the new evidence about dolphin intelligence m

by grellas 17y ago

Marino and Reiss will present their findings at a conference in San Diego, California, next month, concluding that the new evidence about dolphin intelligence makes it morally repugnant to mistreat them. It is morally repugnant to mistreat animals regardless of the intelligence of the animal and being a scientist has nothing to do with making such a judgment, since it is not a scientific judgment but an ethical one. Thus, the new-found evidence discussed in the article serves only to dramatize something these scientists want because of their philosophical predispositions, not because of their special knowledge as scientists. If the logic suggested in the article were true, the converse might be up for consideration as well (e.g., that we can be cruel to deer because they are so dumb). Science and advocacy are distinct and should be kept that way. There is nothing wrong with scientists acting as advocates but, when they do so, their views as advocates should normally carry no more weight than do those of others.

DarkShikari 17y ago
Thus, the new-found evidence discussed in the article serves only to dramatize something these scientists want because of their philosophical predispositions, I don't think this is entirely true here. You've loaded the question by making an assumption, "It is morally repugnant to mistreat animals regardless of the intelligence of the animal" which not everyone will agree with. In fact, I suspect the vast majority of people do not: every day millions of people knowingly eat meat produced from animals that were horrifically mistreated, despite the fact that they could have eaten something else, often for a lower price. Why? Because it tastes good, and a lot of people don't care about the suffering of cows. Suppose the following moral axiom that some hypothetical person might hold: "Mistreating any sapient being is equivalently morally wrong as mistreating a human." Therefore, if scientists can prove that an animal is sapient, those who follow such a belief will agree that such an animal should not be mistreated. I don't see the problem with scientists arguing that an animal is sapient.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
NathanKP 17y ago
I totally agree and after reading the article I was going to post this exact same comment but you beat me to it. I would say that it is just as morally repugnant or in fact more morally repugnant to mistreat an animal that is not intelligent. It is not like lack of intelligence makes it alright to mistreat an animal.
- niczar 17y ago
  Is it morally repugnant to mistreat a plant? Is it morally repugnant to mistreat an animal with just one (1) neuron? Is it morally repugnant to mistreat an animal with just 100 000 neurons? Well that's how many lobsters have. My PC has billions of transistors. Granted, that's not the same as neurons by a very long shot, but it's not unreasonable to think that we could emulate a neuron with a few tens of thousand of transistors. Is it morally repugnant to mistreat a PC? I'm not concluding anything here. Just asking. (Besides there's the other issue of defining "mistreat.") I'm just annoyed by empty, generic statements like this. They don't say mean much of anything, and do not make us understand the issue any better.
- barrkel 17y ago
  How well do you treat mice that have invaded your home? How about cockroaches? How do you avoid mistreating worms while doing your gardening?
itistoday 17y ago
The article is not discussing the ethical question of "mistreatment", but rather that of legal rights. This is an important distinction. Anyone can advocate for dolphin rights, but, as scientists who have done research on dolphins, they are in a position to make ethical arguments against keeping dolphins in a zoo for public entertainment. The rationale behind these arguments are grounded firmly in science. You have to be able to show the research that proves that one animal has no sense of self, while another (a dolphin) does, etc.
- CapitalistCartr 17y ago
  "Anyone can advocate for dolphin rights, but, as scientists who have done research on dolphins, they are in a position to make ethical arguments against keeping dolphins in a zoo for public entertainment." "The rationale behind these arguments are grounded firmly in science. You have to be able to show the research that proves that one animal has no sense of self, while another (a dolphin) does, etc." We are all in a position to make ethical arguments; I often do. But its not science. They are obviously in a position to know more about dolphins than most, but whether we change our policies regarding them might be grounded in science (for a change), but it is not, in and of itself, science, and they aren't experts in that. As for a sense of self, I don't treat animals humanely because they have a sense of self, but because I do.
  - warfangle 17y ago
    This is more about not treating dolphins as animals, not whether or not we should treat them humanely. There's a subtle but distinct difference.
- grellas 17y ago
  The legal rights distinction, in my view, does not alter the basic point - ethics determines how are laws are shaped and, while science can furnish the data points, it goes no further to help us determine the ethical outcome. For example, the researchers are said to argue that it is "morally unacceptable" for dolphins to be killed by accident by humans while fishing. Of course, laws might be passed making it a misdemeanor to kill a dolphin accidentally in such a context and perhaps make the perpetrator pay a fine. Or they might make it a felony and impose jail time as well. Or they might say that mens rea or evil intent is a required element of the crime. Or any one of many other variations. Or the laws might simply state that there is no culpability if a human who is fishing happens to kill a dolphin. The above represents a broad range of potential judgments on a legal issue that is ultimately an ethical question (what we ought to do) affected by a scientific truth (what is empirically verifiable) whose discoverers are in no better position than is any other intelligent person to opine. Scientists may opine but no special deference ought to be paid to their ethical judgments simply because they are scientists.
dazzawazza 17y ago
The opinion of a scientist with a deep understanding of the biology of intelligence is worth more then my shallow understanding of biology. Everyone's opinion does not have equal weight. I agree though that no one group has a monopoly on ethics and everyone can have an opinion of some worth.
Locke1689 17y ago
We make moral judgements to the contrary every day. Our implicit acceptance that humans are "worth more" than other animals acknowledges both an innate desire to defend one's own species over all others, but also that a heirarchy of superiority. For example, you would object to a massacre of puppies but would not over a massacre of bacteria. The question lies in how you decide superiority. Thr religious tend to believe that we are "made in gods image" and thus superior. I am not religious, so I define my heirarchy by the ability of the species to comprehend the universe and its disruptiveness to other species. This is probably equally arbitrary, but it has at least some logic behind it. I view knowledge of the universe as humanity's ultimate goal as a species and thus judge species based on their ability to complete said goal. When it comes to a choice between harming another species and the alternative I make a moral judgement based on the species "intelligence". I obviously never justify senseless violence and tend to abhor any purposeful torture. The scientists' information is thus very important to my moral system. P.s. Sorry for any typos or similar, this is posted from an iPhone.
- davepeck 17y ago
  > I define my heirarchy by the ability of the species to comprehend the universe and its disruptiveness to other species. This is probably equally arbitrary, but it has at least some logic behind it. I have a very similar view of the world, and when a friend tried to get me (last night!) to put it on firm logical footing, I was unable to. Why should our ability to comprehend the universe be the yardstick by which we measure ourselves? I feel that it is a reasonable measure, but I can't give sound reasoning for it. Somehow, I think this property (which appears to be unique to us, at least in our own biosphere) is deep in a way that, say, the ability to swim gracefully in water is not.
  - jimbokun 17y ago
    "Why should our ability to comprehend the universe be the yardstick by which we measure ourselves?" The movie Avatar (obviously on my mind because I recently saw it) tries to bring the audience around to the opposite conclusion. The movie makes clear that the humans better comprehend the universe (star ships, ability to create bodies to control remotely, etc.) but then unequivocally roots for the aliens who demonstrate no interest at all in the scientific method. Which I guess is a long winded way of saying, the ability to comprehend the universe is certainly not accepted as the most important yardstick of worth by all your fellow human beings.
nudist 17y ago
It's not a scientific judgement? How can you say it's OK to kill plants but not "animals," considering they are made of essentially the same thing? Where is the line? It's fairly easy to trace the evolution of the nervous system from simple single-celled organisms to modern animals. Moral repugnance is a purely human invention.
- hyperbovine 17y ago
  Plants and animals are made of essentially the same thing? Plants have no nervous system and absolutely no capacity for suffering. It is impossible to inflict pain on a plant. By contrast, most animals are capable of experiencing physical and even mental anguish. Once you admit this, good luck trying to build a coherent moral argument for why human suffering should be abhorrent while all other forms of animal suffering are fair game. This is "speciesism," a term introduced by the philosopher Peter Singer in his famous book Animal Liberation. I have never read a convincing refutation of the argument therein. There is a line. It simply requires some thought to elucidate it.
  - nudist 17y ago
    Pain? When you poke a Euglena[1] with a pin while looking at it under a microscope, its sensors detect an intrusion and immediately start flapping the flagella (the thing it uses for locomotion, analogous to a leg) to get out of the way. That's a super-simple nervous system. Many plants do this as well, using a slow production of chemicals which move branches and leaves. As you get more advanced, going up the biological totem pole, every creature uses that exact same sensor => action mechanism. Pain is the brain's complex interpretation of the pin prick, and an animal attempting to remove itself from the source of the pain is the same as activating the flagella. My brain has mirror neurons which make me literally feel your suffering as you experience it, which is why humans are so against "pain" and "suffering". It's also why I personally will never injure another human, or even another animal, purposefully. Is it more "wrong" in any scientific way to injure a human instead of a dolphin or a bear or a chimp or a plant -- or even to break a window? Absolutely not. This is why science should never be used to prove or disprove human "morals" and morals should never dictate the functions of science. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglena http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglena
pkulak 17y ago
The ethics of mistreatment are tied to inteligence of the species, however. Stepping on an ant, or cutting down a tree is not the same as killing an animal. Who knows where the lines are, but the distinctions exist.
miles 17y ago
"What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" -- Jeremy Bentham

by grellas 17y ago

DarkShikari 17y ago

Thus, the new-found evidence discussed in the article serves only to dramatize something these scientists want because of their philosophical predispositions, I don't think this is entirely true here. You've loaded the question by making an assumption, "It is morally repugnant to mistreat animals regardless of the intelligence of the animal" which not everyone will agree with. In fact, I suspect the vast majority of people do not: every day millions of people knowingly eat meat produced from animals that were horrifically mistreated, despite the fact that they could have eaten something else, often for a lower price. Why? Because it tastes good, and a lot of people don't care about the suffering of cows. Suppose the following moral axiom that some hypothetical person might hold: "Mistreating any sapient being is equivalently morally wrong as mistreating a human." Therefore, if scientists can prove that an animal is sapient, those who follow such a belief will agree that such an animal should not be mistreated. I don't see the problem with scientists arguing that an animal is sapient.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

NathanKP 17y ago

I totally agree and after reading the article I was going to post this exact same comment but you beat me to it. I would say that it is just as morally repugnant or in fact more morally repugnant to mistreat an animal that is not intelligent. It is not like lack of intelligence makes it alright to mistreat an animal.

niczar 17y ago
Is it morally repugnant to mistreat a plant? Is it morally repugnant to mistreat an animal with just one (1) neuron? Is it morally repugnant to mistreat an animal with just 100 000 neurons? Well that's how many lobsters have. My PC has billions of transistors. Granted, that's not the same as neurons by a very long shot, but it's not unreasonable to think that we could emulate a neuron with a few tens of thousand of transistors. Is it morally repugnant to mistreat a PC? I'm not concluding anything here. Just asking. (Besides there's the other issue of defining "mistreat.") I'm just annoyed by empty, generic statements like this. They don't say mean much of anything, and do not make us understand the issue any better.
barrkel 17y ago
How well do you treat mice that have invaded your home? How about cockroaches? How do you avoid mistreating worms while doing your gardening?

itistoday 17y ago

The article is not discussing the ethical question of "mistreatment", but rather that of legal rights. This is an important distinction. Anyone can advocate for dolphin rights, but, as scientists who have done research on dolphins, they are in a position to make ethical arguments against keeping dolphins in a zoo for public entertainment. The rationale behind these arguments are grounded firmly in science. You have to be able to show the research that proves that one animal has no sense of self, while another (a dolphin) does, etc.

CapitalistCartr 17y ago
"Anyone can advocate for dolphin rights, but, as scientists who have done research on dolphins, they are in a position to make ethical arguments against keeping dolphins in a zoo for public entertainment." "The rationale behind these arguments are grounded firmly in science. You have to be able to show the research that proves that one animal has no sense of self, while another (a dolphin) does, etc." We are all in a position to make ethical arguments; I often do. But its not science. They are obviously in a position to know more about dolphins than most, but whether we change our policies regarding them might be grounded in science (for a change), but it is not, in and of itself, science, and they aren't experts in that. As for a sense of self, I don't treat animals humanely because they have a sense of self, but because I do.
- warfangle 17y ago
  This is more about not treating dolphins as animals, not whether or not we should treat them humanely. There's a subtle but distinct difference.
grellas 17y ago
The legal rights distinction, in my view, does not alter the basic point - ethics determines how are laws are shaped and, while science can furnish the data points, it goes no further to help us determine the ethical outcome. For example, the researchers are said to argue that it is "morally unacceptable" for dolphins to be killed by accident by humans while fishing. Of course, laws might be passed making it a misdemeanor to kill a dolphin accidentally in such a context and perhaps make the perpetrator pay a fine. Or they might make it a felony and impose jail time as well. Or they might say that mens rea or evil intent is a required element of the crime. Or any one of many other variations. Or the laws might simply state that there is no culpability if a human who is fishing happens to kill a dolphin. The above represents a broad range of potential judgments on a legal issue that is ultimately an ethical question (what we ought to do) affected by a scientific truth (what is empirically verifiable) whose discoverers are in no better position than is any other intelligent person to opine. Scientists may opine but no special deference ought to be paid to their ethical judgments simply because they are scientists.

dazzawazza 17y ago

The opinion of a scientist with a deep understanding of the biology of intelligence is worth more then my shallow understanding of biology. Everyone's opinion does not have equal weight. I agree though that no one group has a monopoly on ethics and everyone can have an opinion of some worth.

Locke1689 17y ago

We make moral judgements to the contrary every day. Our implicit acceptance that humans are "worth more" than other animals acknowledges both an innate desire to defend one's own species over all others, but also that a heirarchy of superiority. For example, you would object to a massacre of puppies but would not over a massacre of bacteria. The question lies in how you decide superiority. Thr religious tend to believe that we are "made in gods image" and thus superior. I am not religious, so I define my heirarchy by the ability of the species to comprehend the universe and its disruptiveness to other species. This is probably equally arbitrary, but it has at least some logic behind it. I view knowledge of the universe as humanity's ultimate goal as a species and thus judge species based on their ability to complete said goal. When it comes to a choice between harming another species and the alternative I make a moral judgement based on the species "intelligence". I obviously never justify senseless violence and tend to abhor any purposeful torture. The scientists' information is thus very important to my moral system. P.s. Sorry for any typos or similar, this is posted from an iPhone.

davepeck 17y ago
> I define my heirarchy by the ability of the species to comprehend the universe and its disruptiveness to other species. This is probably equally arbitrary, but it has at least some logic behind it. I have a very similar view of the world, and when a friend tried to get me (last night!) to put it on firm logical footing, I was unable to. Why should our ability to comprehend the universe be the yardstick by which we measure ourselves? I feel that it is a reasonable measure, but I can't give sound reasoning for it. Somehow, I think this property (which appears to be unique to us, at least in our own biosphere) is deep in a way that, say, the ability to swim gracefully in water is not.
- jimbokun 17y ago
  "Why should our ability to comprehend the universe be the yardstick by which we measure ourselves?" The movie Avatar (obviously on my mind because I recently saw it) tries to bring the audience around to the opposite conclusion. The movie makes clear that the humans better comprehend the universe (star ships, ability to create bodies to control remotely, etc.) but then unequivocally roots for the aliens who demonstrate no interest at all in the scientific method. Which I guess is a long winded way of saying, the ability to comprehend the universe is certainly not accepted as the most important yardstick of worth by all your fellow human beings.

nudist 17y ago

It's not a scientific judgement? How can you say it's OK to kill plants but not "animals," considering they are made of essentially the same thing? Where is the line? It's fairly easy to trace the evolution of the nervous system from simple single-celled organisms to modern animals. Moral repugnance is a purely human invention.

hyperbovine 17y ago
Plants and animals are made of essentially the same thing? Plants have no nervous system and absolutely no capacity for suffering. It is impossible to inflict pain on a plant. By contrast, most animals are capable of experiencing physical and even mental anguish. Once you admit this, good luck trying to build a coherent moral argument for why human suffering should be abhorrent while all other forms of animal suffering are fair game. This is "speciesism," a term introduced by the philosopher Peter Singer in his famous book Animal Liberation. I have never read a convincing refutation of the argument therein. There is a line. It simply requires some thought to elucidate it.
- nudist 17y ago
  Pain? When you poke a Euglena[1] with a pin while looking at it under a microscope, its sensors detect an intrusion and immediately start flapping the flagella (the thing it uses for locomotion, analogous to a leg) to get out of the way. That's a super-simple nervous system. Many plants do this as well, using a slow production of chemicals which move branches and leaves. As you get more advanced, going up the biological totem pole, every creature uses that exact same sensor => action mechanism. Pain is the brain's complex interpretation of the pin prick, and an animal attempting to remove itself from the source of the pain is the same as activating the flagella. My brain has mirror neurons which make me literally feel your suffering as you experience it, which is why humans are so against "pain" and "suffering". It's also why I personally will never injure another human, or even another animal, purposefully. Is it more "wrong" in any scientific way to injure a human instead of a dolphin or a bear or a chimp or a plant -- or even to break a window? Absolutely not. This is why science should never be used to prove or disprove human "morals" and morals should never dictate the functions of science. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglena http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euglena

pkulak 17y ago

The ethics of mistreatment are tied to inteligence of the species, however. Stepping on an ant, or cutting down a tree is not the same as killing an animal. Who knows where the lines are, but the distinctions exist.

miles 17y ago

"What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?" -- Jeremy Bentham