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Tigers and bears don't seem to have any emotional strife about their position in the food chain. Don't think we should feel too bad about it either. There are

by tux1968 7y ago

Tigers and bears don't seem to have any emotional strife about their position in the food chain. Don't think we should feel too bad about it either. There are real concerns to address about sustainability though.

deogeo 7y ago
Bears also don't have any emotional strife about killing cubs to increase their odds of mating. Perhaps looking to them for moral guidance is not the best idea.
- JackFr 7y ago
  But that’s part of the point. We owe animals humane treatment because of what we are, not because of what they are. To be clear, holding tigers and bears to a different moral standard is human exceptionalism. I’m fine with that, but many people seem to feel we should treat animals humanely because they’re the same as us.
  - MockObject 7y ago
    Either animals are moral entities, or they're not. If they are, we owe them moral treatment, but then they are subject to being held accountable for their own moral failings. If they're not, then they can't be said to accrue any moral failings, and we don't owe them moral treatment.
    - mkane848 7y ago
      Hard disagreement, if something can feel pain and suffering then we should be striving to overcome the need to inflict that on them. Also, just because we don't "owe" it to them doesn't mean we shouldn't. Being nice or doing good in the world isn't something that should be earned by the recipients, it should be the default for how we treat each other if we're REALLY trying to progress and move forward as sentient beings.
      - MockObject 7y ago
        > it should be the default for how we treat each other What should be included in the set of "each other"? You're suggesting we include entities that are totally amoral, who happily destroy other sentient beings in the most painful ways, and who are incapable of reform. There is no imaginable social contract that could possibly include such monsters. Surely there must be some element of symmetry as a condition of such a set membership. It's implied by the very phrase "each other".
        mkane848 7y ago
        I think trying to figure that out is the exciting part, and I'd prefer to err on the side of generosity.
tdb7893 7y ago
Many rodents eat their own babies when stressed, and many animals practice rape. Following nature for ethical concerns is sketchy at best.
sarbaz 7y ago
How do you know? There's no experiment I can think of to confirm this. IMO, the correct 'null hypothesis' wrt mammals is that they think and feel like humans do, except where we've managed to prove otherwise.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
mping 7y ago
We're not tigers or bears, so I never really understood this line of thought.
- tux1968 7y ago
  We're all part of the same natural world, we have more in common than we have differences. The world we're all born into doesn't seem to particularly care about suffering -- it's baked into its very fabric, we're all going to suffer and die. If you are going to survive, you have to kill every day, be it plant or animal; it's just the way it is. You can say that plants matter less than animals, and make up some justification about consciousness and suffering, but that is simply our own personal bias. There is no way to know if the universe cares more about thinking or non-thinking things, or if they share the exact same intrinsic value. All such moralizing is on very shaky ground and comes down to human bias and not much else.

deogeo 7y ago

Bears also don't have any emotional strife about killing cubs to increase their odds of mating. Perhaps looking to them for moral guidance is not the best idea.

JackFr 7y ago
But that’s part of the point. We owe animals humane treatment because of what we are, not because of what they are. To be clear, holding tigers and bears to a different moral standard is human exceptionalism. I’m fine with that, but many people seem to feel we should treat animals humanely because they’re the same as us.
- MockObject 7y ago
  Either animals are moral entities, or they're not. If they are, we owe them moral treatment, but then they are subject to being held accountable for their own moral failings. If they're not, then they can't be said to accrue any moral failings, and we don't owe them moral treatment.
  - mkane848 7y ago
    Hard disagreement, if something can feel pain and suffering then we should be striving to overcome the need to inflict that on them. Also, just because we don't "owe" it to them doesn't mean we shouldn't. Being nice or doing good in the world isn't something that should be earned by the recipients, it should be the default for how we treat each other if we're REALLY trying to progress and move forward as sentient beings.
    - MockObject 7y ago
      > it should be the default for how we treat each other What should be included in the set of "each other"? You're suggesting we include entities that are totally amoral, who happily destroy other sentient beings in the most painful ways, and who are incapable of reform. There is no imaginable social contract that could possibly include such monsters. Surely there must be some element of symmetry as a condition of such a set membership. It's implied by the very phrase "each other".
      - mkane848 7y ago
        I think trying to figure that out is the exciting part, and I'd prefer to err on the side of generosity.

tdb7893 7y ago

Many rodents eat their own babies when stressed, and many animals practice rape. Following nature for ethical concerns is sketchy at best.

sarbaz 7y ago

How do you know? There's no experiment I can think of to confirm this. IMO, the correct 'null hypothesis' wrt mammals is that they think and feel like humans do, except where we've managed to prove otherwise.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

mping 7y ago

We're not tigers or bears, so I never really understood this line of thought.

tux1968 7y ago
We're all part of the same natural world, we have more in common than we have differences. The world we're all born into doesn't seem to particularly care about suffering -- it's baked into its very fabric, we're all going to suffer and die. If you are going to survive, you have to kill every day, be it plant or animal; it's just the way it is. You can say that plants matter less than animals, and make up some justification about consciousness and suffering, but that is simply our own personal bias. There is no way to know if the universe cares more about thinking or non-thinking things, or if they share the exact same intrinsic value. All such moralizing is on very shaky ground and comes down to human bias and not much else.