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The more we learn about animals, the more I wonder about our casual treatment of them. It's led me to the conclusion that there are certainly species at least

The more we learn about animals, the more I wonder about our casual treatment of them. It's led me to the conclusion that there are certainly species at least on our level of cognitive development, they just might have different value systems such that our pursuit of technology seems very foreign and strange. It's also why I'm transitioning into vegetarianism (though still eating chicken eggs, which I can't find an ethical issue with).

stephengillie 13y ago
>they just might have different value systems such that our pursuit of technology seems very foreign and strange. I believe the value systems which govern our diets also seem very foreign and strange to the other species with whom we share Earth.
nkoren 13y ago
I became vegetarian many years ago for precisely this reason. Ordinarily I don't get preachy about it, and tell people that it's just an individual choice of mine. But in truth, the concept of eating meat really does bother me, and I think it bothers a lot of other people. Other carnivorous animals are rarely aware of the fact that they are using other sentient beings for food (although sometimes they do demonstrate an awareness of this), but we can't help but be aware of it. We justify it with a values system which says that it is morally permissible to eat creatures that aren't as smart or are otherwise just different from us. But that's a tenuous sort of morality, and I honestly think that it gnaws at us more than we usually admit. Think about how aliens are typically portrayed in science fiction films. They've crossed unimaginable light-years to come to earth, and are immensely smarter than us. But nine times out of ten, once they get here, they've got nothing better to do than kill and more often than not eat us. Same goes for superior machine consciousness: in our mythologies, it almost always wants to kill and/or consume us. Why? I think it's a reflection of our own insecurities: if there's any species out there that's truly smarter than us, we'd better hope that it doesn't share our value system -- because if it does, then it will see us as entirely legitimate to farm and eat. So I choose to do unto other species as I'd like other species to do unto me. But of course that's just my personal choice.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  Hopefully the aliens will forgive us if we seem barbaric ;) Part of my experience is a recent trip to India to see some historic sites. While there, it was just easier to eat at vegetarian restaurants, and it was remarkable how much healthier I felt. It will certainly involve some work because I grew up in the West and we simply don't have this sort of culture ingrained, but all great things take some work. I guess what I found out is that we have a choice: we don't have to eat meat and we can still maintain and even improve our health. That was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak...
- coolj 13y ago
  > But that's a tenuous sort of morality... If you use anything made with/from animal labor or products, you are practicing the same form of morality, you've just changed what's acceptable from "murdering" to "enslaving", "robbing", etc. It is also no more tenuous than arbitrarily drawing the line at bugs or bacteria. Thousands of innocent insects had to die to bring us a banana (--death from pesticides, from mechanical crushing during harvest, from geting squashed on the windscreen of the delivery trucks).
  - eltondegeneres 13y ago
    A lot of ethicists draw the line at either sentience (not sapience) or the ability to suffer, usually defined as the presence of a central nervous system. Bacteria fails to pass these tests.
    - coolj 13y ago
      Sure, those are traits we use to distinguish different rights among sentient (but not sapient) animals--but it's all rather arbitrary. How do we define "suffering"? Is it the same emotional experiences we call "fear" and "sadness", i.e., the ability to have the concept "I am afraid/sad"? That means the animal needs to at least have a primitive form of understanding and introspection to qualify (e.g., great apes, chimps, bonobos). If we go to the other extreme, we must admit we don't have a reliable method for communicating with animals (famous "dog whisperers" aside). We can only infer "suffering" is taking place when the animal reacts negatively to a negative external stimulus. But bacteria respond negatively to a negative external stimulus as well. Sure, there's mind-bogglingly more complexity in a mammalian brain than a bacterium, but if we reduce "suffering" to the observation of a negative reaction to a negative external stimulus, we must say even single cell organisms are "suffering." Hard to strike the right balance.
georgemcbay 13y ago
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.” - Douglas Adams
- wavefunction 13y ago
  Indeed! Though I guess what I'm describing about my own transition is me applying what I once limited to primates, cetaceans, large mammals and certain bird species to all animals. I guess when I was younger, I was able to justify it on the basis of what I concluded to be those species capable of "higher-order" thinking, when it's very apparent we're not sure if there's even that line to be drawn.
gizmo686 13y ago
I suspect that we have a very minor advantage that allows us accumulate knowledge across generations better than other species. This is not necessarily an advantage in intelligence. An interesting question is, if we took newborn humans and let them grow up in the wild (somehow assure there survival without contaminating the experiment), would there apparent behavior and intelligence be distinguishable from other animals.
- anonymous 13y ago
  Humans need to be taught by other humans in order to become human. However, there are tribes of people still living as primitively as possible (i.e. before metallurgy) and the answer seems to be yes - they build houses, make weapons, develop hunting techniques, have religion and use a complex language with which to describe all that to the next generation.
- johnsoft 13y ago
  Such an experiment would be unethical (for obvious reasons), but many cases have happened "outside the lab" over the years, and when found the people are observed after the fact. There have been many cases where "stray humans" have been taken in and raised by wolves, dogs, or monkeys, and they do take on characteristics and behavior from the environments they grew up in, rather than what we would call normal. A good starting point for reading would be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child I personally would be interested in the opposite experiment - taking a newborn animal, and raising it as a human surrounded by humans and human culture, as much as possible, and observing its acclimation (or lack thereof). I couldn't really answer the question of ethics in this direction, but if it were feasible I think an experiment like that would be very eye-opening into the outer limits of other species' intelligence.
  - d23 13y ago
    This has quite obviously been tried before. See Koko the gorilla. Yes, she was able to understand quite a few signs (1000+), but the idea that they have the capability to be anything close to human is clearly not true.
eltondegeneres 13y ago
Despite the commonly-held belief that eating eggs is an ethical alternative to meat, nothing could be farther from the truth. The stress of being treated as egg-laying machines causes hens to peck at themselves and others, ripping out feathers and eyes, a behavior that is unheard of in chickens raised outside of captivity. To prevent injury, most hens have their beaks are sliced off by a hot blade and without anesthetic. After laying about 300 eggs, her bones leached of calcium and often unable to walk, an egg-laying hen is killed for her flesh just a year after she is born. For the more than 100 million male chicks every year, the day they hatch will be the last day of their lives. Unable to lay eggs and too small be sold as broiler chickens, male chicks have no commercial value and are gassed or ground alive at just one day old. Tragically this is a reality across all egg production; cage free or “humane” eggs are no different. The killing of male chicks and eventual slaughter of “spent” hens are standard industry practice and can only be avoided by rejecting eggs entirely.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  Maybe some of us have friends with chickens who get to run around pretty much as they like. Not everyone buys factory farmed eggs. But thanks for playing.
  - eltondegeneres 13y ago
    Your friends most likely got their chicks from a hatchery that culls male chicks. It's not just factory farming that's an issue, the entire agricultural industry has serious issues.
- grey-area 13y ago
  There are plenty of free-range farms with good conditions (at least in the country I live in), and you're exaggerating in an attempt to equate all eggs with factory production (the conditions of which truly are appalling). The stress of being treated as egg-laying machines causes hens to peck at themselves and others, ripping out feathers and eyes, a behavior that is unheard of in chickens raised outside of captivity. Hens peck at each other to establish primacy in the wild, or in non-factory conditions very like the wild, losing feathers etc. Animal violence is not down to the conditions humans hold them in. Hence the phrase 'pecking order' which originated far before factory farming of chickens. Violence is probably worse in factory conditions and I'm sure some hens will simply go insane given the conditions you describe, but they do naturally peck at each other to establish dominance. The killing of male chicks and eventual slaughter of “spent” hens are standard industry practice and can only be avoided by rejecting eggs entirely. They are only standard industry practice in factory farms. On small free range farms or private holdings of chickens, these practices often don't hold. Note that most chickens won't survive in the wild though, so if they are released, they quickly die from predation. Whether a vegetarian should eat the young of another species harvested before birth is another question (I can see arguments either way), but factory farming is not the only way to harvest eggs and not all eggs are produced that way.

stephengillie 13y ago

>they just might have different value systems such that our pursuit of technology seems very foreign and strange. I believe the value systems which govern our diets also seem very foreign and strange to the other species with whom we share Earth.

nkoren 13y ago

I became vegetarian many years ago for precisely this reason. Ordinarily I don't get preachy about it, and tell people that it's just an individual choice of mine. But in truth, the concept of eating meat really does bother me, and I think it bothers a lot of other people. Other carnivorous animals are rarely aware of the fact that they are using other sentient beings for food (although sometimes they do demonstrate an awareness of this), but we can't help but be aware of it. We justify it with a values system which says that it is morally permissible to eat creatures that aren't as smart or are otherwise just different from us. But that's a tenuous sort of morality, and I honestly think that it gnaws at us more than we usually admit. Think about how aliens are typically portrayed in science fiction films. They've crossed unimaginable light-years to come to earth, and are immensely smarter than us. But nine times out of ten, once they get here, they've got nothing better to do than kill and more often than not eat us. Same goes for superior machine consciousness: in our mythologies, it almost always wants to kill and/or consume us. Why? I think it's a reflection of our own insecurities: if there's any species out there that's truly smarter than us, we'd better hope that it doesn't share our value system -- because if it does, then it will see us as entirely legitimate to farm and eat. So I choose to do unto other species as I'd like other species to do unto me. But of course that's just my personal choice.

wavefunction 13y ago
Hopefully the aliens will forgive us if we seem barbaric ;) Part of my experience is a recent trip to India to see some historic sites. While there, it was just easier to eat at vegetarian restaurants, and it was remarkable how much healthier I felt. It will certainly involve some work because I grew up in the West and we simply don't have this sort of culture ingrained, but all great things take some work. I guess what I found out is that we have a choice: we don't have to eat meat and we can still maintain and even improve our health. That was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak...
coolj 13y ago
> But that's a tenuous sort of morality... If you use anything made with/from animal labor or products, you are practicing the same form of morality, you've just changed what's acceptable from "murdering" to "enslaving", "robbing", etc. It is also no more tenuous than arbitrarily drawing the line at bugs or bacteria. Thousands of innocent insects had to die to bring us a banana (--death from pesticides, from mechanical crushing during harvest, from geting squashed on the windscreen of the delivery trucks).
- eltondegeneres 13y ago
  A lot of ethicists draw the line at either sentience (not sapience) or the ability to suffer, usually defined as the presence of a central nervous system. Bacteria fails to pass these tests.
  - coolj 13y ago
    Sure, those are traits we use to distinguish different rights among sentient (but not sapient) animals--but it's all rather arbitrary. How do we define "suffering"? Is it the same emotional experiences we call "fear" and "sadness", i.e., the ability to have the concept "I am afraid/sad"? That means the animal needs to at least have a primitive form of understanding and introspection to qualify (e.g., great apes, chimps, bonobos). If we go to the other extreme, we must admit we don't have a reliable method for communicating with animals (famous "dog whisperers" aside). We can only infer "suffering" is taking place when the animal reacts negatively to a negative external stimulus. But bacteria respond negatively to a negative external stimulus as well. Sure, there's mind-bogglingly more complexity in a mammalian brain than a bacterium, but if we reduce "suffering" to the observation of a negative reaction to a negative external stimulus, we must say even single cell organisms are "suffering." Hard to strike the right balance.

georgemcbay 13y ago

“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.” - Douglas Adams

wavefunction 13y ago
Indeed! Though I guess what I'm describing about my own transition is me applying what I once limited to primates, cetaceans, large mammals and certain bird species to all animals. I guess when I was younger, I was able to justify it on the basis of what I concluded to be those species capable of "higher-order" thinking, when it's very apparent we're not sure if there's even that line to be drawn.

gizmo686 13y ago

I suspect that we have a very minor advantage that allows us accumulate knowledge across generations better than other species. This is not necessarily an advantage in intelligence. An interesting question is, if we took newborn humans and let them grow up in the wild (somehow assure there survival without contaminating the experiment), would there apparent behavior and intelligence be distinguishable from other animals.

anonymous 13y ago
Humans need to be taught by other humans in order to become human. However, there are tribes of people still living as primitively as possible (i.e. before metallurgy) and the answer seems to be yes - they build houses, make weapons, develop hunting techniques, have religion and use a complex language with which to describe all that to the next generation.
johnsoft 13y ago
Such an experiment would be unethical (for obvious reasons), but many cases have happened "outside the lab" over the years, and when found the people are observed after the fact. There have been many cases where "stray humans" have been taken in and raised by wolves, dogs, or monkeys, and they do take on characteristics and behavior from the environments they grew up in, rather than what we would call normal. A good starting point for reading would be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child I personally would be interested in the opposite experiment - taking a newborn animal, and raising it as a human surrounded by humans and human culture, as much as possible, and observing its acclimation (or lack thereof). I couldn't really answer the question of ethics in this direction, but if it were feasible I think an experiment like that would be very eye-opening into the outer limits of other species' intelligence.
- d23 13y ago
  This has quite obviously been tried before. See Koko the gorilla. Yes, she was able to understand quite a few signs (1000+), but the idea that they have the capability to be anything close to human is clearly not true.

eltondegeneres 13y ago

Despite the commonly-held belief that eating eggs is an ethical alternative to meat, nothing could be farther from the truth. The stress of being treated as egg-laying machines causes hens to peck at themselves and others, ripping out feathers and eyes, a behavior that is unheard of in chickens raised outside of captivity. To prevent injury, most hens have their beaks are sliced off by a hot blade and without anesthetic. After laying about 300 eggs, her bones leached of calcium and often unable to walk, an egg-laying hen is killed for her flesh just a year after she is born. For the more than 100 million male chicks every year, the day they hatch will be the last day of their lives. Unable to lay eggs and too small be sold as broiler chickens, male chicks have no commercial value and are gassed or ground alive at just one day old. Tragically this is a reality across all egg production; cage free or “humane” eggs are no different. The killing of male chicks and eventual slaughter of “spent” hens are standard industry practice and can only be avoided by rejecting eggs entirely.

wavefunction 13y ago
Maybe some of us have friends with chickens who get to run around pretty much as they like. Not everyone buys factory farmed eggs. But thanks for playing.
- eltondegeneres 13y ago
  Your friends most likely got their chicks from a hatchery that culls male chicks. It's not just factory farming that's an issue, the entire agricultural industry has serious issues.
grey-area 13y ago
There are plenty of free-range farms with good conditions (at least in the country I live in), and you're exaggerating in an attempt to equate all eggs with factory production (the conditions of which truly are appalling). The stress of being treated as egg-laying machines causes hens to peck at themselves and others, ripping out feathers and eyes, a behavior that is unheard of in chickens raised outside of captivity. Hens peck at each other to establish primacy in the wild, or in non-factory conditions very like the wild, losing feathers etc. Animal violence is not down to the conditions humans hold them in. Hence the phrase 'pecking order' which originated far before factory farming of chickens. Violence is probably worse in factory conditions and I'm sure some hens will simply go insane given the conditions you describe, but they do naturally peck at each other to establish dominance. The killing of male chicks and eventual slaughter of “spent” hens are standard industry practice and can only be avoided by rejecting eggs entirely. They are only standard industry practice in factory farms. On small free range farms or private holdings of chickens, these practices often don't hold. Note that most chickens won't survive in the wild though, so if they are released, they quickly die from predation. Whether a vegetarian should eat the young of another species harvested before birth is another question (I can see arguments either way), but factory farming is not the only way to harvest eggs and not all eggs are produced that way.