Should we value animals as something more than sources for us?

[Narz]

So if you don't value human life more than an animal's

I didn't say that. In general I value people more, just not under all circumstances.

you wouldn't mind going into places where certain humans are considered 'pests' and killing them?

I don't think I would have it in me to kill anyone (unless necessary in self-defense) but I don't shed tears when rich people can't have babies & I find scenes of nature retaking land from humans kind of cool (in Chernoble, Detriot, etc.). I'm not an ecoterrorist or anything.

 

[Abaddon]

All testing should be done on humans. It should be a paid job. Everything has to be tested on humans in the end anyway, we only use animals cos it's cheaper.

Humans can make their own choice to accept that job. An animal doesn't have the choice.

Yes we use animals for food. But we don't have to do it in a cruel way.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

In a world driven by evolutionary forces, isn't self-interest take precedent over looking out for other species of animals? Unless you say looking out for other species of creatures isin our self-interest

Of course it's in our best interest. Why are so many people concerned about the die-off of certain kinds of bees? Because they pollinate plants. No bees, no pollination. No pollination, no food. No food, lots and LOTS of hungry humans.

And do you honestly prefer to see even 1 human get sick by testing for cosmetics, instead of an ocean of animals? Cause i do not.

Of course. When is the last time you saw a housecat voluntarily wear lipstick or eyeshadow? How many family dogs voluntarily use soap? Do canaries use perfume? Do rabbits, which have commonly suffered so humans can use all that stuff, use them themselves?

No, they do not. Therefore, it is pointless to force animals to suffer for something they won't even benefit from. (not that *most* cosmetics are essential anyway)

 

[Kyriakos]

Of course. When is the last time you saw a housecat voluntarily wear lipstick or eyeshadow? How many family dogs voluntarily use soap? Do canaries use perfume? Do rabbits, which have commonly suffered so humans can use all that stuff, use them themselves?

No, they do not. Therefore, it is pointless to force animals to suffer for something they won't even benefit from. (not that *most* cosmetics are essential anyway)

I view animals as something to be used. Personally i have no use at all for them, but i accept that others use them. And your claim that the animals should only be used in something that returns to them is a bit strange, since they are being slaughtered for food. Do you suggest we don't eat them? Cause if you do you should note (i guess you do, but your point seemed devoid of such a syllogism) that you would be making the majority o the world less happy by banning animal use as food.
And again i do not think that something that has a detrimental effect on humans should be allowed, just so we can have animals live a better life.

 

[Narz]

All testing should be done on humans. It should be a paid job. Everything has to be tested on humans in the end anyway, we only use animals cos it's cheaper.

Humans can make their own choice to accept that job. An animal doesn't have the choice.

Let the free market decide!

I view animals as something to be used. Personally i have no use at all for them, but i accept that others use them. And your claim that the animals should only be used in something that returns to them is a bit strange, since they are being slaughtered for food. Do you suggest we don't eat them? Cause if you do you should note (i guess you do, but your point seemed devoid of such a syllogism) that you would be making the majority o the world less happy by banning animal use as food.

I was no less happy as a vegetarian. The fact that marijuana is illegal makes some people sad too (though it makes the DEA happy... and rich). Short-term-happiness isn't as important as long term health & righteousness.

And again i do not think that something that has a detrimental effect on humans should be allowed, just so we can have animals live a better life.

Like what? Righteousness and sacrifice for the greater good is far more fulfilling for man than glutenous disregard for all external beings.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I view animals as something to be used. Personally i have no use at all for them, but i accept that others use them. And your claim that the animals should only be used in something that returns to them is a bit strange, since they are being slaughtered for food. Do you suggest we don't eat them? Cause if you do you should note (i guess you do, but your point seemed devoid of such a syllogism) that you would be making the majority o the world less happy by banning animal use as food.
And again i do not think that something that has a detrimental effect on humans should be allowed, just so we can have animals live a better life.

Stop taking my post out of context. I was referring to the cosmetics industry, not food. And I'm sorry, but I don't have the mental energy at the moment to look up "syllogism" in the dictionary.

Most animals are quite familiar with the concept of "eat/be eaten." Or haven't you ever watched any wildlife documentaries about the Serengeti?

 

[PeteAtoms]

Of course it's in our best interest. Why are so many people concerned about the die-off of certain kinds of bees? Because they pollinate plants. No bees, no pollination. No pollination, no food. No food, lots and LOTS of hungry humans.

I direct you to a post a page or so back:

I agree with this. Environmentalism is in the best interest of humanity. But there is also another balance.

 

[Luckymoose]

I wrote an essay on this not too long ago. Humans and our advancement far outweigh other life forms.

 

[Justo]

I don't value life be it animal or human.

 

[Riffraff]

Probably shouldn't be lumping in all animals into the same group.

I'm sure most people wouldn't like seeing our fellow great apes being hunted for food.

 

[Kyriakos]

Stop taking my post out of context. I was referring to the cosmetics industry, not food. And I'm sorry, but I don't have the mental energy at the moment to look up "syllogism" in the dictionary.

Most animals are quite familiar with the concept of "eat/be eaten." Or haven't you ever watched any wildlife documentaries about the Serengeti?

For me it is easier to use greek words, don't think it is showing off. Anyway, syllogism comes from syn+ logos (or logisesthai) and means to form a thought that has a deduction in it, or some other form of thought pattern You can replace it with "reckoning", which would be more unnatural for me to write

And you are right, i took it a bit out of context, but not meaning to alter its meaning, since to me it seems that since animals are used for food anyway, there is no reason to treat them as something to be protected from other uses which are harmfull to them, but beneficial to us.

 

[bombshoo]

I have always valued all my pets as members of my family with the exception of some fish which to be honest are just kind of a decorative piece.

 

[Justo]

Humans are food to many creatures.

 

[Akka]

Animals are living beings with the ability to have feelings.
As such, they are already more than simple inanimate ressources.

I accept that, as humans, we put ourselves first, but ethics dictate that we should try to limit pain/anguish and the like to their maximum. I disapprove bad treatment of animals, and strongle support anti-cruely laws.

I also consider that animals who have an intelligence treshold high enough to be self-aware (many monkeys and probably dolphins and the like) should be treated with extra care.

 

[El_Machinae]

I view animals as something to be used.

How do you generate this idea, but not extend it to races or non-family members? What makes a human specifically different from an animal?

To extend the question: I have a chimpanzee embryo in my cryogenic freezer, and I'm thinking about doing genetic experiments on it. How many human genes may I swap into the embryo before you'll no longer allow animal experimentation on it? (Assuming that I'm going to mature the embryo into a full animal)

This isn't just a hypothetical. People are currently in the process of putting human genes into apes, for experimentation purposes.

And suppose I also have a human embryo in storage: how many animal genes must I put into it before I can do experiments on the adult animal?

 

[Winner]

I was having a discussion about this in another forum. Thsi is my last entry in that:

"To me it just seems that animals cannot be protected essentially if we are to continue the way of life that we have. And i do not view their lives as important enough so as to actively force a change in our way of life.
Sure, cosmetics can be argued to be of lesser importance than an animal life, but in my opinnion this is arguable: i do not view a woman who only cares about how she looks as something exceptionally positive, but she is still a human being, and that makes her more important in my eyes than an animal.

Her life may be more important, not her vanity. Cruel forms of animal testing for the sake of better cosmetics (= more money for already super-rich cosmetics producers) is deeply immoral, in my view.

I can only accept some value in animals in regards to their relationship to humans. For example if you owned an ape, and you loved him, then it follows that if someone harmed him he should be penalised by law, but not because he harmed the ape; he should be penalised because indirrectly he harmed you, another human.

Can you elaborate a bit on your view that animals should be valued, apart from their place in the ecosystem?

Sure I can

Essentially, I think the level of protection of living organisms should depend on their mental faculties - the capacity to feel pain, to suffer both physically and emotionally, and to display intelligence.

Plants, insects, microbes and other lower classes of life surely have to be treated differently from dogs or apes. Some apes display intelligence comparable with mentally ******** humans, and should therefore be protected in the same way. Yes, this include ban on harmful testing, mistreatment, destruction of natural habitats, etc.

Even a less sentient human is still a human. Children with mental deficiencies, for example, can be very primitive intellectually, but they are still part of humanity, and this makes them in my opinnion distinctly superior to any animal, nomatter how healthy and relatively intelligent it is"

Not in my view. The only thing that makes humans different from other animals is our superior level of intelligence, the capacity to understand and shape the world around us (for better or worse). Severely mentally ******** humans are maybe closer to me genetically speaking, but I feel about as much affinity for them as I feel for baboons. And I mean this seriously. I am not saying we should euthanize them or something - I am using them as an example of our hypocrisy and... well, biological chauvinism.

The other person was arguing that a healthy ape coudl be more sentient than a diseased/mentally handicapped human, and therefore the act of using that ape as a laboratory specimen was less virtuous than using that human in its place.
But in my view if we opened this Pandora's box there would be myriads of problems, so all humans should be seen as equal and protected under the law.

I agree, human life should be protected - just for different reasons. Not because of the adjective 'human', but for objective reasons such as those I already mentioned. If some other form of life meets the criteria, it should be equally protected, or at least partially protected according to the level of its sentience.

I think that the old black&white division to human (100% protection) vs. animal (0% protection) is totally outdated and it's this what constitutes the real Pandora's box. What if we create transgenic 'animals' with levels of sentience comparable to our own? Will we still treat them in the same way we treat chickens? What if we create an artificial intelligence - will we consider it as a machine which can't possibly have any rights?

That would be a way to hell paved by hypocrisy and callous arrogance. Therefore, I am all for re-defining the reasons why we protect human life, and allow for the definition to include all forms of sentience, not just humans.

 

[Kyriakos]

Hi Winner, nice to have you back

I never had a pet- or rather i did once have one, but i won't go into that - so i didnt bond with an animal as a child. This certaintly dissallowed me from feeling love for it, but also, probably, made me free of forming childish views of animals as well- not saying that all animal defences are based on childish views.

I have noticed that my view on animals, namely that they can be seen as mere resources, is connected with my overall view of life. You might recall my thread about a quote by Protagoras, according to which the measure of all things is man. From this follows that all values, intrinsic or not, are calculated by man, in regards to his benefit.
This allows us, for example, to claim that eating meat as a meal is good, since it gives us pleasure (if we eat meat and like it), and not worry about question about the animal which was killed.

Although personally i have little use for the cosmetic industry, i accept that there are many people who view it as something very important in their lives. And to dissallow animal testing there (somethign which probably potentially harms the animals in the lab) woudl mean that we would have even less safe products for humans, leading to possible harm for them. Thu again i believe that human health> animal health, nomatter that the cosmetic industry is obviously full of greed and exploits ussually (at least in dramatic cases) the vanity of people, which by itself was harmfull to them.

You mentioned the prospect of creating a human/animal hybrid, or at least some animal with intelligence comprable to our own. Are such experiments currently allowed? Isnt the use of human dna in such cases prohibited?
In my view the creation of such a being would have effects very hard to calculate. We never had an animal as sentient as us live next to us. The alst time when two beings of somewhat comprable intelligence lived on the planet led, i think, to battle between them, and the final demise of one. Of course this would be an isolated case of a superanimal, but if it was sentient enough then wouldnt that harm it? It doesnt seem easy to be the sole member of a species that has human intelligence.

You might recall that i once had met a severely mentally handicapped child, and it was a traumatic experience for me, since i was only 11 years old. At the time i thought that such a child had no rights, due to its obvious diminished existence. However now i think that humans in such states should be protected, sure they are something "lesser" than normal humans, but they have the right to live, and sadly they can only live if they are actively protected by others.
It is not the same case with animals. Animals do not need special treatment, since they are animals to begin with. They seem perfectly happy in farms, i trust. Of course if you think about it it is tragic what happens there, the animal "trusting" the humans, but then all along it was raised so as to be slaughtered.

 

[Kyriakos]

How do you generate this idea, but not extend it to races or non-family members? What makes a human specifically different from an animal?

It is my view that humans must be treated as fundamentally superior to all animals. It is not a view that stems from religion (i am at best agnostic), but out of an anthropocentric thought. I do not have to tell you that humans are more intelligent than the animals used by them, but even if progress in biology revealed a more complicated existence of animals, i would still not see that as a reason for them to not be used as resources. Now if we advanced that much that we could create our own food, and do our own experiements without animals, i would agree that animals should be allowed to live by themselves, as they wish.

To extend the question: I have a chimpanzee embryo in my cryogenic freezer, and I'm thinking about doing genetic experiments on it. How many human genes may I swap into the embryo before you'll no longer allow animal experimentation on it? (Assuming that I'm going to mature the embryo into a full animal)

This isn't just a hypothetical. People are currently in the process of putting human genes into apes, for experimentation purposes.


And suppose I also have a human embryo in storage: how many animal genes must I put into it before I can do experiments on the adult animal

Is this sort of experimenting allowed? In my view it can be dangerous, for reasons mentioned in my reply to Winner.

 

[El_Machinae]

Of course such experimentation is allowed. It's entirely necessary to elucidate fundamental truths and to reduce human suffering.

Well, the putting of human genes into animals is allowed. The putting of animal genes into human cells is allowed, but scientists don't turn these cells into beings - we keep them as cells.

If you're going to have a solid antheropocentric world-view, then you should be able to determine when it's no longer 'acceptable' to put human genes into animals. If you're not going to use sentience as a metric, then you'll need some other type of metric.

You have to be able to tell the difference between animals and humans if you're going to say that they're different. As BirdJaguar's early post points out, we're all descended from the same organisms - we're all related, so ancestry isn't a viable mechanism. So, what is it?

 

[Kyriakos]

Of course such experimentation is allowed. It's entirely necessary to elucidate fundamental truths and to reduce human suffering.

Well, the putting of human genes into animals is allowed. The putting of animal genes into human cells is allowed, but scientists don't turn these cells into beings - we keep them as cells.

If you're going to have a solid antheropocentric world-view, then you should be able to determine when it's no longer 'acceptable' to put human genes into animals. If you're not going to use sentience as a metric, then you'll need some other type of metric.

You have to be able to tell the difference between animals and humans if you're going to say that they're different. As BirdJaguar's early post points out, we're all descended from the same organisms - we're all related, so ancestry isn't a viable mechanism. So, what is it?

Ultimatelly it is intelligence, and moreover characteristically human intelligence.
That said, there should be an axiom-like provision for less intelligent humans (by which i mean severely handicapped) so that they can be helped to reach the apogee of their abilities. To not have this provision would either mean you were harmfull to such humans, or it would mean that you would need to value animals in a manner which personally i do not find to be pleasing.