I was a bit dismissive of the idea that they can define sentience in a useful way, but their framework is right there on page 7 and it makes a lot of sense:
> 1) possession of nociceptors;
> 2) possession of integrative brain regions;
> 3) connections between nociceptors and integrative brain regions;
> 4) responses affected by potential local anaesthetics or analgesics;
> 5) motivational trade-offs that show a balancing of threat against opportunity for reward;
> 6) flexible self-protective behaviours in response to injury and threat;
> 7) associative learning that goes beyond habituation and sensitisation;
> 8) behaviour that shows the animal values local anaesthetics or analgesics when injured.
I'd be very curious what they'd find if they tested fish and even insects. Surely certain predatory fishes would exhibit thought provoking behaviour.
It is legal to toss a rock, a small bush, a mosquito, or a earthworm into a fire in most places.
In those same places it is likely illegal to toss a live cat into a fire.
In this context sentience is about "should I care about how this clump of atom _feels_" and/or "it is possible to be unduly cruel to this clump of atoms".
In farming it mostly means that you cannot cause unnecessary suffering too much outside of the Overton window; not about recognizing bodily autonomy to cattle.
The purpose of introducing this kind of law is to continue to expand the legal recognition of what we now consider to be ethical, based on our continually expanding understanding of the world.
The cows aren’t in a position to protest in some animal rights movement, so some interested (and compassionate) humans are working on their behalf.
In the commonly accepted and emotionally charged connotation of rape, no. Inseminating a cow is likely no different to the cow than an antibiotic shot.
Look at any thread on any social media platform featuring bestiality, esp. regarding dogs or cats. The vast majority of people will explicitly use the word rape, and also call for all kinds of horrible punishments for the perpetrator.
I can think of no sensible, morally relevant difference between these instances and what happens to female animals through artificial insemination. "It doesnt hurt" isn't an excuse, because you can certainly think of bestiality that doesn't hurt the animal (or features physical pain to the same degree as artificial insemination).
Nope it was crafted that the above critters should be killed quickly and humanely and say not boiled alive or chopped in little pieces and eaten raw by humans while still alive. Chickens and other birds definitely fall under their sentient species law.
> This is an excellent report which argues that the
cephalopod molluscs and decapod crustaceans
should be included in the UK animal welfare law in
an explicit way, based on a detailed and important
scientific and philosophical framework and
evaluation, coupled with extremely helpful
suggestions for improving best practice and
welfare, and for regulating existing practices that
currently raise widespread concerns about the
welfare of these animals.
Social wasps are known to meet at least five and maybe six of those criteria; I don't know offhand of research specifically investigating the question of nociception, but their behavior certainly offers no suggestion they lack that capacity. Their behavior with regard to analgesia isn't something I know firsthand to have yet been studied, but as an amateur and an autodidact in the field I wouldn't be surprised at all if such work exists and I simply haven't run across it.
Somebody so often feels the need to say something like this and I've never understood why. What do you feel it adds to this conversation, or any? This world isn't ugly enough for you already, that you feel it will be improved by the thought of even more unthinking slaughter? Is there just not enough human cruelty in an ordinary day for your taste?
I don't know why I bother asking these questions. The next meaningful attempt I see to answer them will be the first, but who knows, maybe you'll pleasantly surprise me. I won't lie, I could use that a lot these days.
In the context of animal rights, and providing evidence of wasps being sentient as support for the rights of wasps, I am making the point that wasps are a massive net negative when existing in my immediate vicinity. We all accept the death of insects throughout the course of merely existing - we accidentally step on them, they hit our windshields, etc. I consider it a right to exist in and around my home without being painfully attacked by the fauna, and if that means I kill a hundred wasps in the 200 square feet of my yard then I accept that as the cost to insects for me to live a life unencumbered by painful attacks.
For context, I am vegetarian (no dairy but I eat pasture raised eggs) because I believe in treating animals that have a "life experience" compassionately and reducing my impact to them as much as reasonably possible. But there are limits to what I want to give mental effort to in my life because if I spent an hour a day thinking about this it would be a net negative to the world in the other ways I could be productively spending that time. And I am not convinced wasps have deep enough of a "life experience" that I am depriving them of anything meaningfully when I kill them.
I go out of my way to not kill insects whenever it's not horribly inconvenient. I always let them outside instead of killing them in the home. I'll avoid stepping on ones outside if I see them. I have saved honey bees a few times when I see them immobile and give them a drop of water so they can recover and fly off. I'm not mindlessly cruel to animals or the environment.
It's a defense mechanism, to deal with cognitive dissonance. People hate wasps, they're comfortable being allowed to hate wasps by society, they don't want to be told they suddenly need to have compassion for an outgroup, and so they double down.
For the same reason, a common response of non-vegans to meeting a vegan is a sudden compulsion to list all the "reasons" why that would be impossible for them - "Oh I could never be vegan because I like $FOOD too much / I require $NUTRIENT / I am biologically incompatible for $REASON." These excuses invariably collapse under the mildest scrutiny, but applying that scrutiny causes an emotional response and therein reveals the real reason - the mere presence of a vegan causes cognitive dissonance. To avoid feeling like a bad person, they must double down.
I have compassion for wasps as living beings. I also have compassion for myself and not wanting to be painfully stung and that I have a right to defend myself from wasp stings. I am not going to try to eradicate any wasps that don't pose any threat to me both because I recognize they're important to ecosystems but also being they're living beings. As another example, I do not hurt honey bees despite the (much lower) risk they pose to me. If I have a hive attached to my house that I am likely to disturb and cause me injury as a result, I will pay to have them relocated, but not kill them.
The difference with wasps is that their threshold for attacking me is basically me standing still and doing nothing. I have a right to defend myself from wasps and the virtual guarantee they will at one point attack me if I left them live right outside my front door. I will not pay to relocate wasp nests because killing them is an act of self defense, whereas with honey bees it's an act of convenience that I don't want them around.
> The difference with wasps is that their threshold for attacking me is basically me standing still and doing nothing.
you give yourself the lie in this statement:
> I have compassion for wasps as living beings.
Late last fall I relocated a wasp nest, myself, by hand and with no more protective gear than a pair of thin gloves, into my kitchen, where I looked after them over the course of about a week until the unseasonable early chill broke and we had a day warm enough for them to disperse and find hibernation sites.
This spring, four foundresses began nests on my house, three on the front porch and one on the power junction box around back. One of them was quite literally right outside my front door, directly above the porch light. That nest isn't there any longer, I think because of sparrows, but while it was here I walked past it most often while its foundress was present and looking me square in the face, most days at least twice: once going out to sit on the porch and read, and again going back inside.
I regret that the birds turned out cleverer, if no less vicious, than I gave them credit for; her first daughters were nearly grown, and I was looking very much forward to meeting them. This winter I mean to mount purpose-designed nest boxes with anti-pigeon spikes and whatever other such structural defenses I can devise, in hopes that next spring's foundresses will find in them a safer place to make a home where I'll again have the chance to enjoy their company.
Last year, too, I photographed a European hornet half drunk on rotting fig, with flash, from a distance of about twelve inches. I do that sort of thing as often as I can find the chance, usually from about that close if not closer.
The year before that, I climbed into the middle of the same fig tree hunting bindweed before I noticed the hundred or so bald-faced yellowjackets feasting on rotting fruit, and getting likewise intoxicated. Earlier in the year, again before realizing they were there, I had my head within a foot of a nest that bald-faced yellowjackets had built under the eave of my side porch.
The last time a wasp stung me was around 2010. My fault; she'd been blown in the car window and landed in my lap, and I put my hand on her without having realized she was there. Since then, despite taking so close an interest in their lives as I've just been at pains to describe, no wasp has yet stung me for it. No wasp has yet even tried.
I'm not really trying to change your mind here, because I am familiar enough with rationalizations such as yours to know how well that never works. But if nothing else, I suppose at least you'll never again be able to say you haven't been told.
Is it possible to have compassion and also act against that compassion. I don't like killing wasps. It gives me no pleasure. It is great that you've had the experience of not being frequently stung by them. I also have compassion for mosquitos but I'm still going to wear inspect repellent that sometimes kills them and drive my car that causes them to splatter against my windshield.
The comparison doesn't hold. Mosquitos do actually seek out and parasitize humans, and often transmit infectious diseases of serious import. Neither is true of wasps - they don't even pose the same risk of incidental contamination that many flies do, nor do they offer humans violence without significant provocation. That humans rarely bother to take the trivial effort required to understand wasps well enough to avoid offering provocation, I grant, of course. But such disregard is no less culpable for being ordinary.
> Wholesale and retail. We recommend a ban on the sale of live decapod crustaceans to untrained, non-expert handlers. For example, live decapod crustaceans can be ordered from online retailers. This practice inherently creates a risk of poor handling and inappropriate storage and slaughter methods. Ending this practice would be an effective intervention to improve the welfare of decapods.
Hmm, not a fan of this reasoning. The solution is to improve regulation of wholesale and retail, and educate consumers how to store and slaughter a crab or lobster. The same page even lists multiple ways to slaughter crustaceans, none of which require a high level of expertise and so requiring a ban on the practice is just excessive.
It's not about eating, it's about how we are treating them while they are alive.
There are rules, for instance, about how you can transport cows.
Sadly, in the UK, the transport network (both tube and trains) often (during the hot summer days) provide conditions for human transport that are inferior to the minimum legal requirements for cows.
> Sadly, in the UK, the transport network (both tube and trains) often (during the hot summer days) provide conditions for human transport that are inferior to the minimum legal requirements for cows.
Well, cows can't decide 'this transport is going to be uncomfortable or possibly dangerous, but I really want to go to the other place, so I'll deal with it'. Would you rather have uncomfortable, possibly dangerous transport or no transport? Yes, you'd rather have comfortable, unlikely to be dangerous transport, but that doesn't seem to be something the transportation network is able to offer.
I think your argument falls short when we consider the compulsion that drives most onto these metaphorical cattle trucks at rush hour in the first place.
The employment industry in our prevailing economic structure demands punctuality, often through crowded, uncomfortable and frankly, degrading means of transportation. This perceived "choice" is not a luxury but an enforced necessity, much like the bovine passenger being shipped off to slaughter, with the only distinction being, we humans "chose" this.
One could argue that the transportation network isn't able to offer comfortable and safe transit, yet it is more a matter of priorities than abilities. The ability to provide such transport exists, but the political and economic will, sadly is not in abundance.
Is it not curious that a society which can show empathy for the transportation of its livestock struggles to extend the same basic courtesy to its own kind? After all, are we not more than just cattle to the abattoir of capitalism?
Am I missing something or did I actually just stumble across a conversation where people are seriously comparing being put in a steel box on the way to being murdered in a slaughterhouse to suffering the indignity of riding in a crowded transit car on the way to work, because holy fuck.
At least the cows only travel like that once.
With more and more London companies pushing to "return to office", the "choice" is taken away from humans - if they want to be able to pay their bills that is.
I think it's more about the conditions that they're kept and transported in rather than us not killing and eating them.
> Eating something alive is wrong for it’s own reasons.
Whilst I agree in principle, there's a fuzzy line in what we consider to be alive. Bacteria certainly seem to be fair game with yoghurts being specifically sold as "live".
I don't know if animal welfare laws currently cover eating animals whilst they're still alive, though it sounds feasible.
> The review also evaluated the potential welfare implications of current commercial practices involving these animals. It recommends against declawing, nicking, eyestalk ablation, the sale of live decapod crustaceans to untrained, non-expert handlers, and extreme slaughter methods such as live boiling without stunning. It also includes suggestions for best practices for transport, stunning and slaughter.
But this reads more like additional recommendations than required by law under the new classification.
Most canines. Not that they intentionally want to eat their prey alive, but as they are pack animals, killing their prey as soon as possible so there's no risk of being injured by the prey fighting back is less of a concern for them than for solitary hunters like the leopard.
So for dogs and wolves, starting to eat as soon as possible takes precedence over making sure the prey is really dead.
Also, canines are not as strong as felines like the Tiger and the Leopard, so, it is not as easy for them to kill big prey by crushing the windpipe with their jaws like the cats do.
On the other side, they may be weaker than the cats but have far more endurance, so, a maimed prey escaping is not much of a big deal, as they are able to pursue the escaping prey for as long as they need without having to stop to rest.
Lions are somewhat of a muddy middle ground. Usually, their prey is dead when they start eating, but when the prey is really big, like elephants, they start eating it alive as it is not as easy to kill such big prey.
Crocodiles on the other hand will either swallow their prey at once or eat big chunks. It is not really a choice for them.
Of course, we must remember that animals don't really have this concept of their prey suffering. They need to eat, and that's all that matters to them.
And it may take quite a while for them to kill it. There are frankly horrifying national geographic videos of this happening, but that's just a lesson that Nature in general is quite cruel. As often as people lament about human nature, we've come quite a long way.
I think the idea is to stop eating or cooking them live. I kind of disagree with this though, seafood like crabs and lobsters taste best when cooked live…
Have there been blind taste test comparing seafood killed just before cooking vs cooked alive? That is do we have factual comparison of these two methods?
> It recommends against declawing, nicking, eyestalk ablation, the sale of live decapod crustaceans to untrained, non-expert handlers, and extreme slaughter methods such as live boiling without stunning.
I mean, that's all well and good, but if you take the "sentience" part seriously, then surely we should also consider in scope:
- bottom-trawling, dredging or other fishing practices which can casually kill large numbers of individuals
- ocean pollution
- warming oceans that may put whole populations at risk
Like, if the suffering of individuals is acknowledged, then surely reducing that suffering is important whether it's in a restaurant kitchen or on the sea-floor beneath a fishing boat. You don't get to ignore the harms your actions cause just because the effects are out of line-of-sight.
I think you stand a much better chance to mobilize society against a million-times-worse problem they've never considered that happens invisibly, far from shore, on the seabed, if you first prime them to agree that the small problem is real.
It's possible that vested interests will try to twist the narrative once it begins to turn against them: "Do your part to sort plastics into bins, not the trash! Pay no attention to the single-use packaging manufacturers generating all that difficult-to-sort, difficult-to-process waste." "Freshwater is a resource that needs to be conserved! Turn the 1 gpm tap off while brushing your teeth. Ignore the 1000 gpm center-pivot industrial farm growing alfalfa in the California desert." etc. but that's risky.
I think that recognizing that invertebrates on the ocean floor can be victims of animal cruelty is step 1 in reducing trawling, pollution, and global warming that harms those animals.
When you solve part of a problem, and it is minuscule in scope, you have still solved part of the problem. Why let that demotivate you from wanting so solve more of the problem?
Nobody is motivated to solve the bigger problem. This theatre is masking an unwillingness to face global issues. It's a political gambit. "We did something! So quit bothering us until next session."
The problem then is not doing something, it's people not caring because they've done something. So I still don't understand why you take issue with this.
I remain motivated. I applaud all of the work that has been done so far and I also demand much more. Not only do I think this is a useful perspective, I think it's the only realistic path forward. To take the alternative perspective - that anything other than massive change is worthless - is a far more effective way to demotivate people and get them to give up and clock out.
Gotta shift the public before you shift the public policy. Making the public think about other living creatures first, that's the way democracy works. They could set the laws but if unpopular with the public then they could pitch those people out and put ones in who will reverse the policy, unlike say in Russia or China who don't care about public opinion until it approaches the level of rebellion.
Parent is probably advocating for parrallel/independant actions. It's not like this specific group of researchers has to tackle all the animal issues in the world one by one, and has to set priorities on their agenda.
The reason why crabs and lobsters are sold alive is that their quality deteriorate extremely quickly once they are dead (30 minutes and they start smelling funky and tasting weird)
I've quite a bit of experience on the subject. I've caught and cooked crabs and lobsters since I was a teen.
I generally don't trust the quality of pre-cooked crustaceans.
And while I agree that it is best to reduce the overall suffering of animals, I don't think that boiling is the worst part. They die in less than two seconds.
My understanding is that precooked crustacean meat is a byproduct of shipping loss (sh*t this crab looks like it's not going to make it, let's cook it before it dies). So yeah, not the freshest.
> The worst part is the agony, slowly dying and then be thrown away or hastily cooked to be sold cheaper.
Certainly, that is worse.
There seems to be some uncertainty over the speed at which boiling will kill. From [1]:
> Scientists have found that it can take lobsters between 35 – 45 seconds to die when plunged into a pot of boiling water — and if they are dismembered their nervous system can still function for up to an hour.
This wasn't the only one, another claimed hours (and it wasn't an animal welfare page either). Difficult to track down the source of any claims though.
The speed at which boiling water kills an animal is directly related to the ratio between the contact surface and the volume.
For usual crabs and lobsters the volume is low enough and the contact surface quite large, their bodies are not sealed, boiling water enter directly inside.
I think it can take a few seconds longer for huge crabs, especially if the water volume is not so large.
If you cut the head of a lobster, I think it can suffer for an extended time before dying, but not if you cut it in half longitudinally, as this is usually done when cooking them grilled.
I've carefully observed the process, and there is no question about it.
>If you belive that they can experience pain any of these is terrible.
Sure, I believe they experience pain. I don't see these as major issues, however.
- who cares if it's the butcher or the home cook who kills the crab? I imagine the kinds of cooks buying live seafood care about that freshness (I have never bought live seafood). If they torture the food afterwards, that's on the cook, not the vendor.
- I don't have strong feelings about how the metaphoical sausage is made out back. I am aware that I am eating a once living being. As long as it's dead and properly cooked to not make me sick, what a chef in the backrooms does what they need to do.
- Same as above. They are being killed, they probably do need to take out the face before serving. I'd rather do it quick and painlessly, but I'm not on that side of the industry.
So your argument is "I don't personally experience any of this, so I'm not convinced it's a problem"?
Interesting argument. It's kinda Main Character Syndrome though. There is a counter-argument which goes: "Bad things happen even when you're not around to witness them. We should probably do something about them".
>So your argument is "I don't personally experience any of this, so I'm not convinced it's a problem"?
no, it's more along the lines of "I don't see the larger impact being imparted here". the counterarguments here haven't given me reason as of now to see it either. I just see it as some way to pretend to be nice to animals while proceeding to mass fish them to extiction regardless.
I'm reminded of an episode of Masterchef where the cooks are given live crabs to prepare a dish with (as part of the meal, not as an assistant). Most contestants left the crab alone until it was time to boil them. One starts ripping the crab apart. Gordon Ramsay had to come up to her and explain that the crab was alive and what she was doing constituted torture.
Sometimes I wonder how future generations will judge our meat industry practices once they figure out artificial meat production and also have a more accurate picture of consciousness/sentience and hence the suffering we cause. It's quite plausible that their judgement will be just as harsh, if not hasher, as how present day humans look at "savages" of the past.
I wouldn't be surprised if the next big division among generations is vegan vs. carnivores. Meat substitutes are getting better, and when/if the political subsidies for live farms ends and makes real meat cheaper then we'll see a lot of restaurants shift to those substitutes being the default. so real meat will become some sort of delicacy to have on very special occasions, for those don't simply forgo it altogether.
But then again, by then we'll be the metaphorical boomers, and a lot of our generation eats meat very casually. We may not see such reform in our lifetime as zoomers/millennials start to become the main body forming law. But probably some shifts in that direction.
So is the issue lack of education on how to humanely kill, or youtube allowing that to be broadcast and/or monitized? Neither seem to be resolved with this new law.
Bottom-trawling should be outlawed, like dynamite fishing. By-catch laws don't work, and the ecological harm is like hunting deer be putting the forest on fire.
Pollution is already illegal (but poorly enforced) and global warming should be illegal but enforcement is evem more tricky.
This new law is irrelevant to these points. Vertebrate animals were already considered sentient in UK law. So sharks, dolphins, turtles, fish etc were already covered.
The new recognition of cephalopods and decapods are is relevant to these points because they can be and are killed by these human-driven factors, and experience pain and distress.
The UK's recognition that fish can suffer doesn't seem to have forced the elimination of the UK's fishing industry. That industry intentionally catches and kills large numbers of fish but incidentally kills plenty of other kinds of animals, including cephalopods and decapods, through the extremely untargeted practices.
My understanding is that bottom-trawling is still a permitted in UK waters, and as of a couple years ago, was even still allowed in most marine protected areas.
I'd hope that this can be a foothold for future legal action - maybe someone could argue that bottom-trawling is an extreme slaughter method and then bad that
Definitely glad to see this being the direction we move though
This article highlights that their decision is based on an ability to "experience pain, distress or harm." In not all cases will that distress align with captivity.
Well-cared for dogs seem pretty happy, for example. They're in captivity but not suffering, and can live lives with social bonds, play, etc. Being separated from their humans can make dogs distressed. When one gets sick enough, euthanizing it, though sad, is probably the merciful thing to do.
If a small fish is in a large, well-maintained aquarium, is it in pain or distress because of its captivity? I've seen some very well-run aquariums, and if the fish are all suffering, it doesn't seem obvious.
I think the point is if you take their ability to suffer seriously, you don't take actions which subject it to pain or distress. But captivity doesn't strictly necessitate suffering.
But yeah, we could stop eating animals, or penning them in feedlots.
Also this whole thing leads to somewhat interesting moral questions from evolutionary perspective. Would we allow domesticated species or breeds to go extinct? Pigs might survive outside. But what about dairy cows, or various breeds of birds?
Should we just release them back to nature and possibly let them die out there?
I'm not sure there is a moral question with regards to the animals.
If we stop breeding pigs and cows we won't have the huge amount we do now. The pigs and cows don't care if their species go extinct.
Letting them go into the wild would be cruel since they aren't prepared to exist out there, but letting them die in the wild vs die in a factory farm isn't much worse of a fate.
In reality, we should stop breeding them, send existing aninals to sanctuarys (which we should fund) and be done with it. Within 20 years, all of the existing farm animals will die out from natural causes.
The real moral question is: how do we support the farmers?
We should ensure that they get their wages replaced and get assistance in moving to a less cruel industry than animal farming. There are already groups that help with this, but they'd need funds to scale their work.
Saying pigs and cows don't care if they go extinct is a bit of a weird stance. Sure nonextant cows don't care about not existing, but neither do dead cows care about being killed, so it's a bit of a weird criterium.
Do current cows care about being alive? I'd say yes, but then never being born or being killed should seem about equally bad from their perspective. If anything not existing is worse.
I think their point is that a species cannot suffer, only individuals can. Under that consideration, it seems downright hilarious to keep individuals perpetually suffering just to keep a species that didn't occur naturally anyway alive.
The whole topic becomes a straight farce once we realize that our "conservation" of these species costs us thousands of other, far more ecologically useful species. Like in the rainforest, for example, where we grow feed for cows, and pasture cows.
> In reality, we should stop breeding them, send existing aninals to sanctuarys (which we should fund) and be done with it. Within 20 years, all of the existing farm animals will die out from natural causes.
I’ve never heard (or thought of) this proposal before.
It makes sense from a harm-minimizing perspective, but in practice, even as a vegetarian who thinks the world would be better off if people didn’t eat meat, I’d be okay with the current crop of animals being eaten as the end to factory farming.
>Should we just release them back to nature and possibly let them die out there?
IMHO, not my field.
Most of the wild animals that live a time in captivity needs to learn again with human help where obtain again food before to completely return to the wild.
If domesticated species were going to be released, by extrapolation I deduce the matter would be to know to what extent did they lost their instincts (due human selection), and how they could be guided along N generations to recover it (this plant smell is poisonous), or if the above is to much to learn at least were to find the food, for what an habitat would be needed first, in companion of a high number of animals for to keep a high genetic diversity, with migration paths (climate, group mixing, etc).
Had happened before with a small viviparous fish species used in labs in 60's I thing. After being banned from experimentation, the species disappeared from labs "overnight". As nobody was breeding the fish anymore, when the habitat of the wild populations was destroyed people discovered too late that there was not a safety copy and the entire species vanished. We could have it still except by a stupid law that nobody remembers anymore. The stupid politicians that wrote it are dead by now probably or wouldn't care less about the consequences of their actions.
This lobbies simply hide or ignore that they don't have alternatives to the problems that are creating and will soon hit hard.
A species is not some kind of treasured unique token. It's not a thing. It's a process. It only seems like a thing because humans like to find patterns and give them names.
Outside of practical considerations wrt. biodiversity, why should we care? I mean, if you don't think individual members of a species are entitled to a good life, or at least life free of needless cruelty - then why would you care about their species? Conversely, if you think the species should be saved for reasons other than entertainment or practicality, then I think it only makes sense if you think individuals of that species deserve better conditions.
This is philosophical BS. A species is a species. Is a technical term [more or less] well defined that is the basis of all live sciences. Is also the product of millions years of evolution so when lost, is irreplaceable.
> Why should we care
This is exactly the problem, that animalist evangelists don't care. They do it just for the dopamine rush and the sweet money while avoiding carefully to notice the negative consequences of their acts.
Animalists have a tunnel vision focused in individuals and about not activating a particular random type of receptors (that evolved as a life-saving mechanism). They are blind or cynical about everything else. When we scratch the surface there is a lot of cargo cult ideas, tons of magical thinking and very outdated XVII century scientific knowledge. With luck we can see a thin and unstable crust of real knowledge on life sciences at most.
You've not actually answered the relevant question: Why care about species, but not about individual suffering?
There is no sensible answer, because your emotional attachment to the consumption of dead animals, and the very understandable resistance to the idea that you may have supported (and continue to support) needless cruelty of immense proportions has made you blind to "the negative consequences of [your] acts".
On the practical side, since you supposedly care so much about species: Have you ever put any thought to the idea that all the ecological destruction we cause, just to feed the 7 billion animals of a handful of species, has destroyed far far far more species than it has "saved"?
> This is philosophical BS. A species is a species. Is a technical term [more or less] well defined that is the basis of all live sciences.
On the contrary, most of philosophical BS starts from a mistaken belief that categories are a thing. They're not. They're just fuzzy selectors. A "species" is a technical term, and so is a "chair" or a "rivet". Good enough, as long as you don't zoom in on it too closely. If you do, you'll find the boundary of the category is fuzzy (and if you ask another person to zoom in with you, you'll discover your fuzzy boundaries don't fully overlap).
The "basis of life sciences" you refer to is a historical artifact. People like to categorize and give names to things. They did so according to their practical needs and tools they had. We have better tools now - particularly ones that let us see how life ticks. Genetics is pretty much upending the old taxonomy "that is the basis of all live sciences", because up until ~100 years ago, we had no first clue what's actually going on.
And if you look at what the modern life sciences discover, you'll see that organisms indeed break the usual definition of "species" in every possible way.
In a way, species not being a thing is also fundamental to evolution - after all, how would one species evolve into another, if not through intermediary forms that are kinda both, and kinda neither?
> Is also the product of millions years of evolution so when lost, is irreplaceable.
Well, yes. But that doesn't immediately make it valuable. Random googling says the estimate is of about 8 million different species of plants and animals on Earth, with barely a million classified so far. That's a lot of diversity, but losing any one of them hardly matters. Something else will take its place. It may not be exactly the same, but similar enough.
If you disagree, then ask yourself why. Why value "the product of millions years of evolution"? Could it be a practical reason (e.g. it may have evolutionary adaptations or genetic patterns useful for us)? Could it be aesthetic reasons (it's pretty)? Something else? It's good to name it.
(Personally, I mostly care about biodiversity for practical reasons - primarily ecosystem stability, and secondarily medical and biotech research applications.)
Feral hogs are a huge problem in the USA, pigs absolutely would thrive if you let them go, they are very intelligent, can eat just about anything, and learn very quickly... milk cows not so much.
> “The Animal Welfare Sentience Bill provides a crucial assurance that animal wellbeing is rightly considered when developing new laws. The science is now clear that crustaceans and molluscs can feel pain and therefore it is only right they are covered by this vital piece of legislation.”
What does this mean practically in day-to-day? Will they be banned as food items or have to be killed in specific ways only, or something else?
I don't think it's clear that any concrete policy will be set as a result of this, but it will hopefully ensure that animal wellbeing is considered appropriately in the development of the United Kingdom's society.
Likely more regulation around handling and slaughter, like the article says.
Most farm animals are also considered sentient, but obviously still eaten throughout the country, but unlike with a lobster or octopus you currently can't just start hacking at a cow or pig with a knife while it is still alive to cut off a part to eat.
It's an improvement, but if you're a vegan you'd likely want to go much further.
More humane slaughter for now. Eventually, eating them will doubtless be banned. You can tell from the sentience in the name of the law what the intent is.
It is sort of a low-effort meme that comes up any time legislation and the British do. It doesn’t appear to have a negative score so I judge it: appropriately rated.
You should make the point clearer on the sophomoric philosopher's point of view that you refer to. I've read the DFW essay in question, and found it amusing though I'm out of my depth as a philosopher. With this in mind, I asked bard for clarification and it said:
"The consensus among eminent philosophers with respect to David Foster Wallace's "Consider the Lobster" is that it is a thought-provoking and challenging essay that raises important questions about the ethics of eating animals. The essay has been praised for its intelligence, wit, and originality, and it has been cited as an important contribution to the debate about animal rights.
Some philosophers have argued that Wallace's essay provides a strong case for vegetarianism or veganism. They argue that lobsters are sentient creatures who can experience pain and suffering, and that it is therefore wrong to kill them for food. Others have argued that Wallace's essay does not go far enough, and that we should also consider the ethics of eating other animals, such as cows, pigs, and chickens.
Still others have argued that Wallace's essay is not primarily about animal rights, but is instead about the nature of consciousness and the meaning of life. They argue that Wallace's essay raises important questions about what it means to be a conscious being, and about the relationship between humans and other animals.
Whatever one's views on the ethics of eating animals, "Consider the Lobster" is a powerful and thought-provoking essay that deserves to be read and discussed.
Here are some specific examples of how eminent philosophers have responded to "Consider the Lobster":
Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher at the University of Chicago, has praised the essay for its "beautiful and moving" exploration of the "moral status of nonhuman animals."
Peter Singer, a philosopher at Princeton University, has called the essay a "powerful and important" contribution to the debate about animal rights.
Cora Diamond, a philosopher at the University of Virginia, has argued that the essay "challenges us to think more deeply about the nature of consciousness and the meaning of life."
Overall, the consensus among eminent philosophers is that "Consider the Lobster" is a valuable and important work that deserves to be read and discussed."
So if the AI thinks eminent philosopher's have consensus on DFW's lobster points, who is it that you are referring to with respect to your phenomenological comment without any empirical evidence? I can't say that bard is perfect empirically but my speculative intuition is that the quoted references are correct without taking time to verify them.
your post would be more convincing if it didn't entirely rely on the output of an AI model, something well known for being unable to distinguish correctness from sounding correct, and for hallucinating fake information and even fake sources
thus, the logical end of the sentence "So if the AI thinks eminent philosopher's have consensus on DFW's lobster points..." is "then we can make no conclusions solely based on that AI output, because of the aforementioned reasons"
I find myself frequently at an inflection point between the tyranny of time and the need for correctness in communication. The role technology plays and the toll it takes in return is particularly troubling as humans have been overwhelmed by the broad and deep flood of information coming at them in increasingly asymptotic time-scales since the publication of Infinite Jest nearly 3 decades ago, which is roughly where the time scales in Peter Pirolli's research start. See the slides linked below.
That's the phenomenological n-of-1 take. For a more empirical treatement, see Peter Piroli's slide deck here:
The self-reflective point that you make is good, but it hides the fact that what we are missing is a set of meta tools around emergent AI that allow us to build scalable collaborations of human-computer sensemaking teams - the kind Pirolli implies.
At this point, even the ability to do that batch mode overnight meaning-making, sense-making, validation and verification feedback loops would be an improvement from where we are since our accusations of scientism vs. anthropo-robotic models of mental disorders could be rendered mute by agents that could actually resolve complex models of evolutionary epistemology.
I feel like we all want the same thing: Truth. However, some of us are more tolerant of what we have now: prototypes, proxies, and n-of-1, back of the envelope verification, validation, fact-checking, if you will.
Human beings can also not distinguish between fantasy and reality (on average), it is just that we're all used to our own fantasies and can work around them. In this case, the poster did not understand why something was the case and has indicated they are out of their depth: The AI response is meant to serve as a bridge to more useful discussion. It provides a few reference points of view which gives the OP something to respond to, other than just literally every aspect of why they feel something is the case.
It's not meant as an exhaustive source that is correct about everything - we're talking about philosophy, such a source doesn't exist in the first place. Therefore, decrying something on the grounds that it is possibly not correct is the worst kind of response: If that is the bar, nobody may respond.
> Human beings can also not distinguish between fantasy and reality (on average)
this statement is prima facie untrue, and quite ridiculous sounding
it is certainly the case that humans can sometimes not tell without checking, which is it's important to verify the output is correct rather than relying on our own sometimes faulty wrongness detection capabilities
the AI output could have been completely made up, hence why it can't be relied upon for factual claims like you relied upon it for factual claims
> this statement is prima facie untrue, and quite ridiculous sounding
If it sounds ridiculous to you, I invite you to speak to some actual human beings. They believe so many things that are patently ridiculous (and frequently contradict) it's like stepping into an ocean of lies. I'm honestly surprised that this specific part of my statement is that weird to you.
> it's important to verify the output is correct rather than relying on our own sometimes faulty wrongness detection capabilities
This is a step you must take with both AI and people. Given that this is the case, I do not see a difference in value in terms of the reliability of facts. If anything, you could make a case that human imagination is more valuable (because the AI is just a mathematical reproduction of whatever imagination went into it). That said, I can't think of why it would be the case outside of a human superiority angle, which is tedious.
> the AI output could have been completely made up
Hence why I called it a springboard for further discussion and not an encyclopedia of absolute fact.
> If it sounds ridiculous to you, I invite you to speak to some actual human beings
sure, I will speak to you
below are 10 propositions, each either fantasy or reality. I invite you to try to determine which is which, then we can find out whether the comment about the average is true:
I'd also hasten to add that Nussbaum and Singer aren't exactly known for doing philosophy for philosophers. They're both public intellectuals with political axes to grind.
I’ve seen some argue that there are such key details to recreate genuine British fish & chips such as use of stale oil, and leaving battered fish too long, and that efforts to recreate such British cuisine still leaves a hurdle that improperly slaughtered fish has to be used, which may not be available outside UK.
There must be an emotional starting point where suggestions like this must have come from. I… wonder if somebody had a moment of life experience with stale lobsters.
> Zoo is an entirely ridiculous show. So in the interest of maintaining some level of professional dignity, I will be upfront and say Zoo probably won’t blow your mind so far as thematic nuance goes. But let me be clear when I say Zoo will definitely blow your mind with a chaotic swarm of kamikaze bats, telepathic lions, 70-foot invisible snakes, and so very much more.
This is a really sweeping statement. Some animals like jellyfish or corals do not have brains. Even if they are sometimes responsive to their environment, is that "perception"? Even if you think the answer is "yes", I hope you can see that it's not a trivial or obvious conclusion, and an unqualified statement about "all animals" may not be warranted.
Similarity with our own physical constitution? Similarity of behavior when we are in pain and they are in pain? And all the other cues that tell us that, indeed, they are sentient beings?
Ever watched someone work on a chickens feet that have a staph infection? Seems like the infection must hurt like hell because chickens won’t stand on it and limp around. Watching someone treat these infections you’d think chickens pretty much don’t feel pain. I don’t think your suggestion is as clear-cut as you think it is.
So you don't say that you percieve stimuli with touch, taste and pain receptors? Instead you should say that you sense it? I'm not a native speaker. That's why I'm curious about the distinction.
Yes, you perceive things you touch, because perception encompasses each and every sense. "To sense" does not mean exactly to use sensation. "To sense" can either be used as a synonym of "to perceive" or as a vaguer form of awareness. For example, you could say that you "sense danger" even when nothing is immediately threatening, if you can see various signs that all put together point to something being wrong.
There's some pretty horrifying YouTube videos of people torturing and eating live animals which I think we'd be better off banning. If you want to see examples just look up "eating live octopus". Incredibly disturbing.
I also have seen a young youtuber eat a living octopus. I was horrified.
The animal rights question has been lurking on my mind for many years, and I couldn't stand to ignore the problem any longer. I am currently reading Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer. There's a chapter on the various experiments that scientists have been doing on animals, and it's heart-wrenching (see, for instance, the documentary Unnecessary Fuss [1]).
Our treatment of animals is a moral problem that cannot be ignored.
Scientific experimentation is the least bad thing we do to animals.
At least at reputable institutes and companies, it's for a clear goal, that could not be achieved otherwise, and governed by a review board. It's trading animal harm for human harm. Furthermore, it's few animals for much good.
Simply killing an animal to eat it seems far less ethical: there are other things we can eat, and animal deaths must scale linearly with human population.
IMHO, one shouldn't eat meat unless one can look into a live animal's eyes and murder it. I eat meat, and I feel bad about it -- but we should all be honest about what it means, even if it shows up in colorfully-wrapped, no-blood, sanitized-of-sentience form.
... And at the bottom of the ethical gradient is just killing an animal without any purpose, for which I hope there's a special place in hell.
> Scientific experimentation is the least bad thing we do to animals.
I did not know (maybe I didn't want to) the ineffable amount of suffering we subject animals in vastly useless "scientific" experiments (see Singer, Animal Liberation, Chapter 2: Tools for research).
The existence of horrific science experiments doesn't prove that most science experiments are horrific. And it's a very differently regulated landscape now vs even 30 years ago.
Thanks for the precious advice. I will take note of it. The descriptions and the results of the experiments cited in Singer's book come from the experimenters themselves. Published work, publicly available.
Edit: I have talked about a "documentary" above, but it's not really a documentary, but video footage stolen from a lab doing experiments on baboons. The lab has been closed because of the videos. The fuss is unnecessary with you sir [1].
It is not that long ago folks would do vivisections of fish in university, as a teaching exercise. This insight could clearly be achieved some other way (as it is no longer done and folks still get diplomas) and universities are what I would term as reputable (certainly this one, which is top in it's specific field). An argument from reputation is weak and in my experience very often wrong, as it is in this case.
Experimentation on animals should quite simply not happen. When you torture something that you have absolute power over, this is ethically similar to torturing a child in my opinion. They have the same amount of proximate agency, and are similarly helpless.
Moral superiority does not exist. Furthermore, I find your discarding of context and the subsequent uncharitable reframing of what I said incredibly unnecessary.
It's not so much that scientific experimentation isn't justifiable, it's just that the sheer scale of suffering involved in it is staggering. Scientific experimentation requires basically a near-constant holocaust of rodents. The animals aren't even raw materials, they're basically stationery.
This is an excellent article on the subject, written by somebody who worked in a testing lab.
But we spend worm lives so that we can spare fly lives. And we spend fly lives so that we can spare rodent lives. And we spend rodent lives so that we can spare rabbit lives. And we spend rabbit lives so that we can spare pig lives. And we spend pig lives so that we can spare primate lives. And we spend primate lives so that we can spare human lives.
The only thing worse than deliberately infecting or genetically engineering animal models... is allowing disease to rampage unsolved, when you might have done something.
The world we live in is built on a mountain of rodent skulls, and while I'm uncomfortable with that, I'm more comfortable than if it were built atop a mountain of human skulls.
If you think those are disturbing, wait until you hear about all those "helping animals" Youtube/TikTok channels.
Often, the people making the video placed the animal in very dangerous or painful situations/positions, and then "help" the animal for the views... and of course all the comments are about how great the person is for being kind hearted and helping - it's really sick.
Not that I envy the ducklings thrown into the sewers for those videos, but I'd still rather be that duckling than a ferret into whom scientists have been stuffing colloidal tungsten to see if its LD50 differs from that in hamsters.
Pay attention next time you see these videos show up in your feeds - they'll probably change your mind once you realize what the game is.
These people glue things onto animals then rip them off, mutilate appendages, etc. Those videos of people "freeing" animals stuck in bear traps... how do you think they got into the trap?
So while lab testing on animals can be inhumane, it's not being done just for funsies like these videos are. The people making these videos are on an entirely different level of cruel.
I don’t really follow. There are billions/trillions of these creatures who are eaten alive every year in the wild. Why is it so significant that humans also do this?
Are we trying to make reality fit our wholesome romanced version of reality?
Not that I could stomach it myself, but I don’t really see this as much of a moral issue.
> There are billions/trillions of these creatures who are eaten alive every year in the wild. Why is it so significant that humans also do this?
Most animals eat other animals in such cruel ways because they don't have better means available to them and because if they didn't use the teeth and claws they have to catch prey they'd starve. Humans don't have to be needlessly cruel in order to eat an animal. For us, it's a choice.
I'd prefer that every hamburger I eat comes from a cow who lived a long happy cow life then died suddenly and without pain. There's no section in the meat department at my grocery store for "happy cows that died painlessly" though, so I'm left with what's available. I can accept that, but there's zero reason for me to torture a live cow and excuses like "well, a lion would have ripped it apart while it was alive" wouldn't justify my actions if I did.
By all means, eat animals! They're delicious! At a minimum though, we shouldn't go out of our way to make a living thing suffer.
> I can accept that, but there's zero reason for me to torture a live cow and excuses like "well, a lion would have ripped it apart while it was alive" wouldn't justify my actions if I did.
TBH I just see it as false platitudes since there's it's very likely the burger I'm eating wasn't some ethically raised and slaughtered cow. Sure, I didn't do it, so clearly I'm absolved of all fault there.
I know others who feel the way you do, and they're vegetarians because of it. I disprove of industrial farming practices, but I do take a lot of comfort in the fact that I, personally, am not inflicting suffering on a live animal. If I had to personally raise and slaughter every animal I ate, I doubt I'd do much meat eating.
When I have the option of choosing meat from a cow raised and slaughtered ethically I'll take that one every time, but usually I have no idea of the provenance of a particular hamburger patty and that likely does wonders for my peace of mind.
It's really hard for me to understand how you can so clearly understand how unethical all this is, and still choose to participate. You frame it as not having a choice, because there's no Wagyu/organic/"happy" beef available. Yet, almost always, there's the option of NOT eating the beef.
I find most "happy" beef is nothing more than an illusion for lazy rich people to pretend they're not doing a bad thing, but why not AT THE LEAST choose to eat that or not eat meat?
> When I have the option of choosing meat from a cow raised and slaughtered ethically I'll take that one every time, but usually I have no idea of the provenance of a particular hamburger patty and that likely does wonders for my peace of mind.
Kobe and Wagyu beef are raised happily and slaughtered ethically in order to be the quality that they are, in theory.
I believe economics certainly plays a role here.
A pound of Wagyu Chuck costs $160 at a nearby grocery store but I can get Prime Chuck from the local big chain grocery store for just $12 (a 13x price difference).
For a long time I’ve wrestled with a deep-seated but welcome, albeit persistent, unease with food.
As a species we have and continue to inflict dramatic suffering and harm upon the non-human species on our planet. We do this variably to our own enrichment, or sometimes entertainment, but a lot of it is also to our own long-term detriment.
Even making the “good choice” comes with “bad points”. I tend not to go to seafood restaurants because I don’t want to give them money. I accept an invitation to Red Lobster because a family member wants to get a bite. I order a salad, horrified by my surroundings, and find it has shrimp in it.
I love the taste of shrimp, but I no longer eat it because I don’t know how it was handled. Humanely? Did the shrimp this shrimp came from suffer eyestalk ablation? I don’t know.
So I could pick it off to the side and waste it, or I could eat it so it didn’t die in vein.
This doesn't make sense to me; it sounds like you're suggesting I can't make my own moral judgment regarding your actions – that if you think what you're doing is okay, I have to think it's okay too.
Even if morality is only about answering the question, "how should I conduct myself", and not directly about how anyone else should conduct themselves, if one of my values is alleviating the suffering of others, I will need to recognize when other feeling things are being hurt. If you're the one causing the hurt, I suppose you could say that I'm not making a "moral judgment" about your actions (but rather some other kind of assessment), but regardless I will feel a duty to intervene.
Its a little hypocritical of you to try and force this perspective on others - if this is how you feel shouldnt you simply keep quiet and make your own decisions, to avoid forcing your choices onto others?
good lord, people are discussing their ethical considerations for making their own choices, nobody is forcing you to do anything. why is this reaction so immediate in literally every discussion about anything ever
I think that, apart from psychopaths, very few people wouldn't consider torturing an animal to be "cruel". There are extreme circumstances which may justify being cruel in that way, but making a youtube video isn't one of them.
> I don’t really follow. There are billions/trillions of these creatures who are eaten alive every year in the wild. Why is it so significant that humans also do this?
That tells us little on our moral obligations towards them and, for that matter, towards our fellow humans. Animals also murder other members of their own species, is murder hence ok?
Only if you believe they're automata. Which raises the question, are humans not automata as well? If we are, then we also don't murder as we also don't have intent. But if we have intent, what's the line that separates us (other than the obvious "not the same species") from other animals that renders them mere unintentional automata and us intentional non-automata?
Also, spend a few days with any animal, you'll see they have intentions. They're just harder to discern.
> Animals don't have malice.
Likewise some do have malice. It's just harder to discern as we lack the ability to communicate with them and they lack the ability to articulate to us what their feelings are.
I agree with your analysis, but while I can’t speak for the original commenter, I think their point was probably closer to:
“If we can all have this conversation together, it’s clearly a choice for us.”
I (am not being cute when I say I) truly wish I could talk _with_ my cat. I would ask if she murdered that bug or was operating on instinct. Did she kill for sport, defense, or hunger? Was she just pissed off? I don’t know and she can’t tell me, so I can only assume she’s just doing what cats do.
Among our own species I don’t think that “benefit of the doubt” (?) is defacto transferable.
I hope this makes sense. I am enjoying this conversation in an odd kind of way. I’ve been waiting for news like this for a long time.
Though the article and UKGOV articles are from 2021?
People do it regardless. It's not a justification, but it's also not a preventative measure to say "this is bad".
But in the grand scheme of things, I don't think honoring prey is even in the top 100 issues in terms of impacts humans have on marine ecosystems. Sorry if I sound belittling, but it does sound like this whole thing is more of a symbolic gesure than a means to really resolve the issues we have caused. That's why I don't take it quite as seriously.
Because in this case - they're not being devoured so someone can survive. But for the sheer gall and thrill of it.
Meanwhile, humans have a huge empathy problem in regard to animals (and other types of species) - perhaps its most categorical failing, and the driver for the most pressing crises of our time, in fact.
Whenever people are doing too well they invent hardships for themselves. No one who is struggled find food will come up with random rules about should and shouldn't be eaten.
Another way of saying "inventing hardships" is "raising the bar". People who struggle to find food might do all kinds of horrible things in order to survive - for example at the expense of other humans competing for the same food. When it becomes easier to source food, they can raise their moral standards. Do you think that's some kind of fallacy? That the standard should be the same, no matter how hard it is to source food (or, in the context of this discussion, alternative foods)?
Morally, it's pretty significant that we make conscious decisions (as a process that we often see as distinct from the rest of the animal kingdom) to kill and eat thousands of other animals mostly for the sake of taste, rather than for the sake of necessity, which is why most other animals hunt.
We may need to try and be better than them.
I think that is the point, at least for me.
I'm no vegetarian, and I like to indulge myself with some 'pulpo a la gallega', But one thing is killing an animal because we are at the top of the food chain, and another thing is killing in the name of sport or culture.
Animals don't have the mental capacity reason about moral philosophy, so we can't really judge them for not behaving in another way. But we humans have, and yes, we can judge other humans for causing unnecessary suffering towards others.
Animals devour to survive. Humans (in first world countries at least) don't need to do that. We eat meat because we like it, not because we need to. And we have the choice to do otherwise. In fact, plant based alternatives are healthier for us (look up the China study), and for the planet (most Amazon deforestation is to grow cattle feed). There is no need for most of us to eat any animal products at all.
One of the great things we are capable of as humans is NOT doing what has always been done just because. People who think that is a justification or clever quip could be argued to be barbaric and without any creative imagination.
Because there is a difference between being eaten in the wild by other animals who survive on those and humans expoliting the wild life or marine life.
Necessity, which is also the important difference between murder and self defense.
I so wish people would think of dog or cat meat in these supposedly difficult questions. What's the difference between killing and eating a dog for survival and doing it for fun, or because it tastes good?
Orca TikTok would be a hell of a ride. I'd love to doom scroll the the kid orcas wearing their salmon hats and the adults making reactions videos to their grandkids reviving a dead trend.
Or an orca declaring "I'm Donny Rocksville and this is rock the boat!!" before him and all his friends capsize a ship off of Spain.
Orca behaviour does seem to indicate they inflict pain/misery on other creatures largely for the "fun" of it. But we don't really know, and certainly don't know whether they're capable of properly understanding that their victims are suffering.
I know we don't know for sure but it there is evidence to suggest orcas may have equal or better emotional processing than humans.
In Blackfish one of the most interesting attacks was against a trainer, Ken Peters, who was also a trained diver. The orca seemed to know the limits of the trainer and how long she could keep him underwater. When she brought him up she gave him time to breathe and compose himself before dunking him under again. She could have easily killed him if that was her intent but it didn't seem to be.
I hate to break it to you but most prey are eaten alive. I’m not advocating for it in the least, but it’s the reality.
I don’t know what is worse, living a somewhat free life in the Savannah and then one day being cruelly and viciously eaten alive by a predator or to live your life on a farm in a small pen with no freedom and then blinking out of existence at the hands of a sledgehammer to the head.
There's also the possibility that we extend our moral obligations to sentient beings that are not part of our species and not subject billions of them to unnecessary suffering at our own hands.
We do hold ourselves to a higher standard, but we typically have actual reason to do so.
Vegan moral arguments almost entirely rely on empathy. "The animal suffers therefore it's wrong".
And they miss the mark almost every time because they're literally thinking emotionally instead of logically. Human suffering has actual consequences and we're basically always worse of if we don't reduce it. Where that isn't true such as in times of war we happy promote it.
Those arguments are far weaker than you would expect because empathy doesn't actually weigh as heavily as you would expect on real social level decision making. Instead, practicality always wins and animal products are far far more valuable than the nearly non-existent harms of animal suffering.
>Vegan moral arguments almost entirely rely on empathy. "The animal suffers therefore it's wrong".
This isn't an appeal to empathy, it's a rational argument based on the mental capacity of the animal and our existing standards for ethics. An empathetic appeal would be to say, "when the octopus suffers, you feel sad, therefore because you feel sad you shouldn't cause it harm". That's not the vegan moral case. Your feelings don't matter. Speciesism is illogical and requires empathy or lack thereof. You don't feel bad when you cause the octopus harm instead of a human, therefore the octopus doesn't matter. Logically, the vegan is on perfectly solid ground.
You have it the exact wrong way around. In social decisions empathy weighs very highly and logic counts for very little, which is why tribalism is such a huge driver of human behavior, even when it causes many more living beings harm than it helps, as it does during war.
The two possibilities I can see for your alternate take is either:
Placing suffering as the absolute centerpiece of morality and then basing all your conclusions on that.
Or an argument to "common sense" in that most people will tell you causing suffering is bad. Therefore it's bad.
I don't see either of these as being great arguments.
> In fact speciesism is illogical
Why? Most of it is perfectly logical. Pigs aren't humans. It's not illogical to treat them differently from humans in very substantial ways.
Also basically nobody says "we can kill pigs because I don't feel bad when I kill them". It's almost always "I do it for the meat".
And if you watch how we treat animals we largely differentiate them based on their functional differences. Even where you get weird cultural things like India not wanting to eat meat - that originated from the need for milk, fertilizer, etc.
The only weirdness you'll see is if you challenge people on it from an empathetic standpoint. People are socially wired to say there "good people who never would made an animal suffer" so you're running into social norms more than anything there.
> Why? Most of it is perfectly logical. Pigs aren't humans. It's not illogical to treat them differently from humans in very substantial ways.
That is specifically NOT what speciesism is. Speciesism is about making moral decisions based SOLELY on a morally irrelevant (and arbitrary) category, species. This is very similar to sexism: Noone would claim men and women are literally identical, but we are against making moral distinction solely based on sex.
> Also basically nobody says "we can kill pigs because I don't feel bad when I kill them". It's almost always "I do it for the meat".
And most people say you can't kill dogs for meat. And the dog fight leader also only does it "to survive". Just because you can make up a justification does not make it morally valid or relevant.
Finally, to appeal to how "we've always done it" in a moral context is just obviously wrong.
To make it more practical:
- do you genuinely think that animals cannot suffer?
- Yes, then I hope you are morally ok with ANY and ALL things done to ANY animal, including dogs and cats. Things like bestiality
- No, then the practical question for 99.9% of people reading this is whether temporary taste pleasure is morally more important than that suffering
- Yes, then we come back around to dog fighting rings, and legal bestiality etc. Anything and everything that causes comparable suffering must be considered moral by you
Looking at land animals btw, the fewest are carnivores (e.g. look at predator vs herbivores rates) - they evolved to fill a niche, and they lack the body and intelligence (while they have a lot) to develop tools and reflect on ethics and moral that would allow them to do differently. How can one argue with animals eating other animals in comparison to our great "master species" /s at all?
But isn't your example demonstrating a tradeoff between freedom and quick painless death, whereas an octopus that lives its life in captivity only to also be eaten alive has to suffer the worst of both worlds?
YouTube is horrendous, I keep reporting couple of animal abuse videos but platform just keeps them.
Some of these videos especially with small animals like hamsters have millions of views, so I guess there is a monetary incentive for them to keep such videos.
Er, I'd say most people would find that pretty unpleasant, yeah.
Well, that is: there's two different ways a video like this might be horrifying. There's a kind of visceral horror: blood, guts, and also a kind of instinctive empathy for the suffering that the creature getting killed might be going through (great time to point out that octopuses are much more intelligent than mice and, depending on how you feel about a bunch of tricky philosophical questions, there's probably more "there there" to be suffering). Like I said, I think most people would be pretty horrified, in this sense, by a video like that.
The other kind of horror is a moral horror. And in that case...well, a cat is a cat, not a human, I don't expect them to act humanely. So in that particular moral sense the "cat eats mouse" video isn't horrifying. Whereas: I do have a moral expectations that humans should act humanely, which a Youtube video featuring people eating a live octopus violates, triggering moral horror.
Seems a lot of people with opinions on this topic have little experience crabbing, fishing, and hunting, that is, looking these creatures in the eye. I can assure you, all of them are sentient.
Low quality comment: I looked a lobster in the eye yesterday. It was definitely very curious about me - intently feeling my hand with its antennae. I tickled its antennae an it darted away. But it was back in a few minutes, watching me as I moved around.
Octopus I can understand (and is why I can't bring myself to eat them), but I've never seen crabs and lobsters demonstrating octopus-level sentience. What have I missed?
>What have I missed?
Well, that would depend on what effort have you put in to learn about crabs and lobsters? Reading the article may be a good place to start.
Great, now that this one's done they can go back to ignoring: broken housing market, ridiculous inflation measures that just make the rich richer, tax the rich, fix welfare state problems, stop selling public resources to foreign companies, focus on green energy and reducing rampant plastic packaging problems, build more houses, etc.
I don't get the point of this comment. Was this stopping these issues from being pursued? Is it wrong to pursue other objectives while these (objectively difficult) problems are solved? Or is this just sterile contempt?
It's called ranting. In this political landscape it's a pointless but cathartic exercise.
Yes, it's possible for humans to work on multiple things at one time, but the intrinsic (and terribly sad) joke is that that list of problems will _never_ get fixed, unless the social and political atmosphere experiences incredible change. And, well, humans are resistant to change, it's built into every biological species.
The anger and backlash in some of these comments is confusing to me.
I love eating meat, and would love to continue doing so without ethical qualms or anxieties.
Unfortunately the more we learn about sentience, sapience, and the horrors of animal farming (both from their treatment, and the climate impact of raising them), it's impossible to ignore that the line between "Human" and "All other animals" is not as thick and clear as we'd prefer it to be.
Vegetarians and vegans will roll their eyes, because this is table stakes for so many of them, but I personally would love to find a way to continue consuming animal protein without worries that a sentient species felt pain, harm, or fear that was unnecessary. And that the climate impact of this is somehow managed or offset, and is SUSTAINABLE.
This is both a logistical and a philosophical challenge for humanity. I'm well aware of the arguments that billions of people depend on animal protein not to starve.
But it's shocking to me to see how angry some folks in the comments are about being prompted to stop and consider the ethical impact of these choices. Some are acting as if a deep-seated religious belief is being challenged.
Donna beams at them enthusiastically. "Fascinating!" she enthuses. "Tell me, what are these lobsters you think are important?"
"They're Amber's friends," Ang explains. "Years ago, Amber's father did a deal with them. They were the first uploads, you know? Hybridized spiny lobster neural tissue and a heuristic API and some random mess of backward-chaining expert systems. They got out of their lab and into the Net and Manfred brokered a deal to set them free, in return for their help running a Franklin orbital factory. This was way back in the early days before they figured out how to do self-assembly properly. Anyway, the lobsters insisted – part of their contract – that Bob Franklin pay to have the deep-space tracking network beam them out into interstellar space. They wanted to emigrate, and looking at what's happened to the solar system since then, who can blame them?"
Cows and chicken has got to be sentient if they go by that definition, but since they cannot give up their steak and chicken nuggets, they will conveniently omit them from the list
There's no sane way to acknowledge that these animal are sentient and should therefore not suffer and still be ok with farming and eating them. In practice, the vast majority of animal products come from conditions that definitely cause suffering.
BUT, even a close to perfect farm would still cause unnecessary suffering, because eating animals is unnecessary. The same unnecessary as dog fighting, bestiality or eating cats, just for reference.
Yes. Just have to handle them in ways that are according to their welfare including non-painful way of killing them. Like we do with other animals in food production.
> The review also evaluated the potential welfare implications of current commercial practices involving these animals. It recommends against declawing, nicking, eyestalk ablation, the sale of live decapod crustaceans to untrained, non-expert handlers, and extreme slaughter methods such as live boiling without stunning. It also includes suggestions for best practices for transport, stunning and slaughter.
Good grief. I wish we could skip the incrementalism for once and just put an end to all animal slaughter, extreme or not.
> Good grief. I wish we could skip the incrementalism for once and just put an end to all animal slaughter, extreme or not.
At some point - we have to eat something that is alive. Even plants react to being damaged in intentional and measurable ways (including trying to repair themselves, signaling neighbors of the damage, and passing nutrients to each other in response). I think it's impossible to ditch incrementalism, because EVERYTHING we eat is already somewhere on that sliding scale of "something alive that is trying to stay that way".
I am in favor of reducing the harm I am able to, while still acknowledging that simply existing requires that I consume resources (And those resources have to be a living thing, because humans are consumers... not producers). Those resources could have gone to keep another living thing alive, but I am using them. At some point, I expect to die, and it will be something else's turn.
---
Also - It would be really, really cool if we could get the whole "KloraDerm" thing going from "Old Man's War" by John Scalzi.
Sure - I won't argue that I emotionally understand and relate much more strongly to the pain and suffering of animals that are biologically similar to me.
I also agree that minimizing that pain is a reasonable goal, and worth taking steps to do at most every point we can afford to (and realistically - we are fairly rich as a species, we could be doing better).
I don't particularly agree that forgoing meat consumption entirely is the right call - although reducing it likely is (especially if you live in the US).
I also don't think that just because you happen to be eating a plant, you're off the hook - I think monoculture production and certain farming practices (see: palm oil) are causing suffering on similar scales.
In my opinion - we should be trusting large conglomerates less with our foods (whether they're plant or animal) and doing more production locally. Acknowledging and respecting where the food you eat comes from is a huge step up from where many folks are right now.
You’re right on all fronts. I’ll add that there’s a human element to both the plant and meat consumption story: in both cases, harvesting and slaughtering, the dirty work is often done by migrant workers with very little enforced legal protections. They work in terrible conditions, for low pay.
We can't even really define what it is to be a thinking mind, let alone determine what it means to suffer. We just relate more to (some) animals than plants and imagine empathy from their position. Its just another form of species-ism to protect the animals but not other life.
Stress and harm are loaded words for stimuli here. Parts of plants can be triggered by a stimulus to begin emitting chemical signals that govern growth, senescence, etc elsewhere in the plant. They do this in response to a wide range of stimuli, not just "harm". Which stimuli feel "bad" to the plant? How would you know?
It's all very stimulus-response for a plant. If things responding to inputs means they can feel or think, then I suppose single cell organisms and computer programs and doorbells count.
Your brain develops using an incredibly similar system of chemical signals (hormone distribution).
Also - almost every plant out there is capable of repairing damage to itself, which I would take as fairly strong evidence that it prefers to not die. That repair is a complicated and involved process as well, and often includes adaptations that attempt to prevent further damage (ex: Lots of plants signal neighbors when eaten, and those neighbors chemically adjust to change how they taste to the animal eating them).
I'm just saying...
I can vividly picture the alien farting out a cloud of pheromones that essentially say "It's all very stimulus-response for a human - they just begin emitting auditory response to a wide range of stimuli" before he eats them.
What part of the plant suggests that it "wants" anything instead of just being adapted by force of natural selection to respond in certain ways?
There is nothing in plants that should make us believe they can do anything like thinking, certainly short of sentience. They have no neurons, or anything resembling neurons, only cells locked into a grid that behave in deterministic ways. It's not impossible to imagine a system that thinks using chemical signaling alone, but what makes you think plants have this quality?
They respond, for example, to light. The cells can detect light, and this induces chemical signaling that directs the plant on internodal length and direction. We could make a robot or something that does this. Could we say such a thing "wants" light? Probably not, except as a convenience of explanation out of personification.
Or, to summarize, these simple stimulus-response effects are not sufficient to justify a belief that there is intelligence. I suppose it's argumentum ad absurdum.
> They respond, for example, to light. The cells can detect light, and this induces chemical signaling that directs the plant on internodal length and direction. We could make a robot or something that does this. Could we say such a thing "wants" light? Probably not, except as a convenience of explanation out of personification.
Let me counter: I do not believe you have sufficiently proven that we ourselves are anything more than chemical signaling mechanisms.
We happen to not understand the signals that the plants are making (we really are only just barely scratching that surface - but we KNOW plants use VOCs to communicate both among themselves as well as much more distinct species like insects: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3405699/)
We just don't have nearly as much empathy available because that experience is so foreign to our understanding.
----
To follow - I find it particularly interesting that people still cling so dearly to your argument as we watch machine learning tackle and overcome many behaviors we considered uniquely human. Those machines can talk just like us, their signals mirror the complexity of our own (and are much more complex than those we currently understand from plants). Does that signaling complexity now mean that it's alive?
I certainly don't think so - I would still call a plant more alive than that machine (at least right now, things are shifting fast here). Yet that machine is using a fairly simple system to process, internalize, and then create complexity that mirrors your own.
I guess I'm saying that I, personally, don't find your moral argument nearly so clear as you seem to be implying that it is. There is no easy out. We are dealing with shades of grey.
but have you had snow crab legs? this also seems like it could quickly become a freedom of religion debate, if your religion tells you to have a BBQ, you have a BBQ
Yes, but it's a lot easier to get a complete amino-acid profile in your proteins by eating things that were alive (e.g. animals), than to get it from even a balanced grain diet.
This is especially important in developing children.
It isn't at all evident that forcing kids onto a meat-free diet is the best path forward for society as a whole.
Could we make sugars or fats straight from CO2 and Water? Just wondering could you theoretically make either from some process that does not involve plants, bacteria, protist or fungi? Enzymes are probably fair game.
Sure - I think there's a possible long game here where we're able to technologically engineer our way back to producer status.
Bio-engineering is one route (KloraDerm), but I could see alternative routes that are essentially just chemical/material sciences.
I think it's probably an incredibly complicated supply chain we'd have to really work through to make sure you can synthesize all the required components without going through something living, but we know that producers exist - so there's hope.
Sure... CO2 capture => Fischer-Tropsch => wax => fatty acid => food. The CO2 capture part is new, and presumably one would use solar now, but the rest was attempted during WW2.
E-fuel plants do this for synthetic aviation fuel.
For one, it's incredibly hard to believe that anyone genuinely believes that "killing" a carrot and killing a dog are in anyway morally similar.
Secondly, this is utterly IRRELEVANT IN PRACTICE! Your consumption of animals causes far, far, far more plant "deaths" than if you actually just ate plants. BY YOUR OWN LOGIC you should be vegan. Of course, you can also use your logic to go the other way. If it's all the same morally, might as well start eating humans. Us white people have got some experience with that.
> I am in favor of reducing the harm I am able to
Wonderful, that makes you vegan. As in, that is the actual (common) definition of veganism: Reduce suffering and death as far as practicable and possible.
> At some point - we have to eat something that is alive.
Not necessarily as we could wait for living things to die naturally and then consume them (maybe becoming fungus-like in the process). For livestock, that could possibly create a loophole of farms having conditions that cause a premature death.
With plants, there's the option of following fruitarianism and just eating plant material that falls off such as fruit. (Fruit is unusual when it comes to being consumed as it arguably "wants" to be eaten so that the parent plant can better distribute its seeds). There's problems with following such a fruit heavy diet though and I don't think it's a good idea by itself.
Alternatively, we could go the Soylent Green route?
> With plants, there's the option of following fruitarianism and just eating plant material that falls off such as fruit. (Fruit is unusual when it comes to being consumed as it arguably "wants" to be eaten so that the parent plant can better distribute its seeds). There's problems with following such a fruit heavy diet though and I don't think it's a good idea by itself.
I guess this is why it's so complicated (and you can't get off the scale). From the perspective of the fruiting plant - I agree with you, it doesn't mind if you eat some fruit. From the perspective of each seed, they'd probably rather you didn't.
And interestingly - if we're willing to go multi-body (since we're admitting that eating fruit is bad for some seeds, but possible advantageous to the species as a whole) I think you'd have to make the same argument for herd animals: It might be bad for a single deer to be eaten, but it's pretty good for the herd if someone happens to remove the weakest single member every now and then.
Anyways... I'm rambling at this point. Not sure why you're getting downvoted but long story short: I hope people acknowledge and respect the things they eat (plants, animals, or other), I'd love to see us move back a step from the automated and industrial production methods we're using right now (Both animals and plants - monoculture crops are a real ecosystem killer) and work to make food something that is local and folks can connect with.
> From the perspective of each seed, they'd probably rather you didn't.
I recall that some seeds are designed to pass through the mammalian digestive system and thus get deposited with some fresh manure in which to grow. Maybe they enjoy the experience.
> you'd have to make the same argument for herd animals: It might be bad for a single deer to be eaten, but it's pretty good for the herd if someone happens to remove the weakest single member every now and then.
That's a good argument for free ranging or wild animals, but it's more complicated with farmed animals. If we breed animals just to eat them and select for the traits we desire, then it could be considered bad for that species although it certainly increases their numbers.
I just think attempting to apply a moral imperative to how species happen to have adapted to their niche is hard.
Rabbits work around their prey status by rote production - which means if nothing eats them, eventually they go through a large starvation event once they hit the carrying capacity of their habitat.
Chickens are arguably one of the most successful species on the planet right now.
---
I am in favor of free ranging animals, I agree that breeding animals moves them more into a niche that requires humans to exist - but I'm not convinced that's bad for them as a species (at least not as long as humans exist, and as a human that's my current preference with some admitted bias).
I think globally - monoculture crops are often also a huge risk, and find that they are destroying other animals indirectly (decimating the population of insects, small mammals, and birds in the area).
So I think the problem is hard, and that responsible stewardship likely means less industrialization in agriculture across the board (both plant and animal) and more local production of food. Intentional hunting grounds reserved for wild populations like turkey and deer (at least in my area) are very much a part of that, so I'm also with you on wild animals when it makes sense.
The plant matter of a fruit is still alive, though. At some point you're drawing an arbitrary line that separates the living things that are okay to eat from those that are not.
Going to the cellular complicates matters. That'd probably mean that you'd have to wait for fruit and veg to go mouldy before eating it and then do we consider fungus to be alive?
Like I said, arbitrary lines. The only way to sidestep it completely would be if you could directly synthesize sugars, lipids, and proteins. Then you could sustain people killing-free.
The difference is in the scale of the slaughter and the actual slaughtering being dissociated from the eating for many of these animals, such that a disproportionate minority takes on the task of killing for a majority of meat consumption. This has recorded known harmful effects on the people doing the killing as well as the community in which the killing is done, in a way other large industrial processes do not.
As an aside: this is a gotcha question and doesn't fundamentally address the position that animal slaughter is cruel. It relies on an obviously false rhetoric that something performed by non-sapient creatures in an environment where the only way to survive for some creatures is largely through the personal killing of other creatures is morally equivalent to an environment where sapient creatures who have wide dietary availability make the choice to consume the flesh of another creature that has been usually killed for them.
I don't understand. You're saying the problem with eating animal meat is not that an animal has to die, but in who does the killing? So it'd be better if each person had to kill their own food, even though it would almost surely result in a lot more waste, and thus a lot more killing?
>As an aside: this is a gotcha question and doesn't fundamentally address the position that animal slaughter is cruel.
I don't think so. If you think killing animals is cruel in itself, then you have only two logically consistent options: you either a) change your lifestyle to ensure you don't kill any animals whatsoever, or b) accept that some cruelty is inevitable and set some standard of acceptable cruelty for yourself. Anything else is a symptom of cognitive dissonance.
> If you think killing animals is cruel in itself, then you have only two logically consistent options: you either a) change your lifestyle to ensure you don't kill any animals whatsoever, or b) accept that some cruelty is inevitable and set some standard of acceptable cruelty for yourself.
Neither of these are addressed by equivocating this to wild animals predating.
> I don't understand. You're saying the problem with eating animal meat is not that an animal has to die, but in who does the killing? So it'd be better if each person had to kill their own food, even though it would almost surely result in a lot more waste, and thus a lot more killing?
I don't know if it's better if each person had to kill their own food. I'm not making a prescription on what people should do. I am only pointing out that there are real consequences to the current way we consume meat in a way that damages people and communities in a way that could be described as cruelty.
>Neither of these are addressed by equivocating this to wild animals predating.
Yes, because the question is about how "cruelty" is defined. You can either say killing in the wild is cruel or not cruel. If it's not cruel, then how is industrial slaughter cruel? If it is cruel, then one can pose the question of whether it's possible to slaughter industrially humanely.
>I am only pointing out that there are real consequences to the current way we consume meat in a way that damages people and communities in a way that could be described as cruelty.
Umm... Sure, but I think avalys was asking about cruelty to the prey, not to the predator.
> it'd be better if each person had to kill their own food, even though it would almost surely result in a lot more waste, and thus a lot more killing?
That's only true assuming people would keep up their meat consumption levels, which I seriously doubt.
These are still gotcha questions that don't fundamentally address the concerns of the original poster. Either address my points in good faith or just say you disagree with the position and provide your own reasoning; these questions feel clever but they're intellectually shallow.
They are genuine questions. You want to stop all animal slaughter and insects are animals so we need to stop killing insects but I have no idea if that's achievable.
Humans don’t have to do it. Just like widespread rape in the animal kingdom and in human history doesn’t give me moral justification to do it today.
Though even before getting that far, humans are participants in one of your scenarios and not the other. What other animal behaviors justify your human behaviors? Can any of them? Does another intelligence have moral justification in farming humans on the same basis?
There are some absurd reductios here that you’d have to sign off on.
This is kind of an old discussion. I'm perfectly happy eating meat but equally recognise that vegan diets are perfectly feasible for almost everyone. If not vegan, then vegetarian (preferably with a premium on animal products to reflect their impact etc).
A nice example of this is omega 3 and similar: it is actually synthesised in kelp and works its way through the food chain to us with fish as an intermediary. It doesn't have to be that way, it just is right now. B vitamins are a similar story.
"Animal products" yes (with the caveat we're getting good at genetic engineering and also vat-growing meat cells); "flesh" no; "poke their eyes out and boil them alive" absolutely not.
Whichever nutrient is required for smug satisfaction of beating nature at its own game and being so far beyond the food chain that it might as well not be a thing.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant 'a humane execution'. Requiring a human execution before eating meat is a little extreme.
hahaha, man, I need a new keyboard. Yes. Humane. I'm not demanding a human sacrifice. I'm just going to leave the typo up for posterity, hopefully more folks get a kick out of it.
Humans have moral agency whereas animals have little or none. Animals must listen to their instincts, whereas humans get a choice.
That choice is more important to some people, less important to others.
This depends on which animals people consider to be moral subjects and therefore worthy of moral consideration, rights, and protections.
Some people (vegans) consider all animals as moral subjects. Some people (pescatarians) may consider most animals as moral subjects, but not certain ones like fish.
Most people consider some animals like dogs, cats, and horses, as moral subjects, and not others like cows, chickens, and pigs.
These definitions are unconsciously arrived at by sociocultural factors, but some people consciously arrive at them.
Animals are pretty brutal as well. My neighbor has free range chickens. The other morning, I woke up and looked out in my backyard, and there were 7 dead chickens strewn about my property. They were all over the place, it was a mess.
So, I checked my cam for the next couple nights, and found a fox strolling across the property with a chicken in its mouth. I figured they'd eat one, but nope... 7. And he's been back for more since.
We purposefully choose to torture animals that we breed and keep in captivity and that would otherwise not be alive if not for our intervention. And we could easily choose to limit their suffering at minimal expense to ourselves! But we choose not to, for reasons I simply cannot comprehend.
Animals in the wild obviously do not have any such choice.
1. Moral agency: Humans can reason morally, and (at least in theory) strive to act morally. Lions are not capable of that (afaik)
2. Necessity: Lions have no supermarkets. 95% of the people reading this can most definitely go vegan (and 99% vegetarian). Just like how self defense and murder are different.
3. Non-existence: 99% of the animals we slaughter we also artificially bred into existence. It's a false equivalence, because those animals wouldn't even exist
4. Practicality: Regulating wild animal feeding behaviour would be stupendously difficult. A vegan world on the other hand is not just possible, but also better for everyone. In zoos, where we can control "wild" animals, we already reduce suffering by not feeding live prey.
Surely there are nature murders more brutal than lobster boiling? Does the lobster even have overheating sensors? Seems pretty out of spec for range of lobster environment.
Humans aren't being boiled in their natural environment, yet our temperature senses react to it. Why do you suspect lobsters to work fundamentally differently? They are exposed to different temperatures in their natural habitat, just as we are.
Are land animals around fire much? Humans have been around fire a lot more since a short time ago, but aside from that fire is a very rare thing for most animals to encounter.
Well, for example, I believe that exposure to dangerous levels of nuclear radiation does not induce pain in humans. It would seem that mammals, at least, have encountered fire enough as an evolutionary pressure to develop a specific reaction to it. I’m having trouble finding a video of a lobster walking near an open fire, it would be instructive to see its reaction. Does anyone own a lobster as a pet and is willing to perform an experiment for us? You don’t need to hurt the lobster.
> It would seem that mammals, at least, have encountered fire enough as an evolutionary pressure to develop a specific reaction to it.
What specific reaction are you referring to? Fire isn't the only natural source of heat. Why is evolutionary pressure from fire required for animals to evolve a sense of "something is too hot"? Why is it not sufficient for animals to evolve this due to e.g. exposure to sunlight, with the same mechanism being triggered through fire?
Subjectively, as a human, it seems like the pain of being burned is qualitatively a different type of sensation from e.g. being warmed by sunlight.
So the lobster feeling that they should ideally move to cooler water makes sense. Evolutionarily it wouldn’t surprise me if they don’t feel like they are in an emergency situation in the same way that a human would if they are standing in a fire.
I think you misunderstood me, or I just wasn't explicit enough. I was talking about humans being burned by natural things other than flames. From my (admittedly limited) experience, being burned by a flame or by a hot surface or a hot liquid isn't qualitatively different. Even sunburn (the aforementioned exposure to sunlight) feels similar if bad enough.
Got it, yes-- I definitely agree that a sensation can be cross-triggered by conditions other than the evolutionary pressure conditions.
Is there a "dangerous heat" environmental candidate for lobsters that we can speculate could be sensory-cross-triggered by boiling water? Underwater lava?
My response is an attempt to summarize lobster-pain-experience info I just gleaned in this thread from a much more thought-provoking and lengthy article already linked to in another comment called "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace.
Lobsters definitely feel pain at least as a stimulus responding to extreme heat.
Lobsters have nociceptors, special pain-receptors that are “sensitive to potentially damaging extremes of temperature, to mechanical forces, and to chemical substanceswhich are released when body tissues are damaged.”
Humans have similar receptors. Consider if you touch an extremely hot stove and remove your hand before you even realized what happened. That (temperature) pain stimulus is sent to your spinal cord (not your cortex) and then responds by moving your hand before you are consciously aware (through the cortex) of what is going on.
Lobsters do not have anything like the cortex which is involved in pain interpreation for humans (and also pain supression like in extremely traumatic events where a person doesn't feel any pain immediately after losing a limb).
The lack of a pain suppression mechanism is a little scary to think about in the context of being boiled alive, but this could potentially be because lobsters' experience of pain is so radically different from our own that they may not even have use of a pain supressor.
There are interesting anecdotes about people who received frontal lobotomies experiencing pain as a neutral experience that is neither bad or good. As in they feel pain from, but it is not perceived or interpreted as "bad" by them.
Also in general, lobsters are unusually sensitive to temperature among invertebrates, responding to temperature changes in lab studies as small as 1°, and their seasonal migratory patterns also seem to highly motivated by finding their preferred temperatures.
If you drop a lobster in a container of room temperature sea-water, the lobster just kind of sits at the bottom looking for the darkest most isolated space if there is one (normal behaviour) vs boiling sea-water you will notice lobsters trying to use their claws to not be fully submerged, push off the lid, etc... in the 35-45 seconds it takes for boiling water to kill them.
p.s. I hope this response is useful, I wrote it partially to let the mentioned article I just read sink in for myself.
If I can jump in a cage with a wild tiger, or a giant pot of boiling water, hands down I'll die by tiger.
Nature has a lot of horrible deaths, don't get me wrong.
But boiling sensory wise (at least for humans) is similar to immolation (being burned alive) and it unfortunately takes longer to actually kill the person than burning them alive.
Tigers naturally kill prey quickly to avoid injury, often going for the neck.
Many animals will feed on dying preys that stay alive suffering for hours. Literally being eaten alive. I don't think boiling a lobster is even remotely comparable.
Before even getting there, how about putting an end to all human slaughter? Call me old fashioned but I like humans. American government and presidency (by both parties) have been pro war and pro weapon sale for the last 5 or 6 decades by now.
It's not arbitrary. Human > Other Animals, no sane way to discuss anything else really. So start with the more important one then move to the other. Don't try to hold two watermelons in on hand.
Why is one dependent on the other? Why must we start with one, instead of tackling both at the same time? Why not use both my hands to hold the two watermelons at the same time?
It's not, but I find it distasteful when people are feeling sad for the crab being boiled, while children are dying of hunger in Yemen because of politicians and their enablers. If we can't figure out the first it'll be impossible to figure out the second. Similar to how you can't neglect your own kids and take care of the neighbor's at the same time.
You know what's distateful? Acting like we can only ever do one thing, and we must necessarily do that one thing to the end before we start another. I'm capable feeling sad for both dying children as well as for animal cruelty - both at once! Who will it help if I do not feel sad for crabs being boiled? How many children do I save?
I think you're missing the point and slightly arguing outside of the main point I initially made, which I think you understand already: It's more about how attention rather than ability of feeling sad or compassion towards animals.
> It's not, but I find it distasteful when people are feeling sad for the crab being boiled, while children are dying of hunger in Yemen because of politicians and their enablers.
The issue why I'm "missing the point" is pretty simple: you say we can only pay attention to one of the two things, but you haven't shown that to be the case. You're just saying that's how it is.
I know you believe that attempting these things sequentially will save more human lives. But until you've shown me that we really can only pay attention to one of the two, sequential attempts will only prolong animal suffering, not shorten human suffering!
I'd bet money that most people that vegan or vegetarian are also far more active about human suffering. It makes sense that someone that believes we should (and can) act to reduce/end suffering would apply that concept universally, rather than selectively.
But just so you realize, your argument sounds EXACTLY like all the right wingers that suddenly care about all the poor americans once immigrants enter the discussion. Most people that make these arguments care about neither, all they care about is not having to actually do anything and still feel moral.
Anecdotally, there's a certain armed conflict in Europe, where peace movements of any kind are in the absolute minority – on either side. (Oh, progress, I guess…) It's not just the US.
It's funny you're phrasing it this way, because none of the "peace movements" can answer the most simple question: How do you ensure peace after whatever treaty you're putting in to "bring peace"? If Russia wins literally anything, even a single square meter, why would they not start the next war in a couple of years? Or will you then stop "calling for peace" yourself?
And the only way to sort this out is by fighting to the bitter end, until either of the two biggest countries in Europe runs out of men? (This, BTW, may take some time, while we're maximizing casualties.)
Force an armistice onto both sides instantly, spare a few 100K lives and a few economies, sort things out. This could have been over for more than 400 days. Seems pretty simple.
You are aware, that H. was actually disappointed that he didn't get what he wanted, namely war? (France and the UK would have missed on getting an entire cycle of the arms race into the field.)
Well, surely you saw this coming, but I'll ask my previous question: how do you guarantee peace after the armstice? Why shouldn't Russia attempt the same thing again in a couple of years, since the war would have netted them territory (you're not mentioning Russia retreating from invaded territory)?
> you're not mentioning Russia retreating from invaded territory)
You are aware, you are implying things. (By the same means I could suppose you want the invasion to succeed a 500K dead later, since you weren't ruling out this chance explicitly.)
Nobody can guarantee a specific outcome to the conflict.
Back to the conversation that was happening, it was about hypothetical peace treaties. Are you going to answer the question about your suggested treaty? It was a reasonable question based on your phrasing and you're deflecting. It wasn't some kind of made up gotcha, like your deflection was. And if you won't answer it then you've gone from conversation to trolling.
I guess I'll just add one to the number of "people who say they want peace, but can't answer the most simple question about keeping peace". One day I'll receive an answer, I'm sure!
And I'll add 1 to the number of people who say, "because I can't guarantee the outcome of a political process, I'll go for brute force, because I can't guarantee the outcome of this, as well." Where is the logic to this?
(Isn't this even more at random? How does this contribute to the articulation of the will of the people? Isn't this, why we have such a thing as a political process in the first place? The only thing guaranteed will be slaughtering en mass. Also, if "peace" is just exhaustion, the next round of the conflict will be just around the corner, probably at an even larger scale, compare WWII following WWI. Where is any answer in this? Enforcing treaties – there had been the Minsk agreements, there had been Turkish diplomacy early on – and armistices and following through on this, is, however, at least some answer to the problem. On the other hand, if you reserve for strategic action "beyond politics", this is what you will get eventually. The answer, if there is any, is in removing the strategic option from any armed conflict.)
I am not talking about brute force. Haven't you noticed how I've never said a word about attacking Russia? Surely you can't be saying that defending your own country is "brute force" in any way. You're projecting and strawmanning in every reply.
Funny you should mention the Minsk agreements. Why did Russia not keep to them? Why should we trust them with an armistice considering they already broke the Minsk agreements?
The kicker is: We know that appeasement doesn't work. We know that if Russia gains any territory, they will attack again, and that if they don't the chance of another attack is massively smaller (since the population will not see the current war as a victory, making it political - and most likely literal - suicide). But somehow that doesn't matter to you, just like it doesn't matter to you what happens after the armistice.
You may also note that Zelenskyy was running and was elected on a ticket to stick to Minsk II and fixing relations with Russia, and this wasn't followed trough (eventually appeasing Azov, instead). The conflict is not just the invasion, rather it's the final escalation after years of built-up towards this. Several millions were already displaced before, fleeing to either side. But, apparently, this conflict served some purpose…
But I really don't want to discuss particulars. We may keep in mind, for there being a conflict, there must be several, incompatible perspectives on the subject in question, there have to be "contested concepts". This question of concepts has to be addressed and to be resolved, and this is a political agenda. The question is really, do we want to address the underlying conflict or just the armed escalation, or just a particular of several steps of escalation? However, it must be made clear, beyond any doubt, that armed conflict doesn't resolve anything.
BTW, a story from my own backyard: Austria and Italy were in a state of conflict over the question of South Tyrol for decades. Even with basic treaties (Gruber–De Gasperi agreement), minority protections and autonomy in place, things were escalating steadily. Austria handed out passports, there were dedicated news segments in public broadcasting on a regular basis, and this eventually escalated in tolerated (or even sponsored) terrorism in the late 1960s, which wasn't especially unwelcome on the Italian side in the name of the "strategy of tensions". This was going nowhere. However, in order for Austria joining the EU, this conflict had to be dissimulated and eventually resolved, and both sides managed to crack down on the structures supporting the conflict. And, voila, nowadays, this isn't even a topic. In hindsight, it's just a ridiculous episode. The younger generation probably isn't even aware of this having been a thing.
Sorry, I'm not aware that armed conflict would have solved anything after WWII, with the possible exception of the Cambodia intervention (but this was a short lived action with intensive political reconstruction following up to this.) To me, this just seems naive.
Regarding Austria–Italy as a potential parallel: There are notable differences. There had been an autonomy granted and minority language and cultural rights asserted by Italy, and Austria was the official power of guaranty for the autonomy. Neither of this was ever gained in the Ukraine (some of the rights granted in the previous constitution were eventually revoked). The land in question was the Southern part of Tyrol, with a predominantly German speaking population. (This really goes back to the 19th century and a (failed) military action serving the purpose of a Southern diversion in the greater context of the German unification on the one hand – i.e., blame Bismarck –, and the Italian unification on the other hand, and the territory was eventually granted to Italy in the treaty of St. Germain in the aftermath of WWI, as this had been a promised price for Italy switching alignment.)
I'm not going to respond to another of your comments until you directly address and answer my central question. You've danced around it enough, and have tried accusing me of more than enough things - just come out and answer it directly, or I will assume you are a (possibly paid?) troll and stop engaging.
HOW DO YOU ENSURE THAT PEACE IS KEPT AFTER THE ARMISTICE? WHAT KEEPS RUSSIA FROM ATTACKING AGAIN?
Can't you see there is no special problem? Even after a military conflict, you've to either actually go into that country and start an intensive political reconstruction (e.g., Germany & WWII – which is not an option here, because of the nuclear scenario) or you have to deal with the problem of resurgent conflicts (in the past 70 years or so, they always did pop again).
You were contesting the need for a political solution. So, where is your special, proven way? On the other hand, if there's need for a political resolution, why have the military interlude, at all?
If you are ignoring the conflict, assuming, there's just a bad actor and everyone else is just in the right, you're actually part of the problem and the resurgence will be nearly guaranteed. As can be observed in all those amazingly long-lived zones of conflict, where only instability is stable, we've established after WWII and we're constantly adding to. It simply doesn't work.
Exactly. People generally have not yet moved passed fucking genghis khan way of thinking yet, and some people want to seriously discuss options for a more "humane" way to kill and eat some animal, all to satisfy their own ill-defined feeling of doing "better".
That would be good[0], but doing it all in one step is about as plausible as going up a mountain in one step.
[0] while the question "what even is this sentience thing anyway?" remains open, animals-as-food is not environmentally sustainable for 8e9 humans, so ending that is still good even when the ethics has a layer of indirection from suffering
Is kingdom animalia some magical line in the sand? Are we not okay with killing mosquitoes, bedbugs, or other (harmful) pests?
The world is much more continuous than discrete, and any hard boundary is going to be arbitrary. I would guess the current median line (meaning 50% of people would be okay with vs against killing) is somewhere around small rodent, and unlikely to deviate far from that in the near future.
I don't as I don't believe in vegan diets as being equivalent to carnivorous diets. I think meat should be significantly more expensive especially in the US for environmental reasons but I don't think humans can be healthy without animal proteins.
Concentration depends on what you eat, and iirc you don't need that much protein anyways, if you aren't training/body building.
Tofu has about half the amount of protein per gram then ground beef, tempeh about 85%.
If you really crave protein tvp has between 50 and 70% per gram (absolute, not relative to ground beef) protein depending on the brand. You still need to hydrate it and cook it properly with a good marinade, but then it can pretty easily beat ground beef or even chicken breast in protein by weight.
Amino Acid Profile: Proteins are composed of amino acids, and the composition of amino acids can vary between animal and plant sources. Animal proteins tend to be "complete proteins" because they contain all the essential amino acids that the body cannot produce on its own. Plant proteins, on the other hand, may be "incomplete proteins" as they may lack or have lower levels of certain essential amino acids. However, by combining different plant protein sources (e.g., legumes with grains or seeds), vegans and vegetarians can achieve a complete amino acid profile.
Digestibility: Animal proteins are generally more easily digested and absorbed by the body compared to plant proteins. This is primarily because animal proteins have a higher biological value, meaning they contain all the essential amino acids in the proportions needed by the human body. Plant proteins, especially those from whole food sources, may be slightly less digestible, but this can be improved by cooking, soaking, fermenting, or sprouting certain plant foods.
Fat Content: Animal proteins often come with varying amounts of saturated fats and cholesterol, depending on the source. Plant proteins, on the other hand, are typically lower in saturated fats and devoid of cholesterol. Plant-based protein sources, such as legumes, tofu, tempeh, and certain nuts and seeds, can be particularly beneficial for individuals seeking lower fat and cholesterol intake.
Fiber and Phytonutrients: Plant proteins are often accompanied by dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients present in the whole plant foods. These components offer additional health benefits and can help support digestive health, cardiovascular health, and overall well-being. Animal proteins, particularly those from lean sources, tend to have less fiber and fewer plant-based nutrients.
Health Implications: Research suggests that the source of protein, whether from animal or plant sources, can have varying effects on health outcomes. High intake of animal protein, especially from processed or red meats, has been associated with increased risks of certain diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and some cancers. Plant protein, when part of a well-balanced diet, has been linked to lower risks of chronic diseases and overall improved health outcomes.
Why should animal slaughter be halted? I spend a lot of time outdoors and nature is exceedingly cruel. Animals and fish in my neck of the woods constantly are suffering with festering, infected wounds, missing limbs, gnawed up faces and especially, starvation. It just seems odd to direct our human emotions, experiences, and feelings towards other species when slaughter and death is part and parcel of their very existence. If the goal is to reduce animal suffering then we have to go way, way past not eating them since they inflict so much suffering on each other. Something like large non-profit zoos or preserves and eliminating all carnivores from the planet.
Given how many idiots think ChatGPT is sentient, I hereby move to strike this thread from the record and pretend it never happened out of sheer embarrassment.
In the future humanity might meet beings much more intelligent than us and they might not be kind to us, believing our level of sentience to be lowly, similar to how we discount these animals.
No, that isn't a sufficient definition because it is incapable of differentiating between sentience and evolutionarily habituated survival instincts that all life forms have.
You can disagree with the findings, but why do you think attempting to understand the difference between sentience and evolutionarily habituated survival instincts is "silly"?
Isn't it our job as a sentient, evolved species, to ensure we do no harm to other sentient species?
And the only way we can begin to consider doing that is if we figure out a way to classify them?
Oh no, a slippery slope of compassion! To wit, the long title of the bill:
"An Act to make provision for an Animal Sentience Committee with functions relating to the effect of government policy on the welfare of animals as sentient beings."
As long as you make a claim which depends on that answer for support, it absolutely is your job, and whatever axe you mean to grind here doesn't seem so far to be helping do that job.
@boringuser2, I vouched for your now-dead sibling comment of 29 minutes ago, because I think you're on to something and I believe your argument should have voice in this discussion. However, even though I sympathize with your position, and even though I don't think your comment should be dead, it's very fighty and condescending. Even if you aren't technically violating any of the rules that I can see, the condescension gets very close to being a personal attack. I think you'd be more successful in voicing your argument if you toned it down a little (or a lot).
Leaving the unjustifiable condescension aside, the argument in the dead comment still founders on precisely the lack of any philosophically rigorous definition of sentience on which it attempts to support itself.
That's the question I called out earlier as being begged: in order to discard a definition of sentience (or of anything!) as insufficient, one must be able to show where it fails. That would admittedly be an impossibly tall order in this case, but my sympathy for the difficulty is curtailed by it being one our interlocutor has chosen to take upon himself, and attempt to bluster his way past anyone else noticing.
Even politely expressed, such an attempt to demand an impossible standard of others while excusing oneself from the same merits exactly the obloquy it's received.
Your impression of how philosophically rigorous conclusions are reached is completely unnecessary to address; it is simply wrong.
You don't seem to understand that a rationalistic approach isn't going to lead you to conclusions that approximate accuracy about the world. See: philosophy that is over 100 years old as a reference, when people realized that this method of inquiry made no sense.
That being said, brushing aside your basic philosophical misunderstanding, it still follows that the burden of this challenge lies on the people who have outrageously claimed that they have uniquely solved it.
I mean, there is an entire discussion ongoing whether or not they might be.
But LLMs (today) don't fulfill criterion #7: After training is completed, the model is fixed, so there is no more learning going on. #6 would also be hard to map to an LLM.
That is inaccurate given that the modality for improving a model clearly fulfills criterion #7.
The legal draft did not in any way either specify an AUTONOMOUS process, nor did it even specify any type of localized "learning" in terms of memory aggregation.
A discerning reader might notice that this begins to wade into very challenging philosophical questions.
If a dog takes a beating, it will remember that, will be affected by it, will suffer for it, long after the physical event has passed. Just like us. The question is whether a crab would remember getting a beating. That is the difference between pseudo-mechanical stimulus-response and learned behavior, and a being that is ‘sentient’.
https://www.lse.ac.uk/News/News-Assets/PDFs/2021/Sentience-i...
I was a bit dismissive of the idea that they can define sentience in a useful way, but their framework is right there on page 7 and it makes a lot of sense:
> 1) possession of nociceptors; > 2) possession of integrative brain regions; > 3) connections between nociceptors and integrative brain regions; > 4) responses affected by potential local anaesthetics or analgesics; > 5) motivational trade-offs that show a balancing of threat against opportunity for reward; > 6) flexible self-protective behaviours in response to injury and threat; > 7) associative learning that goes beyond habituation and sensitisation; > 8) behaviour that shows the animal values local anaesthetics or analgesics when injured.
I'd be very curious what they'd find if they tested fish and even insects. Surely certain predatory fishes would exhibit thought provoking behaviour.