Why? It’s not very nice thing to do, but animals are property. It’s as simple as that.
I don’t see that causing a major problem here. I’m fine with tolerating different definitions of terms, so long as each others’ definitions are clearly stated. I think “moral agency” works for both of us as the basis of and criteria for rights, no?
Of course, I would find it an interesting debate for another time.
I mean animals that have complex nervous systems and so are sensitive to physical pain like humans. Any cruel aggression should be punished – whether they are your property or not. If you take them from their environment and cage them to die, I would consider that cruelty as well.
If “moral agency” means the “ability to reason” or “conceptually place oneself in alternate future circumstances and compare the outcomes against a valued external state” then I am 100% in agreement. I simply object to your use of the word “consciousness” as a synonym for this. I think by most people’s definitions, consciousness has a much narrower meaning.
Not like humans. Humans can conceptualize pain - animals can only react to it. Humans can conceptualize future pain, can fear it - animals can only alert to an immediate threat, real or percieved. But more to the point, the imposition of pain - or the threat of it - interferes with humans’ moral agency. This is the basis of the right not to have pain imposed by force. Animals have none.
It is morally wrong to be cruel to animals, but should never be legally wrong. Society should shun people who are deliberately cruel to animals - either imposing pain for pain’s sake because they get some benefit from the pain itself, or out of wanton negligence - because it is likely that person will also be a threat to other humans, but nobody should ever forcibly punish animal cruelty.
Close enough, let’s go with that.
Most people would be hard pressed to give any definition of consciousness, let alone one that is in any way consistent with the other concepts they hold surrounding the issue. Not one single person I’ve ever heard or read has given a definition that is fully consistent with those other concepts.
I hope you don’t mind if I dismiss your objection. I’ll continue my use of the term, but will try to be aware of the disagreement when doing so.
And, as an aside, I remembered one academic theory of consciousness that does claim that reason came before consciousness: Jaynes’ theory of the bicameral mind.
No question that that would be cruel, and anyone who behaves like that deserves public condemnation in my opinion. However, my opinion is a subjective moral position. Animals do not have natural rights. Therefore punishing someone for hurting an animal would be an initiation of agression and a violation of natural rights. And natural rights, which are grounded in a rational objective ethic, have to take precedence over my subjective feeling on the matter.
I think histhasthai’s definition is much closer to what “consciousness” really is.
Some quotes from the first chapter of Jaynes’ Origin of Consciousness:
Psycologically speaking, humans are probably the most developed animals in what concerns what you are saying. But of course, animals fear being inflicted pain. If you show your hand to your dog, he will crunch, if you had used it before. If he is not dependent on you, he will likely run away next time, he faces you. Or he might attack you by surprise. Humans don’t really have any skills other animals don’t have – you can find traits of those skils everywhere, they are just much more developed in humans. Like the poster mentioned, chimps are pretty close to the level of development of a small child. Not even those have some rights against cruelty in your view?
I’m not basing rights on a sliding scale, but on a bright line distinction. It might become clearer if we look at the other side of rights, which is responsibilities. Any assertion of rights necessarily includes an assertion of the corollary responsibilities. Would you claim that chimps are required to provide restitution for theft? That they should have to get a job with a paycheck and pay for their food with money? That you expect them to ever apologize for flinging feces at you?
And the question is not one of comparing the concrete mental capacity of a chimp to that of a child. If you’re going to use children, you have to talk about potential. A child may not be able to get a job and pay for his own food now, but it is expected that he will at some point in his development. Do you expect a chimp, no matter how intensively you train him over years and years, to be able to do any of that in a self directed way that is responsive to changing context, environment, and goals?
I do not think “rights” must necessarily be conditional upon “responsibilities” at all.
I generally prefer to look at the “animal rights” sort of discussion in practical terms. For instance, if a wild animal approaches you, how should you treat it?
Well, for your own safety, you should treat it with caution. The same way as you should treat an unknown person. Whether it be animal or man or robot, you would be wise to treat that “being” as if that being was willing to fight which is not much different from treating it as if it has rights.
They’re not, they’re corollary. They’re both conditional on moral agency, not one upon the other.
Jaynes’ definition of consciousness is controversial to say the least. I don’t think his definition is widely accepted. If you ask most people what it means to be conscious, they’ll you use words like “aware”, “awake”, “sensate” etc.
Now Jaynes can go off and define a word any way he wants. He can say things like “We have been brought to the conclusion that consciousness is not what we generally think it is”, but if most people think that that indeed is what it is, then (by definition) that’s the commonly held definition. Who cares whether Jaynes likes the commonly held definition or not?
True, but if it is contradictory, or just fails to provide any way to integrate it with other concepts, it is a useless definition. In that case, it is rational and necessary for people who want to productively discuss the matter to create concepts that can be integrated, and to integrate them back into the ideas with which the old definition failed.
And yes, Jaynes’ ideas are highly controversial. Worse, they don’t have any predictive value, and so cannot be tested (unless someone figures out a prediction necessitated by them). I think there’s a kernel of truth to them, and studying his ideas have helped me develop and integrate my own understanding of consciousness, but as a whole package, I take them as interesting speculation and nothing more. As it stands now, they’re history, not science.
This, of course, is all just semantics, but it’s only contradictory if you belong in the camp that happens to believe that it “fails to provide any way to integrate it with other concepts.” Knowing that the term “conscious” could be ambiguous should be reason enough to steer clear of it in the first place. Eqauting it with “reason”, as you did, is bound to be controversial.
Hmm, and here I thought that knowing that a term being used in a discussion is ambiguous is reason enough to try to clarify it.
I’m far less concerned with controversial than I am with useless.
histhansthai, I really don’t want to belabor the point because I agree with you on the fundamental issues of this discussion, but semantics are extremely important sometimes.
If you say “conscious beings have rights” and I assume consciousness means “conceptually place oneself in alternate future crcumstances and compare the outcomes against a valued external state” then, fine, I know that only human or human-like beings have rights. If on the other hand I assume consciousness means “being aware or awake”, as I think most people do, then my dog, my cat, and my pet ant has rights.
Esoteric definitions of familiarly used words confuse; they don’t clarify. And the familiar definition is not useless if that’s what most people use. What’s useless is an alternative defintion that can easily be misconstrued.
Let’s stick with moral agency, and ignore consciousness per se, OK? You’re right that we basically agree, and the argument over the definition of consciousness is out of place here.
To be clear, I mean that only huans have rights. It is theorietically possible some day for computers, aliens, or genetically engineered terestrial animals to rise to the requirement for rights, but none today are remotely close.
This issue will never be solved until we can communicate with animals. However communicating implies knowledge to communicate. Animals would have to teach us their language, using their words, if they can describe freedom and consciousness within that language.
But speculation and experiments today teach language to apes, thus we teach them liberty and “rights”
Is it more a process of WHEN someone realize they are free and conscious, that they have rights, or WHAT they are? In the former case, the only person with natural rights would be the person who thought of it. Everyone here would be mind slaves. “Inherent rights” are things we think of on our own.
Considering the above statement, would an ape that can communicate with humans, with no prior teaching from humans, be valid of rights and freedom if he can declare it? A child is taught rights and freedoms. So then does the ape, who is naturally superior, have a right to control the child and abuse him, because he has proof he is smarter than the child.
Theoretically, yes.
No, of course not. That would be a violation of the child’s natural rights. Just because a child can’t communicate does not mean it has no rights, or inferior rights. It’s human after all.