The view that belonging to a certain species of creature is a reason for treating certain beings as having more moral value than others is often assumed but not often explicitly defended. It would be interesting if those who have recently defended this view (if only implicity) could expand on their thoughts in this thread as to this particular issue, or indeed show how such speciesism is not necessarily a implicit part of the arguments against vegetarianism, or animal testing, or hunting…etc.
Please, this is not a thread about vegetarianism, animal testing or hunting. I’m not looking for your thoughts on those topics here.
Speciesism is essentially to argue that there are morally relevant differences between us and other animals that in turn give us ‘rights’ to put our own interests as paramount to the interests of other animals.
The thing about all living creatures, including humans, is that we are most likely a kind of robot that carries out its function. There isn’t an animal that can go outside of its evolved function very well if at all. There are some animals that do this, and they tend to be exempt from killing, but that’s another story. Mostly though, we can see that a bug is very much the robot, the mouse a little less so, the dog less, and the human very much less.
Humans have gotten to the point that our instinctive behaviors are extremely subtle or mostly gone. By this I mean that we don’t automatically know how to build a house like most animals do. However, I’m sure that we have some instincts that we aren’t aware of, simply because they are instincts.
Humans give the impression that they can and do make choices about how they behave. Humans also have feelings, based on ideas, that clearly make them suffer. Humans can and will seek to stop the suffering of other humans, and even animals. Humans seem to be filled with this urge. Also, we do on occasion seek to make people suffer through torture (whatever that form may take).
Animals do not exhibit the ability to make choices about how they will behave. So, they can’t be seen as good or evil in their being. That makes them a true robot, which is the Czech word for worker, and sets them up to be used as a tool.
Speciesism in the news: Dennet and Owen Flanagan were two philosophers on a panel of 22 experts, some primatologists, some lawyers, some stem cell researchers, in which the potential consequences of stem cell research were debated.
The panel concluded that ‘to implant human stem cells into the brains of non-human primates can unintentionally change their moral status’.
The panel reportedly tried to deal with the question of ‘if there are cognitive or emotional capacities that are unique to humans in ways that make us worthy of higher moral status’.
The stem cell biologists and neurologists were apparantly unable to specify limits on what an implanted stem cell might change or effect. Apparantly the panel met with no philosophical agreement on the moral significance of changes in abilities in primates undergoing stem cell research, if they could detect any.
So the first question is if speciesism can be defended. Only after that can we look at what makes us different to non human animals and in turn look into if those differences are morally relevant. For example, that many humans have the capability for ‘abstract reasoning through the process of time-binding’ is not necessarily a morally significant difference, unless we are also to hold that humans without these capacities (of which there are many) be assigned such moral status as non human animals of similar cognitive ability.
The thing about humans that are handicapped or incapacitated in some way is that they were always potentially fully functional, and so they get honorary status as human. They were not meant to be machine-like animals, but perhaps due to circumstances turned out that way. The human ability to have empathy and compassion sees this and does not place the mentally retarded person in the same category as the mouse. We behave “as if†they are equal to the rest of us. However, behaving “as if†a mouse is equal to a human rings as absurd.
Singer also has some false premise stuff meant to appeal to the utilitarian in that he claims that animals have pleasure in their activities. Again this can’t be proven and we have little idea about what pleasure is to animals and if they experience it at all. Dogs and cats seem to love to play. However, if you observe them you can see that much of this play behavior seems to be “play fighting†and could be a mechanism for them to practice killing things and hunting. We have no way to tell.
the whole debate boils down to your emotional capacity to withstand emotional stress. those who can not stand stress give away at the slightest hint of suffering. while those who can stand stress like watching beheading videos while eating (e.g me) would find this whole debate pointless. if you can’t handle it then you can’t handle it, let others, like me, handle it. there is no right or wrong, but how you feel about certain things. if you feel specism is wrong, then you feel so. there is no cause but a emotional weakness.
Well, speciesism is also genusism, family-ism, classism, orderism, phylumism, kingdomism and lifeism. I don’t know how to write the moral law into the heart of a barnacle or a brick. It’s easy to see speciesism as a bad thing when one mistreats a dog, but what about a sea-cucumber or a liver fluke?
For most of us, morals come from values. We think it’s wrong to mistreat a human because humans are ‘worth’ something. The suffering they feel is meaningful. I don’t think anyone here would find moral value (positive or negative) in cracking a rock in half. Clearly humans have something that inatimate objects don’t.
Animals come halfway between, so far as I can tell. Animals possess something that a rock doesn’t which gives them the ‘right’ to be considered, but they don’t possess all the value of a human. You can clearly see this by thinking about a man grinding gravel between two large millstones, grinding live frogs between two large millstones, and grinding human children between two large millstones.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, this gradient of morality can be criticized from multiple directions if we disregard the natural imperative to treat human better than cows, and cows better than stones. Should we treat dogs like men? Why not men like dogs? Why not dogs like mosquitos, and why not men like stones? So, just like we can extend rights down the line to lower lifeforms, we can revoke those rights from humans who seem unimportant or who can’t speak for themselves.
Now, I think the view called here species comes from a natural imperative, as I mentioned above. I think it can be grouped with other natural imperatives, like believing our memories tell us about the past, or that our vision tells us about a world of solid objects. I think that the fact that it comes naturally is all the defense it needs- the burden of proof would be on someone denying the imperative.
Doesn’t specism stem from the Old Testament, the Torah, and God giving humans domain over all living creatures? Also, do critters have the ability to reflect, critically think regarding life? Not really, they basically react with instinct. Hence, humans have domain over the land and animals. Your thoughts?
This was touched on in Robin Cook’s Chromosome 6. Physicians implanted a very wealthy human’s chromosome into, hum, I believe chimpanzees for transplant purposed, and the chimpanzees started developing primitive human ways, and creating tools, ability to create fires and cook. I do not dismiss Cook as he is an M.D., similar to Critchton.
Could you expand on the concept of time-binding? Also, are you claiming that many humans who do not have this ability are less human? Are you referring to the mentally handicapped?
Never mind, I read the time-binding link. Interesting.
Indeed.
I was climbing up in my attic
looking for old specieistic writings of mine…indeed
Carrying a robot-made flourescented lantern
and creeping on the cricketty old tree-boards in the dark,
when, suddenly, clawing at my feet, underneath the weak hollowness
SCRAPING and voicing its fear, scurrying, I can’t believe I’ve considered sleeping here!
I’m really afraid now, sounds like a… bird, but
now on the other side of the room, shit they’re everywhere scurrying about the place like an inhabited city!
Are you rodents inside my walls?
As scared as they, we came downstairs and never told anyone in the flesh
I suppose we could say a worm, a blender and a “psychologist”…