More Fun with PETA and the KKK

[INDY500]

What part makes us unique, and why isn't meat murder?

Here's the legal definition of murder in your country.

Murder is defined in the New South Wales (NSW) Crimes Act 1900 as follows:[36]

Murder shall be taken to have been committed where the act of the accused, or thing by him or her omitted to be done, causing the death charged, was done or omitted with reckless indifference to human life, or with intent to kill or inflict grievous bodily harm upon some person, or done in an attempt to commit, or during or immediately after the commission, by the accused, or some accomplice with him or her, of a crime...

I'm sensing just a hint of human exceptionalism here.

 

[yolland]

And as for what makes us uniquely deserving of rights...?

 

[Irvine511]

And as for what makes us uniquely deserving of rights...?

if you read the other thread, you'll understand that we're only deserving of rights insofar as society deems us to be worthy of them, and often society has to limit these rights in order to suit whatever "beliefs" are held by the majority.

 

[INDY500]

And as for what makes us uniquely deserving of rights...?

By ANDY NEWMAN
Published: February 16, 2009
A 200-pound pet chimpanzee in Stamford, Conn., Monday viciously mauled a woman he had known for years, leaving her critically injured with much of her face torn away, the authorities said. The animal was shot dead by the police after he assaulted an officer in his car.

The attack, in the driveway of a sprawling home in a densely wooded neighborhood on the north side of Stamford, also brought a brutal end to the life of the chimpanzee, Travis, 14, a popular figure in town who had appeared in television commercials and often posed for photographs at the towing shop operated by his owners. He had escaped before, and in 2003 playfully held up traffic at a busy intersection for several hours, but had no history of violence, the authorities said. Travis’s social skills included drinking wine from a stemmed glass, dressing and bathing himself and using a computer.

For the same reason we blame the human owner and not Travis the chimp for his actions (regardless of his social skills). No animal's "rudimentary morality" can override its nature. No animal can make or keep moral commitments.

Animals have moral standing but not rights.

 

[A_Wanderer]

How is a creatures morality not part of its nature?

Keeping a chimp as a pet could be construed as a form of exploitation, which those laws you rail against would make illegal.

You continually deny that other primates are capable of showing morality (things such as empathy, reciprocity, and bonding) but don't justify human morality. You state that we have moral standing but can't say what it is beyond a thing given to us by God.

What is human morality, what makes it completely different from primate morality?

 

[INDY500]

What is human morality, what makes it completely different from primate morality?

Human morality is derived from ideals. Religion, social conventions et cetera.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Do you get your morality from the Bible?

Or do you have feelings that particular behaviours are wrong.

 

[yolland]

No animal can make or keep moral commitments.

Can profoundly mentally impaired people make and keep moral commitments, and if not, then what would be the reason for granting them rights? (Note, 'because they're human too' isn't a logical reason if you're going to base rights for all other humans on their capacity to make and keep moral commitments; either the latter criterion truly is the basis or it isn't.)

 

[~BrightestStar~]

Or so the story goes.

I think we're back to anthropomorphism. Hey, I have pets and I love Animal Planet and Disney movies too but I also recognize the clear difference between animals and man.

You're very right, nature is fascinating but what can I say other than to say that some of us this take this figuratively and quite literally.

You've totally trivialized the examples I quoted to you by equating them purely to Disney movies and anthropomorphism, and that's unwarranted. You cannot simply turn a blind out to the evidence of 'complex' behaviors in other animals.
There are many well recognized social species - and like humans, another social species - there are certain behaviors that are exhibited by such species that facilitate living in a group. This includes co-operation, elements of caring for eachother (sharing food, protecting the weak, co-operation). We do not imagine these acts upon them, they actually happen. I'm not saying the thought processes behind them are the same, but that is not the point.
Further, the parental drive to protect and sacrifice to save young is fairly common. And I would argue, that this is merely an instinctual trait. I suspect that the urge that occurs in humans is not so different from the urge occurs in many animals. It's a very basic drive.

 

[~BrightestStar~]

For the same reason we blame the human owner and not Travis the chimp for his actions (regardless of his social skills). No animal's "rudimentary morality" can override its nature. No animal can make or keep moral commitments.

Animals have moral standing but not rights.

So, when we blame a parent for a child's actions......?

can't say what it is beyond a thing given to us by God.

Which actually seems to cheapen it, imho. We'd be far more 'exceptional' if it was something we didn't have to have imparted upon us.
There's a difference between earning a million, and winning it in the lotto.

 

[Irvine511]

Here's the legal definition of murder in your country.



I'm sensing just a hint of human exceptionalism here.

does this apply to unborn gays?

 

[anitram]

Can profoundly mentally impaired people make and keep moral commitments

This is a rather large segment, including huge numbers of the elderly suffering from dementia, as well as young children.

Nevertheless, they are extended human rights as we know them.

 

[Kieran McConville]

just to throw the cat amongst the pigeons, there is evidence (somewhere; I'm lazy) that elephants have an ability to grasp symbolic communication.

And even if they didn't, they certainly have an ability to hold a grudge. There are (possibly anecdotal) accounts of young elephants destroying the houses of humans who killed their parents. A period of years after the fact. I wonder, do they tell stories about themselves, among themselves?

Probably not strictly on topic, but whatever.

It's surely more accurate to say that meat is domesticated hunting. I've got no truck with the bullshit that says we must all give up meat... unfortunately it is natural for humans to eat meat as well as vegetable matter. Though, having grown our big brains already, off the back of meat eating, we can of course choose to stick to vegetable matter only. That's fine too.

I refer of course to the meats that humans generally farm to eat. The great apes may not be human but they are our very, very, very close cousins and deserve to be treated accordingly.

 

[INDY500]

Do you get your morality from the Bible?

.

The law would be much more complicated.

But morality. Personally from the ideal of the life of Jesus.
Socially, Western Civilization's moral code and theory of human rights developed under Constantine in the 300's A.D. and progressed through Thomas Aquinas, The Magna Carta, Blackstone's Commentaries and the U.S. Declaration of Independence. This is the concept that there is an objective moral code established by a Creator and grounded in human decency. A natural law by which both man and state should be judged and which neither is above.

Which is not to say we haven't and don't use tales and examples of virtue and high morals from other cultures to reinforce this world view. Because each human is given a conscience to judge, moral practices may differ from culture to culture but many moral standards remain the same. (The golden rule, murder and such).

 

[INDY500]

You've totally trivialized the examples I quoted to you by equating them purely to Disney movies and anthropomorphism, and that's unwarranted. You cannot simply turn a blind out to the evidence of 'complex' behaviors in other animals.
There are many well recognized social species - and like humans, another social species - there are certain behaviors that are exhibited by such species that facilitate living in a group. This includes co-operation, elements of caring for eachother (sharing food, protecting the weak, co-operation). We do not imagine these acts upon them, they actually happen. I'm not saying the thought processes behind them are the same, but that is not the point.
Further, the parental drive to protect and sacrifice to save young is fairly common. And I would argue, that this is merely an instinctual trait. I suspect that the urge that occurs in humans is not so different from the urge occurs in many animals. It's a very basic drive.

Look, we can find humanlike social skills, low levels of communication and some reasoning in our closest animal relatives. What truly separates man from them isn't that our capacities for those are so much greater but our moral nature.

Chimpanzee don't weigh their interests against the rights of others, They don't deliberate their actions against the greater good, and while they may feel temporary remorse over an action they are incapable of lifelong guilt. Their world is only what lays before them.

Animals act by physical laws alone through their DNA. A chimp is a chimp and will act accordingly within those norms, just as water will rundown hill on its own accord. But man is subject also to natural law which, unlike physical laws, can be violated. Which is why we are capable of both charity and cruelty well beyond that demonstrated by animals.

Humans alone are morally capable of overriding our nature, escaping the tyranny of our genes, to do good or to do evil.

No chimpanzee is ever going to do anything that another before it hasn't or that another couldn't quickly be trained to do. Can you say that about man?

 

[INDY500]

This is a rather large segment, including huge numbers of the elderly suffering from dementia, as well as young children.

Nevertheless, they are extended human rights as we know them.

Right, because all humans must be seen as equal regardless of physical or mental capabilities and all of equal moral worth.

If we've learned anything it's that anything less opens the door to all sorts of horrors.

 

[Irvine511]

Look, we can find humanlike social skills, low levels of communication and some reasoning in our closest animal relatives. What truly separates man from them isn't that our capacities for those are so much greater but our moral nature.

Chimpanzee don't weigh their interests against the rights of others, They don't deliberate their actions against the greater good, and while they may feel temporary remorse over an action they are incapable of lifelong guilt. Their world is only what lays before them.

Animals act by physical laws alone through their DNA. A chimp is a chimp and will act accordingly within those norms, just as water will rundown hill on its own accord. But man is subject also to natural law which, unlike physical laws, can be violated. Which is why we are capable of both charity and cruelty well beyond that demonstrated by animals.

Humans alone are morally capable of overriding our nature, escaping the tyranny of our genes, to do good or to do evil.

No chimpanzee is ever going to do anything that another before it hasn't or that another couldn't quickly be trained to do. Can you say that about man?

what are you basing this on? what are your sources?

 

[elevated_u2_fan]

Right, because all humans must be seen as equal regardless of physical or mental capabilities and all of equal moral worth.

since fucking when?!

 

[AnnRKeyintheUSA]

Right, because all humans must be seen as equal regardless of physical or mental capabilities and all of equal moral worth.

In some cases, this should not be true, such as voting rights. Do you really want a person voting who believes it's 1948 and doesn't know who's running?

 

[yolland]

This is the concept that there is an objective moral code established by a Creator and grounded in human decency. A natural law by which both man and state should be judged and which neither is above.

No one before the Enlightenment would've recognized this principle in precisely the way you're formulating it, though any polity claiming divine legitimation for its laws regulating human interactions--a state of affairs which long preceded Constantine--could be said to fit the broad outlines of the description. By way of illustration, and to return to my earlier comparison, Aquinas didn't share Locke's views concerning the right--indeed, for Locke, the duty--of citizens to overthrow a government not operating by "natural laws" (and again, this concept of "natural laws" goes back to the Stoics). Because, for Aquinas, rights aren't an inherent property of individuals, but rather a necessary legal consequence of the community's collective pursuit of Virtue (similar to Aristotle's view).

This is why I was trying to get you to specify something beyond "the Judeo-Christian philosophy" as a justification for the granting of rights; that's a uselessly broad and vague label which clarifies almost nothing about which ethical model(s) a person is in fact applying. After all, the preference utilitarianism of Peter Singer and the modified Kantian deontology of Tom Regan (both prominent animal rights advocates) are themselves ethical models from within the "Judeo-Christian"--really, Western--tradition.

Look, I'm not really expecting you to be able to pin your case against animal rights on one consistent philosophical model. I don't support animal rights myself (though I'd support some expansions of cruelty-prevention laws) and I can't claim philosophical consistency in opposing them; how to rationally justify extending rights to all humans while categorically excluding nonhuman animals is famously among the most intractable problems in modern Western philosophy. (To return one last time to Aquinas, the only earlier Western philosopher I know of who directly addressed the question, "it is not wrong for man to make use of [animals], by killing or in any other way whatever [since God created them expressly for human use]...Charity does not extend to irrational creatures." By which we can safely infer he'd have opposed even cruelty-prevention laws, 'Charity' otherwise being his justification for obligations towards the rationally incapacitated.) But, if you're going to carry on about "the Judeo-Christian philosophy" and how any argument for animal rights is inevitably fated to "torpedo" it with devastating human consequences, then in that case you'd better be able to spell out exactly which ideological strand of "Judeo-Christian tradition" you mean to stake your claim on, and demonstrate perfect consistency in applying it against these 'torpedoers'. Otherwise your case for "human exceptionalism" basically boils down to, well, Discovery Institute talking points, which aren't known for their philosophical rigor.

Right, because all humans must be seen as equal regardless of physical or mental capabilities and all of equal moral worth.

If we've learned anything it's that anything less opens the door to all sorts of horrors.

...For instance, assuming this is your answer for 'Why grant rights to mentally impaired humans?' , it sounds like negative utilitarianism in the vein of Karl Popper, not the modified Lockean view you seemed to be hinting you favored earlier.

Socially, Western Civilization's moral code and theory of human rights developed under Constantine in the 300's A.D. and progressed through Thomas Aquinas, The Magna Carta, Blackstone's Commentaries and the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

I've never heard of a history of ethics or rights in the Western tradition that takes Constantine as a starting point; he didn't revolutionize existing Roman thinking or law on the rights of the various categories of subjects. Are you singling him out because as a Christian he granted full political equality to Christians? He also introduced new restrictions on Jews--conversion to Judaism was made illegal, and the price of converting a Christian to Judaism, in particular, was being burnt alive; Jews could not marry non-Jews; Jews, but not Christians or pagans, were forbidden to own slaves; etc.--so he couldn't be credited with introducing equality before the law for all religions, rather with laying the groundwork for the political privileging of Christianity within the Empire. (It was left to his successors to introduce the first laws limiting the rights of pagans, as the needed political capital to do so wasn't quite there in Constantine's time.)

 

[A_Wanderer]

No chimpanzee is ever going to do anything that another before it hasn't or that another couldn't quickly be trained to do. Can you say that about man?

No, but you can't say it about chimps either, there had to have been a few chimps in history which figured out how to get termites with sticks and passed this technology on.

 

[AnnRKeyintheUSA]

That chimp who ate off the lady's face didn't see anyone do that before.

 

[yolland]

^

I agree with what A_W said earlier though; chimpanzees are wild animals and shouldn't be kept as pets anyhow. That they're very smart and very dextrous only makes them more, not less, dangerous in a setting like that.

 

[~BrightestStar~]

Chimpanzee don't weigh their interests against the rights of others, They don't deliberate their actions against the greater good, and while they may feel temporary remorse over an action they are incapable of lifelong guilt. Their world is only what lays before them.

Hmm, but what of that study's suggestion that chimps have a sense of fairness and equality?

Animals act by physical laws alone through their DNA. A chimp is a chimp and will act accordingly within those norms, just as water will rundown hill on its own accord. But man is subject also to natural law which, unlike physical laws, can be violated. Which is why we are capable of both charity and cruelty well beyond that demonstrated by animals.

Humans alone are morally capable of overriding our nature, escaping the tyranny of our genes, to do good or to do evil.

So an animal is determined from its dna, from birth, and will not learn or grow throughout life?

So a bad dog will always be a bad dog, no matter. And a good dog that is abused can't possibly go bad since it's not in its genes?

And from your final point there, I take it you are a nature over nurture type?

And yes you also think that someone is born evil but if they try real hard and are pious enough maybe just maybe they won't kill someone?

No chimpanzee is ever going to do anything that another before it hasn't or that another couldn't quickly be trained to do. Can you say that about man?

That statement is inherently flawed.

Further, how many of your own thoughts and action do you truly believe are original, never before done by another human being, or something another human could be trained to do?

Einstein figured out relativity, but now we train E=mC^2 to youngsters. Does that diminish his accomplishment?

 

[shart1780]

PETA are jackasses.

 

[A_Wanderer]

PETA are jackasses.

I think we can all agree on that point.

Terrorist groups like the ALF attack innocent scientists (and their families), for doing work that saves lives, I have little to no sympathy for their actions or their cause.

I do think that the humane treatment of animals in research is important and there are important ethical issues that scientists in relevant fields have an obligation to consider (thankfully fossils don't have rights).

 

[INDY500]

No one before the Enlightenment would've recognized this principle in precisely the way you're formulating it, though any polity claiming divine legitimation for its laws regulating human interactions--a state of affairs which long preceded Constantine--could be said to fit the broad outlines of the description. By way of illustration, and to return to my earlier comparison, Aquinas didn't share Locke's views concerning the right--indeed, for Locke, the duty--of citizens to overthrow a government not operating by "natural laws" (and again, this concept of "natural laws" goes back to the Stoics). Because, for Aquinas, rights aren't an inherent property of individuals, but rather a necessary legal consequence of the community's collective pursuit of Virtue (similar to Aristotle's view).

But the Enlightenment being the product of the West and the then accepted virtues of Christianity (new and dangerous 1500 years prior) and the resulting freedoms, but also the abuses of Christendom.

This is why I was trying to get you to specify something beyond "the Judeo-Christian philosophy" as a justification for the granting of rights; that's a uselessly broad and vague label which clarifies almost nothing about which ethical model(s) a person is in fact applying. After all, the preference utilitarianism of Peter Singer and the modified Kantian deontology of Tom Regan (both prominent animal rights advocates) are themselves ethical models from within the "Judeo-Christian"--really, Western--tradition.
Look, I'm not really expecting you to be able to pin your case against animal rights on one consistent philosophical model. I don't support animal rights myself (though I'd support some expansions of cruelty-prevention laws) and I can't claim philosophical consistency in opposing them; how to rationally justify extending rights to all humans while categorically excluding nonhuman animals is famously among the most intractable problems in modern Western philosophy. (To return one last time to Aquinas, the only earlier Western philosopher I know of who directly addressed the question, "it is not wrong for man to make use of [animals], by killing or in any other way whatever [since God created them expressly for human use]...Charity does not extend to irrational creatures." By which we can safely infer he'd have opposed even cruelty-prevention laws, 'Charity' otherwise being his justification for obligations towards the rationally incapacitated.) But, if you're going to carry on about "the Judeo-Christian philosophy" and how any argument for animal rights is inevitably fated to "torpedo" it with devastating human consequences, then in that case you'd better be able to spell out exactly which ideological strand of "Judeo-Christian tradition" you mean to stake your claim on, and demonstrate perfect consistency in applying it against these 'torpedoers'. Otherwise your case for "human exceptionalism" basically boils down to, well, Discovery Institute talking points, which aren't known for their philosophical rigor.

Another Christian concept, no less crazy: the concept of equality of souls before God. This concept furnishes the prototype of all theories of equal rights."
-- Nietzsche
No fan of Christianity himself, at least he realized where to aim his torpedo.
Without getting caught up in the intertwining philosophies of the past 1500 years, one could never say the same of "animal rights." That it is a Christian concept, as there simply is no theology to support that.

I've never heard of a history of ethics or rights in the Western tradition that takes Constantine as a starting point; he didn't revolutionize existing Roman thinking or law on the rights of the various categories of subjects. Are you singling him out because as a Christian he granted full political equality to Christians? He also introduced new restrictions on Jews--conversion to Judaism was made illegal, and the price of converting a Christian to Judaism, in particular, was being burnt alive; Jews could not marry non-Jews; Jews, but not Christians or pagans, were forbidden to own slaves; etc.--so he couldn't be credited with introducing equality before the law for all religions, rather with laying the groundwork for the political privileging of Christianity within the Empire. (It was left to his successors to introduce the first laws limiting the rights of pagans, as the needed political capital to do so wasn't quite there in Constantine's time.)

Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 AD opening up Western civilization to the Christian ideas of:
1) the notion of something greater than the State or Caesar
2) morality being based on something objective and not the subjective whims of humans
3) the rejection of Paganism
4) equality before God (Galatians 3:28 being just one example)
5) criticism of slavery
6) individual freedom (hinted at by Socrates)

Not that these all appeared at once and not that they all didn't slowly evolve along with politics and liberty (serfdom an interesting example). It being a long road from Constantine to Jefferson's "self-evident" truths to today.

"Rights" will continue to evolve of course but based on what moral and governing principles?

 

[A_Wanderer]

Rights do not emerge from an infallible Godhead, they are a property of mutual consent and respect by human beings.

You might be right that theology cannot justify animal rights (seeing how a lamb of God had to be murdered), but that is irrelevant to the ethics of eating meat or animal testing.

As far as citing Christian principles that Constantine adopted I fail to see how rejecting Paganism for Christianity, with the accompanying forced conversions and burnings that later ensued, is something that anybody should be proud of.

 

[~BrightestStar~]

Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 AD opening up Western civilization to the Christian ideas of:
1) the notion of something greater than the State or Caesar
2) morality being based on something objective and not the subjective whims of humans
3) the rejection of Paganism
4) equality before God (Galatians 3:28 being just one example)
5) criticism of slavery
6) individual freedom (hinted at by Socrates)
\

Are you stating that these are ideas that are unique to Christianity?
Cause if you are, I would have to disagree with you on that one.

I would argue that the idea of there being something greater, than even the leader of a given group, is a long standing tradition, dating before Christianity - except it used to generally be polytheistic rather than monotheistic. Simple example: (para)vedic tradition. In fact, I would argue that such a notion is a motif, a common thread that occurs in many cultures.

And the greeks were all into the idea of freedoms and human rights. And I'm pretty sure they weren't Christian.

 

[Kieran McConville]

I just love how this thread keeps on and on, but magically never passes page six.

Maybe this will be the tipping point.