h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Jaysus! Crap typing. Edit button, please.

Blair Drummond Safari Park.

"There is absolutely no difference at all in killing a grey squirrel or killing the family dog. They are both sentient pain-feeling species, going about their natural lives."

That is almost entirely wrong.

Dogs are domesticated and have been for many centuries. They are conditioned to respond to humans in a manner that we mistake for affection. Mina wrote an excellent post someplace else about the fact that what we interpret as 'love' is actually not a lot more than appreciation for the fact that we are providing food and walkies. It's not their natural lives any more than it's a cow's natural life to be raised for beef or mutantly cross-bred to become a milk machine. I have my suspicions that cows wouldn't actually exist at all if it weren't for domestication.

A dog's 'natural' life would be hanging around in backs, feeding of the detritus of humanity and perhaps even occasionally feeling brave enough to have a pop at one of us. I believe this is now exclusively the preserve of chavs.

Neither species is sentient, depending on your definition of 'sentient'. There is only one sentient being, humans, and they have chosen to identify dogs as useful companions and squirrels as pests; a decision which is entirely dependent on their lifestyle and culture. Are we to blame hippos which attack hyenas and leopards but let little birds walk up and down grooming them? Are there little hippo factions who say 'attacking hyenas is wrong! Rights for hyenas!'.

Finally, if you're a good shot, death is instant and the pain is minimal. Any conscientious shooter will make sure a target is out of its misery as soon as possible.

>>Tut. I meant *some* animals don't care if they cause pain *at certain times*.<<

No, you were using a generalisation as an argument, no taking it back now!

Anyway, neither do some people, so it really doesn't mean anything when you put it that way.

Alien scientists observing Homo Sapiens might have difficulty proving that these Hom Saps care about anything.

"There is only one sentient being, humans"

My creationist friends would agree with this statement.

>>Dogs /.../ the fact that what we interpret as 'love' is actually not a lot more than appreciation for the fact that we are providing food and walkies.

Whereas real love is...?

>> Does it follow, for instance, that non-vegetarians are less humane than vegetarians?

Well, clearly they are less humane. But not less human. Damn.



>> Oi! To quote the Great Man - "Vegetable Rights & Peace!"

Should that not be "vegetable rights and peas"?



Regarding chimps in cages - there were many experiments in the 1970s where baby chimps lived with antropologists and learned to speak American Sign Language or to use Maketon cards. They were put in zoos when they grew too big for the house. When one of the anthropologists visted one of the chimps a few years later, the chimp repeatedly signalled "key" "key" "key"....



>> Whereas real love is...?

The spiritual union of soul-mates re-united across aeons of infinite time and space.

Oh, and appreciation of food and sex and walkies.

Mal:

>>No, you were using a generalisation as an argument, no taking it back now!

Fair enough. And Stone Art's comments on the behaviour of social and symbiotic animals gives pause for thought. II still don't want to 'backtrack' from that point - we're just exploring ideas, after all -
but it opens up questions other than whether it's immoral for (say) a leopard to kill a zebra which I was trying to express but clearly failed.

Can we call the behaviours of social and symbiotic animals 'Moral' in the way humans can sometimes be moral?

So for instance alligators live in a symbiotic relationship with certain birds. They don't try to eat them. But unlike humans the alligator is incapable of morally generalising from birds to wildebeest.

Similarly, social animals such as lions are seemingly incapable of generalising beyond their family group. (e.g. a male will usurp a group by killing another and may then also kill any young. Hakuna matata.

Are animals able to make what we might call a moral decision to refrain from killing?

It's a slightly different point than the one that I was trying to make (badly) but for the correction which has led us here.

>>Dogs /.../ the fact that what we interpret as 'love' is actually not a lot more than appreciation for the fact that we are providing food and walkies.

Surely dogs regard us as members of their packs? We're their peeps.

Saying "Ah, the new evidence/argument that I have been shown leads me to change my opinion." is a grown-up thing to do.

Saying "That's what I meant all along, *obviously*." is not.

'Real' love, I believe, is a short-term hormonal imbalance causing increased blood flow to the genitals.

If that's what happens to your dog when it sees you, I'd consider neutering it.

B

Whole list of my arguments and others have been made while I've been off, but i would add why it is better that we limit animal's pain - interest in hurting animals is likely to to link into hurting other humans (even if, in almost all cases, not to fatality); as in the converse in reducing pain

Oh, I'm afraid I've not done anything so grown upas to change my mind. Mala.

I was wondering about those animals such as leopards which kill animals such as zebras, whether the leopards care about their prey's care and whether it even occurs to us to talk about whether leopards are lacking moral judgement.

Stone Art drew my attention to the fact that there were counter example. I realised that I had inadvertantly given the impression that I was generalising to all animals. I hadn't meant to and unreservedly backtracked on my misleading wording. Although the point about animals like leopards and zebras still stands.

*But* Stone Art's example of symbiotic and social animals also raised another issue - whether these animals' benign activities are de facto moral.

I still think they're slightly different points, I'm afraid. But thanks for seeing us right on matters of debating style.

Leopards - do they care about their prey's care?
The imperative is to eat, of course and to do so they need to kill. I can't see any way that we could assess their feelings about their prey - they'll kill as quickly as possible simply to conserve resources - or at least disable.
Contrasted with care of family/young, well that's a different priority but behaviour such as playing with cubs does suggest caring in this sense - and also suggests at least a capacity to care about prey.


Symbiotic and social animals and are they de facto moral?
Moral: concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and ...
You (they) don't have to be moral in order to act to your own benefit according to your evolution
De Facto? well, you don't have to be moral to be that, though, again, caring for young might hint at something over and above straight evolution.


gotta go. imperative y'know

""There is only one sentient being, humans"

My creationist friends would agree with this statement."

This is the perfect example of the stopped clock.



"Leopards - do they care about their prey's care?
The imperative is to eat...- they'll kill as quickly as possible simply to conserve resources "

Ever watched a mother cat teach its kittens to hunt by catching, but not killing, a small animal, and setting it free for the kittens to practice on?

Although that behaviour conserves the kittens' resources in the long run. Praise the Lord for evolution.

But all these behavious apply to the human animal. Is there any qualitative difference between our moral behaviour and animals' amoral behaviour?

When we commit genocide, are we simply doing what human animals do?

But most importantly...how did we get to be discussing this on a thread called 'Shooting in the UK'?

I did try.

Hoo, yes
Ed, good points, I'll take the last

FB:


...it is better that we limit animal's pain - interest in hurting animals is likely to to link into hurting other humans (even if, in almost all cases, not to fatality); as in the converse in reducing pain

That's basically Kant's argument that I mentioned: we don't trust those who torture puppies.

This is true. Yet those who hunt for sport do not necessarily kill humans while vegetarian Hindus who are very kind to sacred cows sometimes do. I'm sceptical that there's any good, correlational data. It must me more complicated.