Terminalchaos said:
That's the issue with utilitarianism. Interpreted certain ways it can justify slavery or killing people for minor offenses. Most social philosophies, taken to extreme conclusions, can present all sorts of exceptions and issues. I think I read The Lottery that in English class. Thats the huge issue, it is hard to be the one to decide fairly. It just feels like the default then becomes ALL humans > all nonhumans and that's where the quandary lies. I totally understand why people balk at my position but I also feel that it is extremely anthrocentric to not automatically consider a human to be worth more. There are humans I personally know whom I would never save if it meant killing certain animals and their are humans whom I would kill another being to protect, if i had to. I would likely be very scarred by the incident and would try and sue whomever caused that to happen (the ability of the case to succeed means little in this hypothetical case). Its a difficult issue and I get why people take the stance they tend to take on it. I just think it has some basic issues with the presumption of human life > nonhuman life. Just because it is hard to judge and set a line does not mean that it isn't a moral issue that should eventually be addressed.
Does an animal's life become equal to a human's once they are (hypothetically but let's see where science brings us) able to not only talk but make an impassioned plea for the value of their life? Do we consider that sapient animal to be merely property like the US did to Dred Scott? Once we find a level of nonhuman intelligence we are willing to accept as having value equal to our own then is it ok to remove the rights of those humans who do not possess those faculties? Or does being born a human just magically entitle us to dominion over all other life? My point is that we are speciesist/anthrocentric and how we treat nonhuman intelligence may one day be viewed as barbaric as the way we officially treated other disenfranchised groups.
Its hard to get over anthrocentrism as a human. Our nature and nurture both help us to be anthrocentric. That's one of the reason some core points are so hard for some to accept since they go against out inherent self-valuation as a species.
Glad you responded, I really enjoy these kinds of discussions where we can hack at the philosophies together.
On the anthrocentric nature of moral philosophy:
Part of the anthrocentrism of our moral philosophies, probably the biggest part, is that the animals we deal with aren't sapient and do not, even among themselves, have the sort of moral philosophies that we do (which is why I'm aggravated to NO END by people constantly calling Dolphins rapists. Rape is a human moral construct people; it doesn't apply to animals!) That's not to say that no species of animal has proto-morality as a function of instinct but they don't have moral philosophy. So trying to apply moral philosophy to animals tends to take the form of humans as having caregiver responsibilities, not that animals are of equal consideration within the moral framework as sapient individuals. Now, were we to find a different species with sapience and sentience somewhere out in space, we probably wouldn't call them animals, we would recognize them as being people. Anthrocentrism is built into the bones of our moral philosophy because of that distinction (and it is an important and useful one) between person and animal.
On empathy:
I actually don't have any problem with your position from the perspective of utilitarian moral philosophy, as explained. I don't so much balk at what you say as merely muse that such philosophy doesn't work because none of us are the arbiter of the life and death of all our fellow humans. I think most people would say, "shoot the gorilla, save the child" not because they necessarily really think a human life is greater than the life of an animal, especially one so endangered as the gorilla but because we recognize that, if it were our loved one down in the pit, we'd want our loved one saved. The sentiment functions in the same way most of our moral philosophies about doing wrong to others function, we may not really care all that much about someone in a different town being robbed, we don't know him from Jack, but our ability to empathize and desire to not be robbed ourselves drives us to the conclusion that robbery is wrong even when it happens to not us. If we can't get past seeing our own loved one being killed by the gorilla, our empathy will usually tell us that its wrong no matter who's life is at risk. If nothing else, that empathy serves as the evolutionary backbone of our survival as a co-operative species.
On sapience and rights:
You ask above if it's okay to remove the rights of humans who don't possesses the requisite intelligence we might find in another life form we would consider to be "people." The answer is, we already do this, though it's a complex issue. For instance, many and most people would probably agree that, even if they are pro-life generally, they would be okay with aborting a pregnancy where the baby had no chance of forming a brain. Many, though not all, also find it morally okay to put someone to death if they are brain dead with little to no chance of ever not being brain dead. This is again because of how are moral philosophy treats our obligations to those who are sapient to how it treats those who are not sapient but in our care. Now you will find some hardliners who will claim that all human life is sacred because of the moral framework of human life in some religions (not calling anyone out, this is merely an academic assertion based on some people's interpretation of religions, not any value judgement on those moral philosophies.) So, even in our anthrocentric moral philosophies, (barring some outliers) a human lacking sapience is treated much the same way an animal is.
On the Dred Scott case:
I doubt we'd see any sapient being ruled as property since our moral values have shifted to the understanding that owning sapient beings is, without question, abhorrent. You might find some who might advocate that anything non-human shouldn't have human rights because of [insert idiotic semantic claim here] but lots of people who know better would make an annoyed frowny face and quickly point out that we just call them human rights because we didn't know of any other sapient species and that making moral judgements based in rhetorical traditions probably means the person needs the stupid slapped out of them.
All that said, while we are very likely to debate the personhood of an alien species that exhibited sapience and some might want to strip them of that title out of fear or an appeal to human superiority, I very much doubt those sentiments would be in the majority. I'd say a distric 9 type scenario is far more likely than us seeing a sapient species and deciding we can own them anyway; we've basically got that "owning another person as property is wrong as hell" thing ironed out.
On moral philosophy of the caregiver:
You mention that, while we have no great comprehensive answer to animals rights under anthrocentric moral philosophy, it's still worth debating and finding better answers than we have now. That I totally agree with. I always tend to caution that, just because we don't have an answer doesn't mean any answer asserted is good or valid and that we shouldn't accept bad answers instead of no answer in all situations. That's not aimed at you you course, just a general musing on how people, when faced with areas where we have holes in our understanding or policies, assert that any solution is better than no solution or the current solution. I certainly think we have room to evolve our morals with regard to how we treat non-sapient lifeforms but I still agree that the moral answer here was to shoot the gorilla, even if I, like you, actually value the life of the gorilla more.
Sorry for the hugetastic response; I'm sure some of that is just me pointlessly lecturing you on shit you already know but I wanted to include it all for completeness in case other people want to read it and might get something out of it. Thanks again for taking the time to chat with me about this, it's fascinating.
