Human Rights and Animal Rights.

It's rare for a pet owner to admit that their pet does not have the same level of consciousness as they. But I suppose there is no current way of knowing whether humans and non-humans have a difference in type or degree of consciousness, or whether non-humans are conscious at all.

It's rare because most pet owners anthromorphasize the animals they keep. I do on occasion, i speak to him like a child sometimes, my wife gives me a strange look and I stop. Deep down though I know he is a dog with canine needs and canine thoughts, not a dog with human needs and human thoughts.
I suppose that is why I disagree with rogy and his version of animal rights. It requires applying human needs and emotions onto another species. That is anthromorphasizing on a grand scale. And is,in my opinion,a very arrogant thing to do to another species.
Does any of that make sense?

Human life takes priority over animal life its as simple as that .

The problem here is that not all those in the moral community are able to make moral choices.

Does that mean the human animals not able to make moral choices are also not in the moral community, no, we regard them as part of it.


rogY

Animal rights theory posits that sentient animals have rights even if they cannot carry out reciprocal moral duties.

Gary Francione's vision of animal rights sees sentient animals as part of the moral community: "We live in a binary moral universe. There are persons and there are things. The former have inherent value and are members of the moral community. The latter have only extrinsic or external value and are outside the moral community. Although many humans regard some animals (their companions) as nonhuman persons with moral value, animals are, as a matter of our law, regarded as chattel property, as things with only the value that we give to them.

"Veganism is an act of nonviolent defiance. It is our statement that we reject the notion that animals are things and that we regard sentient nonhumans as moral persons with the fundamental moral right not to be treated as the property or resources of humans.

"If you are not vegan, go vegan. It?s easy. It?s better for your health. It?s better for the planet. But, most importantly, it is the morally right thing to do."

https://www.abolitionistapproach.com/some-thoughts-on-the-abolitionist-approach/


rogY

Putting aside the amount of human rights violations perpetrated every day by people who would also claim some allegiance with other humans as a general matter, why not adopt Richard Ryder's idea and think of a moral category called "The Sentients"?


You can have an allegiance with another sentient, yes?

rogY

What about orphans in that case?

This inherent empathy is an interesting idea. Lots of talk about "mirror neurons" nowadays - we feel another's pain (Hollywood plays on this of course).

Other people have called this "animal pity" - the idea that morality is created when we look into the eyes of another, especially one who is suffering - I guess we could think of Live Aid and such like in this respect.


rogY

This is the same consistent flaw in all of Rogy's arguments. He wants animals to have the same exact rights as humans.

WRONG! There are few animal advocates who argue for "the same exact rights as humans."

Who argues for nonhuman animals' right to vote or to formal education?

You know anyone who stands for that?


rogY

give me a house full of animals anyday, i have been involved in animal rights for many years matey, i have friends who have been made scape goats, and who are presently in prison, for voicing there opinions, this exsperimenting on animals is big corrupt businees which no-one seems to understand, sorry i know your thread isnt about that,x

So your criterion is sentience. I agree, but how do we know what is sentient?

A snake moves along the ground. He finds a small frog to eat. Does he know that the frog is not a rock? Does he know that the frog is not part of himself? Does he know that by eating the frog he will satisfy his hunger? Does he know what he has to do to catch the frog?

The snake does know that the frog is not a rock - snakes don't eat rocks. He does know that the frog is not part of himself - snakes don't eat themselves. He knows that eating satisfies hunger, otherwise he would not have the need to eat in the first place. He does what he must do to catch the frog, otherwise he wouldn't be able to catch him.

Now the snake may not know these things in the ways, or with any of the abstract thinking, that we would, but he knows them on some level. He is aware, both of himself and of the world outside of himself and he reacts to pleasure and pain.

He is sentient.

You can apply that logic with plants though. Plants have all manner of defesive tactics to keep the plant alive. Just because a living thing responds to needs that will ensure its survival doesn't mean it has a sense of self. And it is a huge leap of faith to presume it does!
https://www.sciencecodex.com/how_plants_fight_back
I am not arguing that plants deserve rights. And I am certainly not trying to belittle the choice you have decided to take.
What I am doing, is trying to reason that both plants and animals main purpose is to achieve survival, they both do this by avoiding damaging situations. Plants do it on a slower, or an unseen(by us)level. If your criteria for sentience is being met by the snake and the frog. It is also being met by plants.

I don't believe other animals are sentient! Or at least, I don't believe other animals have a sense of self. Or an awareness of self. I believe all living things wish to survive and breed. To insure survival they will react to pain and dangerous situations. That doesn't make them sentient. It mearly make them alive. What it does, is evoke pity(a human emotion) from us because we can see that pain. And we know pain hurts. I maintain that animal rights advocates are anthromorphizing different species by applying human emotions onto animals.

Other animals do have s sense of self as determined by the Mirror Self Recognition Test (MSR). Here is a paper reporting on the tests involving bottlenose dolphins from 2001: https://www.pnas.org/content/98/10/5937.full

There have been prior and subsequent tests involving several other species, including even some birds, and some of them also pass the MSR, providing evidence of their self-awareness (chimpanzees, elephants, magpies and others). There has also been considerable interest in using other sense-awareness markers to determine self-awareness - since we know that a human being born without sight is self-aware, there must be ways to test for self-awareness that do not involve sight. Recognizing one's self in a mirror is one way, but it cannot be the only way, to determine self-awareness.

Sentience is not best understood as this kind of higher order self-awareness though. Sentience is a more basic form of consciousness, which has been described as the ability of a being to know, for example, what it is like for it to be a bat. We may not be able to describe what it is like for a bat to be a bat, but there is something that it is like to be a bat, and bats know what it is.

In that sense, there is not something it is like to be a tree. Trees do not possess sense organs or a central nervous system and although plants generally respond to stimuli, stimulus response is condition of being alive, not of being sentient. Sentience implies some level of decision making as a result of sensation. Plants cannot choose to not grow towards the sun, but a snake could choose not to eat the frog (and choose instead to eat the grasshopper he also sees).

In the end, it is an age-old and possibly intractable problem to resolve the questions surrounding consciousness and the problem of "other minds". Philosophy has yet to provide a definitive way for me to say with absolute confidence that you have a mind, although I can say with confidence that I have one. What we all do, in our day-to-day lives, is assume that those others we see around us, who look as we look, and who act as we act, are similarly situated as ourselves. We go with the best evidence we have, and govern ourselves accordingly.

The best evidence we have to date suggests that most animals are like us in relevant ways - they are alive, they know that it is they and not some other who is alive, and they knowingly act in ways to keep themselves alive. They are sentient beings who have an interest in their own lives, just like you and me. We should respect and protect their interest in staying alive.