Speciesism

In response to Andrew (here) and Sean (here)

Speciesism is characterized by assigning different rights and value to different species of animals based on morally irrelevant differences. Saying that humans are, in general, more valuable than dogs because humans have higher mental capacities is not speciesist. Saying that humans are better than dogs because humans walk on two legs, or rather, simply because they are human is speciesist.

A related problem, as you pointed out, involves not recognizing that there are no abilities that all humans have that most animals do not have; it's not speciesist, it's just factually inaccurate. The argument from marginal cases brings this particular point out. It would, I think, be speciesist to say that sentience only matter when it is possessed to the extent that humans have and that anything less than that is useless or irrelevant, because it involves arbitrarily assigning a point of relevance based on species.

I don't know if that helps any. I certainly think that most human lives are worth more than most animals lives, and I don't think that's speciesist.

Parrots and Learned Language

In response to Andrew; one can find his post here

On a related note, parrots have a learned language system. We don't really know how complex it is, but, at the very least, they learn there own "names" (a certain type of call) and have "names" for their homes and certain locations that they frequent. Parrots' names are similar to the names of the parents who raised them rather than the names of their biological parents. This has led to some jokes (of a sort, since they are kind of true) about parrot surnames; parrots have names based on their parents, which goes back for many generations. Many scientists are excited to continue to study parrot communication in hopes that so doing will help us to learn about how our languages developed.

I've been thinking about this quite a bit recently, and I think, as far as my knowledge can take me, that a learned language must have some kind of grammatical structure. Additionally, I think that the emphasis on learning is highly important to gauging how well an animal understands; if it can learn, then it must be able to understand, I think. Human children, for instance, have not learned any language that allows them to express their thoughts, still, in order to learn languages successfully, they have to make non(pre?)-lingual connections that allow them to associate a sound with an object. So, if human children have this ability of non-lingual understanding, I think it is safe to say that many other animals also have that capacity.

I am certainly no expert in the way of knowledge about pre-lingual cognition, so I cannot say everything without a doubt; I am sure there is much confusion about it in the scientific community too.

Care Ethics

Josephine Donovan, while perhaps less preachy than Regan and Singer, has a theory that is, I think, very assuming and generalizing in a way that is not fair, or even correct. The problem with mainly emotion-based ethics is that there are 7 billion people in the world, all of whom have different DNA, different geological surroundings, different cultures, different parents (who had different DNA, friends, cultures, surroundings, etc), different friends (who have different parents (who have different DNA, friends, cultures, surrounding, etc)). There are 7 billion people in the world who have entirely different experiences; there are very few claims that one can make that apply to all humans. Therefore, saying that one will necessarily feel bad for a cow when they see a human torturing it is not actually true. Her theory would also produce a problem for animals that many humans detest intensely (snakes for example).

While I personally feel bad for most animals, I am aware that other people do not. Actually, I tend to feel most bad for the animals that other people don't tend to care about, like snakes. So, in caring for the animal, I would rather that people act in a way that is based on reason rather than emotion.

I have no need for trying to force people to feel a certain way or pretend that they are wrong for not feeling that way; I don't think it is right to invalidate other people's experiences. Her section was interesting to me, because she was saying that human's view animals as defective humans, but, without saying it, she's basically implying that humans who don't sympathize with cows are emotionally defective humans.

Q & A Question 1

How would Cohen’s second definition of inherent moral value extend to animals whose capacities equal or exceed those of infants and toddlers, and those who are otherwise impaired in a relevant way (i.e. people in comas)?

We talked a bit about this in class. Cohen's second definition of inherent moral value, defined by consciousness of duties and dignity, would exclude people who lack those capacity; I don't think that this is something with which many people can agree. The theory is not necessarily flawed by the exclusion of toddlers and people who are impaired in a relevant way; Still, talking the theory by itself, without a sufficient reason to value those people and not non-human animals, and acting upon it would be, I think, very immoral.

We could work on defending his theory and trying to include toddlers, but those attempts would be to no avail (Avery posted about that here). Additionally, even if he, Carl Cohen, could manage to include children in a morally relevant way, he still would not be able to include people who have mental disabilities. Instead, I think we have to use a different theory that operates on a sliding scale such that it could include children and other animals, given that many other animals have capacities that are greater than those of just-born children.