Animal Advocacy - Most Important Focus? [POLL]

[Neptual]

Should I hesitate to squash the mosquito buzzing around my head? If the answer is "No, it's fine to kill the mosquito," then where do we draw the line?

I'd not kill it (unless it's opposing a serious threat; e.g. malaria). It's sentient: that means it feels pain and it has the desire to avoid suffering and death (in fact, I shouldn't use 'it'). I'd just blow it away with my breath, or I'd just use anti-mosquito products, to keep them away; not in a lethal way: there are oils and sprays that contain a liquid that keeps them away from you, since mosquitos detest the smell of it (you just need a few drops on your arms and legs for it to function efficiently).
But you have the right to defend yourself. If you feel the need to kill it because it's sucking blood from you, you're not killing it without a justification. However, once you notice it has already stung you, what you want to do is to make it stop. Killing it is one way, the most brutal one, but another way is to just blow it away. Keep in mind that this situation can be easily prevented by spraying natural products that keeps them at distance because of their smell, if you have a mosquito problem.

A similar case to this was brought up when a man blew up is dog. Was the the dog sentient? Of course it was, but the courts ruled that it was not animal cruelty because the dog didn't feel any pain. While I'm not trying to justify this action of any action the requires the killing of a sentient being, wouldn't killing the mosquito in one "slap" simultaneously kill it as well?

[Volenta]

It's normal that you put your specie at a higher level. That's because you have more compassion towards humans. You can relate to them more easily, and you also grew up in a society that told you that humans are more important.
You should check how mirror neurons work. To explain it briefly, when someone else is doing something or feeling pain/happiness, those neurons fire. It means that we prove the same emotions watching someone else doing something/suffer, in the same way they prove it, but with less intensity of course (that's why, for example, we smile when watching kids playing football; and when one of them scores, if we're interested in the match, adrenaline is released in our body, in the same way it's released in his, by the same type of neurons). Those mirror neurons fire with much more intensity and in a bigger number when that action is done by humans/done upon humans, instead of other kind of animals.

You are making an emotional case here, but do you believe they are objectively morally worth the same? I think that there is an objective/rational answer to this problem. Take the example away from humans: if you had to choose between a chimpanzee and a chicken, which would you save? I certainly would go for the chimpanzee, and you probably too. I don't know whether their sensation of feeling pain are any different, but I do know that chimpanzees have intenser emotional and subjective feelings and have cognitively a stronger interest in living.

Of course a chicken and a human both have moral worth, and both should be treated with respect, but do some people really think they are morally worth the same? I haven't heard a compelling reason so far why that is, hope to hear one.

[thebestofenergy]

A similar case to this was brought up when a man blew up is dog. Was the the dog sentient? Of course it was, but the courts ruled that it was not animal cruelty because the dog didn't feel any pain. While I'm not trying to justify this action of any action the requires the killing of a sentient being, wouldn't killing the mosquito in one "slap" simultaneously kill it as well?

Killing it fast doesn't mean killing it humanely (in fact, that's an oxymoron).
The sentient animal desires to keep living. It's immoral to kill it/him/her, quickly or not.
Yes, it'd kill it immediately, but that's not a good excuse to do it (otherwise why don't eat animals that are killed painlessly and immediately, and that are treated well during their lives?).
Humans were killed in the gas chambers with a quick and painless death, in the nazi camps. Was it immoral? Certainly so.
Some animals are killed painlessly to feed us. Is it immoral? Certainly so.
It's impossible to kill humanely someone that doesn't want to die. It's a contradiction. You might kill painlessly, but not humanely.
Every sentient being has the desire to live, and therefore the right to live. It/he/she struggles to survive.
If you'd say that killing sentient animals without them suffering/realising isn't immoral, then you'd also have to say that killing humans without them suffering/realising isn't immoral. The fact is that if they had the possibility to choose, they'd choose the 'alive' option.

[thebestofenergy]

You are making an emotional case here, but do you believe they are objectively morally worth the same? I think that there is an objective/rational answer to this problem. Take the example away from humans: if you had to choose between a chimpanzee and a chicken, which would you save? I certainly would go for the chimpanzee, and you probably too. I don't know whether their sensation of feeling pain are any different, but I do know that chimpanzees have intenser emotional and subjective feelings and have cognitively a stronger interest in living.

Of course a chicken and a human both have moral worth, and both should be treated with respect, but do some people really think they are morally worth the same? I haven't heard a compelling reason so far why that is, hope to hear one.

I'm not making an emotional case, it's just how our brain works. We feel more compassion towards beings that are more similar to us/have the same qualities. In the overpowering majority, people would base themselves on this.
To say if they SHOULD be morally worth the same or not, that's moral relativity. It depends whether you evaluate intelligence or not in this situation. If so, would a person with a higher intelligence have more worth? Would a person with handicap have less worth, just because of his/her lower intelligence?
If I had to choose between two sentient beings, I'd choose the one I'm more morally attached to and/or that has more intelligence. That's because I'd be biased/feel more compassion. I don't know if there'd be a reason more than that. If so, why would you evaluate more a being that has higher intelligence? Having a more developed cognitivity doesn't necessarily mean feeling more pain.

[Volenta]

If you'd say that killing sentient animals without them suffering/realising isn't immoral, then you'd also have to say that killing humans without them suffering/realising isn't immoral.

I do not necessarily agree with this. Some animals are only aware in the present moment—they do not think about the future in any aspect. Humans and some other animals certainly do have a sense of the future. That's why people like Peter Singer argue they can justify killing in these cases. If you take this position and you're consistent, you also have to say it's justifiable to kill people that have a short-term memory disorder that makes them live only in the present moment (forgot the name of this disorder).

The fact is that if they had the possibility to choose, they'd choose the 'alive' option.

Sure, but I can say that pretty much for everything (even a stone). This argument is also used by anti-abortionists. I think they are just wrong in using the argument since you have to work with the current situation, arguing about potential or hypothetical situations makes no sense to me.

***

I'm not making an emotional case, it's just how our brain works. We feel more compassion towards beings that are more similar to us/have the same qualities. In the overpowering majority, people would base themselves on this.

Yes you are telling how the brain works and why you would react the way we humans do, and you are right about that. But what I meant is that it doesn't answer the question whether it is justifiable (and maybe you didn't try to).

To say if they SHOULD be morally worth the same or not, that's moral relativity. It depends whether you evaluate intelligence or not in this situation. If so, would a person with a higher intelligence have more worth? Would a person with handicap have less worth, just because of his/her lower intelligence?

I'm not sure morals are relative. Why wouldn't higher consciousness (prefer consciousness over intelligence, sorry for making a strawman)—and thus like I said have intenser emotional/subjective feelings and cognitively a stronger interest in living—matter when talking about the right to live? It may sound harsh, but some mentally handicapped person do have less feelings and interests in living. We don't want to see this though, out of political correctness. Just curious: do you think it's unjustifiable to end the life of a person that is in persistent vegetative state—only having a working brainstem—that is never going out of that state?

If I had to choose between two sentient beings, I'd choose the one I'm more morally attached to and/or that has more intelligence. That's because I'd be biased/feel more compassion. I don't know if there'd be a reason more than that. If so, why would you evaluate more a being that has higher intelligence? Having a more developed cognitivity doesn't necessarily mean feeling more pain.

In the burning house example one live is going to end, so there's more to it than pain. If it would be the case that a chicken (or any other non-human animal) would feel more pain than a human and you're forced to hurt one of them, then I would choose to hurt the human. But if you're forced to take a live, I would choose the chicken.
What about a human—or actually any other animal—that does not have the ability to feel pain (those people actually exist), does this person have no moral value at all? Of course consciousness matters and should have moral weight.

[brimstoneSalad]

As a new vegan, I'm just beginning to educate myself on the differences between abolitionism and welfarism. Judging from the videos I've watched, there seems to be a fair amount of vitriol between the two groups. Francione strikes me as a strongly divisive character. But I have a lot more to learn.

Well, there are kind of two things at play here.

One is about ideal/philosophical stance
One is about practical stance

On the philosophical side, you will find that a large part of the division comes down to deontologists and consequentialists.
I don't know how much you've dug into philosophy and ethics; deontology is logically invalid, but intuitively it "feels" correct to a lot of people (like religion, and god) so even among atheists (and even self described skeptics) it is a common foundation for a world view (but not among any serious philosophers).

The practical stance matter is a more arguable- and ultimately, that comes down to an empirical question, where we just don't have enough conclusive evidence yet (so each side is basically guessing, and disagreeing on what they think is more probable given their interpretations and personal models/assumptions of human nature).

The two cross over constantly, and there there are dozens of nuanced positions people hold between two extremes philosophically (most of which are internally inconsistent), and practically.

Here are just a few statements different people might hold to be true. I've highlighted the ones I generally accept in green:

• It is morally acceptable/meaningless/irrelevant to own another sentient being
• It is morally unacceptable to ever own another sentient being
• Ownership/treatment as property sentient beings towards being abused, so while morally acceptable in an idea situation, it is bad in practice.
• It is morally fine to act against the interests of another sentient being (e.g. by killing or otherwise harming it)
• It is morally wrong (to some degree) to act against the interests of another sentient being
• It is equally morally wrong to act against the interests of any sentient being compared to another (all beings have equal moral value)
• It is not equally morally wrong to act against the interests of any sentient being compared to another (different beings have different moral value)
• The good ends, no matter how large, can not justify means which are bad, no matter how small.
• Ends can and do justify means, particularly when the difference is larger (a small wrong to do a great good)- the sum of an action may be morally right even though it contains some components which are negative
• Social contract is just a human construct, and human laws are to be dismissed and ignored if they conflict with moral law.
• Social contract serves as an absolute boundary to practical moral action within the context of society (e.g. laws that protect human life and well being should not be violated- though individuals differ on the matter of property)

These (the green ones) are the same ones all popular rational moral philosophers (such as Singer) accept. They are consequentialist positions (which are the only philosophically valid ones), along with some fairly well established empirical corollaries (which can be argued on empirical grounds, but are unlikely to be disproved at this point).

1. I gather that many (most? almost all?) vegans want to discard cognition as a criterion for how we treat non-human animals. There should not be a hierarchy where, say, an orangutan has a higher value than a pig, which has a higher value than a chicken, which has a higher value than a snail . . . It's simply a question of status as a "sentient being." (I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.)

Not at all. Most consider different animals to have different moral values based on some form of cognitive ability and nature.
However, bear in mind that this only makes something more or less wrong- but does not argue that we should be making a habit of harming less advanced beings without real need (eating them doesn't constitute such, since the practice in itself offers no benefit to merit it). In an ideal sense, all sentient beings should be free of suffering, and killing is wrong. But if you're going to kill, the moral imperative is to kill the least advanced being, and look at all of the consequences.

My question is, what constitutes "sentient"? It's pretty clear that a dog is sentient while a carrot is not, but what about a mosquito? Are insects sentient? Should I hesitate to squash the mosquito buzzing around my head? If the answer is "No, it's fine to kill the mosquito," then where do we draw the line? Is it a question of neurology--whether or not the animal can experience pain? (Do insects feel pain? I have no idea.)

Any being with rudimentary intelligence is sentient- this can be empirically demonstrated by showing that they are receptive to operant conditioning.

Most larger insects seem to be sentient. I don't know if it has been demonstrated that mosquitoes are sentient- they may or may not be, but I assume they are.

Taken as an isolated event, it's wrong to kill a mosquito. But it's not very wrong. It's on the order of moral magnitude as stepping lightly on somebody's toe- perhaps far less.

On the other hand, killing a mosquito has consequences beyond the act itself: by killing that mosquito, you prevent it from biting somebody else, and spawning thousands more mosquitoes, some of which will bite still more people. But also, you deny a bird a bite of food, and all of the food that mosquitoes spawn would produce. You also reduce the potential for this parasitic organism to spread disease, and reduce the chances, ever so slightly, of a new super virus forming (AFAIK, mosquitoes are the largest vector for disease and cross pollination of pathogens between humans and animals outside the animal agriculture industry).

Every action has a vast cascade of consequences which have to be considered.

On the whole, I believe the existence of mosquitoes causes more harm than good in the world (as a food source, they are not crucial or irreplaceable). I would say, then, that killing them, or at least controlling their populations, is on the whole a moral good.

If I had a button I could push that would wipe out every species of human parasitic mosquito on Earth, I would strongly consider pushing it.
This is aside from my personal dislike of being bitten.

2. I get that sentient beings have a right to their lives. But does that mean we shouldn't assign different weights and values to different kinds of lives? I don't want any more chickens killed on my behalf, but at the same time I don't assign the same value to a chicken life as I do to a human life. In the burning-building scenario, with a human on one side of the building and a chicken on the other, I wouldn't have to think for a second about which one to save. Is that standard thinking in the vegan community (I would hope so), or would some consider it speciesism and therefore invalid?

It's only speciesism if that is your only consideration, and you are employing a double standard.

The trouble here is, being consistent is very politically incorrect.

People with severe mental retardation, infants, and people who otherwise have underdeveloped brains or serious brain damage are often in the same cognitive boat as our lesser kin in the animal kingdom.

To say that a child with severe mental retardation- who doesn't know where or what he is, doesn't understand the difference between life and death, and has no notion of tomorrow, and thus no innate desire to see tomorrow- has less moral value than a fully functional child- who is looking forwards to playing softball tomorrow, knows his name and is grappling with the existential issues of what his place in the world will be, has learned about life and death and is very afraid of death, and has every desire in the world to see tomorrow- is just wrong, right? Or is it?

If we maintain that a chicken has less moral value than the average human being, at yet there is no difference in moral value between one human and another, no matter the practical differences in cognition, then we are being speciesist.
If we treat the cases similarly, and admit a moral difference in both cases, then we are being morally consistent, but politically incorrect enough to incite a lynch mob.

If so, why would you evaluate more a being that has higher intelligence? Having a more developed cognitivity doesn't necessarily mean feeling more pain.

Pain is morally irrelevant to killing painlessly. What matters is interest. If the animal has a greater interest in continued life (and a larger potential fulfillment of that interest), then it is more wrong to kill it. And this doesn't necessarily apply only to intelligence (which gives a greater ability to think ahead, foresee, and look forward to the future in anticipation).
Some animals have this ability, but choose not to use it:

There are humans who have no ambition for the future, and no real interest in continuing living, who only do it out of habit- who are primarily interested in being high and distracted from life. If they don't care, then as an isolated event it's not necessarily morally wrong to kill them painlessly (but that's only as an 'isolated event'- in reality, no man is an island. Not only might their families care, and suffer the loss, but beyond that there are other consequences to be considered- such as the possibility for change in the future).

[cufflink]

Of course a chicken and a human both have moral worth, and both should be treated with respect, but do some people really think they are morally worth the same? I haven't heard a compelling reason so far why that is, hope to hear one.

I feel strongly, as you do, that while both chickens and humans should be treated with respect, they have very different values. My innate reaction to someone who questions this is, "You mean that's not obvious to you???" But I realize that's not a persuasive argument. It would be an interesting exercise to try to articulate my reasons for feeling as I do. Off the top of my head, I'd say that no chicken understands anything about the universe beyond its own narrow environment, no chicken has ever composed a symphony or written poetry or painted a portrait, no chicken has gotten off the planet, no chicken is concerned about members of other species, no chicken is concerned about right and wrong . . . On the other hand, no chicken has committed genocide or enslaved members of its own species or any other species, no chicken restricts the freedom of others, no chicken treats different chicken races as sub-chickens (as far as I know) . . . So it takes some thought. In any event, if my position makes me a speciesist, so be it.

I don't think it's just a question of automatically favoring one's own species above any other. If an advanced alien race with a sense of morals and values landed on our planet and surveyed the life forms here, I'd like to think they would place us at the top of the heap. But that assumes their values more of less coincided with our own: creativity, intellectual development, awareness of the universe, concern for other life forms . . .

This is one place where the religionists have it easy. They have a ready-made explanation for why our own species has higher value than any other: we're the only ones who were "created in the image of God" and have immortal souls. Those of us who don't believe such nonsense have more work to do to justify our placing of value.

[cufflink]

Humans were killed in the gas chambers with a quick and painless death, in the nazi camps. Was it immoral? Certainly so.

No no no no no. Sorry to pounce on you for this, but you're very much mistaken. Death in the gas chambers was anything but quick and painless. It was horrific. Please read the literature on the Holocaust. There are photographs of the aftermath of such deaths, which I won't describe or link to, but you can find them online. They tell a horrible story.

[thebestofenergy]

Humans were killed in the gas chambers with a quick and painless death, in the nazi camps. Was it immoral? Certainly so.

No no no no no. Sorry to pounce on you for this, but you're very much mistaken. Death in the gas chambers was anything but quick and painless. It was horrific. Please read the literature on the Holocaust. There are photographs of the aftermath of such deaths, which I won't describe or link to, but you can find them online. They tell a horrible story.

I'm sorry, I didn't inform myself well enough. I meant to make the example of 'imagine being quickly killed by gas, not even realising it's happening'. It wouldn't be moral.

[thebestofenergy]

I wrote a long answer to this, but apparently it didn't went through Probably my connection.

If you'd say that killing sentient animals without them suffering/realising isn't immoral, then you'd also have to say that killing humans without them suffering/realising isn't immoral.

I do not necessarily agree with this. Some animals are only aware in the present moment—they do not think about the future in any aspect. Humans and some other animals certainly do have a sense of the future. That's why people like Peter Singer argue they can justify killing in these cases. If you take this position and you're consistent, you also have to say it's justifiable to kill people that have a short-term memory disorder that makes them live only in the present moment (forgot the name of this disorder).

How would the ability to think about the future be relevant here? The premise was that they were not realising/knowing what was happening (e.g. humans being killed by a bullet in their brain without see it coming or being mashed by a hand in the case of the mosquito).

The fact is that if they had the possibility to choose, they'd choose the 'alive' option.

Sure, but I can say that pretty much for everything (even a stone). This argument is also used by anti-abortionists. I think they are just wrong in using the argument since you have to work with the current situation, arguing about potential or hypothetical situations makes no sense to me.

A stone is not alive, and a plant (as another example) is not a sentient. Even if they had the possibility, they wouldn't be able to make a decision. It's not that much hypothetical, actually: animals (instects included) keep making the decision to avoid death when there's a danger, since they have survival instincts. A stone doesn't have survival instincts; and a plant neither, it has a defense mechanism.
About anti-abortionists, the fetus is not sentient untill the 24th/28th week (the thalamo-cortical complex that provides consciousness is not developed untill then). But even if the baby was conscious, there'd be valid reasons to make the abortion.

To say if they SHOULD be morally worth the same or not, that's moral relativity. It depends whether you evaluate intelligence or not in this situation. If so, would a person with a higher intelligence have more worth? Would a person with handicap have less worth, just because of his/her lower intelligence?

I'm not sure morals are relative. Why wouldn't higher consciousness (prefer consciousness over intelligence, sorry for making a strawman)—and thus like I said have intenser emotional/subjective feelings and cognitively a stronger interest in living—matter when talking about the right to live? It may sound harsh, but some mentally handicapped person do have less feelings and interests in living. We don't want to see this though, out of political correctness. Just curious: do you think it's unjustifiable to end the life of a person that is in persistent vegetative state—only having a working brainstem—that is never going out of that state?

Some morals are relatives, some are not. Killing your own children would be objectively wrong for example (from an evolution point of view, because it endangers the specie). But some questions such as: who would you kill/let live? 10'000 people, or 1 very smart scientist that has the potential/probability to make an important discovery in the medical science? That is subjective.
If we're talking about having a higher awarness, then yes, I totally agree with you (e.g. human compared to insect).
I'm not sure about your last question. I'm not informed enough on the matter, nor I have tought about it much. If the person has no awarness/consciousness, and he/she is doomed to stay in that state permanently, then I don't think there would be a problem in doing so.

If I had to choose between two sentient beings, I'd choose the one I'm more morally attached to and/or that has more intelligence. That's because I'd be biased/feel more compassion. I don't know if there'd be a reason more than that. If so, why would you evaluate more a being that has higher intelligence? Having a more developed cognitivity doesn't necessarily mean feeling more pain.

In the burning house example one live is going to end, so there's more to it than pain. If it would be the case that a chicken (or any other non-human animal) would feel more pain than a human and you're forced to hurt one of them, then I would choose to hurt the human. But if you're forced to take a live, I would choose the chicken.
What about a human—or actually any other animal—that does not have the ability to feel pain (those people actually exist), does this person have no moral value at all? Of course consciousness matters and should have moral weight.

I should have specified 'two sentient beings that have similar consciousness'. I was talking about intelligence, not consciousness. They don't necessarily have to depend one from the other.
In the case of 'human vs. chicken', I'd choose to save the human over the chicken because of intelligence (since in this case the difference of intelligence between the two animals also means higher consciousness).