Sentience is meaningless. Sapience is what matters.
Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2018 12:19 am
Hello all.
I didn't make an introduction post because I really want to just put forward and test these specific ideas, and don't know how much I will stick around.
I've read up on some philosophy relevant to veganism, and I'm OK with logic to a certain degree, but I'm not as into it as many others. But that's part of why I am here to test my ideas and see how they hold up. I may not know every fallacy or all the jargon, but I am comfortable that I can defend my ideas. I'd actually like to write an informal article, perhaps on medium.com or something arguing my position, so I hope this will be a good exercise to test it.
Anyway. The crux of my argument is that it is not wrong to kill a sentient animal, but it is wrong to kill a sapient animal. I will try and summarize my argument by making bullet points, look forward to feedback and I expect to expand and refine it throughout this discussion.
It occurs to me as I post this, I have not made my argument well at all. I apologize for that, it's late and I am doing a lot, but hopefully my basic points come across, and I look forward to clarifying and elaborating further to test the merits of my position.
I didn't make an introduction post because I really want to just put forward and test these specific ideas, and don't know how much I will stick around.
I've read up on some philosophy relevant to veganism, and I'm OK with logic to a certain degree, but I'm not as into it as many others. But that's part of why I am here to test my ideas and see how they hold up. I may not know every fallacy or all the jargon, but I am comfortable that I can defend my ideas. I'd actually like to write an informal article, perhaps on medium.com or something arguing my position, so I hope this will be a good exercise to test it.
Anyway. The crux of my argument is that it is not wrong to kill a sentient animal, but it is wrong to kill a sapient animal. I will try and summarize my argument by making bullet points, look forward to feedback and I expect to expand and refine it throughout this discussion.
- Sentience simply means having enough of a 'mind' to use senses. Most insects, worms and other basic creatures are 'sentient', and because of this I find that meaningless. They have no mind, no self-awareness in any sense...they are not sapient. They are essentially organic robots, and I see little difference betweem them an an advanced model of roomba (which needs to sleep, can automatically recharge, can learn, and is limited to a few basic functions). Essentially, my view is that if a being is not self-aware, i.e. not capable of valuing their own life, they have no right to life.
- People often invoke comparisons to mentally deficient humans, the argument from marginal cases. I find this to be an incredibly flawed argument which is not much more than an appeal to emotion. Mentally disabled humans are still leagues ahead of an animal in most cases, and in other cases it's hard to say exactly what their level is. In cases where it is abundantly clear that they completely, absolutely lack self-awareness, I think they deserve moral consideration only if their is potential for them to improve. Otherwise, the reason we look after them so well is for the comfort of people who care about them. Then there are infants...the main difference with infants is that an infant has the potential to grow into a fully functional human. A cow will never be anything more than a cow.
- People also like to make the 'what if super advanced aliens came to eat us' argument. This is a flawed argument. Humans are so, so, so, so far pasts even our closest animal companion. There is not a single type of animal that actually asks questions, that seeks to learn, not even chimps or gorillas that we can communicate with pretty well via sign language. Not once has a gorilla or chimp asked how something works or why something is the way it is. Humans are so clearly past a threshold that, no matter how much more advanced aliens may be than us, it would not be morally justifiable to eat us (just as I don't think it is moral to eat pigs, or dolphins, or chimps or dogs).
- People also try to use the precautionary principle. What if animals we don't think of as self-aware are in fact self-aware? Well, that is not so much a problem with my position as a problem with getting accurate data. Even so....there are grey areas, but in most cases, I think it is pretty straight forward and I feel confident with the evidence we have available to say if some animals are self-aware and others are not. The small likelihood of me choosing wrong here is outweighed by convenience, which is actually how most humans make decisions when they are not 100% sure of something.
It occurs to me as I post this, I have not made my argument well at all. I apologize for that, it's late and I am doing a lot, but hopefully my basic points come across, and I look forward to clarifying and elaborating further to test the merits of my position.