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Non-human persons

Which of these are sentient and deserving of rights?

  • Great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans)

    Votes: 12 54.5%
  • Cetaceans (whales, dolphins, and porpoises)

    Votes: 12 54.5%
  • Elephants

    Votes: 11 50.0%
  • Cephalopods (especially the octopus)

    Votes: 9 40.9%
  • Grey Parrots

    Votes: 10 45.5%
  • Other (please specify)

    Votes: 11 50.0%
  • None

    Votes: 5 22.7%

  • Total voters
    22

Mycroft

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I really don't see sentience as something a creature either has or lacks. It seems to me that creatures have sentience in degrees, and that there are likely different sorts of awareness that together make up self-awareness. The only reason we can say with any certainty that other human beings are sentient and not just responding to stimuli is that we recognize it in ourselves and assume other human beings must be the same. (Although the extent to which we really are sentient and not just acting according to stimuli and weaving a comforting Story of Me after the fact is questionable, but we'll set that aside for now.)

That said, bacon is delicious and it's pretty important we be able to test on animals, so I'm a little conflicted.
 

Lexicon

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I selected Other, and I specify cats. For obvious reasons.
 

Bamboo

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I think that self-aware beings with cultures should be respected, however without the ability* to communicate with them meaningfully to negotiate terms and use of space I think humans should mostly do whatever is practical.

Also, I think the "right to natural habitat" is problematic - as a human being with my inventions how is the world not MY natural habitat? I have a strong desire to defend my spot on the food/resource chain. I think an awareness of how this urge can become destructive is valuable.

*or the possibility. With the possibility for communication without the ability, then things enter a grayer area.
 

Kayness

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If it was up to me I'd have rabbits placed in there too. (voted Other)

p.s. you might find this relevant to the thread:
 

redacted

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It's definitely an interesting question.

If you try to reduce morals down to their constituent assumptions, you'll find some interesting side effects. For example, if it's wrong to enslave a mentally handicapped person (let's say an average chimp is smarter), there must be some trait besides cognitive ability that defines the set of things ethical considerations apply to. That set of things would likely include many non-human animals.

A fun response to that could be a utilitarian moral system in which the goodness of an action is defined as the total amount of marginal human happiness minus the total amount of marginal human sadness. From this perspective, we should only apply rights to animals if people gain less from exploiting them than they lose by feeling bad about it.
 

Fluffywolf

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I voted other. I don't think looking at rights from such an absolute point of view is correct. Saying humans have more rights than animals is wrong. Every living being has the right of being born into this world. sentience is no deciding factor for me in that.
 

Orangey

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My grocery chain is called Aldi, a German grocery chain, non-human but legally a person. So just the other day I said to them, you have German efficiency but no sense of humour. And they said, we don't need a sense of humour to sell groceries.

This has got to be my favorite post this week.
 

CrystalViolet

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You peeps are looking at this all wrong. We have to change everything about ourselves and the way we live. I'm pretty sure Dolphins don't feel bad about eating fish and start eating just seaweed, so I don't mean become vegetarians. We've grown so apart from nature and animals. We used to rely on animals for everything, we had partnerships, close partnerships. We maybe need to look in reincorporating that into society. I'm not suggesting returning to old ways, but adapting them into our way of thinking.
I like the concept of just taking what you need, and living in harmony with nature but it doesn't mean we cast aside technology.
 

CrystalViolet

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Sorry, the above sounds crazy. At first.
I have an idea of how things could be altered but no way of explaining it.
 

Magic Poriferan

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It's definitely an interesting question.

If you try to reduce morals down to their constituent assumptions, you'll find some interesting side effects. For example, if it's wrong to enslave a mentally handicapped person (let's say an average chimp is smarter), there must be some trait besides cognitive ability that defines the set of things ethical considerations apply to. That set of things would likely include many non-human animals.

A fun response to that could be a utilitarian moral system in which the goodness of an action is defined as the total amount of marginal human happiness minus the total amount of marginal human sadness. From this perspective, we should only apply rights to animals if people gain less from exploiting them than they lose by feeling bad about it.

There is no inherent reason to limit utilitarianism to humans.
 

redacted

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There is no inherent reason to limit utilitarianism to humans.

Heh, I thought of that actually, but decided against going into it.

There's also no inherent reason not to limit utilitarianism to humans. :) It also creates a nice clean conceptual boundary, so that increases descriptive utility.

This doesn't actually reflect my view, by the way.
 
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