Animal pain, suffering, and death: why does it matter?

[mrgold]

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Death is the end of all things - there is nothing after that. There is no soul, no heaven no hell. This is true for all life. Knowing this is all you need to know in order to understand why an animal's death matters. It is the end of its existence for all time and that matters to me (most of the time).

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This the same moral relitvists' arguement I had in my add on post. Your post can be boiled down to the last sentance "it matters to me." Good for you, but honestly, I dont care unless you provide a real reason. Why does it matter that a "life" is ending?

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When attempting to make moral decisions the first questino I ask myself is what do I value? What scenarios are preferable to me over other scenarios? The answer is simply that I value my own happiness and well beeing, I value good food, I like playing basketball and poker, I care deeply for family members, etc... I can then reseaonably assume that every other human beeing has certain preferences and values and care about things in a way that I do. Therefore I consider the morally good option to be the one that gives the most people the most happiness (basic utilitarianism). Ending a life is thus bad in that it eliminated all future positive expereiences a particular individual can have (which is especially worrisome if you don't buy into an afterlife).

In making decisions about the validity of animal rights the important question for me is the level of cognition and abillity to perceive pain and pleasure in a way that is similarly meaningful to a human. Obviously I cannot generalize that my perceptions of pain and pleasure are felt in animals nearly as well as I can that they are felt in all humans. So for me the question is one of biology and a creature's rights are entitled to progressively more consideration as they are of higher intelligence.

[Hamish McBagpipe]

"Hey, if hooking up a baby chimpanzee to a car battery somehow helps create a longer lasting deodorant then I have only two things to say. Black is negative, red is positive. BZZZZZZZZZZZT!"

[malorum]

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"it matters to me." Good for you, but honestly, I dont care unless you provide a real reason. Why does it matter that a "life" is ending?

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"You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

[purnell]

We have empathy. Seeing an animal in pain makes us imagine our own suffering. It's distasteful.

[w_alloy]

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We have empathy. Seeing an animal in pain makes us imagine our own suffering. It's distasteful.


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I agree, but just because something is distasteful or makes us uncomfortable does not make it wrong. I hate cleaning toilets. I also agree that most people think this is so wrong because hearing an animal suffer, especially if they express it in a humanlike way, reminds us of ourselves. I think a lot of people dont realize that this is the basis for their ethical standing on this subject.

[w_alloy]

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Therefore I consider the morally good option to be the one that gives the most people the most happiness (basic utilitarianism). Ending a life is thus bad in that it eliminated all future positive expereiences a particular individual can have (which is especially worrisome if you don't buy into an afterlife).

In making decisions about the validity of animal rights the important question for me is the level of cognition and abillity to perceive pain and pleasure in a way that is similarly meaningful to a human. Obviously I cannot generalize that my perceptions of pain and pleasure are felt in animals nearly as well as I can that they are felt in all humans. So for me the question is one of biology and a creature's rights are entitled to progressively more consideration as they are of higher intelligence.


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I like this (honsestly), I dont think I've ever heard a utilitarian argument including animals and scaling on intellgience and/or awareness. I've heard them seperately but never combined.

The fact you wish to scale on intelligence is common and interesting. How do you feel about mentaly retarded humans? Or people in long term (and probably permanent) commas? How about children? I'm guessing you will say that it is actually scaled for species and not individual orginisms. What is the basis for this, if you choose to make this argument? If you do not, there are certain non-human primated who are more intelligent in most regards then severely handicapped humans. Would you advocate giving these primates more "human rights" then the handicapped?

There is also the issue of your assumtion that life is valuable, which you half-heartedly try to pass off as a provable point in the last 2 sentances of your first paragraph. I'm not gonna go in-depth here but I really would like you to reconsider your logic here and consider that this might actually be an assumption you are making. For starters, look at the jumps from yourself to humanity and all living things as a whole.

Edit: I come off a bit douchebaggish in this last paragraph, I dont claim to know much more then you about this, I just want you to explain yourself in more detail so I can understand how you are making these seeming leaps.

[w_alloy]

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"Hey, if hooking up a baby chimpanzee to a car battery somehow helps create a longer lasting deodorant then I have only two things to say. Black is negative, red is positive. BZZZZZZZZZZZT!"

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"You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

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Can you defend your stances at all? If not, I think you are much more immoral then me.

[RJT]

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"Hey, if hooking up a baby chimpanzee to a car battery somehow helps create a longer lasting deodorant then I have only two things to say. Black is negative, red is positive. BZZZZZZZZZZZT!"

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"You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning."

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Can you defend your stances at all? If not, I think you are much more immoral then me.

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The napalm quote is from a movie - I forget the name. Robert Duvall said it, didn't he?

[w_alloy]

Apocalypse Now, why does it matter?

[mrgold]

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The fact you wish to scale on intelligence is common and interesting. How do you feel about mentaly retarded humans? Or people in long term (and probably permanent) commas? How about children? I'm guessing you will say that it is actually scaled for species and not individual orginisms. What is the basis for this, if you choose to make this argument? If you do not, there are certain non-human primated who are more intelligent in most regards then severely handicapped humans. Would you advocate giving these primates more "human rights" then the handicapped?


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I would not choose to make the argument whereby value is scaled for a species. Just like you I see no basis for such an argument. I assign value to individual creatures on the degree to which I can confidently say that those creatures experience pain and suffering in a meaningful way. This may well lead me to the conclusion that a particular ape is of more value than a particular mentally retarded or comatose person (although I do not know nearly enough physiology or neurology [nor prehpas does mankind] to make a reasonable guess). Finally, I would like to say that the value of life and that life's rights are entirely different questions. I think medical testing may be the best way to address this. There are very good public policy reasons not to strip anyone deemed mentally retarded of all their rights and preform medical tests on them. In addition to slippery slope arguments it is important to preserve the integrity of the psychiatric profession. However, medical testing on a more sentient ape could still be justified as the same public policy conerns don't apply and the utillity gained from the testing could easily outweigh the costs to the ape (not stating an opinion one way or another on this as I don't know enough about ape sentience/the importance of medical testing on apes).

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There is also the issue of your assumtion that life is valuable, which you half-heartedly try to pass off as a provable point in the last 2 sentances of your first paragraph. I'm not gonna go in-depth here but I really would like you to reconsider your logic here and consider that this might actually be an assumption you are making. For starters, look at the jumps from yourself to humanity and all living things as a whole.


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To begin with I am assuming life is valuable. I do this because I know that my life is valuable and that I have a certain set of preferences that matter to me in a more real way than anything else ("I want therefore I matter"). Considering that all other human beeings seem very similar to me and continuously act as though they to have a set of preferences that is core to them, it is very parsiminous for me to assume that they are entities of equal value whose needs/wants also "matter". The extrapoloation to animals is indeed quite a bit shakier than that to humans (I am not a vegetarian but I could never eat dolphin/ape) but is unarguably valid to the extent that animals feel pain/pleasure in the same way (or prehaps a more profound one I don't understand) I do.

Finally I would like to make the clarification that my valuation of life is entirely different from a right to life. Just like a good utilitarian I will always sacrifice for the greater good. Rights are merely public policy tools to promote that good and as such are much less relevant to animals.