Killing all the lions and tigers....

[russ_watters]

So there are conditions when it is okay to revoke the human right to life?

(executions in particular)

Correct.

These human rights you go on about are on very shaky foundations!

I disagree, but in either case, you are now arguing against your point.

 

[jobyts]

Why not? You said that morality does not apply to animals, so what's your reason for not liking this?

Humans have evolved to have secondary pain. Brain scans shows that it is the same part of the brain gets stimulated when we have primary pain or secondary pain. We learned to ignore the secondary pain, if the outcome gives us an evolutionary/sociological advantage.

Killing an animal for food/survival have evolutionary advantage over secondary pain. Torturing an animal has no evolutionary/sociological advantage. So secondary pain gets precedence.

 

[William White]

Correct.

So you don't believe in human rights then?

If a right can be granted and removed (often wrongly) on the whim of a greater power, what sort of right is it?

 

[micromass]

Humans have evolved to have secondary pain. Brain scans shows that it is the same part of the brain gets stimulated when we have primary pain or secondary pain. We learned to ignore the secondary pain, if the outcome gives us an evolutionary/sociological advantage.

Killing an animal for food/survival have evolutionary advantage over secondary pain. Torturing an animal has no evolutionary/sociological advantage. So secondary pain gets precedence.

Nevertheless, humans hunt for fun and have always hunted for fun.
And torturing animals was not always as unacceptable as it is now.

 

[William White]

yes
humans hunt other humans for fun (or money - how much was a redskin?), and torture other humans too.

they tend to be the same type that torture animals

http://esq.h-cdn.co/assets/cm/15/07/54db9c3d6dc2a_-_redskins1-gtp0as.png

Its without doubt that the people undertaking this horrendous crime took enjoyment from it. Colonial powers used the justification that natives (be it Indians, Australian Aboriginees etc) were subhuman, nearer to animals.

As our conciousness awakens, more and more people are granted rights, and more and more animals are. Its the sign of maturity as a society.

 

[russ_watters]

So you don't believe in human rights then?

If a right can be granted and removed (often wrongly) on the whim of a greater power, what sort of right is it?

That's ridiculous. I'm on a cell phone, so I'm not inclined to explain the entire concept of human right to you(and not relevant anyway), but again, you are arguing against your own point now.

 

[micromass]

It gives me emotional pain to see animals suffer. I'm not a psychologist, but that is probably due to anthropomorphism.

Why would "it pains me to see animals suffer" not be a good basis for morality? Isn't that what morality comes from?

 

[William White]

How am I arguing against my point.

You say that human rights exist because people are people (ie they are special and separate from animals);
but you are happy for human rights to be extinguished, removed, revoked on a whim

It IS a whim.

If the most important human right is the right to life, then you cannot defend your position on human rights if you KNOW there are situations where you KNOW innocents will be killed needlessly. Your country wrongly executes its citizens. There is no justification whatsoever in this, IF you believe that human rights should be honoured.
You are on very shaky, contradictory grounds.
You accept human rights, or not.

You seem to like them, but only when it is convenient.

Same goes for animal rights.

 

[jobyts]

yes
humans hunt other humans for fun (or money - how much was a redskin?), and torture other humans too.

they tend to be the same type that torture animals

Correct. And this has scientific backing too. I remember reading a website that shows pictures of brain scans when shown pictures of other humans and animals tortured, to measure the secondary pain among kids. Normal kids shows more brain stimulation on seeing the torturing pictures. Violent/troubled kids had less brain stimulation from a secondary pain. The effect of nature and nurture is not well known on the level brain stimulation.

 

[OmCheeto]

I think most people believe that the way someone treats animals is indicative of the way they treat (or would treat if allowed) people.

Actually, I don't think "most" people realize this.
I think it's something that old people pick up on.

I would expand, but its a long story. It involves Moonbear. Maybe another day.

 

[William White]

hey, I'm not "old"!

 

[jobyts]

BTW, where is Evo? Is everything ok with you? There is a discussion on animals and Evo is not talking.

 

[russ_watters]

Why would "it pains me to see animals suffer" not be a good basis for morality? Isn't that what morality comes from?

Oy. I don't know why we keep going down this rabbit hole. We are moving further and further away from the issue of the thread. Perhaps you guys are hoping to find a contradiction in my acceptance of morality for humans. I assure you, you will not, but even if you did, you would only prove that humans shouldn't be protected either! I'm not inclined to indulge this tangent much further, but briefly:

There are lots of sources for morality. The most common I can think of off the top of my head are:
1. Genetics/evolution
2. Religion
3. Logic
4. Emotion
5. Law
6. Negotiation

 

[micromass]

Oy. I don't know why we keep going down this rabbit hole.

Face it, we're all just bored.

There are lots of sources for morality. The most common I can think of off the top of my head are:
1. Genetics/evolution
2. Religion
3. Logic
4. Emotion
5. Law
6. Negotiation

OK, and which one of those implies that morality should not apply to animals?
Also, I personally only accept 1, 3 and 4 as bases of my personal morality.

 

[russ_watters]

How am I arguing against my point.

Successfully arguing that humans should not have rights will not grant rights to animals.

You say that human rights exist because people are people (ie they are special and separate from animals);
but you are happy for human rights to be extinguished, removed, revoked on a whim

Nonsense.

If the most important human right is the right to life, then you cannot defend your position on human rights if you KNOW there are situations where you KNOW innocents will be killed needlessly.

What?! I would never support the needless killing of humans!

Your country wrongly executes its citizens. There is no justification whatsoever in this, IF you believe that human rights should be honoured.

So says your morality. Not mine.

 

[russ_watters]

OK, and which one of those implies that morality should not apply to animals?
Also, I personally only accept 1, 3 and 4 as bases of my personal morality.

"Shouldn not" is not up for debate: it is up to you. What I am stating here are the facts of what the current generally accepted moral code IS.

 

[micromass]

What?! I would never support the needless killing of humans!

Then it seems difficult to be a proponent of the death penalty if you know that many people are convicted wrongfully.

 

[Enigman]

Disabled people are people.

So? Lions are lions. If you are looking for another tautology. The OP asks to disregard morality completely. Killing the disabled would save resources on health care and space. What purpose does killing lions serve?
And why lions anyway? Why not house cats? US spent $ 55.7 billion on pets. Some pets like dogs are useful, sure, but if we kill all cats then households could use the money saved for something more useful rather than spending it on a species that seem to be ecological disasters waiting to happen.

Failure to control the breeding of pet cats by neutering and the abandonment of former household pets has resulted in large numbers of feral cats worldwide, requiring population control.[8] This has contributed, along with habitat destruction and other factors, to extinction of many bird species. Cats have been known to extirpate a bird species within a specific region and may have contributed to extinction of isolated island populations.[9] Cats are thought to be primarily, though not solely responsible, for the extinction of 33 species of birds and the presence of feral and free ranging cats makes some locations unsuitable for attempted species reestablishment in otherwise suitable locations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat

And as for Apex predators being unimportant -

Primary or apex predators can actually benefit prey populations by suppressing smaller predators, and failure to consider this mechanism has triggered collapses of entire ecosystems.

Cascading negative effects of surging mesopredator populations have been documented for birds, sea turtles, lizards, rodents, marsupials, rabbits, fish, scallops, insects and ungulates.

The economic cost of controlling mesopredators may be very high, and sometimes could be accomplished more effectively at less cost by returning apex predators to the ecosystem.

Human intervention cannot easily replace the role of apex predators, in part because the constant fear of predation alters not only populations but behavior of mesopredators.

Large predators are usually carnivores, but mesopredators are often omnivores and can cause significant plant and crop damage.

The effects of exploding mesopredator populations can be found in oceans, rivers, forests and grasslands around the world.

Reversing and preventing mesopredator release is becoming increasingly difficult and expensive as the world's top predators continue to edge toward obliteration.

"These problems resist simple solutions," Ripple said. "I've read that when Gen. George Armstrong Custer came into the Black Hills in 1874, he noticed a scarcity of coyotes and the abundance of wolves. Now the wolves are gone in many places and coyotes are killing thousands of sheep all over the West."

"We are just barely beginning to appreciate the impact of losing our top predators," he said.

http://www.livescience.com/9716-loss-top-predators-causing-ecosystems-collapse.html

Frankly, this thread is getting a bit on my nerves, I am out. Apparently not.

 

[micromass]

"Shouldn not" is not up for debate: it is up to you. What I am stating here are the facts of what the current generally accepted moral code IS.

Do you have a link to that currently accepted moral code? Is it just your moral code? Because the moral codes of most people I know do involve animals in some way or another.

 

[William White]

What?! I would never support the needless killing of humans!

you support the death penalty

1) you support people (correctly convicted of, say , murder) being executed. How is this killing NEEDED
2) you accept that innocent people have been, and will continue to be, executed, whilst the real killer goes free. How is the killing NEEDED

 

[russ_watters]

Face it, we're all just bored.

I'm at work, off the clock, but have something I need to get done. Damn you all!

 

[William White]

So says your morality. Not mine.

Its a fact

do you want a list of people executed for crimes they did not commit?

 

[DiracPool]

Forget about the lions and tigers, what about sharks?! When's the last time you were under an immanent threat of a lion attack? As an avid surfer of several decades, it's always in the back of your mind as you dangle your limbs over your surfboard waiting for the next set to come in. Just ask Mick Fanning...



I've personally had a few run ins, especially off the west coast of Oahu where they seem to like to hang out. At the time I wouldn't have minded if every shark species had been hunted into extinction, but I guess they're important for the ecosystem or something

 

[russ_watters]

you support the death penalty

1) you support people (correctly convicted of, say , murder) being executed. How is this killing NEEDED

Since this is off topic, my answer is that that question is too obvious for me to bother answering. Perhaps the wiki article on the subject can answer it for you.

2) you accept that innocent people have been, and will continue to be, executed, whilst the real killer goes free. How is the killing NEEDED

I most certainly do not.

 

[micromass]

Forget about the lions and tigers, what about sharks?! When's the last time you were under an immanent threat of a lion attack? As an avid surfer of several decades, it's always in the back of your mind as you dangle your limbs over your surfboard waiting for the next set to come in. Just as Mick Fanning...

I've personally had a few run ins, especially off the west coast of Oahu where they seem to like to hang out. At the time I wouldn't mind if every shark species had been hunted into extinction, but I guess they're important for the ecosystem or something

Or maybe it is not smart to go surfing in places where there is a big risk of shark attacks...

 

[micromass]

I most certainly do not.

Just for clarification: you do not think people are being wrongfully convicted to the death penalty?

 

[William White]

I most certainly do not.

then you are in a state of denial

If you have the death penalty, at some point, an innocent will be executed.by defintion, if you accept the death penalty as needed then you accept that mistakes will lead to innocent people being executed, and by extension, these mistakes, which can never be removed, are needed.

 

[OmCheeto]

Face it, we're all just bored.

true

OK, and which one of those implies that morality should not apply to animals?
Also, I personally only accept 1, 3 and 4 as bases of my personal morality.

I was surprised to not see "empathy" on the list.
As far as I can tell, it's the only driving force, behind my morality.
At least, as of late, anyways.
I was a randy little obnoxious bugger in my younger days.

 

[DiracPool]

Or maybe it is not smart to go surfing in places where there is a big risk of shark attacks...

Yeah but there's this one break at Makaha that lines up real nice with a southwesterly swell

 

[Enigman]

At the time I wouldn't mind if every shark species had been hunted into extinction, but I guess they're important for the ecosystem or something

More important than your surfing, yes.

I know I said I would withdraw in #68 but I gave a seminar on the topic of media's demonization of sharks just last semester and you happened to say the magic words to pull me back in.
So here's something for you to think about.
http://i.huffpost.com/gen/1059154/original.jpg
zoom in.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Actually, I don't think "most" people realize this.
I think it's something that old people pick up on.

Actually, I do think most people have this going on in their minds. The reason they really dislike mistreatment of animals is because they sense the person doing it would treat people the same. Anthropomorphism of animals is extremely widespread. Kids even fall in love with any bundle of fabric and stuffing that remotely resembles an animal. I, myself, have had the urge to pat animal statues on the head. People find it hard to focus on how animals are different than people, they naturally focus on the apparent similarities.

 

[William White]

at the end of the day

That scumbag dentist thought paying $30,000 to travel halfway around the world to kill a creature was fun.

Lots of talk about human rights and human life.

This guy (a convicted criminal) had money to burn, and burned it on death rather than life.

That money could have gone a long way in Zimbabwe to protect people AND animals.

Maybe the good that can come out of this is that the gangsters that poached the animal with him are convicted and the money retrieved for animal welfare; and that he is convicted either in person and does jail time or in absentia and banned from entering Zimbabwe ever again.

 

[Enigman]

That money could have gone a long way in Zimbabwe to protect people AND animals.

Big game hunting is a source of money for animal conservation as I posted in #10.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10899-bag-a-trophy-save-a-species/

Perhaps more surprisingly, many conservation biologist see hunting in a similar light. Hunting can be a positive force, they say, because it provides an economic motive for maintaining wildlife habitats. “Without hunting many of these areas would be converted to cattle pasture, and there would be a rapid loss of wildlife,” says Peter Lindsey, a conservation biologist at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare and author of a survey of trophy hunting in Africa (Biological Conservation, vol 134, p 455). When it works, the jobs and money generated by hunting also give local residents an incentive to suppress poaching and keep animals live and on the hoof rather than in their cooking pot. [...]
“The underlying theme is the enormous amount of money that people are willing to spend. That can be an enormous force for conservation,” says Marco Festa-Bianchet, a wildlife biologist at the University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, in Canada.

 

[William White]

Actually, I do think most people have this going on in their minds. The reason they really dislike mistreatment of animals is because they sense the person doing it would treat people the same. Anthropomorphism of animals is extremely widespread. Kids even fall in love with any bundle of fabric and stuffing that remotely resembles an animal. I, myself, have had the urge to pat animal statues on the head. People find it hard to focus on how animals are different than people, they naturally focus on the apparent similarities.

that is because we ARE similar.

We are animals, we are cousins of all animals, and very closely related to the other great apes.

The apparent similarities with, say great apes, are real similarities, because we are the same family.Truthfully, I was more upset when my dog died than when I see people killed on the TV news.

Some animals are part of our immediate families and closer to use than most humans are. This is not anthropomorphism; its realizing that we are all of the same kingdom of animals, and getting joy from the presence of animals.

One of the most joyous experiences of my life was hiking in the Virungas to see a gorilla family. Was only allowed 10 minutes (after a 7 hour hike) but the recognition in the faces of the gorillas was real. They are not that different to us. Our common mother lived about 10 million years ago - a blink in evolutionary terms.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/weesam/5352560717
https://www.flickr.com/photos/weesam/5355541430/in/photostream/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/weesam/5352196799/in/photostream/

(weesam was my dog)

 

[William White]

Big game hunting is a source of money for animal conservation as I posted in #10.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10899-bag-a-trophy-save-a-species/

yes, but the money could be spent shooting the animals with a camera rather than a gun

I've lived in East Africa.

Their wildlife is a wonder.

It looks a lot more beautiful when it is alive an breathing

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Big game hunting is a source of money for animal conservation as I posted in #10.

I was listening to NPR this morning and some experts said the conservation argument is full of fallacy. Once the archive list is updated I can post the link to listen because I can't remember exactly what was said. One thing I remember is that safari tourism is a 100 billion dollar industry where big game hunting only accounts for 100 million. You can't tell me the countries need $50k for preservation when they are sitting on billions. Where is the rest of the money going?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Here is a new documentary that looks pretty revealing

 

[Enigman]

I was listening to NPR this morning and some experts said the conservation argument is full of fallacy. Once the archive list is updated I can post the link to listen because I can't remember exactly what was said. One thing I remember is that safari tourism is a 100 billion dollar industry where big game hunting only accounts for 100 million. Where is the rest of the money going?

There are also certain other criticisms pointed out in the article I linked itself.

Nor are hunters likely to take the conservation initiative in such cases. “We will support any legal form of hunting,” says Hosmer. “If our government and the foreign government legally will allow us to hunt a species, then we will support that.”

Often, too, very few of the dollars generated by hunting end up in conservationists’ hands. “If you’re supposed to be getting enough money to do some conservation, it’s just not there,” says Rich Harris, a wildlife biologist affiliated with the University of Montana in Missoula who has served as a consultant for some Chinese trophy-hunting programmes.

Even where hunting is managed smoothly, and when hunting revenue does trickle down to conservation projects, it may cause subtle genetic damage to wildlife populations.

 

[zoobyshoe]

that is because we ARE similar.

For my money, we are. However, all I can claim is an emotional response of "recognition" that animals have the same emotions I feel. I can't prove they are feeling anything: they might be robotically responding to stimuli with no actual interior experience. Of course, the same is true of other people. I can't prove anyone is having the same "human" interior experience as I am. When it comes to Russ, it especially hard to prove. HA HA HA HA! Damn I'm hilarious!

 

[OmCheeto]

Here is a new documentary that looks pretty revealing

That's one documentary, I will not willingly see.

 

[russ_watters]

Do you have a link to that currently accepted moral code? Is it just your moral code?

http://uscode.house.gov/

And as William accidentally showed with his link on personhood rights for animals, as pertains to this thread, that is pretty much in line with what is accepted virtually everywhere in the world (animals do not have people rights).

Because the moral codes of most people I know do involve animals in some way or another.

So does mine. But as nearly all do, the sections on "people"" and "animals" are separate and not necessarily related.

 

[russ_watters]

I was surprised to not see "empathy" on the list.

Look harder.

 

[russ_watters]

Just for clarification: you do not think people are being wrongfully convicted to the death penalty?

I do. But I do not accept that that is ok.

 

[micromass]

http://uscode.house.gov/

The united state code of laws is the universally accepted system of morality?? Wow.

 

[micromass]

I do. But I do not accept that that is ok.

How can you possibly be a proponent of the death penalty then?

 

[StatGuy2000]

The premise of the OP's post begs the following question:

Are the only animals that are allowed to exist are those that "serve" humans?

Because that seems to be the basis of the argument about killing lions/tigers/a wide variety of animals. But what makes people think that only animals that are of "value" to humans are the ones who should survive?

I also think the question confounds a more important question: why should hunting and killing animals for sport be allowed in this day and age? I can understand why people may hunt animals for food & sustenance, but killing solely so that someone can mount the carcass in his/her living room is frankly barbaric and should be outlawed.

 

[micromass]

But as nearly all do, the sections on "people"" and "animals" are separate and not necessarily related.

OK, so morality does involve animal rights. So you disagree now with your previous statement that morality is by the people and for the people.

 

[russ_watters]

The united state code of laws is the universally accepted system of morality?? Wow.

That isn't what I said. Please read the rest of the post.

 

[micromass]

That isn't what I said. Please read the rest of the post.

I asked you for the currently accepted moral code and you responded with the US code of laws (which does not seem to involve morality a whole lot). I think the interpretation of your post is obvious: that you see the US code of law as the universally accepted moral code. Why else did you bring it up?

 

[russ_watters]

I asked you for the currently accepted moral code and you responded with the US code of laws (which does not seem to involve morality a whole lot). I think the interpretation of your post is obvious: that you see the US code of law as the universally accepted moral code. Why else did you bring it up?

There is no single written code that covers everyone and i never claimed there was (nor does there need to be). The US code is a reflection of the morality of the people who created and agree to adhere to it. And as I said in the next part of the post, they pretty well reflects the morality adhered to in most of the rest of the world, as pertains to this thread.