Why do we treat mammals more humanely then the rest of sentient life?

[Mustang56]

Why is humanity closest with mammals such as dogs, cats, horses, monkeys, etc; but has almost no regard whatsoever with the lives of insects or fish?

Curious to hear your thoughts and whether you think we are morally obligated to treat animals humanely despite not receiving the same treatment.

 

[TheOtherHockeyMom]

We treat certain mammals more humanely, but not all. Melanie Joy has an interesting book on the topic. Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs and Wear Cows : http://www.amazon.com/Love-Dogs-Pig...e=UTF8&qid=1349402523&sr=8-1&keywords=Carnism

 

[Mystman]

Why is humanity closest with mammals such as dogs, cats, horses, monkeys, etc; but has almost no regard whatsoever with the lives of insects or fish?

Curious to hear your thoughts and whether you think we are morally obligated to treat animals humanely despite not receiving the same treatment.

Most people probably just because of tradition (e.g. in my house we're taught that dogs deserve good treatment, and that spiders deserve to be killed), and because they may recognize something of themselves in mammals (thus causing empathy). If an animal displays human-like behaviour (how they care for their children, for example), that makes us value his life more.

If you base your treatment of others based on their capacity to suffer, insects don't need proper treatment. As far as we can tell (we can't really tell --->> as far as we can guess), insects are non-sentient, basically just tiny machines. Many mammals probably do have some sort of sentience, and thus deserve better treatment. Also note that pigs are smarter (and likely more sentient) than dogs, yet many factory-farmed-bacon-lovers would find it unacceptable if dogs were treated as pigs are treated.

 

[Gadarene]

Probably because there's no malice in animals, whereas there can be in humans, and our minds being what they, we're very quick to write off large swathes of people based on singular bad experiences.

Although I thought this was going to be a euthanasia thread when I saw the topic title.

 

[Paradoxum]

Well emotionally, we identify ourselves closer to mammals which makes empathy easier.

Ethically, I would assume mammals feel pain in a more significant way than insects. I'm not sure how advanced fish brains are though. That said, we probably treat some animals (pigs) worse than we probably should.

Also I think we should be as humane as possible to all creatures. Even avoid hurting a bug if you can, though we can't spend our lives looking out for bugs on the floor.

If you base your treatment of others based on their capacity to suffer, insects don't need proper treatment. As far as we can tell (we can't really tell --->> as far as we can guess), insects are non-sentient, basically just tiny machines.

So they don't feel pain or have proper mental lives? Do you know why we guess this to be true?

Many mammals probably do have some sort of sentience, and thus deserve better treatment. Also note that pigs are smarter (and likely more sentient) than dogs, yet many factory-farmed-bacon-lovers would find it unacceptable if dogs were treated as pigs are treated.

Do you know much about fish sentience and pain?

 

[Gadarene]

Well, emotionally we identify ourselves closer mammals which makes empathy easier.

Ethically, I would assume mammals feel pain in a more significant way than insects. I'm not sure how advanced fish brains are though. That said, we probably treat some animals (pigs) worse than we probably should.

Also I think we should be as humane as possible to all creatures. Even avoid hurting a bug if you can, though we can't spend our lives looking out for bugs on the floor.

Unless you're a Jainist.

 

[lisah]

I like insects. They're fascinating.

Octopus and squid are smart.

But, my guess would be that many mammals are furry, which is pleasing to the touch; especially those that are domesticated. After all, isn't touch the first response after deciding if something is visually appealing?

Plus, the more we can tell them what to do; the better we like them?

 

[lisah]

Curious to hear your thoughts and whether you think we are morally obligated to treat animals humanely despite not receiving the same treatment.

I think that if one takes ownership, then yes . . . one is morally obligated to treat animals as humanely as possible; including livestock.

 

[Mystman]

So they don't feel pain or have proper mental lives? Do you know why we guess this to be true?

Well, we have no good idea of where sentience comes from. Some may claim that a soul is responsible, but until someone actually comes up with evidence for a soul, and some mechanism by which it works, that's a bit of a non-answer.

By physically or chemically altering the brain, we can change a person's mental processes. Thus it stands to reason that the physical/electrical/chemical connections in the brain somehow create sentience. But when you look at the level of just a few neurons, it's all just physics and chemistry. We can create things that have the function of a neuron, or a few neurons, and those things probably aren't sentient.

So, in some unexplained way, it's only when you connect billions of neurons (and probably in a specific manner) that you get sentience. The big question is: how much sentience is produced by how many neuronal connections? And are only neurons capable of producing sentience, or are other interconnected systems also capable of sentience? The internet as a whole (with all it's connected computers) has many more connections than a human brain. Is it sentient? I'd guess not, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

 

[Mustang56]

So they don't feel pain or have proper mental lives? Do you know why we guess this to be true?

Well science indicates that based on observation, insects don't feel pain because their nervous system is different than ours and may lack pain receptors, nor would they need them since they vastly outnumber us and their lifespan is so short.

Observation also indicates they don't know how to avoid damage to themselves/pain which most if not all other sentient animals do. We experience pain and try to avoid it based on observing what lead to it (fire burns my hand, it hurts, I won't touch the fire again).

Bugs don't do that, they just continue on their programmed lives. A bug who survived being stepped on the sidewalk won't avoid the sidewalk (if they could) to avoid the same consequence.

 

[keith99]

Dogs and cats are the animals treated best overall by a pretty wide margin.

Both of those have been partners with humans for 100s of generations.

And I really mean partners. A draft animal is a servant or slave, a cat or dog helps man and uses its own volition when doing so.

I think this makes a huge difference in how we generally treat them.

Horses are generally treated better than the rest, and those at times, when well trained become partners. (And those who are horse people, the ones who actually ride and deal with horses as partners tend to be the ones who treat horses the best).

 

[CounselorForChrist]

Well for one animals like cats and dogs don't stab us in the back, cheat on us, hate us, lie to us, complain to us, scream at us...etc. Its why so many choose to be someone like a "cat lady". I love animals, but I still like humans to. After all its more normal for me to kiss my fiance then if I was kissing a baboon, let alone marrying one. >.> lol

As for why we don't show respect to fish. Well that depends. We respect things like whales, dolphins...etc. But most fish to us are just dinner. Just like a deer or cow. I think we tend to respect things that we see as being intelligent. Example we know dogs and dolphins are intelligent, there for we respect them more.

I know I respect bugs to a certain degree. But since they are hard to avoid, we most likely kill them more then anything else. We spray around our house every yea rot prevent bees and ants. So we are mass murderers really. But its our house, they should not be in it.

I will say though, I don't mind spiders in a house because they captures every other annoying bug. At least the help, well until they have a billion baby spiders (ick).

 

[Cromulent]

I disagree. Cats will stab you in the back, cheat on you, hate you, complain to you. If they could speak, they would lie to you. Cats are ungrateful, duplicitous manipulative, horrible creatures.

Seriously, **** cats!

 

[Paradoxum]

Well, we have no good idea of where sentience comes from. Some may claim that a soul is responsible, but until someone actually comes up with evidence for a soul, and some mechanism by which it works, that's a bit of a non-answer.

By physically or chemically altering the brain, we can change a person's mental processes. Thus it stands to reason that the physical/electrical/chemical connections in the brain somehow create sentience. But when you look at the level of just a few neurons, it's all just physics and chemistry. We can create things that have the function of a neuron, or a few neurons, and those things probably aren't sentient.

So, in some unexplained way, it's only when you connect billions of neurons (and probably in a specific manner) that you get sentience. The big question is: how much sentience is produced by how many neuronal connections? And are only neurons capable of producing sentience, or are other interconnected systems also capable of sentience? The internet as a whole (with all it's connected computers) has many more connections than a human brain. Is it sentient? I'd guess not, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

It will be interesting to see if conscious robots will be made my lifetime. I think it is possible. We may not meet aliens, but I think having robots which are people would be a major event in human history, changing how we think about ourselves.

Well science indicates that based on observation, insects don't feel pain because their nervous system is different than ours and may lack pain receptors, nor would they need them since they vastly outnumber us and their lifespan is so short.

Observation also indicates they don't know how to avoid damage to themselves/pain which most if not all other sentient animals do. We experience pain and try to avoid it based on observing what lead to it (fire burns my hand, it hurts, I won't touch the fire again).

Bugs don't do that, they just continue on their programmed lives. A bug who survived being stepped on the sidewalk won't avoid the sidewalk (if they could) to avoid the same consequence.

Well that is good to know. I tried to catch a spider a little while ago, but I think I half squished it at the same time. I felt kind of bad that I left it in pain.

To see insects as little robots makes me feel better about killing them.

 

[Mystman]

It will be interesting to see if conscious robots will be made my lifetime. I think it is possible. We may not meet aliens, but I think having robots which are people would be a major event in human history, changing how we think about ourselves.

Well that's the thing: we have no way of knowing when a robot is sentient. In our lifetime we'll almost certainly see machines/programmes that will respond to questions or other stimuli exactly like a human would respond, but is it then a sentient being or just a program with fancy programming and lots of processing power? And the same question goes for ants, dogs, and even other humans: I have no way of knowing for sure that they are self-aware, or whether their actions are just the result of their programming. I have no way of knowing that I'm not the only sentient being in a world of unthinking, unfeeling machines

 

[Skaloop]

Well that's the thing: we have no way of knowing when a robot is sentient. In our lifetime we'll almost certainly see machines/programmes that will respond to questions or other stimuli exactly like a human would respond, but is it then a sentient being or just a program with fancy programming and lots of processing power? And the same question goes for ants, dogs, and even other humans: I have no way of knowing for sure that they are self-aware, or whether their actions are just the result of their programming. I have no way of knowing that I'm not the only sentient being in a world of unthinking, unfeeling machines

Which leads to the philosophical discussion about whether a fancy program that exhibits all the traits of sentience can be considered sentient.

 

[Paradoxum]

Well that's the thing: we have no way of knowing when a robot is sentient. In our lifetime we'll almost certainly see machines/programmes that will respond to questions or other stimuli exactly like a human would respond, but is it then a sentient being or just a program with fancy programming and lots of processing power? And the same question goes for ants, dogs, and even other humans: I have no way of knowing for sure that they are self-aware, or whether their actions are just the result of their programming. I have no way of knowing that I'm not the only sentient being in a world of unthinking, unfeeling machines

But still, if you acted like humans were unthinking and unfeeling robots, I would call you crazy, acting on bad assumptions. When a robot becomes indistinguishable from a human we will probably consider it a person, unless there is some reason in the programming why this can't be true.