Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists

if climate change kills dolphins and whales it would not cause a disaster but collateral damage for filling our gas tanks just as the oil wars are

also someone could find a way to harvest them in private pools as whale and dolphin meat could become a new delicacy to profit from.

 

To protect innocent life from sadistic malevolence. If that's not a good enough reason in and of itself, then I'm not sure there's any "reason" in this world...

Yes, but that can be somewhat subjective. However, I think an inclination towards senseless violence and destruction of life is about as objective a standard as one can get as it pertains to "being dangerous" to others in "some way". People who demonstrate such proclivities ought to be "restrained" or "corrected".

Bernie Madoff is a sociopath mastermind. Of course he's dangerous.

Animal abusers pose a demonstrable danger to innocent life, which should concern any human. Ostracizing criminals as the Native Americans did will not be effective because no one needs a "tribe" anymore. Being ostracized back then probably meant you were going to die a lot sooner than everyone else. What's more, they couldn't swindle their tribe out of billions of dollars by masterminding a regulatory scam.

 

Life is a continuum that includes humans, dolphins, fish, spiders, bacteria, and everything in between. How we treat different things should reflect where they fall on that continuum, as best we understand it. (Please note, this implies continual re-evaluation of practices as we learn more.) As far as we know, things like pain and suffering originate in the nervous system. A spider clearly has a much simpler nervous system then a dolphin, and bacteria have no nervous system at all. It is reasonable to assume for the time being that a creature's capacity for suffering decreases as the complexity of that organism's nervous system decreases. And I think that our moral obligation to consider the welfare of organisms is related to their capacity for suffering.

Obviously, we always have the right to protect our own welfare, so doing things like killing predators in self defense or trying to eliminate diseases falls under a similar moral category to fighting an invading army.

Humans are predators, and there is nothing wrong with that. Therefore there is nothing wrong with raising animals for food. We do, however, have a moral obligation to make sure those animals have a decent quality of life before they are slaughtered. For that reason I personally oppose a lot of the practices of factory farming, and want to see reform to make conditions on those farms more humane.

 

and people who kill squirrells with cars should be charged with squirrellslaughter

 

The point is that Aristotle used the exact same justification for slavery that you use to deny that any non humans have rights. The only difference is that you assert that all humans have free will, while Aristotle does not.

I would note that you assert that as being self evident, without support. You say there's a fundamental difference between having a will and not having a will. What is that difference? How do we test for it? How do we determine whether you're right, that all humans have will, or if Aristotle is right, that some humans are natural slaves? What practical test is there to find the truth of this? You and Aristotle can sit there stating and restating your assertions over and over again, but in the end, the only way to determine the truth is to go out and test it.

And while we're at it, what is the difference between a condition and a nature? How do you decide? Clearly, you seem to think that a trait does not have to be present in all individuals to be a part of their nature. How many individuals have to have the trait for it to be considered part of their nature?

You want us to decide how to treat billions of individuals, human and non human on the basis of a distinction you can't even define? Is that really reasonable?

On a final note, I'd like to point out that dogs usually attack people for the same reasons humans do. Either they are frightened and feel threatened, are trying to establish dominance, have been trained to be aggressive, or are somehow emotionally disturbed. Or some combination of those.

a = a is a tautology, not an axiom. There's a difference.

Of course it always goes back to empiricism - we have no other means of learning anything about the world around us. Just because something seems logical and axiomatic to you does not make it so. As I said before, logic cannot ever decide the truth value of a statement, only its degree of consistency with other statements. Logic depends on initial assumptions that are accepted without proof - there's simply no way around that. It is easy to construct perfectly logical arguments that are completely contradicted by reality. A trivial example would be, "All elephants are pink; Lucy is an elephant; therefore Lucy is pink."

And how does one determine those first principles, those initial assumptions? By observation. Whether you want to admit it or not, that is what it all comes down to. Even if you think you're working with axiomatic first principles, the fact is that they only seem axiomatic to you because of your experience of how the world works. And the simple fact is that empiricism has consistently given us better results then "pure" logic. Logic gave us celestial spheres, empiricism gave us communication satellites.

What in the world makes you think the universe feels itself to be under any obligation whatsoever to abide by your laws? Everything in the universe has to be logically consistent with everything else? Says who? You think there's some sort of god wandering around the universe double checking every phenomenon and whacking any that get out of line? LOL I hate to break it to you, but the universe laughs at your law of non-contradiction and gleefully breaks it. You need only study the most basic concepts of quantum mechanics to discover that.

Let me give you an example that you can verify yourself. All you need is two pairs of polarizing sunglasses. Light is a transverse wave, like the wave you get by shaking a long string up and down. Normally, the orientation of those waves is random - some are waving up and down, some side to side, and everything in between. A polarizing lens only lets through light that is oriented along a particular axis, let's say up and down and call that orientation 0 deg. If you take a second lens and hold it up against the first with their axises at right angles to each other (90 deg) no light passes through at all. This makes sense, since the first lens only allows light through that is polarized to 0 deg, and the second only lets light through at 90 deg. However, if you take a third lens and insert it between the first two at 45 deg, something very strange happens. You now get light that passes all the way through the stack. This is rather like if you had herd of cows, some of whom are black and some are white. You have a series of gates that allow the cows through based on their color. the first gate only lets white cows through, the second get lets half of the white cows and half of the black cows through, and the last gate only lets black cows through. You pass your herd through those gates and get some black cows coming out of the final gate.

Not convinced? I'll leave you to Dr Quantum, then. Yes, the world we live in really is this bizarre.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc"]Dr Quantum - Double Slit Experiment - YouTube[/ame]

How are humans superior? By what standard is a human more valuable? What evidence do you have that only humans have sapience and will? I challenge you to present an objective definition of sapience and will that includes all humans and excludes all non humans. I don't think such a definition is possible.

 

On the contrary, sharks have every right to gobble you up if they catch you in their pond. It's hard to disenfranchise a creature when you are its lunch.

 

Viv;

Yes, they do- natural rights. Legal rights too in some parts of the world. The concept of ' Wild Law ' is taking hold in several progressive societies. ' Wild Law ' recognizes the rights of Mother Nature and builds them into human legal systems. For example, " in September 2008 the people of Ecuador voted overwhelmingly in a referendum to adopt a constitution that recognizes that Nature has legally enforceable rights to exist and to maintain its cycles, structures, functions and processes "

Wild law
Cormac Cullinan 2011

In future- and not very far off- progressive people will begin to treat those who deny Nature's rights with the force of the law. In fact, we will come a-hunting for you.

 

Hosting a cockfight or something similar is hardly enough to justify restraining somebody as a danger to others. I think you'd need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to jury that the person presented such a clear and imminent threat and you'd need much of direct evidence than that.

He's not liable to hold up a gas station. No one's going to give him a dime to play "mastermind" anymore. He should be indentured to victims and made to work the rest of his days to pay off some portion of the losses.

 

I don't see where he said they don't have will.

Do you think human beings have free will or don't you? If you don't, debating no longer makes any sense, since no one any longer has the ability to choose to value anything, so priorities no longer matter. I think humans do; they possess reason and are able to choose on the basis of reason. Their logical thoughts affect their choices. Animals can only choose on the basis of instinct and pure desire.

It's not a matter of how many people possess free will; it's a matter that each individual has the potentiality to exercise it, despite the fact that some individuals are not able to fulfill that potentiality due to injury, etc. Their lack of free will is purely conditional on transient qualities rather than innate ones.

Not at all. A = A is an axiom, the law of non-contradiction. It means that something must be what it is and cannot be what it is not. This applies to all we observe and what we do not observe. As for empiricism, I can't even prove my body actually exists. I can prove that IF my body exists, it is not not my body.

Actually, the geocentric model was based on the observation that objects appear to revolve around the Earth. And based on the tools of observation Ptolomy had, it was a very reasonable and plausible theory at that time.

They're not my laws, like I just made them up. They are the laws of logic, as previously said. The universe can not not be the universe. Yes, I would bet the farm that the universe is bound by the law because it would other contradict and cancel itself out. Yes, that is even the case in quantum mechanics. It may appear to violate the law of non-contradiction, but that doesn't mean it can. That just shows the limits of empirical observation, like any other optical (or otherwise sensed) illusion.

Amazing how many fallacious arguments eventually end up with the arguer arguing that A can equal not A.

Humans are superior because humans possess sapience and will. Sapience means that they think logically and will means they act of those thoughts. Only humans possess these qualities to the degree that they can take moral responsibilities for their actions and respect the rights of others. Not even the smartest dolphin is liable to respect my right to my property.

 

In other words, progressives make up rights as they go along based on their emotions. Well, I can do that, as well. I declare I now have a right to cigarettes. Now buy me a pack or I'm coming after you.

 

What do you mean by "laws"? There are laws, and there is legislation, and there is regulation, and there is administrative fiat. What makes these laws legitimate?

 

So if something is not illegal, it's ok? If you call up your mother and call her names that would make a prostitute blush, would that be ok? It's not illegal, so, according to you, it's perfectly acceptable.

 

I'm not a big fan of the Miami Dolphins either, but they are a football team and deserve human rights.

 

I hope you didn't burn any ants with a magnifying glass as a kid.

Even these days I'm a terror to flies in my household with my low electric fly swatter. I admit to a certain amount of glee in exterminating them. Not very Buddhist, I know, but, in my defense, I am very kind to spiders.

There has been discussion, among progressives in Britain, about identifying children with certain tendencies that frequently lead to criminal activity later in life. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8339772/Child-brain-scans-to-pick-out-future-criminals.html

Forced treatment, even permanent separation from the rest of society are considered appropriate for those who show potential to be criminals. Given your statement above, can you find anything unreasonable about such measures?

Dangerous to whom? If he's a mastermind, he has the ability to compensate his victims, rather than be the ward of the state at taxpayer expense.

Yes, it should be very concerning. People who frequently cheat on spouses and have explosive tempers sometimes beat those spouses. Sometimes not. Should we lock up people who tend to fly off the handle?

 

Originally Posted by(*)BleedingHeadKen(*)

Why not bugs and spiders? They dont' have rights? What about fish? What about those animals that are made into the food served at the restaurant at which you work?

You are very selective in the rights you want to recognize. If it's cute, prosecution for anyone that looks at it funny. If it produces your meat and eggs, then it can live a short, miserable life being fattened up by your government protected corporations with all sorts of hormones and GMO feed.

Why "should" this be the case. And your use of the rhetorical "we" is a poor attempt to include everyone. This is your opinion. Either it's a subjective belief in which case it is no more or less valid than the belief of any other individual, or you have an objective, reasoned argument why others should buy in your moral view of the structure of law which can be applied universally and fairly to every human being and, if you are including animals, the entire animal kingdom.

The parts of a continuum are indistinguishable from the other parts. Perhaps you meant a different word.

Ok. So you've decided that law should be based, for some reason, on the capacity for suffering. Again, you include us in your perceived moral obligation and require that this moral obligation be codified into criminal law. I assume that the criminal sanctions only apply to humans.

Plenty of people, vegans and vegetarians, would disagree with that statement. Humans don't need the meat from animals, they say, and so there is something wrong with raising animals for food, or otherwise causing their needless suffering. Certainly they have a point that we eat far more than is necessary. Should it not be a crime, if the welfare of animals and their capacity of suffering is a lawful obligation that we are to adhere to, to kill more animals than is needed? Your system of law is going to be extremely unfair to the creatures you claim to protect.

I have no problem with the moral obligation. I've already pointed out that there are many morals that people hold that do not need to be in law. The question is, how do you achieve fairness under the law with your moral view, given that meat may be entirely unnecessary, or far less necessary than it is. Will you set up a commission to apportion protein?

 

You seem to be under some pretty severe misapprehensions about what logic is and what it can and cannot do. Let's start with some basics.

An axiom is a logical proposition that is assumed to be true. It is not and cannot be proven in the logical system based on it. Axioms are generally not self evident, and do not logically follow from anything else. Something used like an axiom that has previously been proven by other means is a theorem. Axioms cannot be derived by deductive reasoning. The only way to determine the validity of axioms is by comparison with reality - ie, empirical observation.

A * B = B * A is an axiom. It is also not universally true. For example, it is not true of matrix multiplication.

A tautology is the opposite of a contradiction - a proposition which is by its structure inherently true. Tautologies are also, by their nature, redundant. A = A is the prototype of a tautology.

While you personally may not have made up your laws, they are yours in the sense that you've taken ownership of them. And they were definitely made up - created by humans in a somewhat arbitrary way. And there is a major difference between axioms and the laws of logic. The laws of logic are the sets of valid operations that may be used in reasoning. Those laws are not determined by "first principles", they were chosen because those are the rules which have consistently produced results consistent with observed reality. Those laws could have been different then they are, but that would not reflect how the reality we live in works. Axioms, of course, are always chosen arbitrarily, at least from the point of view of the logic.

So you really think that there's some hidden "truth" behind quantum weirdness that the universe is hiding from us? LOL I hate to break it to you, but physicists have been searching for a way to make the weirdness go away for a century, and they've had absolutely no luck at all. Albert Einstein spent the last 30 or 40 years of his life trying to find an alternative, and he completely failed. In fact, there's a famous conversation where Einstein quipped, "God does not play dice," to which Neils Bohr retorted "Stop telling god what to do!" Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories in history - there has never been any experiment or observation that has failed to confirm the predictions of quantum theory. The universe really is that weird, regardless of how you feel about it. If you can't imagine the universe being that way, that is a commentary on the limits of your imagination, not on how the universe is. When JBS Haldane said, "The universe is not only queerer then we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose," It was meant very literally.

And I said celestial spheres, not geocentrism. They are separate concepts. In fact, Copernicus's initial version of heliocentrism also used the idea of celestial spheres. The idea of celestial spheres originated with Anaximander in the 6th century BCE, was developed by various other philosophers, including Plato and Eudoxus. The concept as it is most familiar to us was definitively set forth by Aristotle. In any event, the idea grew out of a misuse of logic, and the fact that Aristotle and Plato couldn't wrap their minds around the concept of a vacuum. Like I said, if you can't imagine something being true, that's about your imagination, not the nature of the universe.

 

You seem to be arguing the semantics of different things. The fact of the matter is that there are certain things that can be universally and absolutely known without reference to any outside observation. One is that something cannot be not what it is. Another is that one thing and thing make two things. A third is that I exist as a thinking entity.

So? What makes you think the precise mechanism of the thing is even observable?

That makes sense too, if you don't have a better explanation of how they are suspended in apparent nothingness.

 

Don't be absurd. There's no such thing as absolute certainty, period. And without reference to outside observation, how can you even define the most basic of concepts, such as the concept of a "thing"? A thing cannot not be what it is? That's silly. What a thing is is defined by its properties. Properties may change over time, or be different from different frames of reference, or even change randomly each time they are observed. One thing added to another makes two things? Seriously, did you actually think that through? If I have a pile of sand and add to it a single grain of sand, then the result is neither two piles of sand, nor two grains of sand. If I apply one force to an object and then add an identical force in the opposite direction, the result is no force at all. You exist as a thinking being? That is only certain if you make it a tautology by defining existing as a thinking being to be the state that you are in, in which case the statement really says nothing at all.

The bottom line is that the universe is like a cat - it will do as it pleases, and you should consider yourself lucky if it bothers to let you know.

What makes you think this so called precise mechanism even exists? Adding unnecessary concepts which have no basis in anything other then your sense of aesthetics is both bad science and bad logic.

It makes sense, and it's also completely wrong. Like I said earlier, pure logic can never determine a real world truth value of anything. That's an inherent feature of the nature of logic.

 

Certainly, there is such a thing as absolute certainty. I can be absolutely certain that some entity exists.

What makes you think it doesn't? Only that it hasn't been discovered.

Celestial spheres weren't based on pure logic; they were based on observation of celestial bodies The fact that empiricism has been wrong many times in the past is hardly an argument in favor of relying on empiricism. We won't even get into spontaneous generation, the humors, phlogiston...

 

As soon as the dolphins start demanding their rights, let's grant them!

 

Only if you define existence as the state that particular thing is in. Which again reduces it to a tautology, and says nothing meaningful.

Occam's razor. There is no evidence to support the existence of such a thing, despite decades of an intense search for it. Furthermore, no proposed "precise mechanism" has ever been put forward that in any way adds to the predictive power of quantum mechanics, and generally they significantly diminish it. Therefore postulating such a mechanism is equivalent to postulating that the universe is completely filled with invisible pink unicorns that do not interact with matter in any way. It could be true, but there's absolutely no reason to think it is.

No, celestial spheres were based on using logic to extend how Aristotle and the rest believed that objects behave in our everyday experience to the heavens. This is an abject lesson in the dangers of letting your logic outrun your evidence.

Of course empiricism does not deliver perfect results. In fact, one of the central tenets of empiricism is that all conclusions are always provisional and subject to revision. Which do you prefer, a system of thought that recognizes the inherent imperfection of human knowledge and does its best to account for it, or a system of thought that pretends those inherent imperfections don't exist and makes pretenses of perfection?

 

This is not anything new. We have save the whale, dolphin, seal, cockroach, eagle…etc…campaigns …and make them endangered…but we have aborted over 50 million since 1973 in America alone.

 

Certainly is says something meaningful. It says that something exists as opposed to nothing. Does abstract mathematics not say anything meaningful? I guess it's all just a tautology.

Occam's razor would suggest that they simply haven't discovered the explanation rather than the absurd and impossible idea that something can be not what it is.

Behave based on what? Empirical observation.

For that matter, how do you know that any empirical observations are valid or even plausible without logic? The scientific method itself is based on logic. If things could be what they aren't, then no empirical observation has any predictive power whatsoever.

 

Define "exists."

And again we get back to that if you can't imagine something being true, that is a commentary on the limits of your imagination, not the nature of the universe.

Let me give you another example of how absurd and impossible the universe really is. Classically, relative motion follows the simple rules of vector addition. Let's take two observers, Issac and Albert. Issac is standing still on the ground, while Albert is in a car traveling at 100 mph. If Albert throws a ball forward, in the direction his car is traveling at 20 mph relative to himself, then Issac will measure the ball as moving at 120 mph relative to him. Simple common sense, right? Except that's not actually how it works. If instead of throwing a ball, Albert instead uses a laser to send a single photon in the direction the car is going, he will measure that photon as moving at exactly c, the speed of light, relative to himself. If Issac measures the speed of the exact same photon, he will also find it moves at exactly c relative to himself. In fact, all observers, regardless of how fast they are moving or in what direction will always see that same photon moving at exactly c relative to themselves.

And yes, the universe really is that weird.

Exactly. Ultimately all logic depends on empirical observation to provide its axioms. And you don't know that any empirical observation is valid or even plausible. All you can do is compare it to other observations. The scientific method uses logic, it is not based on logic. It's based on observation. No scientific idea, no matter how logical, is ever considered valid until it is confirmed by observation. And predictive power is measured by the comparisons of predictions with actual results, not by any logical analysis. Incidentally, hypotheses and theories have predictive power, not observations.

 

If you don't understand the concept of existence, I don't think any communication between us is possible. Define "define."

Define "yes," "universe," "really," "is," and "weird."

No, all empirical observation depends on logic. In fact, all everything depends on logic. Without it, there can be no communication or reason to communicate. If you're not even willing to accept that something can't not be itself, how do even know that there is such as empirical observation. Perhaps all the empirical observation you're talking about is also not empirical observation. Perhaps you are also not you.

There is no reason for debate or discussion in the world posit and no possibility for any ascribed value of more import than my favorite color. Which means one can ethically do whatever one pleases, within the bounds of practicality in regards to achieving whatever ends one personally prefers. Which, of course, may also include everything from torturing puppies to raping children to committing mass genocide.