From: young@serum.kodak.com
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Should humans assign "status"?
Date: 28 Aug 92 17:45:52 GMT
Reply-To: young@serum.kodak.com
Organization: Clinical Products Division, Eastman Kodak Company
Originator: young@sasquatch

In <Bto5zA.AGA@wpg.com>, Russell Lawrence writes:

[...]

>Just for the sake of argument, let's assume that the "Cosmos" has 
>a mind and has authorized you to speak on his/her/its behalf.  In 
>such a case, your willingness to defer to the authority of this 
>"Cosmic Person" belies your claim that sapience and sentience are 
>arbitrary values.  After all, the Cosmic Person would be a 
>meaningless concept unless he/she/it possesses some sort of
>feeling/thinking abilities.  

	Sure, but this strawman is destined to ferment in the fields, since
	I have NOT assigned a "mind" to the cosmos.  Wave your hands all
	you like: assignment of some fictitious sapience to the cosmos is
	nothing more than a distraction.  _I_ have not done such a thing.

>On the other hand, let's suppose that the "Cosmos" is a mindless 
>entity with no thoughts and feelings whatsoever.  In such a case, 
>neither "life" nor "sentience" nor any other attribute of 
>existence would make a difference to the Mindless-Cosmos-Itself, 
>and hence, your appeal to cosmic authority would make as much 
>sense as appeals to the thoughts and sensibilities of bricks, 
>stainless-steel ball bearings, glass bottles, and so on. 

	You're so CLOSE, Russell, how can you have gone right by it?  Let's
	read the first four lines in your paragraph again:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>On the other hand, let's suppose that the "Cosmos" is a mindless 
>entity with no thoughts and feelings whatsoever.  In such a case, 
>neither "life" nor "sentience" nor any other attribute of 
>existence would make a difference to the Mindless-Cosmos-Itself, ......
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

	If you'd stopped there, the discussion would be nearly finished,
	because the next step is to say that, since nothing "matters" to the
	cosmos, morals and ethics must originate from within ourselves,
	and are therefore personal and individual creations which do not
	necessarily apply beyond the "self" unless agreed to by a society
	of like-minded members of our own species.  And even at that, they
	imbue us with no absolute "right" to assign "status" to other
	species and then insist that these assignments are universal, based
	upon some cosmically irrelevant attribute.

>Now it might be true that a mindless cosmos or a brick or a glass 
>bottle couldn't care less whether murdering innocent beings is 
>good or bad, but the lack of concern among such entities doesn't 
>mean that ethical questions about murder are devoid of merit.  

	Within the limits of human society, such questions may have merit,
	but they have little to do with whether humans have any absolute
	"authority" to say that the killing of one living thing is murder, but
	that the killing of another living thing is not.

>Regardless of the non-views of the "Cosmos" that you've 
>conveniently enlisted on your behalf, the fact remains that 
>kidney-dead humans do, indeed, have meaningful lives.  And hence, 
>it behooves us to act accordingly in our dealings with them.  

	And exactly __what__, pray tell, does the above paragraph have to do
	with the hubris of humans assigning "worth" or "status" to other
	species?  Your paragraph may well have valid points, but IN THIS
	DISCUSSION, it is irrevocably irrelevant.  Please stick with the
	topic at hand, namely: by what absolute "authority" do humans
	presume to assign "worth" or "status" to other species?

>ry> ... Different species have different "talents", based on their
>ry> evolutionary niches.
>
>rl> Of course they have different talents, but to the extent that 
>rl> those "talents" reflect different levels of sentience and 
>rl> sapience, don't you think they need to be taken into account?
>
>ry> By whom?  Humans?  Hey, look, if it tilts your kilt to feel that
>ry> a giraff is worthy of some additional consideration beyond that
>ry> you'd give a garden slug, so be it, but it is, and will remain,
>ry> a purely arbitrary decision based on your personal sensibilities.
>ry> Of course others may share those sensibilities, but that fact doesn't
>ry> make the decision any less arbitrary.
>ry>
>ry> Understand, however, that we, as humans, have absolutely NO more
>ry> "authority" to make that decision than a naked mole rat.  The fact
>ry> that we have the CAPABILITY is not the same thing.
>
>I'm not sure what you mean by "authority", Rich?

	OK, Let me put it this way: who, or what, told you that you could
	arbitrarily decide that a deer was more "worthy" or of higher "status"
	than a garden slug?  Or that a panda is somehow worthy of more
	"status" than the bamboo it eats?

	Or did these thoughts perhaps originate in your own mind, which
	makes them a particularly human creation, and of no real "cosmic"
	significance at all?  You see, whether YOU think an ear of corn has
	higher "status" than a moose doesn't really matter to the natural
	world...both the ear of corn AND the moose merely "are."

>Does the policeman who lives next door to me have the "authority" to shoot
>criminals brandishing firearms?

	Utterly irrelevant to the discussion.

>Does my dad (as a licensed physician) have the "authority" to disconnect
>the life-support apparatus of a brain-dead human?

	Once again, utterly irrelevant to the discussion.

>Does an animal researcher have the "authority" to kill innocent beings?

	And yet again, not germane to the discussion.

>Clearly these are questions that can be meaningfully asked and 
>answered without projecting personhood onto the "Cosmos".  As I 
>see it, your continuing appeals to "higher" authority indicate 
>that you're unwilling to participate in an honest discussion and 
>are hoping to find some avenue of escape. 

	My, my, we ARE getting just a tad testy here aren't we?  Please
	don't let frustration cloud your judgement with anger, Russell.

	I defy you to produce one scrap of evidence which shows that I
	have "appealed to a higher authority."  In point of fact, I have
	consistently asked to which "higher authority" YOU appeal for
	authority to judge the worth of other species based on sentience/
	sapience.  It may be revealing that no answer to this question
	has been forthcoming.

	There IS no "higher authority", Russell, and any attempts to create
	one are fictitious manifestations of human imagination...as are
	assignments of "worth" and "status" to other species.

	As far as my honesty in discussion, I think you'll find in a poll
	that the huge majority of readers find my honesty of discussion in
	this thread flawless, and that I have no NEED for an avenue of
	escape.  You, on the other hand have come dangerously close to
	an ad hominem attack in your statement above; if you wish to
	continue debate, I suggest that you suppress this inclination in
	future postings in this thread.  Your intellectual floundering does
	not make me dishonest or desperate to find an "avenue of escape."

>rl> To illustrate, let's just suppose that chickens are particularly 
>rl> sensitive to pain and that carrots are totally insensitive.  If 
>rl> we were to evaluate the ethical consequences of sticking needles 
>rl> into chickens and carrots, don't you think we should stop and 
>rl> consider their respective sentient abilities?  In doing so, we're
>rl> not assigning special status at all, but merely recognizing the
>rl> basic facts.
>
>ry> The natural world doesn't much care what you do to either the carrot
>ry> OR the chicken, does it?  The only one who cares is you...  
>
>[...irrelevant, non-existent or non-alive, analogies deleted...]  On the 
>other hand, the chicken would surely care, and so would many
>intelligent observers.

	I'm not sure a chicken "cares" about anything, but it certainly would
	perceive a pin-stick as potentially life-threatening and would react
	appropriately...this is called, in the vernacular, "survival
	instinct," but it has nothing to do with moral or ethical judgements,
	and, once again, it is irrelevant to whether humans have any
	higher authority than themselves for assigning "worth" or "status"
	to other species.  The morality of the act is a creation of your
	mind, and the minds of your "intelligent observers."

[...]

>Rich, you're the one who keeps appealing to "universal absolutes"
>and the "cosmos" and so on.  Not me.   In view of the fact that
>your knowledge of the universe is highly limited, don't you think
>that it's pretentious for you to continue making these appeals to
>"Cosmic" opinion?   

	I have made no "appeals to cosmic opinion"; I have merely observed
	that the precious morality you so eagerly tout and use to justify
	classification of species for personal convenience is totally 
	without significance in the greater picture of things.  There is
	no pretense about it.

	It is, in my view, far more pretentious for humans to assign "worth"
	or "status" to other species based on their limited knowledge of
	some completely arbitrary criterion which is completely devoid of
	significance to the universe.

>> ...
>rl> What's the difference between "assigning status" and "deciding 
>rl> relevance", Rich?  In declaring that one set of properties is 
>rl> relevant or not-relevant, are you not "assigning status"?  After
>rl> all, the term "relevance" is meaningless without a status point,
>rl> is it not?  
>
>ry> "Relevance" deals with applicability; "status" deals with relative
>ry> rank in a hierarchy of prestige.
>
>You've led us to believe that "life" has some sort of "cosmic" 
>significance.  In making such a claim, were you not "assigning status"
>to one set of entities while denying status to other entities?

	No, Russell, what I've done is tried to explain to you that the
	difference between "alive" and "not alive" is as good a criterion
	for assigning "worth" or "status" to other species as any other,
	but that ANY attempts to perform such classifications are purely
	human in origin and application and have nothing whatever to do
	with the relative importance of other species to the natural world.

	It is pretentious in the extreme for humans as a species to engage
	in such an activity.  We do it mostly because we CAN do it, and if
	a "cosmic intelligence" DID exist, it would, no doubt, be amused
	at the activity.

[...]

>The dogs that live with me wouldn't mind a bit if you were to 
>stick a pin in a carrot, Rich.  On the other hand, I'm sure 
>they'd react negatively if they had reason to believe that you 
>were causing me pain.  (Pain, of course, is just one aspect of 
>sentience).  

	They'd probably wonder what was happening to their "pack leader", but
	whether or not they'd defend you is not at all clear...unless, of
	course, you've imposed your human morality on them and taught them
	that they should attack anything which seems to be attacking you.
	And even then, it wouldn't really "matter" to them, it would be a
	conditioned response.

	Once again I ask, however, what does this have to do with whether
	humans have any "authority" to assign "status" to other species?

>Be that as it may, what makes you think that the validity of an
>idea may be measured by its acceptance or rejection among tigers?

	Whoa!  Where did you get the "acceptance/rejection" bit?  My point
	was that no other creature in the universe (at least as far as we
	know) worries about whether or not its next meal is sentient/sapient.
	Why should humans?  Just because we CAN?  A rather weak argument,
	especially since it shows beyond doubt that those moral and ethical
	values we cherish so highly are products of our own imaginations
	and have no application in the rest of the world...which is precisely
	my point.

>The "appeal to tigers" isn't quite as silly as your "appeal to
>the Cosmos", but it comes close.

	I suspect it seems "silly" to you because you haven't gotten it yet;
	or perhaps you're stubbornly refusing to admit that YOUR view of
	the natural world, and your false sense of human importance in it,
	isn't shared by everyone, or worse, that it may be ill-conceived.

	By what absolute authority do you presume to assign "worth" or "status"
	to other species?  That is, after all, the subject of this thread.


-Rich Young (These are not Kodak's opinions.)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals