Pyrrho

An interesting link was provided in another thread that I thought was worthy of discussion in its own thread. Please visit:

http://www.planetvegan.org/ethics/alphacentauri.asp

to read a thought experiment about intelligent aliens coming to the earth, who desire to eat humans, as well as hunt humans for sport, and to conduct medical experiments on humans. It is a fairly short story, so please take the time to read it before replying here. The question is, what reason could be given that they should not do this, aside from a reason that would be completely arbitrary (e.g., "humans should not be eaten", which would really be committing the fallacy known as “begging the question”), or one that would involve the rejection of eating other animals as well? Is there any rational argument that can be given that humans should not be used in the ways listed above? Again, please read the thought experiment before responding.

As an addition to the thought experiment at the above-mentioned web site, let us suppose further that the aliens want to drink human milk, as well as using human milk to make cheese and other such products. Perhaps they also want to extract eggs for some delicacy (I know, human egg cells are very small, but there are a couple of billion sources…). So, why shouldn’t they do these things as well as all of the above? (This is to give the non-vegan vegetarians something to think about as well.)

OCLonghorn

I'll play...

I'm afraid that my 1st response is "survival of the fittest" or, as we say in the 'hood "If you can't whip me, don't trip" (ie-don't try to stop me from whatever it is that I want to do). Accordingly, they may do it if they are able.

However, I have a couple of solutions. 1) Try to identify ourselves with them as sentient beings...that even tho we may be significantly below them on a quantitative level, we have crossed the threshold of being self-aware. The story attempts to address this solution, but the AC's are not convinced that there is a difference between their superiority to us and our superiority to a mouse. My counterargument would be that our task is only to demonstrate self-awareness to save ourselves...where the AC's draw the line between us and mice is up to the rhetorical abilities of the species in question.

2) Maybe this is cheating in this hypothetical, but I would try to find out what it is about humans that they like and offer some kind of symbiotic relationship with the AC's. Any of the uses that they describe could be better satisfied by the species that WE use (cows - more meat, deer/big cats - more physically challenging to hunt)...so we could agree to harvest same for them in exchange for mercy on our species. If they are interested in the challenge of hunting the most intelligent species on the planet, then I guess we are victims of our own success.

3) If the above fail, how 'bout this...since fighting is futile, I would negotiate providing them a self-reproducing population for their own use however they see fit. That way, at least we avoid the disruption that random hunting out of the general population would cause.

Loren Pechtel

Humans are of too high a mental level to make such actions acceptable.

Jamie_L

Clearly, there is a dividing line somewhere between living beings that can be killed without moral implication and living things that can't be killed without moral implication. Even the most fervant PETA activist is likely to kill bacteria by the billions with everything from anti-bacterial hand soap to amoxicillan to get rid of that painful strep throat.

The question is, where is that dividing line?

In the case of humans versus animals, I do not believe the dividing line is purely a matter of "we are human and they are not." The alien thought-experiment highlights the fact that mere species membership isn't a good criteria for this. So what is the answer?

I don't know exactly, at least not without sitting and thinking about it for a while. The vague answer is that it has to do with sentience and moral agency. To the best that we are aware, a cow does not have a detailed internal self-awarenss, complete with hopes and dreams, etc. Of course, this gets even more complicated when you start asking questions like: what about infants? Or the severely mentally retarded? As I said, it ain't simple.

But that's the starting point, anyway. So, if you can define what it is that makes a sentient creature worthy of moral value in this scenario, I think the answer to "Why kill animals for food, but not humans for food," falls out. It seems there is some fundamental difference between humans and most other living things, and that difference, I believe, is relevant whether you are a human looking at the issue or an alien looking at the issue.

Just as if you took another thought experiment: suppose we found an enclave of intellectually advanced bovines. Maybe they only got as smart as, say, 5-year-old humans, but they did have a language, self-awarness, etc. Would we consider them in the same way we consider other cows, simply because they aren't humans? I don't think so.

Again, figuring out precisely what it is that would make us treat these hypothetical cows differently should lead us to the answer to the OP.

Jamie

Godless Dave

On a moral level, I would probably draw the fuzzy line based on the complexity of communication the animals are capable of. That's why I'm opposed to hunting whales and dolphins; why I don't eat monkey meat (OK, it hasn't come up); and why I'm leery of scientific experimentation on gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangatans.

As a practical matter, if members of a species are intelligent enough to figure out you are using them for food, organize, and kill you first, you shouldn't eat them. And that would be my answer to the PETA story.

To paraphrase Larry Niven: "Either dolphins decide not to kill any humans or they are smart enough not to get caught. Either one is a sign of intelligence."

Sarpedon

They have an excellent point. Rights come from society, human society has created human rights. Animal society (if any) is incapable of obtaining any rights because of their weakness. The aliens, with their separate society, need not respect our rights unless we have a way to enforce them. In short, might makes right, it always has, and it always will. If we choose to give animals rights, then they have rights, if we choose not, then they have none, for they have no power to take them for themselves. The A.C. aliens would be correct in doing this. our only hope in such a situation would be to show that we are useful in other ways. "House humans" perhaps.

Feather

The scenario is one big farce, because of this quote:


The quote pre-supposes that a rational argument for the moral value of any given action is both necessary and sufficient. It isn't, of course, because any act deemed moral (actually immoral) is only enforceable as such providing the authority has the power to do it.

The answer to the question, "Why should you ACians not kill and eat people?" is simple: because then I stand a chance to be killed and eaten, and that's not good for my status as a living entity. I want to live. There's no rational basis for this--it's a desire that cannot be given any sort of logical or rational basis. And the same could be said of every single other "argument" for ethics.

Hence, the scenario is bogus.

meritocrat

Why vegetarians use this argument to denounce meat eating always puzzles me.

Eating meat is part of our natural diet (we are omnivorous by nature). Is it unethical to eat the flesh of another animal? I don't believe it is. Cattle, pigs, sheep, chickens, etc. are not sentient beings; in that sense why can't we eat their flesh as food?

Besides, vegans/vegetarians evidently eat plant-based food. Why is eating a plant more moral than eating an animal? Because plants have no conciousness?

But does a pig or sheep possess the same level of conciousness as a human being?

Thalia

Michael Pollan who is not a vegetarian wrote a very good overview of some of the issues at stake in the question of meat eating in the New York Times Magazine. It is reproduced here

I think there are two separate issues. One is imposing suffering on another, and the other is killing. If an animal has no sense of self as in hopes and dreams, etc., I think an argument can be made that painless killing is not a problem. But that leads to follow-up questions, of those of us who eat meat, how many of us before we "decided" to be omnivores, researched the mental experience of the animals we eat? (meritocrat, do you really believe that the animals you listed are not sentient???)

If we find that none of the animals we eat or use in anyway have this self-awareness (and this is a big if) then that leaves suffering. How many of us who eat meat or otherwise use animals make sure we are not contributing to animal suffering, or at least minimizing that contribution? Michael Pollan argues for buying meat from small farmers he personally knows treat animals with respect, not as mere objects or means to an end.

Veganoutreach.org has several essays on the ethics of our treatment of animals that I find meaningful.

With my own experience becoming a vegetarian, I must acknowledge that I was not easily convinced of the the perspective I now have. It was very difficult to think of something so commonplace, so natural, so traditional in a different, negative light. It was, well, blasphemous. Although many people may become vegetarians through emotion, I did so through my rational examination of my basic moral beliefs and their inconsistencies. I didn't want to think I was causing that kind of misery. Emotionally, I desperately wanted to find a loop hole. I didn't. And I am grateful I had the experience of truly questioning something I was scared to question and thus seeing things in a whole new way. But not everyone has the same basic moral beliefs as me, and therefore may not come to the same conclusions. Therefore all I would ever hope from anyone is that they honestly examine their own beliefs and the beliefs of the opposite view, and do some research on this important ethical issue before coming to an opinion.

meritocrat

Well how does one define being sentient?

Are cattle or pigs as self-aware as humans?