Sorry, but I place more value on the lives of sentient beings than I do mindless vermin and beasts.And you are empowered to assign the relative sentience ratings as you see fit? Wow. Sucks for your political opponents. Or dolphins, if you happen to decide, based on appearances, that they're "just fish."
If a living creature isn't human than its just food. Working animals just get eaten last.
If a living creature isn't human than its just food.Sorry, but I place more value on the lives of sentient beings than I do mindless vermin and beasts.And you are empowered to assign the relative sentience ratings as you see fit? Wow. Sucks for your political opponents. Or dolphins, if you happen to decide, based on appearances, that they're "just fish."
Those aliens better roll around in herbs and spices and jump straight into the deep fryer upon landing on earth.
Those aliens better roll around in herbs and spices and jump straight into the deep fryer upon landing on earth.If a living creature isn't human than its just food.Sorry, but I place more value on the lives of sentient beings than I do mindless vermin and beasts.And you are empowered to assign the relative sentience ratings as you see fit? Wow. Sucks for your political opponents. Or dolphins, if you happen to decide, based on appearances, that they're "just fish."
Those same aliens might be thinking of the tastest ways to cook humans.
Those same aliens might be thinking of the tastest ways to cook humans.
Hopefully, they will have evolved more humanity than we have.
If a living creature isn't human than its just food. Working animals just get eaten last.
So I should barbecue some of my neighbors, if I decide they're subhumans? I should eat chimps, despite the disease risk that's orders of magnitude greater than for dogs? I don't really understand the logic.
If a living creature isn't human than its just food. Working animals just get eaten last.So I should barbecue some of my neighbors, if I decide they're subhumans? I should eat chimps, despite the disease risk that's orders of magnitude greater than for dogs? I don't really understand the logic.
MMmm...Chimps.
How about we NOT devolve this into a flame war?
Does pointing out immoral elements in an absolutist "moral" position consist of a "flame war"?
Hey c'mon guys look at the bright side. Come november he's gonna be a serious lame duck and by 2012 he will be outta there.I hate to say it, but I agree.I'm more than a little disappointed in Obama right now. He could correct that, as Commander in Chief, with an executive order.
But then, he needs to appease the less enlightened elements of his own base there.
Not with the current field of top candidates from the GOP vying for the nomination; no-siree.
I'm not down on Obama, but I'm not pleased thus far. But there isn't a single GOP candidate out there that makes me go 'hmmmmm...' with any seriousness.
Bring Slick Willie back and load him up with some interns on the sly.
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Sorry, but I place more value on the lives of sentient beings than I do mindless vermin and beasts.And you are empowered to assign the relative sentience ratings as you see fit? Wow. Sucks for your political opponents. Or dolphins, if you happen to decide, based on appearances, that they're "just fish."
What does my statement have to do with political opponents? Just because they act like braindead mouthbreathers, it doesn't mean they actually are.
Are we really any differnet than the creatures that we eat? I say it is all in the preparation when cooking animals or people...sorry that was the Orc in me coming out...oink oink...
Are we really any differnet than the creatures that we eat? I say it is all in the preparation when cooking animals or people...sorry that was the Orc in me coming out...oink oink...
Actually...doesn't that mean we should be eating orc?
…but then we are at Freehold DM's point. We have made humans more equal than others. There is certainly historical and religious precedent for this, but I would dismiss it.I would, too, but I'm in a vanishingly small minority on that. Most people rate humans as being inherently "better" than animals, and children and babies as inherently "better" than adults, and wealthy adults who successfully scam the system to be inherently "better" than criminals, and people who share their beliefs to be "better" than people who reject their religion in favor of another one (or none at all), and people on the same side of the political spectrum to be inherently "better" than their political opponents.
I reject each of your assertions -- except the first one. I don't know if better is the correct word (it really depends on what one means by "better"), but humans are different, and by many criteria, plainly superior. Whether those criteria are ethically relevant is reasonably debatable, but their existence is not. Any non-human who disagrees is free to speak up, of course. :)
If a living creature isn't human than its just food. Working animals just get eaten last.So I should barbecue some of my neighbors, if I decide they're subhumans? I should eat chimps, despite the disease risk that's orders of magnitude greater than for dogs? I don't really understand the logic.
There's a pretty clear difference between you "deciding" someone isn't homo sapiens, and it being so. What's not to understand? On the other hand, if your neighbors actually are dogs, grill away.
I reject each of your assertions -- except the first one. I don't know if better is the correct word (it really depends on what one means by "better"), but humans are different, and by many criteria, plainly superior. Whether those criteria are ethically relevant is reasonably debatable, but their existence is not. Any non-human who disagrees is free to speak up, of course. :)
Certain dinosaurs once held that point of view. We'll eventually become biodegradable for the next evolutionary party crasher. Heck, we got the degradation part down so far. ;)
…but humans are different…
Agreed. In fact, it was kind of my original point, I believe our justice system to be different than Iran's. If we want to make everything black and white, as it appears Xpltvdeleted wishes to do, then life is sacred…all life.
…and by many criteria, plainly superior.
Criteria that is obviously bias in selection. Who is the superior swimmer? Ah, but swimming is not a true measure of superiority. Well, to a fish it is.
I reject each of your assertions -- except the first one. I don't know if better is the correct word (it really depends on what one means by "better"), but humans are different, and by many criteria, plainly superior. Whether those criteria are ethically relevant is reasonably debatable, but their existence is not. Any non-human who disagrees is free to speak up, of course. :)
If the Dolphins do we'd not be able to understand them. But they sing to each other using a lot of different notes. Its definitely communication and it could be complex communication. They are highly social animals like we are - and we evolved language because we are social.
humans are different, and by many criteria, plainly superior.
I disagree. We teach our kids to talk, but we've also taught sign language to chimps, and watched them teach their offspring in turn... we've seen bonobos make stone tools... we look at the DNA, and see that chimps and bonobos are far more closely related to humans than they are to gorillas... and gorillas are far more like humans than they are like monkeys... and monkeys are far more like humans than they are like rats, or cockroaches. In the other direction, I'm far more similar to my cousins than I am to most people living across the world -- not just culturally, but genetically as well.
To draw the "different and special" line at the species level as opposed to, say, the family level (to broaden it a bit) or the tribal level (to narrow it a bit) is a totally arbitrary decision. It's not an objectively rational one, and it's certainly not one that you can decide to make for everyone else, and claim it's "obviously" the correct one, and that you're somehow making it on moral grounds. Your claim has no more empirical weight than some nut job saying "I am different, and by many criteria, plainly superior," and then using that as an excuse to commit murder. The only difference is that you're drawing an arbitrary line in a different place.
And as to "plainly superior," dolphins have a complex society and culture that are sustainable in the long term. It remains to be seen if human society is sustainable over that duration, at the rate we're using resources. A rational argument could therefore be made that humans are inferior, except from a "might makes right" standpoint (which totally undermines the moral claims you're trying to make).
If a living creature isn't human than its just food. Working animals just get eaten last.So I should barbecue some of my neighbors, if I decide they're subhumans? I should eat chimps, despite the disease risk that's orders of magnitude greater than for dogs? I don't really understand the logic.
If you want to be a bigot and eat your ethnically diverse neighbors that’s your choice but a human is a human because of genetics not race.
When you’re starving and you’re in a room with a chimp you have a choice to starve to death or eat the chimp. Me I'll gladly eat the chimp because it’s not nor will it ever be human.Chimps, cats, dogs, horses, etc are just meat. By the way chimp meat is just as safe to eat as cow if cooked properly; it’s only the brains that, which people eat raw, might contain the same virus that causes mad-cow disease in humans.
Stop trying to humanize the animals because as soon as those same animals get hungry enough they will try to eat you without any remose or hesatation.
I think that it is less humane to lock someone up and basically physically and mentally torture them for potentially decades, then to practice euthanasia on them. Just to pat ourselves on the back that we are not "brutal murderers". We would never do that to an animal that we believed was a danger to others. After attempting to make sure we had the right animal (and we might make errors) we then have the animal "put down". We don't lock the animal up for years until it life ends. So why are we less humane with how we treat humans?
When you’re starving and you’re in a room with a chimp you have a choice to starve to death or eat the chimp. Me I'll gladly eat the chimp because it’s not nor will it ever be human. Chimps, cats, dogs, horses, etc are just meat.Stop trying to humanize the animals because as soon as those same animals get hungry enough they will try to eat you without any remo[r]se or hesitation.
Most of my neighbors, locked in a room with me, would eat me without remorse or hesitation, if I let them. Should I stop trying to humanize them? But I need to "stop trying to humanize" the other animals because they would do the same as the humans? How does that make sense? (BTW, the horse can't actually eat you -- no enzymes to digest meat).
On the flip side, one of my friends is still alive because his dog sacrificed its life for his (no eating going on there; this involved a tractor). That's not the action of "just meat". Then again, based on their lack of actions other than sitting around all day mumbling, some of my neighbors do probably qualify for that epithet.
Yeah, humans are Homo sapiens and other animals aren't. So what? Dogs are Canis familiaris and other animals aren't. Does that make dogs unique and special? Stop trying to doggize people.
"That guy treats objects like women, man!"
After attempting to make sure we had the right animal (and we might make errors) we then have the animal "put down". We don't lock the animal up for years until it life ends. So why are we less humane with how we treat humans?
Well, until the funding ran out we locked up chimps in cages the size of doghouses and infected them with hepatitis and watched them die, in the name of research.
That caveat aside, your point was an excellent one -- well done.
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I think that it is less humane to lock someone up and basically physically and mentally torture them for potentially decades, then to practice euthanasia on them. Just to pat ourselves on the back that we are not "brutal murderers". We would never do that to an animal that we believed was a danger to others. After attempting to make sure we had the right animal (and we might make errors) we then have the animal "put down". We don't lock the animal up for years until it life ends. So why are we less humane with how we treat humans?
I am going to step in here for just a second because I have noticed one thing about this issue, particularly since I have started my legal studies. The complants about the death penelty tend to become loudest when we have a sympathetic defendant about to be executed, be it a "child," someone with a mental disorder, or someone with a low functioning I.Q. I put child in quotes because some protests I have heard about involve someone who is now an adult but commited their crime before 18 and the protest is still based on how the person was a child when they committed the crime. However, I find it highly unlikely that we will see many protestors if the two men in the Connecticut home invasion, rape, and murder trial are executed. There will be some who will still protest it on ethical grounds and those people are to be commended, However I think that many who might otherwise oppose the execution will either turn a blind eye or work quietly behind the scenes lest they be portrayed as condoning that type of action. Now that I have said my peace, I will respectfully bow out and lurk again.
Thank you Mr. Fryer.
What happened to the good guys?
We need to expand the death penalty. More executions would be good. Don't worry about the innocent ones, because no one is innocent.
As far as eating your dog, or a dolphin, or a chimp, or even the person sitting next to you in that smashed fuselage - I say eat up! Meat is what's for dinner!
]Most of my neighbors, locked in a room with me, would eat me without remorse or hesitation, if I let them.
Kirth...are you THAT delicious? Cuz I've been thinking about eating you for quite some time, but I was going to have to undergo a rigorous exercise and training program so you would be a healthy meal. But if you come pre-seasoned and are willing to stew in your own juices, then I may just forgo health in the name of deliciousness.
KIRTH- It's what's for dinner!
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I am going to step in here for just a second because I have noticed one thing about this issue, particularly since I have started my legal studies. The complants about the death penelty tend to become loudest when we have a sympathetic defendant about to be executed, be it a "child," someone with a mental disorder, or someone with a low functioning I.Q. I put child in quotes because some protests I have heard about involve someone who is now an adult but commited their crime before 18 and the protest is still based on how the person was a child when they committed the crime. However, I find it highly unlikely that we will see many protestors if the two men in the Connecticut home invasion, rape, and murder trial are executed. There will be some who will still protest it on ethical grounds and those people are to be commended, However I think that many who might otherwise oppose the execution will either turn a blind eye or work quietly behind the scenes lest they be portrayed as condoning that type of action. Now that I have said my peace, I will respectfully bow out and lurk again.
I am, as a general rule, against the death penalty period. Being an atheist I believe dead is dead. Do not pass go, do not collect a trip to heaven, etc. Given that the typical types of evidence used are not that great, they shouldn't be used as a basis for taking anyone's life. "But what about forensics, genetics?" you say. Well, admittadely (sp?) DNA evidence is 99.99999% accurate. Humans, on the other hand will have errors at the rate of around 1 in 200. This means that any evidence has somewhere around a 1 in 200 chance of being mishandled. I know we have a lot more than 200 death penalty/life in prison cases each year, so there's a good chance someone's evidence got f*~%ed up.
As for children, the retarded, etc. Who cares how old a person is now? All that matters is their age when they committed the crime. Are we going to start prosecuting people because, when they were toddlers, they were abusive to fluffy the cat? Anybody with a diminished mental capacity or who has not reached the age of majority should not be tried as an adult, period.
That being said, while I do have less sympathy for people being executed for the CT invasions than I would for a retarded person or a child (or worst case scenario, a retarded child), but that doesn't mean I think they should be executed.