Subject:
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Re: Did animals have rights before we invented rights?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 3 Jul 2001 15:17:23 GMT
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Viewed:
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3259 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton writes:
> > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Scott Arthur writes:
> > > In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton writes:
> > > > Chris:
> > > > > > Neither the lion nor the wildebeest is concerned with
> > > > > > morality. It is an action completely without moral regard. It is
> > > > > > therefore amoral. But not immoral.
> > > >
> > > > Scott:
> > > > > I agree.
> > >
> > > My position is that we should not infer human characteristics on animals. We
> > > should judge them by their standards - not ours.
> >
> > No no, your position on whether animals are moral/immoral OR amoral. Do you
> > think they are moral/immoral or amoral?
>
> Good restatement. Good luck getting a straight answer though.
Larry,
At this point I am tempted to dig up all the old posts you have not answered
- where the questions were *very* direct. All those ones were you were
unable to justify yourself. Unable to back you own argument. Unable to show
us your strengths as a critical thinker. But, you will be glad to hear, I won't.
>
> I agree that we ought not to infer or impute human characteristics of
> animals unless they are demonstrably present. That's why I think of animals
> as amoral, because I tend to (with some room for doubt) hold morality as a
> human trait. To say something is amoral is not a judgement, it's merely
> saying that morality doesn't apply to that thing. That is, that we are not
> applying a human characteristic to a non human thing.
>
> The arguments or examples advanced for some animals being moral seem to
> focus on animals most like us, as Frank said... animals that have
> significantly well developed higher brain functions, animals that you can
> argue don't live completely in the present but can anticipate possible
> futures (beyond "the rabbit will come out of this hole"), animals that have
> some sort of proto-society (packs or herds with dominant members) and so forth.
>
> I COULD just take that as my escape clause and say that when I said animals
> are amoral I didn't mean these sort of animals that have some human traits,
> because they're not quite fully animal.
>
> But I won't. I'll instead ask what is necessary for morality to develop?
> Here are some possibles: Reasoning ability, the ability to think in the
> abstract, Language, the ability to understand consequences, the ability to
> use logic...
Language 1st I expect, the others require language to really take off. At
least that is my understanding our minds, I think!, need a language to be
able articulate ideas.
Scott A
> Not an exhaustive list, and some duplication is present. Not
> sure that's a well formed way to look at the question either. Might spark
> some thought. This sort of addresses Ross's questions (and I liked Chris's
> answers) but at a more building block level. These abilities are more fine
> grained.
>
> ++Lar
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