I think the class has a good idea of my opinions about the intelligence, awareness, and communication that exists in, and between, many non-human animal species.
Just as I began writing this passage Dulcenaea, my oldest cat, and great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother of some of my other cats, jumped onto my chair, purring, she nuzzled into her usual spot - between the left arm of my recliner, tucked under my elbow, with her body resting over my left hip, her left paw against the computer, with her head over it, she is observing the letters appearing on this blog while she continues purring. There is a rythym, a comfortable pattern, known and observed by all three species within our household.
Did you know that chimpanzees that were taught sign language by humans not only learned to use the language to communicate with their human teachers, they were also observed by these humans to be using sign language between themselves independent of human contact?
I find it interesting that supposedly less valuable, morally deserving chimpanzee animals were able to learn a human-animal language so well as to communicate with them and each other in their "second language." How can we adequately explain why the "superior" human-animal is unable to reciprocately learn chimpanzee?
This week the Today show had a golden retriever on their show because she had been raising 3 tiger cubs, who had been abandoned by their mom, for 7 weeks. There were 3 other goldens, who, while not nursing the cubs, were assisting her in nurturing them and teaching them the appropriate social values for their age.
"Extraordinary Animals" on Animal Planet had a show on "'Rio', a sea lion residing in California,who solves logical questions that puzzle most humans." Another segment titled "Bird Braniac" features an African gray parrot who has mastered English vocabulary sufficiently to identify shapes, colors, objects, and perform simple addition. African Greys are said to have the same capacity to learn as 7 year old humans. They did a segment on "'Skamp,' a schnauzer, who predicts the death of residents in a nursing home with near 100 percent accuracy." I've seen other programs where a cat and a different dog have also been able to reliably recognize when a nursing home resident is preparing to pass over, and always go in and sit or lie on the patient until they have died.
Then on "Natural World," also on Animal Planet they showed an episode "Saved by Dolphins." Dulcey's grand-daughter RooNey, and RooNey's son "Nim" have joined my Blogging endeavor. RooNey is sitting on the right arm of my chair with her behind against my right elbow. Nim, who is younger with less polished social skills horned right in between them, resting his heavy body over my right arm, making typing challenging. Dulcey grew impatient with his youthful disregard of appropriate interspecies social decorum and bopped him on the head, and with a hiss left us momentarily. His mother, RooNey, a bit ashamed of her youngest's lapse left us for my bed and the company of a half dozen or so other felines. Dulcey reappeared, jumped up and sat on my right, looked at me, purred, pushed her face into mine before perching on the back of my chair.
Back to "Saved by Dolphins." This shows is about a pod of dolphins that protects a group of 4 swimmers from a white shark for 40 minutes. This dolphin-protecting-man behavior has been written about for centuries.
Do you remember the story of the elderly man, who lived alone with his cat, who fell, broke his hip and was unable to get up? For a week his cat kept him alive by going outside hunting, and daily bringing birds right up to within his reach. She was credited with keeping him alive for the week until he was found.
There have been several documentaries of different men relating and living safely with black bears, grizzly bears, and wolves.
There have been many empirically documented accounts of positive, human-with-"wild" animal social relationships. The ways that service animals help humans are too numerous to list. There are many accounts of "pets' saving families from fires, drowning, and dangerous animals.
Hopefully, I will be successful in my attempts to add pictures to this post to illustrate some of the sources of my beliefs.
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Ethics, Morality, Vegetarianism and Carnivorism
I am unsure how to relate this to our environmental concept of the natural hierarchy in communities of ecosystems. In a freshwater ecosystem, examples of the Producers are plants & phytoplankton, Primary Consumers are zooplankton, Secondary Consumers are smaller fish, and Tertiary Consumers are turtles and bigger fish. On land, examples of Producers are trees and plants, Primary Consumers are rabbits, Secondary Consumers are fox, and Tertiary Consumers are coyotes.
We are taught that food chains rarely have more than four trophic levels.
1st Trophic Level are Producers (plants)
2nd Trophic Level are Primary Consumers (herbivores)
3rd Trophic Level are Secondary Consumers (carnivores)
4th Trophic Level are Tertiary Consumers (top carnivores)
So is there a natural selection creating a hierarchy of value in a natural ecosystem? If so, do we have greater moral responsibility to Consumers over Producers? Even greater moral responsibility to the Secondary Consumers than the Primary Consumers? And the greatest moral responsibility to Tertiary Consumers?
If this holds true, and we were to follow this natural evolutionary pattern, then would meat-eating humans and top carnivores have greater value than vegetarian humans and other primary consumers?
I find this to be quite an ethical dilemma. I have always believed in honoring the evolutionary patterns we find in the natural world (as it would exist untainted by human-created destructive patterns). A conundrum I have yet to integrate satisfactorily into my consciousness. Any suggestions?
We are taught that food chains rarely have more than four trophic levels.
1st Trophic Level are Producers (plants)
2nd Trophic Level are Primary Consumers (herbivores)
3rd Trophic Level are Secondary Consumers (carnivores)
4th Trophic Level are Tertiary Consumers (top carnivores)
So is there a natural selection creating a hierarchy of value in a natural ecosystem? If so, do we have greater moral responsibility to Consumers over Producers? Even greater moral responsibility to the Secondary Consumers than the Primary Consumers? And the greatest moral responsibility to Tertiary Consumers?
If this holds true, and we were to follow this natural evolutionary pattern, then would meat-eating humans and top carnivores have greater value than vegetarian humans and other primary consumers?
I find this to be quite an ethical dilemma. I have always believed in honoring the evolutionary patterns we find in the natural world (as it would exist untainted by human-created destructive patterns). A conundrum I have yet to integrate satisfactorily into my consciousness. Any suggestions?
Daniel Quinn's Ishmael
On Thursday, a friend told me about how much she was enjoying the book “Ishmael” by Daniel Quinn. Ishmael is a half-ton silverback gorilla who puts an ad in a newspaper: "Teacher seeks pupil, must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person.” A nameless man responds finds himself in a room with the gorilla, who communicates with him telepathically. The man learns the story of the gorilla, Ishmael, who is a student of ecology, life, freedom, and the human condition. The man accepts the gorilla as his teacher.
I related many of the things she told me to our Singer and Regan readings and class discussions, so I researched the book.
Ishmael defines:
"Takers" as people often referred to as "civilized.” Particularly, the culture born in an Agricultural Revolution that began about 10,000 years ago in the Near East; the culture of Ishmael's pupil.
"Leavers" as people of all other cultures; sometimes referred to as "primitive."
A "story" as an interrelation between the gods, man, and the Earth, with a beginning, middle, and end.
To "enact" is to strive to make a story come true.
A "culture" as a people who are enacting a story.
The premises enacted by the Takers is that they are the pinnacle of evolution (or creation), that the world was made for man, and that man is here to conquer and rule the world. This rule is meant to bring about a paradise, as man increases his mastery of the world, however, he is always failing because he is flawed.
According to Ishmael, our agricultural revolution was not a technological event but a moral one, a rebellion against an ethical structure inherent in the community of life since its foundation four billion years ago. Having escaped the restraints of this ethical structure, humankind made itself a global tyrant, wielding deadly force over all other species while lacking the wisdom to make its tyranny a beneficial one or even a sustainable one.
Ishmael postulates that all animals were evolving at an even pace until about 10,000 years ago, when humans suddenly jumped significantly ahead of all other species. He linked this to man’s development into an agrarian society. He says that our agricultural domination of the planet is hindering the natural progressive evolution of other beings into reflective, understanding, communities. Ishmael believes an evolutionarily stable for all species is a survival strategy they later dubbed the Law of Limited Competition: "You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war.” All species inevitably follow this law, or consequently go extinct. The Takers believe themselves to be exempt from this Law and flout it at every point.
Another quote I found from the book:
"The story of Genesis must be undone. First, Cain must stop murdering Abel. This is essential if you are to survive. The Leavers are the endangered species most critical to the world - not because they are humans but because they alone can show the destroyers of the world that there is more than one right way to live. And then, of course, you must spit out the fruit of the forbidden tree. You must absolutely and forever relinquish the idea that you know who should live and who should die on this planet."
In class we were discussing how there must be some hierarchy stratifying beings by assigned or inherent value, and our moral obligation to some forms of life is greater than our moral obligation to “lesser” beings.
I wonder if Quinn and Ishmael would agree with us. I would interpret their last statement in the above quote as contrary to our discussion of some life forms as inherently more valuable, and deserving of being designated as moral agents or equally valuable moral patients.
I related many of the things she told me to our Singer and Regan readings and class discussions, so I researched the book.
Ishmael defines:
"Takers" as people often referred to as "civilized.” Particularly, the culture born in an Agricultural Revolution that began about 10,000 years ago in the Near East; the culture of Ishmael's pupil.
"Leavers" as people of all other cultures; sometimes referred to as "primitive."
A "story" as an interrelation between the gods, man, and the Earth, with a beginning, middle, and end.
To "enact" is to strive to make a story come true.
A "culture" as a people who are enacting a story.
The premises enacted by the Takers is that they are the pinnacle of evolution (or creation), that the world was made for man, and that man is here to conquer and rule the world. This rule is meant to bring about a paradise, as man increases his mastery of the world, however, he is always failing because he is flawed.
According to Ishmael, our agricultural revolution was not a technological event but a moral one, a rebellion against an ethical structure inherent in the community of life since its foundation four billion years ago. Having escaped the restraints of this ethical structure, humankind made itself a global tyrant, wielding deadly force over all other species while lacking the wisdom to make its tyranny a beneficial one or even a sustainable one.
Ishmael postulates that all animals were evolving at an even pace until about 10,000 years ago, when humans suddenly jumped significantly ahead of all other species. He linked this to man’s development into an agrarian society. He says that our agricultural domination of the planet is hindering the natural progressive evolution of other beings into reflective, understanding, communities. Ishmael believes an evolutionarily stable for all species is a survival strategy they later dubbed the Law of Limited Competition: "You may compete to the full extent of your capabilities, but you may not hunt down competitors or destroy their food or deny them access to food. In other words, you may compete but you may not wage war.” All species inevitably follow this law, or consequently go extinct. The Takers believe themselves to be exempt from this Law and flout it at every point.
Another quote I found from the book:
"The story of Genesis must be undone. First, Cain must stop murdering Abel. This is essential if you are to survive. The Leavers are the endangered species most critical to the world - not because they are humans but because they alone can show the destroyers of the world that there is more than one right way to live. And then, of course, you must spit out the fruit of the forbidden tree. You must absolutely and forever relinquish the idea that you know who should live and who should die on this planet."
In class we were discussing how there must be some hierarchy stratifying beings by assigned or inherent value, and our moral obligation to some forms of life is greater than our moral obligation to “lesser” beings.
I wonder if Quinn and Ishmael would agree with us. I would interpret their last statement in the above quote as contrary to our discussion of some life forms as inherently more valuable, and deserving of being designated as moral agents or equally valuable moral patients.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Criteria and Speciesism
I agree with Peter Singer's and Jeremy Bentham's POV advocating for every being's interest to be given equal consideration as the like interests of any other being. But with equality a moral idea born of human-created criteria which imposes an assigned value to life forms, I fear it is inadequate for the task. Sylvan's idea of the need for a new Environmental Ethic advances this POV more palatably into the philosophical and public spheres for human consideration.
Bentham offers the capacity for suffering and/or enjoyment as the vital characteristics that give a being the right to equal consideration. I remain troubled by the fact that many species will be omitted from the right for equal consideration. The value judgment for consideration is made by humans, who base a species' capacity for suffering and/or enjoyment on their anthropocentric technological/scientific beliefs. Because humankind lacks the capacity to communicate adequately with other species, many are deemed unworthy of moral consideration and viewed as insentient. Or abstractly determined to be lower on the hierarchal scale measuring species' rights for moral consideration.
In particular, I can find no logical ethic for determining the value of life forms in any hierarchal form. Life on planet earth exists in an intricately woven, interdependent web, not in a vacuum.
Humankind remains vastly ignorant of the purpose and true nature of many species. The fig wasp is the only pollinator of fig trees. There are many known examples of symbiotic dependency in nature. The ripple effect is misunderstood, unacknowledged, or disdained by the powers that be. Considering any specie superior to any other is a dangerous road to travel.
Humankind assigns value in relation to purpose, and purpose in relation to existence. If there is a purpose to the existence of this planet's life forms as an interdependent collective, then creating a hierarchy of value for species, and acting on its validity, may lead to the end of existence of humanity and all earth's life forms.
Bentham offers the capacity for suffering and/or enjoyment as the vital characteristics that give a being the right to equal consideration. I remain troubled by the fact that many species will be omitted from the right for equal consideration. The value judgment for consideration is made by humans, who base a species' capacity for suffering and/or enjoyment on their anthropocentric technological/scientific beliefs. Because humankind lacks the capacity to communicate adequately with other species, many are deemed unworthy of moral consideration and viewed as insentient. Or abstractly determined to be lower on the hierarchal scale measuring species' rights for moral consideration.
In particular, I can find no logical ethic for determining the value of life forms in any hierarchal form. Life on planet earth exists in an intricately woven, interdependent web, not in a vacuum.
Humankind remains vastly ignorant of the purpose and true nature of many species. The fig wasp is the only pollinator of fig trees. There are many known examples of symbiotic dependency in nature. The ripple effect is misunderstood, unacknowledged, or disdained by the powers that be. Considering any specie superior to any other is a dangerous road to travel.
Humankind assigns value in relation to purpose, and purpose in relation to existence. If there is a purpose to the existence of this planet's life forms as an interdependent collective, then creating a hierarchy of value for species, and acting on its validity, may lead to the end of existence of humanity and all earth's life forms.
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