Dallas Police have recently come under scrutiny for using deadly force to subdue a local resident named Jabari. Two women and a 3-year-old boy were assaulted by Jabari before he turned on police and was shot six times. Some citizens, however, are disturbed that the police didn’t resort to non-lethal means before applying deadly force and have even considered the shooting a 'murder." "Probing questions must be asked and answered," said Don Feare, a local lawyer. "Let our call go out to [Dallas] Mayor Laura Miller and the council to ask the hard questions."
The night after the shooting a small group of mourners held a candlelight vigil to mourn Jabari’s death and to protest the police use of lethal force. "I'm sorry about the families that were hurt -- especially the baby," said area resident Jarrod Garrett "We just wish the zookeepers were there before the police."
Zookeepers? Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that Jabari was a 340 lb. gorilla?
Perhaps its symptomatic of our age that we put the rights of an animal before the safety of an innocent child. While the modern concept of 'animal rights" began over two hundred years ago when the English social reformer Henry Salt wrote 'Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress (1892)", the movement has only gained momentum over the past thirty years.
One of the key proponents of the philosophy is the Princeton ethicist Peter Singer. In a 1989 essay titled 'All Animals Are Equal', Singer asked why human’s have more intrinsic dignity than other animals:
The truth is that the appeal to the intrinsic dignity of human beings appears to solve the egalitarian's problems only as long as it goes unchallenged. Once we ask why it should be that all humans—including infants, mental defectives, psychopaths, Hitler, Stalin, and the rest—have some kind of dignity or worth that no elephant, pig, or chimpanzee can ever achieve, we see that this question is as difficult to answer as our original request for some relevant fact that justifies the inequality of humans and other animals. In fact, these two questions are really one: talk of intrinsic dignity or moral worth only takes the problem back one step, because any satisfactory defence of the claim that all and only humans have intrinsic dignity would need to refer to some relevant capacities or characteristics that all and only humans possess. Philosophers frequently introduce ideas of dignity, respect, and worth at the point at which other reasons appear to be lacking, but this is hardly good enough. Fine phrases are the last resource of those who have run out of arguments.
I must admit that Singer has a point. Appeals to dignity must have some basis in either 'relevant capacities or characteristics" that can be used to distinguish the intrinsic dignity of humans from other animals. Christians and Jews are able to claim that our dignity rests upon being created in imagio dei, in the image of God. Secular critics, of course, might disagree with our reasoning but what basis can they build their own case?
After all, the genetic differences between humans and gorillas are miniscule. We have 97% of the same chromosomes as gorillas and 98% of the same genetic material as chimpanzees (in fact, chimps are -- genetically speaking -- more like us than they are like gorillas). It would hardly be fair to exclude primates from equality with humans on the basis of a 3% difference. And as Singer points out, 'some humans who quite clearly are below the level of awareness, self-consciousness, intelligence, and sentience, of many non-humans." Without a significant basis in either genetics or characteristics, what grounds do secularists have for not including these animals under the 'equal protection" clause of the Constitution? I’m curious to hear their reasoning as, I’m sure, are the few thousand gorillas, chimps, and orangutans now in captivity.
Joe, I think you'd find Keith Burgess-Jackson's website interesting in this light.
If it were proven that whales and dolphins are sentient beings then what excuse would there be to allow them to be hunted? Whaling would be rightfully denounced as murder. If sentient life in general isn't valued then human life should be regarded as equally worthless.
If it can recognize other's rights, I will recognize its rights.
It can't, and I don't. At that point, it becomes a question of good stewardship, not of rights.
It has never been proven what level of intelligence that they have. Some whale species have been found to be able to communicate using 4 different patterns, essentially language as far as has been discerned.
I don't see why you think a 3% difference is miniscule. After all, we share about half our genes with a stalk of wheat.
It seems to me that the only way to see whether a 3% difference is significant is to look at the difference it actually makes. And that difference is substantial.
Josiah,
Obviously I agree that 3% makes a significant difference. But from the point of view of a hardcore materialist the claim would be harder to make. While we might assume that our differences (i.e., the capability for abstract thought) are made up in that 3%, we cannot claim that as a certainty.
But, you gotta admit, whales DO taste pretty good.
I have a problem with giving whales rights. They're fat, generally lazy, and we don't need any more Kerry voters to worry about.
Mike,
In reality, I can't even prove that other humans are sentient. I assume that other humans are since I know that I am and since other humans act a lot like me, but I can't prove it. For all I know, they are just zombies (philosophical zombies, not movie zombies). As far as I know, there is no way to prove that other creatures are sentient. So, I don't think your line of reasoning will be very fruitful.
Macht,
So if aliens ever land on Earth we can just kill them and eat them since we cannot prove that they aren't just philosophical zombies? We most certainly will not be able to communicate with them unless they have observed us and learned a human language. So how could we prove they're sentient either? We can't prove whales are sentient either yet, but if we could then we have no right to hunt them.
Mike,
If whales build a rocket ship and fly to distant stars, I will be the first one standing at your side to say, these creatures are too intelligent to be hunted.
The same goes for cows. I wouldn't want to give up my cheeseburgers, but still . . .
Mike, I've said nothing about killing and eating any creature. For all you know, I'm a vegan. All I'm saying is that the "whales haven't been proven to be sentient beings" line of argumentation is a bad way to procede. Your alien example actually helped make my point because we couldn't prove that aliens are sentient, either, even though it "seems" like it would be wrong to eat a creature that is intelligent to travel to earth from millions of miles away.
Substantial? Signifigcant????
How about Infinte? is that too strong?
What justification is there in declaring that it is wrong to hunt and eat another sentient creature? Then again, what justification is there in my asking for justification?
It sounds like the "wisdom of repugnance" to me. But I'm sure Mike wouldn't be advocating that.
Macht,
Or maybe it comes from a respect for sentient beings as being covered by the same divine law of nature that human life is protected by. Repugnance has its place, but like all things it must be tempered with reason.
I believe that our laws should protect any sentient life form that is not dedicated to the eventual eradication of the human species. We can most certainly defend ourselves against an attacker, but we should regard all sentient life as equal. Sentience, more than anything else, is what separates us from the majority, if not all, of the other animals on Earth.
It never occurs to many individuals that "God's Image" means having a rational, sentient mind. It takes a rational mind to override base animal instincts when one is hurt by a loved one. Everytime you sin against God, it's God's rationalism which keeps God from turning away from you like most people and animals do. God is loving, just, but God is also purely rational too.
I'm not saying that I think that we should just assume that animals that act smart are really sentient, for the purposes of law. I think some species may have quasi-sentience, but at this point we cannot prove any of that yet. I believe we should protect the lives of even semi-sentient animals for the same reason we should protect very retarded and brain-damaged humans: they're still individuals even if only in a limited way.
That's what I'm saying - it is repugnant to think about killing other sentient beings. You didn't make any arguments why (and I don't think you need to). All you said was that sentience "is what separates us from the majority." That's not an argument, though, since all us right-handed people could use it against lefties and all us normal-seeing people could use it against the color-blind. Just being different isn't a good reason.
I don't think it is right to compare a "semi-sentient" (I assume you mean something like an ape or something) creature with a mentally retarded or brain-damaged human. While rationality is definitely part of being made in the image of God, it isn't everything. Man can also be wise, display power, show justice, have a sense of goodness and speak truth.
I think you are wrong, BTW, about it never occuring to most people that being made in the image of God means being rational, sentient beings. That's definitely part of it and as far as I know it is a pretty standard Christian belief.
No, it's God's grace that keeps Him from turning away from us.The use of these percentage differences is somewhat dubious in any case. The scientific community has more recently come up with different figures. For chimpanzee's the percentage difference is now either 5% (If you look at insertions and deletions) Britten, R.J. 2002. ‘Divergence between samples of chimpanzee and human DNA sequences is 5% counting indels.’ Proceedings National Academy Science 99:13633-13635, or .6% if you look at a preselected 97 hand picked genes
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=624&ncid=753&e=10&u=/ap/20030520/ap_on_sc/humans_chimps
I don't have any more recent information for gorilla's, however it is important to keep up with the "accurate" scientific figures in these sorts of things.
I don't think you can use genetic information to specifically categorise a percentage difference which should or should not be protected, any more than you can use the color of someones skin. After all, what objective criteria is there to decide? (from a non-theistic point of view). I.e. It all comes down to a subjective opinion on what we should and shouldn't protect. Why should one criteria (e.g. Sentience) be valued over another
(e.g. Skin color, hairyness, Height, Weight). These differences all 'just are', and to choose
one over the other is merely a choice of preference to the materialist.
A question for you Mike (or anybody). Let's say that in, oh, 100 years, we have machines that can act virtually identical to humans. They can display emotions (who knows if they actually FEEL emotions, though) they can make decisions, they have personalities, etc.
Is it wrong to take apart one of these machines?