Humans come before animals. Its safer to test something on animals first before moving to humans.

^ Yeah I agree Fasces, but before we talk about weighing the merits of that what is your opinion on the intrinsic rights of animals or lack thereof?

The inefficient use of resources argument against eating meat is a complete nonsense that vegitarians love to use to guilt meat eaters into giving up their modest luxuary. Lets ignore for now the fact that things like lamb production is an extremely efficient use of mountains and highland areas for food production. As things stand there is no global food shortage. There are only localised food shortages that are the fault of politics and logistics and nothing to do with prefered diet.

I find it depressing that vegetarians focus on meat as if it is the only inefficiency in food production. The amount of waste used to create resturant meals is shocking, but you never hear anyone demanding we shut resturants. If you want to see food waste look not to your bacon butty but the apple tree down the road that has produced a full crop only for them to fall ignored to the pavement below.

As far as animals go, they should have no rights. Rights should remain a solely human preserve. I am all in favour of certain animals recieving certain protections, but purely for the sake of those humans who benefit from them. The natural world has no room for such ridiculous notions as intrinsic animal rights and neither should we.

Your post misses the point Octavious, here is how:
you said:
"Lets ignore for now the fact that things like lamb production is an extremely efficient use of mountains and highland areas for food production."

I said:
"Eating meat is OFTEN an inefficient use of agricultural resources..." [Emphasis added]

you said:
"As things stand there is no global food shortage. There are only localised food shortages that are the fault of politics and logistics and nothing to do with prefered diet."

I say:
Preferred diet affects food prices. Food prices are worldwide and are one of the number one culprits in the system of "politics and logistics" that creates food shortages and starvation in our world. Also, preferred diet affects land use. Land use also affects food prices, corollary examples include ethanol fuel production and cultivation of non-food cash crops (cotton, some peanuts, tobacco, etc).

you said:
"I find it depressing that vegetarians focus on meat as if it is the only inefficiency in food production."

I say:
You will not find me saying it is the only inefficiency in food production, indeed you are totally correct that there are many and they are mostly all egregious. 40% of American food production is wasted, between the farm and the plate, and even what's left on the plate. I am, in fact, also concerned about things like waste at restaurants. Your comment about the focus of vegetarians may be true of certain people but bears no importance on this conversation, because no one here is of that opinion who has so far spoken.

As to your ideas about animal rights:

What if an alien intelligent race visited us. Should they have rights? Are they also animals? Related question: what if it was proved beyond doubt that chimpanzees are every bit as conscious as we are; indeed, what if we developed a way to communicate with chimpanzees? Would you stick to your assertion that only humans should be afforded rights?

@ Thucy

Trying to argue with your points is next to impossible as you seem to take both sides to any argument simultaneously. I was not missing your point. I was ignoring it and making my own rather clear point that other people may agree or disagree with as they wish. Your style or argument (which seems to be "you agree with me on all points, therefore you are wrong") is rather fun, but I don't have the energy to tackle it directly :p. Why I apparently need someone to disagree with my view here before I can reveal what my view is is something of a mystery to me.

As to your questions regarding animal rights:

What if an alien intelligent race visited us. Should they have rights? Are they also animals? Obviously the answer to the first is yes, although the concept may well amuse them as it would make no differnce either way. Secondly, they are indeed animals, but clearly a very special and higher form of animal of which humans are the sole known example thus far.

As to the related question about chimps, if it was established that they are as conscious as we are I would indeed change my assertion, but I think this is even less likely than France winning the rugby world cup (i.e. zero)

http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer02.htm

Hard to ignore his arguments. I'm still dealing with much of it...

" but I think this is even less likely than France winning the rugby world cup (i.e. zero)"

I wouldn't be so sure about that - how familiar are you with the research on this topic?

What if torturing and killing defenseless animals gives me a hard on?

Can I eat my Big Mac with a clear conscience then?

Thucy, your PC sensibilities are insipid. I can't eat fried chicken because it might make some wanker feel bad.

Good.

Do us all a favour. Hold hands with them and jump off of a fucking bridge. Less people equals less strain on the environment.

Win-win.

Cachimbo - barely skimmed article, but a primary point seems to be:

"You would defend the right to life of a mentally handicapped essentially non-conscious person but not of a dog. Why the difference if not a prejudice against those not of your species?"

My argument above I think would respond that both deserve to be treated with dignity not because of themselves, but because of their relationship to conscious beings. It has just come out that people in an American mental hospital had chained mental patients to tables and taken their social security checks. Whether these mentally ill people were conscious or not, this is wrong at the very least because of the moral effect on people who chain other people to tables and take what belongs to them. Do you see?

Mapleleaf what I am saying is that eating meat in the abstract is not wrong but, in the present condition, eating meat from, for instance, american fast food joints, is wrong because of the inhumane slaughterhouse practices and because of the poor allocation of resources

@Thucy - I get it.

I'm just fucking with you.

Ah yes thank you mapleleaf for clearing that up for me. Lol.

That's an interesting point Thucy, but the problem with "consciousness" is that you can never really ascribe it to anyone but yourself (and even that may be problematic).
I'm not saying that you're wrong, since I actually like the argument from relation. But Singer would point out to the problematic nature of consciousness, come up with a few counter examples, and show you that it remains very anthropomorphic.

His point is really that if something suffers, it has an interest to not suffer. Where we can observe behaviours and other "classic" manifestations of suffering, we must give whatever suffers the same considerations we would give a human's interest in avoiding such sufferance. Equality of consideration, where interests stem from a capacity to know pain and pleasure, is what should ground the principle that animals have rights. Any other principle (reason, free will, etc.) will be shown to be incapable of grounding an equality of rights because its manifestation is never equal in the human realm alone.
That's the gist of his argument.

When animals start recognizing and respecting other animal's rights, then I will grant them similar rights. But seeing as how animals -- even those you *wish* were conscious -- have this nasty tendency to *KILL* and *EAT* one another, then I have no problem killing and eating the animals, too.

Your arguments are idiotic. Bringing up a discussion of food production has *zero* to do with whether or not an animal should have rights. Your wishful thinking that some animals show consciousness is just that: wishful thinking. First and foremost, until you actually become and animal, you will never be able to prove -- or disprove for that matter -- whether or not animals have consciousness. Regardless, to try to equate some supposed animal consciousness to human consciousness is ludicrous.

Honestly, I think my dogs have a consciousness. They show signs of intelligence, they show signs of guilt when they do something wrong (even when we have not yet discovered what they have done wrong....stupid dogs give themselves away! lol) But if it came down to my dog dying versus a human, my dog dies. If my dog comes down with cancer I will not spend $1000 on meds, but I will put it down. If the Apocalypse comes and I must eat my dog to survive, I'll probably use a slow cooker to make sure the meat is tender.

Animals have no rights. If you grant animals rights, then we will have to start putting them in jail -- because if they have rights, they had better have responsibilities, too, like not biting, not littering (shitting on peoples lawns, tearing open garbage, etc.) Yes...I poke fun...but I trust you get my point. If they have rights, then there must be accompanying responsibilities. Since you will never be able to impose responsibilities on nature, then your idea of granting them rights is asinine.

I contradicted myself...suggested animals don't have consciousness, and then said my dogs do. I do believe my dogs have a consciousness, but it in *NO* way equates to human consciousness, and should not be treated equally in any way.

I wish to address one point and one point only as I am on my phone.

The idea that aujtomatons can have fear and more is bunk. Bees and ants and many fish are automatons. They neither show emotion beyond fight or flight nor attempt to gain the attention of other animals or us beyond the mating instict. Dogs on the other hand do and have shown extreme intelligence in their regular use as service animals for the disabled. While a dog's IQ may be in the single or low double digits in most cases, their ability to display empathy and the range of emotions makes them more than an automaton. Same with most mammals.

I do animal testing at work, but what they don't know is that I would happily do it for free.

I think you guys ought to read that article I posted. Your argument, or more precisely, the very fact of it, is exactly the sort of reason Singer has to think that rights can't be awarded on the merit of consciousness (understood from a human point of view) or intelligence. Making consciousness the grounds for moral rights is problematic if you think of the abortion debate, for example, or euthanasia. And speaking of it in terms of a "mental capacity" belonging only to humans doesn't necessarily solve the issue. In fact, the very definition of consciousness is rendered almost impossible because of our scientific method: "mental" facts aren't *observable*, and consciousness is nothing but a mental fact.
As for intelligence, one needs merely think of the rights we give infants and the mentally ill to know that it won't fly. I'm also pretty sure many here believe themselves waaaaaayyyyy more intelligent than the others around them (or here on this site!), but I doubt they would long argue that they should be awarded more rights for all that!

That being said, if you can show that Singer's argument for grounding rights on equal consideration of interest is not correct, that is, if you can show that sentience (our capacity to experience pleasure and pain) is not a proper foundation to think how one has a right, then you can probably claim that animals have no rights on some conception or other of consciousness.
But that would justify specism, since all we have ever had to define consciousness, the data, has been collected in the human experience. In other words, it would validate the idea that we can refuse to give groups rights when the concept demands it. For consciousness is nothing but a concept built upon data which pertains only to the human experience. Much in the same way, white people have long defined humanity in the way they had experienced it. We all know how that turned out for people of a different skin colour... The same story is true everywhere: definitions of objects that pertain specifically to the human experience are somewhat arbitrary and, thus, dangerous.

Cachimbo is 100% correct. When is inflicting gratuitous suffering morally acceptable? The answer is never. "Consciousness" as Thucy defines is completely arbitrary and murky and can lead to justifications for behavior we would consider horrifying if inflicted on humans. It logically follows then if gratuitous suffering is morally unacceptable, then eating meat is morally unacceptable, especially at it is produced under capitalism.

I think much of what defends animal cruelty is simply machismo and hypermasculinity. You can see that from the "PETA = people eating tasty animals" crowd. For whatever reason masculinity is attached to consuming large quantities of meat. There's nothing else to it.

"His point is really that if something suffers, it has an interest to not suffer. Where we can observe behaviours and other "classic" manifestations of suffering, we must give whatever suffers the same considerations we would give a human's interest in avoiding such sufferance."

Yeah, I say no to this and here is why. If I blow up a mountain or watch a volcano erupt I might could say that the "mountain is suffering."

I can say that because I can personify things. That doesn't mean it's actually suffering.

Same way when I spray a cockroach with Raid and it slowly dies from nerve gassing. It looks painful, even horrible. But I know that there is nothing going on there - it's like dissolving a sugar cube.

On consciousness, yes I am very well aware that you can only prove to yourself that you yourself are conscious. Believe me lol it's my whole shtick. But, let's be real, even though you can't *prove* Barack Obama is conscious, you basically know he is because you have some evidence that indicates as much - he says words you understand and acts in ways you related to, you recognize him as a human with similar outlooks as your own.

If these kinds of things can be established by science for other species we have much more difficulty communicating with, which I believe they one day could be, then you would have to admit that other species are conscious too. As it stands it looks like it's more and more likely that certain animals are conscious, rather than the other way.

So, like a "theory" (as in theory of evolution), the more I see supporting that idea, the more I think it probably is true. I have a "theory" that you guys are all conscious... could be wrong, but there's a shit ton of evidence backing me up.

Anyway so that covers the higher animals.

But the middle ground: dogs, and as Draug claimed "most mammals". Draug is equating having humanly recognizable emotions like guilt, joy, or depression with consciousness. The whole point of my argument: the two do not have to go hand in hand.

A non-conscious being, i.e., one that just acts on instincts and firing neurons with no internal thought process that is sentient or self-aware, can certainly have emotions, as they are just chemical responses and do not emanate as a matter of force from consciousness. I will show you how in the context of human beings.

Certain things in your diet can change you mood. You, your conscious self I should say, had nothing to do with this emotion coming upon you. Same goes for a dog - you shoot a gun by his head, he'll get scared and jumpy just like a person or any other mammal or similar animal.

Here is the difference between a conscious being and not though - say I am being tortured to death, and so also is a cat by the same maniac. I feel the pain and feel the fear. So does the cat. What I do that the cat doesn't is appreciate this emotion. I can contemplate it. I know what it means. I know what is happening to me: I am know 'I am afraid.' The cat just IS afraid, it doesn't know anything about it one way or the other. It's not *thinking* in the same way. It's "thinking" just involves inputs and outputs like a computer or the apparatus in a plane cockpit. No awareness, just action, emotions here being included as an action of the body.

Thus why it is inherently bad even if I have never met another soul and know one knows I exist if I am tortured by a crocodile - no other conscious things involved at all. Why? Because *I'm* there, and I experience it, and know what it is, and I, I meaning conscious me, *experiences* the emotions that my body is having.

But if the same thing happened to a deer, well, whatever. No one knew about it, it didn't matter. No one was murdered, no moral tragedy occurred. Pain and fear were manifested physically, but were not felt in a meaningful way by an appreciative brain.

That's the difference.

But: Once someone knows about the deer, maybe that's my pet deer, it becomes once again a moral tragedy - that was MY deer, I care about it, it's death affects MY emotions, and, I, being conscious, matter morally.

So most animals in that sense do get some kind of moral consideration. Ask yourself, after all, just why *is it* considering wrong to do cockfighting or bullfighting or to pull the wings off a fly or to raise cows in 3x8 cages row after row... etc. Because of what it does to people, morally speaking. Not because of the animals' actual experiences, but because of our empathy with their experiences.

I should mention, that extends out to things besides animals. This is also why it's wrong for Johnny to take Katie's favorite teddy bear and rip it up. Not because the teddy bear is dying or someshit, but because it will upset Katie.

And, controversially perhaps, it's also what covers non-conscious humans like third trimester fetuses, severely mentally handicapped or people in comas or whatever else.

Voila.

You may glean it from the post I just made Putin but in case you don't:

Consciousness is not the only thing that would protect an animal from harm.

I happen to personally think that there is a human and acceptable way to raise meat, but it's not what we tend to do now.

Why does "contemplating" pain matter one whit?

These arguments remind me of some abolitionists who argued that slavery is wrong not because it harms blacks but because it undermines whites sense of self-satisfaction and high standards of civilization it sets for itself.

Not so, because black people are demonstrably conscious.

It matters because it means there really is no difference between dissolving a sugar cube and squashing a fly.

The fly may have nerves that cause it react in a certain way when it's tissue is being destroyed, what you may call pain. But I would say that it doesn't really become a meaningful emotional at least in the moral sense until you actually have someone to experience it.

You can extrapolate this example from what I've said, but I'll say it specifically.

Let's say again hypothetically that no one in the world knows who I am and I live alone in the woods. So I have no moral connections with any conscious beings. And then I fall into a coma in the woods and lose all my consciousness, despite having laid there physically alive for the last 4 days.

Then a bear mauls me by ripping me limb from limb. My nerves still work, I am after all still alive, so they send pain signals to my brain which also still works and registers the pain, but since it is malfunctioning because of the coma:

A) does not cause me to physically react by crying out or running

B) does not cause me to know it is happening because I am not conscious during this period.

Therefore this occurrence does not morally matter. It's like a tree being blown over in a thunderstorm, or a fly being caught by a lizard, a snake being eaten by a mongoose, or an asteroid obliterating another asteroid, or a bunch of bacteria being massacred by a cow's stomach acid. "Pain" can be indentified in those things by people, and science's definition of pain can be seen in there too with some, like maybe with the snake.

But moral, emotional pain, no, it's not there. When I say no one is there, I don't mean no people, I mean nothing conscious.

Again to reiterate everything changes if conscious things have moral stakes in any of those things.

I completely fail to grasp your intuitions about consciousness, Thucy. In fact, they are making me start to doubt whether you really have it, lol. (j/k).

I can't make any sense of the idea of emotions without consciousness. In fact, I can do a better job making sense of mental faculties without consciousness. I've at least seen a little of that, in computers. But I see no reason to suppose that the quality of consciousness is not present in the emotions of dogs, mice, etc. No reason at all, and I've never understood people who do. I wish you could articulate those intuitions to me, but of course these things are notoriously difficult to communicate.

That said, I do think the emotions per se are not what alone confers full moral rights. But then, I'm a Christian, of fairly orthodox persuasion, so my thoughts on this are probably not too hard to divine. (Imago Dei, etc.). On the other hand, since so far as I can tell, you don't have too much to rest your morality on besides your preferences.... do whatever you feel like, right? If you want to be nice to animals, do.

A complicator I would like to ask Singer, and, it seems perhaps, Putin

If you're just supposed to stop recognizable suffering no matter what it is that is suffering, why is it okay to rip potatoes out of the ground, killing them, and eat that?

Why is it okay to allow your body to destroy microorganisms by the million?

Why is it okay to allow all your little spermies to die when you masturbate?

Why is it okay to cut down trees and live in wooden structures? To wear cotton shirts? To wear insect repellent? To allow spiders to eat flies?

"On the other hand, since so far as I can tell, you don't have too much to rest your morality on besides your preferences"

This is a tangent, so this is all I'll say. Yep my morals are just arbitrarily decided. Just like when you (or your ancestors) arbitrarily though going to church and executing the commands in the book they keep in church was a good idea. Mhm.

Anyway. I'll give it a shot. Self-awareness, and sentience, do you know what those terms mean? It means having a sense of being a self. You feel that you are you. An unconscious being does not think about these things. An unconscious being, in fact, has no discursive thoughts at all.

Think about when you have a dreamless sleep. Your body including your brain is still on and working, you muscles still work even. But.... you're unconscious. You have no sense that you exist, you are not aware of anything. The *you*, i.e. your consciousness, is not there.

Essentially the only way something can be conscious is for it to realize that it is conscious.

Have you ever had dreams that you remember that are not lucid dreams? Do you know how shit just kind of "happens" to you? You never really realize that you are a free agent, you just move around and react. When you jump from regular dreaming to lucid dreaming (which if you have done you will know what I mean), you "wake up" or become conscious.

Now you KNOW what is happening to you. You "knew" before in that you were there, and you were reacting, but you never really thought about it. You didn't really have any thoughts, you just had reactions.

Consciousness is the sense that you are an observer of your perceptions, instead of just a being with perceptions, which anything that has sense organs is.

Maybe someone can help me out, apparently Wikipedia says: "The most compelling argument for the existence of consciousness is that the vast majority of mankind have an overwhelming intuition that there truly is such a thing." Soooo... yeah if you don't really already kind of know what I mean I don't know how much I can help you get there.