Most people believe that chickens suffer. They seem have all the right parts of the brain and the indicative behaviors and everything. What’s your theory that says that humans do but chickens don’t?
Thrust said he didn’t care about chickens suffering, not that they don’t.
One question that doesn’t seem to get asked in these discussions is, if chickens have this certain mental machinery doing certain things when I hurt them, why should I care, given that I don’t already? Is there a sequence of value comparisons showing that such a non-preference is incoherent? Or a moral argument that I am not considering? If not, I’d rather just follow my actual preferences.
I don’t think that some animals are capable of suffering
From what Thrust has said, I think it’s ambiguous between whether he cares he thinks animals can’t suffer and doesn’t care about them for that reason or he just doesn’t care about animal suffering as you describe. Or , more likely, he is in some middle state.
As to your second point, yes that’s the approach. And it seems largely that is what is happening when it comes up in the discussion here.
It’s kind of both. If a chicken is in pain, that doesn’t bother me that much. Also, I don’t think that chickens have the mental apparatus necessary to suffer like people can suffer.
People tend to read a lot more into behavior than is really there. I mean, ants run away when you slam your fist down on the counter next to them, and it sure looks like they’re scared, but that’s more a statement about your mind than the ants’.
I mean, chickens are largely still functional without a head. Yes, there’s something going on in a chicken’s brain. There isn’t anything worth celebrating going on in there, though.
For the record, the chicken that survived had retained most of the brainstem. He was able to walk (“clumsily’) and attempted some reflexive behaviors, but he was hardly “functional” to anyone who knows enough about chickens to assume that they do more than walk and occasionally lunge at the ground.
The chicken’s ability to survive with only the brain stem isn’t shocking. Anencephalic babies can sometimes breathe, eat, cry, and reflexively “respond” to external stimuli. One survived for two and a half years. This was a rare case, but so was the chicken—there were other attempts to keep decapitated chickens alive, and none have been successful.
This isn’t to say that we don’t have a tendency to anthropomorphize animals or treat reflexive behaviors as meaningful—we do. But pointing that out isn’t where the conversation ends. Chickens are an easy target because common knowledge dictates that they’re stupid animals, because most people haven’t spent any substantial amount of time with them and assume there isn’t anything particularly interesting about their behavior, and because we have a vested interest in believing that there’s nothing of value going on in their brains.
Most people believe that chickens suffer. They seem have all the right parts of the brain and the indicative behaviors and everything. What’s your theory that says that humans do but chickens don’t?
Thrust said he didn’t care about chickens suffering, not that they don’t.
One question that doesn’t seem to get asked in these discussions is, if chickens have this certain mental machinery doing certain things when I hurt them, why should I care, given that I don’t already? Is there a sequence of value comparisons showing that such a non-preference is incoherent? Or a moral argument that I am not considering? If not, I’d rather just follow my actual preferences.
Thrustvectoring said:
From what Thrust has said, I think it’s ambiguous between whether he cares he thinks animals can’t suffer and doesn’t care about them for that reason or he just doesn’t care about animal suffering as you describe. Or , more likely, he is in some middle state.
As to your second point, yes that’s the approach. And it seems largely that is what is happening when it comes up in the discussion here.
It’s kind of both. If a chicken is in pain, that doesn’t bother me that much. Also, I don’t think that chickens have the mental apparatus necessary to suffer like people can suffer.
People tend to read a lot more into behavior than is really there. I mean, ants run away when you slam your fist down on the counter next to them, and it sure looks like they’re scared, but that’s more a statement about your mind than the ants’.
I mean, chickens are largely still functional without a head. Yes, there’s something going on in a chicken’s brain. There isn’t anything worth celebrating going on in there, though.
For the record, the chicken that survived had retained most of the brainstem. He was able to walk (“clumsily’) and attempted some reflexive behaviors, but he was hardly “functional” to anyone who knows enough about chickens to assume that they do more than walk and occasionally lunge at the ground.
The chicken’s ability to survive with only the brain stem isn’t shocking. Anencephalic babies can sometimes breathe, eat, cry, and reflexively “respond” to external stimuli. One survived for two and a half years. This was a rare case, but so was the chicken—there were other attempts to keep decapitated chickens alive, and none have been successful.
This isn’t to say that we don’t have a tendency to anthropomorphize animals or treat reflexive behaviors as meaningful—we do. But pointing that out isn’t where the conversation ends. Chickens are an easy target because common knowledge dictates that they’re stupid animals, because most people haven’t spent any substantial amount of time with them and assume there isn’t anything particularly interesting about their behavior, and because we have a vested interest in believing that there’s nothing of value going on in their brains.