I wasn’t able to glean this from your other article either, so I apologize if you’ve said it before: do you think non-human animals suffer? Or do you believe they suffer, but you just don’t care about their suffering?
I think suffering is qualitatively different when it’s accompanied by some combination I don’t fully understand of intelligence, self awareness, preferences, etc. So yes, humans are not the only animals that can suffer, but they’re the only animals whose suffering is morally relevant.
jkaufman, the dimmer-switch metaphor of consciousness is intuitively appealing. But consider some of the most intense experiences that humans can undergo, e.g. orgasm, raw agony, or blind panic. Such intense experiences are characterised by a breakdown of any capacity for abstract rational thought or reflective self-awareness. Neuroscanning evidence, too, suggests that much of our higher brain function effectively shuts down during the experience of panic or orgasm. Contrast this intensity of feeling with the subtle and rarefied phenomenology involved in e.g. language production, solving mathematical equations, introspecting one’s thoughts-episodes, etc—all those cognitive capacities that make mature members of our species distinctively human. For sure, this evidence is suggestive, not conclusive. But the supportive evidence converges with e.g. microelectrode studies using awake human subjects. Such studies suggest the limbic brain structures that generate our most intense experiences are evolutionarily very ancient. Also, the same genes, same neurotransmitter pathways and same responses to noxious stimuli are found in our fellow vertebrates. In view of how humans treat nonhumans, I think we ought to be worried that humans could be catastrophically mistaken about nonhuman animal sentience.
How certain are you that there is such a qualitative difference, and that you want to care about it? If there is some empirical (or perhaps also normative) uncertainty, shouldn’t you at least attribute some amount of concern for sentient beings that lack self-awareness?
It strikes me that the only “disagreement” you have with the OP is that your reasoning isn’t completely spelled out.
If you said, for example, “I don’t believe pigs’ suffering matters as much because they don’t show long-term behavior modifications as a result of painful stimuli” that wouldn’t be a speciesist remark. (It might be factually wrong, though.)
I wasn’t able to glean this from your other article either, so I apologize if you’ve said it before: do you think non-human animals suffer? Or do you believe they suffer, but you just don’t care about their suffering?
(And in either case, why?)
I think suffering is qualitatively different when it’s accompanied by some combination I don’t fully understand of intelligence, self awareness, preferences, etc. So yes, humans are not the only animals that can suffer, but they’re the only animals whose suffering is morally relevant.
jkaufman, the dimmer-switch metaphor of consciousness is intuitively appealing. But consider some of the most intense experiences that humans can undergo, e.g. orgasm, raw agony, or blind panic. Such intense experiences are characterised by a breakdown of any capacity for abstract rational thought or reflective self-awareness. Neuroscanning evidence, too, suggests that much of our higher brain function effectively shuts down during the experience of panic or orgasm. Contrast this intensity of feeling with the subtle and rarefied phenomenology involved in e.g. language production, solving mathematical equations, introspecting one’s thoughts-episodes, etc—all those cognitive capacities that make mature members of our species distinctively human. For sure, this evidence is suggestive, not conclusive. But the supportive evidence converges with e.g. microelectrode studies using awake human subjects. Such studies suggest the limbic brain structures that generate our most intense experiences are evolutionarily very ancient. Also, the same genes, same neurotransmitter pathways and same responses to noxious stimuli are found in our fellow vertebrates. In view of how humans treat nonhumans, I think we ought to be worried that humans could be catastrophically mistaken about nonhuman animal sentience.
“Accompanied” can also mean “reflected upon after the fact”.
I agree with your last sentence though.
How certain are you that there is such a qualitative difference, and that you want to care about it? If there is some empirical (or perhaps also normative) uncertainty, shouldn’t you at least attribute some amount of concern for sentient beings that lack self-awareness?
I second this. Really not sure what justifies such confidence.
It strikes me that the only “disagreement” you have with the OP is that your reasoning isn’t completely spelled out.
If you said, for example, “I don’t believe pigs’ suffering matters as much because they don’t show long-term behavior modifications as a result of painful stimuli” that wouldn’t be a speciesist remark. (It might be factually wrong, though.)
There’s missing something at the end, like ”… is morally relevant”, right?
Fixed; thanks!