Dietary (and related) ethics [split from Do plants have minds?]

[Laird]

The following long article goes into into detail on the follow-on logical question of whether animals are intelligent in various ways and deserve political rights and representation.

Though the possibilities it canvasses might seem - at least to some, as the writer himself suggests - impractical, they also seem just and equitable. Just as recognising moral rights flows from recognising sentience, recognising political rights flows from recognising collectives of sentient beings, especially when self-organising: nations as Henry Beston puts it.

[Laird]

Part of the challenge, and why I think this inevitably will end up being a political discussion, is that there a variety of evils one can take a stand against. Many of them affect humans, including/especially children.

As such it isn't clear to me how we could discuss the treatment of animals without asking about the treatment of humans, and that seems to inevitably lead to the political.

It's a fair point. The boundary between the moral and the political is fuzzy, sometimes almost to the point of indistinctness. Moderating that boundary could be a challenge. So far, though, in this (now split) thread, it hasn't been. I guess we cross that bridge if/when we come to it.

It's a fair point. The boundary between the moral and the political is fuzzy, sometimes almost to the point of indistinctness. Moderating that boundary could be a challenge. So far, though, in this (now split) thread, it hasn't been. I guess we cross that bridge if/when we come to it.

I guess I'm not sure why someone else down the line can't make a thread about economic injustice, or prejudice against some group, as those are also ethical considerations.

But at that point this is a politics forum, and not a forum for discussing the paranormal? I might be overly cautious here, but I am not sure there is another place like this on the internet where we've moved focus from the pseudoskeptical propaganda and now have discussions that are "next level" between proponents.

[Laird]

@Sciborg_S_Patel, you (individual and plural) were invited in this earlier post to [start a public discussion in which you could] make your case to that effect [and in which others could offer their own thoughts]. In the absence of anybody taking up that invitation, we three remaining active founders made an executive decision. I described it as "unanimous" but my part in the decision might better be described as "without objection". I could see arguments both ways, and was content to go with the status quo as the others suggested. I'm personally happy for the decision to be revisited and for you to belatedly take up the invitation in that earlier post. The remaining founders might or might not be.

[Edited to add the clarified wording in editing brackets]

Does nature have rights like with sentient animals?

The animal rights movement has much to recommend it especially when it comes to the extreme issues, in particular the massive amount of factory farm cruelty to food animals. The morality of our present treatment of other sentient beings that have the misfortune to be animals is a legitimate issue. 

But unfortunately this movement is apparently being extended in a potentially very damaging way, way beyond that to an in my opinion absolutely ridiculous extent, to include all of nature including the inanimate. It is arguable whether non-sentient plants have some sort of inherent rights, but this movement is apparently going very much further into extreme territory. 

A new article describes, believe it or not, the attempted nomination of a threatened glacier for president of Iceland.

https://evolutionnews.org/2024/07/icelan...-movement/

While using legislation, court rulings and ballot measures to provide natural features with legal rights is not new, these so-called “Rights of Nature” campaigns have become more common in recent years. They seek to provide natural features like rivers, ecosystems and glaciers with legal “personhood” to make it easier to protect them from pollution and climate change. . . .

The campaign that sought to nominate Snæfellsjökull, an Icelandic glacier, for president was the first attempt within Iceland to establish Rights of Nature.
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....the “nature rights” movement isn’t “merely” about a right for rivers to flow freely (“river rights“) or to allow people to sue on behalf of mountains to prevent the mining of minerals, a strategy that has already prevented copper mining in Ecuador and Panama. Given the climate-change connection, it is far more ambitious. If nature has a right to (somehow) prevent climate change, no human enterprise or activity deemed to contribute to global warming will be safe from interference by courts or nature-rights commissions.

I agree with the article writer that there will eventually be many very negative practical effects on our civilization if this wacky carried-to-the-extreme extension of the well justified recognition of sentience and rights on the part of animals especially food animals gets very far. The article points this out:

So, we can laugh at the notion of a glacier president. But the nature-rights movement should not be dismissed or laughed off. Step by step, inch by inch, it is advancing (like a growing glacier) with far too little resistance.

It would be calamitous were it to succeed. Western civilization’s focus on the importance of humans would be corroded, free-market systems hobbled, our economies shackled into degrowth, and destitute places in the world forced to remain mired in poverty, unable to exploit their natural resources and earth’s bounties. China, which doesn’t allow rights for humans, will never grant rights to nature; a West that enacts nature-rights laws would be a gift to the CCP’s vision of world dominance.

[Laird]

Sorry Laird, I've (honestly) forgotten what that question was exactly.

Just to belatedly follow up on this:

OK, so, basically, you can't even explain what you mean by other beings having a "lesser degree" of consciousness, let alone substantiate that claim - despite my having prompted you multiple times.

Since you dodged my question around whether what you mean is in terms of alertness/intensity (which I framed using the examples of how we feel when about to faint or fall asleep), it seems unlikely that that's what you mean. Presumably, then, you mean the sort of stock "lesser facility for symbolic and abstract cognition and communication", which probably is the case, but even if so:

1. That's not so much a matter of consciousness as cognition.
   
2. It is not morally relevant: we don't think it's fair to violate the basic rights of human persons who aren't as cognitively capable as the rest of us; nor is it fair to do so for less cognitively capable non-human persons.
   

However by now I just want to drop this debate - this is not a court of law.

Case dismissed.

[Laird]

Does nature have rights like with sentient animals?

Inherently: only to the extent that natural entities are persons (conscious). In the absence of personhood, a derivative position might be taken: to the extent that their ("right to") existence, integrity, and preservation are necessary to protect the rights of actual persons.

The answer to the question, "Does personhood extend beyond biological entities and into natural entities?" possibly is "Yes", and there are many indigenous animist traditions which plausibly are based on veridical experience rather than fantasy.

The animal rights movement has much to recommend it especially when it comes to the extreme issues, in particular the massive amount of factory farm cruelty to food animals. The morality of our present treatment of other sentient beings that have the misfortune to be animals is a legitimate issue.

Indeed.

A new article describes, believe it or not, the attempted nomination of a threatened glacier for president of Iceland.

Taking the attempt seriously (despite that it is probably a stunt), the questions for me are, firstly, again "Is it a person?", and, if the answer to that is "Yes", then, secondly, "Does it understand and accept its nomination, does it have the cognitive capacity for the role, and can it exercise its role by communicating via proxy?"

Answering the second question would require a demonstration of its capacity to communicate in detail. This doesn't even seem to have been attempted, hence the likelihood that this really is simply a stunt, albeit a creative and effective one.

I agree with the article writer that there will eventually be many very negative practical effects on our civilization if this wacky carried-to-the-extreme extension of the well justified recognition of sentience and rights on the part of animals especially food animals gets very far.

I'm much more sympathetic to the recognition and benefit of natural rights, even if only derivatively, than you are. Our anthropocentric, profit- and development-driven approach which treats the natural world as a resource to be exploited is not serving us well, let alone our planetary ecosystems.

Inherently: only to the extent that natural entities are persons (conscious). In the absence of personhood, a derivative position might be taken: to the extent that their ("right to") existence, integrity, and preservation are necessary to protect the rights of actual persons.

The answer to the question, "Does personhood extend beyond biological entities and into natural entities?" possibly is "Yes", and there are many indigenous animist traditions which plausibly are based on veridical experience rather than fantasy.

......................................................

Of course it is exceedingly unlikely that there are any actual veridical cases of actually observing and independently verifying person-like behavior on the part of natural objects and forces, like rocks, iron ore bodies, mountains and glaciers (or even the atmosphere itself). There might be something along those lines with some plants. So it would be interesting to see some examples of plausible "derivative" personhood. For instance, how are the rights of any human person violated by the melting of a glacier due to anthropogenic global warming? Of course it could always be claimed that people have the "natural right" to enjoy the sight of the magnificent glacier, but that is really stretching it.

I don't think there are any actual independently verified veridical cases of indigenous traditional animism, unless you could point some out. How do you consider such traditions to be plausible?

[Laird]

So it would be interesting to see some examples of plausible "derivative" personhood. For instance, how are the rights of any human person violated by the melting of a glacier due to anthropogenic global warming? Of course it could always be claimed that people have the "natural right" to enjoy the sight of the magnificent glacier, but that is really stretching it.

Examples are harder to come up with in the case of a glacier, but one which is generically applicable is that in which a people considers some natural entity - such as a glacier - to be a sacred place/object, in which case alterations to - let alone damage to or, worse, destruction of - that natural entity might be seen to violate their right to spiritual practice, including veneration, worship, and ritual, such as initiation rituals at the location of the natural entity.

It's easier to come up with examples for, say, a river, which is literal habitat for multiple biological life forms, such that damage or destruction violates their right to existence or simply their right to well-being.

Just for clarity: given an absence of personhood, I don't think that derivative rights are the best way to protect inherent (actual) rights; I simply see fewer negative consequences to them - and more positive ones - than you seem to see.

I don't think there are any actual independently verified veridical cases of indigenous traditional animism, unless you could point some out.

I can't point any out, but then, I haven't gone looking for them, and have not spent very much time with indigenous people.

How do you consider such traditions to be plausible?

Due to considerations such as that at least some of the history in their oral traditions going back thousands of years is demonstrably veridical. Consider, for example, the Dreaming stories of indigenous Australians related to historical sea level rises. This establishes that these are not "mere" (as in "entirely fictional") stories. It seems, then, to me, to be plausible that other aspects of their oral traditions such as their general recognition of spirits in the land is fact rather than fabrication.

Moreover, even non-indigenous people sometimes report encounters with spirits of the land in an indigenous context, as I've personally witnessed. I've even had my own "sort of but not really" encounter.

[Laird]

@nbtruthman, because your response was, as you acknowledged towards the end, pretty overtly political, I've split it out into a new thread in the opt-in Political Discussions forums, and responded there:

Indigenous rights versus colonial rights [split from Dietary (and related) ethics]