This is something that I try to keep in mind with ALL domesticated animals--that what we have done, whether we are comfortable with this fact or not--is taken some creature that was on its own evolutionary path and doing very nice, thank-you-very-much, and modified it to suit our own interests. Now, at this point, I think that it gives us a *responsibility* to these animals--a special responsibility above and beyond any kind of stewardship responsibilities we may or may not feel toward, say, polar bears or snails.
Dogs, cats, chickens, sheep, turkeys, goats, cows, pigs, some species of duck, horses and some species of rodents are OUR creations and we are obliged to make certain that they are taken care of. The only ones on that non-exhaustive list I would give any chance at all without us would be cats, dogs, possibly pigs (but probably not) and some of the rodents (because they're not really domesticated, I think, they're just accustomed to our presence and more than happy to let us feed them and keep them safe from predators). The rest on that list wouldn't last a year without us around. Cows, sheep, chickens and turkeys would certainly be gone without us. Most smaller dogs would be gone and the non-fixed large breeds would revert back to wolf-like behavior surprisingly quickly.
Now, I'll admit that I have this continuum with other animals. The metric I use is, well, let's call it an encephalitic index or neurological complexity index. The more complex the neurological system, the more 'rights' I think a given animal species is entitled to. So chimps, as I said above, may very well deserve the FULL set of legal rights we grant to one another even though they are not capable of human speech (lacking some circuitry). Large swaths of the cetaceans (dolphins, porpoises, whales) and cephalopods (squid and octopi) are sufficiently neurologically complex (based upon their behavior) to be granted some kinds of rights. The animals we use for food should be killed in the most humane way devisable. NO animal should be treated with cruelty or put to pain for our entertainment.
However, with the possible exception of the other Great Apes, I do not think that we should necessarily put other animals in the same moral circle as humans. The only reason I have the exception for the other Apes is that, as I said, I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the *primary* differences between us and chimps are that the latter lack the hardware in the throat and the wetware in the cranium for full human speech. Other than that, I see them and I see--well, us.
I'll try to illustrate with a story:
Years ago, I was babysitting for my landladies in San Francisco to pay off the deposit on the apartment I rented from them. Their daughter, Emma, loved Koko the Gorilla (her moms had taken her to the San Diego zoo) and so twice a week we would go to the SF Zoo to see the gorillas. Something that struck me on one of our early visits, was how *recognizable* everything happening was. I watched the silverback as one of his grandsons played in front of (and on) him. His patience was obvious even though this young gorilla was being obnoxious in a way that only juvenile primates can be! Every interaction I could recognize and understand with just a little observation. I didn't get *every* nuance, I didn't understand every precipitating gesture but there was nothing there that I didn't recognize from my own family experiences.
The silverback got used to our presence and would come over to greet us after a while. One day we were there and he was not his usual self. He would look at me, make eye contact (which was odd in itself) and then look at his family. This went on for a while. I got the feeling he was trying to tell me something. A day or two later, I picked up the paper and read that he had died of old age and in that moment, I realized what was going on. He KNEW, at some level, that this was it and he wanted to know that there was a witness who had seen what he had done. This was his troupe, his family, they were his legacy. I was his witness. As I write this, I get choked up.
Some would say that he was 'just a stupid gorilla' but gorillas have very large brains and pretty complex social structures. When I look at chimps I see something SO familiar that it is eerie. I try to not anthropomorphize too much because I know that roughly 9 million years separate me and a gorilla and about seven million years separate me and a chimp. But it is obvious that we are all in the same family.
Cheers
Aj
Quote:
Originally Posted by Medusa
AJ nailed it again.
I was sitting here trying to visualize a world where we have backyards full of plasmodial slime molds and children frolicking through the park with their pet snails on leashes. Or perhaps a trained mosquito. Or a sea urchin named "Fluffy".
How everything is assigned a "value" based on how we tend to perceive it, not necessarily on how it really is. Hence, a dog is given more heart-space than a snail. We might kill a spider by stomping on it faster than we would a kitten. We would share our bed with a puppy but not necessarily a pig (which might be just as intelligent).
And even in the human world, we "other" human beings based on what we perceive to be their value as evidenced by racism, ableism, sizism, sexism, etc.
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