What is the reason? It is a prejudice in a sense, but if you are going to tell me that most people do not value their dog's life more than a random dog's life for essentially the same prejudice (an ability to better identify with them) then I don't know what to tell you.

I think certain things are valuable, such as autonomy. Because humans are autonomous, I think they have the value associated with autonomy. Ants however, are not autonomous, and so do not have this value. Dogs also are not autonomous, and so do not have the value associated with autonomy. Another thing I think valuable is lack of pain. Since ants can't feel pain, they don't have the value associated with not feeling pain. However, dogs (like humans), can feel pain, so it is valuable to do what we can to prevent dogs from feeling pain. I do not think that humans are valuable because they are human.

I am taking prejudice to mean discrimination on the basis of irrelevant or non-existent features of the groups in question. So, for instance, racial laws are often prejudicial because they are based on irrelevant or non-existent features of different races. For instance, there is no relevant reason why a person's race should not allow her to be allowed to vote in national elections.

However, we generally do think that age is a relevant feature in whether a person should be allowed to vote. That is, we think that people below a certain age should not be allowed to vote because they are not yet fully rational or some such thing (incidentally, I tend to disagree with this view and believe that at least teenagers probably should be allowed to vote).

No. He's making a theological statement.

There is not a scientific answer to this question, primarily because the question is theological in nature. Your contention here seems to be that if the existence of something cannot be proven scientifically, then it is presumed not to exist. But scientism, the belief that science is the best way to gain knowledge, itself cannot be proven scientifically. It's just a matter of where you are choosing to place your faith.

And why is autonomy a relevant feature with respect to why human life is more valuable? I assume that by autonomy you mean our ability to govern ourselves via mechanisms other than instinct.

I can try to answer this question, which will get into my Kantian approach to ethics, but the main point I was making is that being human is not my reason for valuing human life over that of other animals. Since autonomy is not identical with being human, I think I've shown that and so I don't know what more to say on this issue. So for instance, I do not think that autonomy is valuable because humans are autonomous. That would be a stupid reason to think that autonomy is valuable. My actual reason is that autonomy is necessary to value anything at all, and so it is a requirement of valuing anything that you value autonomy (since it is irrational to desire the end without desiring the means).

If you say pro-lifers have a terminology problem, then you must also admit that pro-choicers do too. Do you believe in the choice of every human to take another human's life at will? Then you are not pro-choice.

See, the argument you made is ridiculous, it's obvious pro-life and pro-choice are talking about abortions right?

I don't accept the premise that an embryo is a human, so you cant make that argument.

Mother > embryo.

I personally dont eat meat for health reasons, and that developed into understanding the suffering animals are put through and the destruction of the planet due to meat consumption. Like Paul Macartney said, 'if slaughter houses had glass walls everyone would be vegetarian"

For starters the consumption of meat is one of the leading causes for global warming. If you care about the world 'God' made so elegantly in 7 days then you are destroying what he made. How nobel.

It takes 2500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat. Almost half of the us water supply used annually is used on cattle and livestock. It takes 16 pounds of grain to produce 1 pound of meat. If you care about the worlds water supply you should stop eating meat. You wont.

The world's cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people—more than the entire human population on Earth. About 20 percent of the world's population, or 1.4 billion people, could be fed with the grain and soybeans fed to U.S. cattle alone.

So how about you stop praying for help and help yourselves and the world. Sorry if this seems preachy...

I guess my point is even if you dont think animals have the same rights as humans, at least look at the desturction is causes to the planet.

yes but that just gets into an argument of how much should your own comfort be reduced in order to increase the comfort of others. where you choose to draw the line does not mean everyone must draw the line there. someone could sit and preach to you all the same about how you live your life in excess instead of helping yourselves and the world by doing (x thing that the next guy does).

Agreed. But at the same time where do we stop being gluttonous. I read somewhere that itd take 5 billion dollars a year to stop world hunger. But americans spend that on ice cream a year.

There comes a point where animals are enginered to simply feed to gluttonous people. We dont need to consume anywhere near the amount of meat that we do. The world will never stop consuming meat. But they can cut down to save the planet. If we dont all make a concious effort there wont be anything left...

People are starving to death, the world is heating up, we are running out of oil and water.

These are all major side effects of the over consumption of meat. Point blank.

so if it would cost so relatively little to stop world hunger, yet we don't do it now, why do you think we would if we stopped eating meat? do you think we are unable to produce enough food to feed everyone, or we choose not to for monetary reasons?

It's hard for the government to force people not to have abortions (even pro-life republicans don't attempt to outlaw it), how hard is it going to be to force people not to eat meat - nearly impossible.

what i'm saying is i think if everyone stopped eating meat, we wouldn't just suddenly start making extra food and giving it away to other countries. if we intended to give other countries enough money/food to stop world hunger we'd do it now, our meat production is irrelevant until the world reaches the maximum rate of food production, and i'm fairly certain that right now if we threw enough money at it we could produce enough grain to feed everyone, and still sit here comfortably eating as much meat as we want.

Why do we have duties because we possess this ability and other animals do not? Does the fastest animal have a special duty? The one with the best vision? Etc. I agree with are moral agents but I don't know why this means we have any specific obligation (such as to reduce suffering of living beings).

You should rethink that stance:

"I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing. So any pretense that abortion is not killing is a signal of our ambivalence, a signal that we cannot say yes, it kills a fetus, but it is the woman's body, and therefore ultimately her choice." Faye Wattleton, past president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in Ms Magazine, May/June 1997.

A Planned Parenthood brochure entitled PLAN YOUR CHILDREN for Health and Happiness says, "An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun. It is dangerous to your life and health. It may make you sterile so that when you want a child you cannot have it."

http://prochoice.com/abortion_safe02.html

lions not being moral agents who can choose to live on a non-meat diet does not mean that we are not moral agents who can make that choice for them. we can force them to live on a non-meat diet that causes less suffering to animals. i think to be consistent with the position that it is as morally wrong to cause suffering to animals as it is humans, you need to actively stop animals from causing suffering to other animals just as you insist humans don't cause suffering to other animals. a lion in the wild eating a random animal is no different from a human doing the same in terms of the degree to which you should want that behavior to stop.

editing to add, i don't know for certain that a lion can live on a non-meat diet but i would assume that it's possible even if it's not efficient for them.

Thanks for pointing out that Faye Wattleton believes that an abortion is killing.

why do we have duties? because we all have agreed upon it. there really isnt a good answer here, but im not a moral objectivist. i think there are duties because its in our best interest that there be duties. and suffering is on the top of that list. no one wants to suffer, so we should act in ways that do not cause suffering.

i dont get what you are asking with the fastest animal, best visioned animal. you'll have to explain that more.

http://www.hedweb.com/abolitionist-p...predators.html

Sure they do, we give them all kind of rights. Try killing a dog in front of a cop to find out.

I remember this thread.

Is it better this time?

Kinda the same...

I prefer this one, to be honest.