Quote:
Originally Posted by chezlaw
Accepting that it's exactly the same argument for caring about sentience.
It's a factual claim (true or false) that are more able to empathise with more intelligent creatures. It's not a rationalization. We do (I do anyway, and I don't think I'm that weird) empathise more with creatures we can imagine capable of doing things like enjoying a joke or having concerns for the concerns of others. I perceive dolphins, apes and some humans as being in that area of intelligence while pigs are at a lower level, more at the level of concern for other nearby pigs. I could very well be wrong in these perceptions.
The other issue is given we care about the well-being of a creature then is whether it's well being relates to it's intelligence as well as it's sentience. I claim it obviously does providing that the creature is sentient.
I won't deny that is a factor, just not sure how much in the grand scheme. We develop emotional attachments to all sorts of animals based on how close we let them in, and often intelligence isn't even important. See the pet example above.
It's sort of interesting that even though I know I'd feel worse if my best friend's dog, Buddy, whom I've known over 12 years died than if someone were to die I don't know or particularly care for, like MrWookie for example, I'm extremely proud to say that out of principle I would always choose to kill the dog first.
So there's a difference between the suffering I would feel if given a choice vs if not. I guess one is based on my instinctual feelings of attachment and the other on learned morals. Brian needs to come in and make something up.
It gets more interesting if instead of the dog dying, it is my 92-year-old Gramma. Sorry Wook and family, I know you have many more years to enjoy and grow together, you may even be slightly smarter than Grammy who can't program her VCR, but you're probably gonna draw the short straw here!