On the Morality of Harm

[Alex_G]

In your opinion, which, if either, is morally worse, the torture of a dog or a human? What reasons inform your decision?

Alex

 

[Penumbra]

I find that in most polls, I disagree with some aspect of the question itself, or with all of the options.

But it's unhelpful when a poll is created, and people focus on the details instead of answering the question. I's preferable, in my view, to answer the question and then state any objections or assumptions.

All else being equal, I think that more intelligent or emotional animals can likely suffer in more complex ways. So some things can feel pain, but perhaps not suffer as a result of it. Further advanced creatures can likely feel pain and indeed suffer from it. Still further advanced creatures can likely feel pain, suffer from it, and then be consciously aware that they are suffering and that they are experiencing misfortune or injustice.

I view all torture as undesirable, regardless of reason or species. I view the torture of a human as somewhat more problematic than the torture of a dog (or a pig, or any similarly intelligent animal), but I find both to be very terrible. I find the concept of "morality" vague here, however. I prefer more specific descriptors like benevolent/malevolent or skillful/unskillful, and I would view the torture of either a human or a dog as both malevolent and unskillful.

 

[ChristineES]

My first thought would be human, but if I really put some thought into, I would say torture of any living thing as detestable. That puts me into a dilemma, since I eat meat (Edit, no I don't eat dog). I say to myself that they kill the cows, pigs and chickens humanely, but I wouldn't know and I am too much of a coward to find out. (I am so pathetic sometimes).

 

[mycorrhiza]

I'd say that they're equivalent as both feel pain, both physical and mental.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

In your opinion, which, if either, is morally worse, the torture of a dog or a human? What reasons inform your decision?

Alex

Morally worse? No clue, but I do know I'd rather see a dog tortured than a human.

 

[Alex_G]

I find that in most polls, I disagree with some aspect of the question itself, or with all of the options.

But it's unhelpful when a poll is created, and people focus on the details instead of answering the question. I's preferable, in my view, to answer the question and then state any objections or assumptions.

All else being equal, I think that more intelligent or emotional animals can likely suffer in more complex ways. So some things can feel pain, but perhaps not suffer as a result of it. Further advanced creatures can likely feel pain and indeed suffer from it. Still further advanced creatures can likely feel pain, suffer from it, and then be consciously aware that they are suffering and that they are experiencing misfortune or injustice.

I view all torture as undesirable, regardless of reason or species. I view the torture of a human as somewhat more problematic than the torture of a dog (or a pig, or any similarly intelligent animal), but I find both to be very terrible. I find the concept of "morality" vague here, however. I prefer more specific descriptors like benevolent/malevolent or skillful/unskillful, and I would view the torture of either a human or a dog as both malevolent and unskillful.

Sure, i mean my OP and attached poll was simply meant as a springboard to provoke thought around the subject that’s all. Its inadequacies are i think hopefully permissible so long as it tempts people/frustrates people/makes one ponder and ultimately gets the ball rolling so to speak. Also I’m feeling pretty lazy of mind tonight, and thus my immediate distaste for longwinded OP's has shone through, even if they would ultimately be more comprehensive. I do get where ur coming from though.

I mean the crux of my point, which maybe i should have fleshed out the OP with (however i decided to not load it with my view to avoid possibly influencing replies) is that when it comes to how we treat those around us, what in fact legitimised our conduct?

So for the crude example i used, when dealing with something like pain, i think one ultimately understands its implications through reference to oneself. Reason allows us to sensibly compare ourselves to those we see around us, and in doing so we can come to the understanding that they likely feel the same as us, and our actions must reflect that awareness. It’s this respect that defines moral behaviour to me.
I therefore wonder what good evidence actually supports the idea that humans might suffer more than other mammals, such as dogs when it comes to pain. What degree of it is just the fact we might just empathise more with other humans, or hold some unfounded degree of superiority? Sense actually tells me that many animals feel pain, of which I cannot possibly claim that it is less so than that of my own subjective experience. In that regard, I would consider pain in all sentient creatures of equal value in its deserving of respect when it comes to informing my conduct towards them.

A further question that provokes me is that as situations get more and more ambiguous to us, and further away from our ability to effectively emotionally engage and reason, how do our moral obligations diminish? Such as our considerations of the wellbeing of ants, or amoeba say?

Alex
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[Alex_G]

Morally worse? No clue, but I do know I'd rather see a dog tortured than a human.

Ive got to say, I'd find them both as troubling to see as each other.

 

[Me Myself]

I cannot vote here.

Context is everything.

Some humans are worth less good treatment than dogs IMHO.

that said, I don´t think torture in general is right. Context becomes everything because maybe this tortyure is needed for extracting information vital for inocents to be saved for worse or equivalent fates.

I deem a human being higher than any other animal... but I also deem him to be able to be lower than any other animal. Most aren´t though.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Ive got to say, I'd find them both as troubling to see as each other.

Yeah, I guess...but I feel that a human's emotional range would be better transmitted than a dog's, so I would feel worse.

 

[Me Myself]

Just a curious accotation:

In movies, I am sure for most it would be much more troubling to see the dog being tortured .

 

[Alex_G]

I cannot vote here.

Context is everything.

Some humans are worth less good treatment than dogs IMHO.

that said, I don´t think torture in general is right. Context becomes everything because maybe this tortyure is needed for extracting information vital for inocents to be saved for worse or equivalent fates.

I deem a human being higher than any other animal... but I also deem him to be able to be lower than any other animal. Most aren´t though.

Context is indeed always paramount i agree. Remove all or as many complicating factors as you can, and imagine someone delivering harm for the sake of it to a human/dog.
Can one legitimately decide one to be more deserving of the pain? Or rather, that its more ok to harm one over the other? (remember imagine both are innocent, and no complicated strings attached).
Also, what do you mean when you say humans are higher than any other animal? What do u mean by that exactly? Are they 'higher' specifically when we talk about pain for example?

Alex

 

[Alex_G]

Yeah, I guess...but I feel that a human's emotional range would be better transmitted than a dog's, so I would feel worse.

That's a true point. Could that inherent bias lead to someone more easily mistreating an animal who actually deserves better? (perhaps deserving at least as much consideration as a human is given, esp. regarding pain as in the example). What legitimately justifies they way we treat creatures?

 

[Penumbra]

Sure, i mean my OP and attached poll was simply meant as a springboard to provoke thought around the subject that’s all. Its inadequacies are i think hopefully permissible so long as it tempts people/frustrates people/makes one ponder and ultimately gets the ball rolling so to speak. Also I’m feeling pretty lazy of mind tonight, and thus my immediate distaste for longwinded OP's has shone through, even if they would ultimately be more comprehensive. I do get where ur coming from though.

I mean the crux of my point, which maybe i should have fleshed out the OP with (however i decided to not load it with my view to avoid possibly influencing replies) is that when it comes to how we treat those around us, what in fact legitimised our conduct?

So for the crude example i used, when dealing with something like pain, i think one ultimately understands its implications through reference to oneself. Reason allows us to sensibly compare ourselves to those we see around us, and in doing so we can come to the understanding that they likely feel the same as us, and our actions must reflect that awareness. It’s this respect that defines moral behaviour to me.
I therefore wonder what good evidence actually supports the idea that humans might suffer more than other mammals, such as dogs when it comes to pain. What degree of it is just the fact we might just empathise more with other humans, or hold some unfounded degree of superiority? Sense actually tells me that many animals feel pain, of which I cannot possibly claim that it is less so than that of my own subjective experience. In that regard, I would consider pain in all sentient creatures of equal value in its deserving of respect when it comes to informing my conduct towards them.

I'd propose that pain is both psychology and physical. As a species, we certainly don't have a complete scientific understanding of it, but through a combination of scientific and philosophical observations, there are some things worth pointing out.

-Structurally, higher-order animals have similar bodies, and brains, and so there's little reason to believe that pain itself is fundamentally different. It could be different in terms of degree, but the pain itself doesn't seem fundamentally different. Simply because we're humans, we're not magically different than other animals.

-However, pain is partly based on psychology and judgment. The pain itself is only signals, and our brains interpret those signals and form a conclusion. Two humans can have similar biological constitutions, and yet vastly different perceptions of pain. There are monks that can meditate in stillness as they burn alive, documented on video. There are people that have undergone torture, and laughed and provoked their tormentors. And yet there are people that stub their toe, and jump around holding their foot.

-Various philosophies or religions, such as the stoics or subsets of Buddhists, have proposed that pain and suffering are based on our judgments of a thing, rather than the thing itself. Ranging from Seneca the Younger of Rome, to Gautama Siddhartha of India, there have been people who have observed that suffering, and a subset of that, physical pain, is a result of judgment about a situation rather than something inherent in the system itself. When these observations are supported by an electrochemical understanding of what pain is, and by documented evidence of monks serenely burning alive, it carries a certain weight of truth.

-Some suffering is non-physical. If a person lives in pain, then part of their suffering is due to the physical pain (albeit indirectly due to the above description), but also due to their perception that they could potentially be living a better life, but are currently not. So it's the pain itself, coupled with qualitative observations about what "should" be, or what "could" be.

Bringing this together, there both conclusions and questions. If pain is based on judgment rather than pure biology, then a question is, to what degree do animals judge their pain? Do they form the same conclusions about their pain as a human does, and if so, to what extent?

Although there have been many debates through history about this, I don't think too many modern smart people would suggest that a dog or cat that is currently being tortured in some hideous way, as it flails and screams about, is not suffering. But the degree of suffering is hard to measure. For example, I've seen it argued that an elephant that is currently being cruelly treated in a circus suffers to a greater extent than a fish on a line, because the fish feels a degree of negative biological stimulus, while the elephant is arguably intelligent enough to not only be dissatisfied with its physical condition, but also intelligent enough to realize intellectually that it's currently in a disadvantaged state.

What qualia is, or what a given creature's current experiences are precisely, are currently impossible to measure. But by observing that pain and suffering are based on a combination of biology and psychology, I find the problem of torture to increase proportionally with the intelligence and emotional capacity of the creature. But I find extreme suffering of any creature to be highly problematic, which is also why I'm extremely picky about what I will or will not eat.

A further question that provokes me is that as situations get more and more ambiguous to us, and further away from our ability to effectively emotionally engage and reason, how do our moral obligations diminish? Such as our considerations of the wellbeing of ants, or amoeba say? [FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]

Biology.

If pain is studied, and it is observed that certain biological structures are responsible for the perception of pain (and then as another layer, certain brain functions are responsible for organization of a judgment of that pain), and it is observed that certain species have those structures and certain species do not, then I'd say obligations diminish according to that, roughly speaking.

 

[Gjallarhorn]

That's a true point. Could that inherent bias lead to someone more easily mistreating an animal who actually deserves better? (perhaps deserving at least as much consideration as a human is given, esp. regarding pain as in the example). What legitimately justifies they way we treat creatures?

The bias obviously leads to some mistreatment. It doesn't justify it, but it can explain it.

 

[tricolorwerecollie]

:slap:human or dogs it is the same you do it you pay for it both feel the pain dogs forget humans rember all

 

[Valjean]

As there's every reason to expect that humans and dogs have an equal capacity for suffering I'd have to come down on the side of moral equivalence.
In a way the torture of a dog is even more pitiful, as dogs, like children, are innocents.

 

[tricolorwerecollie]

well worded I agree Seyorni

 

[Twilight Hue]

In your opinion, which, if either, is morally worse, the torture of a dog or a human? What reasons inform your decision?

Alex

Is it a dog or human that's doing the torturing?

 

[Alex_G]

I'd propose that pain is both psychology and physical. As a species, we certainly don't have a complete scientific understanding of it, but through a combination of scientific and philosophical observations, there are some things worth pointing out.

-Structurally, higher-order animals have similar bodies, and brains, and so there's little reason to believe that pain itself is fundamentally different. It could be different in terms of degree, but the pain itself doesn't seem fundamentally different. Simply because we're humans, we're not magically different than other animals.

-However, pain is partly based on psychology and judgment. The pain itself is only signals, and our brains interpret those signals and form a conclusion. Two humans can have similar biological constitutions, and yet vastly different perceptions of pain. There are monks that can meditate in stillness as they burn alive, documented on video. There are people that have undergone torture, and laughed and provoked their tormentors. And yet there are people that stub their toe, and jump around holding their foot.

-Various philosophies or religions, such as the stoics or subsets of Buddhists, have proposed that pain and suffering are based on our judgments of a thing, rather than the thing itself. Ranging from Seneca the Younger of Rome, to Gautama Siddhartha of India, there have been people who have observed that suffering, and a subset of that, physical pain, is a result of judgment about a situation rather than something inherent in the system itself. When these observations are supported by an electrochemical understanding of what pain is, and by documented evidence of monks serenely burning alive, it carries a certain weight of truth.

-Some suffering is non-physical. If a person lives in pain, then part of their suffering is due to the physical pain (albeit indirectly due to the above description), but also due to their perception that they could potentially be living a better life, but are currently not. So it's the pain itself, coupled with qualitative observations about what "should" be, or what "could" be.

Bringing this together, there both conclusions and questions. If pain is based on judgment rather than pure biology, then a question is, to what degree do animals judge their pain? Do they form the same conclusions about their pain as a human does, and if so, to what extent?

Although there have been many debates through history about this, I don't think too many modern smart people would suggest that a dog or cat that is currently being tortured in some hideous way, as it flails and screams about, is not suffering. But the degree of suffering is hard to measure. For example, I've seen it argued that an elephant that is currently being cruelly treated in a circus suffers to a greater extent than a fish on a line, because the fish feels a degree of negative biological stimulus, while the elephant is arguably intelligent enough to not only be dissatisfied with its physical condition, but also intelligent enough to realize intellectually that it's currently in a disadvantaged state.

What qualia is, or what a given creature's current experiences are precisely, are currently impossible to measure. But by observing that pain and suffering are based on a combination of biology and psychology, I find the problem of torture to increase proportionally with the intelligence and emotional capacity of the creature. But I find extreme suffering of any creature to be highly problematic, which is also why I'm extremely picky about what I will or will not eat.

Biology.

If pain is studied, and it is observed that certain biological structures are responsible for the perception of pain (and then as another layer, certain brain functions are responsible for organization of a judgment of that pain), and it is observed that certain species have those structures and certain species do not, then I'd say obligations diminish according to that, roughly speaking.

Good points. The degree of suffering is indeed hard to measure, and in some sense actually impossible as u mention. When I frame the question in terms of morality I’m not only asking which might be objectively worse in terms of absolute suffering, that of a human or a dog, but also to consider what potential justifications or rational goes through the mind of the agent responsible for the deeds, and what degree of legitimacy they hold.

As per you fruitful examples, it’s clear that suffering can vary drastically between different creatures, even ones of the same species. Simple nociceptive pain amongst similarly developed creatures will likely be fundamentally the same if slightly varied in severity on some normal distribution. The greater variation comes from the modulating effect of a psychological overlay, which is highly specified to the individual. All of which you pointed out.

My concern would be that in creating a hierarchical list of potential suffering, although on the face of it sensible, I’m not sure it lends itself perfectly to a means of acting in a moral way. Clearly you can be very wrong in what you anticipate, and to rely on such a thing rigidly seems problematic. I mean on one side, even though the monk suffers less, does that somehow permit someone to subject them to more harm than they do another? I don’t think so. So even in situations where the moral agent is actually correct in his anticipation of potential suffering, it still seems wrong to me that such action be guided by this sort of hard calculus.

Also due to the consequences involved, I think one should be skewed into anticipating the creatures suffering to be worse rather than milder. To overestimate what ones believes to be the resultant suffering of an action seems better than to underestimate when you consider the potential outcomes.

I would therefore agree with you regarding the theory of how objective suffering might well vary, but with respects to informing action relating to suffering I would air on the side of caution, such that if I can detect that a creature can suffer full stop, they deserve the same maximum respect from me.

I always worry about the slippery slope of considering the suffering of other creatures to be less so on some scale (esp considering how difficult it actually is to anticipate accurately the suffering of an individual as you pointed out), and with so much animal mistreatment in the world, it seems that much evil can occur from not allowing adequate range to the respect offered, and to horribly underestimating the reality.


Alex

(Ps sorry for the delay, I was crazy busy yesterday.)

 

[Alex_G]

As there's every reason to expect that humans and dogs have an equal capacity for suffering I'd have to come down on the side of moral equivalence.
In a way the torture of a dog is even more pitiful, as dogs, like children, are innocents.

Yeah i know what u mean. Both situations are likely pretty equivalent in the suffering caused, but on top of that, what probably annoys me about the torture of the dog, is that its clear that the person responsible has likely justified it through considering the dog to be a 'lesser' creature, not deserving of the same respect. It frightens me how casual such a rationale is still in our modern era. (i mean its not really deserving of the title 'rationale', it seems more often than not to be a malignant 'no-thought' disposition, perhaps nothing more than a crude speciesism bolstered by impotent empathy.)