Puppy drowning girl Walks.

[mattj]

I don't know her country's laws, but had she done something like that in the US she could be charged. Earlier posters had mentioned that jail was an inappropriate punishment for a 12 year old, but at least in the US we have many other options such as probation, community service, fines, etc.

When I busted out car windows as a 12 year old, I sure as heck got probation and a fine (that my dad made me pay for, not him). Not the same crime, but we were the same age. It really depends on her country's laws though.

 

[Lanturn314]

I will say that defining what makes something ethical/non-ethical is extremely difficult, considering ethics itself is near impossible to define from a philosophical stand point. :/ This is why we talk about "moral compass" instead of any definable understanding of morality.

Perhaps it's better if I put it this way: If you're talking about painful/tortuous processes to animals, they're happening all the time. The way meat is produced, the way animal testing is conducted. Everyday animals are put through much more painful procedures that would be better described as torture than this. The fact that there is "reason" for animal testing or the meat industry's practices, to me seems rather trivial. The point is that those "tortures" are acceptable both by society and to myself as an individual.

To me, the method of killing here also seems pretty trivial assuming we're accepting "culling" the litter as acceptable. They're going to die anyway-- the amount of "pain" involved here seems like a minor note here.

Living is suffering as they say. To live in this world is a struggle to survive, and I dare say there are many people to in this world who experience more pain on a daily basis than what those puppies must have gone through. Also "pain" as a measurable quantity or degree is also somewhat . . . laughable . . . which trivializes it even more.

It's just a sensation. Especially physical pain sensory, which you have evolved in order to better your odds of protecting yourself and surviving. Being able to feel pain is a good thing. Using such a sensation as a measure for something as ultimate as ethics seems . . . misplaced to me somehow.

It's hard to say exactly but then ethics is hard to talk about (exactly)

You bring up some very interesting points. Of course, I actually do have a problem with the meat industry an how it treats its livestock, which is why I am a vegetarian. We don't need to eat meat to survive, since there are plenty of other ways to get protein, thus the suffering the livestock experience is unnecessary and therefore wrong.
Animal testing is for me more of a grey area. If the research has the potential to save hundreds to thousands to millions of human lives, then by all means it should be done. However, the amount of benefit that has to be reaped in order for this research to be ethical is somewhat difficult to quantify. There are ethical guidelines in place in many countries that stipulate that all research must cause as little pain to the animals as possible while producing the greatest amount of benefit for humans, animals, and/or the environment. The ways researchers can do this are very interesting and can be found here at the website for the International Society for Applied Ethology: http://www.applied-ethology.org/ethicalguidelines.htm . I agree with pretty much everything they have to say.

Also, to say that "living is suffering" is a laughable point IMO. Even if living does involve suffering, that doesn't mean we shouldn't take measures to minimize it if we are able to do so. Basically, you are implying that suffering is OK because everyone suffers, which is circular logic. Besides, wouldn't a world without suffering be a better one? Or am I just being naive here?

And while you are right that physical pain evolved "in order to better your odds of protecting yourself and surviving," this is exactly why it should be avoided when possible-- it is better to have something avoid the noxious stimuli that would cause pain than to inflict pain onto something. This is especially true when the pain is caused by someone with malicious intentions, as is the case with the girl drowning the puppies: she obviously meant to hurt them. How is that not completely immoral?

 

[Ancien Régime]

okay, let me tell you why animal rights is incoherent, and I quote Rothbard:

" In short, man has rights because they are natural rights. They are grounded in the nature of man: the individual man's capacity for conscious choice, the necessity for him to use his mind and energy to adopt goals and values, to find out about the world, to pursue his ends in order to survive and prosper, his capacity and need to communicate and interact with other human beings and to participate in the division of labor. In short, man is a rational and social animal. No other animals or beings possess this ability to reason, to make conscious choices, to transform their environment in order to prosper, or to collaborate consciously in society and the division of labor."

Can animals make conscious choices? With the exception of some higher primates, no.
Can animals communicate with other animals and specialize tasks (and when I say specialize, I mean consciously specialize, not be born specialists like ants)? No.
Are animals rational? No.

(and before you say "babies/children", babies and children are members of the species homo sapiens, which do meet the above criteria. Rights are absolute within a given species.)

While there are some exceptions to the above criteria (and provisions could be made for them, though it's not like every dolphin or whale in the ocean is even close to sentinent), for the most part, animals are not sentinent, therefore they are not entitled to the same rights as humans.

 

[Not Scicky]

Can animals specialize in tasks? Yes. Teach a dog to hunt/do tricks/whatever.

I knew a dog and if you said "It's the dog catcher!" It would literally jump into your arms.

If you pointed your hand at it and went BANG it would play dead.

Sure it's not specialization in the way that humans can specialize. (Art, Sports, Anything really) But that should be obvious. We're clearly capable of more than they are. But to say that they can't make conscious decisions is pretty silly. :/

And animals can't communicate? Are you fucking kidding me? Just because they can't speak a language doesn't mean they can't communicate.

@Groshi: That is hands down the worst way to approach something. "Oh shit, something bad happened, oh well, life sucks, guess I'll do nothing and let more bad shit happened."

 

[Lanturn314]

okay, let me tell you why animal rights is incoherent, and I quote Rothbard:



Can animals make conscious choices? With the exception of some higher primates, no.
Can animals communicate with other animals and specialize tasks (and when I say specialize, I mean consciously specialize, not be born specialists like ants)? No.
Are animals rational? No.

(and before you say "babies/children", babies and children are members of the species homo sapiens, which do meet the above criteria. Rights are absolute within a given species.)

While there are some exceptions to the above criteria (and provisions could be made for them, though it's not like every dolphin or whale in the ocean is even close to sentinent), for the most part, animals are not sentinent, therefore they are not entitled to the same rights as humans.

I'm sorry, but you are way off here. First of all, Murray Rothbard is an economist/philosopher, not a biologist, so why should we trust his assessment of animal rights when he hasn't even worked with animals or studied them in great depth? His field is economics, not biology. Next time, reference recent biological studies and/or things that reference said studies.

Even if most animals can't produce language the way we do, they definitely have their ways of communicating. Bees communicate through pheromones and dance. Dogs bark and give us sad faces to beg for food. Monkeys can learn sign language. Electric fish communicate by altering their electric fields. Communication is seen throughout the animal kingdom, in vertebrates AND invertebrates.

If you don't believe me, just check out cephalopods-- they are extremely intelligent! Here's a video from the Discovery Channel on cuttlefish communication: http://videos.howstuffworks.com/dis...-discovery-cuttlefish-communication-video.htm
Giant squids do it, too, and there's currently a lot of research being done on cephalopod intelligence. Octopuses have even been shown to use tools to get food and to alter their approach to problem-solving based on the variables with which they have been presented. Sources: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=a-tool-wielding-octopus-this-invert-2009-12-14 and http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=are-octopuses-smart

You'd be astounded by how much intelligence is present in the animal kingdom if you'd just keep an open mind and bother to look around. Scientists are finding more and more evidence that animals are a lot more intelligent than we'd ever guess.

 

[MrIndigo]

I'm sorry, but you are way off here. First of all, Murray Rothbard is an economist/philosopher, not a biologist, so why should we trust his assessment of animal rights when he hasn't even worked with animals or studied them in great depth? His field is economics, not biology. Next time, reference recent biological studies and/or things that reference said studies.

Even if most animals can't produce language the way we do, they definitely have their ways of communicating. Bees communicate through pheromones and dance. Dogs bark and give us sad faces to beg for food. Monkeys can learn sign language. Electric fish communicate by altering their electric fields. Communication is seen throughout the animal kingdom, in vertebrates AND invertebrates.

If you don't believe me, just check out cephalopods-- they are extremely intelligent! Here's a video from the Discovery Channel on cuttlefish communication: http://videos.howstuffworks.com/dis...-discovery-cuttlefish-communication-video.htm
Giant squids do it, too, and there's currently a lot of research being done on cephalopod intelligence. Octopuses have even been shown to use tools to get food and to alter their approach to problem-solving based on the variables with which they have been presented. Sources: http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=a-tool-wielding-octopus-this-invert-2009-12-14 and http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=are-octopuses-smart

You'd be astounded by how much intelligence is present in the animal kingdom if you'd just keep an open mind and bother to look around. Scientists are finding more and more evidence that animals are a lot more intelligent than we'd ever guess.

Apes have apparently learned writing too, specifically the Bonobo Apes.

An interesting sidenote based on your post; the definition of what constitutes 'sentience' is nebulous and frequently changing, but to me it seems that the sentience tests people define are basically attempts to exclude everything but homo sapiens. Every time they came up with a test that wouldn't exclude the elderly or babies, there would be a study found suggesting some animal or another (dogs and birds, particularly) would pass the test, which forced reconsideration of the new test.

EDIT: Part of Rothbard is correct, although perhaps accidentally. Animals have rights only when humans choose to extend them rights. Rights are not a preexisting concept defined by reference to leylines or anything, they are a purely human invention. As the party with the power to back up the rights we afford to someone or something, ourselves included, there is no right an animal has if we don't want that animal to have it.

 

[Ancien Régime]

I'm sorry, but you are way off here. First of all, Murray Rothbard is an economist/philosopher, not a biologist, so why should we trust his assessment of animal rights when he hasn't even worked with animals or studied them in great depth? His field is economics, not biology. Next time, reference recent biological studies and/or things that reference said studies.

So we shouldn't reference the thoughts of a person who specializes in natural rights when discussing whether to extend those rights past their traditional boundary of humans to non-humans?

Even if most animals can't produce language the way we do, they definitely have their ways of communicating. Bees communicate through pheromones and dance. Dogs bark and give us sad faces to beg for food. Monkeys can learn sign language. Electric fish communicate by altering their electric fields. Communication is seen throughout the animal kingdom, in vertebrates AND invertebrates.

I already excluded primates. Dogs operate on behavioral responses, which are NOT intelligence. Same thing with fish. Now, if octupuses and the like show, as a species, that they are capable of intelligence, then we may consider the idea of "rights" for them. Of course, all these examples are quite interesting, but is this enough to say that even highly intelligent animals "think" in a human sense? I would argue that higher primates "think" in a very close to human sense, that dolphins think in a similar sense, but other animals? Not enough.

And then, is animal cognition to the point where we must set up a system of enforceable rights for them, equal of that of humans? This is a very serious statement, because if a right is enforceable, then an entity whose rights have been violated has also the right to seek redress for that violation, including the use of physical force. Shall we use physical force against anyone who runs over a cat? Or goes hunting? Or hell, fights dogs and cocks?

Keep in mind that humans view certain things in a cognitive sense that are natural to all living things, such as fear, sadness, and other emotions, and then when we observe them in animals, we assume they have the ability to think when in reality, they're feeling.

 

[Lanturn314]

So we shouldn't reference the thoughts of a person who specializes in natural rights when discussing whether to extend those rights past their traditional boundary of humans to non-humans?

The thing is, anyone can come up with a theory about who deserves rights and who doesn't, and you don't need to specialize in thinking about those sorts of things to come up with an intelligent opinion. What you do need is an understanding of the entities whose rights are being questioned, or else your thoughts will he horribly misguided.

I already excluded primates. Dogs operate on behavioral responses, which are NOT intelligence. Same thing with fish. Now, if octupuses and the like show, as a species, that they are capable of intelligence, then we may consider the idea of "rights" for them. Of course, all these examples are quite interesting, but is this enough to say that even highly intelligent animals "think" in a human sense? I would argue that higher primates "think" in a very close to human sense, that dolphins think in a similar sense, but other animals? Not enough.

You gave no evidence to support your exclusion of primates, though; you just said they were excluded, and that was that. If they are taught sign language, they are perfectly capable of using it to communicate, and they definitely have social structures in place. How is that not sentience? Anyway, as Mr. Indigo said, "it seems that the sentience tests people define are basically attempts to exclude everything but homo sapiens. Every time they came up with a test that wouldn't exclude the elderly or babies, there would be a study found suggesting some animal or another (dogs and birds, particularly) would pass the test, which forced reconsideration of the new test." This is indeed true. Would you deny the elderly, babies, and the severely mentally retarded rights just because they cannot think on our level? If not, why not? Just because they are human? Why does being human make us so special (since you think it does)?

Also, it is not so much the ability to think on a human level that should get animals a certain degree of rights, but rather the ability to suffer. If something can suffer, you shouldn’t do anything to make it suffer more than it has to anyway unless you have a sufficiently good reason.

And then, is animal cognition to the point where we must set up a system of enforceable rights for them, equal of that of humans? This is a very serious statement, because if a right is enforceable, then an entity whose rights have been violated has also the right to seek redress for that violation, including the use of physical force. Shall we use physical force against anyone who runs over a cat? Or goes hunting? Or hell, fights dogs and cocks?

Well, probably not, but this isn't what I'm advocating, anyway. I just think we should try our best not to harm them whenever possible. There's a difference between wanting to prevent cruelty to something that can think and feel to enough of an extent that they would suffer from a certain way we treated them, and providing them full protection under all of our laws. Fighting dogs and cocks is wrong, and we have laws against that, because it is causing animals harm that would otherwise not be caused, and it is for no other purpose than some people's sick enjoyment; I fully believe that people who do this should be thrown in jail. I am also against hunting for sport (even though I'm a vegetarian, I can sort of understand the mindset of someone who eats meat, because protein can be somewhat hard to get depending on where you live and your socioeconomic status). But that doesn't mean that I think we need to treat them exactly like humans-- I just think we need to keep their welfare in mind to some extent and not do anything that would hurt them intentionally unless there is a very good reason for it (such as medical research to save thousands of human lives)

Also, I believe you're begging the question when you say that whenever rights are violated, the entity has the right to seek redress for that violation including the use of physical force. What do you mean by physical force, anyway? And why must it include physical force? I don't think physical force is necessarily warranted for every violation of rights; for example, if my friend steals money from me, I don't have the right to beat them up (doing so is actually considered assault, which is a crime), but I do have the right to demand that they pay me back and seek legal action if they don't. Similarly, if you accidentally run over my cat, I don’t think you should be thrown in jail, but you should definitely feel guilty about what you did and apologize for it.

Keep in mind that humans view certain things in a cognitive sense that are natural to all living things, such as fear, sadness, and other emotions, and then when we observe them in animals, we assume they have the ability to think when in reality, they're feeling.

Keep in mind that some humans just want to feel that they have a sense of entitlement to do anything they want even if it's causing physical or mental distress to a fellow creature that doesn't deserve it. Keep in mind that these humans will try to justify this in any way they can even when ignoring the evidence that these fellow creatures can think and feel on some level, which can sometimes even surpass the level of the least intelligent humans. Keep in mind that it doesn't take much effort to stop hunting (heck, you'd save money on bullets) or stop cockfighting (just go play soccer or something instead) or to avoid running over cats in the road (really, if you saw a cat running across the street and had a good chance of being able to stop, would you still keep going anyway? If not, that's horrible). Equal rights are not necessary, but a little bit of empathy is.

 

[Ice-eyes]

Guys, the girl didn't do this because she was insane or sadistic. It is a fact of life for people living this kind of lifestyle. Not so long ago, rural people around the world would have thought nothing of killing off puppies that they and the bitch couldn't feed. The practise has gotten less widespread, but it still happens in a lot of places and it seems incomprehensible to us because our culture has changed. I would be surprised if the girl's parents hadn't been the ones who asked her to do it.

Perhaps we will look back in a few decades' time and see that other things which are commonplace now will seem barbaric. Even within the topic of animals, we eat meat and wear fur, do we not?

 

[Ninahaza]

Guys, the girl didn't do this because she was insane or sadistic. It is a fact of life for people living this kind of lifestyle. Not so long ago, rural people around the world would have thought nothing of killing off puppies that they and the bitch couldn't feed. The practise has gotten less widespread, but it still happens in a lot of places and it seems incomprehensible to us because our culture has changed. I would be surprised if the girl's parents hadn't been the ones who asked her to do it.

yes i agree, thats most likely what happened. but your point has been brought up already, here are a few responses

Honestly, this whole situation is a real gray area. I'm not sure where in the country, but if she lives in a rural area, culling excess animals may be necessary. But what was the purpose of filming it? :/

(why was she the one that had done it, rather than her parents or whoever was the owner/taking care of the dogs) There are much more humane ways of killing off excess litter, and it is very disturbing that the girl was allowed to do what she's done or, perhaps even more so, she chose to do it herself. Those are some serious hints of either terrible parenting or major psychological problems, both of which require attention from the authorities...

this whole situation is just so fucked up i cant see someone successfully defending her,thats why instead people are just diverging/ or trying to make this look less bad by comparison by bring up other issues like big companies mistreatment of animals or that its cool animals dont have rights. or

This. They. Are. Fucking. Dogs.

The world is unfair. Deal with it.

although i think its sad that people are even trying to defend her [excluding those defending her against the harsh extreme punishments people have mentioned, camon she doesnt deserve some of the things that have been suggested in here]

 

[Brain]

Can animals make conscious choices? With the exception of some higher primates, no.

As far as I can tell, there is no conclusive evidence that higher primates are smarter than dolphins, elephants or crows. There may be more data about higher primates, but that stems from greater interest for species that are closer to us. Certainly, all of these species are capable of conscious choices. In fact, I will go much further, for I believe that every single animal species is capable of conscious choice.

We have been so consistently wrong in estimating animal capability that it wouldn't hurt to give them the benefit of doubt. Animals systemically outperform our expectations, as we get better at testing them. Besides, seriously, what the fuck is it about "conscious choice" that is so extraordinary that only humans can do it? Conscious choice is mundane. It's simple. It's boring. There is nothing remotely extraordinary about conscious choice. Why should it be human specific, except to satisfy humanity's delusion of grandeur? Get over yourself.

Can animals communicate with other animals and specialize tasks (and when I say specialize, I mean consciously specialize, not be born specialists like ants)? No.

Oh. Sure, if you say so. But I still have to ask. First, I have to ask if you actually made an effort to research the topic. Second, I have to ask if you realize that "specialization" is not necessarily something that has been extensively tested, and that many behaviors that natural specimens do not exhibit will occur in the proper situation. I mean, humans right now communicate and specialize way more than they ever did in the past.

Are animals rational? No.

Neither are humans, for the most part. I mean, frankly, if you think humans are rational animals, your standards of rationality must be pretty dreadful. Or perhaps mine are too high.

But nonetheless, you're pulling these assertions straight out of your ass. How do you test rationality? Do you seriously think that you can make a rationality test that is so easy that 99.9% of humans would pass it, and yet 99.9% of animals would fail it? Keep in mind that tests designed by humans will necessarily be slanted in our favor. It's not because animals can't understand our language that they're complete retards - it's not like we are much better at understand theirs.

(and before you say "babies/children", babies and children are members of the species homo sapiens, which do meet the above criteria. Rights are absolute within a given species.)

Oh, really? Why? Slavery is a pervasive tendency of human society. Their proponents certainly didn't think rights were absolute within a given species. If they saw our society, they might think it is preposterous for all these races to be treated as equals. And honestly, what rational arguments can you give against gradating rights within a species? The answer would be: none. Because there is no rational argument against it. In fact, one could easily argue that it would be rational for rights to be proportional to some measure of intelligence, because the smarter one is, the better use he or she can make of their rights. Thus the smart would enslave the dumb. I am of course not saying I want to live in such a society, because I have the same cultural bias that you have. But you have to realize that the argument to give uniform rights to all humans is not rational. It is empathic.

And the reason why humans have more rights than animals is extremely simple: we have more rights because we are stronger and we can enforce them. There is no other justification whatsoever. If we want to give animals rights, it is our prerogative.

While there are some exceptions to the above criteria (and provisions could be made for them, though it's not like every dolphin or whale in the ocean is even close to sentinent), for the most part, animals are not sentinent, therefore they are not entitled to the same rights as humans.

There is nothing about humans that isn't found elsewhere in the animal kingdom. You really need to step out of that anthropocentrism. Humanity is not about having certain exclusive traits, it's about the degree and extent to which we express certain traits. Do you think that sentience or intelligence just automagically appeared in humans without any precursor whatsoever? That's not how evolution works, and you're fooling yourself if you think other species aren't close, in evolutionary terms (that means millions of years), from being our equals.

Heck, human-like intelligence might have evolved before, but died out without leaving a trace. Right now, there might be a bunch of mutant parrots in New Zealand that are significantly more capable than any of their cousins, and could learn language as easily as we do. How do you know?

Why feel the need to glorify the human race and seek excuses to give ourselves more rights? We don't need a goddamn excuse. We're the strongest. Your arguments are literally a copy paste of the arguments proponents of slavery would use, and they stink just as much. It's a shame you can't see it, because they couldn't see it either.

So we shouldn't reference the thoughts of a person who specializes in natural rights when discussing whether to extend those rights past their traditional boundary of humans to non-humans?

Not when they don't get their facts straight.

Of course, all these examples are quite interesting, but is this enough to say that even highly intelligent animals "think" in a human sense? I would argue that higher primates "think" in a very close to human sense, that dolphins think in a similar sense, but other animals? Not enough.

Oh, so they have to think "in a human sense" now? How convenient.

Also, it is not so much the ability to think on a human level that should get animals a certain degree of rights, but rather the ability to suffer. If something can suffer, you shouldn’t do anything to make it suffer more than it has to anyway unless you have a sufficiently good reason.

"Suffering" might be difficult to measure, though. You may be able to figure out that something suffers because they are undergoing identical processes to those that happen in us when we suffer, but if these processes don't happen or are inapplicable (as might be the case for a machine), you can't conclude that they don't suffer. I don't see any reason why a machine could not suffer in a meaningful sense, but I don't see how we could actually determine whether they do or not, if they can't communicate it. But it's not just machines. For instance, you could have some biological organism without a nervous system, but which can acquire the information it needs from other senses, and suffers all the same.

And then there's the problem of what you would do with humans that can't suffer. I mean, certainly, some cannot suffer physically, and it's not a big stretch to say that some are so numb emotionally that they effectively don't suffer. Do they still have rights?

In the end, there is no "rational" way to assign rights, or at least, there is no systematic way to do it. The way you present is a purely empathic argument (which I support, because it appeals to my empathy as well), but it has limits.

 

[yiran]

Uhh, I said the world is unfair, but I'm not defending her. I hate her for drowning puppies personally. What, you try to control my feelings?

But the world is unfair. No matter what you say here, that truth that she got away unharmed will stay unchanged. That's what I mean.

Read my whole post...

 

[Ninahaza]

Uhh, I said the world is unfair, but I'm not defending her. I hate her for drowning puppies personally. What, you try to control my feelings?

o i'm sorry Groshi. its just that you posted that statement and i did not want to go through 8 pages looking for another "the world is unfair/ life is unfair/ who the fuck cares/ as meat eaters we should be able to ignore this" kind of post when one was on this very page.
but i did read your entire post [on the day you posted it] and your right so along with my apology i have gone ahead and removed your name from the quote i used so now it is what i intented it to be "just an example representing what others have said already" :)