JenH

The Personhood of a Copy

2010-12-12T15:16:00.000-08:00

Cloning is a very controversial issue. According to national geographic there have been clones of cats, sheep, and wildcats. However, most of these animals don’t reach adulthood and suffer from diseases after they are cloned and some even suffer while they are being cloned. The first cloned cat by Genetic Savings and Clone is two years old and her name is CC. But she is not colored the same as her donor, they said because she is calico and calico cats will never look exactly like their donors. They however will never be the same cat as the donor because souls or personalities cannot be copied.

There are numerous ethical issues that accompany this controversial topic. The humane society believes that people clone their animals to deal with their grief of losing the animal, but they will just have to do it again when the cloned animal dies. Also, four million animals are killed each year because they are not adopted, so the humane society feels this is a good reason not to clone animals.

As I was reading, I thought about when we were discussing the personhood of animals. If we clone an animal does that copy version of the original animal have the same rights or personhood as the original? It is still an animal but it is a genetically composed and man-made creature.

Do you think a cloned animal deserves the same rights as a naturally born animal?

In response to Bee: Pet Cloning

2010-12-12T14:33:00.000-08:00

Would you ever try to get your pet cloned?

I would never ever get my pet cloned. I find the whole idea of cloning unnatural and disgusting. It is not our place to mess with nature in this way. Like Bee said, your pet does not come back as your pet because it isn’t your pet, your pet is dead. It is another animal that has the same genetic makeup as your old pet and that’s it. This new cloned pet does not poses the soul of your old pet and therefore it is not your old pet, souls will never be copied. I think cloning currently is and will confuse people’s minds. Our DNA does not make us who we are, our personalities, what we poses inside us that can’t be seen or touched is what make us who we are. And again as Bee said cloning animals may one day lead to the cloning of humans which would be disastrous and heartbreaking in my opinion.

Why do we feel the need to experiment with such things as cloning, is it our curiosity or our mere selfish desires to obtain something that drives this kind of tampering with nature?

In Response to Bryan

2010-12-12T14:12:00.000-08:00

Why is utilitarianism such a common view to have in today’s world?

I think utilitarianism is so common because it is in our human nature. We tend to think that if the outcome will make things better then what we do to get there, no matter how immoral, makes it ok. If we need to tell that lie to keep a friendship or kill a hundred rats to find a cure we do it because we desire the results that the action will produce. Most will do just about anything to get something they desperately want. We convince ourselves that our actions will be justified by the results we obtain. As we know, this is not always true. It takes a larger person, therefore maybe more morally stable, to tell the truth to your friend then to selfishly lie to them just to avoid the conflict. Just as killing a hundred living creatures might not always be the best option. We are utilitarian because of our selfish natures.

Is there any reason to believe that “the ends justify the means” is a good statement to use to justify using animals for experimentation to find a cure for a disease?

Buy, Sell, Kill: Our Property

2010-11-21T15:35:00.000-08:00

Our culture is very law based. People lean on our laws in a variety of circumstances. Your friend won’t pay you back, take them to court. We threaten the use of our lawyers and our courts to settle personal and professional issues. Many of these cases are animal related. People are taken to court by others who got bit by their dog and for many other animal discrepancies. This makes these pets seem like our property, things we can buy, sell, and get court orders to kill when they misbehave. But I don’t see pets, or animals in general, as our property. We are the owners of these pets because they need our protection and our care. Ownership of pets means you are the decision maker for that living creature who otherwise could not defend itself against other humans, so others can’t take your pet away from you. It does not mean they are our property.

Do you think most people in our culture view their pets as their property? I know that I see my pets as more my family then my property and my protection and care for them stems from that reason and not because they are mine.

Response to Jacob: Legal Subjects

2010-11-21T15:34:00.000-08:00

Which is the better route to take? Do we call animals people, or do we fashion them a new category?

This is a perfect question because it is exactly what I wrote my Q and A on. I don’t think we can consider animals as persons or as property. We need a new category. Animals are not people, humans are people. We are on a different intellectual level than animals and as humans we would, in most cases, choose the human life over the animal life. They are not things either, they are living creatures. Animals however do deserve rights and they deserve justice. Animals deserve a category in law that is made for them. They need laws that protect their rights and should not be thrown in the same category as either persons or things.

One of my questions for my Q and A is: Should there be a set of laws to distinguish which animals, possibly based on intellectual levels and human-like qualities, are given the most “person like” rights? Who would be qualified to make these laws? I think apes are more intellectually capable then say a dog and a dog more than an ant. So should we have different laws protecting animals, in their own animal laws category, based on those qualities of the species?

Response to Hallie: Leashes

2010-11-14T14:43:00.000-08:00

I'm wondering how we would fix the problem of putting pets on leashes against their will. What problems do you think would arise from banning leashes for pets as well as children?

I think it is not always the owner that decides to put the pet on the leash it is our society. It’s the law that says all dogs must be on a leash when outside, if they are not confined by a fence of course. I would love to walk my dog without a leash but if my dog were to bite another dog or human I would get in huge trouble with the law. If a cop were to spot me I could be fined for not having my dog on a leash. We do not have a large yard so we do not have it fenced in, our dog has to stay chained when outside. I do not think any animal or person should be chained against their will but sometimes it is what has to be. Take inmates for example, if they were not in hand cuffs others would be in a lot of danger. So, maybe if some dogs were not leashed when outside they too would put us in a lot of danger given that some dogs are very aggressive and temperamental, I think for that reason, we have the leash law.

As far as child leashes go, I think it is mostly to keep the child safe, as Hallie said, but it could be looked at another way. I have not personally known anyone that keeps their child on a leash but the child might actually enjoy having the leash. In a way it gives them more freedom. On the leash the child can walk semi-away from the parent, whereas, if not on the leash they would have to hold the parent’s hand, be in a cart, or be held by the parent. The leash gives them the freedom to walk with a sense of independence while keeping the child safe and nearby. So I guess it depends on how you look at leashes and every situation is different.

Why do we look at child leashes negatively? It is better than seeing a parent who lets their child run way ahead of them while talking to another adult, to me that is abuse. Children need boundaries to keep them safe, at all ages. What do you think?

Sacredness

2010-11-14T14:42:00.000-08:00

Mathews describes her childhood relationship with her animals as a kind of bridge connecting her with nature. She says on page 559:

“…animals that were available to me throughout my childhood had opened me to a larger world, a world astir with presence or presences that vastly exceeded the human. It was this direct contact with unknowable but pervasive presence which instilled in me a sense of the sacredness or enchantment of the world, and the potentiality for the ‘magic’ within it.”

She blames our disconnection with the natural world on industrialization and urbanization. Her connection with her pony/animals was a communication in which she was able to release her deepest feelings and thoughts to. She describes a mutual relationship in which she and the horse communicated in a deeper form that went beyond language and connected her to a long forgotten time when people viewed animals and nature as sacred. My first thought was the connection the Native Americans had with animals and nature. They often worshiped gods from nature and they respected the animals they killed. They seemed to have a deeper understanding of the nature of animals and the natural world that we have lost as a society somewhere along the way.

Have we lost our sense of sacredness toward the natural world and its animals?

Do you think someone can have a relationship with an animal that would be just as deep as one between two humans? What about someone whose only family is the animals they keep as pets?

Response to Sarah: Animal Interests

2010-11-02T19:04:00.000-07:00

Is there a way of dealing with this problem, other than what I have posed here, that would not affect the animal’s interests in any way? Is there any way to justify any method as not being morally wrong?

I would have to agree that when I heard about the method of giving deer contraceptives it didn’t settle right with my moral conscience. I think anything a human could do to solve a problem like the overpopulation of deer would always interfere in some way with the animals interests. You are correct in saying that nature has a way of working itself out and it is in fact our own fault that we deal with these problems, we did build our roads in their territory. I personally think it takes away the deer’s natural rights to reproduce which seems like an awful thing to do. I think it is a very difficult issue, but I guess at least they are trying to save the lives of the deer by giving them contraceptives; it is a step in the right direction.

Do you agree that in any solution the interests of the animal will be compromised even if we are trying not to interfere with natural processes?

Response to Laura: People That Kill Animals

2010-11-02T18:34:00.000-07:00

I do not think it is morally right to “trophy hunt.” The hunters that hunt for the mere reward of saying they were able to shoot down one of these magnificent creatures should not have the right to hold a gun. It is a disgusting practice that should not occur at any place or time. Innocent animals should not die for the recreational purposes of humans.
Hunting should only take place when it is absolutely necessary for the survival of the human or society. In the poor areas of a country where their only income/food comes from hunting, you must give them a certain degree of understanding. Any living creature that is murdered is devastating but it is one of the facts of nature. Sometimes, under certain conditions, we must hunt animals for the survival of our own.
But again, I do not see any moral defense for trophy hunting as valid.

Is there anyone who thinks trophy hunting is morally right?

Human Nature vs. Socialization

2010-10-24T20:22:00.000-07:00

So, we have been talking a lot about the order in which we as humans place importance on life. We first choose our interests, then our families interests, friends, neighbors, pets… and so on, not necessarily in that exact order depending on the person. But for most of us we would choose to save our own lives or the lives of our children over our pet’s life or the life of our neighbor. I think we naturally choose humanity over animals because of our nature. If there were two humans and one dog on an island and the dog and one of the humans had somehow gotten injured, the second human would most likely give the last of their medical supplies to the injured human and not the dog.

Why do we do this? Is it just in our born human nature to want to choose the human over the animal or have we been socialized to do so because of social norms/pressures, biases, and “isms?”

Response to Isa

2010-10-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

Why does our culture act so stubborn and ignorant to the vegetarian practices? And is that crippling to our society /culture?

I think our culture has a hard time with change, any culture for that matter.

Definition of culture (taken from Webster):

The customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also: the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time; the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.

Culture, as Isa mentioned, is a social norm. People “go with the crowd” as all of us know from high school. We don’t like to be the ones in the spot light. Being a Vegetarian goes against the norm and I think that is why so many people are stubborn and ignorant about the subject. They don’t want to learn more about what exactly it means to be a vegetarian because that would be like talking to the chess club as a cheerleader. And quite possibly the only reason some people do not become vegetarians is because of social pressures from family and friends, even if they would like too. Our culture has passed down the mindset that eating meat is just what we do as humans and it is good for us. It took numerous generations for all of the minority groups to be given recognition and I think it is going to be the same for vegetarians. Just in the short time I have been on earth I’ve seen progress, more and more places are offering vegetarian choices. It will take time but we will get there.

Do you think some people who might want to become vegetarians decide not to because of disapproval from family members? Does anyone have any personal experience with this?

Hunting vs. Factory Farm

2010-10-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

We have previously talked briefly about hunting. My personal belief is that hunting should only be done for the survival of a human and not solely for the purpose of sport. But, then I read about how we produce our meat that we buy in stores. The conditions under which these animals live before their death, and the methods that kill them are heart wrenching. It seems that these animals suffer more in a produce line then they would if a hunter were to shoot them. The shot from a hunter’s gun would most likely kill the animal instantly with no suffering, whereas many of the animals we eat suffer from the day they are born to moment they die. At least these animals have lived a happy life in their natural habitat before their death. This of course is not always the case. Sometimes if a hunter shoots an animal they will not die instantly and do suffer until that hunter shoots again, but the suffering is still much less. So I often contradict myself on this matter.
If the hunter that is hunting for sport kills the animal and actually eats it and uses it then he has not “wasted.” In Native American culture they would use every single part of the animals they killed, making sure not to waste any of the life they had taken. Under these circumstances I think it might be ok to hunt. However, the unnecessary killing of any animal really upsets me despite this fact.

Do you think it is “morally” better to hunt an animal yourself then it would be to buy it from a store, where the animal has been produced from such a place as a factory farm?

Response to Jacob: Vegetarian lifestyle expense

2010-10-17T20:15:00.000-07:00

Is a vegetarian lifestyle more or less expensive, and by how much?

I think food, no matter what diet, is expensive. Meat in a meat eater’s diet is expensive just as, meat substitutes in a vegetarian’s diet are also expensive. I think grocery expense also depends on the family’s income. A middle to upper class family’s food cost will be less of a worry then a lower class families cost would be, despite their dietary choices. Like we discussed briefly in class on Friday, a lower class family might not be able to afford the “healthy” foods, maybe not even the normal priced food or meats. So, I don’t think being a vegetarian is any less expensive given that you have a stable income. The link below is to an article that I found to be interesting. It describes a woman who decided to test her theory that being a vegetarian does not cost more money or time.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0820/is_n212/ai_16845844/?tag=content;col1

It seems that the healthier something is for you the more expensive it is in the grocery store, do you think it is harder for a low income family to maintain a healthy diet because of this reason?

Expression

2010-10-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

I feel like we really didn’t discuss cetaceans very much in class so I thought I would post a question about them. Mark Peter Simmonds discusses on page 194 in the book the anatomical differences between cetaceans and primates. He describes a view taken from Goold and Goold in The Animal Mind:

“Primatologists… assume that their subjects are to some degree self aware. In part this may arise not because primates are so much smarter than others species, but because it is easier for humans to read primate gestures and emotional expressions than the equivalents in, say, beavers or dolphins. It is easier for us to empathize with behavioral responses to situations that could touch our own lives.”

Simmods goes on to say, “thus they highlight the possibility that our interpretation of cetacean behavior might be hampered by a lack of empathy.”

I think it’s true that it is easier visually to see that a primate can understand and have certain feelings, if of course they really are having the feelings that their expressions are portraying. Which in my opinion apes do express how they feel, but getting back, we cannot visually see expressions as clearly from an animal such as a dolphin.

Do you think it is harder for us to have empathy and associate higher cognitive thinking to animals such as dolphins and whales because of their lack of expression?

Response to Nicole: Pet Keeping v. Zoos

2010-10-08T12:09:00.000-07:00

Do you think there is any defense to be made for zoos and keeping animals in cages?

The only defense I would consider would be similar to Jane Goodall’s stance on zoos.
She says:

“When compared with the life of chimpanzees living in danger zones in Africa, it sometimes seems to me that those in the really good zoos-those in which there are large enclosures, rich social groups, and an enriched environment-may in fact be better off. On the other hand, there are still many zoos that should be closed-zoos where chimpanzees are forced to live alone or in pairs in tiny cement-floored, iron-barred, old fashioned cages. There they suffer terribly from boredom.”

I am not an advocate of zoos, but I am an advocate of sanctuaries, where the rescued animals have an environment that is comfortable and fits their needs. Jane talks about an ape named Gregoire (page 179). This ape lived in horrid conditions for 40 years before he was rescued. It is hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that people can bring themselves to treat animals in such ways, but they do it. I don’t think a zoo should be allowed to operate until it has been cleared by numerous animal specialists who can determine if every species of animal in the zoo has an appropriate space to live in according to the animal’s particular needs and wants.

Question: Some people keep their animals in cages at night or sometimes during the day while they work to keep their pets from destroying the house or peeing on the floors. How do you feel about keeping animals in cages for those reasons?

Shocking

2010-10-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

According to Bermond animals cannot think and therefore they are not capable of experiencing pain because they are not conscious beings. So why then do we use such things as shock collars to train our dogs not to bark? If Bermond is correct in assuming animals are not “smart” enough to comprehend or feel pain then shock collars shouldn’t work, right? Every time a dog barks the collar administers a shock which tells the dog to stop barking. But how does it tell them to do this?
Lynch demonstrates a great example of this; if an animal is shocked when they attempt to take a food pellet they will refuse the pellet the next time it is offered to avoid the shock. So, an animal counts pain as a reason for refusing food. Just as a dog counts the pain given to them by the collar as a reason to stop barking. I think that there must be some thinking involved in this scenario. Sure, you can argue that it is just training and the animal isn’t really making the decision but if the animal was unable to perceive pain because of it lack of intelligence, as Bermond describes, then the shocks should not have any effect on the dog whatsoever and they would continue the behavior.

Why would we invent a shock collar to use on a dog to train them to stop barking if animals are cognitively unable to perceive pain? We wouldn’t, so where does this theory about the correlation between pain and reason derive, do you think reason or intelligence is related to pain and suffering?

Response to Mary: “Headaches”

2010-10-01T11:43:00.000-07:00

Are there times when we can absolutely tell if an animal is self aware?

I think there are defiantly times when you can tell if an animal is self aware. My dog is currently suffering from having itchy skin. He has big balled spots in his fur because of the amount of scratching he has been doing. I can tell that he is aware of his pain because he cries when he is itching or sometimes when just lying down and his behaviors have changed. We often give him a bone to try to “get his mind off of it”. This is interesting because Mary brought up the discussion about when we have headaches. If we focus our attention on something else we forget about our headaches. I think an animal is the same way but only for that short amount of time that his mind is focused on eating the bone, just as our mind is unfocused for a short period. I don’t think they are always unaware of their pain. I believe that animals can suffer and are very much aware of the pain they are in.

Bermond thinks that humans project the feeling of pain onto animals because we get “emotionally aroused” by seeing them seriously hurt and not because they are actually suffering, do you think that this is a valid argument?

Love

2010-09-26T19:21:00.000-07:00

We all know that it is ethically wrong to throw a newborn baby into a garbage can just because you don’t want it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. I know that I could never hurt a baby but I hurt an animal every time I eat a hamburger, and just because I want it. So why do we do it, isn't it the same thing, hurting the helpless? I think if we had to go out and kill a turkey ourselves most of us would not be eating turkey on thanksgiving because we couldn’t bring ourselves to kill it. We would take one look into its sweet eyes and that would be it, no turkey this year. We all subconsciously know that we are aiding in animal abuse every time we eat meat but that is not enough to make most of us become a vegetarian. The abuse is placed at the back of our minds and we don’t think about it or we come up with excuses, such as “that is what animals are for.” But just as we were helpless as a baby animals are helpless. If we were thrown to the side and placed in the back of our mothers mind we would have been hurt, just as animals are hurt when we shove them below us in status. I think animals deserve to have rights because they are as much a part of this earth as we are and they have wants, needs, desires, thoughts, and they can love. I think my dog loves me but being human I question his ability because I place him below me even though I know I shouldn’t.

Do you think our pets can or do love us in the same way we love them? Can animals love at all?

Response to Hallie Jackson "Subjective Ethics"

2010-09-26T19:19:00.000-07:00

Do you think that if a being has no meaning to any human being that it does not deserve ethical consideration?

I think that every living being, human or not, deserves ethical consideration on the basis that it is alive. I agree that as humans we are always going to put ourselves, our families, and our own pets above any other living creature. But, what about animals such as ants? Ants are not like our pets. We really don’t have emotional ties to them, even if we do keep an ant farm or something. So, do they matter? Do they have ant families? We really don’t know. We know that they are relatively insignificant in our everyday lives but they do contribute to the natural cycle, so do they deserve ethical consideration?

What about a human who is completely alone in the world. Someone who has no family, no friends, and no pets. Do they still deserve ethical treatment even though they don’t matter significantly to another human? I would say that most people would say they do deserve ethical treatment because they are still human. So why couldn’t we say that about the ant? This ant has no special meaning to me but it is still an ant so it deserves to be treated right. Most people wouldn’t say that which proves what you said that “some beings matter to us more than others even if we know it is ethically wrong.”

Why do some animals matter more to us than others?

Suffering vs. Mental Status

2010-09-17T10:04:00.000-07:00

I strongly think that if a living being can suffer it should be given moral rights. But some argue that it is not whether they can suffer but the status of their mental abilities that gives them the right to have rights.

Peter Singer discusses an argument to his theory that pain felt by an animal is not as bad as pain felt by a human because humans have a greater awareness of what is happening to them and as a result their suffering is greater. He responds to this criticism by asking if it would be reasonable then to say that it would be ok to use an infant or a severely mentally disabled person for experiments because they likewise would not understand what was happening. I think it would be reasonable to compare the two because they are parallel. We would never consider using a human for such experiments so why is using animals ok? Just because an animal is not mentally aware of exactly what is being done to them it does not in any way lessen the amount of pain they feel. They still know they are being hurt. As a living thing they feel, think, want, and need certain things, just like a full functioning human being does.

Do you agree that if we would not use an infant or mentally disabled person for experiments that we should likewise not use animals because even though their mental ability is lacking they still suffer and feel the pain that is being afflicted upon them? Do you think moral rights should be based on the ability to suffer, mental ability, or both?

Response to Bee: “Animal Testing”

2010-09-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

Like you, I was struck to my core when reading Singer’s examples of the cruelty to animals during experimentation. There is no excuse for such horrendous treatment to animals.

You asked, “Where does one draw the line between testing for "the good of mankind" and "just out of curiosity"? Is there a better way than using animals?”

I don’t think animals should be used for “curiosity” experiments under any circumstances. I have mixed feelings about using animals for testing. On the one hand, some experiments are beneficial to our knowledge about medicine and diseases, but I think you have to make a distinction between which tests are necessary and have a high percentage of leading to a result and the tests that will most likely be a waste of time. I am against using animals to test beauty products, they are arbitrary and we don’t need to waste a life over shampoo. However, we do have a big need for cancer research because it kills millions of people every year.

I think the line that needs to be drawn is a question of need. Animals are alive just as we are and deserve fair treatment. We don’t need to experiment just for the sake of experimenting. I think a good question to ask ourselves is whether we would sacrifice our own pets for an experiment. Would you give your bunny to and experimenter testing a new cosmetic product, probably not. But you might consider giving your dog to an experimenter who has found a medicine that if given to your dog had a high percentage of curing cancer.

Do you think there is a need to use animals for the testing of beauty products?