Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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Pattern-chaser wrote: June 8th, 2021, 7:22 am
Belindi wrote: June 8th, 2021, 6:02 am I think quite a lot of religious people now understand the value of respect for the natural environment.
I hope so. Historically, many problems have been based on sacred texts to the effect that God gave us the Earth as our plaything, to do with as we wish. Worse than that: God made the Earth specifically for us, to do with as we wish. I wish the compilers of these sacred texts had kept their own wishes and opinions away from the "Word of God". It would've saved a lot of time and trouble.
Do you believe that self-interest of the authors of such texts is the actual origin of the idea that 🌎 earth, 🐿️ animals and 🌻 plants should be considered meaningless in the face of human meaning?

As can be seen in the topic René Descartes: "animals have no mind, torture them all you want", it was even considered OK to torture animals for one's amusement, apparently to serve religion. René Descartes once nailed his 🐕 dog to a table to slowly dissect him alive, to show that the animal had no mind and that pain responses were mere machine like responses.
Descartes Dissected His Wife’s Dog To Prove A Point

French philosopher Rene Descartes didn’t believe animals had souls. To test his theory, he nailed his wife’s dog to a board and chopped it open while the poor thing was still alive.

Taking a hammer, Descartes nailed the creature’s paws spread-eagled to a board and proceeded to chop it to pieces, utterly unfazed by the “appearance” of pain. How Descartes’ wife reacted to finding out her husband mutilated and murdered her pet to prove an obscure point has sadly not been recorded.
The French philosopher Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet) who witnessed the torturing of animals responded with the following:

René Descartes would torture and dissect animals in his lectures, asserting over their cries of pain, that these cries were merely automatic reactions. Voltaire, whom the Church regarded as its greatest enemy, was horrified by such displays:
Voltaire wrote:Hold then the same view of the dog which has lost his master (René Descartes), which has sought him in all the thoroughfares with cries of sorrow, which comes into the house troubled and restless, goes downstairs, goes upstairs; goes from room to room, finds at last in his study the master he loves, and betokens his gladness by soft whimpers, frisks, and caresses.

There are barbarians who seize this dog, who so greatly surpasses man in fidelity and friendship, and nail him down to a table and dissect him alive, to show you the mesaraic veins! You discover in him all the same organs of feeling as in yourself. Answer me, mechanist, has Nature arranged all the springs of feeling in this animal to the end that he might not feel?
Voltaire (1694–1778), Bêtes, Dictionnaire Philosophique.

Philosophy or 'reason beyond value' may be a solution.

Philosopher Henry David Thoreau once said the following about the enhancement of human ethical practice in general:

"Whatever my own practice may be, I have no doubt that it is a part of the destiny of the human race, in its gradual improvement, to leave off eating animals, as surely as the savage tribes have left off eating each other when they came in contact with the more civilized."

It appears that he was right. Millennials (Gen Y) have been driving a global shift away from eating animals, to serve moral considerations and Gen Z is accelerating a shift to veganism.

(2018) Millennials Are Driving The Worldwide Shift Away From Meat
A global reduction in meat consumption between 2016 and 2050 could save up to eight million lives per year and $31 trillion in reduced costs from health care and climate change. (National Academy of Sciences).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpel ... from-meat/

It may be a sign of higher intelligence when the human shows potential for moral consideration (reason). As such, it can be demanded on behalf of human dignity. A lack of care or moral consideration can become unjust when the potential for it (in an individual) can be made evident.

An example may be found in the emergence of the field animal ethics of philosophy, and its effects on how humans in general (culturally) perceive and interact with animals.

Animal minds have long been considered a "black box" by science. It wasn't given attention and thus people in general didn't know anything about it and cannot understand a problem with treating animals in a specific way (i.e. without respect).

(2019) Animal Ethics: an important emerging topic for society
Another reason for scientists to engage with the philosophy of animal ethics is that it might help them confront topics that have been traditionally off-limits: in particular, the notion of animal minds. While minds are difficult enough to talk about in humans, this difficulty is exacerbated when it comes to non-human animals.

... animal minds and consciousness have been consigned to a “black box”, an entity too complex or confusing to delve into, but whose inputs and outputs become the object of study.
https://cosmosmagazine.com/society/anim ... and-ethics

Animal ethics evolves on the basis of advancements in intelligence and moral consideration (reason). It could be an argument that humans should choose wisely when they have the capacity to do so. A greater capacity in intelligence and moral consideration for animals comes with new responsibilities, and as such, the human being naturally evolves culturally into a state of less violence towards animals.

The same may be possible with regard earth, living creatures in general and perhaps even 'Nature' as a whole that would span the Universe.

When the human intends to prosper not only for the purpose to live another day (which would include 100-200 years, i.e. a 'short term' perspective), but for the long term (i.e. millions of years), the path that is chosen today can have a profound impact and it can be an argument that the human should chose wisely (by which philosophy or reason would essentially acquire a leading position, not like a religion with dogma's, but as a continuous quest to discover the optimal path for humanity).

Growth and progress is exponential by which it is increasingly important to make the right choices.

Morality may be the key for success and as it appears, modern day morality is based on 🪄 magical thinking by letting it depend (in general) on the lap part of the human.

Humans are naturally equipped with a 🧭 moral compass but when progress is increasingly made outside the direct influence scope of the human being, paired with the modern day dogma that the facts of science are valid without philosophy (a belief in uniformitarianism), which naturally results in a tendency to completely abolish morality, it may be important that that magical 'moral compass' aspect of human evolution is provided for by a professional plausible method that can secure long term success on that regard: philosophy.

(2020) How we make moral decisions
The researchers now hope to explore the reasons why people sometimes don't seem to use universalization in cases where it could be applicable, such as combating climate change. One possible explanation is that people don't have enough information about the potential harm that can result from certain actions, Levine says.
https://phys.org/news/2020-10-moral-decisions.html

The scientists write that they "hope" that humanity / science will investigate the reasons why people sometimes do not use the "universalization principle" for moral considerations and decisions.

In 2020, the universalization principle appears to be the only method that is considered available for guiding human action and science.

How could the universalisation principle protect 🌿🌲🌼 Nature when faced with a potential trillion USD 🧬 synthetic biology revolution that reduces plants and animals to meaningless beyond the value that a company can 👁️ "see" in them?

In my opinion, philosophy and morality may play a vital role in the next 100 years to allow humans to evolve into a 'moral being' to secure longer term prosperity and survival.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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Pattern-chaser wrote: June 8th, 2021, 7:22 am
Belindi wrote: June 8th, 2021, 6:02 am I think quite a lot of religious people now understand the value of respect for the natural environment.
I hope so. Historically, many problems have been based on sacred texts to the effect that God gave us the Earth as our plaything, to do with as we wish. Worse than that: God made the Earth specifically for us, to do with as we wish. I wish the compilers of these sacred texts had kept their own wishes and opinions away from the "Word of God". It would've saved a lot of time and trouble.
The thing is, and my reply is also for Sculpture, religion is man made and man can change it by democratic means or if this fails, by starting up a new religion. The Bible is not religion.
The members of the Unitarian church I used to attend were very keen to support the natural environment, and the minister's sermons were frequently to that effect.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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arjand wrote: June 1st, 2021, 8:42 pm Do you mean that it is possible that the man in question functions as a machine like automata, merely because he has just 10% brain tissue?
Are you familiar with the philosophical notion of a zombie (as opposed to e.g. the notion of a zombie in films about voodoo)?
"Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures designed to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike the ones in films or witchcraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like us, and some even spend a lot of time discussing consciousness." (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/)

arjand wrote: June 1st, 2021, 8:42 pmWhen it concerns empirical evidence, then perhaps the information that is available, such as the capacity to find a life partner (wife), raising children, maintaining a regular job etc, all without suspicion, until 44 years of age, is perhaps profound evidence for consciousness.
No. it isn't. It could only be evidence for consciousness if we knew the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness to exist, and we don't.
Philosophy is a waste of time. But then, so is most of life.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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Steve3007 wrote: June 8th, 2021, 5:00 am
Sy Borg wrote:Cat emotions are easy enough to read between eyes, body language and tail movement. Rabbits would seem more difficult, and I expect you'd be looking for a healthy appearance, sprightliness and appetite.
Yes, in rabbits sprightliness comes in the form of the "rabbit binky": jumping and sometimes twisting in the air, just for joie de vivre. We had two rabbits. One still does binkies and gets to run around the garden trying to have sex with the cat during the day having a pretty good life, so I assume he's happy. The other got his head bitten off by a fox some time ago (he went missing from the garden and his headless corpse was found a few hundred yards down the road by a neighbour) so no more binkies for him. He lived fast and died young. Possibly the surviving rabbit saw it as a wake up call to make the most of this brief candle that we call life and binky like it's 1999, while he still can. Or possibly not.
Ha! Goats do something like that too. Puppies too. Not to mention children. I remember doing cartwheels simply because (I thought) I could. Star jumps. Somersaults. Gambolling seems to be something that active young mammals tend to do.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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Sy Borg wrote:Ha! Goats do something like that too. Puppies too. Not to mention children. I remember doing cartwheels simply because (I thought) I could. Star jumps. Somersaults. Gambolling seems to be something that active young mammals tend to do.
Not just kids (of humans and goats) but adults too sometimes. I can't quite stretch to cartwheels these days, but a little skip and jump is fun now and then. But, yes, kids are best at that kind of thing. It's very rare to see a child under the age of about 7 just walking normally down the road, not talking to themselves. Sad that when adults do it we give them a wide birth and look uneasy.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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CIN wrote: June 8th, 2021, 6:43 pm
arjand wrote: June 1st, 2021, 8:42 pm Do you mean that it is possible that the man in question functions as a machine like automata, merely because he has just 10% brain tissue?
Are you familiar with the philosophical notion of a zombie (as opposed to e.g. the notion of a zombie in films about voodoo)?
"Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures designed to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike the ones in films or witchcraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like us, and some even spend a lot of time discussing consciousness." (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/)
The philosophical 🧟 zombie concept merely suggests that an individual cannot judge whether another individual is 'conscious' since it only has it's own 'conscious experience' to base such an assumption on.

There is no suggestion that philosophical zombies actually exist (equally, such evidence would be impossible since otherwise the philosophical zombie concept would render itself meaningless).

From that perspective, one is to assume that a person with 10% brain tissue that performs in life like a regular person (including finding a life partner, raising children etc), posses of conscious experience.
CIN wrote: June 8th, 2021, 6:43 pm
CIN wrote: June 8th, 2021, 6:43 pm
arjand wrote: June 1st, 2021, 8:42 pmWhen it concerns empirical evidence, then perhaps the information that is available, such as the capacity to find a life partner (wife), raising children, maintaining a regular job etc, all without suspicion, until 44 years of age, is perhaps profound evidence for consciousness.
No. it isn't. It could only be evidence for consciousness if we knew the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness to exist, and we don't.
Such argumentation is only valid with the idea that philosophical zombies can exist, which is not a likeliness. Most likely (presumably) is that when a human behaves as a human (verified to not contain any machinery as in the case of the French man), that he/she is conscious just like 'you' (the human observer with a consciousness experience to base that 'assumption' on).
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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arjand wrote: June 22nd, 2021, 3:59 pm The philosophical 🧟 zombie concept merely suggests that an individual cannot judge whether another individual is 'conscious' since it only has it's own 'conscious experience' to base such an assumption on.
I don't think this is true. Not being able to judge whether someone else is conscious is not the same as that person actually not being conscious, which is what the philosophical zombie concept is all about.
There is no suggestion that philosophical zombies actually exist
Whether they exist is not determined by whether anyone suggests that they exist. There were subatomic particles for millions of years before anyone suggested that they existed.
(equally, such evidence would be impossible since otherwise the philosophical zombie concept would render itself meaningless).
Surely not. If evidence for the instantiation of a concept is possible, then the concept must be meaningful, because if it weren't, there would be nothing that could be instantiated, and therefore nothing for which there could be any evidence.
From that perspective, one is to assume that a person with 10% brain tissue that performs in life like a regular person (including finding a life partner, raising children etc), posses of conscious experience.
I don't think you have succeeded in showing this.
arjand wrote: June 22nd, 2021, 3:59 pm
CIN wrote: June 8th, 2021, 6:43 pm
arjand wrote: June 1st, 2021, 8:42 pmWhen it concerns empirical evidence, then perhaps the information that is available, such as the capacity to find a life partner (wife), raising children, maintaining a regular job etc, all without suspicion, until 44 years of age, is perhaps profound evidence for consciousness.
No. it isn't. It could only be evidence for consciousness if we knew the necessary and sufficient conditions for consciousness to exist, and we don't.

Such argumentation is only valid with the idea that philosophical zombies can exist, which is not a likeliness. Most likely (presumably) is that when a human behaves as a human (verified to not contain any machinery as in the case of the French man), that he/she is conscious just like 'you' (the human observer with a consciousness experience to base that 'assumption' on).
It is reasonable to assume that other people are conscious like oneself, but only if they seem to be constructed in the same way as oneself. A man with only 10% brain tissue is not constructed in the same way as me, so it is not reasonable for me to assume that he is conscious.
Philosophy is a waste of time. But then, so is most of life.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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Not only plants but also the whole non-human and human world should be allocated moral status as existing in their own right.

Unless we men give moral status to what is not human there will soon be no more human beings , and many life other forms also will be destroyed.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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Do you believe that the Solar system should be allocated moral status? If so, what would be the ground for that?
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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arjand wrote: June 25th, 2021, 9:24 pm Do you believe that the Solar system should be allocated moral status? If so, what would be the ground for that?
Yes, but mostly as an attitude of respect towards it. The Solar System and the Galaxy are become more important now that man has left a lot of his rubbish beyond the stratosphere.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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arjand wrote: June 25th, 2021, 9:24 pm Do you believe that the Solar system should be allocated moral status? If so, what would be the ground for that?

No.
There is no grounds for that.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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arjand wrote: June 25th, 2021, 9:24 pm Do you believe that the Solar system should be allocated moral status? If so, what would be the ground for that?
It's not a matter of us sparing the solar system, it's a matter of whether the solar system will spare us. It will not take moral status into consideration as but solar flares, asteroids, comets, rogue stars, planets and black holes are equal opportunity destroyers. Humans appear to not be wildly different.

There's some temperance in the details of humanity's targets for destruction, but generally humanity is a powerful local entropic force that uses energy around it to create new organisation, and more quickly and on a smaller scale than the more destructive examples of the above cosmic phenomena.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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Sculptor1 wrote: June 26th, 2021, 6:10 am
arjand wrote: June 25th, 2021, 9:24 pm Do you believe that the Solar system should be allocated moral status? If so, what would be the ground for that?

No.
There is no grounds for that.
I think there may be grounds for that: mutual dependence and mutual connection.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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Belindi wrote: June 26th, 2021, 4:47 am
arjand wrote: June 25th, 2021, 9:24 pm Do you believe that the Solar system should be allocated moral status? If so, what would be the ground for that?
Yes, but mostly as an attitude of respect towards it. The Solar System and the Galaxy are become more important now that man has left a lot of his rubbish beyond the stratosphere.
Are you really calling here for respect for the Solar System, or are you rather calling for treating the Solar System in a way that respects future sentient users and inhabitants of it? In which case, the Solar System is not really being granted moral status; it is the users and inhabitants who are granted moral status. For myself, I can't see that there is any sense in granting moral status to anything that isn't sentient; it would be committing a kind of pathetic fallacy, like worshipping a carved block of wood.
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Re: Do plants deserve a moral status as "animal"?

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Pattern-chaser wrote: June 26th, 2021, 7:33 am
Sculptor1 wrote: June 26th, 2021, 6:10 am
arjand wrote: June 25th, 2021, 9:24 pm Do you believe that the Solar system should be allocated moral status? If so, what would be the ground for that?

No.
There is no grounds for that.
I think there may be grounds for that: mutual dependence and mutual connection.
No I think not. The solar system cannot depend on humans; the only unambiguous moral agent known in the universe.
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