René Descartes: "animals have no mind, torture them all you want"

[Sculptor1]

René Descartes (1596 - 1650) was a French philosopher and mathematician whose articulate reasoning about the nature of animals was and still is widely held by many people, to the detriment of animals.

Descartes held that only humans are conscious, have minds and souls, can learn and have language, and therefore only humans are deserving of compassion. According to Descartes, animals are like a 'clock' and you can torture them as you like.

http://www.animalethics.org.uk/descartes.html

There is an interesting meme on that page stating the humans kill 3 billion ducks every year.
Of course if there were no humans 3 billion ducks, on average would still die every year - the difference is that they would die in horrible natural circumstances, whereas the ducks killed by humans end their lives with minimal pain because we do not accept what Descartes is supposed ot have said about animals; animals have the right to die on comfort, unlike humans.

[Sculptor1]

Steve3007 mentioned that doubted whether he would empathize with animals when he would live in the 17th Century. My question was intended to discover what reason he might forsee to not naturally empathize with animals in a different time.

He would be accessing a smaller, and different, body of knowledge in the 17th century as compared with today's knowledge. Sadly, in many ways, Europeans at the time were far more ignorant of nature than the "primitive" people they displaced around the world, whose knowledge was mostly ignored, and thus lost, lost for centuries.

That would depend on what you mean by nature. "Primitives", as you call them were desperately ignorant of many natural phenomena that the enlightenment was, at that time revealing.
As for empathy with animals. Anthropology demonstrates the so-called "primitive" societies were not so easy to caricature as empathic with animals. If you can think of a different way to live, and a different attitude to hold for animals and humans, then some society somewhere would represent that view point; from the deeply violent and warlike Yanomami to the gentle San and every thing in between.
"Primitive" Semites were know to keep pigs just for the purpose of torturing them. Shocking archaeological finds shows how they were kept alive with their legs broken, and healed only to be broken again.
You'll find the reference to this practice in Hitchen's "God is Not Great".

[Sy Borg]

He would be accessing a smaller, and different, body of knowledge in the 17th century as compared with today's knowledge. Sadly, in many ways, Europeans at the time were far more ignorant of nature than the "primitive" people they displaced around the world, whose knowledge was mostly ignored, and thus lost, lost for centuries.

That would depend on what you mean by nature. "Primitives", as you call them were desperately ignorant of many natural phenomena that the enlightenment was, at that time revealing.
As for empathy with animals. Anthropology demonstrates the so-called "primitive" societies were not so easy to caricature as empathic with animals. If you can think of a different way to live, and a different attitude to hold for animals and humans, then some society somewhere would represent that view point; from the deeply violent and warlike Yanomami to the gentle San and every thing in between.
"Primitive" Semites were know to keep pigs just for the purpose of torturing them. Shocking archaeological finds shows how they were kept alive with their legs broken, and healed only to be broken again.
You'll find the reference to this practice in Hitchen's "God is Not Great".

Fair point, and taken, but there was also knowledge about the natural environment gained by indigenous people that was long disregarded because they were seen as "primitive".

An example would be the Australian practice of burning large tracts of forest down to a cinder to ... prevent forests from burning to a cinder. Only after the bushfires did Aboriginal burning practices come to the mainstream, and the fact that they did not annihilate huge amounts of forest but strategically burnt smaller sections https://landcareaustralia.org.au/projec ... anagement/

[Sculptor1]

That would depend on what you mean by nature. "Primitives", as you call them were desperately ignorant of many natural phenomena that the enlightenment was, at that time revealing.
As for empathy with animals. Anthropology demonstrates the so-called "primitive" societies were not so easy to caricature as empathic with animals. If you can think of a different way to live, and a different attitude to hold for animals and humans, then some society somewhere would represent that view point; from the deeply violent and warlike Yanomami to the gentle San and every thing in between.
"Primitive" Semites were know to keep pigs just for the purpose of torturing them. Shocking archaeological finds shows how they were kept alive with their legs broken, and healed only to be broken again.
You'll find the reference to this practice in Hitchen's "God is Not Great".

Fair point, and taken, but there was also knowledge about the natural environment gained by indigenous people that was long disregarded because they were seen as "primitive".

An example would be the Australian practice of burning large tracts of forest down to a cinder to ... prevent forests from burning to a cinder. Only after the bushfires did Aboriginal burning practices come to the mainstream, and the fact that they did not annihilate huge amounts of forest but strategically burnt smaller sections https://landcareaustralia.org.au/projec ... anagement/

Yes. They call it fire-stick farming. It increases the species diversity. Its a high risk strategy though.
Claude-Levi Strauss in his book "Le Pensee Sauvage" is an interesting read in this respect. "Primitive" science might be "wrong" but any process of learning that systematizes tend to bring results. That's how much of the "Four Humours" of the ancient world managed to find treatments for many ailments. The trouble is, though, that without rigorous investigations and methods, such systems did more by bamboozling than actually curing. That's how homeopathy "works" (ahem!).

[psyreporter]

There is an interesting meme on that page stating the humans kill 3 billion ducks every year.
Of course if there were no humans 3 billion ducks, on average would still die every year - the difference is that they would die in horrible natural circumstances, whereas the ducks killed by humans end their lives with minimal pain because we do not accept what Descartes is supposed ot have said about animals; animals have the right to die on comfort, unlike humans.

Will the animals have the potential to be happy?

Animal Cruelty Is the Price We Pay for Cheap Meat
Given the scale of the business – each year in the US, an estimated 9 billion broiler chickens, 113 million pigs, 33 million cows and 250 million turkeys are raised for our consumption in dark, filthy, pestilent barns.

If you haven’t been in a hen plant, you don’t know what hell is,” says an activist. “chicken **** is piled six feet high, and your lungs burn like you took a torch to 'em.

From the moment a pig is born, she’s on her own, spending four or five years in a tiny crate and kept perpetually pregnant and made sick from breathing in her own waste while fed food packed with growth-promoting drugs, and sometimes even garbage.
https://www.rollingstone.com/interactiv ... activists/

Is eating animal meat the most wise choice for humans? There is some evidence that eating animal meat is not the most optimal for human health and efficiency.

(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 ... 0b03f3a4a4

Is it wise to treat animals cruel?

[Sy Borg]

Fair point, and taken, but there was also knowledge about the natural environment gained by indigenous people that was long disregarded because they were seen as "primitive".

An example would be the Australian practice of burning large tracts of forest down to a cinder to ... prevent forests from burning to a cinder. Only after the bushfires did Aboriginal burning practices come to the mainstream, and the fact that they did not annihilate huge amounts of forest but strategically burnt smaller sections https://landcareaustralia.org.au/projec ... anagement/

Yes. They call it fire-stick farming. It increases the species diversity. Its a high risk strategy though.
Claude-Levi Strauss in his book "Le Pensee Sauvage" is an interesting read in this respect. "Primitive" science might be "wrong" but any process of learning that systematizes tend to bring results. That's how much of the "Four Humours" of the ancient world managed to find treatments for many ailments. The trouble is, though, that without rigorous investigations and methods, such systems did more by bamboozling than actually curing. That's how homeopathy "works" (ahem!).

Not to mention Chinese medicine, that is helping to drive a number of extinctions, as if other animals weren't doing it hard enough with climate change, ecosystem destruction, etc.

Still, basic as traditional societies could be, I wonder how many would be so mind-blowingly obtuse as to think that a crying animal is not in pain? How could anyone be so thick? The older I get, the more I think that the world would be a better place if ideologies did not exist. It's one thing to have a notion of what might make for a better society, another for people to fantasise that they know what is best for everyone else and are then prepared to perform violence to support their delusions.

[LuckyR]

There is an interesting meme on that page stating the humans kill 3 billion ducks every year.
Of course if there were no humans 3 billion ducks, on average would still die every year - the difference is that they would die in horrible natural circumstances, whereas the ducks killed by humans end their lives with minimal pain because we do not accept what Descartes is supposed ot have said about animals; animals have the right to die on comfort, unlike humans.

Will the animals have the potential to be happy?

Animal Cruelty Is the Price We Pay for Cheap Meat
Given the scale of the business – each year in the US, an estimated 9 billion broiler chickens, 113 million pigs, 33 million cows and 250 million turkeys are raised for our consumption in dark, filthy, pestilent barns.

If you haven’t been in a hen plant, you don’t know what hell is,” says an activist. “chicken **** is piled six feet high, and your lungs burn like you took a torch to 'em.

From the moment a pig is born, she’s on her own, spending four or five years in a tiny crate and kept perpetually pregnant and made sick from breathing in her own waste while fed food packed with growth-promoting drugs, and sometimes even garbage.
https://www.rollingstone.com/interactiv ... activists/

Is eating animal meat the most wise choice for humans? There is some evidence that eating animal meat is not the most optimal for human health and efficiency.

(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 ... 0b03f3a4a4

Is it wise to treat animals cruel?

I can't agree more. Meat should be more expensive (to reflect the true cost of humane ranching) and therefore less plentiful. Folks would be healthier, the environment would be better and there would be far fewer but better maintained domesticated animals. Win/win/win.

[baker]

Is it wise to treat animals cruel?

Not to mention Chinese medicine, that is helping to drive a number of extinctions, as if other animals weren't doing it hard enough with climate change, ecosystem destruction, etc.

Some people believe (and not only Abrahamists) that "humans must show animals who's the boss" and that if humans were to treat animals better, then they'd stop being humans and would become animals themselves.

So there are people who fear being lorded over by animals or becoming like them.

[Belindi]

Will the animals have the potential to be happy?

Animal Cruelty Is the Price We Pay for Cheap Meat
Given the scale of the business – each year in the US, an estimated 9 billion broiler chickens, 113 million pigs, 33 million cows and 250 million turkeys are raised for our consumption in dark, filthy, pestilent barns.

If you haven’t been in a hen plant, you don’t know what hell is,” says an activist. “chicken **** is piled six feet high, and your lungs burn like you took a torch to 'em.

From the moment a pig is born, she’s on her own, spending four or five years in a tiny crate and kept perpetually pregnant and made sick from breathing in her own waste while fed food packed with growth-promoting drugs, and sometimes even garbage.
https://www.rollingstone.com/interactiv ... activists/

Is eating animal meat the most wise choice for humans? There is some evidence that eating animal meat is not the most optimal for human health and efficiency.

(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 ... 0b03f3a4a4

Is it wise to treat animals cruel?

I can't agree more. Meat should be more expensive (to reflect the true cost of humane ranching) and therefore less plentiful. Folks would be healthier, the environment would be better and there would be far fewer but better maintained domesticated animals. Win/win/win.

I too agree.

So we can practise what we preach we have to eliminate poverty which forces people, if they eat any protein, to eat bad protein.

We see time and time again that left and right wing political stances are the visible markers of two unvarying underlying sets of morals.

[Sculptor1]

There is an interesting meme on that page stating the humans kill 3 billion ducks every year.
Of course if there were no humans 3 billion ducks, on average would still die every year - the difference is that they would die in horrible natural circumstances, whereas the ducks killed by humans end their lives with minimal pain because we do not accept what Descartes is supposed ot have said about animals; animals have the right to die on comfort, unlike humans.

Will the animals have the potential to be happy?

I don't know are you happy. It does not look like it.
In general domesticated animals have a stress free, disease free, and safe life protected from violence and predation.
They enjoy a swift end to their lives.

Animal Cruelty Is the Price We Pay for Cheap Meat[/b]
Given the scale of the business – each year in the US, an estimated 9 billion broiler chickens, 113 million pigs, 33 million cows and 250 million turkeys are raised for our consumption in dark, filthy, pestilent barns.

I've kept animals for eggs, milk and meat myself.
Barns are not pestilent. Not only is that illegal, it is bad business.
It's pointless if you are going to get hysterical.
Chickens wouldn't know what happiness was if you told them a good joke.
I only buy free range pork and Danish bacon (they have good standards there), because pigs are at least as smart as dogs, and know what suffering is.
As for beef. The British herd is kept to high standards.
I keep eating meat because I think it is important to keep stock on the land, and not just turn all the soil into a desert of monocultural wheat which poisons the water supply with fertilizers and pesticides.

[Sculptor1]

Yes. They call it fire-stick farming. It increases the species diversity. Its a high risk strategy though.
Claude-Levi Strauss in his book "Le Pensee Sauvage" is an interesting read in this respect. "Primitive" science might be "wrong" but any process of learning that systematizes tend to bring results. That's how much of the "Four Humours" of the ancient world managed to find treatments for many ailments. The trouble is, though, that without rigorous investigations and methods, such systems did more by bamboozling than actually curing. That's how homeopathy "works" (ahem!).

Not to mention Chinese medicine, that is helping to drive a number of extinctions, as if other animals weren't doing it hard enough with climate change, ecosystem destruction, etc.

Still, basic as traditional societies could be, I wonder how many would be so mind-blowingly obtuse as to think that a crying animal is not in pain? How could anyone be so thick? The older I get, the more I think that the world would be a better place if ideologies did not exist. It's one thing to have a notion of what might make for a better society, another for people to fantasise that they know what is best for everyone else and are then prepared to perform violence to support their delusions.

I agree. Animals are capable of suffering.
I've not seen a direct quote offered from Descartes - but religious faith does strange things to people's brains.

[Sy Borg]

I've not seen a direct quote offered from Descartes - but religious faith does strange things to people's brains.

Such as engaging in ruthless, self-righteous cruelty. The Crusades. The Inquisition. The continuing cruelties against queer people and those of other faiths. Political corruption. Cronyism.

All can be justified when one is convinced one is doing God's work.

[psyreporter]

Chickens wouldn't know what happiness was if you told them a good joke.

Perhaps the chicken simply doesn't understand human language.

The following article indicates that chicken happiness is something of substance from the perspective of experts.

(2019) Finding signs of happiness in chickens could help us understand their lives in captivity
https://theconversation.com/finding-sig ... ity-119613

What would happiness entail for an animal? Why should a human care about the potential for happiness in animals?

The following theory shows that happiness of animals can be considered essential from the perspective of humans and that empathy for animals is not required to consider the essentiality of happiness in animals.

Valuing must precede the senses and thus valuing must precede the human, animal and plant alike. The reason that valuing must precede the senses is that valuing requires a distinguish ability which it appropriates from what can be indicated as "good".

The simple logical truth that something cannot be the origin of itself implies that "good" cannot be valued and cannot be proven to exist using empirical science.

The realness of emotions such as pain proves that "good" is real.

The purpose of life is "good". If the purpose of life were to be other than "good", it would imply that it can be valued by which the concept 'purpose' would lose its meaning.

A purpose of life is essential for value to be possible because for value to be possible, it is required that "good" existed beforehand.

Value follows from the discovery of "good" and thus the valuer (the human, animal or plant) can find purpose in the serving of life by discovering what is "good".

Value cannot be an end or purpose by itself as that would result in corruption. (it would result in a figurative stone that sinks in the ocean of time).

The essentiality of the purpose of life, and the serving thereof by humans, implies that a basis of respect (moral consideration) for animals and plants is essential since their discovery of "good" will result in value relative to the purpose of life that no valuer can know beforehand.

The essentiality of a basis of respect for animals and plants naturally results in the question "what is 'good' for animals and plants?" and subsequently, the consideration of the essentiality of the potential for happiness in animals and plants.

Conclusion:

Since the value of another person, animal or plant relative to the purpose of life cannot be known beforehand, a base level of respect for others (Nature) is required to serve the purpose of life, which naturally results in the consideration of what is "good" for an other (animal or plant) and thus the natural consideration of the essentiality of the potential for their happiness (moral consideration).

My argument is that you cannot stand above life as being life and that you can only serve life. A basis of respect for Nature (plants and animals) may be essential for Nature to prosper.

[Sculptor1]

I've not seen a direct quote offered from Descartes - but religious faith does strange things to people's brains.

Such as engaging in ruthless, self-righteous cruelty. The Crusades. The Inquisition. The continuing cruelties against queer people and those of other faiths. Political corruption. Cronyism.

All can be justified when one is convinced one is doing God's work.

I'm pretty sure every priest who buggered a choir boy, thought he could pray away his sins too.

[Sculptor1]

Chickens wouldn't know what happiness was if you told them a good joke.

Perhaps the chicken simply doesn't understand human language.

Chickens don't even know they are dead when you chop their heads off.