
Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists - zosimus
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-17116882
======
nathan_long
>> They believe dolphins and whales are sufficiently intelligent to justify
the same ethical considerations as humans.

I don't have a problem with extending legal protection to dolphins, but I do
think that "intelligence" as the criteria is morally problematic, at least if
it's the _sole_ criteria.

For instance, could a person with Down's Syndrome be denied protection from
murder?

The Christian worldview holds that human life has value intrinsically because
God values it. Whether you agree with this or not, I hope you'd want to avoid
drawing moral conclusions such as "my life is more valuable than my neighbor's
because I'm obviously smarter."

Especially considering how slippery the definition of "intelligence" is.

~~~
dharmach
Your opinion is correct but don't drag Christianity here. Christianity did
enough violence on the name of non-violent Jesus. Better you talk of universal
human values.

~~~
nathan_long
>> Your opinion is correct but don't drag Christianity here. Christianity did
enough violence on the name of non-violent Jesus. Better you talk of universal
human values.

I understand your sentiment, but 1) you're making an "ad hominem" against
Christianity, which I could argue is not justified but in any case is not
pertinent, and 2) what you're asking ultimately doesn't make sense.

We're having a discussion about what is or is not moral. Any answer you can
give necessarily depends on views which can only be classified as religious,
even if you are a purely a materialist; they involve the purpose of existence,
what it means to be human, etc.

Consider this exchange:

A: "We should not commit genocide." B: "Why?" A: "Because protecting life is a
universal human value." B: "It's not universal if I don't agree with it. Why
should I care?" A: "Because we can't survive as a species unless we protect
one another." B: "What if I don't care about the species, but only about
myself?" A: "Genocide is still wrong. You shouldn't do it." B: "Says who?"

Ultimately A has to answer "there is a larger moral principle outside of you
which, whether you agree with it or not, you are obligated to obey", which is
a religious statement.

The only other option is "many of us prefer that you don't do this and we will
use force to stop you." That's pragmatic, but it's not about morality at all;
it could just as well be applied to playing the bagpipes.

You can't exclude religion from moral debates because morality is inherently
about religion.

~~~
sageikosa
I don't classify my views as religious, although I do classify mine as moral.

Existence doesn't have a purpose. Existence simply "is". Purpose (in general)
is the goals of pre-planned actions taken by intelligent agents acting to
achieve specific ends through whatever agencies they believe themselves to
control.

My answer to what is moral is to undertake actions that work to achieve those
ends, as opposed to random junk and hoping for the best. Moral is to think,
not accept dogma. For me, that is the exact opposite of religion.

------
njl
I'm very comfortable with this in the general case; I feel guilty eating bacon
because pigs seem pretty smart. Still, rights always come paired up with
responsibilities. Do we then try dolphins for rape or murder?

Rather than saying certain categories of animals should have the same rights
as humans, maybe we'd be better off saying certain categories of animals
deserve a higher level of ethical and legal consideration.

~~~
sethbannon
A 10 month old has no responsibilities. Certainly, though, she has rights.

~~~
monsterix
While theorizing tests of animal psyche and self-awareness might be helpful to
the purpose, but what we humans forget is the preciseness of agent Smith's
evaluation of us:

"I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to
me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not
actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural
equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move
to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is
consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There
is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know
what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.
You're a plague and we are the cure." [1]

There is no chance any animal/fish is going to survive the brunt of us 9
billion in next fifty years.

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM1-DQ2Wo_w>

~~~
lumberjack
>There is no chance any animal/fish is going to survive the brunt of us 9
billion in next fifty years.

I won't be so sure considering that unlike a Virus we are aware of the damage
we are causing and are already trying to mitigate it.

~~~
pyre
We can see a 100 ft. wave coming at our rowboat, and some of us are trying to
paddle with our hands, and some of us are trying to design a better rowboat
(predicting that there is enough time to design/build this before the wave
hits), while others are arguing that the wave doesn't exist or will dissipate
before it reaches us. I don't have a whole lot of faith.

------
jawns
I'd be a lot more sympathetic to the cause of treating dolphins as if they had
human rights if we first agreed to treat all humans as if they had human
rights.

~~~
w1ntermute
Yep, slavery exists to this day in many parts of Africa and India. That should
be our first concern.

~~~
papsosouid
But first we need to find out exactly which slaves have it the worst, and free
all of them. We can't go around doing good things for anyone other than the
absolute worst off people. Luckily this means we can spend all our time
debating who has it worst instead of doing anything to help anyone.

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome
This is snarcky but it points out as strongly as possible what is so wrong
with prioritization of good causes, it should pop out automatically every time
someone tries to discuss this. And I would like to add that there are enougth
amount of humans for caring about all the good causes.

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protomyth
Ok, so if dolphins were given the same rights as humans, what is done when one
dolphin kills another dolphin or other offenses[1]?

1)
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2009/05/13/dolphins_are...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2009/05/13/dolphins_are_violent_predators_that_kill_their_own_babies.html)

------
EvaPeron
If we are on the subject of what animals it is ethical to hunt, etc., how
about more strongly protecting the Great Apes (chimps, bonobos, gorillas,
orangutans) as they are our closest cousins in nature? Whales are more a
rival, than anything else.

------
JoeAltmaier
I'd like to reference an argument presented here before when this same issue
came up.

Japanese harvest ships slaughter thousands of dolphins each year, in a certain
bay. Some escape. Next year, more olphins return to the bay and are caught,
seemingly by surprise?

SO either, the escaped dolphins did not communicate the danger, were unable to
communicate, or just didn't care what happened to other dolphins.

In any of those cases, do we have the duty to protect the lives of dolphins?
Either they are not intelligent, not communicative, or have no racial ethic
that values dolphin life. Why would we?

~~~
papsosouid
You are making a whole lot of unfounded assumptions. Who says those that
escape knew the fate of those that didn't? Who says they have a choice as to
where to go? Perhaps they need to be in that area at that time because that is
where their food is at that time. The options you present are not even
remotely close to exhaustive, yet you hide behind their totality for your
excuse to avoid considering the issue at all.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Dolphins are among the freest creatures in the ocean, traveling vast distances
in little time and pretty much independent. And I'm sure something drives them
to be in that bay at that time; its just not a higher intelligence, by all the
evidence. Thus the tendency to reinforce: dolphins are dumb animals.

So this argument isn't 'considering the issue at all'? Then what's it about?
Some other issue? Would a personal attack have been more on-point? (sarcasm)

~~~
Evbn
And Rwandans are clearly subhuman unintelligent for trying to return home
after the war instead of wandering across African desert in new directions.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
This bay is 'home'? To a creature free to roam the ocean at will, live
anywhere with equal facility? THe analogy doesn't hold.

------
Osmium
It always seemed to me that our lack of consideration for these animals as
"non-human persons" only serves to demonstrate a failure of empathy on our
part, solely because we are unable to communicate with them. We don't know
whether dolphins have a formal language yet, but we do know they can
communicate with each other, and if we ever figure out a way to communicate
with them too it'd probably go a long way to convincing people that they
deserve rights.

It's the height of arrogance to assume the humans are the only species on this
planet that deserve these rights. And it's not helped by animal rights
organisations, that preach that _all_ animals deserve _equal_ rights to
humans, which is an absurdity that doesn't help their cause, since it drives
more reasonable people away from the idea that _some_ animals really do
deserve these rights.

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome
Human rigths were created not because we believe we deserve those, but as a
tool to keep the peace among us. So the sad true is that most of us don't have
a strong intrinsic motivation to grant rights to animals, one of the reasons
being that they are not a thread to our existence; but even if they were the
impossibility of communication would make any agreement (aka mutual rights)
impossible.

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johnnyg
Sorry, but I'm going to need a Dolphin declaration of independence, armed
revolution and ability to self sustain through value creation first.

~~~
swombat
I think it could easily be argued that the dolphins' way of life is more
sustainable than ours... Probably not the best line of argument!

~~~
Jach
In the long term? No way. Only humans have the potential to spread themselves
off this rock and throughout the solar system and beyond. Dolphins are limited
to where we take them.

~~~
Osmium
Conversely, only humans have the ability to wipe all forms of intelligent life
off this planet and hasten their own destruction.

Furthermore, you could've made the same comment about us [humans] just a few
thousand years ago. And considering the rate of evolution compared to the
length of time this planet is going to be around for, it's probably a bad idea
to extrapolate the fate of dolphins in the future based on their current
capabilities.

------
TomGullen
> It is based on years of research that has shown dolphins and whales have
> large, complex brains and a human-like level of self-awareness

How did they conclude dolphins and whales are self-aware comparatively to
humans? That seems like quite a large claim to make and the argument
significantly hinges on this.

I wasn't aware of any scientific method to prove self awareness.

~~~
sethammons
A program a watched a long time ago showed researchers working with dolphins.
They would draw something with a marker on the side of the dolphin, and then
it would race to an underwater mirror and contort its body to view the mark.
The researchers said that this demonstrated self-awareness. As for being
compared to humans, meh. I donno.

~~~
talmand
Since I did not see this program I have to ask; did they reward the dolphin in
any way for performing this task?

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sethbannon
I applaud this. It's time we stop drawing the line of where rights begin and
end at the species barrier and start taking a characteristics based approach.
What are the characteristics of a human that lead us to say one should have
rights? If other species share those characteristics, they too should be
granted those rights.

~~~
crusso
As a species, humans agree to basic rules of conduct that form an implied
Social Contract.

Can any non-human species do that?

~~~
jlgreco
Certainly a potential example from the past could perhaps be found in the
social relations humans had with our close relatives. The relationships
between Neanderthal and Cro-Magon is contested and ultimately largely unknown,
however it seems likely there was some recognition of each other involved as
something other than mere beasts.

~~~
crusso
_Certainly a potential example from the past_

Sorry, my question was rhetorical in reference to existing species, not a
search for prior art.

If Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon did recognize each other with special status,
that would be more of an example of the level of equality that would need to
functionally exist between two species in order for there to be a real
"understanding".

That level of relative equality in no way exists between humans and cetaceans,
so proposals to pretend that they deserve equal status seems illogical to me.
What's next, chickens have eyes like humans so we can't eat them? Green beans
react to stimulii, humans do too, no eating green beans?

Slippery slopes, thy name is PETA.

~~~
jlgreco
I think a relationship between humans and Neanderthal would demonstrate that
relationships can be established with _at least_ that level of dis-simularity.
It would not necessarily be the lowest bound.

------
vitno
So... when dolphins gangs of male bottlenose dolphins isolate a single female
and forcibly mate with her... we charge them with rape, right?

------
tvdw

        Man has always assumed that he was more intelligent than
        dolphins because he had achieved so much... the wheel, 
        New York, wars and so on... while all the dolphins had
        ever done was muck about in the water having a good time.
        But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that
        they were far more intelligent than man... for precisely
        the same reason.

------
EvaPeron
We need to be very careful here. There are those (not myself) who would
contend that a fetus is a "person", thereby implying that abortion is
"murder". I disagree with that, but if we say cetaceans are "persons" than is
whaling then "murder"? Are we calling the Eskimo tribes who to this day hunt
whales as part of their cultural tradition "murderers"? I am all for
conservation, don't get me wrong, but willy-nilly throwing around the word
"person" is not helpful, it is not helpful in the debate about reproductive
choice and it is not helpful in the conservation debate either.

A more general idea that the more "conscious" (variously defined) an entity
is, the more it should be treated humanely. That makes sense to me, and to
most people I would think. But we need to figure out how to do this with
getting into ethical quandaries like the ones outlined.

~~~
swombat
_Are we calling the Eskimo tribes who to this day hunt whales as part of their
cultural tradition "murderers"?_

Would you call the cannibalistic tribes who hunt neighbouring tribes and eat
them in holy rituals murderers?

~~~
EvaPeron
Yes, I call cannibalistic tribes murderers (provided any still exist,
hopefully not). But my point is to not rush to make simplistic categories. My
attitude on these and related issues is that it is enough work, more than
enough work, for me to figure out how to live my own life ethically, without
spending energies casting judgements upon others. Personally, I would never
hunt dolphins or whales - I don't like hunting anyway and would not do that,
heck, I take insects outside when I find them inside rather than stepping on
them, lol - more seriously, yes, I find this research very compelling and for
these reasons the concept of harming sentient beings is very troubling to me,
and would not want to hunt a dolphin or a whale any more than, say, a visitor
from another planet. That said, these are still complex issues which science
can inform upon, but we need also to understand that in nature, in biology,
one's own species is the priority, and so the "better angels of our nature"
may and hopefully do go towards wanting humane treatment for more sentient
creatures, but also let's not get on a bully pulpit on sensitive and complex
matters. Again, I have found it is hard enough to try and be an ethical person
for oneself, without trying to be judge and jury over others. That is my only
point with the Eskimo tribe reference. :-)

------
hannes2000
"When you place dolphins in a situation like that they respond in exactly the
same way humans do" – I doubt any human would just play along with this boring
game.

~~~
pfortuny
Sociologists DO get boring when designing experiments, don't they?

------
brudgers
Philosophically related Podcast [About 15 minutes] on animal abolitionism with
Gary Francione at Philosophy Bites.

It contains a well reasoned critique of Peter Singer's approach to animal
rights which has become mainstream.

[http://philosophybites.com/2012/10/gary-l-francione-on-
anima...](http://philosophybites.com/2012/10/gary-l-francione-on-animal-
abolitionism.html)

------
dfgonzalez
Rights come with Obligations, so as long as they pay their taxes too, I'm OK
with this

~~~
swalberg
The UN has said that broadband Internet is a basic human right. This is
starting to get difficult.

~~~
stephengillie
Internet access is a basic _human_ right because it vastly improves the
quality of human life.

Would internet access be a basic _dolphin_ right? They didn't build it...

~~~
GotAnyMegadeth
Neither did I...

------
mtgx
It probably won't be long until we say the same thing about some "strong AI"
robots.

~~~
Jach
If it's really "strong AI", whether some humans want to grant the AI "rights"
or not is irrelevant. Kind of like ants deciding whether humans should get a
share of the harvest.

------
unoti
Don't elephants have the same kind of self awareness? There are certainly
plenty of stories of elephants helping each other...

------
Randgalt
As soon as dolphins show that they can respect my rights, I'll grant them
rights.

~~~
Evbn
No dolphin has ever bitten and eaten anyone I know.

------
spiritplumber
I'm okay with this.

~~~
michaelfeathers
I think I'm okay with it, but it is a slippery slope. It reminds me of the
abortion wars. People want to find a hard line for "when life starts" in a
continuum. There's no such thing. I think the same thing could be said of all
of the qualities that lead to our notion of personhood.

------
acomjean
so long and thanks for all the fish..?

aquatic jerks?

------
bejar37
P

------
bravoyankee
I believe ALL animals deserve the same rights as humans, and I treat them with
the same measure of respect. I have for years.

------
Apreche
Dolphins voting you say. Obama, to the aquarium!

