Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

What I am really driving at with these questions is whether you think random human beings are close to infinitely more important than any random animal (not a pet). And how much that would change if the human was "worse" than random. Here's some questions along those lines that are quite specific:

1. Someone is choosing between letting one random human die painlessly or letting x random sentient animals (choose whichever is your favorite) die painfully. I have no idea how this situation has arisen so don't worry about it. Is there some number for x that would make you wish he chose the human? If so, what is it?

2. The human is not random but is instead a very bad person. How bad would he have to be for your x to be below 100? How about 1 (in other words one animal is more worth saving)?

3. Same question except while one alternative is to let x animals die painfully, the other alternative is one random human becoming blind in one eye. What's x now? And for x to equal one, how bad a person does he have to be?

PS If the human or animals are saved, assume their life is now normal.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

1. x would have to be very very large. Obviously I would trade 1 human life for the life of all animals on Earth, but only to preserve humanity.

2. I don't really have a scale for "badness," but generally speaking my x is less than 100 for most bad people. My x = 0 for anyone who seriously damages children.

3. x = several thousand. For x = 1, the person has to be below common societal standards for being "good".

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

1. As many of that species as could be lost without guranteed extinction.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

The options seem to miss the important issue which is why the suffering is going on in the first place.

If the human is causing the suffering purely because they enjoy the suffering then I am happy to harm the human a large amount to stop them. If the suffering is accidental or incidental then I wouldn't harm the human to stop it (except in exceptional circumstances)

The badness of the human is otherwise irrelevent.

chez

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

1. 1. Stupid humans are way less worth than stupid animals.

2. 0. Serves him right.

3. 1. He could be Jesus [censored] Christ and I would still have him loose an eye before painfully killing any animals.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

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What I am really driving at with these questions is whether you think random human beings are close to infinitely more important than any random animal (not a pet).

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In a vacuum, I don't believe a human's life is more important than an animal's. No wonder I've found all these animal axiom questions rather silly.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

A human is just an animal. A human and another animals life are equal to me.

1. x=2
2. x=2
3. x=1

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

Couldn't x equal zero too (particularly in questions 2 and 3)? That is, couldn't a person be bad enough that you'd just prefer he die, even if no animals would be harmed if he didn't.

I don't value humans much higher than my favorite animal, so my x's will be fairly low. It won't be 1 though, only cause the emotional harm death causes to other humans is something I'm sympathetic towards. So whether or not the person had a lot of close friends and family means something to me. But I understand your question deals with a "random" human.

Ultimately, the death of people (and other animals) I don't know really doesn't bother me much. If none of my fellow human beings were aware of (and thus not able to judge me for) my decision, my x would probably be 3ish for question 1, and might err closer to 2 or less for question 2 (depending how much that person actually bothers me, if at all).

Maybe I'd end up caring more if I was in the hot seat, but I don't think I naturally have much empathy for "random human". I need some sort of personal relationship, even if that relationship is walking by him on the street or waiting in line behind him at the store. If he's random, he fries.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

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A human is just an animal. A human and another animals life are equal to me.

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Are they really exactly equal though? I agree that humans are just another animal, and not objectively better in any way. But you can still have personal preferences. Clearly you'd stomp on an ant before you'd kick a puppy.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

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Clearly you'd stomp on an ant before you'd kick a puppy.

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That's just dumb. I wouldn't do either intentionally thought I have done both on accident.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

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Clearly you'd stomp on an ant before you'd kick a puppy.

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That's just dumb. I wouldn't do either intentionally thought I have done both on accident.

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My point is even if you claim "all animals are equal," you still have your own personal preferences and biases. And everyone has these. (So the statement is sort of empty.) You can and most likely will still value puppies higher than ants, for one example. So you can still answer the OP's question. I personally don't value humans much higher than some other animals. But there is certainly a difference, albeit mostly arbitrary, in which animals I value. To claim that it's a total wash is to exaggerate your sentiments, imo.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

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I don't value humans much higher than my favorite animal, so my x's will be fairly low. It won't be 1 though, only cause the emotional harm death causes to other humans is something I'm sympathetic towards. So whether or not the person had a lot of close friends and family means something to me. But I understand your question deals with a "random" human.


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Maybe I'd end up caring more if I was in the hot seat, but I don't think I naturally have much empathy for "random human".

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Wow, this is pretty harsh. Not to go all Christmas story with Scrooge on you. but... What if you had to watch the random person die from lethal injection? Or that you had to watch their funeral? Or watch what their family and friends went through once they found out.

I just find it interesting that you (and others) don't value random human life much at all.

Another quick question: How many animals that you would let die painfully before you would have to die painlessly to save them?

Im not sure why this question is much different than the first.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

Im in favor of killing all the animals in the world before you kill me, and im an as.shole

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

1. x is very low

2. for 100 I'd say he's a heavy metal fan, for 1 I'd say he's a big time bigot of any kind

3. x = 1

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

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What I am really driving at with these questions is whether you think random human beings are close to infinitely more important than any random animal (not a pet). And how much that would change if the human was "worse" than random. Here's some questions along those lines that are quite specific:

1. Someone is choosing between letting one random human die painlessly or letting x random sentient animals (choose whichever is your favorite) die painfully. I have no idea how this situation has arisen so don't worry about it. Is there some number for x that would make you wish he chose the human? If so, what is it?

2. The human is not random but is instead a very bad person. How bad would he have to be for your x to be below 100? How about 1 (in other words one animal is more worth saving)?

3. Same question except while one alternative is to let x animals die painfully, the other alternative is one random human becoming blind in one eye. What's x now? And for x to equal one, how bad a person does he have to be?

PS If the human or animals are saved, assume their life is now normal.

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Reading the Sklansky Forum is like watching the television show "Lost". Lots of compelling questions, but you ultimately feel like things are going no where with no real answers and that you are just being strung along.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

What does "sentient animal" mean? Under how I have always interpreted "sentient", I don't believe there are any sentient animals.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

lol?

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

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Wow, this is pretty harsh. Not to go all Christmas story with Scrooge on you. but... What if you had to watch the random person die from lethal injection? Or that you had to watch their funeral? Or watch what their family and friends went through once they found out.

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Then it would change things. I'd feel much more empathy as soon as you introduced that personal component. And if I thought I might have to see their funeral or something (in the future) I'd weigh that into my decision, even though I might not ultimately care at the present time (if I was able to ignore future consequence).

In case I wasn't clear in my original response, knowing that friends and family of this person will be sad is something that definitely does make me care more about a human dying than another animal.

My true answer to this question hinges on the specifics of the artificial scenario. Why does my decision have this effect? In general, I feel worse (or better) about things if I had an active hand in them. So if I deliberately chose for a person to die, I'd feel bad about it. But if it was beyond my control (and by "beyond my control" I mean also if I was involuntarily put in a situation where I had to decide between the person dying and something that I thought was worse) I would care very little. But if I chose for the human to die and for his family to be sad over something petty, I would feel bad about that, so I wouldn't choose it. My decision would bother me. Knowing that *I* caused a person this harm would bother me more than just knowing the harm was caused. But if it was a decision I'm confident in (say the other option was that my parents would die), that aspect is removed and I wouldn't feel any real remorse in watching the person's funeral (not any more so than that of a completely random person whose death I had nothing to do with). Basically, I am not happy when I make another animal's (human or otherwise) life worse. So I need a good reason to feel comfortable doing that.

You can say stuff like "what if you had to watch him die or talk to his family" etc., but you can say similar things for the animals too. What if you had to spend time associating with the chimp, and he became a really good companion and you even started to teach him a little sign language and he did a lot of funny tricks, and then you had to watch him die. But yes, these circumstances would warp my preferences if they existed.

But in terms of actual feelings and desires, the idea of a random person dying doesn't bother me. (Only knowing I caused the harm bothers me.) When I heard on the news today that there was a storm in Alabama that killed 20 people, my thoughts were "hmm, that sucks, oh well." I imagine it would be about the same if I heard that 20 dolphins died in some sort of oil leak accident. I'd be like "ooh, poor dolphins," but I wouldn't really care a whole lot and would just keep flipping the channel.

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I just find it interesting that you (and others) don't value random human life much at all.

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I find human life remarkable. When you really take a step back and think for a while about the complex ways we function (in relation to all the other animals), it's incredible. We're a modern day hallmark of how awesome evolution is. And for that, I value human life. I mean, the root of the value is that I value the evolutionary process, and really nature in general. Humans just happen to be an extension of that, in the same way that people who value a God also value His creations. But I don't see any objective significance in it. A human life does not have innate value to me. The personal relationships that we form with each other gain significance, and even in the absence of any personal relationship our natural sense of empathy usually makes us care at least a very small amount about total strangers or people we've never met. So human life has a very high *potential* to be something I value, but I don't automatically value it just because it exists. And I don't try to convince myself to feel a certain way about something because I think I "should" when I naturally don't. It's not some absolute wall to me.

If I hit my funny bone, that has more of an adverse effect on my day than reading about 3 civilians dying in Iraq. If my dog gets hit by a car it saddens me a lot more than if I read about a plane crash killing 200 people in Kansas. It just does. It's how I feel. And I see no point in being ashamed about that or afraid to admit it. But I understand why it can come across as harsh or even shocking.

Sorry for the long post. The sad part is I intentionally tried not to ramble on.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

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What does "sentient animal" mean? Under how I have always interpreted "sentient", I don't believe there are any sentient animals.

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In this context, it would be something aware of itself, and the reactions to its actions. Feeling guilt, remorse, joy, etc. are examples of things a sentient being experiences.

Often this discussion revolves around infants, and the morality behind killing an infant, usually because of some defect, but ultimately for any reason before the infant is sentient.

I think the mirror test is a test for sentience(sp?) as well, where you put a mirror up to the being, and if it recognizes itself, its sentient.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

These questions are stupid and have no value.

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David,

It's not fair, you won't let us kill the people who do the torturing!

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

To me its a question of values. And whats the value of a human life (good man or bad man) vs. an animal life.

Well, I'll take my human life. Its worth to me is infinite against an animals life, meaning my life is worth more to me than the life of an infinite number of animals. Of course asumming that I can live in a world where an infinite number of animals are killed : ).

Ok, so now if we take someone elses life and what they're life is worth to them. Well, I have no idea. Say they're life to them is worth x number of animals. So, they'd rather be dead if x animals are killed (painlessly or not)

Now, what is other people's life worth to me? Well, since I would like my life worth to be respected by other people, meaning that no one will kill me (or wish I was dead) even if animal deaths are infinity, then I think it is fair for me to respect other people's life worth (against an animals life).

So, to know whether I think a person should die or not after a certain number of animal kills, I would have to find out what that person's own x is.

And, in theory if I find that someone's x is 10, and 10 cats die in front of the person, I would ask "is your x still 10 or do you want to reconsider", if the person says "why don't we make it like 20" then I would say "Okey dok, but remember my x will always be infinite!"

What I'm trying to say is that an animal's life has different values to different people but if you think that someone's life is worth a certain number of animal lives, its fair to accept that to everyone else you're own life is worth certain number of animal lives.

To me it doesn't matter if the person is good or bad. If the person is bad (because he did something bad to humans, not animals) then its a different story, but that person's life worth would be the same no matter how many animals die.

And in theory if someone doesn't respect "my x (which is infinity)", and thinks that I should die if it saves 1000 cats, then its fair for me not to respect "their life x" even if to me they should die if it means saving 2 cats.

Therefore, I don't think anyone should wish or decide over a person's life vs. an animal life except that same person.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

sorry for some typos. ie change their for they're above. It must be dyslexia or something

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

What would you chose your own x to be? Meaning how many animals whould you be willing to die for (painlessly)?

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

I answered these questions without realizing the pain distinction you stipulated. This makes the problem much harder. For me, I think I view it through the lens of something I learned about criticism .

I’ve forgotten the name of the concept, but it’s basically this: try not to comparatively judge a piece of art with other, different forms of art. You must find work from the same school or genre and judge it by that criterion. For instance, in film, you can’t say that this romantic comedy is a great film overall, but rather that it accomplishes everything a romantic comedy should set out to do, and it’s either good or bad in relation to the goals/attributes of other romantic comedies. It can only be justifiably critiqued through the lens of other romantic comedies, not horror films, dramas, etc.

Here’s what I’m getting at in relation to these questions:

I think you have a better chance of randomly selecting any non-human animal that is a better example of its species than you do of selecting a human who is a good example of the human species. Basically, the ratio of worthy humans to unworthy humans is lower than the ratio of worthy kittens to unworthy kittens, or worthy grizzly bears to unworthy grizzly bears, etc.

Obviously “worthy” is a loaded, subjective word, but you might get my drift.

To further clarify my point:

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Obviously I would trade 1 human life for the life of all animals on Earth, but only to preserve humanity.

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I strongly disagree with this statement.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

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...whether you think random human beings are close to infinitely more important than any random animal (not a pet).

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Yes, I do.

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1. Someone is choosing between letting one random human die painlessly or letting x random sentient animals (choose whichever is your favorite) die painfully. I have no idea how this situation has arisen so don't worry about it. Is there some number for x that would make you wish he chose the human? If so, what is it?

2. The human is not random but is instead a very bad person. How bad would he have to be for your x to be below 100? How about 1 (in other words one animal is more worth saving)?

3. Same question except while one alternative is to let x animals die painfully, the other alternative is one random human becoming blind in one eye. What's x now? And for x to equal one, how bad a person does he have to be?

PS If the human or animals are saved, assume their life is now normal.

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1. Save the person. Allow x animals to die painfully. I suppose if x were large enough to make a species extinct, that I'd have to consider the loss of a species to the rest of humanity before making a decision. It is possible that allowing one person to die painlessly would be better than the extinction of a species, painfully or otherwise. Any large number of x short of extinction, however, and I'd save the person.

2. Same as 1, above. Save the person. Even a bad person is worth more than the animals. In fact, even if the person were on death row pending execution on Thursday for multiple murder, I'd let the animals die on Wednesday so the person could be executed in accordance with the law on schedule rather than die due to some decision of mine to save x animals the day before.

3. Same as 1 and 2, above. Save the person's eye no matter how big the x as long as x isn't so large that the species would be extinct. Even then, it would depend on the species.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

"2. Same as 1, above. Save the person. Even a bad person is worth more than the animals. In fact, even if the person were on death row pending execution on Thursday for multiple murder, I'd let the animals die on Wednesday so the person could be executed in accordance with the law on schedule rather than die due to some decision of mine to save x animals the day before."

In that case, i'd choose you to alleviate suffering of one animal.

Re: Most Explicit Animal Axiom Question Yet
 

If someone messed with my dog I would cheerfully shoot them down if I could get away with it.

But if I did that God would punish me. In fact he will punish me just for thinking it. God is a tough dude.

He already knows what Sklansky is trying to figure out. David, why don't you pray about this?