As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/
Options
Non-Human Persons
Speaker
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'
Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.
Studies into dolphin behaviour have highlighted how similar their communications are to those of humans and that they are brighter than chimpanzees. These have been backed up by anatomical research showing that dolphin brains have many key features associated with high intelligence.
The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing. Some 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die in this way each year.
“Many dolphin brains are larger than our own and second in mass only to the human brain when corrected for body size,” said Lori Marino, a zoologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who has used magnetic resonance imaging scans to map the brains of dolphin species and compare them with those of primates.
“The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin interactions,” she added.
Dolphins have long been recognised as among the most intelligent of animals but many researchers had placed them below chimps, which some studies have found can reach the intelligence levels of three-year-old children. Recently, however, a series of behavioural studies has suggested that dolphins, especially species such as the bottlenose, could be the brighter of the two. The studies show how dolphins have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self and can think about the future.
It has also become clear that they are “cultural” animals, meaning that new types of behaviour can quickly be picked up by one dolphin from another.
In one study, Diana Reiss, professor of psychology at Hunter College, City University of New York, showed that bottlenose dolphins could recognise themselves in a mirror and use it to inspect various parts of their bodies, an ability that had been thought limited to humans and great apes.
In another, she found that captive animals also had the ability to learn a rudimentary symbol-based language.
Other research has shown dolphins can solve difficult problems, while those living in the wild co-operate in ways that imply complex social structures and a high level of emotional sophistication.
In one recent case, a dolphin rescued from the wild was taught to tail-walk while recuperating for three weeks in a dolphinarium in Australia.
After she was released, scientists were astonished to see the trick spreading among wild dolphins who had learnt it from the former captive.
There are many similar examples, such as the way dolphins living off Western Australia learnt to hold sponges over their snouts to protect themselves when searching for spiny fish on the ocean floor.
Such observations, along with others showing, for example, how dolphins could co-operate with military precision to round up shoals of fish to eat, have prompted questions about the brain structures that must underlie them.
Size is only one factor. Researchers have found that brain size varies hugely from around 7oz for smaller cetacean species such as the Ganges River dolphin to more than 19lb for sperm whales, whose brains are the largest on the planet. Human brains, by contrast, range from 2lb-4lb, while a chimp’s brain is about 12oz.
When it comes to intelligence, however, brain size is less important than its size relative to the body.
What Marino and her colleagues found was that the cerebral cortex and neocortex of bottlenose dolphins were so large that “the anatomical ratios that assess cognitive capacity place it second only to the human brain”. They also found that the brain cortex of dolphins such as the bottlenose had the same convoluted folds that are strongly linked with human intelligence.
Such folds increase the volume of the cortex and the ability of brain cells to interconnect with each other. “Despite evolving along a different neuroanatomical trajectory to humans, cetacean brains have several features that are correlated with complex intelligence,” Marino said.
Marino and Reiss will present their findings at a conference in San Diego, California, next month, concluding that the new evidence about dolphin intelligence makes it morally repugnant to mistreat them.
Thomas White, professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, who has written a series of academic studies suggesting dolphins should have rights, will speak at the same conference.
“The scientific research . . . suggests that dolphins are ‘non-human persons’ who qualify for moral standing as individuals,” he said.
We have penalties for cruelty to animals, but usually when pressed people fall back on the justification that those penalties are more about the sickness of a person who abuses animals than the inherent value of the animals. Should there be a legal catagory of "non-human persons" though based instead the animal's demonstrable self-awareness?
Speaker on
0
Posts
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
We do all kinds of insanely hazardous things involving or nearby humans but are able to provide adequate warning to keep them relatively safe. With dolphins we have no way to asking them what they want, telling them what we need, or communicating a compromise much less providing safety information. It's a very one-sided deal: we work to protect them and they just do whatever they want. It's rather akin to a parent and a child, except that a parent can expect their child to eventually learn that stoves are hot and the danger of sticking things in light sockets.
Not that we should do nothing, but I don't think there's a clear answer.
They found out a Dolphin was reading about 529 plans.
Interesting point. If Dolphins are people, can we stop treating them like animals?
If Dolphins can learn simple symbol-based languages, why not just teach all of them a symbol for "DANGER! Fishing Zone!"
Then again if they're as smart as this study believes eventually one of them will wander around in that area, realize there's no danger, and explain that humans are stupid to the rest of its pod.
Along the lines of the OP, I really think the more intelligent forms of squid, which have been demonstrated to have language, should be included in the non-human persons category as well. But they're so tasty.
Lots of ways. Off the top of my head, let it watch a room where one parcel of food is placed in it every week. Put the dolphin in the room. If it saves food to make it through the week rather than eating it all instantly, then it planned for the future. Or teach it puzzles that involve saving objects from previous stages that are needed for later ones, etc
Dolphins aren't "non-humans", they are just like all the other creatures. Even us.
3DS FC: 5343-7720-0490
Though really, this raises some interesting ethical and evolutionary issues.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Very few, but I wouldn't go with 'almost no'.
The problem with any sort of test for sentience or self-awareness or whatever it is we're saying makes an animal a 'non-human person' vs. an animal is: what about humans who fail? There are humans with cognitive disorders who don't pass the mirror test. Human infants will fail damn near every test for cognition that you would apply to an animal. Are babies not persons? Are mentally handicapped people not persons? Do we need to treat dolphins better than kids with Down's?
(Note that I'm not actually arguing either way; I'm genuinely curious as to what kind of answer could be found for this sort of question)
I don't understand how you can read that article and not go, "Dolphins exhibit abnormally high intelligence? That's fucking awesome!" But instead go, "Yeah? Well fuck those dolphins, thinking they're so smart. If they're so smart how come they don't enslave other dolphins? Huh, answer me that asshole!"
xbl - HowYouGetAnts
steam - WeAreAllGeth
Seriously though, I'd love to see something like this at least attempted.
STEAM
I would say that is evidence that they are smarter than us.
All human beings, regardless of their individual intelligence, have the same inherent rights. Similarly, if we decide that there is enough evidence that dolphins, on the whole, are a sentient species, then all dolphins should be given the same level of rights and/or protections.
Rigorous Scholarship
Exactly my thought.
In general, I think we should err on the side of treating any potentially sapient creature with respect and mercy even if we have reason to doubt if they're truly sapient.
Right now, the territory that encompasses "person" is a triangle bounded by species on one side, viable physical birth on another side, and brain death on the third side.
I have no problem, hypothetically, including non-human species in that territory, but if we establish any kind of legal precedent, how do we ensure that the precedent is not inversed and used to justify the nonpersonhood of any arbitrary homo sapiens? This is a genuine question, not a rhetorical one. I don't want to just throw up our hands and say "well, it's too hard to make it work, so fuck it!" any more than I want to rush into a new paradigm without forethought. It's a question that we have to construct a satisfactory answer for.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Hmm, looking at the Mirror Test article on wikipedia, I didn't realize that so many of the great apes could. Or magpies and pigs. Though that is still a very small subset of animals. Have they tested octopodes or cuttlefish yet?
Also, fuck Firefox for not liking 'octopodes'.
I really don't see why it can't be done; I want to say I've read that dolphins communicate with one another with a very rudimentary language, but I don't have any details to back it up. However, I'd bet that dolphins would have the same problems with language that humans have had throughout our physical and social evolution. That is, groups of dolphins in different areas will have languages with completely different structures, so we won't be able to learn a universal "dolphin language." I think teaching them a "danger signal" for fishing zones might be possible, though, if we captured wild dolphins, taught them the signal, and released them in the wild to teach the other members of the species.
What I think would be really impressive would be if we could enact an international treaty to leave dolphins alone for the most part to allow them a natural course of evolution. However, given that the course of evolution is very long compared to human history, I doubt any kind of agreement among humans would be anymore than a blip compared to how long it will take to develop advanced dolphin societies. I guess what I'm saying is that if we all die off from a global event, dolphins are totally next in line.
Elephants also seem to understand death and have been noted for practicing burial rituals
Why would it be arbitrary whether or not an animal is considered a person, but required that all humans be considered persons? Are you claiming that humans have some sort of super-personhood that no other animals have?
You're maintaining a double standard there.
that seems like a really bogus and biased means of establishing an ethical system
Someone needs to be able to understand why things are the way they are and why they and their neighbor are protected. Which is why children have a special place in jurisprudence.
that doesn't really answer my question
a person who doesn't understand why things are the way they are is still just as morally valuable as say, me, in all my enormous wisdom and acuity, har har
I'll be fine, just give me a minute, a man's got a limit, I can't get a life if my heart's not in it.
I haven't set up any standard, let alone a double one.
If we're going to redefine personhood, we have to be very careful if our new definition might result in the dehumanization (that's a biased word; perhaps depersonization) of creatures we currently consider to be persons.
Right now, only humans are persons, which means that the above sentence coincidentally only applies to humans.
But lets say that we gave dolphins personhood, and in 20 years had another discussion just like this one regarding chimpanzees. I'd warn against any redefinition of the concept of person that depersonizes dolphins as well.
I don't think it's terribly controversial to state that if our actions are going to lead to the revocation of "human" rights, we have to tread a lot more carefully than if our actions are going to lead to the expansion of human rights.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Bunch of rapists.
Ethics regarding treatment of others usually hinge on suffering. If you go with "suffering is wrong and all who are capable of suffering deserve treatment to minimize that suffering" then you run into problems with the treatment of insects and such because they have working nervous systems. For most people ethical treatment of spiders is more ethics than they want in their lives. So you condense to, "those who are capable of being aware of suffering". So non-'aware' species get whatever treatment we feel like giving them, humans get firm ethical judgments, and edge cases like the brain dead or severely retarded are dealt with case-by-case.
So far 'aware' has been a class restricted to humans. If we want to extend that to other creatures then we're going to need a much better definition of what 'aware' means, and I suspect that no matter how we define it we will rapidly find ourselves with a proliferation of non-human persons.
It's also a mistake to confuse jurisprudence with moral concern. Yes, law does follow from morality, but it does not necessarily mirror it. Just because children have diminished rights in jurisprudence does not necessarily imply that they are morally less valuable. (In fact, I'd argue that morally they're generally considered more valuable - the murder of a child is met with more shock and horror than the murder of an adult, "women and children first," etc.)
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I think/hope that the commenter is making a comment about humans rather than dolphins: "We do these things, and we think we're smarter than dolphins?"
yeah, i misread his statement about children
but if you're basing a law about dolphins on their level of intelligence, you're stepping squarely into the territory of the nature of personhood and the nature of moral value.
as cpthamilton said, the only logically valid result is a rapid proliferation of non-human persons which are morally equivalent to humans
I'd actually have to go with a yes on this, if the option were "Dolphin or Baby" , if what they're saying is true. Obviously it isn't a situation where you have to pick one or the other to [strike]be nice to[/strike] not murder, though.
Funny thing is, I own an American Dingo (well, an American Dingo mixed with something--the pound claimed it was a midget 45-pound German Shepard/Akita mix, but I'm pretty sure that's bullshit). At least some cases of Dingos are domesticated, in any case (I just assume the vast majority of them are still wolves or undomesticated or whatever).