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tekila@lemmy.world 9 months agoAgain that’s a misunderstanding of the position. The discriminatory criteria is sentience. If a plant was found to be sentient, this plant would be included in the moral circle. You can make the same argument for things we consider animals but lack all of what we currently consider needed for sentience. An example would be a sea sponge. I personally do not include a sea sponge in my moral circle and I do not think they have any sentience even though they are considered animals. I would also consider someone that says sea sponge should be included in our moral circle just because they are part of the animal kingdom to be quite dogmatic.
And even if we want to debate on whether a sea sponge is sentient, there is absolutely no debate on most animals we currently kill for food or exploit for entertainment. They are clearly sentient.
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
that’s as arbitrary as any other criteria. and you’re still treating all members of a class differently because of their membership in that class. it’s discrimination. discrimination based on species is speciesism. it’s just a speciesism you agree with.
tekila@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Ok let me unpack your two points:
The difference with the sentience criteria is that a non-sentient being by definition cannot be hurt by actions taken against their being as there is quite literally no subject, no one, to experience anything. Would you say that someones that likes smashing rocks is discriminating against rocks? Of course not because it makes no sense to speak about discrimination for a non sentient being/object. The only time where you can make an argument that doing something to a non sentient being is an issue is when it affects a sentient being.
Again as I’ve literally stated in my earlier comment the discrimination is not based on species but on sentience. If you want a more concrete example, let’s imagine a philosophical zombie or in other terms a non-sentient human. I would not include such a being in my moral circle by itself as it would lack sentience.
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
you don’t seem to understand that you have decided, for instance, oak trees do not have sentience, and you treat all oak trees as though they are the same due to their membership in the class “oak tree” instead of treating them as individuals. it’s speciesism. and, in fact, you do this to sentient animals too, classing them all together and setting a standard to treat them based on their class membership. it’s speciesism. it’s just speciesism you agree with.
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
consequentialism is fraught with epistemic problems. how can you know what might effect a sentient being at some point in the future?
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
we discriminate between cars and motorcycles.
commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 months ago
i wouldn’t say they’re are discriminating against rocks. i’d say they are using discrimination and allowing themselves to smash objects they class as “rocks”
tekila@lemmy.world 9 months ago
But you would agree that the rocks themselves cannot have an issue with it? That’s the gist of the sentientist position. Sentient beings have an interest in living, not being exploited and thus the sentientist position goes further and say that for the same reasons we say that humans have a right to live (i.e.: not being killed) or being exploited, we should extend the same rights to sentient beings because there is no morally relevant difference between us and other sentient beings that would justify killing them when you would not kill a human being in the same position.
Note that this does not mean all sentient beings should have exactly the same rights. Obviously giving the right to vote to a cow does not make sense, the same way we don’t give the right to abortion to cis men because they cannot make use of this right.