a tree itself isn't just 'good' because we use it to breath... wood... etc..... a tree is good on its own. that is the case with every natural thing on this planet. an ant is equally amazing as a blue whale. no animals worry about us.. because they only base their being on intuition... they are the environment... where we removed ourselves... developing crazy ass ways of living. we stoped evolving.. rather than adapting to the environment.. we adapt the environment to us.
I think you've hit the crux of the problem of labels and -isms. Animals are likely not worried about anything since worrying is likely a self-defeating practice that only humans engage in. They simply live in harmony with their world...they don't need scientific studies...they're in sync with nature..we can do it to. Of course we always have a human perspective...to assert otherwise seems odd; that said, we can/should recognize other species as being as whole and as miraculous as we are.
This blunt realisation is a good start in order to get rid of what I call human spieces ego misery and maybe a chance to evolve to something higher.The next step is one I have not yet answered.Why are we in the same time so similar and diferrent with other mammals,what affected us and made us diferrent and if there is a purpose and a meaning to all this for all or for some.
You're making a little mistake.The core idea of anti anthropocentrism is not equality with animals.(although a result can be more appreciation and respect to other life forms).It's the fundamental realisation that our reality and logic is not objective or unique because the interpretation of our outside world is directly related to our spieces.
also, youre kind of self-contradicting yourself if i may comment.
you are implying that the human who uses its inherent abilities to make a difference is anthropocentric. this implies one thing: the human should steer clear of ecological issues because its not superior to other species and should thus not attempt to change anything. well, i think youre being anthropocentric right there, youre wanting the human to not use its natural abilities (thinking, talking and sticking) just to be equal.
stop trying to think out side of the box - because that would be great but youre really making no sense.
promoting anti-anthropocentrism is not anthropocentric. it is merely using the ability that that human has to promote to the world (to the other humans) that the view that man has dominion over all the earth is wrong. yes, it would be human-centered if the man was sticking that sticker in the hope of a pigeon reading it - but the sticker was for the human eye.
If you took all the raw processing power of an elephant's brain, and all the raw processing power of a human's brain and somehow set them both to just process binary code; the elephant's brain would quite possibly (if not plausibly) be able to process greater amounts of binary. That is via their extra 100 billion neurons and more complex and numerous brain gyri patterns. Although, I'm not sure; it's just possible. As stated, what it is that makes humans so smart is not explicitly defined.
Also if you don't believe it click on the channel. There are hundreds of examples; some where you can see the elephants in full view during the entire painting. Or if not on that channel just scan the other examples.
I also just learnt this morning that elephants actually display remarkably well-defined artistic abilities (that is basic (basic?) painting skills). This painting takes an elephant three days to paint: watch?v=Oim2LFo1jJ8 (it's in three parts)... obviously the dexterity of a trunk is nothing compared to the dexterity of human fingers, but the final result is actually quite remarkable. I also liked this tree: watch?v=PU2omPaZEe8
Here is a random example of dolphins showing empathy towards other species: watch?v=Fp_motddvnQ ... there are loads and loads of examples like this. There are some aspects in which the brains of elephants and cetaceans are also quite superior to the human brain. Humans are just the language/symbol champions for some reason. What it actually is that made humans this successful as a species in terms of brain utilization is not explicitly defined yet.
Maybe the crux is accumulation, money or power, and waste. The animal kingdom is incredibly efficient, right down to the last carnivore, scavenger, and maggot. There's a huge difference between someone lost in the woods shooting a rabbit to keep from starving and making a hat to stay warm or whatever and killing them for the furs for a hat business. Look at the indigenous and slaughter of the buffalo; man's issues certainly transcend homo sapien and instinct or survival, but seemingly by choice.
Anything invoking 'rights' is bound to be anthropocentric-talk, but I think there are points at which you conflate anthropocentrism with 'from the human perspective'. I'm not sure they're the same thing. Surely, we can never escape the latter, but if we understand anthropocentrism as 'taking the human species to be the most significant in the universe' then I think we can lessen our degree of anthropecentrism, EVEN IF this involves methods peculiar to human beings.
@SergeantVanek Good call. Thanks. I really don't like this video. I might remove it. I increasingly think that the claim of "anthropocentrism" can be used quite usefully as a critique within various contexts. It seems to be a non-position or "a strategically employed COUNTER-POSITION,' which has various merits but only depending upon the context(s) which drew it out.
I'm sure that's not true for animals.I'm trying to find a lion that would accept equal rights for deers,but they all just nod their head in disagreement
Nietzsche wanted to elevate humankind so this kind of pseudo anti-anthropocentrism would irk him. I think it's a good point to point out this phony anti-anthropocentrism.
@ExistentialExistent nietzsche wanted to elevate the individual not humankind and he saw a certain ABSTRACT human perspective that started to develop from the middle east, he saw the abstract hierarchical placement of humans above non humans as one of the 4 great errors I believe this is also a problem specific to christianity and homogenizing slave morality before it, also the human perspective isn't exactly enclosed, its a product of the same systems that create butterflies language isn't hu..
Hmmm, Nietzsche seems to embrace anthropocentrism so not sure why he is criticizing it in that fragment. I didn't read it that way, lol. Maybe he is against a kind of anthropocentrism?
It probably has to do with what was going with German and European culture at the time Nietzsche wrote that. N. seems to think they were not all that they thought themselves to be.
Excellent points. I guess in a way we are trying to fight anthropocentrism by bringing animals up to our level, as though anthropomorphization levels the playing field, when you can't get any more anthro-chauvinist.
I think animals do indeed have their own perspectives. Last week I released two young squirrels into my yard, that I have raised from infancy (video on my AnswersInNature channel). One of them still comes up to me, and he thinks I'm his tree, so he climbs me. That's his perspective, but I personally don"t believe I'm a tree.
First some clarifications: The bumper sticker addresses speciesism, granting rights entirely based on species. Anthropocentrism, grants a sort of supremacy on to humans, which many times leads to speciesism.
Second: The point is to grant rights based on other factors besides being human. We do not grant children the same rights as adults, but some of the basic ones we do. For example, the right not to be harmed intentionally by an adult.
We grant this right even if the child is unable to think logically about if they should have the right, or if others should, or if they are unable to use the scientific method.
We do not grant this right to other animals that have similar capacities to feel pain and suffer, simply because those other animals are not human. It has nothing to do with whether those animals can think about rights back. Again, a child or mentally challenged person cannot.
hind sight is always 20/20.But this is tricky but i look at it like this. We will always be the exception because being human is all we will ever experience. or however we want to catagorize ourselves. I say this on the basis that Anthropocentrism is a form of exceptionalism.
I think you answered your own question, my natural sense of Anthropocentricness made me want to share that:)
I guess that sense that tells us, 'I will get that job' or 'Im gonna start MY family' or anything we feel that makes Me seem more important than You is just the natural state for all of us..
I'm not sure the bumper sticker that says "equal rights for all species" really translates as "let's not be anthropocentric." Actually, I'm not sure it translates at all, since its literal sense is nonsense (unless they can imagine animals voting, exercising freedom of speech, etc.). I would interpret it loosely to mean something like: "let's not eat animals, mistreat them, destroy their habitats, etc."
I agree that the very idea of rights, privileges, deserts, etc. are all anthropogenetic and thus anthropocentric in some sense. Animals have no idea of rights and cannot appreciate when their own "rights" have been upheld or violated. I still keep to the idea that rights must be conferred by those with power to those without, and they are ultimately created by those with linguistic faculties. The bumper sticker is anthropocentric, just not in the normative/evaluative sense of "humans are best."
Way out: Certain states; were a fusion between subject and object takes place, and nullifies eachother: the state, the feeling, the experience of silence; "nothing"; of God? The great abyss. Reduced in relation to anthropocentrism (language senses etc.) only in hinesight.
I don't exactly see how we could even logically figure out these universal rights for all species to share. We have examples of species where someone gets eaten during the sexual reproduction process (mantis). We haven't even completely figured out all the rights on abortion or euthanasia ourselves yet and these animals are eating themselves to make offspring. The concept is a joke. lol
You were the best teacher ever. I think I lost touch with thinking outside the box since I graduated GV, but your vids definitely get my gears goin. Thanks Anton!
I think it's just someone who wants to not be anthropomorphic. Whether or not it is anthropomorphism goes back to your dilemma. I think it might be like egocentrism. We are all egocentric by necessity- but to varying extents. I might say that the person with the bumper sticker is not very anthropocentric.
simply: it depends on the person in the car, and their mind. Maybe they are an animal, maybe just a "chicken."
5:30 y do u seem to assume that human attempts at finding similarity in the thoughts of animals to humans must be scientifically oriented? Paul Watson looked into the eye of a whale, and understood that that whale chose to save his life, by swimming backwards instead of landing on him. (it was breaching toward him.)
I wasnt there, but I believe the story the way Watson tells it.
I think your musing that anthropocentricism may be unavoidable is most likely correct. I think it begins with (sorry for inventing a new word) solipcentricism, which is unavoidable, that then extends to anthropocentricism and then further to any number of grouping "isms" all the way up to some form of universalism. Some have claimed to experience "spiritually" leaving their bodies and having "become" a plant or animal and such, to my mind, would be the only form of escaping anthropocentricism.
ntric to humans, then the perception of our nature informs how we perceive nature. As we share nature with the rest of the world, eccentricity overlaps, affording us the ability to form, distinguish and diversify. I believe we can see through the eyes of other humans and life forms but this requires a proper respect, appreciation and intuition. Perspectivism is natural among many Amazonian tribes as well as many other biodynamic communities.
check out the desteni perspective of 'humans as custodians' - and investigate the starting-point of equality&oneness of life as it is practically presented at desteni.
join us for discussions on the forums - youtube comments are rather short for in-depth exchange.
It's pretty easy to eliminate anthropocentric values in the context of objective thinking, yet extremely difficult in the real world in which our biology drives us. One example of this is how we can eat and perform scientific experiments on animals for our own benefit, even though we wouldn't dream of doing this to other humans, because it's 'cruel'. But how is it less cruel when being done to an animal? Clearly that's our primal survival instinct as a social species.
I would argue that importance of welfare originates from sentience. For example, if two organisms are feeling the exact same amount of pain there is no logical way to assert that one organism's pain is *more* important. In this sense insects are not as important as pigs, only because they cannot feel the same degree of pain. However when comparing the higher mammals in terms of degree to be harmed the differences aren't really worth mentioning. They are for all practical purposes equal.
The error is in assuming that there is such thing as importance independent of one for whom something is important. A pig's pain is more important to a pig than your pain. Your pain is more important to you and to be than a pig's pain. There is no such thing as importance in itself without a perspective to ground the importance.
Should the welfare of other animals be important to us? Why?
@StabbyRaccoon If you have a logical proof which demonstrates that your suffering is more significant than another (even if of equal intensity) then you can discriminate based on personal grounds. If no such proof exists than you are logically obligated to grant equal consideration to suffering external from your own. Any organism which fails to do this is thus illogical. It's true that your own suffering will be of greatest importance to you; but this value judgment has no logical foundation.
Why does it need a logical foundation? Why do I need a logical proof? Let's reduce your argument to absurdity. Unless I have a logical proof that the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert is more significant than the Cher concert, I am logically obligated to grant equal consideration to them. But I hate Che and love the Chilis. I don't care about pigs but I care about myself, that is how it happens to be.
Your mistake is in assuming that there is such thing as significance in itself.
I repeat: If something is significant, it is significant TO SOMEBODY. There is no such thing as significance divorced from the perspective of someone for whom something is significant.
Now why should the feelings of animals who can't care about us be the least bit significant to us?
@StabbyRaccoon Many animals can care about you. Dogs, cats, great apes, monkeys etc. There are cruel and empathic animals. However if you place negative value on suffering (as you do) it makes no sense not to extend this negative value unanimously.
You are still speaking in abstracts. First you say that significance is a thing not contingent upon a perspective, now you seem to have divorced the idea of suffering from the perspective of one who suffers - this is chaotic philosophy. I assign negative value to my own suffering from my own perspective, obviously I should, but how does it follow that I ought to extend negative value to a non human animal's suffering from my perspective? I do not experience its perspective.
@StabbyRaccoon You assign negative value to a sufferable experience. These same experiences in various forms exist removed from you in other organisms. I also don't understand why you have specifically used the term "non-human-animal", as your position would imply that there is no reason for you to care about the suffering of any organism removed from yourself; unless it was of some personal benefit to you to care.
And what is your point? Suffering is something that the sufferer wants to get away from and if I suffer than I want to stop suffering or not to have been made to suffer in the first place. How does it follow that because I acknowledge that suffering sucks for the sufferer then I ought to care about the suffering of that sufferer? You are confusing a description with a prescription. Suffering sucks for those who suffer describes a situation, but no prescription follows from it.
I meant "that sufferer who is removed from my subjective experience", such as an animal, or anyone for that matter. It definitely follows that one should care about one's own suffering, but there needs to be a reason why one ought to care about the suffering of another. Is there one for animals?
@StabbyRaccoon I'm sure there are many humans on this planet who have no capacity to affect or influence you. Do you promote exploiting their labor and welfare because it benefits you personally? Or do you acknowledge their suffering and welfare as relevant and worthy of consideration absent from your own personal desires and interests?
...such as the prescription that if an animal suffers I ought to care, or I ought to not cause suffering to an animal. Remember that you can't get an ought from an "is" unless you have an "is" about a moral agent. Is there any syllogism that can prescribe me to care about the suffering of animals that takes a fact about me into account and a fact about an action?
I use "non-human" because it is beneficial for me to care about other humans since their caring about me is desirable.
I am not quite sure how to explain it better than that. The difference is in the perspectives of those who experience the suffering. The suffering of others doesn't necessarily matter to me since I don't experience it - it might matter to be in an indirect sense but there needs to be a reason why it should.
Why should I from my perspective care about the suffering of a non human animal? Remember that my suffering and an animals suffering are different. Abstraction is not reality
However some animals most definitely do have the capacity to feel empathy for humans. There are all sorts of stories of dogs rushing to help their owners, or dolphins saving humans and even pigs jumping into water to save human children. There was an interesting test conducted on primates whereby a human threw a ball and leaned over a desk struggling to obtain it. The chimpanzee looked at the human struggling to obtain the ball and went over and got it for the human.
I think adult humans should consider the other sentient organisms in the same we consider small children. They're pretty stupid organisms with a capacity to be harmed which must be accounted for in a non-bigoted way. We can admire the intelligence of adult humans without diminishing the "value" or welfare of young children. We should do the same for sentient organisms of equal and in sometimes greater intelligence. 3/4 year olds don't have particularly well developed ethical theories either.
anthrops hijacked the word human.. though the roots of the word human are equally as iffy to bother with. but I use it of the earth humble, when I see an animal communicate concepts to me even as simple its pissed off "this is my territory" and shows aspects of its territory clearly; go talk to a squirrel, I acknowledge it as a human being. a little bird can't see my face or tell me from a tree until it is very close then it recognizes something that can eat it and how it might and if its safe.
@GoldenFinchFellow I told you before crows were shown to have a set of calls that they do in 3 different ways one for cats one for prey birds and one for humans. same three calls but recognizing different ways they are a danger. I've since learned the cat I told you the crow was hawing at was protecting the bird and the call was shaming the cat to leave. Of course we won't know what they think the details but we have to accept that they do attempt to communicate or ya we won't understand them.
@GoldenFinchFellow My dog is like an mri scan when I injure my leg or over use it tendons inflamed he will smell every detail of them as I come in and lick them if I'm accepting and happy.. or if I'm tense about it he looks up while sniffing as to say I know your sore, I don't know how he thinks about it but what is clear is he is demonstrating that I should not be tense. in both cases he is demonstrating he cares about my state of mind and is keeping tabs on it, call it tough love if you will.
@GoldenFinchFellow his species developed these skills from hunting prey over periods of days and being able to spot and smell weak spots while herding close to animals. There is only so much we can understand about what they think and only a certain range of life that is in any way similar to a way can read them. but we can read many aspects of there habitats yes as every living being manipulates its surroundings in order to survive I think it is fully concerned with what effects its habitat yes
@GoldenFinchFellow that we a are a fluidic mountain or tree to many beings is reflective of why they don't bother to attempt any communication, and this is not to generalize communication to language how we know it or anthropomorphizing :) I personally don't use that word much, but to me it means like generalizing a behavior of animals to mean what we THINK, rather then taking a word of caution and giving it equal respect of its boundaries. I would say give them equal respect not rights.
I agree rights are a man made thing to mediate a lack of mutual respect that can happen when we get together in large groups. Many animals have there own social customs and manners very different from ours and even very different from one population to the next. I recommend a book to you "Wild Justice, the moral lives of animals" to see a sample of study in this field of animal behavior to get a taste of what there is for us to learn from them. give them rights of mutual respect and we may learn
For someone or some species to have 'rights' one must be able to express their thoughts on the subject. I am all for homo-sapiens taking care of lesser species.
We cannot confer to a non-verbal species the rights we have, nor can we lessen our rights to match those of lesser species. Anthropocentrism is an inevitable consequence of our ability to communicate our thoughts and feelings.
If this sticker is put on the bamper by a higher consciousness than ours, we would never be able to read and understand it.
Anthropocentrism is inevitable since we cannot imagine there is something above us and below us that is conscious. Only man can be the "pinnacle of the evolution".
Perhaps my cat suffers from "catuscentricism" seeing myself as a sometimes useful animal, but having no right idea about mice.
I doubt that the owner is seriously advocating equal rights for mosquitoes, They more likely mean that we should stop exploiting other creatures unnecessarily.
Every creature is naturally hardwired to be primarily more concerned about itself, and secondarily more concerned about its own species (or vice versa in some cases). What I see as unique to humans is that we bias the value of other creatures in descending order of their intelligence or how cute we happen to find them.
It is possible to think outside the box, but not fully conceptualize what it means or feels like from a non human perspective since it is almost impossible to jump out of our human skin and retain the same objective goal, without concession to the consciousness of whatever entity we then inhabit, both literally and figuratively.
@crimsonsamuraiftw rather I meant without the concession to the derogatory sensory input that is derived of the entity that we might otherwise inhabit to attempt an objective non-Anthropocentric perspective.
When I hear these arguements - is doesnt even seem to be ABOUT anthropocenterism but about the problems of dichotmous thinking. Who wants to throw the blue jay out with the bird bath?
We don't have to "get outside of consciousness" altogether, do we? ...In fact, claiming that you can't question unless you do is is proscriptive and false.
Obviously, it is impossible to get 'outside of consciousness.' But it is NOT impossible to escape at least conditionally our cultural blinders to some extent.
The reason we don't is because it's comfortable to accept unfounded nonsense as received 'truth' or as 'sacred...'
@2bsirius "it is NOT impossible to escape at least conditionally our cultural blinders to some extent" - i would tend to agree but wrt to the bumper sticker, i think that your "extent" is the issue. i understand the thought experiment as asking to transplant consciousness in order to understand another species' morality. of which i am aware, the species capable of discussing morality number less than two. so...how can one know (non-anthropocentrically) which "cultural blinders" to suspend?
Wouldn't it really be another species' MODALITY rather than its morality?
And about that, well we can look at the dilemma in a number of ways. Of course the philosophical default is often Nagel's thought experiment, "What's it like to be a bat?" And his conclusion that eventually it's like nothing because our conscious modalities are too different...Some philosophers and at least one novelist have spoken about why this is might be a failure of empathetic imagination on Nagel's part.
Is the cogent question how reciprocal animals can be to our empathy? PA asks, "Do animals worry about my broken arm?" "Do other organism have theories of brain science?"
For me that misses the crux of the dilemma.
The cogent question for me at least to be how to overcome the bewitchment of language when our cultural blinders tend to restrict us to non-empathetic responses when it's confronted with animals suffer?
The thinking of Cora Diamond & J. M. Coetzee is eloquent & complex on this
@2bsirius okay... "the bumper sticker says 'equal rights for all species' " (@5:56)
one might assume, since one would have to be literate to process the meaning of said bumper sticker, that said sentiment requires explicit communication and negotiation among all species in order for said sentiment to be realizable.
but... you might be happy to know that i have been consuming significantly less meat recently =D
I have a question for you, Professoranton...and it goes back to something you said in passing in one of your past videos...You asserted that one proof of 'god' could be found in 'sacred geometry.' That seems to be an overtly anthropocentric attitude to me...
If you look at what masquerades as 'sacred geometry,' it is actually dependent on what the ancient Greeks ALLOWED to be considered as mathematical concepts. They left out & even abhorred the concepts of zero and the infinite [Con't]...
The Greeks were strictly 'rational' in their mathematics...Rational meaning their mathematics was based exclusively on ratios. This comes for the original basis of their mathematics being derived from land measurement. Pythagoras based his foundational concepts on the necessity of 'rationality' in mathematics.
When the he and his followers found that unfortunately the real world is not as well behaved as his idealistic 'rational' theories, he FORBID that knowledge from being disseminated.
He is well known to suppressed any discussion of irrational numbers, even though they appear everywhere...Specifically, his claim that . His claims that he had found a way to blend the “mystery of the divine” with common-sense rational thought were undercut by the irrationals, by the non-Greek concepts of zero and the infinite which were not allowed...
The point of this is that ANTHROPOCENTRIC might be the water we swim in but if we just shrug our shoulders and accept that idea we consent to our own ignorance, don't we?
Isn't it valid to see the ideas of Heidegger and others as what they are, biased by their implicit ANTHROPOCENTRISM? To my mind that reality does not demand that we must then jump to Peter Singer's "specism."
A few reactions (a) Read Peter Singer for more on "specism" (b) there is animal morality, you can find examples on youtube (c) the problem is also the "we". How can you talk for the anthropos? Apparently it's unproblematic to expand to all humans. Many humans also don't form theories of mind etc. Should one form a new boundary that makes a difference between "species" that do worry about philosophy of mind and those who don't, who happen to be genetically human?
@socrates856 You can't derive from an animal's behavior some sort of moral intention behind the act purely based upon the evidence of the act in itself. As far as Peter Singer's notion on expanding the circle encompassing those toward whom we can achieve certain depths of empathy, I think it's definitely an issue worth debating.
@BoStevoD You cannot? How can you derive that a human has some sort of moral intentions? We constantly derive judgments about that without interviewing them for intent. That's exactly what antropocentrism is. It the assumption that in one case it is unproblematic without verificiation whereas in the other case it's impossible without verification.
Please...stay safe
DHruska93 1 month ago
please respond
kingbooforums 1 month ago
a tree itself isn't just 'good' because we use it to breath... wood... etc..... a tree is good on its own. that is the case with every natural thing on this planet. an ant is equally amazing as a blue whale. no animals worry about us.. because they only base their being on intuition... they are the environment... where we removed ourselves... developing crazy ass ways of living. we stoped evolving.. rather than adapting to the environment.. we adapt the environment to us.
TheNickthequik 5 months ago
I think you've hit the crux of the problem of labels and -isms. Animals are likely not worried about anything since worrying is likely a self-defeating practice that only humans engage in. They simply live in harmony with their world...they don't need scientific studies...they're in sync with nature..we can do it to. Of course we always have a human perspective...to assert otherwise seems odd; that said, we can/should recognize other species as being as whole and as miraculous as we are.
tvswnet 8 months ago
This blunt realisation is a good start in order to get rid of what I call human spieces ego misery and maybe a chance to evolve to something higher.The next step is one I have not yet answered.Why are we in the same time so similar and diferrent with other mammals,what affected us and made us diferrent and if there is a purpose and a meaning to all this for all or for some.
asasasarap 9 months ago
You're making a little mistake.The core idea of anti anthropocentrism is not equality with animals.(although a result can be more appreciation and respect to other life forms).It's the fundamental realisation that our reality and logic is not objective or unique because the interpretation of our outside world is directly related to our spieces.
asasasarap 9 months ago
also, youre kind of self-contradicting yourself if i may comment.
you are implying that the human who uses its inherent abilities to make a difference is anthropocentric. this implies one thing: the human should steer clear of ecological issues because its not superior to other species and should thus not attempt to change anything. well, i think youre being anthropocentric right there, youre wanting the human to not use its natural abilities (thinking, talking and sticking) just to be equal.
useyourtongue 9 months ago
stop trying to think out side of the box - because that would be great but youre really making no sense.
promoting anti-anthropocentrism is not anthropocentric. it is merely using the ability that that human has to promote to the world (to the other humans) that the view that man has dominion over all the earth is wrong. yes, it would be human-centered if the man was sticking that sticker in the hope of a pigeon reading it - but the sticker was for the human eye.
useyourtongue 9 months ago
cmeracionalism is anthropocentrism.
tanan70 10 months ago
If you took all the raw processing power of an elephant's brain, and all the raw processing power of a human's brain and somehow set them both to just process binary code; the elephant's brain would quite possibly (if not plausibly) be able to process greater amounts of binary. That is via their extra 100 billion neurons and more complex and numerous brain gyri patterns. Although, I'm not sure; it's just possible. As stated, what it is that makes humans so smart is not explicitly defined.
IdaMiaDot 11 months ago
Also if you don't believe it click on the channel. There are hundreds of examples; some where you can see the elephants in full view during the entire painting. Or if not on that channel just scan the other examples.
IdaMiaDot 11 months ago
I also just learnt this morning that elephants actually display remarkably well-defined artistic abilities (that is basic (basic?) painting skills). This painting takes an elephant three days to paint: watch?v=Oim2LFo1jJ8 (it's in three parts)... obviously the dexterity of a trunk is nothing compared to the dexterity of human fingers, but the final result is actually quite remarkable. I also liked this tree: watch?v=PU2omPaZEe8
IdaMiaDot 11 months ago
Here is a random example of dolphins showing empathy towards other species: watch?v=Fp_motddvnQ ... there are loads and loads of examples like this. There are some aspects in which the brains of elephants and cetaceans are also quite superior to the human brain. Humans are just the language/symbol champions for some reason. What it actually is that made humans this successful as a species in terms of brain utilization is not explicitly defined yet.
IdaMiaDot 11 months ago
Maybe the crux is accumulation, money or power, and waste. The animal kingdom is incredibly efficient, right down to the last carnivore, scavenger, and maggot. There's a huge difference between someone lost in the woods shooting a rabbit to keep from starving and making a hat to stay warm or whatever and killing them for the furs for a hat business. Look at the indigenous and slaughter of the buffalo; man's issues certainly transcend homo sapien and instinct or survival, but seemingly by choice.
PawnBACM 11 months ago
Anything invoking 'rights' is bound to be anthropocentric-talk, but I think there are points at which you conflate anthropocentrism with 'from the human perspective'. I'm not sure they're the same thing. Surely, we can never escape the latter, but if we understand anthropocentrism as 'taking the human species to be the most significant in the universe' then I think we can lessen our degree of anthropecentrism, EVEN IF this involves methods peculiar to human beings.
SergeantVanek 1 year ago
@SergeantVanek Good call. Thanks. I really don't like this video. I might remove it. I increasingly think that the claim of "anthropocentrism" can be used quite usefully as a critique within various contexts. It seems to be a non-position or "a strategically employed COUNTER-POSITION,' which has various merits but only depending upon the context(s) which drew it out.
Professoranton 1 year ago
I'm sure that's not true for animals.I'm trying to find a lion that would accept equal rights for deers,but they all just nod their head in disagreement
Torcika 1 year ago
Yeah, I don't think we can get out of our human perspective.
ExistentialExistent 1 year ago
Nietzsche wanted to elevate humankind so this kind of pseudo anti-anthropocentrism would irk him. I think it's a good point to point out this phony anti-anthropocentrism.
ExistentialExistent 1 year ago
@ExistentialExistent nietzsche wanted to elevate the individual not humankind and he saw a certain ABSTRACT human perspective that started to develop from the middle east, he saw the abstract hierarchical placement of humans above non humans as one of the 4 great errors I believe this is also a problem specific to christianity and homogenizing slave morality before it, also the human perspective isn't exactly enclosed, its a product of the same systems that create butterflies language isn't hu..
Vice81 11 months ago
Hmmm, Nietzsche seems to embrace anthropocentrism so not sure why he is criticizing it in that fragment. I didn't read it that way, lol. Maybe he is against a kind of anthropocentrism?
ExistentialExistent 1 year ago
It probably has to do with what was going with German and European culture at the time Nietzsche wrote that. N. seems to think they were not all that they thought themselves to be.
ExistentialExistent 1 year ago
Why get out of it?
ExistentialExistent 1 year ago
Excellent points. I guess in a way we are trying to fight anthropocentrism by bringing animals up to our level, as though anthropomorphization levels the playing field, when you can't get any more anthro-chauvinist.
niriop 1 year ago
I think animals do indeed have their own perspectives. Last week I released two young squirrels into my yard, that I have raised from infancy (video on my AnswersInNature channel). One of them still comes up to me, and he thinks I'm his tree, so he climbs me. That's his perspective, but I personally don"t believe I'm a tree.
cre8ivmind 1 year ago
First some clarifications: The bumper sticker addresses speciesism, granting rights entirely based on species. Anthropocentrism, grants a sort of supremacy on to humans, which many times leads to speciesism.
Second: The point is to grant rights based on other factors besides being human. We do not grant children the same rights as adults, but some of the basic ones we do. For example, the right not to be harmed intentionally by an adult.
(MORE 1)
trick0171 1 year ago
We grant this right even if the child is unable to think logically about if they should have the right, or if others should, or if they are unable to use the scientific method.
We do not grant this right to other animals that have similar capacities to feel pain and suffer, simply because those other animals are not human. It has nothing to do with whether those animals can think about rights back. Again, a child or mentally challenged person cannot.
Thanks.
(END 2)
trick0171 1 year ago
hind sight is always 20/20.But this is tricky but i look at it like this. We will always be the exception because being human is all we will ever experience. or however we want to catagorize ourselves. I say this on the basis that Anthropocentrism is a form of exceptionalism.
irishfury 1 year ago
LOL it is called urban nitwittery, and i'm sure they are very touchy feely and filled
with a sense of their own wonderfulness.
To gain the perspective go stand next to a bristlecone pine, or a mesquite bush.
Then go and look an Orca in the eye or any big predator.
Take another look at the Hubble deep field.
You are allowed to be human centered about yourself, but there is no evidence
it extends past your skin.
tyrbolo 1 year ago
I think you answered your own question, my natural sense of Anthropocentricness made me want to share that:)
I guess that sense that tells us, 'I will get that job' or 'Im gonna start MY family' or anything we feel that makes Me seem more important than You is just the natural state for all of us..
DrOrphious79 1 year ago
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Skalawag72 1 year ago
I'm not sure the bumper sticker that says "equal rights for all species" really translates as "let's not be anthropocentric." Actually, I'm not sure it translates at all, since its literal sense is nonsense (unless they can imagine animals voting, exercising freedom of speech, etc.). I would interpret it loosely to mean something like: "let's not eat animals, mistreat them, destroy their habitats, etc."
Ramiiam 1 year ago
I agree that the very idea of rights, privileges, deserts, etc. are all anthropogenetic and thus anthropocentric in some sense. Animals have no idea of rights and cannot appreciate when their own "rights" have been upheld or violated. I still keep to the idea that rights must be conferred by those with power to those without, and they are ultimately created by those with linguistic faculties. The bumper sticker is anthropocentric, just not in the normative/evaluative sense of "humans are best."
TheRedHutt 1 year ago
Way out: Certain states; were a fusion between subject and object takes place, and nullifies eachother: the state, the feeling, the experience of silence; "nothing"; of God? The great abyss. Reduced in relation to anthropocentrism (language senses etc.) only in hinesight.
taratasarar 1 year ago
everything we do is anthropocentric including culling the planet for the planet.
kirlianrose 1 year ago
I don't exactly see how we could even logically figure out these universal rights for all species to share. We have examples of species where someone gets eaten during the sexual reproduction process (mantis). We haven't even completely figured out all the rights on abortion or euthanasia ourselves yet and these animals are eating themselves to make offspring. The concept is a joke. lol
TekLok 1 year ago
You were the best teacher ever. I think I lost touch with thinking outside the box since I graduated GV, but your vids definitely get my gears goin. Thanks Anton!
partypaulradio 1 year ago
I think it's just someone who wants to not be anthropomorphic. Whether or not it is anthropomorphism goes back to your dilemma. I think it might be like egocentrism. We are all egocentric by necessity- but to varying extents. I might say that the person with the bumper sticker is not very anthropocentric.
Yamikaiba123 1 year ago
simply: it depends on the person in the car, and their mind. Maybe they are an animal, maybe just a "chicken."
5:30 y do u seem to assume that human attempts at finding similarity in the thoughts of animals to humans must be scientifically oriented? Paul Watson looked into the eye of a whale, and understood that that whale chose to save his life, by swimming backwards instead of landing on him. (it was breaching toward him.)
I wasnt there, but I believe the story the way Watson tells it.
disqair 1 year ago
What species, other than human, is even capable of Anthropocentricism?
batfly 1 year ago
@batfly
Dolphins maybe? but then there would have to be another word for that huh? like Dolphopocentricism.
batfly 1 year ago
I think your musing that anthropocentricism may be unavoidable is most likely correct. I think it begins with (sorry for inventing a new word) solipcentricism, which is unavoidable, that then extends to anthropocentricism and then further to any number of grouping "isms" all the way up to some form of universalism. Some have claimed to experience "spiritually" leaving their bodies and having "become" a plant or animal and such, to my mind, would be the only form of escaping anthropocentricism.
1140Cecile 1 year ago
ntric to humans, then the perception of our nature informs how we perceive nature. As we share nature with the rest of the world, eccentricity overlaps, affording us the ability to form, distinguish and diversify. I believe we can see through the eyes of other humans and life forms but this requires a proper respect, appreciation and intuition. Perspectivism is natural among many Amazonian tribes as well as many other biodynamic communities.
gulliverfridge 1 year ago
being human is all we know.
aliens106 1 year ago
When we apply this "human concept" to other species it becomes quite ambiguous!
Every organisms are "anthropocentrics" in their own ways. I'm sure an ant can explain anthropocentrism to another ant!
OrgonVpH7 1 year ago
The more I know, the less I certainty I have about anything. If that makes any sense.
Trancemutator 1 year ago
hi Anton,
check out the desteni perspective of 'humans as custodians' - and investigate the starting-point of equality&oneness of life as it is practically presented at desteni.
join us for discussions on the forums - youtube comments are rather short for in-depth exchange.
thanks
BellaBargilly 1 year ago
It's similar to saying democratizing the east is (not)eurocentric.
cuntsound 1 year ago
It's pretty easy to eliminate anthropocentric values in the context of objective thinking, yet extremely difficult in the real world in which our biology drives us. One example of this is how we can eat and perform scientific experiments on animals for our own benefit, even though we wouldn't dream of doing this to other humans, because it's 'cruel'. But how is it less cruel when being done to an animal? Clearly that's our primal survival instinct as a social species.
feedtherich 1 year ago
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feedtherich 1 year ago
I sure that some animals have empathy look at dogs
Boethius3007 1 year ago
I would argue that importance of welfare originates from sentience. For example, if two organisms are feeling the exact same amount of pain there is no logical way to assert that one organism's pain is *more* important. In this sense insects are not as important as pigs, only because they cannot feel the same degree of pain. However when comparing the higher mammals in terms of degree to be harmed the differences aren't really worth mentioning. They are for all practical purposes equal.
IdaMiaDot 1 year ago
@IdaMiaDot
The error is in assuming that there is such thing as importance independent of one for whom something is important. A pig's pain is more important to a pig than your pain. Your pain is more important to you and to be than a pig's pain. There is no such thing as importance in itself without a perspective to ground the importance.
Should the welfare of other animals be important to us? Why?
StabbyRaccoon 1 year ago
@StabbyRaccoon If you have a logical proof which demonstrates that your suffering is more significant than another (even if of equal intensity) then you can discriminate based on personal grounds. If no such proof exists than you are logically obligated to grant equal consideration to suffering external from your own. Any organism which fails to do this is thus illogical. It's true that your own suffering will be of greatest importance to you; but this value judgment has no logical foundation.
IdaMiaDot 1 year ago
@IdaMiaDot
Why does it need a logical foundation? Why do I need a logical proof? Let's reduce your argument to absurdity. Unless I have a logical proof that the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert is more significant than the Cher concert, I am logically obligated to grant equal consideration to them. But I hate Che and love the Chilis. I don't care about pigs but I care about myself, that is how it happens to be.
Your mistake is in assuming that there is such thing as significance in itself.
StabbyRaccoon 1 year ago
@IdaMiaDot
I repeat: If something is significant, it is significant TO SOMEBODY. There is no such thing as significance divorced from the perspective of someone for whom something is significant.
Now why should the feelings of animals who can't care about us be the least bit significant to us?
StabbyRaccoon 1 year ago
@StabbyRaccoon Many animals can care about you. Dogs, cats, great apes, monkeys etc. There are cruel and empathic animals. However if you place negative value on suffering (as you do) it makes no sense not to extend this negative value unanimously.
IdaMiaDot 1 year ago
@IdaMiaDot
You are still speaking in abstracts. First you say that significance is a thing not contingent upon a perspective, now you seem to have divorced the idea of suffering from the perspective of one who suffers - this is chaotic philosophy. I assign negative value to my own suffering from my own perspective, obviously I should, but how does it follow that I ought to extend negative value to a non human animal's suffering from my perspective? I do not experience its perspective.
StabbyRaccoon 1 year ago
@StabbyRaccoon You assign negative value to a sufferable experience. These same experiences in various forms exist removed from you in other organisms. I also don't understand why you have specifically used the term "non-human-animal", as your position would imply that there is no reason for you to care about the suffering of any organism removed from yourself; unless it was of some personal benefit to you to care.
IdaMiaDot 1 year ago
@IdaMiaDot
And what is your point? Suffering is something that the sufferer wants to get away from and if I suffer than I want to stop suffering or not to have been made to suffer in the first place. How does it follow that because I acknowledge that suffering sucks for the sufferer then I ought to care about the suffering of that sufferer? You are confusing a description with a prescription. Suffering sucks for those who suffer describes a situation, but no prescription follows from it.
StabbyRaccoon 1 year ago
@StabbyRaccoon
I meant "that sufferer who is removed from my subjective experience", such as an animal, or anyone for that matter. It definitely follows that one should care about one's own suffering, but there needs to be a reason why one ought to care about the suffering of another. Is there one for animals?
StabbyRaccoon 1 year ago
@StabbyRaccoon I'm sure there are many humans on this planet who have no capacity to affect or influence you. Do you promote exploiting their labor and welfare because it benefits you personally? Or do you acknowledge their suffering and welfare as relevant and worthy of consideration absent from your own personal desires and interests?
IdaMiaDot 1 year ago
@IdaMiaDot
I will reply in a PM.
StabbyRaccoon 1 year ago
@IdaMiaDot
...such as the prescription that if an animal suffers I ought to care, or I ought to not cause suffering to an animal. Remember that you can't get an ought from an "is" unless you have an "is" about a moral agent. Is there any syllogism that can prescribe me to care about the suffering of animals that takes a fact about me into account and a fact about an action?
I use "non-human" because it is beneficial for me to care about other humans since their caring about me is desirable.
StabbyRaccoon 1 year ago
@IdaMiaDot
I am not quite sure how to explain it better than that. The difference is in the perspectives of those who experience the suffering. The suffering of others doesn't necessarily matter to me since I don't experience it - it might matter to be in an indirect sense but there needs to be a reason why it should.
Why should I from my perspective care about the suffering of a non human animal? Remember that my suffering and an animals suffering are different. Abstraction is not reality
StabbyRaccoon 1 year ago
I've also seen great apes catering for baby lions but I'm not sure how long that lasted.
IdaMiaDot 1 year ago
However some animals most definitely do have the capacity to feel empathy for humans. There are all sorts of stories of dogs rushing to help their owners, or dolphins saving humans and even pigs jumping into water to save human children. There was an interesting test conducted on primates whereby a human threw a ball and leaned over a desk struggling to obtain it. The chimpanzee looked at the human struggling to obtain the ball and went over and got it for the human.
IdaMiaDot 1 year ago
I think adult humans should consider the other sentient organisms in the same we consider small children. They're pretty stupid organisms with a capacity to be harmed which must be accounted for in a non-bigoted way. We can admire the intelligence of adult humans without diminishing the "value" or welfare of young children. We should do the same for sentient organisms of equal and in sometimes greater intelligence. 3/4 year olds don't have particularly well developed ethical theories either.
IdaMiaDot 1 year ago
anthrops hijacked the word human.. though the roots of the word human are equally as iffy to bother with. but I use it of the earth humble, when I see an animal communicate concepts to me even as simple its pissed off "this is my territory" and shows aspects of its territory clearly; go talk to a squirrel, I acknowledge it as a human being. a little bird can't see my face or tell me from a tree until it is very close then it recognizes something that can eat it and how it might and if its safe.
GoldenFinchFellow 1 year ago
@GoldenFinchFellow I told you before crows were shown to have a set of calls that they do in 3 different ways one for cats one for prey birds and one for humans. same three calls but recognizing different ways they are a danger. I've since learned the cat I told you the crow was hawing at was protecting the bird and the call was shaming the cat to leave. Of course we won't know what they think the details but we have to accept that they do attempt to communicate or ya we won't understand them.
GoldenFinchFellow 1 year ago
@GoldenFinchFellow My dog is like an mri scan when I injure my leg or over use it tendons inflamed he will smell every detail of them as I come in and lick them if I'm accepting and happy.. or if I'm tense about it he looks up while sniffing as to say I know your sore, I don't know how he thinks about it but what is clear is he is demonstrating that I should not be tense. in both cases he is demonstrating he cares about my state of mind and is keeping tabs on it, call it tough love if you will.
GoldenFinchFellow 1 year ago
@GoldenFinchFellow his species developed these skills from hunting prey over periods of days and being able to spot and smell weak spots while herding close to animals. There is only so much we can understand about what they think and only a certain range of life that is in any way similar to a way can read them. but we can read many aspects of there habitats yes as every living being manipulates its surroundings in order to survive I think it is fully concerned with what effects its habitat yes
GoldenFinchFellow 1 year ago
@GoldenFinchFellow that we a are a fluidic mountain or tree to many beings is reflective of why they don't bother to attempt any communication, and this is not to generalize communication to language how we know it or anthropomorphizing :) I personally don't use that word much, but to me it means like generalizing a behavior of animals to mean what we THINK, rather then taking a word of caution and giving it equal respect of its boundaries. I would say give them equal respect not rights.
GoldenFinchFellow 1 year ago
I agree rights are a man made thing to mediate a lack of mutual respect that can happen when we get together in large groups. Many animals have there own social customs and manners very different from ours and even very different from one population to the next. I recommend a book to you "Wild Justice, the moral lives of animals" to see a sample of study in this field of animal behavior to get a taste of what there is for us to learn from them. give them rights of mutual respect and we may learn
GoldenFinchFellow 1 year ago
as Opus once sung "Life is life. la la la la."
Awhiffofsuspicion 1 year ago
For someone or some species to have 'rights' one must be able to express their thoughts on the subject. I am all for homo-sapiens taking care of lesser species.
We cannot confer to a non-verbal species the rights we have, nor can we lessen our rights to match those of lesser species. Anthropocentrism is an inevitable consequence of our ability to communicate our thoughts and feelings.
journeyer58 1 year ago
Equal rights to all species given by whom?
If this sticker is put on the bamper by a higher consciousness than ours, we would never be able to read and understand it.
Anthropocentrism is inevitable since we cannot imagine there is something above us and below us that is conscious. Only man can be the "pinnacle of the evolution".
Perhaps my cat suffers from "catuscentricism" seeing myself as a sometimes useful animal, but having no right idea about mice.
No escape from the anthropocentricism.
wholethinker 1 year ago
@wholethinker I meant 'bumper', though there is no hope to escape the anthropocentricism anyway.
wholethinker 1 year ago
I doubt that the owner is seriously advocating equal rights for mosquitoes, They more likely mean that we should stop exploiting other creatures unnecessarily.
Every creature is naturally hardwired to be primarily more concerned about itself, and secondarily more concerned about its own species (or vice versa in some cases). What I see as unique to humans is that we bias the value of other creatures in descending order of their intelligence or how cute we happen to find them.
rhyfelur 1 year ago
that's such a cool photo of the tree. what's it called?
RyanStokes3 1 year ago
It is possible to think outside the box, but not fully conceptualize what it means or feels like from a non human perspective since it is almost impossible to jump out of our human skin and retain the same objective goal, without concession to the consciousness of whatever entity we then inhabit, both literally and figuratively.
crimsonsamuraiftw 1 year ago
@crimsonsamuraiftw rather I meant without the concession to the derogatory sensory input that is derived of the entity that we might otherwise inhabit to attempt an objective non-Anthropocentric perspective.
crimsonsamuraiftw 1 year ago
When I hear these arguements - is doesnt even seem to be ABOUT anthropocenterism but about the problems of dichotmous thinking. Who wants to throw the blue jay out with the bird bath?
highwaysong007 1 year ago
good point, human's role on this planet, given to us by the goddess, is to be representatives of this planet.
We have responsibility, because we have power over other animal beings.
this is a law of morality.
whether you want to live up to that responsibility is another matter.
The principles of our evolution fundamentally changed from being based on fear to being based on desire. We became free of niches in other words.
communism as opposed to capitalism
human as opposed to proto hominid.
natmanprime 1 year ago
Is there a Ceto-centrism amongst orcas and dolphins?
Gettinghitonattheban 1 year ago
same question as "can you get outside of consciousness?" ?
egoistorms 1 year ago
@egoistorms
We don't have to "get outside of consciousness" altogether, do we? ...In fact, claiming that you can't question unless you do is is proscriptive and false.
Obviously, it is impossible to get 'outside of consciousness.' But it is NOT impossible to escape at least conditionally our cultural blinders to some extent.
The reason we don't is because it's comfortable to accept unfounded nonsense as received 'truth' or as 'sacred...'
Atheists are not immune from unfounded claims btw
2bsirius 1 year ago
@2bsirius "it is NOT impossible to escape at least conditionally our cultural blinders to some extent" - i would tend to agree but wrt to the bumper sticker, i think that your "extent" is the issue. i understand the thought experiment as asking to transplant consciousness in order to understand another species' morality. of which i am aware, the species capable of discussing morality number less than two. so...how can one know (non-anthropocentrically) which "cultural blinders" to suspend?
egoistorms 1 year ago
@egoistorms
Wouldn't it really be another species' MODALITY rather than its morality?
And about that, well we can look at the dilemma in a number of ways. Of course the philosophical default is often Nagel's thought experiment, "What's it like to be a bat?" And his conclusion that eventually it's like nothing because our conscious modalities are too different...Some philosophers and at least one novelist have spoken about why this is might be a failure of empathetic imagination on Nagel's part.
2bsirius 1 year ago
(2)
Is the cogent question how reciprocal animals can be to our empathy? PA asks, "Do animals worry about my broken arm?" "Do other organism have theories of brain science?"
For me that misses the crux of the dilemma.
The cogent question for me at least to be how to overcome the bewitchment of language when our cultural blinders tend to restrict us to non-empathetic responses when it's confronted with animals suffer?
The thinking of Cora Diamond & J. M. Coetzee is eloquent & complex on this
2bsirius 1 year ago
@2bsirius okay... "the bumper sticker says 'equal rights for all species' " (@5:56)
one might assume, since one would have to be literate to process the meaning of said bumper sticker, that said sentiment requires explicit communication and negotiation among all species in order for said sentiment to be realizable.
but... you might be happy to know that i have been consuming significantly less meat recently =D
egoistorms 1 year ago
... we evolved our way into this anthropocentric mess and gosh darn it, we will just have to evolve our way out of it.
SaintCog 1 year ago
Until we can speak directly to animals and ask about their experience, we'll never really know.
Then again, I may just be acting anthropocentric.
BJ219 1 year ago
I have a question for you, Professoranton...and it goes back to something you said in passing in one of your past videos...You asserted that one proof of 'god' could be found in 'sacred geometry.' That seems to be an overtly anthropocentric attitude to me...
If you look at what masquerades as 'sacred geometry,' it is actually dependent on what the ancient Greeks ALLOWED to be considered as mathematical concepts. They left out & even abhorred the concepts of zero and the infinite [Con't]...
2bsirius 1 year ago
(2)
The Greeks were strictly 'rational' in their mathematics...Rational meaning their mathematics was based exclusively on ratios. This comes for the original basis of their mathematics being derived from land measurement. Pythagoras based his foundational concepts on the necessity of 'rationality' in mathematics.
When the he and his followers found that unfortunately the real world is not as well behaved as his idealistic 'rational' theories, he FORBID that knowledge from being disseminated.
2bsirius 1 year ago
(3)
He is well known to suppressed any discussion of irrational numbers, even though they appear everywhere...Specifically, his claim that . His claims that he had found a way to blend the “mystery of the divine” with common-sense rational thought were undercut by the irrationals, by the non-Greek concepts of zero and the infinite which were not allowed...
2bsirius 1 year ago
(4)
The point of this is that ANTHROPOCENTRIC might be the water we swim in but if we just shrug our shoulders and accept that idea we consent to our own ignorance, don't we?
Isn't it valid to see the ideas of Heidegger and others as what they are, biased by their implicit ANTHROPOCENTRISM? To my mind that reality does not demand that we must then jump to Peter Singer's "specism."
2bsirius 1 year ago
(5)
Is there a mature position in which we can look at human agency with maturity and become less culturally reflexively?
Sorry to spam. That's it from me.
2bsirius 1 year ago
A few reactions (a) Read Peter Singer for more on "specism" (b) there is animal morality, you can find examples on youtube (c) the problem is also the "we". How can you talk for the anthropos? Apparently it's unproblematic to expand to all humans. Many humans also don't form theories of mind etc. Should one form a new boundary that makes a difference between "species" that do worry about philosophy of mind and those who don't, who happen to be genetically human?
socrates856 1 year ago
@socrates856 You can't derive from an animal's behavior some sort of moral intention behind the act purely based upon the evidence of the act in itself. As far as Peter Singer's notion on expanding the circle encompassing those toward whom we can achieve certain depths of empathy, I think it's definitely an issue worth debating.
BoStevoD 1 year ago
@BoStevoD You cannot? How can you derive that a human has some sort of moral intentions? We constantly derive judgments about that without interviewing them for intent. That's exactly what antropocentrism is. It the assumption that in one case it is unproblematic without verificiation whereas in the other case it's impossible without verification.
socrates856 1 year ago
@socrates856 We can derive such an assumption from another human based upon their ability to inform us of such intentions.
BoStevoD 1 year ago