I used to love eating meat, till I had to actually think about ethics beyond “whatever the bible says is right” and recognize that all sentient beings are morally relevant
Do you mean sapient? Because plants are also sentient; all sentience is is the ability to react to senses. Sapience on the other hand is the ability to have higher thought, like tool use, teaching, recognizing yourself in a mirror, etc… Finally there is the ability to feel pain which I do not think has a word. Plants from what we can tell cannot process pain, but can process negative stimuli.
No, to the best of my knowledge plants aren’t sentient. By sentient I mean “the ability to experience feelings and sensations”, which I think is the primary way that word is used. Something could be sentient with no way to react to senses (a paralyzed person for example), or able to “react” to “senses” without experiencing anything (a computer, chemical reaction, or to the best of my knowledge, plants would be examples of this)
the main reason I don’t think sapient (as you describe it) is a good marker for who/what is morally relevant is that we can likely agree there are pretty obvious cases where sentient, but not sapient, beings are morally relevant. The first example is baby humans, next is adult humans who are not sapient (terrible injury, disability, etc, could lead to a loss or lack of sapience while retaining sentience), and then even for nonhumans I think we can agree that kicking a dog is a morally relevant action (there could be circumstances where it’s justifiable or even good, e.g. kicking them out of the way of a car. But kicking them for fun is wrong)
according to some, but kant never went in for it. the strongest attempt to marry them seems to be from korsgaard, but howe treated her argument pretty roughly in “why kant animals have rights” (2019)
I used to love eating meat, till I had to actually think about ethics beyond “whatever the bible says is right” and recognize that all sentient beings are morally relevant
Do you mean sapient? Because plants are also sentient; all sentience is is the ability to react to senses. Sapience on the other hand is the ability to have higher thought, like tool use, teaching, recognizing yourself in a mirror, etc… Finally there is the ability to feel pain which I do not think has a word. Plants from what we can tell cannot process pain, but can process negative stimuli.
No, to the best of my knowledge plants aren’t sentient. By sentient I mean “the ability to experience feelings and sensations”, which I think is the primary way that word is used. Something could be sentient with no way to react to senses (a paralyzed person for example), or able to “react” to “senses” without experiencing anything (a computer, chemical reaction, or to the best of my knowledge, plants would be examples of this)
the main reason I don’t think sapient (as you describe it) is a good marker for who/what is morally relevant is that we can likely agree there are pretty obvious cases where sentient, but not sapient, beings are morally relevant. The first example is baby humans, next is adult humans who are not sapient (terrible injury, disability, etc, could lead to a loss or lack of sapience while retaining sentience), and then even for nonhumans I think we can agree that kicking a dog is a morally relevant action (there could be circumstances where it’s justifiable or even good, e.g. kicking them out of the way of a car. But kicking them for fun is wrong)
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under what ethical system?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentiocentrism
https://sentientism.info/
that’s not my ethical system. most people don’t subscribe to it.
Right, most people subscribe to their holy book(s) of choice
even among professional philosophers the prevailing ethical system is deontology
sentientism is compatible with deontology
according to some, but kant never went in for it. the strongest attempt to marry them seems to be from korsgaard, but howe treated her argument pretty roughly in “why kant animals have rights” (2019)