ForumsWEPRHelp Animals or Humans

17 7214
daniel5533
offline
daniel5533
160 posts
Nomad

nowadays i have been seeing commercials about helping sad dogs and cats but what about helping starving humans beings that could one day change the third world country that they live in

What are your thoughts, would you help the animals or your fellow humans?

  • 17 Replies
Moegreche
offline
Moegreche
3,826 posts
Duke

This is fun. So straight away we have two arguments that I think capture the main force behind animal conservation. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, but I'll have to think a little more about it. But here they are.

We owe it to them. For thousands of year of extinctions caused by our invasion of natural habitats for greedy reasons.


So in other words, we should help animals because it falls under the general maxim that if you screw something up, you should try to fix it. Let's call this the WSU argument (We Screwed Up).

If one species goes endangered or extinct, that puts a strain on one or more species.


Here, we should help animals because these actions ultimately are beneficial to humans. Let's call this one BH (for Beneficial to Humans).

I think both WSU and BH have a lot going for them and do indeed provide strong motivation for preserving animal populations. But there are problems with each.
The flaw in WSU doesn't explain why we feel the need to also save animals that would have gone extinct even without our interference. Some species are just not biologically or evolutionarily capable of 'keeping up'. WSU provides no motivation for protecting these animals because we did not, in fact, screw this one up. Now, one could argue that our curiosity and desire to learn plays a role in the motivation for preserving a species. Basically, we don't want a species to die because we want to study it. But doesn't this seem to violate WSU? We are still screwing up the 'natural order' of things by allowing a species to survive - even though it ought to (in some sense) not be here.
BH seems to have a bit more going for it, as it would explain why we preserve some species and hunt others to near extinction. The problem, I think, with this approach is that it entails the same sort of problems that consequentialilst ethical theories share. We simply can't know the ultimate outcome in a lot of cases. How often have we seen cases where humans hunt a predatory animal that is killing livestock to near extinction only to find that we've ultimately hosed ourselves in so doing. Suppose there's a species of wolf that's killing off farmers' sheep so the farmers hunt the wolves to stop their sheep from dying. But then the foraging critters that the wolves were also killing become overpopulated and destroy crops and farmland. I'm sure some sort of scenario like this has happened and is probably not uncommon.

It seems like a genuine dilemma, at least as it's presented here. Is there some way to wriggle free? Could we perhaps adopt a hybrid of WSU and BH that isn't internally inconsistent? Or should we just leave things as they are and deal with the consequences? After all, we are part of the ecosystem as well and our ability to manipulate our environment does lend some credence to the idea that we have every right to destroy whatever animal we see fit.
Of course, there is another option that the dilemma I've presented isn't really a dilemma at all. Thoughts?
xAyjAy
offline
xAyjAy
4,710 posts
Blacksmith

Animal. We owe it to them. For thousands of year of extinctions caused by our invasion of natural habitats for greedy reasons.
Besides, I know no matter what I do, 4 little pink, squealing things are going to be popped into this world and further put a strain on our finite resources. Every. Two. Seconds.


i heard somewhere from someone that humans are animals too.

Despite animals not being as intelligent as us humans, it does not imply that they are less significant in the biosphere. We are all part of the food web(or food domino. It sounds more fun). If one species goes endangered or extinct, that puts a strain on one or more species. The strain may be so great that part of the net just...snaps (or if you're still on the domino analogy, the domino tips over, knocks into other dominos and before you know it, you have a fast-paced version of how life will be snuffed out).

So while we have nearly 6 billion people and roughly half a billion are directly causing progression (or will be), there are thousands upon thousands of species that must be preserved in order to continue to bring balance to the force. Of nature.


you know that anything was right before the humans showed up and decided to kill anymals because they liked their fur?

if humanity would extingt itself or would not be there anymore nature would recover. because thats what the best ability of nature. to regenerate it wounds, wounds caused by the humans. nature can handle it without humans, it has bafore apes evolved to humans and it will after humans are gone.

Showing 16-17 of 17