Evolutionary Philosophy
  • Home
  • Worldview
    • Epistemology
    • Metaphysics
    • Logic
    • Ethics
    • Politics
    • Aesthetics
  • Applied
    • Know Thyself
    • 10 Tenets
    • Survival of the Fittest Philosophers >
      • Ancient Philosophy (Pre 450 CE)
      • Medieval Philosophy (450-1600 CE)
      • Modern Philosophy (1600-1920 CE)
      • Contemporary Philosophy (Post 1920 CE)
    • 100 Thought Experiments
    • Elsewhere
  • Fiction
    • Draining the Swamp >
      • Further Q&A
    • Short Stories
    • The Vitanauts
  • Blog
  • Store
  • About
    • Purpose
    • My Evolution
    • Evolution 101
    • Philosophy 101

Response to Thought Experiment 72: Free Percy

11/11/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
Imprisoned, so children can have something to point at on weekends.
I've already written quite a lot about the subject of this week's thought experiment, so I'll try to keep this post concise with just some links to more reading in case you missed the originals. If you're like America's new vice president who doesn't believe in evolution, then there's no way you'll agree with my stance, and we'll have to go back to the beginning tenets of philosophy. But If you've already absorbed the lessons of evolutionary history into your personal philosophy, then the conclusions you will reach about this thought experiment are pretty clear. Since you're reading this at all, I'm guessing you'll see eye to eye with me so there's not much need to keep preaching to the choir. But sometimes it's nice to practice just to help stay in tune...

---------------------------------------------------
     "Today, I have initiated proceedings against my so-called owner, Mr. Polly, under article 4(1) of the European Convention on Human Rights, which declares that 'No one shall be held in slavery or servitude.'
     "Since Mr. Polly captured me in Venezuela, I have been held against my will, with no money or possessions to call my own. How can this be right? I am a person just like you. I feel pain. I have plans. I have dreams. I can talk, reason, and feel. You would not treat your own this way. So why do you allow me to be abused so blatantly?
     "The answer I hear is, 'Because you're a parrot, Percy.' Yes, I am indeed a parrot. But although your convention is on human rights, throughout it talks of 'everyone' and by everyone it means 'all people.' What is a person? It used to be thought that only white people were truly persons. That prejudice at least has been defeated. Surely a person is any thinking intelligent being that has reason and reflection and can consider itself as itself. I am such a being, I am a person. To deny me my freedom purely on the grounds of my species is a prejudice no more justifiable than racism."

Source: Book two, chapter XXVII of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke, 1706.

Baggini, J., The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten, 2005, p. 214.
---------------------------------------------------

Back in my response to thought experiment 32: Free Simone, I discussed the concepts of rights, human rights, and animal rights as a lead up to the discussion about potentially granting rights to conscious computers. Now that we're just discussing animal rights, what I said in that post is perfectly applicable. For starters, I think like Jeremy Bentham that the independent existence of rights is "nonsense on stilts," but we as members of a society can agree to grant them to one another, as in the widely accepted European Convention on Human Rights. We can also agree to grant rights to non-human animals and plants even though these forms of life cannot now recognize or reciprocate such agreements. The abstract concept of rights requires higher-level symbolic thinking that non-humans have yet to develop, but rights have mostly been put in place to protect the much more basic-level fundamentals of being alive: freedom to live, find shelter, and avoid unnecessary harm. Evolutionary history shows that all life shares these fundamental desires—we didn't suddenly gain them with the first theoretical homo sapiens sapiens—so to exclude the rest of life from having such rights just because they don't yet have the capacity to understand or express them to us is undeniably speciesist.

In my cover article for Humanist magazine, When the Human in Humanism Isn't Enough, I thoroughly explained the history and dangers of our speciesism. Such acts are arrogant, ignorant, divisive, and short-sighted. For alternatives, I've argued in a Patheos blog essay for a sacred respect for the sublimity of nature (even by atheists), and in another Humanist magazine article I explained why I feel the call of the rewild to give back non-human animals the habitats they need to survive. These are three of my best publications and they all have to do with kindness and respect towards other forms of life. I'm proud of that.

If you've already read my own work on this subject, then let me suggest two great pieces written by others. The first is the recent acceptance speech by Jared Diamond after receiving the "Humanist of the Year" award in 2016. The speech was titled, 
Science & Religion in the Rough: Why human evolution and the multitude of extrasolar planets complicate the idea that we are special. The short answer to that subtitle is that we aren't special. But finally, to drive that point home in a way that is particularly relevant to the non-human animal in this week's thought experiment, check out the article "What Does a Parrot Know About PTSD?" in order to see how "an unexpected bond between damaged birds and traumatized veterans could reveal surprising insights into animal intelligence."

If you've already read all these links, then there's nothing else I need to add about treating animals with dignity. If you haven't yet, then get reading! In this fractious time of history for our nations, the billion-year-bonds we share with other forms of life are precisely what we need more of to help us recognise that the selfishness of human tribes is inane. If we love and respect the Percy's of the world, then we can't help but love and respect each other more too. Don't you want that Polly?
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Subscribe to Help Shape This Evolution

    SUBSCRIBE

    Blog Philosophy

    This is where ideas mate to form new and better ones. Please share yours respectfully...or they will suffer the fate of extinction!


    Archives

    February 2025
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    April 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    January 2023
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    August 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    May 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    July 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    April 2012

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.