Jonathan Balcombe's new book Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals has an important message (thanks):
"Jonathan Balcombe believes that we have allowed intelligence to become the measure with which we determine how well to treat animals when what we should be using is how they feel.
It is not a new idea - the philosopher Jeremy Bentham said in 1789 that how an animal ought to be treated should be dependent on its capacity to suffer. It is a question that has recently been overlooked by biologists, who are instead determined to prove that some species have cognitive capacities akin to our own.
In this engaging book, Balcombe marshals wide-ranging and up-to-date evidence to demonstrate that animals do indeed experience the world as richly as us and may well feel and suffer more intensely than we do.
He concludes: "Extending our empathy and concern toward all who experience the ups and downs of life is neither strange nor radical. It is, after all, second nature." "
We tend to camouflage our rational ignorance (and cognitive dissonance of-course) by caring for our pets but ignoring other species.
Farther they are from our vicinity, lesser we have to empathize with them. This probably creates a simple feedback loop (by keeping the mirror neurons unemployed?) to "rationalize" our rational ignorance. We indeed are creatures of convenience.
"Jonathan Balcombe believes that we have allowed intelligence to become the measure with which we determine how well to treat animals when what we should be using is how they feel.
It is not a new idea - the philosopher Jeremy Bentham said in 1789 that how an animal ought to be treated should be dependent on its capacity to suffer. It is a question that has recently been overlooked by biologists, who are instead determined to prove that some species have cognitive capacities akin to our own.
In this engaging book, Balcombe marshals wide-ranging and up-to-date evidence to demonstrate that animals do indeed experience the world as richly as us and may well feel and suffer more intensely than we do.
He concludes: "Extending our empathy and concern toward all who experience the ups and downs of life is neither strange nor radical. It is, after all, second nature." "
We tend to camouflage our rational ignorance (and cognitive dissonance of-course) by caring for our pets but ignoring other species.
Farther they are from our vicinity, lesser we have to empathize with them. This probably creates a simple feedback loop (by keeping the mirror neurons unemployed?) to "rationalize" our rational ignorance. We indeed are creatures of convenience.
No comments:
Post a Comment