Are dolphins sufficiently self-aware to deserve more ethical treatment? | Hacker News Reader

Are dolphins sufficiently self-aware to deserve more ethical treatment?

futurepundit.com

26 pointscwan13 comments

Swimming with the dolphins (for about 15-20 minutes in an amusement park) has been one of the most awe-inspiring and cherished experiences in my life. I always knew dolphins are mammals, but the experience of seeing their features up close was still fascinating. They have eye lashes, and their eyes look very close to dog/human eyes and seem to have a spark of intelligence in them. In retrospect this is pretty obvious, but I still remember how amazed I was to see it up close.

One of the dolphins was a new mother - her newborn was confined to a small area in the corner of the pool. Every few minutes the mother would turn around to briefly glance if her newborn is ok.

They seem to really enjoy playing with people - they'd do tricks like swim up to you from the back and poke you in the butt to surprise you. Then they'd turn on their backs to let you rub their belly and after a while they'd rise above the water surface and touch your face with their nose. I asked the guide if they were taught to do this and she said one of the dolphins came up with the 'poking' trick and the other dolphins picked it up.

These are really fascinating creatures. I have no idea whether holding them in captivity should be considered unethical, but the idea of killing them for a commercial purpose (or even research) makes me feel extremely uneasy.

If you get the chance to swim with them, do take take the opportunity. It's worth the money many times over and will almost certainly change the way you think about these amazing creatures.

Why does 'self aware[ness]' have any effect on ethical or humane treatment?

Here is a prior thread in which I asked essentially the same question, from which quite a lively discussion ensued: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1029406.

On reflection, I think I see the legal angle here (which I did not in the prior thread). Activist groups have long looked for a hook by which to bring class actions against those whom they see as perpetrators of wrongs that they wish to stop. In this case, it is commercial tuna fishermen. However, the courts have denied them the right to sue on behalf of the dolphins (which are accidentally killed in the course of industrial tuna fishing) on grounds that dolphins aren't human beings and therefore do not have 'standing' to sue. This means that the activist groups also cannot bring class actions in the name of the dolphins. Of course, if the dolphins are 'self-aware,' then they arguably can be treated in a special way by the courts - as 'non-human humans' - and be given the right to sue. The research is being cast as disinterested science, but I believe it may be motivated by this extra-scientific goal and that is why it is routinely presented along with arguments for better ethical treatment of the dolphins. In essence, the bottom line will be this: better ethical treatment = enforceable legal rights (i.e., enforceable by activist groups suing tuna fisherman in federal court once a court recognizes their right to bring such suits on behalf of a 'self-aware' species that now should have 'standing' to sue).

As I have come to see this in such a light, I believe the science here may be authentic but it may equally be agenda-driven, potentially making its findings suspect. I leave that to those who understand the scientific issues (I do not) but it does need to be evaluated in light of this background motive and its implications.

Pure science is purely descriptive, it is not prescriptive. People often use science as justification for prescriptive action. But prescriptive action also always requires a categorization of outcomes as [good, bad]. Good vs. bad is an aesthetic decision that is not intrinsic to pure science.

Aesthetic? I think I see what you mean -- if Heisenberg had developed a nuclear bomb during the war, it would have had a significant impact on European landscape aesthetics.

correct. For most, such nuclear devestation would be extremely displeasing to envision. However this does not make it scientifically bad, and if you were a nazi you would probably use darwinism to justify it.

What other criteria would you employ to decide the ethics of treatment to non humans?

(Its a question, not a rhetoric. eg. Killing humans is not OK, killing poultry is, intelligent aliens from space is not.)

Avoid suffering.

If it can suffer, do not kill it.

well, it seems self evident that after minimization of your own suffering that doing the same for all sentient beings around you is the next step. I prefer futures with greater aggregate preference satisfaction.

Why limit reducing suffering to other sentient beings? Isn't it desirable to reduce the suffering even of things that are not self aware?

sure, but we're talking about an ordered list of priorities. generally you'd expetct something along the lines of

myself

those closest to me

my "tribe"

my society

my species

similar species

less similar species

etc.

Interesting, related question: when is a creature self-aware enough to be held to a different standard of behaviour than, say, a dog?

I don't think self-aware is a good metric. I would argue the economy is self-aware. I think a better metric of how evovled or human-like something's consciousness is would be capacity for analogical reasoning.

Humans are by far the best, by the great apes and dolphins can do it too.

A biologial metric that is more accurate than brain size is cortical folding. Again humans have the most, but bottlenose dolphins actually have more than early human ancestors.

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