badmana with the inclusion of that little ‘my’ before the word pets, it becomes far less ominous an idea for me.
“My pets are more important to me than most humans. My pets don’t judge, insult, or bully. Whilst humans often do. My pets only want a little love, food, and shelter.”
seems much less homosapienphobic.
This is one of the reasons I didn’t want to do a quote directly from the earlier post, but did a rephraising of what the post’s sentiment had sounded like it could have been. I was sure no one was meaning “pets are better than humans” which seems to me even more warped than “people with curley hair are better than people with straight hair” or any other -ist or -phobic idea.
Yeah, I was going to make a nice big reply for ya Bippy but the office computers don’t seem up to it (stupid virus).
But I wanted to point out the word “homosapienphobic” is incorrect. I’m not afraid of humans. I just don’t place a special value on humans just because I am one. I guess could say I value life based on how “close” that life is to me.
Humans are just like any other animals. I place a bit more value of humans over general animals but I don’t place them over the lives of my loved ones.
Yet you have no problem with a judgment of inferiority put against a large disparate group (animals) based on what seems to me to be a highly unreasonable premise?
To me, animals have their strengths and weaknesses. Humans, being animals, have their strengths and weaknesses. If you value loyalty, dogs are valuable. If you value intelligence, humans beat out gerbils. If you value something that can run seemingly endlessly in a wheel, gerbils beat out pretty much anything.
(I love my husband more than I love my cats. He’s only a slightly better conversationalist, but he doesn’t shed as much.)
It is wrong to say “humans are better than pets” in an all inclusive statement like this as well.
Everything else is down to the many means of measuring one thing against another. The measurement is as often subjective as objective.
What bugs me, is when someone feels their pet is better than, say, a homeless man. Their pet may be more important to them than the homeless person, may be a better companion to them than the homeless person. But there is no absolute betterness of one over the other.
There is no meaning to Apples is better than Oranges, since you are compering apples and oranges
P.S. Julie,
Being curly haired, and in posession of a large mop of hair at the moment, I probably shed more than your cats do.
So in hair unsheddingness
If true (and I see no reason to disagree with it), then the question of the drowning dog and stranger hinges on whether one considers the individual or society to be more important. Of course, at times personal and social responsiblity can coincide, such as a situation where a beloved human is drowning. However, I would guess that those who would save the dog have less of (or a different) group identity than those who would save the stranger.
Hmmm… looking at that, perhaps it’s that we define society differently. While I love the pets I’ve had, I didn’t consider them to be part of my “society” in any important way. In contrast, I do consider pretty much all other humans to be in my society. So when it comes down to the two of them, I consider my societal bond to the human to be more important than my societal bond to the animal.
However, personal bonds would still play a part here. If it was some random dog and a stranger, then the moral dilemma wouldn’t exist. Despite not knowing the stranger, I have a societal bond towards them which I wouldn’t have towards a random dog. If there were* a loved human and a stranger drowning, I would probably rescue the loved one, because I have both personal and societal bonds towards the loved person but only societal bonds towards the stranger.
Coming back to societal bonds, I suppose it depends on how you rank the importance of your varying group identities. Which is more important, your country or your ethnic group? Your family or the human race? If you consider your family more important than the human race, and you consider the dog to be part of your family, then it makes sense for you to choose the dog, whether or not that’s a morally correct ranking. So maybe the real question here is, how do we rank the importance of our various group identities, and how should we rank them?
I’m sure you can tell that I’m thinking out loud here. If it’s confusing, tell me so I can clarify.
(*Would “were” or “was” be correct here? Neither one sounds right to me.)
But I don’t like apples, and I really like oranges!
I mean, aside from Granny Smith apples, which I do like, but which always seem to sit around and go bad by the time I actually want to eat one, unlike oranges which barely get put away before I’ve eaten a couple.
But other than that, I agree! Comparing apples to oranges is just plain wrong.
This is a difficult question, but I think that badmana has a good point. My dog has provided me with a lifetime of companionship and protection, and when I adopted her in the first place it became my duty to ensure her safety.
However, saving the stranger would be more of a favor to society. Sure, there is a chance that he is a mass murderer, or whatever, but there is a greater possibility that he has friends, a family, and that he contributes to society in some way, making him well worth saving.
I think that I would end up saving my dog, because I have had her for so long and she has become a part of the family. But it would be interesting to see what I would actually do in that situation if I didnt have so long to think about it. I might just save the person because I know that our society would find it unacceptable to put your dog’s life in front of a man’s.
I like Super Gant´s introduction of social bonds in the debate; I had half cooked thoughts about that, as a member of a society I´m commited to certain morals and ethics, to protect other members of my society when needed and feasible is one of them. Perhaps it just boils down to a sense of retribution, treat people as I´d like to be treated.
As for the relative value of animal vs. human life; I concede that humans are animals, so from a wide perspective there´s no difference at all; however humans do trascended animals´s ability to sense their environment, there´s much more to humans than animal instincts and behaviours. That, indeed places humans above, in a human context at last; still, from an animal point of view we are equal, if I go swimming and a shark starts munching my leg it´s of no use to explain to it the intricacies of abstract thought and why that makes me superior to a non-sentient animal so I command it to cease and desist on it´s behaviour.
Rereading the OP (who reneged on his promise to come back tomorrow) I find it remarkable that it seems like most of the dogowners (again CanvasShoes seems an exception) go further than saying they would rescue their dog: they say they think are morally right to do so. The OP specifically says there is no right or wrong answer. To be fair, it does seem like the OP is interested in the meaning behind the choice. Both sides now are delving into moral positions.
What actually bothers me a bit about the moral position of the ‘dogwoners’ (but I should reread the thread to see what they really say on this), is that it looks as if no-one is at least bothered when saying that they would save their dog.
I can understand that they express their authentic and deep-seated love for their dog in this way, and maybe they really would act like this out of a primal impulse, even though a woman is screaming like hell five meters further in the water. But wouldn’t you at least feel bad about yourself afterwards that, understandable though it might be, you let a human being die who you could in principle have saved, albeit at a horrible personal cost for yourself?
I would certainly feel that way in the reverse situation (saving the stranger and leaving my (hypothetical) dog to drown). Maybe the dogowners feel that way too, but forgot to mention it in their posts (IIRC CanvasShoes did say something like this). It would make their position more comprehensible than it seems now.
Glad to see someone from “the other side” acknowledge that there is more than one moral position. Many posters in the ‘humans first’ camp have acted as if whatever they think is the only possible ‘right’ way of thinking, and that anyone thinking otherwise is an immoral scumbag. Even to the point where saving your dog instead of a stranger was equated with rape.
I also cannot comprehend some of the statements made, wrt choosing to sacrifice your loved one for strangers (in the parallel thread I think there was even a number as low as 10 mentioned). I really cannot begin to conprehend how someone can think like that. But I’m willing to accept it, and see no reason to say that what I’m thinking is by definition the right thing.
I would still save my dog, and yes, I would regret the death of the stranger. On the other hand, would I have jumped in to save him/her in the first place in the absence of my dog? Would I risk my life to save someone I don’t know? That’s a tough one as well.
There IS only one right answer. To let a human die for the purpose of saving a dog is simply abominable. Completely and utterly abominable.
Sadly, we live in a society where taking a hardline moral stance is often unpopular. Frankly, I don’t care. There are certain principles which simply should not be compromised.
You have any kind of logic or proof that humans are intrinsically more important than animals? Or even your own reasons you feel that way?
Personally, I believe they do, but this is based on religious beliefs. I would be interested for those who keep saying the humans should be saved, to post WHY the human is worth more (beyond saying something to the effect of “they just are”). Saying that a human death causes more suffering is somewhat unproovable, as we really don’t know how animals feel (just becuase they don’t cry doesn’t mean they don’t suffer…mayhaps just in a way too alien for us to recognize). Not to mention, if human suffering is such a horrific thing, perhaps mass genocide is the way to go, since it would end all suffering.
The people saying they would save the dog have done a much better job of explaining why that would be the preffered option. On a proveable scientific level, humans have no more intrinsic value than animals (some could aurgue that we are actually lesser, since we ruin our environment, but that is another debate). Since there is no scientific basis for human superiority, it becomes a moral or peronal preference issue. At this point I think it becomes egotistical to think that because I believe that humans are worth more, the rest of the world should believe what I believe.
A sticky question.
My dog is probably in the water because I threw a stick and he chased it.
The stranger is out in the water because? If he can’t swim he’s in the water because he’s an idiot. If he fell out of a boat then where is the life preserver he should be wearing? He’s still an idiot.
I would choose my dog over an idiot anyday. If I can help the stranger afterwards then I will.
Now, if someone was holding the stranger under that is a different question. Then my obligation is to the stranger to protect him from assault. If I don’t then I certainly can’t expect help if I was in a similar situation. I don’t expect people to save me from my own stupidity, nor should they expect help saving them from their own.
