Note that the most species with arguable the greatest sentience make sentience a key priority in assigning right to other species. I am OK with this criterion, but I also suspect that it is inherently anthropocentric. Are there sources that address this issue?
Thinking aloud here...is there a criterion that is not based upon human priorities? So, for example, another criterion for could be the ability to feel pain. However, the ethical justification for this criterion would be the minimization of pain--a human priority.
Is suffering (or pleasure) a human only characteristic? I would rather say that it is a biological adaptive characteristic of all living beings.
Please, allow me to quote Aldo Leopold; "A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise."
I hope that Kenneth Goodpaster, On being morally considerable." Ethical Theory: An Anthology 14 (2012), might shed some more light.
Best wishes for a happy 2014
Kostas: I never suggested that suffering was limited to humans; rather, I suggested that the use of suffering as a criteria for animal rights (like the use of sentience) is influenced by human priorities. Note: Your observation--that suffering is not limited to humans--also applies to sentience. The point I was trying to make is that any criteria we come up with will be, to some extent, influenced by 'human priorities'. I'm not convinced that such influence makes it fundamentally 'anthropocentric'.
This is precisely the anthropocentrism that I perceive. For example, most animals engage in behaviors that risk physical harm (and pain) in order to reproduce, but humans have no qualms about reversing these priorities on 'behalf' of the animals: denying animals reproduction, while protecting them from pain.
Again, I do not mind that we impose our own value system on animals, but I think would should be overt about it.
I agree with both of you. I think though, that anthropocentrism is not on setting up "sentience criterion", but (if there is any) on the "imposition of this criterion"; although I believe, this is the little secret of humans.... "to impose their own value system to their surrounding environment". This is how we do survive as species, isn't it.
Now, if the criterion (any criterion) is "extreme", like the one suggested by Truman, I would rather call the imposition of such criterion, "fetish".
Jeremy: My post was not referring to your post. I was just trying to share the thoughts of the moment. My apologies if I was not clear.
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