We investigate three dominant areas of transhumanism: super longevity, super intelligence and super wellbeing, and briefly cover the ideas of thinkers Aubrey de Grey, Ray Kurzweil and David Pearce. Official Website: http://biops.co.uk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/biopsuk Twitter: https://twitter.com/biopsuk Google+: http://gplus.to/biops Written by: Peter Brietbart and Marco Vega Animation & Design Lead: Many Artists Who Do One Thing (Mihai Badic) Animation Script: Mihai Badic and Peter Brietbart Narrated by: Holly Hagan-Walker Music and SFX: Steven Gamble Design Assistant: Melita Pupsaite Additional Animation: Nicholas Temple Other Contributors: Callum Round, Asifuzzaman Ahmed, Steffan Dafydd, Ben Kokolas, Cristopher Rosales Special Thanks: David Pearce, Dino Kazamia, Ana Sandoiu, Dave Gamble, Tom Davis, Aidan Walker, Hani Abusamra, Seong-jin Seo, Nicolas Reynolds, Florent Berthet, Rémi Marenco, Keita Lynch
Visibility: 185964
Duration: 11m 11s
Rating: 3703
Animal rights activists use the same tactic and the most popular argument may be summarized in this way: Humans feel pain, non human animals feel pain, therefore we ought to treat the latter with respect and concern for their well being and not expose them to unnecessary cruelty through systematic industrial exploitation. Sentience and not reason is the true criteria for moral consideration and many species share this attribute (while some humans do not possess it and are yet afforded rights). Therefore, extending at least some rights to non humans is a moral obligation, a duty. Just. Fair. To deny this is to be speciesist, the equivalent of being racist or sexist.
But the popular animal rights argument does not address the full spectrum of philosophical motives of humans who are either ignorant of, or opposed to animal rights. Some might say scientific research needs to be done to be sure a species meets the qualifications of sentience, or they may say sentience does not matter to them, only a specific kind of reason/intelligence, or an "immortal soul," or the fancy of an invisible creator, or, they might say life is full of pain and cruel, and why should we care about reducing suffering when it goes on unabated in the wild? Or they might say that ethics are irrelevant, every species is speciesist and humans have a natural gut instinct to stick together. Often, the animal rights debater requires that the listener accept their own ethical system, even if it requires abandoning a theistic world view for a secular one. George Bernard Shaw observed: "Religion is a great force - the only real motive force in the world; but you must get at a man through his own religion, not through yours."
Lurking behind every single type of argument used to defend human exploitation of Nature and non human lifeforms is what may be called a common religious notion, that humans as a group, are better as an absolute objective unquestionable truth to all other life, according to criteria that is conveniently determined by those who stand to benefit from the claim and discrimination/exploitation of other life. This belief is often taken for granted as if an axiom, and usually not expressed in precise terms, with good reason, as it leads to the Regress argument. An absolute is the final answer to a question. If you can question it, how can it be absolute? For every why there is a because and for every because another why. A belief in human supremacy is subject to many a why.
Despite this doubt, it is so accepted that it permeates the language. To be kind is to be humane, to be evil is to be inhumane, or nonhuman. You are a pig, a rat, a dog, a wolf in sheep's clothing. A weasel. A stool pigeon. If you are not human you are subhuman, a monkey, a snake in the grass, a cockroach. A worm. Either wicked, stupid, irrational or useless.
If you are a Theist you call it Dominionism or the Great Chain of Being. If you are a Darwinist you call it evolution, or Top of the Food Chain. Animal welfarists and hunters will claim they are meant to be Stewards or Managers of the natural world. If you are treated like an animal it is bad. Or you behave like an animal it is bad. To compare non human suffering to the Holocaust is called insulting and obscene(although the word holocaust in Hebrew meant "the sacrifice of a male animal on the altar of God"--ironic that it can be used to suggest victimization of humans but not for the originally defined victims). Humans are higher animals, the rest are lower. Animals are an "it." You do not execute them in shelters, you "destroy" them, like furniture.
Some have criticized the concept of human superiority. Jonathan Swift lampooned it in Gulliver's Travels. Mark Twain did the same in the Damned Human Race and satirically noted that it was humans who were inferior to other animals: "Man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to." This view is often called misanthropic, which usually carries the definition of hatred. It is very often compared to racism or declared an irrational, anti-social philosophical stance, and rarely defined as a belief that humans cannot be trusted, or as a critical appraisal of human nature (one could ask whether white abolitionists who criticized the actions of their race and class would also be called hateful).
In animal rights language this supremacy belief is sometimes called Specieism but that is an inaccurate and problematic description. Speciesism (like the term Anthropocentrism) invites dubious suggestions that it is unavoidable, other species do the same, and that it is not necessarily negative or connected to an articulated belief in supremacy. As far as we can observe, only humans can engage in it. We have no proof that lions walk around thinking: "Lions are better than everything else. We deserve special rights." This fact will be of importance to the animal rights argument that is to follow.
the concept of supremacy extends beyond humans believing they are better as a species to all others. Despite their promotion of democratic ideals, the ancient Greeks considered those who did not speak their language to be barbarians. Many people, from the Inuit to Jews to the Chinese to Germans to Serbians to the Japanese at one time or another have regarded their group as better or more worthy of special consideration than others, based on race, or language, or religion or a myriad of criteria. Although there are laws in place to discourage discrimination against and predation upon other humans, it still occurs. This fact will become of vital importance to the animal rights argument that is to follow.
The concept of universal human rights did not exist until the 20th century, and even today, despite efforts to promote it as a unifying moral code, many humans continue to think they are better than other humans according to race, or skin colour, or class, religion, appearance, wealth, or ideology, and take actions based upon such thinking. We still have war, crime, injustice, human slavery. All based upon one or more humans who think their interests are more important than another.
Those that champion human rights will agree that being white or Christian or male is trivial and subjective. But, if they oppose non human rights, they still hold to another criteria--some attribute that they deem as being important, just as the pro slavery white Christian male did 200 years ago.
Definitions for this criteria of value include the faculty of reason or some kind of special intelligence, a soul, the blessing of a divine creator(s), essential goodness(as opposed to non human life's alleged essential wickedness), the ability to comprehend moral concepts, or reciprocity in moral conduct, creative ability(even though a tiny minority compose symphonies and some paintings by elephants can be difficult to distinguish from those by abstract expressionists), or a bundle of special qualities, or a faculty x which is never specifically defined beyond A (human) is greater than B (nonhuman).in 2012 Scientists proclaim Animal and Human Consciousness the Same
http://www.care2.com/…/scientists-proclaim-animal-and-human… All of these criteria and any other brought forth to suggest human supremacy have two inherent problems.
One is that often the criteria meant to distinguish humans from non humans cannot be universally applied to humans and/or excluded from non humans. Case in point, some humans are more intelligent than others. Does that mean the ones who are less intelligent deserve fewer rights if "intelligence" is so important? If not, then why? Usually the fall back is to another criteria, which can then be questioned, and another fall back criteria may be highlighted which is again questionable.
Some claim that humans possess a faculty of reason-or cognitive ability to control and govern their behavior that "irrational" non humans do not possess (i.e. the ability to understand rules, duties, obligations, and causality, as well as having a theory of mind). And yet--who starts wars for ideology or non essential resources? Who pollutes rivers? Who overpopulates itself without natural checks? Who will engage in violence for recreation, or commit dangerous even self destructive acts? Gophers? Spider Monkeys? It is always one species--human. The stupidest acts committed on this planet are done by human beings. The cruelest acts are committed by humans. It may be true that some humans will self sacrifice to save another--but other humans will do the opposite, save themselves by putting someone else into harm's way. And non humans have been documented exhibiting altruistic behavior (both within species and beyond). In vicious experiments conducted on rats and Rhesus monkeys, the victim would spare themselves from a shock if they performed an act that would harm another of their kind, and yet they refused to do so. However, humans in similar situations such as the Milgram experiment, were willing to (simulated without them knowing it) shock another human simply because they were told to by an authority figure. The most violent domestic cat does not erect arenas or stadiums designed so that other cats can watch and take pleasure from the suffering of mice, knowing that they are causing suffering. As Mark Twain observed: "Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it." Humans are capable of mental torment, verbal abuse, and taking pleasure from knowing that they are causing suffering to someone else. This is uniquely human. I