My 6 year old twins like to come up with questions about whether you would rather die or have X happen. Recently, one asked, "I know the answer is obvious" and then asked me if I'd rather die or have a bunch of dogs die. And I was like, "I'd rather live and let the dogs die" and she and her sister were appalled. They were like, "obviously you die and save the dogs".
Hmm. It's reasonable to assume one human could save more than "a bunch of" dogs' lives by dedicating their post-decision life to doing so. I wonder what they'd think about this as a reason to save your own life.
Children would also choose to save a bowl of ice cream over a bowl of gold nuggets. They aren't making abstract rational/moral choices, they're choosing the thing which will make them feel good. It's effectively the same question as asking them "Do you want to play with that dog, or with that person?"
What an odd way to respond. Manufactured in what way? Gold’s value is no more manufactured than that of ice cream. It has no bearing on the comparison.
Are you sure? I was under the impression that, for instance, diamond's value is mostly manufactured, but gold is actually useful for various electronic and chemical properties.
Yeah, I looked it up before posting. And "superficial" would be better a better word than "manufactured." Only like 10% of gold production goes towards industrial purposes. The rest is used for jewelry or as currency backing.
edit And gold is actually a rare element that's actually useful, like you described, just not rare enough that most of it can't be siphoned off to sit idly in someone's vault. Diamonds are also somewhat useful, but not really rare.
I haven't heard a great argument explaining why human life is objectively more valuable than animal life. The most common argument I hear, even from otherwise thoughtful people I know, is something along the lines of "because one is a human and the other is an animal, duh!" but I don't consider that to be a persuasive argument.
Is it because we value organisms that are "smarter"? If that's the case, is the life of a person with a high IQ objectively more valuable than the life of a person with a lower IQ?
Is it because we think animals aren't capable of feeling fear, pain, anxiety, and love?
Is it a tribalism thing? If we assume that elephants, chimps, or whales are capable of some level of ethical reasoning, are they expected to also value human life higher than their own, or would that be considered immoral because they're "species traitors"? Is the "moral" expectation that a chimp would value chimp life higher, a dog would value dog life higher, and a human would value human life higher?
If humans didn't highly value their own lives, they would be much less likely to survive and reproduce, and we wouldn't be here having this conversation.
> Is it because we think animals aren't capable of feeling fear, pain, anxiety, and love?
Historically, I think this was a common justification. Although, the conversation has shifted and will likely continue to do so, as we have realized that animals have many of the feelings that we have, even if it isn't exactly the same.
> Is the "moral" expectation that a chimp would value chimp life higher, a dog would value dog life higher, and a human would value human life higher?
Yes, most likely. Although the world would probably look very different if other animals were capable of discussing such things :)
> If humans didn't highly value their own lives, they would be much less likely to survive and reproduce, and we wouldn't be here having this conversation.
This is obviously true, and if it ever came down to making a split-second decision about saving your own life, you would expect this trait to drive the show.
However, moral puzzlers like the trolley problem don't work the same way. You might know that "save the humans, let the dogs die" is the rational HN-approved answer, but you might also know that it's the cold, calculating, heartless answer that will land you a spot in hell if you don't feel at least a little bit bad about it.
You can simultaneously be hard-wired to save yourself and your human peers in a split-second decision, while also being disgusted by humanity as a whole, while also also feeling empathy for dogs as Good and Pure beings of endless affection that we adults clearly don't deserve.
> Is it because we value organisms that are "smarter"?
IMO, yes. That, and, I think it's likely that most aren't self-aware, or are at least less self-aware.
> If that's the case, is the life of a person with a high IQ objectively more valuable than the life of a person with a lower IQ?
Possibly—it's just that trying to make that judgement opens up enormous possibilities for horrible outcomes! Just to scratch the surface, IQ tests are very rough measures of intelligence, because they rely heavily on cultural knowledge and are thus biased against certain cultures. You don't want to attempt to make life-and-death decisions based on fuzzy measures like that.
But, I'd posit you should choose to save a dolphin over a dog (and not just because dolphins are endangered).
This thinking is why having AGI is so scary. We are nothing compared to the computers that we are in the process of creating in terms of intelligence and self awareness.
I think AGI will kill humanity and there's nothing we can do about it, but I hope I'm not right.
I think it's mainly because of how we feel about losing human lives vs animal lives. So it's emotion based. I think all other reasoning/justification comes after our emotions. Anyone can think of reasons that differentiate humans from animals, but ultimately it is just how we feel about it. And for emotions, yes this is for evolutionary reasons.
If we were to consider human lives equal with animal life we would have to change so much it would not be practical so at current state it is not even something ww would consider so many of us simply try to ignore the issue.
At at least some of the age range here (5 years old) children are still trying to understand death (for example they might not experience grief and loss when a close relative dies) and it doesn't make much sense to me to compare to someone that has developed an understanding of it.
I assume that this study (based on researchers affiliations) was done in US. I’ll hazard that results are heavily skewed by culture. At least for adult results. For example I would wager that dogs life in Asia or Eastern Europe is much cheaper than in the US. Also, I guess they didn’t include some people on ABC7 news comments section in the study who seemingly would sacrifice any number of humans to save a dogs life.
it would be interesting to do something like this across cultures and see if the kids agree, even accounting for variation among the adult populations who are the ones socially conditioning the children.
Yeah, my five year old is both weirdly obsessed with the idea of death but also weirdly not bothered by the concept. She is always asking if some person she learns about is dead, and always says we are "trying to die her" whenever we stop her from doing something she wants to do, but is never too distraught.
Sounds like her true form encompasses the entire universe of possibilities, so any time you limit her choices you are effectively killing off a part of her consciousness, for no reason but your own convenience or some vain attempt to prepare her for some vague 'real world'. By preventing her action you are literally denying her right to fully exist.
Children are often placed in a caretaker position over dogs--they sometimes help feed it, take it out to the bathroom or on walks. They don't spend much mental energy thinking about the needs of adults, the adults tend to do that for themselves, often out of sight of the child.
It's not surprising that the child would lean towards protecting the animals that they see as under their care, or needing more care than adults.
Family dogs also tend to take on a protective role over children, since they're pack animals and correctly identify the tiny humans as fragile/vulnerable. Dogs will offer the kids as much love and attention as they're willing to take without ever getting bored, while adults often have their own limits and need to deal with other Important Business that children don't necessarily understand/appreciate yet.
Yep. I could see choosing to save a dog over a person on similar lines. A person should be able to take care of themself and would (generally as an adult) not be the responsibility of another person. A domestic dog may not be equipped to take care of itself and as an owner you feel a moral responsibility for their wellbeing.
Note that 'notRobot's "valuing all lives" is not saying "valuing all lives precisely equally" but rather opposing "humans are far more morally important" as per the abstract.
The question is inane, anybody who doesn't earnestly value the life of a human more than the life of a dog is morally bankrupt. And frankly, I think most who claim otherwise earnestly do not feel that way when put on the spot. Given the choice of dying young or receiving a porcine heart valve transplant, I am quite sure what damn near everybody except a handful of nutjobs would chose.
It's more likely that the bulk of adults have stopped reasoning morally and instead go with socially prescribed conclusions. I mean, how else would you explain the killing if trillions of land animals each year?
Morality doesn't exist outside of "socially prescribed conclusions", it's actually a pure social thing, it has no other function, but to help individuals make socially acceptable choices.
That is a pretty bold proclamation. Still, the thought of killing and torturing an animal for your pleasure seems to violate ethics centered around reciprocity. You know, the old "do unto others...". Even if that rule is not based on something objective it still seems more axiomatic than, "Mmmm, they taste good therefore I have dominion."
kids can absolutely reason morally, they just don’t have all the scaffolding to support doing so well or coming to reasonable conclusions. kids even reason about the nature of the terms themselves (especially around christmas: “why do i have to be good? what does being good mean?”).
but the same five year old who is picking the 10 dogs over the 1 human is also grabbing their toy from their little sister and bopping her on the head with it and making her cry, so i am not trying to defend some notion of a developed sense of toddler morality.
Children can reason morally and do, they just didn't learn a lot of morals to reason with yet. Morals, i.e. what is good and what is bad, is something people never stop learning. Obviously learning moral values from cartoons isn't helping in situations with real people.
Adults become so overly conditioned to accept that killing animals for our daily lives is normal, that we no longer register animal death as an ethical issue.
It is normal. Historically speaking, not doing so is what’s not normal. The nature of this planet is that every living thing lives off eating other living things.
It is normal for animals who don't think the same way that we do. They don't understand the concepts of "killing" or "life" and don't value life in the same manner as humans.
It's always struck me as odd when unethical treatment of animals is justified by saying "animals eat/kill/hurt other animals too!". We're different from animals. Our standards should be higher.
Many animals do understand killing and death. Elephants are a prime example of this.
Also, what is unethical about eating an animal? If this is really an issue, then we should be out there killing all those murdering predators like wolves, right?
Setting aside the obvious questions about how wild vs farmed animals are raised, wolves don't have a choice about what to eat, while humans do. Even if we wanted to improve the status of wild animals, murdering wolves isn't obviously the best way.
So what if they don't have choice? If a mentally deranged person commits a crime because they didn't have a choice, we still remove them from doing further harm from others. Would you not kill a wolf attacking a person? If we are saying that animals are equal, then we should also be protecting the innocent prey.
Right, but you're trying to justify your actions by bringing up the actions of the mentally deranged, as if that somehow absolves you of responsibility.
It is normal because for a very long time we didn't have a choice. I won't argue with the ethical aspects of killing animals but from a climate standpoint it makes sense to kill and eat a lot less animals.
I chose not to eat any animal products because I feel I don't need to eat animals to live and because the alternative is better for the world in general. The alternatives seem to either not live up to the claims or not be sustainable except at a small scale.
I think it would be more likely that people are just so far removed from the killing in today's society that they don't know/care about the ties to their lives. How many of today's people have actually killed, butchered, and eaten an animal? I imagine the vast majority of people just go pick up pre-cut, pre-packaged meat at the grocery store.
This is exactly what I was trying to say, but you did better.
My using the word "normal" totally derailed the discussion.
I'm not a vegetarian or against killing animals. I just wanted to note that the natural relationship of killing to satisfy hunger is not what we have now at all. Many children don't even realize that the food they eat used to be animals until they are 5-6 years old. That's pretty detached from the "natural" order.
Maybe. Perhaps some killing is ethical. PETA (people for the ethical treatment of animals) has shelters and I hear they have very high kill rates, like >95%.
I would consider other organizations like Operation Kindness that have actual no-kill shelters. Personally, I do not like PETA, and would never have even thought their name in this discussion had they not been mentioned by someone like yourself. I get how other people might be enitced to believe in them as you pointed out Ethical is in their name. However, I don't put any more weight in that than MacBookPro is a professional device with its Prosumer specs (as I type this out on my maxed at 32GB RAM MBP).
your entire thread treats the premise of the paper as inane or making a moral implication about what this phenomenon means, but it is actually useful to know that value for human life over other life is socially conditioned.
if you treat it as a given that value for human life is innate then your society may fail to foster the conditions which promote human flourishing. many adults are also ethically immature and if the people who all do care about human life all say “well of course human life is valuable, it is stupid to study” then all those ethically immature adults spend their entire lives trampling on everyone else.
This sorta lends weight to my hunch from watching hours of YouTube videos that mammalian toddlers have to learn to differentiate by species. Cross-species friendships between mammals from toddler to adult happen all the time in human-controlled environments, only in the wild is this more or less prohibited owing to adult animal intervention. Perhaps we can learn something about the reproduction of racial prejudice from this...
I wonder how much of this, if any, is due to the fact that a lot of children may have faced the death of an animal, perhaps a dog but maybe a hamster etc. and have yet to live through the death of a close human. If so, animals dying is visceral, real and happening. Whereas human death is this abstract that they can't even really empathize with as it is so unsupported by any lived experience.
Scenario: You are at the Louvre Museum, suddenly there's a big fire. You are standing next to the painting of Mona Lisa that is about to catch on fire. From the corner of your eyes you also see a small kitten collapsed under fallen rubbles and desperately and hopelessly trying to get out. Which one do you rescue first?
I'm going to go for the kitten, but I'm aware that I'm probably in the minority. I don't think I would be able to live with myself if I chose to save an inanimate object over a living creature.
And there's the matter that I am of the firm opinion that art being damaged doesn't stop it from being art. It just adds to the story behind the piece.
To take this example to an extreme, would you allow the Pyramids to be destroyed in order to save one goat? A crab?
It seems entirely reasonable to me that some people would value an important cultural artifact over a kitten. However, I wouldn't expect ordinary people to choose the Mona Lisa over a human child.
I don't think so. I can see someone going "countless animals die or are deliberately killed every hour, what is one more death in exchange for the continued existence of arguably the most famous painting in human history?"
No it's a pandering to the audience question. Ofc everyone would say the kitten to feel better and to show off (especially when the whole GP is about that)
This was a debate topic I saw on TV once. The 2 teams eventually had to battle it out on the ground of answering "present cry for help" (saving the kitten, self-guilt, life with consciousness) VS answering "future cry for help" (saving the painting, sign of civilization, Noah's Ark, etc...). In the end, the "Save the Painting" team actually won.
The painting. Cats are one of the most invasive species in the world, accounting for countless loss of bird populations and other species (toxoplasma infections in seals for example).
Mona Lisa is irreplaceable. The world won't miss one more cat. Losing an irreplaceable piece of history makes the whole of humanity poorer.
Cats have the evolutionary benefit of being cute to humans. Would you even consider saving say a rat or an eel in such a situation?
Also human affection to pets are flawed. We say we love them but yet we mass neuter them, feed them the same food everyday, put them on leashes, and confine them in small spaces.
Trick question; Both would be impossible to remove under the circumstances. You should probably leave immediately, since you're almost as flammable as the Mona Lisa.
I'll bet that if I saved the Mona Lisa, I'd get enough publicity that I could save hundreds of kittens by saying "If you'd like to thank me, please donate to the Humane Society" during an interview.
personal experience with non-profit sector revealed tax-dodges for high-net-worth individuals, and abysmally poor cash-to-cause ratios. still rescuing the kitten. bird in the hand beats two in the bush.
I know plenty of adults that would do the same and some that consider their dogs as their kids. A neighbor of mine refers to his two dogs as a father to his human sons. This is infantile thinking at its purest.
The study didn't actually ask people to save dogs or people; it only asked people to SAY which they would save. In real life a person might save their pet over a stranger but might not say so in a study.
At the same time, I find that children are the most cruel to small animals. They want to poke, prod, take them out of the water, feed them weird things to see what happens...etc.
My general observation is it's not so much age related but probably whoever you are most emotionally attached to at the time wins the "you're getting saved" badge.
Are we sure that this isn’t generational values changing? I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a moral change associated with generation / upbringing more than age.
I got a puppy when the pandemic hit, since I live alone and figured it'd help me cope with the isolation. This is the first pet I've ever owned. I thought that I would be able to "love" it the way other people seem to. But I can't, and until seeing this article I almost felt like that meant I was sociopathic or something. Sure it's cute, but I would also have no hesitation whatsoever in killing it to save the life of a random stranger I've never met. How are you supposed to love something when you feel that way about it? I think the way our relationship toward pets is portrayed, in western society at least, must be extremely unhealthy and immature because of this.
You're not alone. To be frank, I think much of the apparent love showered on pets by some people is performative. In public, people compete to show off how great they are at pampering their 'furbaby.' Pampering pets has become a fashion.
>If someone told me they don't love their child but consider it cute I'd also wonder if they should remain the child's guardian.
This is the problem. Children are not pets, and pets are not children. Children are humans, and human lives are infinitely more valuable than the lives of animals. Children have personalities, consciousness, and intelligence. They have the capacity to give and receive actual love. They are fundamentally different things. I would never, ever feel that way about a child.
People die all the time. Animals die all the time too. But this animal dying would have a huge negative impact on my life, whereas whether or not someone I've never met would not.
I'm fascinated by your opinion here, aphextron. I have a question for you. Say that you chose a stranger over your dog. Then that stranger went and killed another person. Would you regret your decision?
How do you choose to save a stranger's life without knowing anything about them and what they're like?
>Say that you chose a stranger over your dog. Then that stranger went and killed another person. Would you regret your decision?
No. Because I still would have made the best decision possible at the time given all available information. This is the same argument essentially as the death penalty question. Someone else's violent act can never vindicate your own. That's only valid in the case of immediate self defense. Although if you take this argument to it's logical conclusion, which would be "Kill a thousand dogs, or hang Hitler", I'd have to admit it becomes pretty indefensible. So the real moral choice probably lies somewhere in-between.
>How do you choose to save a stranger's life without knowing anything about them and what they're like?
It's faith in the fact that any single given human life has more intrinsic value than any number of any animals. I'm essentially putting myself in that situation. Would I be ok with dying to save a dog? No, never. And so I extend that to every other person. Obviously this only works with animals. Would I feel the same about a person I love instead? Absolutely not.
Thank you so much for your responses in this thread. While I do not feel the same way about the value of life, I do understand your reasoning for your opinion, and you've given me some stuff to think about.
Like I've explained above, the reason I'd be willing to choose my dog over a stranger is because I know what my dog is like. I know he's never going to kill anyone. I know nothing about the stranger.
But yes, I would regret it if he went and killed someone after I chose his life over a human's.
I would also deeply regret it if I chose a stranger over my dog and then that person turned out to be a Bad Guy.
Also, statistically speaking dogs are less likely to come up with new methods of improving life on earth or even simply helping out other creatures in need.
Similarly my dog is about to turn 8 months old in a couple of days. Not the first pet I've owned but the one I've had the strongest bond with by a long, long shot. But it's anything but the cuddly type, on the contrary - largely indifferent towards people or other dogs but he will go into full murder mode if he senses a thread(not so much for himself but for me). I'm not sure what that says about me but I wouldn't trade it's life for a stranger's.
i think this speaks far more to the way you value the life of people over animals. for me and my dog it's very different. if i had to choose between killing my dog and letting a stranger die, i wouldn't be able to kill my dog. if i had to choose between him and my partner, he's gonna have to die.
i also don't feel like human life has some intrinsic value. my dog brings a lot of love and happiness to my life. i've known a lot of people who bring pain and suffering to others. why value a person that may or may not bring happiness to the world over something that does bring happiness?
i think the idea that there is a binary solution to all problems is a poor world view, but 'black and white'[0] thinking is a tell tell sign of abuse and considered a standard trauma response.
> People die all the time. Animals die all the time too. But this animal dying would have a huge negative impact on my life, whereas whether or not someone I've never met would not.
I also agree with you that human life doesn't have intrinsic value. Lots of humans are "good", but lots cause a lot of pain and harm to lots of other people and animals too.
So choosing a stranger of whom I know nothing over my own pet? Nope. Not doing that.
>I also agree with you that human life doesn't have intrinsic value.
Then I guess this is ultimately the difference in our thinking. I hold that all human life has intrinsic value, and that that value is infinitely greater than any animal regardless of the person.
Perhaps children in our culture are "clueless" because usually they grow up far removed from the animals they eat. I wonder if children who grow up with farm animals, or in a culture dependent on hunting would feel differently.
I was referring to the fact that they are not bothered by eating ham, bacon, etc. They are clueless about what happens to pigs in the real world, and how many have perished to provide their sustenance.
That brings up an interesting perspecitve. How would answers to this question break down by urban vs rural demgraphics. Kids that raise animals for something like FFA or even directly on a farm as well as kids that are around this type of environment are much more aware that they are raising food. Does that skew their answers compared to kids in the city that may not ever even see a cow/pig in real life?
Would be a highly theoretical question, but let's hope it would still be «infinite». In practice, killing all the dogs (somehow) would almost certainly result in a significant number of human deaths, widespread suffering, and general chaos.
TL;DR but from the summary it says "Socially acquired" which seems like a leap to me. Couldn't it also be as simple as children don't fully understand all the difference between themelves and animals. For example, my 3 year old probably thinks dogs can talk and pilot helicopters.
With all of the Diseny movies that show animals acting like humans && knowing how kids love to watch movies on infinite loop, it's not really hard to imagine why
I often wonder to what degree frequent early exposure to humanoid animals is doing some kind of damage to people's social cognition. I think there's plenty of evidence to be had online that it's doing pretty significant damage to at least some people. But I wonder if it's also behind widespread harmful social effects like the concept of "fur babies".
Now that's a rabbit hole of a theory. Just like with anything, a "stable" person can live in a world with this kind of make believe and enjoy the story telling devices being used. However, someone less "stable" that can be less able to make these distinctions. Does that mean we all can't have it because of a small number of people? If that's the case, then I would apply this same rule to any and all social media. Clearly, some people can't handle it, so nobody can use it.
Lets not be too hasty on this. There are over seven (over eight?) billion (with a B) humans. There are fewer than a billion dogs. Pretty sure the answer is clear: prefer saving dog lives over human lives. Now, if it was chicken vs humans, of course, save human lives.
Now take this to another extreme, would you rather save the life of ONE giant panda or one hundred humans? I think all reasonable people will press the button to save the live of one giant panda and kill one hundred humans before you can finish the question.
While no less arbitrary, your metric for comparison seems shallow. I had already decided the panda should die before you finished that question, not the other way around.
> I had already decided the panda should die before you finished that question, not the other way around.
I appreciate replies on HN as they show the flaw in my assumption.
Speaking of assumptions, indulge me for a moment: I kind of find the trolley problem difficult because all legality aside, I feel like if I pull a lever and one person dies, I am responsible for that one death but if I don't pull the lever and n people die, I wouldn't feel as bad. Is there a name for this?
I mean like the idea that if something happens by my action that is worse than if something happens by my failure to act. I mean who am I to choose those n lives over that one life, right?
Choosing not to act is choosing nonetheless. You are responsible in both situations. You didn’t set the events into motion, no — but you had full awareness of the inevitable consequences that would result from acting or not. You must make the choice, therefore, that you can live with. This is the nature of the human experience.
If your argument is that it's clear we should prefer species preservation over all else, then let's take the giant panda example to its logical extreme. Human population (estimated 7,800,000,000) / giant panda population (1,864) = 4,184,549. So all 'reasonable people' would kill 4 million humans before a single giant panda. Is that really the argument here?
What if there was just a single panda left? Should we in this case terminate the whole human population down to one last person before killing the panda?
