Dolphin Rights

[JackRiddler]

LMU Professor Presents Case for Dolphins as Nonhuman Persons at Science Conference

Are dolphins nonhuman persons? Loyola Marymount University professor Thomas White insists they are, and presented his research this week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in San Diego.

White, the author of “In Defense of Dolphins: The New Frontier,” spoke on a panel on the “Ethical Implications of Dolphin Intelligence: Dolphins as Nonhuman Persons.”

He and other experts discussed scientific research showing dolphins are highly intelligent, and, like humans, appear to be self-conscious, unique individuals with personalities, memories and a sense of self. They are vulnerable to pain and suffering and experience fear, dread and grief, the research suggests.

“Dolphins should be considered nonhuman persons,” says White, “because they have the kind of consciousness that, in the past, we thought was unique to our species. They’re not just aware of the world around them but they have the ability to look inside and say ‘I.’ They have a sense of choice and will.’”

Because of these attributes, White believes, dolphins should be given “moral standing” as individuals. Humans have always believed that moral standing as an individual entitles them to special treatment. White says dolphins need to be treated in a similar way.

If that happens, certain human fishing practices would need to change, as would policies regarding the hundreds of captive dolphins used in entertainment facilities.

“Every year an estimated 300,000 dolphins die around the world, caught by commercial fishermen searching for tuna. Thousands more die in the annual Japanese drive hunts,” says White.

White, who holds a doctorate in philosophy, is the Conrad N. Hilton Chair in Business Ethics and the director of the Center for Ethics and Business at LMU. He has been a scientific adviser to the Wild Dolphin Project, a research organization studying a community of Atlantic spotted dolphins in the Bahamas, for more than for 25 years.
He is also a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nation’s Year of the Dolphin Program in 2007-08

http://www.indefenseofdolphins.com/


In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier

Thomas I. White, Ph.D.

This book explores two questions:

1. What kind of beings are dolphins? That is, what does scientific research reveal about their cognitive and affective abilities, and what are the philosophical implications of these findings?

2. In light of the kind of beings they are, is the current state of human/dolphin interaction ethically acceptable? This book argues that dolphins have intellectual and emotional abilities sophisticated enough to grant them “moral standing”; they should be regarded at least as “nonhuman persons”; and the current state of human/dolphin interaction (characterized by the deaths and injuries of dolphins in connection with the human fishing industry and the use of captive dolphins by the entertainment industry for therapeutic purposes and by the military) is ethically indefensible. Accordingly, this book lays the foundation for the claim that the current relationship between humans and dolphins is, in effect, equivalent to the relationship between whites and Black slaves two centuries ago.

1.
Whales and dolphins 'should have legal rights' | World news | The ...
Feb 21, 2012 ... Fishermen drive bottle-nose dolphins into a net during their annual hunt ... of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, to raise ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/fe ... gal-rights - Cached - Similar
2.
The case for dolphin rights - Boing Boing
Mar 9, 2012 ... The case for dolphin rights ... the fascinating things they learned at the 2012
American Association for the Advancement of Science conference.
boingboing.net/2012/03/09/the-case-for-dolphin-rights.html - Cached - Similar
3.
Dolphins 'should be recognised as non-human persons' - Telegraph
Feb 21, 2012 ... Dolphins and whales are so intelligent that they should be recognised ... at the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) ...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/.../Dolphins ... rsons.html - Similar
4.
BBC News - Dolphins deserve same rights as humans, say scientists
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-17116882 - Cached - Similar
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6.
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http://www.varight.com/.../researchers- ... s-and-do... - Cached - Similar
9.
"In Defense of Dolphins, The New Moral Frontier" - A Book by ...
A book that encourages a reassessment of the human-dolphin relationship, ... at
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10.
LMU Professor Presents Case for Dolphins as Nonhuman Persons ...
LMU Professor Presents Case for Dolphins as Nonhuman Persons at ... at the
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newsroom.lmu.edu/newsroompressreleases/dolphins.htm - Cached - Similar

[barracuda]

Judging by the near-universal scorn in which human rights are held across the globe, I have little hope but that similar disregard might befall the proclamation of dolphins or other Cetacea as containing in their being enough consciousness to warrant the very compassion so often lacking among ourselves. But by all means, it should be tried, for starters.

[DrEvil]

I'm all for protecting dolphins (and whales, even though they are tasty. Yum yum), but I also agree with Barracuda that the odds are slim to none as long as we keep pissing all over human rights.
And as an aside - I'm still not convinced that humans are conscious, so I wouldn't be surprised if dolphins turn out to be essentially Chinese Rooms with fins.

[Simulist]

I was going to post something similar, DrEvil, because I'm not convinced that we humans are "conscious" either. So, really, what does it mean to be "conscious"?

And "compared to what"? Do any of us really live up to that potential at all times? And what does it say for or against our supposed "rights" when we do not?

And why should whatever being "conscious" might mean be made a criterion for whether we treat another living being with respect?

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

self-delete. Connections are not wanted so...

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

self-delete. Connections are not wanted so...

[JackRiddler]

Hugh, shut up. Really now. Shame on you.

[Simulist]

Hugh, listen to Jack.

And shut up.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

self-delete. Connections are not wanted so...

[Simulist]

Oh, ya think the poor poor fishie is more of a psyops hook than the recent trials of CIA-backed fascists droppin' other people in the ocean to die.

You, then, are screwed-up Niazi dupes.

"Screwed up," perhaps. A "Niazi" though? Never!



P.S. Oh, and Hugh: Dolphins aren't "fishies."

[barracuda]

Ugh. It smells like rancid old sea cow blubber in here. Creepy.

[JackRiddler]

HMW for me is, for the first but also the final time, beyond the pale. Fuck you. It's that easy after all to be a dick without redemption. Stay off this or it's vendetta to the end: I will see you or me off the board, dig? barracuda: definitely unappreciated. Would you like to make some jokes about soap? There is nothing we purport to hold sacred about human life that is not also true of cetaceans, or for that matter higher apes. I would not have minded a philosophical hair-splitting about where the line is properly drawn, or if there is a line at all, but some people prove to be unevolved about this matter. Reactions like these are no less blind, stupid and offensive than hate speech directed at human groups. Moderators, isn't there a special rule allowing HMW to do his long-ago went rotten schtick no more than once in unrelated threads?

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

All info removed to suit your preferences.

Of course the abuse of dolphins and all animals is horrible.

[brainpanhandler]

There is nothing we purport to hold sacred about human life that is not also true of cetaceans, or for that matter higher apes. I would not have minded a philosophical hair-splitting about where the line is properly drawn, or if there is a line at all,

Perhaps they are more human non-human persons than commonly thought:

The Dark Secrets That Dolphins Don't Want You to Know
By Miriam Goldstein Posted Wednesday, May 13, 2009


It never fails. Every single cocktail party, as soon as someone finds out that I'm a graduate student studying marine biology, they ask, "So, do you get to play with dolphins?" Since my heart is as black and cold as the oceanic abyss, I usually take this opportunity to disillusion yet another poor soul of their childhood fantasy of Mystical Dolphin Love .

Dolphins are not gentle or psychic. If they could talk they would not impart eco-wisdom or deep spiritual truth. Dolphins are violent predators with a predilection for baby killing and rape. I feel it's my duty to warn you, despite the risk of insulting creatures made of hundreds of pounds of muscle and rows of sharp teeth. Throw out your rainbow dolphin painting , and check out dolphins' low-down dirty secrets:

--Dolphin sex can be violent and coercive. Gangs of two or three male bottlenose dolphins isolate a single female from the pod and forcibly mate with her, sometimes for weeks at a time. To keep her in line, they make aggressive noises, threatening movements, and even smack her around with their tails. And if she tries to swim away, they chase her down. Horny dolphins have also been known to target human swimmers -Demi Moore is rumored to have had a close encounter of the finny kind.

--Dolphins kill harbor porpoise babies. In Scotland, scientists found baby harbor porpoises washed up with horrific internal injuries. They thought the porpoises might have been killed by weapons tests until they found the toothmarks. Later, dolphins were caught on film pulping the baby porpoises-the dolphins even used their ecolocation to aim their blow at the porpoises' vital organs.

--Dolphins kill their own babies. Baby dolphins have washed up alongside the dead porpoises, and some scientists think that all the porpoise-slaughter was just practice for some old-fashioned infanticide . For other mammals like lions, killing the babies makes the females immediately ready for the next pregnancy, and maybe that's the case with dolphins, too.

The scariest part is dolphins can wreak havoc day and night without sleeping. A recent study found that dolphins could stay awake for five days straight with no loss of mental acuity. The dolphins didn't even need to make up sleep at the end of the study, though the scientists sure did.

If the dolphins ever evolve thumbs , we're in trouble. It will be like a slasher-film remake of Douglas Adams' So Long And Thanks for All The Fish . If I wash up with pulped innards and dolphin tooth marks, you'll know why. After all, you never hear about the people the dolphins push out to sea.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/20 ... abies.html

[barracuda]

My apologies, Jack. Considering that 1000 Cetaceans die each day in netkill or by-fishing, Hugh's posts were confusing and enraging me. So I made a tasteless remark about the rotund qualities of Sirenia and the staleness of Hugh's personal blubberousness. But I know that among the first steps which must be taken on the road to animal rights as tandem with human rights are considerations of language. So it was in error that I allowed my emotions to drive me to make an anti-sirenic remark. Even if I find Hugh to set a poor example for his species, I am really not an anti-sirenic individual at all, and don't approve of anti-sirenicism. Some of my best friends have been water-mammals.