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Uplifting animals is a moral imperitive

robin75

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This quote is from a BBC article a couple of years ago but I couldn't find a thread on it.

Referring to George Dvorsky of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies:

He believes in an “ethical imperative to uplift”, arguing that if the technology is developed it should be shared with animals in order to free them from the anguish of 'survival of the fittest'

Article http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141001-why-supersmart-animals-are-coming

No doubt there are many downsides and negative repercussions but maybe he's right, it's our moral duty to give them (through genetic manipulation) something akin to the intelligence we luckily evolved.
 
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Well, I was more thinking of animals we already have a social bond with but as a beef eater myself I might be less inclined to eat a cow I'd had a chat with beforehand, so forget about it.
 
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I think it's typically arrogant of mankind to presume to know how to improve nature, when all we seem to do is run about making war amongst ourselves (whether via nations or individually). It's ascribing human emotions, belief systems, and thought processes to animals to describe their lives as anguish because of "survival of the fittest". We can't even make ourselves "better" - how arrogant and patronizing of Dvorsky to think we can fix animal lives according to human standards of living.
 
desmirelle said:
I think it's typically arrogant of mankind to presume to know how to improve nature, when all we seem to do is run about making war amongst ourselves (whether via nations or individually). It's ascribing human emotions, belief systems, and thought processes to animals to describe their lives as anguish because of "survival of the fittest". We can't even make ourselves "better" - how arrogant and patronizing of Dvorsky to think we can fix animal lives according to human standards of living.
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Yeah, let's just eat them. Nom nom!
 
robin75 said:
This quote is from a BBC article a couple of years ago but I couldn't find a thread on it.

Referring to George Dvorsky of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies:

He believes in an “ethical imperative to uplift”, arguing that if the technology is developed it should be shared with animals in order to free them from the anguish of 'survival of the fittest'

Article http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141001-why-supersmart-animals-are-coming

No doubt there are many downsides and negative repercussions but maybe he's right, it's our moral duty to give them (through genetic manipulation) something akin to the intelligence we luckily evolved.
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Why is it a moral imperitive? There are plenty of ways humans can free animals from survival of the fittest and uplifting isn't one of them. It would generate a whole new specisisim/racisim debate though. But anyway uplifting isn't moral its egotistical.
 
fagin said:
Nope, last thing I want is a cow suggesting vegetarianism when all I want to do is eat it's rump.
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I see no moral imperative here.

But taking the worst case : the uplifted cow should suddenly decide that she wants to get ride of all human... Why would an uplifted animal have the same moral imperative or even goal than human ?
 
robin75 said:
No doubt there are many downsides and negative repercussions but maybe he's right, it's our moral duty to give them (through genetic manipulation) something akin to the intelligence we luckily evolved.
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There's actually no reason to do it, so it's not a moral imperative. In fact it fails a few steps before that.
 
Being "advanced" of "uplifted" hasn't freed US from the Darwinian "survival of the fittest" argument. Witness capitalism, the Tea Party, and Donald Trump.

What worries me about scientists and scientism is that it has no real moral center beyond "can we physically do this".

Scientists have been caught in recent months arguing for the right to create chimaera

http://www.mercurynews.com/science/...meras-stanford-scientists-condemn-funding-ban

and plotting in secret to create artificial human genomes

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...h-proposal-to-create-synthetic-human-genomes/

This is the end result of materialistic rationalism, the Godless religion of the scientific community.
 
Scientists have been caught in recent months arguing for the right to create chimaera
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Caught? You make it sound like it was a secret and a bad thing?
 
My cat can't quite manage the jump up to the dining room table top any more, but seems to think that uplifting him while we're in the middle of dinner is my moral imperative. I disagree.

Dave
 
Survival of fittest cannot be escaped. Only definition of 'fittest' changes. Sometimes 'fittest' means 'the fastest one', sometimes it means 'the one with A blood type', and at another times 'he, who was not on the slope of the volcano at the moment'. People have shifted heavily from genes to memes (aka culture and science), but there is still competition, there are still winners, and there are still losers.
 
I'd feel much better if I knew that cow I was eating was in heaven. There should be a station in the meat packing plant where the cows are asked, "Would you like to receive Salvation from the Lord Jesus Christ?"

Christian Kosher. We eat them saved or unsaved, but we offered them the choice.
 
nobody credits mr brin for this Scifi idea ?

uplift wars is a good book
I really like his aliens

but suspect only a few [great apes and dolphins] with a lot of effort and time
could be successfully uplifted
cows not so much

back to mr brin's ideas
it would give us credit with the master aliens to have clients
as their definition of a fully evolved race is to have uplifted clients
and the ability to get into space off the home world
 
Would "uplifting" animals include arming them so that they can defend themselves?

 
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