Is the reasoning of animal sentience universal.

[TheDarkendStar]

Now I understand vegans I understand the position and while I agree with it its very hard for me to make such a switch and such.

With that out of the way the idea we should not eat animals based on there sentience's is correct I agree with that logic.The one thing I am not entirely sure about is the idea of veganism beyond that because not all animals are sentient.My point being why does veganism able to animals who are not sentient for instance many fish are not sentient and fish are considered healthy unless I am misinformed.Now I will gladly admit this is not my most knowledgeable subject so I do not claim to be an expert so if anyone could explain this to me it would be appreciated.
(btw seems like I messed up my diet when I created my account I do eat meat)

[Soycrates]

Except that fish are sentient.

Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. Fish can feel pain and they have subjective experiences.

Not everyone agrees with sentiocentrism (the belief that sentient individuals are the center of moral concern) but it is a very popular opinion among vegans. There is also a belief called biocentrism that extends moral consideration to all living beings, sentient or not. Biocentrism extends moral considerations to trees, for example, or entire ecosystems. Vegans who believe in biocentrism as opposed to sentiocentrism are rare in my opinion, but they do exist - they also usually do not support the right to abortion, since extending moral considerations to non-sentient living beings would mean that fetuses and embryos have moral rights. Many vegans do usually hold environmentalist beliefs that suggest we should protect non-sentient nature, but it's usually only so that we can preserve our own species as well as the habitats of other sentient species - meaning that nature only has rights insofar as it benefits us.

There are a lot of moral questions and issues that need to be worked out even in veganism, things we need to constantly reevaluate and reconsider. But a good place to start is to simply say that all sentient beings deserve freedom from coercion, slaughter, or exploitation. And this typically extends to all animals, though some people extend it in varying degrees (for example, holding more value in a dog's life than a spider's life).

[TheDarkendStar]

Except that fish are sentient.

Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. Fish can feel pain and they have subjective experiences.

Not everyone agrees with sentiocentrism (the belief that sentient individuals are the center of moral concern) but it is a very popular opinion among vegans. There is also a belief called biocentrism that extends moral consideration to all living beings, sentient or not. Biocentrism extends moral considerations to trees, for example, or entire ecosystems. Vegans who believe in biocentrism as opposed to sentiocentrism are rare in my opinion, but they do exist - they also usually do not support the right to abortion, since extending moral considerations to non-sentient living beings would mean that fetuses and embryos have moral rights. Many vegans do usually hold environmentalist beliefs that suggest we should protect non-sentient nature, but it's usually only so that we can preserve our own species as well as the habitats of other sentient species - meaning that nature only has rights insofar as it benefits us.

There are a lot of moral questions and issues that need to be worked out even in veganism, things we need to constantly reevaluate and reconsider. But a good place to start is to simply say that all sentient beings deserve freedom from coercion, slaughter, or exploitation. And this typically extends to all animals, though some people extend it in varying degrees (for example, holding more value in a dog's life than a spider's life).

While I agree with plenty of your statements and understand them. My only problem id the the first one.A sentient being should not only know pain but understand it in a non programmed way. For instance a frog can be in pain and will do anything to ease pain not because it is painful but because its programed to think pain is something to avoid because its programed to.When a human or any higher cognitive species feels pain depending on the pain are they are not worried of there life much of the time the are more interested on removing the pain because it brings discomfort not because they are programmed. Pain is programmed to bring discomfort but people are not programmed to respond as in my mind tells me that pain is bad but that it brings discomfort so I would argue the mind actual appeals to human emotion rather than programing of a person.A person can learn to ignore pain or disregard it due to the understanding of the illusion.A creature in a programed way cannot the best comparison I can make is that to a frog pain is hard coded into its mind like a game or program while in a person it is changeable by perception.

Again I will not say this is my most knowledgeable topics and would take any criticism based on my logic or assertions.I would also like to become more informed on the topic of sentient for instance what percentage of animals are sentient compared to those that are not.

[miniboes]

As Daniel Dennett points out, consciousness is probably not something you have or you don't have, it's probably more like a spectrum. At the lower end would be trees, mushrooms and bacteria, at the higher end would be humans, dolphins and primates.

It is very much possible that fish are less conscious than we are, so to speak, but that does not justify making them suffer.

[Volenta]

At the lower end would be trees, mushrooms and bacteria

I also used to say that, but brimstoneSalad pointed out to me that it makes no sense to put them in the spectrum at all. There is zero sentience in these organisms; absolutely nothing. If you're also not going to put, say a chair, on the spectrum, then trees, mushrooms and bacteria also don't belong there. It's just something pragmatic to avoid confusion in favor of plant sentience sympathizers.

Could you by the way give me a reference to Danial Dennett pointing out that this spectrum exists, because I've read criticism about him saying the kind of opposite of that. Dennett seems to think human consciousness* is by far superior to other animals because of our language abilities. Edit: in particular self-consciousness I should add.

*By the way, you used the word 'conscience', that's something completely different. I take it as a typing mistake.

[miniboes]

I also used to say that, but brimstoneSalad pointed out to me that it makes no sense to put them in the spectrum at all. There is zero sentience in these organisms; absolutely nothing. If you're also not going to put, say a chair, on the spectrum, then trees, mushrooms and bacteria also don't belong there. It's just something pragmatic to avoid confusion in favor of plant sentience sympathizers.

The reason I would put fungi, plants and bacteria on it rather than a chair is because they are forms of life, and sentience and consciousness are unique to life. Perhaps I should limit it to the animal kingdoms, at which oysters could perhaps serve as the lower end.

Could you by the way give me a reference to Danial Dennett pointing out that this spectrum exists, because I've read criticism about him saying the kind of opposite of that. Dennett seems to think human consciousness* is by far superior to other animals because of our language abilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDHfp0YD3l0#t=325

I have not heard him say anything like that.

*By the way, you used the word 'conscience', that's something completely different. I take it as a typing mistake.

Dennett was talking about consciousness and so was I. I messed up the terms and forgot to explain why I was talking about consciousness. So as I understand it sentience is the ability to experience sensations and consciousness is to be aware of sensations among other things. Sensations seem worthless if you aren't aware of them, thus I think consciousness is a very important enabler of sentience as it were. Once you've established that one is sentient, it is useful to look at how conscious they are to know how much they actually experience the sensations. I might me completely wrong on this, so please correct me if so. I am very much treading upon unknown territory.

I'll edit my post to be more clear.

[Volenta]

Except that fish are sentient.

Sentience is the ability to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively. Fish can feel pain and they have subjective experiences.

Yes, they are sentient, but there is only evidence for the facts that they can experience stress, anxiety and those kind of emotional things (and of course this includes subjective experience as well). Victoria Braithwaite's research is currently the best one out there, but as far as I know she wasn't capable of showing that fish feel pain in the way we humans feel pain when you cut yourself in the finger for example. I made a bigger post about it here:
http://theveganatheist.com/forum/viewto ... =333#p3465

[Volenta]

The reason I would put fungi, plants and bacteria on it rather than a chair is because they are forms of life, and sentience and consciousness are unique to life. Perhaps I should limit it to the animal kingdoms, at which oysters could perhaps serve as the lower end.

Well, the problem is that life isn't a requirement for sentience, and vice versa. While life still doesn't have a perfect definition, it's a biological term and you generally talking something with characteristics like metabolism, composed out of cells, reproduction, etc. The problem is that this would rule out artificial 'life', which can possibly also be sentient.

AronRa made a great video about the meaning of the word life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MibjBgcHXcU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDHfp0YD3l0#t=325

I have not heard him say anything like that.

He seems to be very reasonable there. This is what I was pointing at:
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/d ... sness.html (just read the abstract)
The way I just phrased it was a bit hoarse, but I'm not completely in agreement with him. And it may well be a semantic issue (his definition of consciousness is confusing).

Dennett was talking about consciousness and so was I. I messed up the terms and forgot to explain why I was talking about consciousness. So as I understand it sentience is the ability to experience sensations and consciousness is to be aware of sensations among other things. Sensations seem worthless if you aren't aware of them, thus I think consciousness is a very important enabler of sentience as it were. Once you've established that one is sentient, it is useful to look at how conscious they are to know how much they actually experience the sensations. I might me completely wrong on this, so please correct me if so. I am very much treading upon unknown territory.

I'll edit my post to be more clear.

I'm sorry, I meant to point out that conscience (wiki) is not the same as conscious.

[miniboes]

Well, the problem is that life isn't a requirement for sentience, and vice versa. While life still doesn't have a perfect definition, it's a biological term and you generally talking something with characteristics like metabolism, composed out of cells, reproduction, etc. The problem is that this would rule out artificial 'life', which can possibly also be sentient.

Good point. Why would you not use a tree as a zero point for consciousness though?

AronRa made a great video about the meaning of the word life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MibjBgcHXcU

Gonna watch it right now. I'll edit this later.

He seems to be very reasonable there. This is what I was pointing at:
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/d ... sness.html (just read the abstract)
The way I just phrased it was a bit hoarse, but I'm not completely in agreement with him. And it may well be a semantic issue (his definition of consciousness is confusing).

I came across that too, but I didn't understand a single bit of it.

I'm sorry, I meant to point out that conscience (wiki) is not the same as conscious.

Oh wow, I had no idea. Thanks! Do you think the difference between sentience and consciousness is relevant?

[brimstoneSalad]

Consciousness is a very bad term to use, because in these contexts it is undefined and only leads to misunderstanding.
I prefer to use it only in the medical sense, where it is clear- as a relative state of an individual, being asleep, under general anesthetic, or awake.

I suggest you just stick to sentience. Sensation without processing that sensation into something meaningful is meaningless, and isn't really sensation.

Such as when a "brain dead" person is harmed; the nerves fire, but with nowhere for the signal to go and be understood. They can even have reflexes, which ARE automatic (unlike complex behavior that is subject to operant conditioning), but reflexes and nerve firings aren't sentience.

Fish, and even most visible insects, learn and adjust their behavior to favor pleasant experiences and avoid negative ones. This is empirically demonstrated through susceptibility to operant conditioning -- this is proof conclusive (as far as any empirical evidence can ever prove something) of sentience.

Fish experience pain and discomfort, they just get over it/get accustomed to it faster than land animals.

We have a bizarre tendency to suffer from injury even when it's not doing us any good, which is only temporarily alleviated by adrenaline when it threatens our survival.

Fish arguably have it lucky in that regard- they register the injury "OK, ouch" and then they can move on with whatever they were doing as long as that injury isn't getting worse (changing state). This doesn't make them not-sentient, or even less sentient.

Not any more than a practiced Monk, or soldier who has trained to block out sensation of pain or injury is less sentient because of it.