"Every individual matters" - Marc Bekoff - Compassionate Conservation - Sentientism Ep:31
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 15 ก.พ. 2021
- Marc is professor emeritus of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He has published 31 books, won many awards for his research on animal behavior, animal emotions, compassionate conservation, & animal protection, has worked closely with Jane Goodall, & is a former Guggenheim Fellow. Marc's latest books are "Canine Confidential: Why Dogs Do What They Do" & "Unleashing Your Dog: A Field Guide to Giving Your Canine Companion the Best Life Possible" (with Jessica Pierce) & he also publishes regularly for Psychology Today. Marc & Jessica have recently written "A Dog's World" about what the world will be like for dogs as & when humans disappear (Princeton University Press, 2021). In 1986 Marc won the Master's age-graded Tour de France. His homepage is marcbekoff.com/.
In these Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “what matters?”
Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings."
The audio is also on our Podcast - subscribe here: apple.co/391khQO (& all the other platforms anchor.fm/sentientism).
We discuss:
- Growing up in Brooklyn & not being a strong student in high-school
- Talking to a companion goldfish & the neighbourhood animals
- Imagining perpectives of non-human animals: "Minding animals"
- Seeming bizarre to question the sentience of non-human animals
- Selling records, undergrad degree, then a career using play behaviour as a window into the animal perspective
- Michael Fox's work with canids & becoming his grad student
- Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?"
- Donald Griffin's "The question of animal awareness" & "Animal Minds"
- Animal protection as a lifelong focus
- Getting academics out of the clouds and into helping
- Growing up in a culturally Jewish home with Russian Jewish immigrant grandparents, but being an atheist from day one
- My parents never called me "nuts" when I said good morning to the goldfish every day
- "People ask which school of philosophy I follow - I have no idea"
- An identification with other sentient beings
- "I just never made that divide between human & non-human"
- Refusing to dissect or experiment on animals in school, as an undergrad & at med school
- Going "cold tofu" & cutting out animal products. Vegetarian then vegan
- The moral value of sentient beings & non-sentient living things
- "I don't think plants can feel pain in an aversive way"
- "If we find out carrots feel pain, I won't eat carrots"
- "We know certain things about sentience in non-human animals & that is enough for people to change their meal plans"
- "I never doubted that non-human animals had feelings" (Luna barks in agreement)
- Anthropocentric environmentalism that ignores farmed & most wild animals
- New Zealand's "War on Wildlife" re: "non-native" species
- Granting rights to rivers & rocks
- Instrumental importance can still be very important
- Compassionate Conservationism: "every individual matters" so work out solutions for all sentient stakeholders
- So much welfare legislation excludes most suffering animals
- Standard conservation: "We don't need you because there are plenty of others of your species"!
- Taking the perspective of the oppressed individual
- Being indoctrinated away from naturalism & compassion for sentients
- How even otherwise careful thinkers remain trapped by harmful social norms
- "Friends think I'm crazy but I am optimistic"
- The OneHealth movement - it's a win win for human and non-human animals together
- Better ethics re: non-humans will improve our ethics re: other humans
- From "I know they suffer but I love my burger" to "It's who you eat, not what you eat"
- Sentientist language, moving from object to subject language re: non-humans (Microsoft grammar checking)
- Food as a particularly emotive topic. People want to retain choice + control
- Even human supremacists should go vegan
- Ethical arguments don't drive enough change, but other pressures are building too (climate, zoonosis, anti-microbial resistance, human health)
- "What we do to help non-humans helps humans"
- Setting an example: Biking 400km on a vegan meal plan
- Sentientism means having compassion even for people we disagree with
- "I feel for human suffering too"
- "There will be a sea change... we're on a trajectory towards our moral compass being inclusive of non-humans and humans.. it's a win win for all"
- We've made progress in the last 50y
- "We're alive right now so just go do it".
Sentientism is “Evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings.” More at sentientism.info/. Join our "wall" sentientism.info/wall/ using this form: sentientism.info/im-a-sentien....
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Thanks to Graham for his post-prod work. Follow him: / cgbessellieu .
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Loved this! I’ve always liked Marc Bekoff’s writing, but after hearing him talk, he is even cooler than I realized!!!
I can only agree! Glad you enjoyed - and can't wait to talk to you tomorrow too Alene!
"That's the foundation for morality", that's right.
I read the Italian translations of "Wild Justice" and "The Emotional Lives of Animals", and I really admire Marc Bekoff
He is awesome. It was such a pleasure talking to him. Thanks for watching! You might enjoy my conversation with his co-author, Jessica Pierce, too th-cam.com/video/mUg6gWbCo1U/w-d-xo.html
Great interview! MB is a great scientist and an even greater humanitarian. Thanks for sharing
Thank you Susan. It was such a pleasure to talk to him. Glad you enjoyed it! You might also like my conversation with his frequent collaborator Jessica Pierce: th-cam.com/video/mUg6gWbCo1U/w-d-xo.html. Also - on the ethology front, Frans de Waal (although he has work to do re: moral patiency).
So Marc was a naturally kind person since his childhood! What a man.
Great interview! Looking forward to diving into Marc's work.
Thank you. Marc is awesome :)
Fascinating talk - Great catchphrase too, "Its not what you eat, it' s who you eat!"
Just started listening now......looking forward to hearing this interview.
I would love to visit Colorado
Colorado is one of the most beautiful places on earth! Blue skies, big mountains and amazing wildlife.
Quite a number of years ago i used to lead a weekly animal rights video outreach in highly trafficked locations such as Grand Central Station and Penn Station that went on for a coupleor so years before I moved further from the City.
It was during one of those outreach outings, of the many hundreds of people I spoke with that day was a woman who said she was the mom of Mark Bekoff........if my memory serves me correctly.
I hope it does! Such a lovely story and thank you for your activism (and < 3).
13:08
Terrific little story!
Well, this is what people are doing, denying their own recognition of non-human animals so that they can continue to do what they've been doing.
enlightening and opens up my awareness of all living things . awesome talk . Thank you . . All living things matter . X .
Thanks Karen. It was such a pleasure to talk to Marc - glad you enjoyed it too.
That was so nice to watch, great conversation. I just tried out google again with "who", still changes to "that" 😞 The part where you talked about how to deal with persons who easily get into a defensive mode was helpful to hear, I just recently figured out that if people are not open to understand, it's best to just set the example, though sometimes reverse psychology can be helpful.
Thanks Anabel - agree.
Next stop: care for and identification with plants and fungi, since they are also conscious and sentient! ❤❤❤
If they are then we should care about them too. The current scientific consensus seems pretty confident plants and funghi aren't sentient but we should remain open minded as the evidence changes...
Oh......odd this just popped into my feed 🤔
Weird - but great! Marc is awesome. Hope you enjoy. I've interviewed his co-author Jessica Pearce too. Wonder if that will pop up next?
43:58
Let's agree that there probably exists a very tiny number of people in the world who would starve to death if they didn't eat the body parts of killed innocent individuals........... does that make the killing of those innocent sentient individuals morally responsible or morally justified?
I say, no.
The killing of innocent sentient individuals to save your own life may indeed be *understandable* , but it doesn't make it morally justified, IMO. That's because I've never seen a cogent or satisfying argument in favor of sentience hierarchy which demonstrates that a subjective
perception of alleged greater sentience can justify the harming of individuals whom are subjectively perceived to have allegedly less sentience.
Good point.
Dissection is a bizarre thing to do.
Individual beings matter because they are sentient, not just because they are alive, plants are alive, they are not sentient, as far as we know, they are not. Individual beings matter because they are sentient, and they matter as individuals because sentience exists individually and so as far as respect is concerned, they matter therefore, equally. Non-human animals don't matter simply because they are alive, it is the sentience, the experience, the desire to live and the fact that they exist individually. This consciousness value (sentience) is an inherent value, it is also inherent dignity. Sentience (consciousness) IS the "inherent value"!
Good talk.But how far does 'every individual matters' go? .If we could only rescue one being in an emergency should that be a human, a dog a bird etc? What about our companion animals dogs and cats that eat meat? And 3, many beings have evolved to eat others.Why then should humans not eat meat?
Thanks Graham. While some Sentientists do push for a more egalitarian approach, I think most would save a human rather than a bird if only one could be saved. Granting moral consideration to all sentient beings doesn't have to mean you have to treat them all the same - just that you'd see needlessly causing any of them harm/death as morally negative. Survival situations and philosophical edge cases are really interesting - but the big challenges e.g. animal farming and fishing are much more obvious. Transitioning to end those practices is a clear win-win-win, not a difficult philosophical choice.
Re: pets - it's great that less harmful alternative pet foods are already available and improving fast. Cats need more caution but vegan dog-foods are already widely available and cover every nutritional need. Our canine family member likes V-dog, for example. Benovo do products too suitable for both dogs and cats.
To your final point - evolution and nature aren't good moral guides, otherwise we'd see rape, war, cannibalism and infanticide as moral because they're "natural" or "evolved" behaviours. Evolution is an amoral process that generates unimaginable suffering and death. We can do so much better. In a way, that's exactly what morality is - caring about the suffering/flourishing of others - regardless of "nature".