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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 พ.ย. 2022
- Puzzle through a classic ethical dilemma and decide: how do we determine the value of a life, whether human or non-human?
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To protect against a possible resurgence of smallpox, the US government is funding research to improve treatments and vaccines. And since it’s unethical to expose people to a highly lethal virus, labs are using monkeys as research subjects. But is it right to harm these animals to protect humanity from a potential threat? Rebecca L. Walker takes a look at this classic ethical dilemma.
Lesson by Rebecca L. Walker, directed by Sharon Colman.
This video was produced in collaboration with the Parr Center for Ethics, housed within the renowned Philosophy Department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Parr Center is committed to integrating abstract work in ethical theory with the informed discussion of practical ethical issues, and prides itself on the development of innovative and inclusive approaches to moral and civic education.
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“Whatever you decide, your choice should be well justified.” This is a great rule to live by.
I disagree, because you can literally justify anything, even if the reason is from our view completely wrong.
Truth is in the eye of the beholder
@@jecksstar8321 The point is that you should think of the reasons for your decisions and rather pr not you have a basis for them.
Sure, people can make up any excuse, but excuses are typically situational, they break down when we introduce more complicated examples and you need to add more excuses for each example that challenge your reasoning.
The point is that we need to strive to challenge our reasoning and rather or not it is justified.
anything can be justified .. this "rule" don't help
"Yea she was 10, but she said she was 18 and I trusted her, so you see, I did nothing wrong"
It's well and good to say that it is unethical to sacrifice one life to save five, but what do you think happens in an emergency room when doctors and nurses perform triage? What about when we choose to fund research to cure one fatal disease vs another? Or whether we want to invest in infrastructure to protect against fire in California or flooding in Florida? Try as we might, the trolley problem is inescapable (and sadly, refusing to choose is also a choice).
all we got to do is flip it halfway risking the life of some passengers but they have a higher chance of surviving because they can use their limbs
The real solution to the trolley problem is by spamming the lever, causing the trolley to skid and killing all six people at once
@@wren_. works I suppose but don't forget the people inside the trolley that's at least 1 more
What if the people are not strangers and you would have to choose between friends and family?
yes, but we got bills to pay
Ik it's a never ending dilemma but regardless of the fact if it's right or wrong, I think it's just that any certain species will try to protect other members of its own species.
A better way to think about it: Humans are more valuable because of their ability to recognize the value of other animals. We don't just preserve our own species, we would save other species too from natural forces if we can. So a human life is worth not only that but many other animal lives for our ability to save them.
I see your point, but there are several that only care for the survival of their own colonies or even themselves (ants, bacteria, plants)
@@oneservant That’s a very anthropocentric way of thinking bordering the biblical “god-given human lordship over nature”. There are, in fact, a lot of species that actively nurture and conserve other species (e.g. ants breeding certain types of fungus etc.) while there are an overwhelmingly large number of human intervention that has objectively harmed nature (e.g. introduction of foreign species to “control” the local ecosystem such as the cane toads in Australia). With all these examples, it is impossible to objectively say that humans occupy some special position because we are not infallible and far more prone to introduce lasting negative effects than other species that are counter-balanced naturally.
@@oneservant that applies only when a person is trying to save other species but not when a person does the opposite of that. this applies to other species too some of their members tries to save other species but most of them only care about themselves. so it should be looked at it as the individual that tries to save the others is morally better and should not be k1ll3d
@@oneservant but that's just a claim and I really don't think that one follows the other. If so, you could say that the worth of humans is different from person to person because they care differently about other beeings (i.e. adults/babys, abled/disabled, un-/educated).
Humans will always think of humans as the main priority. Well, because we're humans. Our friends and family are humans. So I think in this case, the cause is more of an emotional one. When a lot of people would face a choice to save either their friend or a stranger, they'd certainly prefer the friend. So even in humans, lives are not equally important to everyone.
Yeah, we would choose that, we already know. The quesrion here, however, is wether we should. If we take a normal person and a normal monkey, nothing really separates us from them, apart from intelligence. But if that is enough of a difference, then what happens to mentally ill people?
Eh, I don't care about humans I care about animals much more
@@nontoxicpaint Dang, who hurt you?
@@jlopez4889 plus a bunch of other stuff including my own trama such as being bullied about my Autism (by my own family, all my friends leaving me or using me, being agoraphobic for the last 5 years (I'm in my teens), my history and guilt with pet addiction, etc.
@@jlopez4889 and more but I think I've trama dumped enough
From what i can tell, assigning value isnt the problem at all. Anyone can dictate how valuable something is for themselves. The actual problem is forcing other people to accept a dictated value. The end goal is to have everyone agree that "yes, this is the value of something" which isn't going to happen for as long as people think for themselves.
But then, isn't the whole point of law to dictate values? Different societies put different values on different dilemma and basically tells its citizens they have to follow them. Even at its most basic: killing is bad is a subjective value (especially since there are debates about exceptions to it like euthanasia or the death penalty for example). However, if you don't dictate any of those, society falls apart pretty quickly.
Yup, we can argue about the value of an animals life forever. I think we should just help human beings because we are human beings. We have to help eachother survive. That's why we have doctors and police and firefighters.
@@constancerouge4811 we pretty much begrudgingly follow everything in the law. That's a show that we do want to go against some things.
@@adityakhalatkar4200 I don't think that's it. He's saying that it's hard to get people to agree and thats the problem.
@@avivastudios2311 you are right! I was not happy reading some comments and misunderstood him completely 🙈 I'll delete the previous outrage 😂
The philosophical content are always intriguing. thanks for the videos.
Cosmicskeptic would be happy
Solution:
why lion kills deer, for survival?
ok
why monkey kills plants? for survival (they even kill each other for dominance, 'barbaric')
so is it ok to kill monkeys for human survival ?(smallpox killed millions, so its definitely fight for survival)
yes
argument: morality permits doing anything for survival and protection of self.
dilemma solved.
@@devalsinhsindha8626 That is an egoistic argument. If you truly believe it is justified to do anything that protects yourself than you must concede that it is justified to test on other humans because a more effective vaccine will come potentially saving your life. You are not the only person worthy of moral consideration.
@@devalsinhsindha8626 But we don't eat meat for survival, so while I think this conclusion is tenable, it doesn't entail we are allowed to eat meat.
@@devalsinhsindha8626 "argument: morality permits doing anything for survival and protection of self."
In the video above, she's talking about a potential threat that may never happen - is it okay to defend against all potential threats? Would it be morally okay for someone to kill you because one day you might hurt them?
Or even for someone to experiment on you against your will because it might help them?
There's so many holes in your logic!
The animators must be praised as always.. how cool they make these animations shine
About 5 years ago when I was 17 ted was a place for answers for me, but now as I grow older and get into them deeper, the videos are full of dilemmas and questions
The animation of these Ted Ed Videos always fascinates me. Thank you.
For real I really love them.
love that profile picture
timely, been pondering this for months. Unavoidable for now, like a carnivore eats another animal, but we should constantly innovate to slowly go away from animal abuse. I think there is a future for medical technologies that needs little animal testing and animal farming.
As for meat eating animals. Sorry but they are important for the environment and keeping the herbivores population healthy. With the carnivores gone, then herbivores will get out of hand. I can’t remember, but bc by itself will not work for slow reproducing animals. At least by itself. Sorry if you hate how nature works. Nature doesn’t care what you think and you should leave it alone. Messing nature always leaves to something bad.
However if we are going to mess with nature, then I prefer a place where we keep herbivores and carnivores separate. We feed them animals that have just died of natural causes.
I agree with that sentiment, that if animals do it to eachother it's to protect their species. However as regards humans we have the knowledge to change and therefore should do so, as we can be the problem. Humans shouldn't be exploiting animals for their own gain IMO.
I dont want animals to die but if we can create a vaccine to save a whole country than we've got to do something. So hopefully they'll be a day when animals dont have to be tested on.
@@hereshotrod3873 the only problem with that is those herbivores that are considered livestock like cows,pigs, and chicken are overpopulated cuz of us. So I'm sorry but I don't think that's a good argument that we are solving the problem of overpopulation of these animals even though we're the one who created it 😂
"I am too early I don't know what to comment..So just pretend like I said something meaningful "
Well done
It's ok to have your own opinion. Agreeing with the heard is a defensive mechanism, not a strength.
I take an offense to that. First of all, how dare you?
What a beautiful saying, congratulations
so wise
Well, to be honest there can be no conclusion to this argument because it is essentially our nature to keep ourselves safe. We are naturally biased in our opinions. We cannot turn away from the fact that in end we still want better medications and treatments for ourselves and for those close to us even at the cost of an animal 's suffering.
To be precise, moral ethics are only acceptable to a person if it doesn't go against his/her essential needs.
Obviously all you can do is speak for yourself and so I will do the same and hopefully give you the opportunity to grow.
I wouldn’t want any medications or treatments at the expense of an animal (non-human) or plant life.
@@Handle35667 than you can't use any medication
@@Handle35667 In my opinion that goes against the nature of self-preservation. I can understand animals to some extent, but are you telling me you wouldn't take any medication because it was made at the expense of plants, even if it saved your life? I highly doubt it.
Other living creatures still have their value, but since we are humans we should still consider our species as more important than the others. After all a lot of starving animals would kill a human to keep themselves alive.
@@Handle35667 agree
@@Kizuske Honestly?i'd rather die,than sacrifice a life of another living being to save myself
Morality is hard. It's hard to care about others when they are suffering and you can't help them. They only matter if they matter to you, but either way, they still suffer.
The belief that someone is going to come along and "solve" this moral issue for us by telling us who is and isn't worth consideration is naive and harmful.
Just as much as sexism, racism, and homophobia aren't "solved," this issue will never be solved either. Waiting for some catch all solution only worsens the problem as we ignore it.
The dilemma gets even crazier if we consider plants. I personally think that it would be impossible to consider every single species as an equal. Even you reading this right now, even, is killing thousands of microorganisms that are keeping you alive.
Well, microbes and plants have no interests/emotions/pain and therefore don't hold a moral Status, so...I think that's not a real problem.
@@whatthefu3786 You're correct. Bringing plants in is a mistake
@@whatthefu3786 Life or death are part of the same and what you see as interests/emotion/pain is just your ego. You are holding a lot of microbes inside you and that's importante for you because it's a part of you... they can't feel pain, no interests or emotions but work together, it's all in your brain
@@agustinherrera4519 What gives a being moral value if not sentience and and ability to suffer?
@@agustinherrera4519 the difference is that microorganisms have no way to experience death. they aren’t conscious and have no capacity for suffering, so why should we treat them any different than the molecules that make them up?
This is very thoughtprovoking ❤
Another good question is why the assertion that life can be valued like a commodity for its use to an economy - we've called non useful life pests.
"valued" don't mean it's has an economical value
It only mean it's important, like your friends or relatives have a value to you
@@skad2058 I would kindly agree
Yeah the word "pest" is mostly exclusive if you live in your own domain but in nature
Nobody is a pest just a living piece of jigsaw to an ecosystem that recycles
@@skad2058 yeah
Scoiety is inevitably built on the suffering of someone. Best we can do is try to lessen the suffering, we can never truly erase it.
Interesting perspective
Unfounded, I would say that we have been on a gradual decline of the total suffering, imagine walking everywhere, or being the horse walking everywhere. Doesn’t happen anymore my feet feel great! Things take time and we got to admit we’re part of the process not the end result
A world without suffering wouldn’t work. Let’s take even only the truly bad suffering, and not the one that’s necessary for growth.
No suffering would also mean to get rid of survival of the fittest, what would create even more suffering. Take the birds of Galapagos for example.
@@jecksstar8321 dare to dream. Science/Technology could give us boundless power and resources, we could truly become the masters of the universe. Just give science time. It’s only been getting better think about the amount of suffering required to make a house pre power tools vs with power tools it’s just easier, and sure maybe its not 100% clean of suffering but it’s better and someday maybe it’s literal robots doing the work and they don’t suffer at all while doing it. Saying that a world devoid of suffering “wouldn’t work” is easy and lazy. No one said ending the natural state of suffering would be easy, they said it would be meaningful.
Lovin this video. it just imposed questioning as we should be questioning norms
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. Thanks Ted ed
If you are the one whose life is at line you'll be ready to sacrifice all of them
True.
If my life was at the line I'll sacrifice you as well. But I still would be ethically wrong by any consistent standard of empathy and legal punishment would also be morally justifiable.
I would sacrifice other million people to save myself. If it would be necessary and I had the choice.
It would not be ethical , but I would not care.
For the debate human vs monkey it's the same. Human is stronger, so he has the choice.
I think we should respect those who are sentient, and we can guess if a thing is sentient based on whether it has a nervous system. But it's hard to say. In any case, animals (except sponges I guess) should definitely be considered moral subjects if you ask me.
I do respect your opinion, but without animal testing of products, thousands of human lives would've been lost. Ideally, the animal testing bodies are subject to various restrictions, one of them being that you cannot just randomly pick up an animal to test on it. Animals for testing are bred in those facilities itself, they are not procured from the natural environment. "Ideally", coz I do not actually have an idea of the ground reality
I definitely agree that a lot of research involving animal testing saved many lives. The problem, I think, is when animals are abused for unnecessary things like cosmetics, fur and animal foods (as long as you don't live in a desert or something like that). That's what I believe, anyway, though I know few people would agree.
@@Dr-zd9eu sooo for example ppl should use poison for makeup like the good old times? you don't really like progress don't you? for progress, ppl and animals needs to suffer, but in the end we coming up better. look back for example for the good old coal powered factories and take a walk in a factory today.
Absolutely i believe if they feel pain/love/kindness etc they should definetly be treated with respect
How is animal testing any different from animal farming? If it's not unethical to farm animals for human consumption how can we argue that animal testing is unethical, its the same conversation...
Wow
Maybe instead of rejecting the conclusion due to counter example you presented, we should actually question whether if it is ethical to farm animals for human consumption in the first place?
Isn't Apes Small in number, while farm animals are billions in population
@@dalcop4702 it's totally ethical, considering we're part of the food chain as much as any other species. that's just nature.
The narration voice and the visuals both are great.
We need more of those videos, the ones that make ppl think about their moral compass and stances.
I believe that humans tend to perceive each other as more valuable because we are part of a society. As members of this society, we all play important roles in making it work smoothly. Therefore, it's natural for us to prioritize preserving human lives to maintain the strength and stability of our society.
From my perspective, objectively, animals' lives are not less valuable than human lives. However, their impact on our society is generally less pronounced. This could be one of the reasons why we tend to place a higher value on our own species and those in closer proximity to us, such as people in our country, community, or family. Since they are more closely connected to us, their presence, lives, or absence can have a more direct impact on our daily lives, leading us to perceive their value as higher.
What I believe is a living being will go to a great extent to save its life ,saving our lives as a human by exposing other species with lethal viruses is not moral but , accepted .Its a never ending dilemma and the species which will always rule ie, powerful will always be considered on the top of value pyramid.
Wild that this video completely sidesteps the conversation of people eating and displacing animals, which is many orders of magnitude more impactful.
the animations are always on point! i love how the background was kept beige :)
Thank you 😊
It always bothered me when people get offend when described as animals in a scientific way.
Same here.
yeah, some people think that humans are top of the food chain, but we invaded THEIR ecosystem, and killed them for money. all life if equal, because all life feels.
@@thatarticfoxkid3653so if there was a person who couldn’t fell is his life less valuable?
Always be your highest and best self. Be of service to others. Help others. Dedicate your life to serving others, being kind, compassionate, respectful and loving to all around you. Treat others as you would want to be treated in return.
If this video showed actual pictures and clips of *what actually happens inside labs*, people here would be discussing differently and more interestingly.
Indeed. Once you have been exposed to the atrocities of the laboratories, you can truly come to grips with how unnecessary all of the slaughter is. That, along with the horrors of industrial farming, have led me to vegetarianism and the pursuit of veganism.
exactly. thats why i dont listen to online morals
My sister a few months ago brought up a cosmetics lab in the news that was doing animal tests. She couldn’t believe they were putting human makeup on dogs and parakeets. (Don’t know if/which animals were named, but we talked to extremes to show absurdity or seriousness).
Before the rest of the family could answer, I asked “would you prefer to learn that your lipstick is dangerous by kissing [your cat]?”
The light switch flipped on immediately. Suddenly, she understood that the chemical trolley problem was about saving more cats by testing it before mass production and release.
My mother mentioned how recalls work, and my brother how every cat owner would sue the cosmetic brand for damages.
I then brought up DDT, a pesticide that nearly drove Bald Eagles extinct. While DDT was tested for bugs and humans, they didn’t test for eagle eggshells whose mothers ate fish who ate bugs/swam in rivers contaminated by DDT.
What happens inside labs is bad out of context. But they do have scientists, likely also vets, who monitor the animals. They can treat any adverse reactions, and document it for further study and correction. The context is sacrificial good, since a few dozen animals will save thousands in the long run.
@@LocalMaple This is one of the reasons I'll never wear makeup.
Let me guess. You are a PETA supporter, aren't you?
I dont think this question should be about life, but suffering. After all, even a single cell is alive. If the animal has the capacity to suffer (not just feel pain - nociception) it's needs and feelings should be taken into consideration. But still sacrificing a few is worth it if you can save billions, no matter the species (in my opinion). Ofc I hope we can test everything with lab grown cells in the future, the science is going at that direction as we speak.
As a biochemist I really need to have an opinion in this since I will possibly be working with animals and cells in the future. I have to make an education decision on what am I okey working with.
My reasoning is there’s no « right » answer about it. In a vacuum, life is life, whatever its form may be but for each living being faced with this dilemma, it wouldn’t be far fetched to believe one would place more value on its species over the others.
For cases without alternatives, if an action is bound to hurt another species but is necessary, it is, for me, understandable to prioritize our own. Finding ourselves into a predicament like the « 100 monkeys for one life » might happen and surely there would be will to blame those who would perpetrate it, but at the same time, without any other choice, wouldn’t we blame as well if they let the person die?
Once again, I’m talking about necessity and actions from humans towards non humans. Life, for the most part, uses life to sustain itself. It’s not right, it’s not wrong, it’s the way it is.
But humans have the agency to choose
@LessThenThree Going by your logic, everyone would die overnight. Sustenance requires death, and I doubt living creatures, be it plant or animal, if they could speak, would accept to die for the sake of something else.
@@KeertikaAndFallenTree people already give their lives for other things/people. It happens in war, martyrs kill themselves for their causes/beliefs, etc. People commit suicide even without benefiting something else, so it's not hard to believe
The thing is, nothing is "necessary" unless we agree on a goal. I don't have to eat unless I want to live, for example. So when we look at sacrificing 100 monkeys, you may say "it's fine, this is necessary" and someone else may say "this isn't necessary at all. We can't save this human, but let's not murder all these creatures."
@@brixan... First, you went for the people dying for ideology and people they like. I don’t see how it counters what I said and in a way, it doesn’t even relate to it.
The notion of sacrifice for a life we value is not alien to a lot of species BUT it is mostly for protection of offsprings*. Humans are the only ones, as of yet, to die for ideals or ideology which shouldn’t be placed in the same context at all.
Edit :
My point was, there’s no one and nothing, animal or human,in this world that would see a tiger starving and think « I will gladly die for it to have something to eat ».
The reason why species are maintained is because life puts extremely high value on itself first, this is the reason why anything in this world that would feel threatened by something will either fight or flight. It’s to protect itself.
* Talking about non human species.
i was talking about this the other day actually. i really don’t see a difference between who the product should get tested on first because even if products are tested on animals there’s a chance it can still be harmful to humans. and even if it wasn’t i don’t see people are giving products that may be harmful if it’s just to test the effects
Every life is precious, wherever it’s a person, a cockroach, a bird, or even bacterium, every living thing has a will to survive, grow, and repopulate. Taking their life away is always heart breaking for me but we humans have to understand death is also just as important as life, but sometimes humans mess with that balance.
I’m not sure there’s a right answer to this question. But in my opinion I feel like if we have to use other species as resources and tools, can we not just also acknowledge that they are living breathing things? treat them with respect and kindness? Can we not be more mindful of what we are doing and what we’re taking, instead of fishing the whole ocean?
There is no objective reason to consider other species' lives as equal or more valuable than ours. The morality is based in empathy; we care more if a dog dies than an insect. The problem is that empathy is relative since it varies so much between cultures and individuals. Since morality is not objective then I think its acceptable to construct the hierarchy of beings--the pyramid one.
Your logic is flawed as it could also argue for inequality between humas.
@Bitterkind But will we apply that pyramid to humans?
Not agree, I think this has more to do with levels of consciousness than empathy
@@jeffsanti if you’re saying the hierarchy is based on level of consciousness opposed to empathy, I disagree. empathy (emotional connection) is how we determine what beings are most important to us as those closest in our circle provide love and esteem. Being more conscious than other animals is simply a human trait and has nothing to do with innate value or even personal value for some. I would say the hierarchy is based on who (humans, animals, other life) fulfills our needs individually
@@gavine2363 Precisely, as you said, my opinion is that life is more valuable to the extent that it has a higher level of consciousness, and in order to solve the dilemma of the video, we must find a way to quantify that level of consciousness. Just as you mention, we currently make this type of decision based on empathy, but I think that this is subjective, leads to error and inconsistent decision making. For example, there are people who cannot eat dog meat but can eat beef every day.
You can determine the value of life when you understand what it's like to die when you don't want to.
Well said!
Your goddamn right
Ask this to my suicidal frnd
As long as there is no suitable alternative for testing the argument is just mindgames
Agreed. The question I always ask is: what's the alternative?
No, that's wrong. If the argument succeeds, then even if there are no immediate factive practical consequences, it still entails that *as soon* as there is any alternative, we should embrace it. That is to say: it entails a *conditional practical consequence*.
@@10mimu You and the OP almost definitely agree on this point, you just took their use of “mind games” to be more dismissive than intended.
@@CharlieQuartz Not really. I think the notion of a mind game *is* dismissive, so while OP thinks we should dismiss this sort of thinking, I don't. We might agree exactly on the premises and validity of the reasoning but disagree about the significance.
there are alternatives actually. look at the work that animal free research uk does. 92% of tests done on non human animals fail human trials. continuing to test on animals instead of making innovations in ethical treatments that use human cells without harming humans is only detrimental to the progress of medical research and the lives of 192,000,000 non human animals that are abused and killed in laboratory research each year
We are animals. We are a species's that doesn't want to go extinct. I believe in protecting the environment because if we don't our species will go extinct. Unfortunately if we do not test life saving medication's on animals that could also lead to our extinction. Survival is cruel. There are no easy answers.
That's so true
It shouldn’t just be justified that’s a low bar if it means as long as you have a justification your good, and conversely it’s an impossibly high bar if you mean it needs to be justified definitively because good is not objective. Instead of faith in justifications of our choice it’s better to practice an appreciation of valid arguments.
I only see it as a problem of being able to consent. Since animals cannot consent, we should limit testings to humans only, since only humans possess the intellectual capacity to consent. Which means medical advancements can and should only be made because of human volunteers.
In the end, morality changes over time and people define it based on the voice of the majority in a society or religious books.
Veganism is a great example of how morality changes over time.
This is a video brings up a lot of valid points, but I am not sure that the full scope of the situation is being presented. Many people don’t understand the protocols and procedures that are set in place to protect the rights of animals in all different organizations. In the military for example most dogs and other animals outrank their handlers, what this means is in the case of injury on the battlefield animals are often prioritized over their handlers due to their rank making them the priority. Now this may seem like a trivial matter, but it does demonstrate the seriousness with which even the Army takes in regard to the treatment of animals. You can see in this example that even though these animals may not full autonomy in regard to their position in life, they do have justice in the way they are treated and respected even among human soldiers.
Now for my civilian experience I have worked in labs with rats, chickens, and even simple research trials with humans. In order for any research to be conducted one first has to fill out the required documents stating what the research is, how it will be conducted, what resources are needed, what risks are involved, what measures are being taken to mitigate risk, etc.… This application is a lengthy process even for some of the simple research trials I have conducted. After finishing the application, it is then reviewed by your institutes research board, and they often have a list of needed changes that are longer than the original application itself and upon completing the new requirements more may be added or if you are lucky, you might finally begin to conduct your research. All these procedures are done to verify the ethical aspect of your research to verify what you are attempting to accomplish has a degree of non-maleficence and an overall beneficence. Even after all this work there are many experiments that get denied because the risk outweighs the rewards and even greedy organizations understand that lawsuits and dead animals are bad for their overall image.
The last thing I want to mention is the process for a medication to be approved for clinical animal trials. Many don’t understand that years of planning and developing go into medications before they are permitted to go to animal trials. Most of these compounds are tested in a cellular level before they can be applied to an organism level. No cooperation goes into animal testing with the aim to kill animals, but they do go in with the ethical mindset of beneficence and helping to cure disease for humanity. The only way we could possibly replace the vital purpose these animals serve is if we replaced them with humans, but would that be more ethical or would the debate for innovation be even more heated than it is now.
It's like a movie and a game
All human main characters always wins when they fight against their human or non human antagonist
Cause the creators just want them to be on top of everything
I meeeeeeean Planet of the Apes did happen
*cough* Avatar
That's called in-group preference, and without it you go extinct. All this pondering about the morality of animals is only possibly through an incredibly privileged lense.
The ones fitting the best for the experiments are the ones who are closest to us,but more similar animals get to us,the more unethical it seems to hurt them.Solidarity is based on alikeness
I totally agree with this and it's an amazing perspective. At our core, we are like all other organisms; our goal is to survive long enough to bring about the next generation through offspring. So what makes us different and more or less valuable than a monkey or a dragonfly who is doing the same thing. Just trying to survive. Why do we blindly accept animal testing on lab rats but become uncomfortable when we see monkeys receive the same treatment?
@@aaliyahroyster3226 true. But strictly speaking when testing on monkeys or lab rats we aren't comparing human and animal lives 1 on 1. The suffering of 1 animal can help thousands of potentially millions of humans in the future. So that really is a comparison of 1 animal life to a whole bunch of human lives.
We value beings based on empathy, if they're closer to us evolutionarily speaking we will empathize with them more. We feel for the suffering of beings more if we can imagine ourselves in their place, and that's easier if they're similar to us. That's why we empathize with dogs and monkeys and not much with fish or crabs.
What I've been thinking about for weeks now without certain conclusion. And suddenly this video pops up. My first conclusion is that we have to define life first, which I found really to do. ( However, it can be skipped) Then we define what "life" has moral status, or "souls", or self-cousious, it gets complicated really fast.
whats the final conclusion??
@@Un-TedxTalksI'm not qualified for that.
Here's an conservative answer to this question. Life starts at conception, life is the time in which the soul inhabits the body, a soul is harder to define, but it goes hand with hand with the body on everything, self-conscious is to be aware the you exist. Ask me anything else.
I feel as though defining biological life is ultimately unnecessary to determining which lifeforms are worthy of ethical consideration. Many organisms which are commonly regarded as being alive, such as microorganisms or plant matter, despite being fully capable of appropriately responding to external stimuli, have no capacity to experiencing psychological states, or intelligently reacting to new situations. As opposed to this, many mammal and bird species have been repeatedly shown to possess such qualities to exceptional degrees, being capable of adaptive decision-making responses to scenarios to which they've never been introduced beforehand, or forming complex social networks and displaying a myriad of emotions. Despite the lack of evidence for the majority of animals to possessing self-awareness, just being sentient is already enough at drawing moral consideration due to a capacity to suffer and the presence of some form of awareness to situations. However, the line can actually become extremely blurry when one considers primitive animals such as oysters or insects, and if they should be taken into account in our moral compasses, seeing as the scientific community's response would be ambiguous with some suggesting they are not sentient and just capable of reacting to stimuli.
Additionally, would the concept of biological life even hold any significance to defining whether future Artificial Intelligent programs are conscious? Not all biological life is sentient, and future technology may develop conscious "dead" entities by purely biological standards.
@LessThenThree Defining life as something that "fights entropy" is both misleading and problematic in several ways.
Firsty, no physical system actually "fights entropy", but rather rely in the usage of low-entropy energy sources to mantaining internal orderliness and integrity. Within such context, biological producers depend on the conversion of the sun's high energy density, low entropy wavelengths to synthesize organic molecules and later employ them to sustein their metabolic functions, thereby producing high-entropy, low energy density infrared radiation. It's precisely the law of entropy that sustains life, thus framing it otherwise is misleading. The overall entropy of the Universe increases even in presence of life. In fact, it could be stated life actually raises the Universe's global desorder.
Secondly, many machines which would clearly not fit into the mainstream definitions of what classifies into biological life could be defined as being "alive" by your standards. Your fridge relies on the same principle of maintaining internal order, while fighting off increases in internal entropy, as any other biological organism.
Muy interesante, en startreck no se ha visto esto más allá de la Federación, en películas como secreto of nimb aka la raton cita valiente y bagi the monster of mighty nature de ozamu tezuka, en seres evolucionados con capacidades humanas llega a ser extraño, igual con los robots y las Iá, la verdad a futuro creo que las civilizaciónes inteligentes avanzadas y sociedades educadas considerarían al mismo nivel a otros seres inteligentes sin importar ser robots o de otra especie inteligente biológica al menos mamíferos sugerencia.
Waiting for your review on the book - Kayan kollyn: the spiral of the ellmott & messenger of the secret
😊😊😊
awesome video, makes me think a lot
Ima just say, I hope u guys have a great day
to you too
if i had to choose between saving a humans lifeor a monkeys im choosing human everyday
Nice to meet you guys
Never Disappoints ✨✨
Imagine an alien harvesting humans and their resources for the survival of its own kind. That's how it feels like to be an animal.
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
-Genesis 1:26
Natural to want our species to expand, survival of the fittest. We just realise that and could act differently.
our brain often times tries to simplify things and that causes lots of problems, maybe we simply aren't asking the right questions
It’s a stop gap measure. Once we are able to simulate every single biological process inside a computer, we won’t need live subjects. We can just run a simulation to test out a drug or vaccine etc. It’s already happening in the pharma space but with limited capacity. Tech needs time to get there.
yes agreed
Can we ever be sure to have a 100% realistic simulation?
@@Quantum-Bullet well it is possible, but it requires immense amount of work to get to that golden era. might take a decade or 2
We don't even know 5% of the proteins involved in the human immune system
Right now, we struggle to just guess a protein's behavior based on its composition, let alone simulating the million of billion we would need to simulate a cell well enough to compute its reaction to a new product
We won't be able to simulate a single cell down to the verry atom before centuries, I don't belive in that
@@Quantum-Bullet No - nothing is a 100%. But it would definitely be a better outcome than our current practices. How many animals do we kill before something works? And none of the meds work for 100% of population anyway - some have very low levels of benefit (think cancer drugs). I work in the AI/ML space and our models are shown to work (almost always) better than their human counterparts and processes. Computer simulation supplemented with AI/ML has a great potential.
I think it depends on the ability of the animal to have complex wills of its own.
You can find a cat in the street and take it home. You can say that you took the cat against its will, but the cat is pretty much fine with it. The cat didn't really have complex plans for the future which you interrupted with, and after a short while it will get used to the new situation and enjoy it.
Ethics basically deals with how to balance the different wills of many individual beings, each of them having a "free will" of its own. But "simpler creatures" don't really have complex wills, so they are less included in this ethical system.
And of course this is a gradient. Apes have more complex wills than lizards, so we would be more thoughtful towards apes compared to lizards.
@LessThenThree
Ummm not exactly. Whales for example have complex wills- they want a large area to explore, find new things, etc.
They are build for large expanses of open water, and staying in a small place that restricts their movement can cause them pain, which they don't want.
But on the other hand, crabs have a much less complex will system. Give them a nice rock to hide under and they can be happy for the rest of their lives.
And yeah of course the cat may want to leave, it's still a mammal and its wills are not that simple. Just gave it as an example based on my cat haha.
But he is deaf and had little chance to survive to adulthood on the streets, so in this case there's a positive moral reason as well.
Cats are not wild animals they are ment to be pets.
I don't necessarily disagree with your conclusion, but it's your points I dispute. You say an organism has more value if it has complex wills/goals. Would if hypothetically we interact with an alien that has more complex goals and greater awareness. We should let the alien do whatever they want bc they know better. The reason other animals are not included in this ethical system is more so bc they're not human. We consider the wants of those that personally benefit us as an individual or civilisation.
Interesting take.
@LessThenThree if we accept that the reasoning is correct, if the animals were treated about as good if not better, there wouldn't be anything wrong with sea world keeping animals in captivity. the issue is they usually aren't
Wao did Ted ready my mind?
I just think the exact same topic before going to bed yesterday 😃🤔💬
Happy to see TED make videos like this!
Si existiera un solo animal que hiciera la mitad de las atrocidades que el humano hace, el humano no dudaría en extinguirlo.
Love the contents ❤️
thats very interesting and problematic issue, tissue models we have dont really work for every case
Every mammal's life is equally valuable.
I think a life should ideally only be substituted for another when consent is approved, and only necessarily imposed (in a case where consent is near-impossible to attain) when one has some degree of fulfilment left to live out over the other.
In this case, I'd say it's immoral, but it's a regrettable and required compromise (this is different from the aforementioned case of it being a necessary thing to impose). I also think it's one which must have limits (e.g. call it quits when x number of monkeys or x number of months have passed).
An alternative could be to ask for human volunteers, which you would hardly find, but if people are willing to volunteer for the tests to save others, it would eradicate the element of "oppression" that comes with forcing another being to do so.
Sooo should ask the monkey for consent on whether they would like to be injected with lethal venom inorder to test a new cure? Or with any other experiment.
@@DylanDkoh "and only necessarily imposed in a case where consent is near-impossible to attain..."
I'm saying that since it isn't possible to fully explain the effects of the experiment (even though we already know it would be bad and the monkey would certainly not enjoy it), we can impose it on them in dire situations, but with limitations and an acknowledgement that it is indeed a bad thing to do... bad, but "necessary"
(i.e. for a very dire situation, it would be necessary) (but for the present day situation where it's no longer an imminent threat, it's merely "required" for us to have counter measures, but it's not "necessary" per se, because an outbreak may never happen again)
@@joszsz I dont know… with all these antivaxxers, we may actually see smallpox or some variation return in the near future
This dilemma continue to plague me to the point of depression and it's not a joke
You need to believe that you are more valuable than a monkey. Human life always come first & that includes your life
@@Mr152008 Why should we believe that?
@@Pingwn It's called self preservation. Pretty important & if you don't have it, you need a psychiatrist. Happy to help solve this philosophical dilemma for you😄
boi we are superior and those monkeys will probably kill you if you just stay 2 days near them (like they dgaf about us why should you ), just try to not kill all the monkeys ..
@@Mr152008 How do you find "self preservation" . Maybe I self identify in a large group like mammals and other species don't concern me, or maybe I identify in a narrow group like east african, or even a tribe and the rest of the groups don't deserve the same rights as us. question is how do you draw the line. to simply attribute it to same "species" doesn't cut. It's util in a prehistoric setup but not in the modern age
I guess you can see it as some sort of conservation law. To save a life, another must die?
Very interesting video.
Who else is just watching Compliance and Legal Ted Talk Videos
This is Genius
For me, sentience is important factor.
For the purpose pf this discussion I define sentience as the ability to experience the world as a subject, to feel and think and to have experiences and sensations. It is what separates an object from a subject.
It is generally believed that rocks have no sentience, and therefore they have no perspective - they don't want anything, they don't really feel anything, they just exists with no preference for what would anyone would do to them so there is no moral difference to smashing a rock, petting it or leaving it alone as long as sentient beings are not effected.
While there are some people that believe plants have sentience I do not, we know they respond to stimuli and have various evolutionary mechanisms that insure their survival but it isn't enough for me to suggest they are sentient so we can at best say we don't really have enough data to support they have sentience.
In terms of animals, it is generally believed that many animals have at least some level of sentience, they have social bonds, emotions, thought and so on.
If non human animals are sentient enough (not sapient, this is a different can of worms) to be at the same moral status of humans I think it would be more moral to use humans in those experiments since humans can give consent to such treatments.
In my perspective we prefer to just ignore the moral status of other animals because it's convenient, we don't need to deal with its implications so we rather make up excuses for why it's okey because it is harder to ignore the moral status of other humans, the closer a group is to you the easier it is to not really care about it.
I have said something almost identical to this. I even did the same comparison, where I talked about how rocks are not sentient and thus have zero moral value. Are you a vegan by any chance?
@@johnchesterfield9726 I am
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
"How 'few' must you sacrifice, before it becomes too many?"
Please allow me to shortly explain how one ought to determine ethical value.
For the emergence of the existence of an ethically relevant value or summand in this universe, it takes 3 components: Something that gives rise to, generates the ethically relevant stimulus, then the presence of sentience capable of receiving experiential stimuli, and finally a connecting structure for communicating the ethically relevant stimulus from its generator to a sentience, so that it is received by at least some 1 sentience. And only when all of these 3 components function, are active together, then it is the case that a (eventually numerically representable) summand consisting of a to the process specific (generally seemingly finite) level of goodness or badness that is added to all the goodness and badness ever generated anywhere in anyone in the universe. Any combination of just 2 of these, or just 1 doesn't suffice for the process of generating ethically relevant positive or negative values. Parts of the brain appear to play the role of the sentience-providing receiver component of this interplay, neuron networks constitute the communicating, experiential stimuli transporting component, and finally, either by connection with neuro-transmitters chemically triggered or mechanically or thermally triggered receptors (as with nociceptors, i.e. pain-receptors or receptors at dopamine and serotonine releases) prepare the potentiality for existence of the experiential stimulus to be ready for acting on this world only when it is received by some being with sentience, similar to how the cone receptors in the retina of eyes prepare specific colour experiences to then be seen by someone.
The in its ethical axiomatic, fundamental position unique ethical maxim super-ordinate to all other principles then is to maximize the total well-being that this universe generates throughout its development. This means to behave such that in the end of the universe, as little as possible suffering and as much as possible joy has been generated. Obviously such task that requires accounting for the far-future and the completeness of consequences of actions comes with risks and uncertainties to be utmost careful, mindful about.
@@eternisedDragon7 Can you make it shorter?
@@J1P2K I'm not sure if that is possible in a meaningful way without loss of critical nuance, which if left out may cause misunderstanding. Please have the patience to take the time to read and understand it at full. In this age, it seems many people don't have the time anymore for reading more than short tweets, making meaningful conversation near impossible.
This video does a good job demonstrating some of the biggest ethical dilemmas facing modern medical research. It spends a large amount of time discussing moral status and whether sacrificing animal subjects is validated. Although this video uses a mostly unbiased approach there is a definite bias presented through the animation choices and the depth into which the issue is debated. Indeed, the author of the video neglected to mention anything about the process of approving animal research which becomes increasingly more difficult as you work with different animal models that could be argued to have higher moral status such as cats, dogs, or monkeys. IACUC or institutional animal care and use committee are utilized at each institution in the United States to ensure that each experiment has a project that will provide each animal with the most humane experience in order to answer certain research questions that must be vigorously supported and justified by the researcher performing the investigation. The video mainly just portrays the process as one of suffering of each animal that is utilized in this research, but it is much more complicated than that. However, I understand that the purpose of this video is more to provide a though provoking experience for the viewers than it is to argue for or against animal research. I just wanted to comment and clarify that it’s more complex than what the video portrays. That being said, I will acquiesce to more wise individuals to determine the answers to such philosophical questions and determinations of moral status and how do we determine the value of a life, whether human or non-human.
"Why?" is a question that is so hard to answer.
_Moral values must be taught at the early age so that each life matters most_
What about the chicken used to make chickfila
@@berdwatcher5125 don’t change the topic. I said for lab testing
@@abidashhar8627 Fair enough, but who's morals can we teach? Morals are different to person to person, so who's personal beliefs are we gonna use?
@@berdwatcher5125 the religious belief is what gave them moral values
@@abidashhar8627 Which religion, and why?
I hate animal testing because it’s unethical but I also acknowledge how important testing is. Most animal testing is inaccurate because different species react differently to the chemicals, medications, etc.
Yes.
We should instead use criminals with no possibility of rehabilitation.
@@justwannabehappy6735 I agree. Especially criminals who’ve taken innocent lives.
@@justwannabehappy6735 And give them an out for their punishment? Prisons ARE authorized to stop death row inmates from taking their own lives and have done so before.
@@justwannabehappy6735 even they are worth more than a monkey
So what should we do ,according to your opinion ,what you thinks animal based medicine?
I love the throwback to the funny monke experiment 3:46
The way I think about it is, sometimes, someone’s gotta bite the bullet, and you might as well remain loyal to your own species.
monkey stole my mango once, lets just say he helped cure covid
Our well being will always be the core of our experiments.
We can question this. I have. A lot. However, the reality of our evolutionary instinct to survive will almost always prioritize us before any other being. Even, if they're our closest genetic neighbor. Breaks all moral codes.
Unfortunately humans will never be able to break away from that instinct.
That's truly makes this reality a rally bad place
If you end up being stuck in an empty niche world with only one advanced life form to be on top
Without this instinct, you die. How can people not understand that?
I know this might sound contradictive but we need to save other creatures' lives because they have saved our lives
yes.
One way is to think about average happiness or utility. Imagine everyone could be assigned a number of how happy they are. You actually can't in practice even if everybody told you the truth, but in practice you can tell the difference between a happy an unhappy person if they tell the truth, so in theory there can be a number out there. Average happiness is the sum of those divided by everyone. Then just compare what that value you'd have if you saved someone or didn't save them. I hate to break it to you, but some people get their happiness at the expense of others. Then you pick the action which maximizes this value. Now of course, you don't actually know how to convert happiness into numbers and you don't have perfect information of the entire world, but you can try to make your best estimate with imperfect infromation.
For a species that considers itself to be the “most moral being”
They do the most immoral actions at times
Very true.
The irony
Said by a Moral being
I feel like animal testing should really be a last result. You can pay people to do practically anything.
This is about self-preservation at the end of the day
Value of life depends on amount of “good” influence an individual can make
When a being reach the level of prosperity that can give it self diabetes with ease, it start to over think and create problems so that have something to do.
-Me
in another universe, similar video : "is 10.000 humans life more valuable than five primate?"
nice vid btw. well done
It is horrific to see how nonchalantly we can debate about lives of beings who are separate entities. Who will never think of influencing our lives. But we are comfortable speculating about them, about us, about influencing their lives for our benefit as if we are entitled to do so. I sometimes wonder how did we reach this state of entitlement. To find ourselves able enough to govern the lives of another species. To almost play God. It is horrifying for me to find myself doing this exercise. To think I am remotely eligible to affect the lives of someone else, let alone the lives of members of another species.
We and animals are just pieces of flesh that evolved to interact with nature, we evolved to be superior to all other animals, which means our decision on the environment can and will overrun theirs. There is no need for justification, its all nature.
As long as i am living, i am all that is important.
If you value your life lower than animal life... I agree with you. Your life is really worth that much.
To be wholeheartedly honest and bluntly sincere, ethical and morally correct dilemmas have no bearings whatsoever in a world where monetary value is the driving factor when it comes to those in power! Wether we feel that that’s the way things should be when it comes down to whose life is more valuable than an others, it’s the truth!! Its a debate that just creates a “paradox” amongst the current generation of people. You can’t say that the lives of any living things are equal, yet enjoy the simple pleasures of life, like the device that we are using to comment on this video. Wether you feel that you are being sincere about your feelings or not, you’re contradicting yourself w/o realizing it! For example, people that don’t eat meat or wear fur, or use products that were tested on animals don’t bcuz they don’t believe in sacrificing animal lives. So they feel they do it bcuz of their moral compass and the gratification it gives them as a human being! I’m an outdoorsman as well as my 2 daughters, we’re family that hunts, crabs and fishes, who takes gratification in being able to put food on our table myself but I believe that we have the right to choose what we feel is right or wrong. We don’t have the right to tell others my way is right and yours is wrong. (If you do that you aren’t a decent human being anyway and shouldn’t be in this conversation). My point is that people feel they’re doing something for a purpose, yet use and enjoy daily activities that contradict themselves. It’s a paradox bcuz while are excited to get the latest smartphone, laptop, entertainment system, tablet, smartwatch, etc, living things are being destroyed EVERYDAY in order to provide the materials for us to enjoy them!
What are you talking about. People are vegan because its morally wrong to kill animals. You said its indecent to tell people whats wrong or not. But you tell people that so you arent a decent human according to yourself.
An amazing topic to think on in the perspectives of abortion and the battles we as humans have with it
This thought process helped me to choose a vegan diet, as I live in a developed country with a good income and access to a variety of foods. I'm able to meet my nutritional needs without animal meat or products. Therefore, in my case, the consumption of meat for a meal would simply be greedy and be completely based on my desire for recreational taste, which I feel is an invalid reason to take another being's life.
That's what I thought of too. Of course any moral dilemma is much less when it comes to consuming animal products than the e.g. in the video, because then you're killing for the sake of taste / convenience, rather than to save lives.
how do you get protein? you eating the bugs?
@@elderpebler9482 Nuts, legumes, beans, and tofu (and other soybean products including soybean itself) contain protein.
Plants feel pain and are alive, meat, fruits and nuts are natural to our body. Carbs, grains, leaves are unnatural and its abundantly obvious if you just take a look at how the body uses different sources of energy. Being a veggie boy is fine for some, sure. But you are turning away from what is truly natural to your body. To call it "Greedy" and say its "desire for recreational taste" is the most idiotic thing I ever heard, casually throwing shade at people with same living standards as yourself.
@@michaelly7163 soy is the absolute worst for a male human, beans, legumes, beans are filled with lectins you cant digest and cause imflammation :) enjoy your low test diet buddy. Nuts are good tho :) Keep chewing down carbs soyboy.
I’m not kidding, I literally talked about this in school and ted made video about this 😮
really love these videos , helps my gyana
Me: Wait, it's all a trolley problem?
Ethical dilemma: *points gun at me* Always have been.
Most so called "animals" are better than some humans ❤
Some humans? So most humans are "better" than most animals according to you?
You’re using technology invented by humans , eating food farmed and stored and distributed by humans and most likely live in a home constructed by humans
Should I told you about the fact that dolphins are rapists ?
@@whatname4613 How about equals?
@@whatname4613 "some" does not necessarily mean a small portion so it's not the opposite of "most"
At 1:25 it should say "this practice reflects the widespread belief [among humans] that human lives are more valuable..." I don't think anyone has asked non-humans what they think, but I have my doubts they'd agree.
"Whatever you decide, your choice should be well justified."