By concede, I meant, you would tell that alien race....ok, you are more important than me and your life is more important than mine.....which is what the thread title states. The henry beston quote said it better than I could have.....Animals have things going for them we could not dream of....senses...hightened in some areas for some more than we have....smell, hearing, sight...birds can migrate hundreds of miles every year by air currents alone, etc...... We have developed tools that can wipe them out, though, as well as wipe ourselves out, so i am not sure that is such a plus all of the time.....There is no equal footing....Without weapons, there would be, though.
No doubt that each species has gifts unique to itself. Perfection would be living in harmony. The food chain kind of negates that though and man can't be blamed for that one.
No man cannot be blamed, and each person is his own unique individual......and i look at each person as a separate entity than all of mankind as one being. I see enough animal abuse commercials that I cannot watch anymore, and things of this nature....I can blame some people how they treat other species, though. I tend to judge man as how he treats not only others but all the other species, as well.....that is me...though....
I was on tiny little boats going against big whaling ships, so I have put my life in danger. I cannot say...but I think if someone was going to shoot an endangered animal, and I was there, I might be in trouble. I know how passionate I get about the subject...and it is not always pretty. My reason about myself can get lost completely.
But would you trade yourself, one of your loved ones, one of your pets? Would you or one of them take the bullet instead?
I might take the bullet....but I would not sacrafice a pet of mine or anyone I loved.....no.....and that is a MIGHT for me....I am not sure either way...but I know how impassioned I can become, so...I am not sure, really.
and this is probably why I have not volunteered myself for any more save the.......... I saw how empassioned and angry and sad i was with Earth trust and saving the whales people. I have some sense of survival. I decided to paint many animals instead to show their beauty. Hot headed me against those poachers killing the elephants, for instance..... they would skin me alive.
When one can imagine it up close, personal, and real I believe it becomes very difficult to choose the "unknown animal".
http://youtu.be/KDbPYoaAiyc If you ever get close to a human And human behavior Be ready, be ready to get confused And me and my hereafter There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic To human behavior But yet so, yet so irresistible And me and my fear can And there's no map uncertain They're terribly, terribly, terribly moody of human behavior Then all of a sudden, turn happy and they and my here after But, oh, to get involved in the exchange of human emotions Is ever so ever so satisfying and they and my here, oh And there's no map uncertain Human behavior, human behavior Human behavior, human behavior And there's no map And a compass wouldn't help at all Yeah, uncertain Human behavior, human behavior Human behavior, human behavior Human behavior, human behavior Human behavior There's definitely, definitely, definitely no logic To human, to human, to human, to human
We as humans are biased to protect the life of other humans, whether or not those lives are "more valuable" doesn't really matter. I don't really think that are, inherently. All living beings have some level of interest in preserving their lives and avoiding suffering. There are always going to be extreme scenarios, like that of Harambe, where we might have to make a frenzied choice. But these situations are rare and many of us will never face such an urgent moral decision. It's the many smaller decisions that we make every day, within the light of reason, that really define us. I think we should strive to make the more ethical choice, which is often the path of least harm, when it is reasonable to do so. There is no good answer to the question proposed in the OP, every life has a "value." Try to live in a way which enables the greatest good for the greatest number.
It's an interesting question on an intellectual level, but I agree with Meliai that the general feeling towards this question is based on emotions and instincts and I don't see that subject to substantially change anytime soon. In The Blind Watchmaker, Richard Dawkins brings up a rather fascinating thought experiment, which touches upon some of the ideas that have been already mentioned here. He discusses incidents where they used to use monkeys as research subjects, performing tests on them that inevitably killed them. He thinks a primary reason for the disposability of the monkey (or insert any test animal) is because of our limited perspective on time, due to the length of our lives. He then prompts the question, if we expanded our ethical concerns on the time scale of thousands of years, or millions, there is a point where the monkey and human ARE the same species, same goes for the Bunnie, mouse or whatever animal it is we're discussing. So on that timescale, why would we not extend the same rights to the animals? It seems, as alluded to in the op, we even have difficulties deciding on the value of life of our own species, such as based on age in the example and in more nuanced ways, that are perhaps not decisively fatal, but such that we have seen and continue to see discrimination rampant on seemingly trivial factors, that affect quality of life. My gut reaction is that I would save a human over an animal, but if this is based on emotion, which I think it is, then I think emotion can be a rather fickle thing and some context is necessary. For instance, if I've had a pet Dog or Cat for a decade and it happens to be trapped in a house fire along with a capable grown adult that Is a complete stranger, and I could only choose one, I might favor the animal. In a situation that's not split decision like that or that involves people I have a connection with, then I think I'd value human life over others.
it really comes down to the basic instinct of survival of the group, which is essentially what Dawkins is saying. That has been and always will be the main deciding factor in these type of questions/situations. What is subject to change and is ever increasing in scope is whom we define as a member of our "tribe", whether those boundary lines are drawn based on race, geographic location, species, etc,etc. We have just barely begun to reach a point in our collective consciousness/shared paradigm that includes the entirety of the Earth, animal, vegetable, mineral and acknowledging, the interconnections within the whole mess that necessitates a further paradigm shift that would hopefully see an end to conflicts as the awareness of how we all fit into the overall puzzle as one "tribe" is realized. "whom do you call brother?"
Do you think this is this the result of realizing our, for lack of a better term "power" as a species, or is it a different factor, or a combination of factors?