"And we are the most advanced, most evolved species?" but I disagree with CM's comment "That's a kind of meaningless statement John."

Well, I really took it as a rhetorical question sooz.

But if you wanted to take it seriously then it is "kind of meaningless" (please note the qualifier).

You would need to have a relatively clear notion of what "most advanced" means in this context and that's pretty difficult, to say the least. And "most evolved" is is "meaningless" because it implies at least the possibility of a judgement, but how could such a judgement be made? "Evolution" isn't about "more or less" evolved. Its about survival. Full stop.

Its just another example of the Victorian confusion between "evolution" and "improvement", a fundamental mistake which brought us delights like "Social Darwinism".

(If you want me to keep my pedant's hat on I can explain to you in some detail why that's a misnomer as well )

I agree Cattleman. In a way, it is rather meaningless unless we get more specific, but I was just commenting on how most people tend to place humans above all other animals using whatever criteria they choose - if any at all.

However, my point was that if humans are in some way superior, why is it that we treat so many other species so poorly? Even those species that we have domesticated such as dogs and cats are used in experiments and often abused.

To me it's like the Nazis thinking they were better than Jews.

I mostly agree John, but while I abhor needless cruelty to animals, I also think we have a bit of a tendency to put on our hair shirts, thump our chests and cry mea culpa just a bit too readily.

I remember reading an interesting point of view a few years ago (I forget the author):

There are 60 million sheep in Australia and 24 Million people. If all the people died out tomorrow how many sheep would there be in 20 years time? Maybe a couple of thousand ....

So, did we "domesticate" them or did they "domesticate" us?

I'm not sure I understand your point, Cattleman. What has this to do with treating animals cruelly?

Even if we hunt and use animals as food, they can still be treated with respect.

Worked for us.

So why do people get all bent out of shape over eating horsemeat and are fine with beef?
IMO, it's because they get their emotions involved and lose their objectivity in the process. Same thing when it comes to deciding what/who is more "evolved".
Maybe rocks are superior to humans. They don't spend half their lives killing one another and spending infinite amounts of finite resources finding better ways to do the killing. That's "evolved"?

I started by saying "I abhor needless cruelty to animals" John. I didn't think I could be clearer than that.

I suppose that my general point is that we tend to see the relations between humans and other species in an almost totally negative way - humans bad, animals good - but I think that from any moral, ethical and pragmatic view its far more complex than that. Are we cruel oppressors of other species or are we benefactors?

The obvious answer is that we are both, and in any form of moral accounting we would come down clearly in the deficit column. But there is another side. And that side comes from the fact that, as far as we know, we are the only species capable of making such judgements. We are, in a sense, uniquely gifted and, because of that, uniquely obligated. Its precisely our humanity that makes the issue an important one. Its acting inhumanely that we object to, and so we should. But, how should we act towards other species?

One obvious answer is "leave them alone", but maybe the sheep wouldn't agree. And, in fact, short of mass suicide, we can't. We are animals too, and that very fact means that we are going to have to have an effect other species, both directly and indirectly. We also can't do it by pretending that other species are humans, even if they are very similar to us. Could we legitimately, for example, charge a chimp with murder?

I don't think there's any simple solution. But I also don't think that the kind of guilt trip that is often thrown in our direction is useful either.

The "sheep" example was really a way of saying "there are other ways of looking at the relation between us and others".

And, even as I was writing this Oskar comes up with another version of the mea culpa argument. However, I've got to agree with him on the "sentimentality" that seems to appear all the time in this area.

I started by saying "I abhor needless cruelty to animals" John. I didn't think I could be clearer than that.

Right, we are in agreement about that, so why does it feel like we are arguing?

I now regret writing the sentence "And we are the most advanced, most evolved species?" because it seems to have taken the focus off my bigger point.

Actually I thought we were getting back to the original point ....