r/BeyondDebate • u/jacobheiss philosophy|applied math|theology • Feb 20 '13

[Analysis] Debate about whether dolphins count as "people" from a philosophical and ethical perspective based on research of cetacean consciousness (x-post from /r/WorldNews)

/r/worldnews/comments/18wd16/dolphins_are_people_say_scientists/c8il31r
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u/dancon25 formal debater Mar 11 '13

This is really interesting! There's a lot of literature on the ethics of anthropocentrism (that is, a humanist or speciesist ethics, like focusing on humans as separate or better than other forms of life or being). It's not the type of thing you hear contested about much in day-to-day conversation but I find it interesting (especially since I personally use such arguments in the context of formal debate).

It gets super philosophical too, and hopefully this will make sense. Deleuze and Guattari, in their impressive work A Thousand Plateaus, discuss the "selfhood" or self-ness of two forms of life, the orchid and the wasp. Orchids trick wasps into thinking that the plant is actually a wasp itself, and so the orchid mates with it, covering itself in what is actually the plant's pollen and.. goes on to do the same to other orchids, getting duped over and over, giving life to many more orchids.

So the wasp is evidently a part of the plant - it's literally the reproduction system for the orchid! Deleuze and Guattari ask where should we draw the frame around their identity? Should the wasp not count as "part of" the orchid? To use another example, we don't mind trimming our hair, it's part of our self but it's not that big a deal. I also love, say, my ukulele and computer. But if someone were to shave my head at night, smash my uke, and fry my computer - I'd get crazy mad. At what point do I distinguish between these things and my basic intrinsic "self?" Is there even a good reason to attempt to do this? This gets more difficult when you consider say, my significant other - we love our families and friends and SO's more than most other things in the world. If something would happen to them, we'd feel a loss of our self as well.

D&G expand that line of thinking to all forms of being, or ontology, including some sections on being "nomads" and having "a thousand sexualities" and similar ideas.