What makes a human life more important than a plant or an animal life?

More important according to who?

You? Me? A house cat? An E. Coli bacterium?

Importance is fairly relative, if you ask me. There are a lot of things that set humans apart and above plants and animals, but I don't think that makes humanity more important on any kind of objective scale.

However, I still tend to be more concerned with humans than animals or plants. Why? Because I am a human and am therefore inclined by genetics and psychology to prioritize fellow humans. So humans tend to be more important to another of their own species even if there is no objective reason for that to be so.



However, I think a certain amount of our hierarchy of life forms comes down to sentience. Plants are not (usually) considered sentient or self-aware; they cannot feel pain or pleasure and have no knowledge of their own lives or deaths. For that reason they are relegated to the bottom of the food chain, for they can be preyed upon without guilt.

Animals can display differing degrees of sentience and reason; they can be aware of themselves and of mortality. They can suffer and be happy. However, that sentience and reason is less sophisticated than humanity's; it tends to be animal instinct and the basic urge to survive and continue the species. For that reason animals hold the middle ground; we can justify killing them, but prefer to do so humanely and only as necessary.

Humans, of course, are the pinnacle of both reason and sentience. We can feel and reason and both of those function at a much higher level than that of the animal kingdom. A single human's life can have far more impact than a single animal's; some humans' deaths have been mourned by millions. There is also the fact that humans band together into enormous interdependent societies and cultures that function as single units. Killing another human is killing one of "us" instead of an irrelevant "them" or "it."

I wonder, is this a human ego question?

In order to understand why we believe that humans are more important than anything, we have to understand why we devalue things. From my observations human instantly devalue things that are in abundance(often). If we found a way to mass produce Gold I guarantee in a few years it would lose value. Are animals and plants in abundance?

You'd better believe it! At this point in time humans can mass produce both the animals and the plants that we need to survive. "So why should we care about any other animals?" "We cant eat rats or roaches so why should we care about them?" The reason we think this is because we're no longer attached to the flow of mother nature. We dont rely on the food chain for our food. We can mass produce the food our "Farmed Animals" need and the food we need. If things were different(like they were 10,000 years ago) we would value all life forms because those life forms might be food for our food. Back then we had more respect for the things we wouldn't eat.

The other reason is because we value property more than the animals living there. Again this is because we dont have to worry about starving our food to death when we kill off all the things that live on that property.

So are humans more important than animals? Yes...at least this is what we're taught to think from a very young age... :dry:

"You must unlearn what you have learned" - Yoda

well that escalated quickly!!

Metsu Desal wrote:

Joe wrote: We are not at the top of he food chain. i could name a dozen animals that would eat you with gusto. But we don't have any natural predators anymore, due to scientific breakthroughs along history.

I don't think a human life is "more important" than the life of every other living thing. At least if i try to be objective.

The "worth" of things is something we humans made up. It's in fact immessurable. Why most of the people think animals are worth less than humans, is simply because of their individual feelings towards one or the other. I have a cat, who is 16 years old, and has been with me all my life. I hold it very dearly, and her worth to me is probably much higher than that of people i don't know / i don't know anything about.
It's all just a matter of the point of view.

A disease can kill an entire species...does that then make bacteria the top of the food chain?

and through bacteria we could kill those original bacteria, we can control them...

Rickie The Grey wrote: What makes human life more important than plant and animal life? Who here believes this is true? I don't. Now if you are asking if I value human life more then animals and plants on a priority survival basis then yes.

what if its not on a survival basis

I want to thank Kemo for starting this topic.

This is one that I feel is very important for people to take a long hard look at and consider. Especially Jedi...

To me there is no priority over another. Being a farm kid and a Native American, yes we do influence each others lives but until you have had the opportunity to know animals like I have, its hard to comprehend.

Horses form life long bonds with each other and their humans, their hearts break when a member is lost or never comes home. I was on a trail ride and watched a mustang commit suicide by sticking his head under water and never pulling his head back up. They have a very complex social hierarchy.

Cows have orders, who is the first one to the food, to the water...gets to visit with the bull etc.

I can go on and on with examples. Look at Elephants, they actually have graveyards and funerals or at least what we can perceive as a funeral.

Dogs and cats form such deep bonds with owners that they have been known to guard their owners graves. How can we say that they are a lower life form?

My elders told me from a young age that the four leggeds (animals) are much older than humans and truthfully if we look at our own history the argument could be made that we developed into the conscious thinkers of today about 70,000 years ago. Yup I'd say that animals are older "Beings" than us.

As for plants, I really believe that they too have a higher order. Look at some of those amazing redwoods in the west coast of the United States or even the Baobab trees of Africa that can be up to 2,000 years old. They all react to stimuli and have growth cycles and such. Is it because we can't understand what they are doing that makes them less in our eyes?

To me, we have a symbiotic relationship. I cannot be here without the plants that bring food. Nor could I be here without the animals that have enriched my life. No I would not eat my cat but she does bring me dead mice very often as gifts and I bet if she was allowed outside she'd be a pretty amazing little hunter. Do I value the cow above the dog? No because without the dog I couldn't herd the cow.

Now that being said if a cat and a human were on the side of the road because they got hit by a car, same type of brutal injuries do I save the human over the cat?

Yes, however if money were no object I would save both equally. However I'm not in a perfect world and I too would save my fellow man before my cat. But I would grieve for the life of the creature I could not save. Not for days or anything but simply offer up a prayer to that spirit acknowledging its life and that I wish it peace.

MTFBWY

kemo wrote:

Rickie The Grey wrote: What makes human life more important than plant and animal life? Who here believes this is true? I don't. Now if you are asking if I value human life more then animals and plants on a priority survival basis then yes.

what if its not on a survival basis

Well it seems to me if we are believers in the living force then we/all life is connected and interdependent and we nedd to respect all life the best we can. Judging on how the peoples of the modern world are treating the enviroment is a lesson that badly neede to be learning.

I find animals more important than some people, but that's just the spiteful part of me who doesn't like those people to begin with.

At this stage, humans have done a great deal of damage to the planet that may not be naturally repairable. It remains to be seen whether the Earth can recover from what we've done to it at this point. I'd say continued human existence is paramount, from a naturalist's perspective, so that we might one day fix what we've done.

In other news, the pubic louse might be making an appearance on the Australian endangered species list. There hasn't been a recorded case in New South Wales since 2008. It seems the proclivity to grooming might be wiping the species out.