Mass Killing of Dolphins (Kindly Watch This)

[The_Child]

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Not necessarily. Humans haven't developed the razor-sharp teeth that most other predators have, dili tungod anang rason nga vegetarians ta, but because there is simply no reason for us to grow fangs. Unlike wolves, tigers, lions etc etc...kahibaw man ta magpa humok sa baboy ug baka, we know how to cook them to make the flesh tender enough so that sharp teeth won't be necessary. Evolution happens so creatures can adapt better to their environment. There are these really weird-looking fishlike creatures who are only found in the world's most remote caves. They live thousands of feet below the ground, and they live in total and utter darkness. Over thousands of years, these fishes have evolved to adapt to their dark dwellings. They are not just merely blind, they don't have eyes at all. When you live in complete darkness, eyes have no use, thus that manner of evolution.

So kita, kamao man ta mag tinola, nilaga, kaldereta, menudo, mechado, etc etc...we can afford not to evolve into vampiric-looking creatures.

ok. i was merely echoing what my prof said. i would like to expound on it pero murag i have not read enough on physiology to make a qualified point. cheers!

[giddyboy]

sakto c Rodsky. ayaw mo pada sa tv or even youtube. don't jump into the bandwagon effect. research first why people do those things. maybe it's their tradition or culture.

if Japanese are used to eating dolphins or whales, so be it. it's their culture and tradition. if Pinoys are used to eating dogs, so be it.

it is up to the international players like the UN to address those things.

of course, on a personal note, i love dolphins. i hate to see somebody killing one.

if one says, "Save the Dolphens, Save the Whales", of course i am for that but in the proper perspective. and i will also say "Save the Cheerleader, Save the World"...hehe

[brownprose]

interesting. i dont think i got it wrong, but correct me if i am mistaken good sir, ethics you misconstrue as purely about "compassion" because thinking about the exigency of our long term survival is in itself also an ethical justification.

So you could not purely place the compassion in not killing the whales as purely ethical as opposed to long term survival as something not-ethical. Which is a misunderstand i believe, because both are subsume in ethics.

your second line again is a misunderstanding of the role of ethics which i pointed out above this statement.

The exigency of our long term survival is not an issue of ethics PER SE -- the same with the whales and dolphins. The call to preserve our kind is a primordial calling not a product of ethical reflection. Ethics only comes at the tail-end of the issue. And this is the part that you miss to see in this thread.

your third line speaks as if there is no such thing as ethics in policy-making, which again i mentioned is not so. The very action that policy-making actuates on is based on justifications, and this is the study of ethics, or more generally axiology. True, that they dont dwell with the technical side of ethics, but in policy-making bodies they are so structured that there are departments or adjuncts the deals with ethical issues. thus as i have mentioned, professional ethics: bio-ethics, business ethics, environmental ethic ethics has always been a part of policy-making and i do not know why you state that it is the least that they want to be interested in. every actions revolves around the good, the bad, and the ugly, and this is the place of ethics, and no matter how much you deny it environmentalists and policy-makers have ethics always in the table. Saving the environment has its underpinnings, and these are ethical justifications.

The_Child, sir, you are beating around the bush. The ethics you mentioned as I have said are at the tail end of the case. You can cite all the ethical/philosophical connections you can find for all the world to care but still it is the least of the concerns of the scientists and policy-makers at this point. Far stronger reason why we need to save the whales isn't just the ethics of it all but our very own survival which is NOT ETHICS PER SE.

yes, your choice if you do not wish to talk about the issue in theoretical sense, which is rather ironical since the purpose of the forum itself is to talk about talk (theory) practical sense is never a reality in a forum because for somethign to be practical it must be translated to the real world and not the virtual. So far we tend to coat our perspective as practical, it is still theoretical as long as it remains in the confines of this forum.

Okay so your philosophy is at the practical and realistic end of this forum? I hope you're joking.

and again, there you are mistaken. you underestimate philosophy as purely a disciplines of abstractions. I think that it is still taught in most philo 101, that philosophy is that overarching disciplines that connects everything together to coherent whole. The root justification for saving our environment is always philosophical, because it revolves around meaning and values.

A coherent whole can only be achieved only if you have the correct philosophy The_Child. There's just too many of them that you can't even tell which philosophy to use to solve the whale-huntings around the world. On that thought, did you ever find any Philosopher today who's had a fair share of solving the whale and the dolphin's recent plight? Nada...

You can throw in the most brilliant philosophical rambling you can find to an environment scientist or a reasoned statesman who is faced with an urgent issue before him. And you can bet if they ever pick it up as a be-all for decision-making

And of course by quoting Russell im sure you are familiar that by philosophy here he was merely referring to, in protest against how the continental europeans are dealing with philosophy, and that he was not referring to philosophy as a whole. you also teach philosophy, as you said, whereas i am just a student, suffice to point out that philosophy has become a science in Russell's terms. It is the task of philosophy in clarifying terms. So, if i am not mistaken good sir, the context of russell's quote does not really go against the issue i propounded. So i do not see the virtue of the quote.

My profession and you're being a student have nothing to do with this thread The_Child so stick to the terms of the discussion. Rusell pointed the dissimilarities between scientific and philosophical inquiry...you just got it it all wrong --- the quote stands.

But then again...if you so insist that the problem presented in this thread is a mis-appreciation of philosophy then you can't hold anyone to speak their truth that this is a mis-appreciation of natural/environmental science. Candidly, the side of science is just too persuasive for me.

a brilliant philosopher, (not in my ranks sir, i am no one in that community, not even a professional) i would say brilliant philosophers have already engaged themselves in dialogue with the scientific community. as i have said, the emergence of environmental ethics and animal rights were established by the seminal articles of three australian philosophers and one american. most noted is Peter Singer. which made possible the rational justification of animal rights movement throughout the world.
cheers!

Be that as it may, animal rights and ethics is just one side of the story. And I don't think we can persuade the environmentalist to stress that side nor will the whale-hunters ever got the heart to see it that way.

[rodsky]

Far stronger reason why we need to save the whales isn't just the ethics of it all but our very own survival which is NOT ETHICS PER SE.

Bro, I don't think there's any established evidence of a direct link between survival of whales and survival of humans. Ergo, it doesn't really follow that once you save whales, you're saving humanity. If you ask Physicist Dr. Stephen W. Hawking, we'd be more likely to be wiped out by an asteroid/comet than be eliminated off the face of the planet because we didn't save any whales.

-RODION

[radiostar]

ngano patyon man nila?

[The_Child]

The exigency of our long term survival is not an issue of ethics PER SE -- the same with the whales and dolphins. The call to preserve our kind is a primordial calling not a product of ethical reflection. Ethics only comes at the tail-end of the issue. And this is the part that you miss to see in this thread.



The_Child, sir, you are beating around the bush. The ethics you mentioned as I have said are at the tail end of the case. You can cite all the ethical/philosophical connections you can find for all the world to care but still it is the least of the concerns of the scientists and policy-makers at this point. Far stronger reason why we need to save the whales isn't just the ethics of it all but our very own survival which is NOT ETHICS PER SE.



Okay so your philosophy is at the practical and realistic end of this forum? I hope you're joking.



A coherent whole can only be achieved only if you have the correct philosophy The_Child. There's just too many of them that you can't even tell which philosophy to use to solve the whale-huntings around the world. On that thought, did you ever find any Philosopher today who's had a fair share of solving the whale and the dolphin's recent plight? Nada...

You can throw in the most brilliant philosophical rambling you can find to an environment scientist or a reasoned statesman who is faced with an urgent issue before him. And you can bet if they ever pick it up as a be-all for decision-making



My profession and you're being a student have nothing to do with this thread The_Child so stick to the terms of the discussion. Rusell pointed the dissimilarities between scientific and philosophical inquiry...you just got it it all wrong --- the quote stands.

But then again...if you so insist that the problem presented in this thread is a mis-appreciation of philosophy then you can't hold anyone to speak their truth that this is a mis-appreciation of natural/environmental science. Candidly, the side of science is just too persuasive for me.



Be that as it may, animal rights and ethics is just one side of the story. And I don't think we can persuade the environmentalist to stress that side nor will the whale-hunters ever got the heart to see it that way.

then you terribly have a misconception of what Ethics is if you consider, granting that it is true, that the motivation and justification for human survival is not ethical. you misconstrue that ethics is those humane, cute stuff. The very principle that guides laissez-faire capitalism is the ethics of Selfishness best propounded by Ayn Rand which was inspired by the Austrian School of Economics. Being selfish, is a ethical justification. see.

and there is no such thing as primordial calling, and if there is such a thing as a primordial calling the very word primordial has already disqualified itself in the context of an issue as complicated as this issue. the primordial issue might be related to first level needs, but when you extend the primordial calling to the complexity of the late logic capitalism, the state we are now, it totally become stale - that is, unintelligible in our situation.

the second statement is a rash conclusion, who could you even prove even by theory that ethical issues are not considered in policy-making, again if such is so, people in manila as far as our country is concern should not bother offering diploma courses in Bio-Ethics, to say the least. So if it is not ETHICS PER SE, what in god's name do you consider Ethics to be? pure abstractions? which is of course the total opposite of ethics - ethics is practice for the most part.

am i joking? i leave it to your interpretation. but really, i do not see the humor in it. but then again, who am i to judge what humor must be.

so whoever said im trying to solve the whale-hunting issue, all i am saying is that the issue is an ethical issue. I do not have a messianic complex of saving the whales and dolphins, and also, i am not a tree-hugger, or a whale-lover neither am i captain ahab.

a fair share alot. but philosopher does not help solve particular problems sir, rarely do they do that, what they do sir, is to present a principle, formulation that reverberates not merely in particular issues but universal issues - such that philosophers fair share in this whale-hunting issue is the formulation of justification that motivates human beings to rethink our actions. Animal rights did not came out from a biologist practicing biology, it came from persons with a fetish for ideas who wrote down the justification for safeguarding animal rights. nada!

yes, forgive me for that referring to your profession: as a teacher in philo subjects and i a student in some philo subjects. im sorry. non sequitur.

oh yeh, philosophy is suppose to be scientific, and that science is suppose to be govern by philosophy. how? philosophy clarifies terms, the terms used in the sciences, are filtered by philosophy.
so you cannot say or imply that russell frowns at philosophy, as merely something different and perhaps inferior to the sciences, exactly the opposite. thats why he is a philosopher above all, and then a mathematician. noteworthy; the similarities between philosophy and mathematics is its critical quality and precision and yet remains to be abstract. So i still dont get the value of the quote in this context.


remember that environmentalists are motivated to act not because they feel like it, but rather because they have rational justification for their actions - ethics.

really i dont care if people mis-appreciate philosophy or literature or the humanities, that is a given i have long known. the point is not about mis-appreciation but rather of the leaving important notions behind in the issue. We have to remember the limitations of science, what the empirical sciences gives are purely data, it is left to the human sciences to give meaning on these data.

So what does science care if the dolphins go extinct? nothing. it is us, human being, who cares if they go extinct, why we care depends on the principles that we use: whether it is useful to us in the future or because we recognize the worth of every single dolphin to life.

cheers!!!



p.s i still do not understand why you insist that policy-making frowns at ethics. really i dont, when people and foundations funds institutions to do just that, ethical oversight and research on contemporary issues. which among other things have very powerful political repercussions.

[Allstars]

brutala ana oi... killing spree

[melvenb]

I don't care if mabaw or dili--my concern is simple--small scale versus large scale operations. Small scale = not harmful, large scale = harmful. Diba naay saying that goes, "Anything sobra is bad."

-RODION

i think it's not about the population of the whales, it's about the purpose of killing them..

[wng]

Yes, before condoning or condemning this practice, perhaps one should learn more about this, rather than just use the visual impact of the Youtube video: Whaling in the Faroe Islands - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Faroe Islands are an autonomous province of Denmark, and they opted NOT to be part of the European Union. Same reason as Iceland, they like to retain control of their fishing grounds. It does seem that there really isn't much food around the Arctic except for what's provided by the sea. That's why this culture and tradition of having dolphins and whales for food started. Contrary to what others posted here, this tradition has nothing to do with the passage of manhood. More like it's been a source of food for hundreds of years.

Although this video shows the hunt in graphic detail, this thing happens only few times a year. It's not like everyday they do this. Also, the meat is really consumed, so it's not being wasteful. Actually, the Faroe Islands have a very small population, smaller than the barangay of Guadalupe. So we actually do slaughter more pigs or cattle everyday.

I think the whales and dolphins are worth saving, but it will be difficult for someone whose ancestors have survived on this food source for centuries and tell them that they should just stop this. We want sustainable food sources, but since it's been done for centuries and their population is smaller than a city district, they're probably not responsible for the dwindling population of dolphins and whales anyway.

[diatabz]

@ Dorothea

Thanks for clarifying my point about the half eaten man

Anyway, as much as we'd want to do so, we can't save everything. Homo Sapiens is a hunter, if we stuck to fruits and vegetables, we'd wear out the enamel on our teeth. Then again, with the breakthroughs made in the medical world, I guess something can be done about that yeah? I honestly think that there's nothing wrong with humans taking what they need to survive. It is only wrong when greed comes into the picture. Mass dolphin and whale hunters don't consume dolphin and whale meat, they sell it on the black market or wherever else there's a desire for it. With dolphin and whale numbers declining, hunting them makes it all the more wrong. As for Dorothea's question about how dolphin and whale extinction affects us humans and fish populations, I'll share some links later on about that.

Lastly, as I pointed out earlier in this thread, mankind is responsible for the planet we live in. I'm no naturalist, but how many times have we hunted animals to extinction? The Passenger Dove, the Dodo, the Thylacine, the Aurochs and many more have been hunted to extinction. As the smartest species on our planet, we owe it to ourselves and the coming generations to practice moderation and not repeat the same mistakes.