The Glade 4.0

Now this is the way I think cops should react to an aggressive dog: back off and pull the dog away if you can; escalate to taser if necessary; keep deadly force at the ready but don't use it until you have no choice. Yes, there was extra danger to the officers, but they remained reasonably calm and responded with courage and restraint. Nicely done.

Just because the dogs could be handled that way in those situations does not mean they can always be handled that way. Each situation is unique.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Good for them, but honestly, the smarter thing to do in both cases would have been to shoot the **** dogs. (Tasering it first is probably acceptable.)

I realize people get attached to their dogs. I realize people like to view them as part of their family. That doesn't matter. They are THINGS. Possessions. Property. They do not have any more value than the price tag attached to replacing them. And while anyone can try to preserve your property if they see fit, at the end of the day, if there's an imminent risk of injury or worse, when that property threatens to attack them, they're completely justified in shooting first to alleviate that risk.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

They feel pain; they feel fear; they have more complex intelligence and emotion than an infant human. There's zero argument for categorizing them as things. They may be property by law, but they are not inanimate objects and to the extent the law treats them as such, the law is not based on reason. Also, as a matter of morality, such a categorization is basically indefensible.

You are in less danger of a dog hurting or killing you than a vending machine crushing you.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Yes, as a matter of fact the law IS based on reason. If you want to try to argue from a utilitarian perspective (which it appears you do), the fact is that a dog has no concept of the future, future happiness, benefit, or anytihng else, and thus depriving it of its life is not harmful in the way it is to a human, who DOES have the capacity for understanding anticipated happiness and benefit.

The only thing the dog really has an interest in is its present pain or pleasure, and its actions are dictated by such. Shooting the dog is not any more likely to result in any greater suffering in the present than TASERing or pepper spraying it, since while a death by gunshot could take time and be painful, it could also be instantaneous or near-instantaneous, and painless, or near-painless. From a utilitarian perspective, they are morally comparable.

In point of fact, even arguing the dog is more than mere "property" in the way an inanimate object is misses the point. The fact remains that it is still not a human being, does not have nor deserve the protections that a human being does, and the law recognizes that. The law is moral, defensible, and entirely based on reason - a specific type of reasoning, utilitarianism, to be exact. Clearly, the police should avoid shooting dogs to the degree that their safety in the lawful performance of their duties permits, and clearly people should generally be compensated for the loss of their pets. That's no different, however, from the fact that the police should keep property damage to the minimum necessary in all aspects of their duties, and the employing agency should always compensate for property damage (except insofar as the person whose property was damaged was themself engaging in criminal activity.)

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

If one could save themselves from a falling vending machine by shooting it, that would be perfectly acceptable, too!

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Aside from the fact that this is completely incorrect; with 350,000 people sent to the emergency room by dog bites annually and about 2-3 people crushed by vending machines annually and, oh by the way, even dog-related deaths exceed that number: (from the same link)



we are talking about what happens when someone is already being attacked or about to be attacked by a dog, so likelyhood isn't even relevant.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Dog are less intelligent by far than, say, an octopus (one of the smartest animals in the world). I have no ethical issues eating octopus. I'm not overly fond of the texture, but the fact that the average octopus is brighter than the moron who has sat beside me at work for the last 4 years doesn't color my opinion of eating it.

There are a few non-human creatures that pass self-awareness tests (elephants, bottlenose dolphins, magpies, and several types of primates.) With reservations, i'd place those creatures on some kind of enhanced value list, legally. I don't think they should be allowed to be considered property, or killed by hunters, etc. Apart from that, a dog is no different than a chicken. Except it's much less tasty.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

My point is that they are not "things", as you put it. They may be property under the law, but that does not mean they are legally and morally equivalent to inanimate objects, which is what Taly asserted. You don't need to be a vegan or believe that dogs should have all the same rights as humans to recognize that the moral implications of killing a dog are very different than the moral implications of breaking a table.

The law already does recognize that in the form of animal cruelty laws, and no one is saying the police should be allowed to torture dogs, nor kill them at a whim.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Dogs and pets in general are no longer strictly defined as property under the law in many states.

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So I assume this is one less vote for Obama this coming election?

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

I agree with this statement, and I applaud the restraint of the officers in that video clip.

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

This is not true from many standpoints, including common (small c) laws in most States. We differentiate animals from objects as intentionally destroying some animals for sake of causing suffering to it is not permitted. Destroying your own inanimate property is not. Furthermore, there exists Federal law(s) protecting certain species which are threatened by extinction. We have yet to ration the consumption of any material goods on any permanent basis and the ones we have (including the processes necessary extract, refine and produce the consumer end good of such products) are also done so in part to protect living creatures.

That is not to say I agree or disagree with any such laws. Nor is it to equate domesticated animals of any animal with a human. But animals are far from just objects in the capacity of how our society regards them.

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"It's real, grew up in trife life, the times of white lines
The hype vice, murderous nighttimes and knife fights invite crimes" - Nasir Jones

That's the thing. Animals are not objects, but they are property. There are special rules for them, especially, as you point out, endangered species. Furthermore, while there are considerable rules about the fashion in which you destroy your own animals, there are no rules preventing you from euthanizing, slaughtering, or otherwise killing your own animals.

Slaves were similar at one time; clearly no one would claim they were objects but they were still property.

Talya is exaggerating for effect, but the fact remains that if an animal is killed by the police, the only onus is on the agency to replace the animal.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Interesting that is how I feel about cops and the majority of people, they are just things. I can say with 100% certainty that if anyone ever hurt or killed my dog they would not live to see another day cop or not.

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I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and, the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply... evil

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

I don't know what you think you're saying here. RD is trying to make a utilitarian argument, and the law as it stands is based on that same method of reasoning morality. That does not somehow mean we need to make things conform to any given past philosopher's ideas - especially not their ideas as filtered through Khross's lens, nor for that matter, yours.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I don't see how the law regarding animals is based on utilitarian reasoning (briefly stated - the greatest good for the greatest number). It seems, rather, it's based on the idea that humans are uniquely endowed with moral worth or at least so privileged over other animals in that respect that those other animals amount to nothing more than human property. My position isn't about utilitarianism either. Rather, my view is simply that the moral distinction that the law makes between humans and other animals is based on the foundational assumption that "human = special" without any reasoned justification for why that should be so - there's no clear rationale, for instance, for why the suffering of a dog should be of less moral concern than the suffering of an infant human.

Morality only exists in your mind. So does "moral worth."

Okay, it also exists in my mind, and other people's minds. My point is, Morality is a subjective product of human reasoning. It's a construct. It doesn't exist in nature. Law generally shouldn't be based on it, and value judgements regarding morality are really only valid to the person making the judgement.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Don't look at me. You're the one claiming that both police actions and the law itself are justified by utilitarian philosophy. You've even made the specific claim that utilitarianism is what makes the law simultaneously "moral, defensible, and entirely based on reason". So apparently, yes -- we do need to make things conform else the law will be immoral, indefensible, and unreasonable.

_________________
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

I agree that once you get into the details of a moral code, you're dealing with a subjective mental construct. However, I think there are basic instincts that give rise to the foundations of morality - altruism and empathy, desire for security, fairness and proportionality, etc. Accordingly, various moral codes can be more or less in harmony with human nature. A moral code that requires total celibacy except for procreative sex that's as quick and unenjoyable as possible, for instance, is going to be less in harmony with human nature than one that allows for at least some pleasurable sex. A moral code that disdains all compassion and glorifies pure selfishness will clash with instinctive feelings of empathy, affection, fairness, and so forth.

As for whether laws should be based on morality, I would argue that virtually all laws are based, to one degree or another, on certain core moral assumptions (including the basic assumption that law itself is acceptable and/or beneficial).

I would actually argue that laws, like other societal constructs, exist because they improve the functioning of human-kind in some way beneficial to their survival. An organized society achieves more than anarchy. The same is true for many of our moral values - we recognize the value of human life because it makes us stronger as a species to be supportive in certain ways rather than brutally fratricidal. However, we recognize the value of property because it also makes us stronger as a species to be competitive in certain ways rather than cooperative. Law and Morals originate from a similar evolutionary origin, but they are not directly linked. Or rather, they do not need to be. Many people do try to enshrine their own moral values into law, even when they have nothing to do with improving the functioning of society.

This is all at a very high level. individual laws may be good or bad, and probably most of the ones we've ever tried are bad, much like most biological mutations.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Aye, I agree that laws develop and "survive" over time through an evolutionary process, but I think you're only identifying one side of that process. Yes, if Law X improves the functioning of a society, that society will tend to flourish more than a society that doesn't have Law X, so that first society (and thus Law X) will be more likely to survive and spread over time. However, I think you also have to look to the individual human level as well - if Law X is in conflict with basic human nature, it's unlikely to be sustainable regardless of how good it would be for the society in general because the people who make up that society will not support it.

I think the same applies to moral codes. A morality that makes for a stronger society will tend to survive and spread because the society survives and spreads, but a morality that is in conflict with human nature will not be as sustainable as one that is more in harmony with such nature, so you have to look beyond the potential society-level effects in order to get the full story.