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I agree, I love dogs. You wouldn't know it from my comments, but I actually like them more than flies ;). I think you're right, dogs' historical utility along with their near human-like qualities have brought them much further along on the scale of "things that are not ok to kill" (towards humans). So perhaps there's a point when an animal becomes similar enough to us that we start viewing it as "one of us." This isn't just cultural, as you point out, but a sort of shared viewpoint of the world. I'm also curious if size in general has something to do with it. Small animals have less value because we're perceiving killing "less of" something. Most people wouldn't think twice about killing a fly (myself included if it's a deer/horse fly) but would feel bad if they killed a bear that was attacking them, or even stepped on a lizard by accident. So maybe dogs are a bad example (granted, I inherited the argument from a post up the tree from me), but I still think there's a cultural worth put on various animals. Funny enough, I was in a catholic school when I was in third grade (9 years old?). I'm not catholic, and wasn't then, so I was always a bit suspicious. One of the teachers was talking about how there's a hierarchy to life. Rocks are at the bottom, then come plants, then animals, then humans, and angels/god on top. I remember, even then, thinking "without rocks, none of this would exist. without plants, no animals/humans could live, and without animals humans would die out." In other words, although we put ourselves at the top of the pyramid (of physical beings), the rest of the world would be just fine if humans disappeared tomorrow. Our existence has no meaning beyond our ability to evolve into better life forms. The point being, we have these odd social ratings for the value of other animals' lives, yet in many respects, our lives are almost worthless with respect the rest of the life on the planet. Our lives have value to us, but in essence we live in a bit of a bubble of self-importance. |