Catching back up from Lumpen's post from back on 10-1-16. Lumpen, I am not a huge fan of participating in the extended back-and-forth responses, and so will try to keep this a bit briefer here and reply largely just to the more significant points. If there is something else you would like me to respond to, please feel free to refer to it in your reply back.
As a general lesson, I think you need to more clearly differentiate in your own mind the 2 different concepts of
VALUES that organisms (humans or other animals) holds and
STRATEGIES they use to try to maximize their fulfillment of those values. They can very well sometimes be difficult concepts to differentiate, but in your own replies and responses it looks as though you are sometimes blending them and mixing them up, resulting in some confusion.
The way dogs respond to humans clearly shows that they have high regard for what the humans want. And in some cases they risk their lives, even sacrifice themselves, serving humans.
This doesn't mean they're thinking the thought "Humans are superior to other animals," but they have some intuition or instinct that the humans are special and should be served or protected in ways that don't apply to other animals.
Maybe that is because they hold special value to humans, and think humans should be a protected species because they can benefit themselves and other organisms as well. The end result, regardless, is the organism doing what they want for themselves and what they think will maximize their own pleasure and minimize their own pain in some way. That is the goal, and then how to go about achieving it is what marks the strategy to it.
Laws protecting livestock animals are done for the welfare of those animals and can cause a higher cost which consumers have to pay. Obviously the motive for these laws is not human benefit, but the welfare of the animals. Much animal protection activity has nothing to do with human pleasure, but just with doing what we feel an obligation to do for their benefit.
You have quite a massive misreading of what is happening there though. We take pleasure in fulfilling some (but not all) obligations that we hold, and so to do that will sometimes include taking measures (and making laws) to protect other animals, even if a cost to do so is something like a higher level of pay, as you say. We still consider it a worthwhile price to pay for the benefit it can also bring us, namely pleasure in helping out other animals.
The more intelligent animal is the one which is "more valuable to the universe" or has the higher intrinsic value.
Note that it is you who is saying that, and putting those words into the mouth of the universe (so-to-speak). The universe has never uttered those words though, you are just interpreting the actions in it that way.
Again, these words are in quotes, meaning they're not to be taken literally. This was your phrase originally, not mine. I adopted it from you and assumed your meaning overlapped with my understanding.
Can you provide a link to the post where I stated that? I suspect there is another misreading and misunderstanding here, and I just want to clarify such. Thank you.
Intelligence does have greater value than hair color. We do not have any choice to deny this fact. Virtually everyone recognizes this fact of life.
To deny this, you have to give an example of someone not recognizing it and putting more value on hair color than on intelligence. Is it possible to give such an example?
The misunderstanding you have rests on the mixup of the concepts of "intersubjective" and "objective." When some individual holds some specific value, feeling, emotion, etc. then we say that it is a "subjective" quality. When multiple people hold that same subjective value though, it is a misunderstanding to think of it as "objective." It is actually more appropriately referred to as "intersubjective." When some characteristic is "objective," that applies when it is true regardless of what any people (or other organisms) perceives it as. So if some individual likes the singer Bruce Springsteen more than any other artist, that would be subjective to that person. If multiple people think Springsteen was the best artist, that would be intersubjective to those people. It would only really be "objective" if it was a fact of the universe that Bruce Springsteen was the best music artist. Since that is not the case (and cannot be either), it is inappropriate to declare Springsteen as being "objectively good" in this same way. That phrase is just a self-contradiction and makes no sense, same as saying that intelligence or hair color has more value than the other, as a fact of the universe. No, it is a declaration of value by people, not a declaration of or statement by the universe itself.
The universe, or any deity inside or outside of the universe, has not declared intelligence or hair color either as being more valuable.
Nor has the universe "declared" that the sun is farther away from us than the moon. So then, it's our choice that the sun is farther from us than the moon? We made that so by deciding it, or choosing it?
No, but whether the sun or moon is farther away from us is a physical statement about nature. It is an objective fact.
When we humans say that "brunette is nicer than blonde" or vice versa, or "hair color is more valuable than intelligence" or vice versa, it is moreso a statement of our own preferences and tastes, not a physical statement about a fact of the universe itself that would be true regardless of what any organisms said about it. Some things are just true, some things are just false, fullstop. They are not matters of our own preferences.
I will end the response here for now. As mentioned above though, if there is something else you mentioned and would like me to respond to, please feel free to holler it again and I will get to it in time.
Thanks,
Brian
