ARCO's Abolitionists - A Vegan Forum

A friend who I converted to veganism has been meeting a lot of people giving her the usual objections. After replying back to the standard "don't plants have feelings too?" BS someone asked her "what about sponges, they don't have central nervous systems either?" and asked her "what about star fish, they don't have a brain, why can't we kill them all we want like we kill vegetables?".

Any ideas for good answers?

This crowd is not an academically inclined crowd, so concrete, less abstract answers would be more effective at being persuasive.

Thanks

Sponges are not sentient. Not sure about starfish though.

Actually here's some info about starfish:

Echinoderms have rather complex nervous systems, but lack a true centralized brain. All echinoderms have a network of interlacing nerves called a nerve plexus which lies within as well as below the skin. The esophagus is also surrounded by a number of nerve rings which send radial nerves that are often parallel with the branches of the water vascular system. The ring nerves and radial nerves coordinate the starfish's balance and directional systems. Although the echinoderms do not have many well-defined sensory inputs, they are sensitive to touch, light, temperature, orientation, and the status of water around them. The tube feet, spines, and pedicellariae found on starfish are sensitive to touch, while eyespots on the ends of the rays are light-sensitive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starfish#Nervous_system

Given that starfish do not have a "true centralized brain", which in effect means that they do have something equivalent to a brain, or else the comment on a "centralized brain" would not have been made, and since they have complex nervous systems, locomotion, and actively seek prey (further down in the article), I would make a cautious presumption that they are sentient. In such cases, it is always fair to err on the side of caution. And in any case, one should ask...why should we kill starfish anyway?

I am one of those rare animal rights activists who do not attach much importance to the "sentience" of animals in my arguments. In fact, I never use it. I fight for animals. As far as I know, a starfish is an animal (he/she is not a mineral or a vegetable), so I fight for his/her right to live the life that he/she probably enjoys.

We don't know whether animals such as starfish or sponges have feelings or not. In fact, for all we know even plants have feelings (using completely different perceptions to the ones animals have).

In a way, I do feel pretty uncomfortable eating plants. I avoid cutting flowers and things which are obviously futile and serve no purpose... and often I tell myself that I should really turn to fruitarianism. In fact, I decided today that as from next week, I will replace my breakfast and my lunch with fruit (fruit fruit and vegetable fruit), and then see how I feel health wise after a few months before pursuing the experiment. Eating lunch like this will save me also a lot of restaurant bills and/or hassles of making my lunch in the morning.

I admit that I've been trying to sort out a lot of confusion in my brain about whether or not an animal needing a brain qualifies them for the "sentient"
label. And, as Diana points out, is sentience really the only criteria for us to want to not harm or kill another life form? I am very sensitive and considerate in my approach to plant care as an educated and professional horticulturist with a good understanding of botany too. Their hormonal sentience is the topic of many a doctoral thesis.

When we talk about "animal rights", we are talking about members of the Animal Kingdom. This includes insects, whom when chased or otherwise feel threatened - will run and attempt to hide. Yet, they don't have a brain. So what? A sponge is not anatomically capable of running, and neither is coral. I can say they "value their life" or "intend to preserve their life" and deserve consideration and respect- but others might say an organism needs a brain in order to assess value or have any intentions. There are an astonishing number of beings/species in the Animal Kingdom, some with brains, some without. Their defence mechanism to preserve themselves vary incredibly and have different degrees of sophistication by human standards. Should we ARA specify which animals we include, and which we do not? Listeners so often want us to when we talk about "animal" rights.

Very disappointing. I was expecting a joke!! Where's my joke?!

Sentience sure is useful to use as an upper limit, if nothing else. If it's sentient, then NO I won't eat it. This is the first I've heard of anyone asking if you can eat a sponge or starfish. Maybe the sponge was for the shower or something?? Or in an aquarium?

To be clear...I use sentience as a clear indicator of having rights. Same goes for having a brain and nervous system. This does not necessarily mean that we should do whatever we want with "creatures" that have no brain or nervous system. Even with inanimate objects, I still follow the ethic (as much as possible) of "least destruction as possible". For sentients, I do this for their own sake. For living "creatures" who may not be sentient, I give them the benefit of the doubt, and for inanimate objects I do it for the sake of other sentients with whom we share the planet.

No unnecessary harm.

sheepdog wrote:No unnecessary harm.

That about sums it up for me!

beforewisdom wrote:"why can't we kill them all we want ..."

I don't even bother to address relative degrees of sentience in different animals anymore. I prefer to question assumptions like the one I have isolated above.

It seems like the default view held by most people is that humans are extremely interested in killing and entitled to engage in it whenever it suits them. The only thing left to question then is who we should be allowed to kill, so we engage in all these discussions about rights, suffering, sentience, sapience, etc. when the core problem is the human sense of entitlement to kill.

I don't know how well this would go over in a drunken bar environment, though. But I would have asked "why do you WANT to kill anything or anyone you don't absolutely need to unless its to defend your own self from immediate death?"

Not that I don't think things like rights and sentience of all animals are essential to an animal rights view. But in cases like this people just tend to go on into infinity trying to seek out someone who isn't sentient enough to be considered off limits from harm, mostly because killing plants isn't very entertaining. I mean, you won't find very many little boys who think stepping on strawberries is more fun than stepping on snails, will you. And people who ask questions like this aren't wanting to kill starfish "all we want" because they are starving to death and there is nothing else to eat.