The Forum > Article Comments > The dignity of Swiss goldfish > Comments
The dignity of Swiss goldfish : Comments
By Michael Cook, published 16/5/2008In Switzerland it will soon be an offence to keep a lone goldfish, to decapitate wild flowers, or to produce sterile plants - because it would be treating them with a lack of dignity.
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Posted by Paul Bamford, Friday, 16 May 2008 9:23:37 AM
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The author seems to believe that requiring humans to be kept alive against their wishes and perhaps in mortal agony somehow adds to their dignity. Surely it is more dignified to be able to make a decision about one's own death than to be artificially kept alive against one's will.
Posted by ianbrum, Friday, 16 May 2008 10:01:45 AM
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I'm very glad to have read the other two comments. I think that anything that can respect other living things is a good thing. Why must we pick natural flowers for no reason or test animals, or cause pain. All the Swiss are doing are stopping harm to others where it is for no reason what so ever. How does that make them befuddled or absurb? I like the idea that we live in this world and do as little harm to the world as possible. And human dignity includes dying with dignity, something that the Swiss understand.
Posted by Till, Friday, 16 May 2008 10:43:57 AM
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“What is unexpected is that there seems to be no brake on the ever-expanding circle of non-human dignity. Somewhere above spiders and slugs, perhaps. But the Swiss experience suggests otherwise.”
I think that any social system which denies and disrespects the dignity of the individual voters (human of course) to exercise their personal discretion is a fraud. Producing pointless reams of legislation to affirm particular conduct is individually intrusive and manifest of a nanny state mentality which does not believe the people who elect the parliamentary representatives have the wit or intellect to make moral and valid decisions or judgments for themselves. I only hope this sort of piffling social interference never takes hold in Australia. Posted by Col Rouge, Friday, 16 May 2008 11:00:32 AM
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My usual riposte to mister Cook.
Mercator is a propaganda outlet for that charming organisation Opus Dei, the founder of which, along with many right wing European catholics was an admirer of Hitler and the nasties. They also provided means of escape and refuge for nazi war criminals. 1. http://www.nobeliefs.com/nazis.htm Grotesquely he was even beatified by the previous pope. I wouldnt be at all surprised if Opus Dei was actively supportive of the right wing death squads that slaughtered tens of thousands "leftists" in Central and South America during the Reagan years. As were many "right"-thinking christians. Meanwhile Opus Dei has very close links with all the usual right-wing suspects and corporate funded think tanks that are promoting genetically engineered "foods" and the interests of the military-industrial-"entertainment" complex altogether, with its world-wide "culture" of death. So in my opinion it is a bit rich for mister Cook to participate in an "ethics" web-site. But then again body hating sex negative paranoid puritans are always full of such double-minded thinking and actions. They are always at war with the body and its "animal" lusts and urges. Hence Opus Dei also promoted that recent grotesque exercise in violent sado-masochistic pornography The Passion of Christ. Beat the crapp out of the body in order to be "holy". It was really a SNUFF movie. They also used this film as an advertisement and missionary tool to promote the "truth" of catholocism. My advice would be to run as fast as you can from a "religion" that promoted that film. This reference sums up the political & cultural context for the appearance and message of the Passion. 1. http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_3.2/hammer_kellner.htm For something much much lighter I really like the appreciation of the non-humans expressed on this website. 1. http://animalliberty.com Posted by Ho Hum, Friday, 16 May 2008 11:11:47 AM
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The Prophet said, "A man saw a dog eating mud from (the severity of) thirst. So, that man took a shoe (and filled it) with water and kept on pouring the water for the dog till it quenched its thirst. So Allah approved of his deed and made him to enter Paradise."
Perhaps respect and kindness toward animals is a little more universal than Mr Cook would have us believe. Posted by csteele, Friday, 16 May 2008 4:57:15 PM
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"In 2006, for instance, a researcher was forbidden to give thirsty monkeys a drink of water because a reward mechanism to get them to carry out a task was deemed harmful to their dignity."
When you read the linked report, what you in fact find is that the ethics committee that examined the researcher's proposal was "opposed to Kiper's plan to deprive the animals of water ahead of tests. A drink was a reward when the macaques carried out a task properly."
In other words, what was forbidden, was making the monkeys thirsty in the first place, so that a drink of water could be used as a reward in the experiment.
Granted, the new Swiss Constitution adopted, according to its preamble, "in the name of God Almighty" has created some interesting and amusing problems in defining "the dignity of creation" but if we must argue about them, let's at least do so on the basis of an accurate presentation of those problems.