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posted by chromas on Friday September 07 2018, @07:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the ♪but-there-ain't-no-whales-so-we-tell-tall-tales-and-sing-this-whaling-tune♫ dept.

Japan says it's time to allow sustainable whaling

Few conservation issues generate as emotional a response as whaling. Are we now about to see countries killing whales for profit again? Commercial whaling has been effectively banned for more than 30 years, after some whales were driven almost to extinction. But the International Whaling Committee (IWC) is currently meeting in Brazil and next week will give its verdict on a proposal from Japan to end the ban.

[...] IWC members agreed to a moratorium on hunting in 1986, to allow whale stocks to recover. Pro-whaling nations expected the moratorium to be temporary, until consensus could be reached on sustainable catch quotas. Instead, it became a quasi-permanent ban, to the delight of conservationists but the dismay of whaling nations like Japan, Norway and Iceland who argue that whaling is part of their culture and should continue in a sustainable way.

But by using an exception in the ban that allows for whaling for scientific purposes, Japan has caught between about 200 and 1,200 whales every year. since, including young and pregnant animals.

[...] Hideki Moronuki, Japan's senior fisheries negotiator and commissioner for the IWC, told the BBC that Japan wants the IWC to get back to its original purpose - both conserving whales but also "the sustainable use of whales". [...] Japan, the current chair of the IWC, is suggesting a package of measures, including setting up a Sustainable Whaling Committee and setting sustainable catch limits "for abundant whale stocks/species". As an incentive to anti-whaling nations, the proposals would also make it easier to establish new whale sanctuaries.

Previously: Japan to Resume Whaling, Fleet Sails to Antarctic Tuesday
122 Pregnant Minke Whales Killed in Japan's Last Hunting Season


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday September 08 2018, @12:32PM (2 children)

    by Arik (4543) on Saturday September 08 2018, @12:32PM (#732165) Journal
    I don't have any doubt that pigs, for example, are 'sentient' at least by the looser definitions, which is obviously what you must mean by it. That's clearly not the right yardstick.

    The right yardstick is whether or not understandings can be reached, and whether or not moral agency can be demonstrated. If pigs were capable of communicating, then we could make a deal not to eat each other. But lacking that capability, we know they will eat us whether we eat them or not. Recognition of rights is bilateral. You are obligated not to kill your neighbor *because* your neighbor is obligated not to kill you as well. If your neighbor comes to kill you, he breaches the peace, he breaches the obligation - and in doing so he ends it for you as well.

    With the pig, there's just no effective way for this to be bilateral. The pig will kill you and eat you if he can. There's no point in blaming him for it, there's no point in calling him names, that's just what a pig is. You can't obligate him. He isn't bound by your rules, and you can't make him be bound by them.

    That being so, it's nonsense to think he can obligate you. It works both ways. It's not immoral for the pig to eat you - so it's also not immoral for you to eat the pig. (Not that I'm recommending you do that either - I'm just explaining why I wouldn't support outlawing it.)
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  • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday September 09 2018, @01:41AM (1 child)

    by acid andy (1683) on Sunday September 09 2018, @01:41AM (#732360) Homepage Journal

    Recognition of rights is bilateral. You are obligated not to kill your neighbor *because* your neighbor is obligated not to kill you as well. If your neighbor comes to kill you, he breaches the peace, he breaches the obligation - and in doing so he ends it for you as well.

    An eye for an eye just makes us all blind. You should turn the other cheek.

    I can see where you are coming from, but I still don't agree that a human, animal or any other kind of entity has to be able to understand rights in order to have any. Elsewhere you made a point about the rights of children. A newborn baby is a good example. I agree it wouldn't work well for them to have criminal responsibility or be allowed to drive cars, for example. But they cannot engage in a debate about their rights and yet any reasonable person would accept that they should have them. The right not to be attacked or killed are a couple of obvious examples.

    I could go further -- it could be considered unethical to drain a lake or destroy a mountain -- when these natural entities almost certainly have minimal sentience. You could frame these ethics in terms of their having a "right" to exist. I realize I may be stretching the concept here, but it's worth remembering that even if you don't allow animals to have "rights" in the way that you define them, that doesn't make it ethical to kill or mistreat them.

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    • (Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday September 09 2018, @02:05AM

      by Arik (4543) on Sunday September 09 2018, @02:05AM (#732363) Journal
      "[Young children] cannot engage in a debate about their rights and yet any reasonable person would accept that they should have them."

      This is true, but they have something important that none of the non-humans can claim. They are extremely likely to *become* moral agents in a short period of time. It's demonstrable that this happens constantly, young children become older children, then adolescents, then adults. And if their development is not completely stunted, this means they become moral agents - certainly by adolescence, if not even before.

      There's not a single recorded instance of a pig, or a dog, or a whale doing the same.

      "I could go further -- it could be considered unethical to drain a lake or destroy a mountain"

      Why?

      That seems a profoundly stark claim that simply demands some sort of evidence or argument, rather than a bare assertion.

      If it's unethical to destroy a mountain or a lake, why not say the same of a hill or a pond?

      Landscaping qua landscaping is an *ethical* problem now?

      "it's worth remembering that even if you don't allow animals to have "rights" in the way that you define them, that doesn't make it ethical to kill or mistreat them."

      Absolutely. I do not advocate mistreating any animal, for any reason. Inflicting more pain than necessary on another living being is an act that damages the actor. It's the moral equivalent of cutting, it's almost a form of suicide. You don't need to believe animals have rights to treat all living things with respect.
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?