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If we could uplift dogs or other non-sentient animals to sentience, should we? There's a Rick and Morty episode where they uplift the intelligence of a pet dog, who goes on to uplift all other dogs and lead a rebellion against humans. Theoretically the idea is that if humans and dogs had the same level of intelligence, the way we treat dogs would be inhumane.
While I agree with the statement above, obviously there's a vast gulf between the intelligence of humans and every other form of life we know of. If we accept the premise that once we have the technology to uplift dogs we not only must treat them different but have a moral imperative to uplift all dogs, we get into dangerous territory. Essentially as soon as we become capable of increasing the intelligence of any form of life, we must. This sounds like a bad idea, especially since at a certain point we may lose out to other forms of species that have evolved to kill us. (Mosquitos, insects generally that are hard to kill but venomous/diseased enough to kill us.)
Assuming uplifting other species is even possible, I wonder how this would change our outlook on how we treat animals today. Personally I am not a vegetarian, totally fine with pets, although I do find the state of factory farming today pretty dismal, and think we should treat animals we eat better. As someone's flair here says, how far will we last until we have to become outright speciesist?
Why would dogs rebel? I'd understand if chicken or cows rebelled - but we would never do to them what we're doing if they were sentient anyway. But dogs? Except for the lack of personal freedom, they're getting pretty good deal. Some get more rough one, but it's mostly illegal (like dog fights) and in normal case they get all their needs covered and them pampered in exchange for basically looking excited when they see humans. If they got sentient, they'd maybe less likely to accept and love humans unconditionally, but there's not much reason for them to get upset with us, at least for the most of them.
Speak for yourself. I believe whales are probably sentient, and would quite happily eat whale meat were I to visit Japan. On the other hand there are many very disabled people who are not sentient, to say nothing of infants, and I would consider it obviously horrific to put them on the smoker or keep them in battery cages. Sentience is not the dividing line, humanity is.
It's not about eating (there aren't that many cultures now where eating dogs is ok), it's about not recognizing their personal freedom and worth. If you think whales are sentient, water parks where whales are, essentially, enslaved and trained to entertain us, without any concern for their personal consent - should horrify you. I think it is obvious this is not what most of the people think.
Yes, I think shamu is fine, and I think that putting non-sentient infants in battery cages is horrific. This is because sentience is not something I consider morally relevant, humanity is.
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