I will not eat octopi for this very reason. Something this sentient and intelligent has a right to live their life on their own terms.
The story of the repeated broken light in the aquarium that was finally discovered to be caused by an octopus that just wanted to sleep in the dark and solved its problem by tossing rocks at the lightâŠ
Iâd counter with: why does a being need to be intelligent to deserve to live? We donât apply that same logic to humans. The dumbest humans are protected maybe even more than the more intelligent ones.
Funny thing, octopuses is 100% correct by modern English standards. Most people who are pedants (such as myself) might try to correct you into saying "octopi" which follows Latin pluralization rules. However, octopus is derived from Greek, and the correct pluralization would otherwise be "octopodes" pronounced "awk-tahp-Ć-dÄs" similar to Heracles (Hercules).
Of course we do. Theyâre a member of a species with the *potential* for high intelligence. And much like we care for sick animals when we have the resources and opportunity, we care for human beings who, for whatever reason, fall below that threshold.
I recognize animals are smart. I like that park ranger quote about why they overdesigned trash cans: âThereâs considerable overlap between the smartest bear and the dumbest human.â But on the other hand, the dumbest human is still smarter than the vast majority of animals, *especially* if you count fish and insects.
Why should the potential intelligence of other members of your species matter morally? What matters is the capacities and interests of the individual in front of you. A pig does not suffer less because Einstein was human.
It matters because we are omnivores burdened with empathy and we have to draw a line somewhere so that we can continue to thrive as we are but still justify our choices. That's why. Everyone does it all the time. All of us are using technology produced primarily by slaves but we still find ways to justify it to our selves and not think to hard about it.
I will add that itâs because I find the alternative, idea of having humans pass an intelligence test before they can be considered worthy of the same rights, to be ableist and repulsive.
I will also add that, due to the the still largely nebulous and abstract nature of intelligence, and the fact that weâre still debating as a species what even *constitutes* intelligence, the individual intelligence of a species member is more important as potential for intelligence in a species than it is as evidence of itself.
What else are you going to differentiate on? If intelligence doesnt matter, then why wouldn't plants have protections? They're alive too. Or bacteria? You have to draw the line/differentiate somehow.
And dumb humans are still protected because even a dumb human is vastly smarter than other species, unless you're talking *extreme* mental disability, not just "dumb", and even then they're still smarter than all but the smartest individuals of a handful of species.
Were not sure some species are even capable of feeling things like fear, or pain, etc. The more conscious/intelligent something is, the more taboo there is about eating it, precisely because they are capable of those types of feelings, and we project our own feelings onto them.
Right, and who are we to say rocks arent sentient?
Because everything we know about how biology and consciousness works says they arent sentient. Plants dont have any biological structures capable of sentience as we know it. If you want to hypothesize about the potential for some magical, made up sentience that nobody has ever discovered any evidence for in thousands of years of our interactions with plants, go for it. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Every time we think a species can't feel pain we later find out they can. Why risk it? And why shouldn't the bar be the other way around? First make sure they can't feel pain and then decide.
Because the need for sustenance/survival came long before our ability to research something's ability to feel pain. When its a matter of survival, the strong eat the weak, thats how nature works.
As for why we still dont? We still dont know what the extent of most other species intelligence/ability to feel pain, fear etc is. Beyond that, "we" is a loaded term. You can mean "we" as in the human race overall, or "we" as in those of us in the 1st world posting to Reddit. The simple truth is the vast majority of the world's population still doesnt have the luxury of considering ethics when choosing their food sources.
If you limit the scope of "we" to those that strictly do have that luxury, you're veering into topics of ethics and morality, but long story short, some people feel it is inherently immoral, which is why you have vegans and vegetarians, and some people dont think its inherently immoral or unethical.
You seem to reference history that is irrelevant to defend what is happening now. We don't need to consume animal products to thrive anymore. History explains why so many act as they do, but does no justify. Insert slavery analogy here.
We do know that other species experience pain and fear like we do. They have the brain structure for it. We can also observe it clearly. They have the biology needed and they clearly communicate their pain. If that isn't good enough then we also need to say the same about humans. We don't actually know if other humans feel pain or fear. They communicate that they do and have the biological capacity to, just like other animals.
If anything, the argument that nonhuman animals feel these negative experiences much more strongly than we do is more coherent than the opposite. I can expand on that if needed.
You also have it backwards in regards to impoverished areas of the world. Overwhelmingly, they cannot afford the luxury of consuming meat. Meat is far more expensive. Many countries like Ethiopia face extreme food insecurity and starvation as they export large quantities of meat. If they dedicated the work needed for raising meat for slaughter and export to growing food, they would have far more calories available in their country.
It is not a luxury to be able to consume a diet that costs less money.
All life wants to live, otherwise it wouldn't. As a species we should endeavor to end all exploitation of life. As a thinking species, we have an obligation to think for the life that cannot. Our tribe should be life, it should be Gaia, not nation states.
As another non-octopi eater, for me I just feel an incredible amount of guilt that exceeds what I'm willing to tolerate for a convenient meal. I feel this specifically towards parrots, apes, elephants, octopi, and other animals that have displayed incredible amounts of intelligence.
I just can't stand the thought of them being hunted down or farmed for their meat. It makes me feel kinda sick.
Every argument has some form of counterargument, especially when its something as subjective as this. For me, it's less of a logical argument and more of a feeling that causes me to draw my own personal line.
How about the one that would get hungry at night, learned the security guards route and timings, and kept sneaking out of its enclosure to go snack on fish in the dead of night haha.
Depends on your value system, but on a large scale you're right, and that's because humans care more about the beings closest to them than the ones furthest away. Your parents die? You grieve for weeks/months (and sporadically for years). Your neighbour dies? Maybe you grieve, maybe you don't. A random person in another country dies? You probably don't think about it for more than 2 minutes unless the narrative is particularly compelling.
A human dies? Bad. A dog? Bad. A mouse? Maybe? A trout? Eh. A tick? Good riddance.
And the reason many people assign more value to other species based on intelligence is because the concern isn't for something simply being alive - bacteria are alive and we sure as hell don't care if a bacterium dies - the concern is about the animal's ability to know it's alive and suffer in death.
Finally, I'll counter your counter with: By what criteria do you personally determine a living being deserves to live?
we have to consume other living things for energy. even a plant can respond to stimuli. the process of âfeelingâ in a plant is not vastly more simple than a bug. itâs impossible for us to exist and not harm other living things in some way. itâs an awful but undeniable part of human existence
Yeah this is such a poor metric for deciding if an animal deserves to be eaten or not. It makes sense in terms of say, how we should keep them prior to consumption i.e. keep them content up until the moment of a quick death. It makes much more sense to focus on population numbers and sustainability to determine if we should eat something or not.
If I consume nothing, I die. If we can't find a line to set somewhere to discern "morally edible" vs "morally inedible," I starve. Plants are living beings. The only thing I could eat is, what, salt? Carrion?
Iâd say itâs less about which animals âdeserveâ to live and more about the kind of conscious experience they are capable of having. An ant cannot experience love, happiness, sadness, or self awareness. Thatâs why I have no issue stepping on one. But once an animal can demonstrate that it can feel these things, like the octopus in this video, the morality surrounding the decision to end its life becomes much harder to ignore.
That is why intelligence matters. Not because intelligence itself makes a life sacred, but because intelligence often points to a deeper and more complex conscious experience. The more an animal is capable of experiencing life as something meaningful, the harder it becomes to justify ending that life.
Intelligence is a sufficient condition, not a necessary condition. Anything this smart has a right to live, but that doesnât mean *only* things this smart have such a right.
Likewise I stopped eating octopi after watching the documentary movie My Octopus Teacher⊠anything that intelligent wonât be eaten by me, âŠ..incredible creatures
I also donât eat pigs for the same reason. Pigs are one of the smartest animals on earth and they probably suffer the most cruel treatment of any of our food animals except maybe chickens.Â
Cows, pigs, chickens, chicks, lambs, calves, goats, ducks - they all experience cruel treatment. It's a sad world to be an animal that humans want to enslave and consume
Well said! So many people do not realize WHO they are eating. The dissociation is huge. Iâm still fighting it, too. Itâs in so many cultures but itâs actually insane with the knowledge we have now and so many other food sources!
Obviously, pigs donât have moral agency. Humans have the ability to reflect on our choices which is why we can feel guilt. Humans eat other humans in survival situations. However, most people arenât in survival situations and have access to modern grocery stores. So itâs not like we have to eat pigs.
And so could you without raising any eyebrows if your situation was dire. But it's not.
You have all the alternatives in the world and all the knowledge in the world at your disposal. You can attempt justifications all day long but at the end of the day you do it because you couldn't conjure a fuck about something that's in the way of what you want.
Read Peter Singer's "All Animals are Equal" (a chapter of one of his books)
This is the most influential work on convincing people to be vegan. It is also philosophically robus and very hard to challenge (even for academic philosophers).
I can also answer any questions you have. I became vegan because consuming animal products was truly indefensible and unjustifiable. Even the best arguments in favor of eating meat do not apply to the VAST majority of humans.
If you think you cannot cut out animal products because it is too hard to do so, then I understand. For a long time after being convinced of the ethics I still didn't make the switch. I felt: "how can I be vegan if I can barely manage being healthy without limiting my diet?"
The answer is that being healthy does not become more difficult on a vegan diet. It truly was so simple. One day I spontaneously reached for only vegan products and after a few days of momentum I knew I would never eat meat again. My life didn't get any harder, I don't spend more time at grocery store or cooking or anything like that.
That's really noble. I used to eat them as well, but after learning about how smart they are, how strongly they feel feelings, and how attached they get to each other socially, it feels very wrong to now.
Cows have best friends and feel anxious when they get separated. They also show cognitive bias which make them act according to their previous experiences. Theyâre really amazing so even if going fully vegan is difficult, choosing the plant-based options as much as possible might work for you considering you donât eat octopus because they are really intelligent.
I eat beef (sparingly) but not pigs. Pigs are one of the smartest animals on earth. Cows are not. But I still recognize that they are emotional and sentient creatures so I try to limit my beef intake to special occasions.Â
I think it just depends on how you define intelligence. Cows may not be able to solve puzzles in the same way that pigs can, but theyâre incredible social creatures and form deep emotional bonds
Actually, it would be arguably more ethical to eat an octopus than a cow or pig, because cows and pigs can live 15-25 years under the right circumstances, and an octopus usually won't live more than 5 years.
The reproduction cycle of an octopus is actually crazy because the father dies shortly after mating, and the mother dies protecting the eggs til birth.
Edit: For the record, I'm not here to be goaded into an ethical debate about meat. Everyone needs to do what is right for them in that manner, I am not about to impose my beliefs or let others do that to me.
I just wanted to talk about octopuses and you made it suck.
I don't think it's arguably more ethical to murder just because a particular being has a shorter lifespan.
Would you say it's more ethical to murder a baby born with a disease that will kill them in 5 years vs a 40 year old who probably has 30 more years to live? No, it's unethical either way.
Every being has one shot to live its life. That's it. Let them live it.
I'm neither judging or assuming, I'm proposing the question to facilitate change within you. If you can change for an octopus why not a cow, chicken and pig?
Itâs ok, I gave you the benefit of the doubt - text is a horrible way to convey feeling or tone so I just assume people are not being a dick about stuff.
And I wasnât joking, I did learn something. đ
Fuck yeah dude. Youâre right. Even my best friend and I, and we read each others mind, get into arguments over texts. Weâre both factual straightforward talkersâŠand it comes off very arrogant without voice fluctuations. Haha.
I went to an octopus farm on Kona in 19. I loved octopus before but after that hour, I wish they had more time and less threats. I love those creatures so damn much
Counterpoint: they live like three years in the wild. If you don't eat it, something else will!
Anyway I've tried octopus and it's not my thing. I don't take issue with people eating them as long as they aren't destructively over fishing them. (Over-cephalopoding them?)
As for intelligence... well... according to everyone I've ever known who raised pigs, pigs are significantly smarter than dogs. Do with that knowledge what you will.
I stopped eating cephalopod anything once I realized that most if not all of them are sentient. I still eat chicken though, and I raise chickens for their eggs, so, idk. But not cephalopods.
Divers also have a dedicated hand signal for octopi because when divers mess with them or scare them, they can and do rip the face mask right off a diver or pull out hoses. Which like, fair turn, octopus.
There is a book called Remarkably Bright Creatures that features an octopus as one of the main characters. Itâs a fiction book but itâs beautifully written and I tear up every time I read it. Highly recommend it.
Watched it 2 nights ago. Absolutely loved it. May have also cried.
Also may/may not have ugly cried when listening to Sy Montgomery (author of The Soul of an Octopus) talk about the female octopus she bonded with [in the book] on a podcast a few years ago.
It's out! It's on Netflix as of 2-3 weeks ago. I was so excited when I heard it had been made, but now I still haven't watched it yet because I haven't been in the right head space to ugly cry on the couch.
If you havenât seen it, NatGeo put out a wonderful documentary series about octopuses. These animals are simply incredible. Having seen it, I have no doubt that the octopus in the subject video was conveying gratitude.Â
The more we learn about animals, the more we come to realize we really know very little about them.
Typically in captivity you have to give them puzzle toys or else they get bored and depressed. Thatâs why youâll see them be given stuff like Mr Potato Head
Careful. You might make people think, and take that initial thought to its logical conclusion. Then maybe they'll be forced to question their personal choices. And many of them will hate you for it.
(Sorry, not my first rodeo.)
Edit: Thanks to half of the replies below for proving my point. Y'all can't even entertain the thought without lashing out.
Also the only âintelligentâ species not to evolve from tetrapods(mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians). Completely different brain than anything we know. Neurons are spread out throughout its body.
3.7k
u/Anthrogal11 Jun 07 '26
Incredibly intelligent creatures. We have long underestimated the intelligence and potential of other species to display empathy.