Also when they are taking shit.

It seems everything physical that is also meaningful on a metaphysical level which
involves humans also involves shit. What a coincidence!

It seems everything physical that is also meaningful on a metaphysical level which
involves humans also involves shit. What a coincidence! — god must be atheist

:grin:

If humans are more valuable, why? How do you justify this assertion? Any justification seems to have unacceptable ethical consequences. For instance, is it due to their (relative lack of) intelligence? Then, human value must also be gradated on the basis of intelligence, and from there we arrive at eugenics.

But then, are they of equal value? This too seems completely intolerable. Imagine a mom who has a terminally ill child and poodle, with money to treat only one. She treats the poodle. Who wouldn't be disgusted by this choice? Yet, if you maintain the equality of animal and human, then choosing the poodle is therefore perfectly reasonable. — hypericin

Intelligence is irrelevant. The value of a human is calculated in the same way as the value of any object: it's the net increase in total happiness caused by the existence of the object, across all sentient beings for all time thereafter. Of course it's impossible to calculate this with any precision, so the best that can be achieved is a very crude estimate based on rules of thumb. Since humans tend to have closer and longer-lasting family and social relationships than dogs, the death of a human child is likely to cause more unhappiness than the death of a poodle. Consequently the child is probably more valuable than the poodle, and the mother should treat the child, not the poodle.

So much for individual cases. The question of whether humans are more valuable en masse than other animals is different, and can only be answered by comparing the net effect on total happiness caused by the existence of humans, against the net effect on total happiness caused by the existence of any non-human animal species. I suspect that we humans cause far more net misery to other animals than any other species does; but against that must be set the net happiness we create for ourselves by existing. Were other animals happier before humans evolved? I suspect so. Are humans, on balance and en masse, happy? Doubtful. I suspect that humans en masse cause net unhappiness, and are therefore less valuable than most other species; but it's a difficult calculation, and I could be wrong.