do you believe that a cockroaches(or any other animals)life is equally as important as a human beings?

Question

all creatures great and small are only living to survive just as us humans are, so why are their lives not valued as much as ours?

Answer 1

all life is equal, there is no difference between the life of a cockroach, a cow, man or tree. it is only ignorance that prevents us from knowing this. to belittle a lifeform because it carries desiese is foolish, how many dieases do humans carry and spread around. to say an animal has no soul how can you prove this, how can you prove that you have a soul? god (as refered to in the bible ) created all the animals that walk and slither and creepeth upon the earth FROM HIS OWN DIVINE WILL whereas he created men as an afterthought, when he realised that he could do with somthing to work the fields (why god needed fields i have no idea) and he knocked us up out of clay, so you tell me who is more in the eyes of the lord (divine will?/bit of clay?)
How can man consider himself as intelligent when he has trouble interacting with his closest relatives? when he has brought his very planet which he needs to survive to the brink of destruction?no we as humans need to regain a sense of responsibility before we can claim to be as important as any other creature that walks this life.

Answer 2

Yes I do, I believe all life is important, especially to the owner of that life. We know too little about life force, souls or spirits to judge, we cannot truthfully say we are the only ones with thought or soul. For example, if a swan dies it's partner grieves, it's a well known fact, so is that not a form of love and does that not signify a soul?
Man is NOT the most important thing in the universe, we are just another animal trying to survive.

Answer 3

My advice would be to not accept any opinion answers straight, as you're posting in the philosophy section I would advise you to read some philosophy on the subject, it can be very interesting.
Couple of books I've read on the subject are:
Animal Liberation and Practical Ethics, both by a guy called Peter Singer
and the third off the top of my head, would be to look up a guy called Kant, and check out some of his work, he says some stuff on autonomy and how animals should be treated.

Philosophy is not about opinions it's about arguments.

Answer 4

We value people because we are also people, it is a normal human trait. We have no idea what it is like to be a insect. This probably explains why we tend to favour mammals over other creatures. I consider all life on earth to be important, within its ecological niche.
I eat meat, but so do big cats and other predators. I don't eat people but some animals think nothing of cannibalism.
We have evolved to favour humans over other animals, its part of being a social animal.

Answer 5

Every life form is important and follows the laws of nature. We are the only onew who do not have to toil in the way we did as hunter gatherers, imagine making all your own clothes, houses, motor vehicles etc. Because we have developed the type of intelligence we posess we believe we have the right to dominate planet.
When all the rainforests, animals and natural resources expire, we will be in serious trouble.
Peace out

Answer 6

To an extent. But as a human, I value human life more than a cockroach. If I were a cockroach, I would value cockroach life more than human.

Answer 7

I disagree with every other person on this question. Animals and bugs and even us are important to the planet. And even if you don't believe they have a soul or whatever. They have just as much right as humans to live. Sure we are bigger but they are what help the earth live. I mean how many humans have littered and not really cared and how many have cared. Our whole life is just a fight for survival. Whether it be in the city or in the wild.
I don't know if it helped but if it did good luck with whatever you are doing.

Answer 8

All living creatures regardless about their size, or importance are to be equally treated. This is what I have been taught and learned by my parents, and religion.

Every creature is living being, so they have life in it. And every soul has full right to live it's life fully, and freely without any compromise. And we humans just being five sensed living beings doesn't make us any greater or superior than those one to five sensed living beings; animals, water creatures, small insects, etc.

Answer 9

Having read the answers posted so far, all I can say is I hope all of you are left alone with a creature that is much bigger and more powerful than you at some stage in your life, then you might realise that you are not as important as you think you are. What the hell gives you the right to think that humans are somehow more important than other living creatures? We were all put here for a reason. Discrimination is discrimination, no matter what. Humans may have the power of speech but that is all that separates us from animals, fish, birds etc. How do you know animals aren't telepathic, for instance? And look at what humans have done to the planet in the last 150 years or so.
If you think about it, most species have lived for millennia without the need for evolution. There is a natural pecking order, admittedly, but different kingdoms live semi-harmoniously, each acquiescing to the other.
Humans, on the other hand, have discovered and are becoming increasingly dependent on modern technology. Our senses aren't even close to those of animals. How many people do you know who could live entirely self sufficiently?
If anything, humans are the aliens of the Earth. Treat all other creatures with the respect you'd expect to receive yourself. You might need their help one day.

PS: Thank you for all the thumbs-downs, you illiterate neanderthals. At least back yourselves up with a cogent argument.

PPS: Akarai: Where is the proof that animals have no morals, souls, thoughts or consciences? You thick C-nut.

Answer 10

Your question asks for the wrong answer, I'm sorry to say. You ask two separate things, and are getting two separate answers. You ask equally important, then ask valued as much, as if importance and value were the same concept. Equality and value are not the same concept.

Of course, all things, living as well as inanimate objects, here on Earth are intertwined, interdependent and interlocked. And as such are equally important in terms of that interlaced and independent necessity for one another. So, equally important rings true in terms of biology and just the physical ramifications of the web of life. Though from a biological point of view, the entire animal biosphere rests upon the shoulders of plankton. In terms of what species survive without the other, no animal would survive if plankton were to disappear. So, some are more equal in the web of biology than others. Cockroaches fill a particular niche as well in the environment. Without them, a huge part of the bio-web would not survive, including humans. Humans, however, fill almost no niche, and would have a minimal impact on the bio-web if they were to magically disappear overnight. Again, however, biology is not a measure of importance overall.

Value on the other hand remains a concept of involvement. Value does not manifest itself until there is an involvement of being upon the that which value emerges. Value is grounded solely in the involvement, the engagement, through a caring/concernfulness that being alive makes emerge from otherwise non-valued things-in-themselves (Kant, Heidegger). This involvement, this concernful engagement of meaning is done through language. Value is a meaningfulness derived from significance and signs (language) and shared with others in the network of involved meaningfulness which is the condition of being.

This value-assigning based on involvement and caring, is limited to experiential understandings of what is "close" to our valued network (our world). Cockroaches have no valueable contribution to the World of our being, the network of involvement. But then again, neither do most humans or other animals like the ever-important plankton, less so even still, non-living things, like the resources we de-value such as life-sustaining water.

In the US and other developed nations, we are so emerged in our daily valuation of proximal apprehensions, such as our daily work, love-making, self-abuse (either thru intoxicating substance or stimuli... beer and tv) and other such immediate valuation, temporarily sending us into the foreground of existence, in ecstatic transcendence, we simply do not immediately perspect (circumspect) that we are abusing underlying and mediated resources at hand, until of course it is too late. At that point, we step back and reflect on their lackingness and feel the dread of their invalued state.

It is the nature of language/meaningful interaction in a world of thinghoods, the very nature of value itself.

However, importance and value are two entirely separate things and have been oddly merged into one question here, further disposing the intrinsic problematic originally intended for us to expose.

Make sense?