Animal Cruelty - Why should we care?

[This is The End]

No, to this claim,as well you know:

And as you know, that contains your phrase that you tried to move accross town and back:

I think this idea about animal torturers turning out to being psychopaths is a bit of a cliche and maybe a logical error.

So either define your damn phrase which you made in your claim or accept that this is the claim you want proof for:

that someone who tortures a mammal solely for the sake of the torture is displaying psychopathic tendencies

I don't care which one you want to do but please pick one.


I suppose you are trying to ignore the last time I asked you this:

If you want evidence, then define the highlighted phrase in your claim.

A logical reading of that sentence assumes you meant "animal torturers". Period. You already tried to claim that you just meant insects and medical procedures.

Now, not only are you trying to derail the discussion by having us argue about where in the vast tree of life does "consciousness" begin, but you are trying to derail the discussion about your own damn claim of "animal torturers" not being psychopaths.

This "testing the line" nonsense must be a favorite tactic of yours!

Can we just agree to limit the discussion to mammals and move on?

You are clearly afraid to limit the discussion to mammals because it completely removes what is obviously your favorite argument tactic.

 

[angrysoba]

OTT, see above. Your twisting and turning is embarrassing.

 

[This is The End]

Until you present evidence OTT, you can consider our discussion over. I will respond if you are willing to present evidence for your claim, as follows:

You are the original claimant. My response, which you now are trying to dishonestly call the original claim, used a logical reading of your phrase. You are now clearly afraid to either A) define your phrase, or B) agree to draw the line at mammals so that this asinine argument of "durr I meant killing a fly" can cease.


So either A) define the highlighted phrase in your claim:

I think this idea about animal torturers turning out to being psychopaths is a bit of a cliche and maybe a logical error.

Or B) accept that you are asking for proof of this:

that someone who tortures a mammal solely for the sake of the torture is displaying psychopathic tendencies

Which I would like to point out to everyone that you already did:

(although I would be happy to accept mammals for now)

Before you wised up and quickly backtracked.

 

[Meed]

When we are talking farming, the more fear and pain an animal suffers, the worse it's meat is, so treating them well means that they will produce better meat.

Animals that we farm to produce by products (eggs, wool, milk) also tend to do so better when not stressed and hurting.

A person that enjoys harming Companions animals often will graduate to harming people.

Seems like 3 good reasons to me.

Those are very selfish reasons. Are you suggesting that if someone was torturing an animal for fun your only thought would be "oh no, this guy might hurt a human someday" and you wouldn't have any compassion for the animal?

Also, the first two are probably not true and the third one is questionable.

I would say that the only moral reason to treat animals well is that it helps condition the mind to treat other people well.

I pose to you the same question that I posed to PhantomWolf. And to anyone else who thinks things can only be wrong if they harm humans.

We are natural omnivores. I'm fine with that.

This is a fallacy.

 

[Loss Leader]

Actually, there's a very well-known and long-refined scale for psychopathy (first developed by Hillary), a version of which can be found here.

Hmmm...I didn't find anything about torturing animals in there.

You're right. As I've been saying, torturing animals can be evidence of the types of behaviors that are associated with psychopathy, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient.

 

[This is The End]

Your twisting and turning is embarrassing.

angrysoba you aren't the first person to twist and turn and then try and claim it is indeed the other person doing the twisting and the turning. It is an old tactic and it is a sad last resort of a dishonest argument.

It won't work with moving goalposts and it won't work with this.

Define the phrase in your claim.

Of course, we all know the real reason you don't want to just draw the line at mammals and move on:

You're not fooling anyone. You want to attack the definition so that the entire discussion is derailed. You know it will derail the discussion because determining where on the vast tree of life consciousness beings is ******* impossible.

Any person honestly interested in the discussion would agree to draw the line at mammals so that the discussion can commence.

You know that it is quite literally impossible to determine where on the vast tree of life consciousness begins so you are hoping that people will argue about that instead of the topic.

 

[angrysoba]

OTT, you made this claim. There are no two ways about it.

animal torturers are psychopaths.

Now, back it up!

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

We are natural omnivores. I'm fine with that.

That we are biologically capable of obtaining nutrients from animal products has no moral dimension that I am aware of. Obligate carnivores have a case, but not omnivores.

 

[This is The End]

You're right. As I've been saying, torturing animals can be evidence of the types of behaviors that are associated with psychopathy, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient.

I disagree. If it is a mammal and the torture is both knowing and repeated then you would be hard pressed to find a psychologist who would not call it clear evidence.

 

[This is The End]

OTT, you made this claim.

Using your phrase, from your claim, which you then tried to goalpost move to "insects" and "medical procedures". So now the onus is on you to define your phrase.

You claimed I used the phrase incorrectly. Now define it.

 

[Loss Leader]

Are you suggesting that if someone was torturing an animal for fun your only thought would be "oh no, this guy might hurt a human someday" and you wouldn't have any compassion for the animal?

You have conflated two things: the emotional reaction to harming an animal and the logical, moral reasons not to harm animals.

Being human (with a functioning temporal gyrus), I feel great disgust and dismay when animals (especially mammals) are mistreated.

However, this does not change the logical conclusion that objective morality may not exist at all or, if it does, it may have nothing to say about how we treat other species.

 

[angrysoba]

You're right. As I've been saying, torturing animals can be evidence of the types of behaviors that are associated with psychopathy, but it is neither necessary nor sufficient.

I agree.

 

[This is The End]

angrysoba can we just agree that we should limit the discussion to mammals and move on?

 

[This is The End]

I agree.

That's good. Because your earlier position was this:

I think this idea about animal torturers turning out to being psychopaths is a bit of a cliche and maybe a logical error.

 

[Meed]

In the meantime, here’s an interesting discussion between Peter Singer and Richard Dawkins:

The embed didn't work for me. I'll just throw in a link here in case it also didn't work for others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU

I disagree. If it is a mammal and the torture is both knowing and repeated then you would be hard pressed to find a psychologist who would not call it clear evidence.

I don't see much of a point to all this arguing over the definition of psychopathy. Something can be wrong and be evidence of psychopathy or it can be not wrong and be evidence of psychopathy. On the flip side, something can be wrong and not be evidence of psychopathy or it can be not wrong and not be evidence of psychopathy.

 

[angrysoba]

Using your phrase, from your claim, which you then tried to goalpost move to "insects" and "medical procedures". So now the onus is on you to define your phrase.

You claimed I used the phrase incorrectly. Now define it.

It’s too late to ask me for a definition after you had made this claim:

animal torturers are psychopaths.

It’s up to you now, to substantiate your claim which you still avoid doing. I think the reason is obvious. You don’t have such evidence, and your original sneering response to me and your subsequent appeals to the gallery look fatuous.

 

[angrysoba]

angrysoba can we just agree that we should limit the discussion to mammals and move on?

Very well.

 

[Meed]

You have conflated two things: the emotional reaction to harming an animal and the logical, moral reasons not to harm animals.

Being human (with a functioning temporal gyrus), I feel great disgust and dismay when animals (especially mammals) are mistreated.

Okay, I'm glad we have that much common ground at least. Now why can't you go from "I feel compassion for that animal being tortured for no reason" to "It's immoral what's being done to that animal"?

Might you try to stop the person from doing it? Might you advocate to others that they shouldn't do it either? Might you support laws meant to reduce this kind of thing? Might you feel a sense of injustice, anger, etc on observing it?

If "yes" to most of the above, then for all practical purposes isn't it fair to say you consider it to be "wrong"?

However, this does not change the logical conclusion that objective morality may not exist at all or, if it does, it may have nothing to say about how we treat other species.

And you seemed to take as a presumption that morality has nothing to say about how we treat other species, but does have something to say about how we treat humans. On what grounds do you justify this?

 

[bit_pattern]

Is there an objective moral reason not to be cruel to the human animal? I'd imagine whatever it is would apply here too.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

You implied to my understanding that those who mistreat animals turn into psychopaths here:





The lack of empathy for animals does not "grow into" anything. It is indicative of a lack of empathy overall. It is neither a sufficient nor necessary indication. If I misunderstood you, I'm sorry.

You got it backwards.