What is your excuse for killing animals?

[Marduk]

So I’m curious to know what you critical thinkers tell yourselves so you can conciliate the Golden Rule and the evolutionary perspective and still justify an action that will directly harm something whose only fault is in context being weaker than you?

well firstly because God said it was what they were for

28 And God blessed them; and God said unto them: 'Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.

and secondly because I am a human being and one thing that we excell at is killing and eating other animals for food

 

[Juniversal]

As far as I know they have no self. No thoughts, opinions, emotions. That is just my opinion though.

Well of course they have thoughts and emotions. A human being that's a so-called vegetable doesn't have any thoughts because they're unconcious (i.e. quite literally there's an absence of conciousness). But the same emotions that drive us, drive other creatures. We're an amalgamation of our mental processes just as any other animal is (and I think we percieve these combined processes as being a "soul"). We have the fight or flight response when presented with impending harm as well do dogs or pigs. Mothers are naturally defensive and agressive towards those who seemingly want to harm their children and if you've ever been around a dog that's happy to see you, you'd swear they were smiling (clearly experiencing the same emotion we describe as happiness or excitement).

Now (especially for the more primative of creatures) i'd imagine their thoughts aren't paticularly complex by a long shot. Clearly many animals aren't near as "deep" or emotional as we are in terms of forming emotional attachements to their peers or but I don't doubt that they do have emotions and aren't empty emotionless shells. They might not have a strong concept of self if any at all but neither does a new born baby.

 

[The_Animus]

What's the alternative?

I certainly don't agree with all the ways animals are treated, but is releasing them into the wild going to improve matters? And how would the economic impact be mitigated?

I don't really understand your questions. Releasing them into the wild probably wouldn't do much either. Our dominance of the world and the fact that we continue to take up more and more space leaves less and less room for other life to survive let alone upwardly evolve (as in increased biological complexity and intelligence) and flourish.

Which economic impact are you referring to? My feeling concerning most issues involving economics is that humanity is utterly retarded. I mean seriously if you look at how humanity acts collectively it's not unreasonable to consider our whole species as insane. But that's really a whole separate topic...

 

[SonOfLaertes]

For a very long time nature has done a great job of maintaining balance long before people decided they could do it better. If we didn't specifically breed them and cram as many as we can into as small a space as we can there wouldn't be nearly so many in the first place.

It doesn't matter how many there are in "the first place". Even a small population released into the wild with no natural predators would breed to unmanageable numbers in the blink of an eye.

A small number of pigs have escaped farms in my area and are now feral. In a blink of an eye we have a feral pig problem. They are extremely aggressive and destructive to the environment. Soon the hunters will be allowed to have a go at them and - problem partially solved.

Coincidentally, There is an article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer about Pennsylvania's deer population. The gist of the article is that under-hunting has led to a population explosion with devastating environmental consequences(from the article) -

Foresters warn that Pennsylvania's mature woodlands are fast approaching the end of their life cycles and are in dire straits. A U.S. Forest Service inventory indicates that half of the harvested trees in Pennsylvania are not being regenerated.

Walter Carson, a University of Pittsburgh biologist who has been studying the impact of uncontrolled deer populations, says deer have collapsed the diversity of Pennsylvania's forests. "The only surviving plants are shade-tolerant and are either unpalatable to deer or able to regrow quickly after browsing," he says. "It's a real tragedy that continues even though the science is no longer in question."

Increasingly, Pennsylvania woodlands are being taken over by plants unappetizing to deer. Carson's research shows that the hay-scented fern, which once covered only 3 percent of the forest floor, now takes up one third of the forested area of Pennsylvania.

So the forests of PA are doomed - because of only one browsing animal. Add pigs, cows, etc. - no matter how many at the start - and what do you get? Slow, painful, agonizing death by starvation.

 

[Dragoonster]

It is impossible for humans to survive without killing something. We must kill some life to exist.

We also kill other life forms just automatically. Our immune system is constantly killing life forms.

All life is related, ultimately. All life. That includes bacteria and plants. Any division we place between different life forms is ultimately arbitrary.

What is your excuse for killing bacteria?
What is your excuse for killing plants?
What is your excuse for killing insects?

You don't need an "excuse" for killing any of those, any more than I need an "excuse" for killing animals (or having them killed for me). "The Golden Rule" is insufficient argument to declare killing animals as something that would need to be excused.

Killing an animal to eat is is perfectly justifiable. It is natural. It has utility.

If you wish to argue that raising animals for eating is inefficient, that's entirely different, but the moral argument is invalid.

Those are all fine arguments but they apply equally as well to eating other humans. That's the problem with eating animals for most people, they must morally justify why that's okay but eating human animals isn't.

So, what is your excuse for not eating humans? If that excuse (say, "we're sentient") can be potentially applied to non-human animals as well, then it gets more complicated.

oops, replace "eating" in the above with "killing". Guess I'm hungry!

 

[SonOfLaertes]

For a very long time nature has done a great job of maintaining balance long before people decided they could do it better. If we didn't specifically breed them and cram as many as we can into as small a space as we can there wouldn't be nearly so many in the first place.

Linky to quoted article -

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/20100327_Experts__Pa__s_deer_population_is_out_of_control.html

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Hmmm, in awnser to the OP, while I do follow your 'golden rule' I apply it only to humans, as I have no illusions about the fact that most animals we currently eat would have no problems in killing me. Large herbivores, especially in herds, are actually quite dangerous to humans, just because we've trained them and keep the more agressive gender away, doesnt change that. You go pet a bull left unattended and see if its friendly to you.

I also resent the concept that what we do is somehow unnatural. Humans are a part of natural evolution and our civilisation is appearantly a natural progression. Yes we set the earth to our hand, but we are the only species that seems to care what happens to other species at all. Only some insects keeps some herd animals and from observation they don't care for them any more than needed to get what they want, which is similar to how we treat milk cows.

I agree that forcing humanity to go fully vegetarian probably would create less impact on nature, but that does not mean that suddenly we live in tune with nature. To feed our current population the land used for agriculture and the rest of our activities would still force animals to live in shrinking habitats and into problems described earlier in the thread.
Milk cows are unable to exist without humans due to the genetic engineering (sorry breeding) done by our ancestors millennia ago, so they'd all have to be removed or die in agony. Sheep are equally unable to live normal lives as similar techinques have given them too much wool to live in nature. Not to mention there is no real room for flocks of sheep to wander in most of the western world.
Not to mention the fact that these animals are native to europe/asia and thus would all need to be killed on any other continent.

I also accept the fact that I'm an omnivore and that our digestive system is geared towards supplementing our diet with meat products (although this was originally probably more along the lines of small rodents and bugs as those are less likely to stomp you to death).
We just managed to use the talents our evolution gave us to be more efficient and able to survive as a species. And as everything natural, that means other species pay the price, as has happened countless other times in nature.
Unlike earlier natural causes however we at least try to some extent to limit this impact.

But to your original question again. The golden rule exists only for humans, as only humans abide by it as we made it up. No such thing exists in nature, not even for close relatives of humans.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Those are all fine arguments but they apply equally as well to eating other humans. That's the problem with eating animals for most people, they must morally justify why that's okay but eating human animals isn't.

So, what is your excuse for not eating humans? If that excuse (say, "we're sentient") can be potentially applied to non-human animals as well, then it gets more complicated.

For me, the same excuse for not eating my pets when they died. ie, a purely emotional one.
Its along the lines of treating terminally ill patients rather than shooting them so they don't take up resources, and not beating the pre-existing children of a previous marriage to death because that would ensure your genes are propagated. All of which are perfectly rational things to do and which happen with high frequency in nature.
Besides, there were and maybe still are, cultures around that do not have the don't eat humans taboo.

Culture and upbrining would be the best awnser I guess.

 

[SonOfLaertes]

Those are all fine arguments but they apply equally as well to eating other humans. That's the problem with eating animals for most people, they must morally justify why that's okay but eating human animals isn't.

So, what is your excuse for not eating humans? If that excuse (say, "we're sentient") can be potentially applied to non-human animals as well, then it gets more complicated.

You're joking, I hope.

Eating animals is ingrained in our biology and evolutionary development. Not so eating each other. If humans had evolved while eating each other as prey animals, we would not have survived as a species. We had a heard enough time avoiding being eaten by the bigger, stronger, faster predators around us.

A big part of the success of Homo Sapiens is our ability to organize and cooperate. Cannibalism, though not unheard of in human history, is understandably psychologically abhorrent to our species in general.

 

[The_Animus]

Coincidentally, There is an article in today's Philadelphia Inquirer about Pennsylvania's deer population. The gist of the article is that under-hunting has led to a population explosion with devastating environmental consequences(from the article) -


So the forests of PA are doomed - because of only one browsing animal. Add pigs, cows, etc. - no matter how many at the start - and what do you get? Slow, painful, agonizing death by starvation.

Nature maintains balance. Not perfect balance mind you, but generally when a species becomes overpopulated the preditors also increase to thin out that population or food becomes scarce and the population drops down to a reasonable level. Of course many animals natural preditors are kept to minimal numbers thanks to people. You cannot point to something like overpopulation of deer as an example when it's our fault that animals such as wolves are in such low population numbers. Assuming we left them alone and with enough space for an extended period of time it would eventually manage itself.

Further, that natural cycle of predator and prey, of the ebb and flow of populations, of the survival of the fittest, is what drives adaptation and evolution. This beautiful process is what ensured the diversity and survival of life for millions of years. It is thanks to this process that we exist, and yet I feel that we are destroying that very process because of our greed.

 

[Dragoonster]

For me, the same excuse for not eating my pets when they died. ie, a purely emotional one.
Its along the lines of treating terminally ill patients rather than shooting them so they don't take up resources, and not beating the pre-existing children of a previous marriage to death because that would ensure your genes are propagated. All of which are perfectly rational things to do and which happen with high frequency in nature.
Besides, there were and maybe still are, cultures around that do not have the don't eat humans taboo.

Culture and upbrining would be the best awnser I guess.

That makes sense. And is some of my reasons too, emotional egoism or something. Still may not be morally consistent.

You're joking, I hope.

Eating animals is ingrained in our biology and evolutionary development. Not so eating each other. If humans had evolved while eating each other as prey animals, we would not have survived as a species. We had a heard enough time avoiding being eaten by the bigger, stronger, faster predators around us.

A big part of the success of Homo Sapiens is our ability to organize and cooperate. Cannibalism, though not unheard of in human history, is understandably psychologically abhorrent to our species in general.

Why would I be joking?

I'm just trying to find some consistent arguments. Basing an argument against cannibalism based on evolution/biology is fine (if it's the real reason, more on that below), but to be consistent one might have to support something like rape for the same reasons.

So if presented with a plate of fresh human meat, the reason you wouldn't eat it is because cannibalism isn't ingrained in our development? Evolutionary advantage is your morality?

 

[JohnG]

No, that is not inevitable at all.

Quite right. "Inevitable" was a poor choice of words on my part, at least without adding so many qualifiers that there would be no point in using the word in the first place.

Disgust is cultural as such is flexible.


It's our attitudes to death - the sanitation and denial of it - that probably contribute to this attitude. Not anything fundamental about human nature since it's not a universal attitude and reflects a Western cultural bias.

I'm just saying that culturally speaking, if you like, there will be certain behaviors that will fall in and out of fashion based on a variety of factors. To go back to my example of modern humans being disgusted by the thought of eating raw carrion, I don't think I'm oversimplifying things by saying that most individuals in our culture would find such a practice disgusting and objectionable. Having said that, I also understand that if we were faced with eating raw carrion vs. starving to death, even some hard core vegans amongst us would eventually tuck in. That doesn't mean though that there hasn't been a long but steady trend over history for our species to favor fresh, cooked meat over borderline rotten, raw meat. Or even in the last century a taste for well done steak over rare steak. As we progress away from a taste for raw flesh, the more, um distasteful it becomes and possibly to a point where the average person will prefer a well made veggie burger over the real thing?

Western Cultural bias again - the narrowness of the fauna on sale in supermarkets and the methods by which they are farmed don't all have the same implications.

True, but irrelevant to my main point.

There's loads of insects to eat without even having to try hard to stop them.

You are welcome to them, I just had a double whopper with cheese so, I'm good, thanks.

(Besides, this argument does pretty much say we should make cows extinct).

Maybe, but not necessarily, just that they'd reach population levels closer to other large land mammals like deer, elk or bison if they were introduced into the wild. The fact that they are so placid and relatively unaggressive would no doubt be a problem, but the modern cow is probably so different from its feral ancestors that they might as well be considered a human engineered animal. You might as well fret over the morality of introducing poodles to the wild.


I don't know why people insist on making these sorts of discussions a zero sum game where it isn't enough that you're completely in the right, your "opponent" must be proved completely in the wrong.

No animal rights group is going to convince the entire world to stop eating meat within a year, or a decade or probably even within a century. What they can do though is press for policy changes that improve not only the lot of animals, but for the entire ecosystem. It's in omnivore's best interests, too. For example, you can argue until you are blue in the face that you're entitled to eat all the fish you want because you find them tasty, end of discussion, but that isn't going to do you much good when your favorite species gets fished into extinction in the next decade.

 

[Fnord]

Oh, good grief!

Killing animals is heinous only for those who consider animals to have souls, rights or a human-like intellect.

The first is in error due to the lack of proof for any individual of the Kingdom Animalia to have a soul, or for even the existence of the soul.

The second is in error because animals have no rights not granted to them by humans with nothing better to do than enact frivolous laws.

The third is in error because while some animals may be trained to mimic human-like mentations, their level of "thinking" is more instinctive than intellectual.

Just how much intelligence is needed to stalk and kill a blade of grass?

 

[Dragoonster]

Oh, good grief!

Killing animals is heinous only for those who consider animals to have souls, rights or a human-like intellect.

The first is in error due to the lack of proof for any individual of the Kingdom Animalia to have a soul, or for even the existence of the soul.

Granted.

The second is in error because animals have no rights not granted to them by humans with nothing better to do than enact frivolous laws.

Neither do humans.

The third is in error because while some animals may be trained to mimic human-like mentations, their level of "thinking" is more instinctive than intellectual.

More or less than human babies who mimic their parents? If a chimp is as smart as a 2-month human why can't we kill/eat both?

Just how much intelligence is needed to stalk and kill a blade of grass?

Apparently enough for at least one species to develop human-level intellect. No reason other species might not be headed towards the same, or are already very close to it. An adult chimp is closer to an adult human's intelligence than a baby human is, imo.

 

[devnull]

They taste nice.

1st response won it.

 

[Iamme]

They taste nice.

Or target practice.

I get two outdoor channels now. There is some beautiful huge stately creature minding it's own business, and the 2 guys on the show talking in a whisper, under the cover of the surroundings, take aim and take out the poor defenseless thing, from some far off distance. How would THEY like to be the one shot at and kiilled, for the sport of it?

 

[Mirrorglass]

An adult chimp is closer to an adult human's intelligence than a baby human is, imo.

The thing is, the reason we don't eat babies isn't their dazzling intelligence. There are two reasons: 1) it's pretty much biologically impossible for us to not consider a baby something that must be protected and 2) a baby will eventually become a proper human being.

A chimp will always be a chimp, and I'll never consider a chimp a part of my family. Also, I don't eat chimps.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Gee the moral high ground's getting mighty crowded nowadays. I'm supposed to feel guilty about driving a car, turning on my air conditioning, owning a large TV etc, etc.

Sorry I don't have an "excuse" for eating meat, I just do it.

Me too, I'm sick of these constant demands that I act morally. Don't rape, don't steal, don't murder, don't drink and drive, don't embezzle, don't beat children with a stick, don't torture cats, blah blah blah...

Don't these bleeding heart, pencil neck wimps realise that if they ask too much of me I'm entitled to ignore them completely? Their mistake! Now I'm off the hook and I can do whatever I want. Heh heh, feels good.

 

[Dragoonster]

The thing is, the reason we don't eat babies isn't their dazzling intelligence. There are two reasons: 1) it's pretty much biologically impossible for us to not consider a baby something that must be protected

Not me, but okay.

and 2) a baby will eventually become a proper human being.

Yeah, but so will a fetus, and there are plenty of pro-choicers. Could be a real moral argument though, thanks.

I'm not trying to be an ass here, but this is in Religion/Philosophy so I'm more interested in moral justifications (or excuses, as in mine since I'm a hypocrite) for eating/killing animals, not biological or psychological reasons.

 

[politas]

I'm just trying to find some consistent arguments. Basing an argument against cannibalism based on evolution/biology is fine (if it's the real reason, more on that below), but to be consistent one might have to support something like rape for the same reasons.

That seems unlikely. In any case, I base my arguments against cannibalism in the same way that I base my arguments for all moral choices about human beings - What makes for a harmonious, supportive society.

My basic position is that any boundary for which life forms we grant "rights" to is entirely arbitrary. Given that, it makes perfect sense to me to set the boundary in a place we can at least clearly and simply identify - The species boundary.