What is your excuse for killing animals?

[Michael Redman]

No, it doesn't answer the question (most of the posts here don't). Which is: if you believe in the golden rule and assuming you believe the golden rule applies to species other than humans, how can you justify killing animals?

The Golden Rule obviously does not apply to other species.

The golden rule is, more or less, the basic requirement for living a society. It applies to others in our society, because we expect the others in our society to apply it to use. This lets us go on with out daily lives and not worry that every passing person is going to try to kill us and take our stuff.

The golden rule is followed for self interest. There is simply no reason to apply the golden rule to anything or anyone who doesn't participate in our society. In fact, we do not apply the rule to people who refuse to reciprocate. It would be foolish to do so.

Why on earth would it be "moral" to apply a social rule to beings outside the possibility of our society?

 

[catsmate]

What is your excuse for killing animals?

It would be cruel to eat them while they're still alive. And quite difficult.

(first of all I don’t mean to be flaming, just discuss nicely)

Really...

 

[Dragoonster]

It does seem similar to the golden rule, in that the golden rule isn't just predicated on a non-violent contract for self-interest, but because it requires empathy. We assume and have first-hand knowledge of why other people don't like to be tortured, though some actually do in a limited fashion, because we know what it feels like to be in pain. Same for animals, most of us don't torture them because we empathize with their pain. But this wouldn't matter unless we implicitly recognized that their self-hoods were developed enough that it morally matters.

The difference between why we freely carve our initials into a tree, but balk at carving them into a dog must mean something, morally. And not just something that can be easily dismissed as existing but not enough to afford them at least some limited legal/moral rights.

 

[MRC_Hans]

(first of all I don’t mean to be flaming, just discuss nicely)

I guess most people here believe in the golden rule… meaning that they generally will avoid doing to others what they don’t want others doing to them.

I also guess most people here believe in evolution… meaning they believe that there is nothing really special about the human race except that through non-random survival of randomly varying replicators we ended up developing skills that allowed us to become the dominant species in our ecosystem.

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?

I condone killing animals for the following reasons (in individual cases, the reason may be a combination):

1) For food.
2) For various other produce and rational purposes (e.g medical experimentation).
3) To euthanize suffering animals.
4) To eliminate animals that pose a threat, or sometimes just a nuisance.
5) To regulate a population that has for whatever reason been removed from natural regulation.

The actual mode of killing of kill can take the form of a sport, which I, within certain limitation, find acceptable, except for purpose #3.

In all cases, I feel that one should go to considerable lengths to avoid unnecessary suffering, and to use the killed animals as wel las possible.

Hans

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

The difference between why we freely carve our initials into a tree, but balk at carving them into a dog must mean something, morally. And not just something that can be easily dismissed as existing but not enough to afford them at least some limited legal/moral rights.

Yes. That difference is, basically, empathy.

It's the reason you wouldn't walk on grass and/or maybe some other types of vegetation with the same indifference you would walk over sleeping cats. We empathize more with the creatures that are closer/more similar to our species. We are obviously more eager to carve on a plant, which has no nervous system and which doesn't scream; than we are on a dog, who resembles our species a lot more than a plant, bleeds just like us, wimps and screams out of pain.

 

[megaresp]

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?

Several things occur at this point...

1. Your 'question' implies that it may be OK to harm a thing if it's at fault in some way. If it is, then that is a breech of the golden rule for any thing capable of showing contrition and seeking forgiveness.
2. Depending on how the word 'harm' is defined, your altruism could extend to plants. Yesterday I ate 7 unborn lifeforms - 4 of them raw!
3. When I eat meat I rationalise it in exactly the same way other predators do (i.e. I don't). I think it's natural to eat meat.

Despite the above, I do have an emotional response to some animal rights issues. For example, I pay more and get free range meat and eggs. I don't buy fish because I don't want to reward commercial fishing, and I can't find a way to tell where a fish has come from. I do these things purely to satisfy an emotional need in myself. They're not rational decisions, though I can think of ways to rationalise them.

Likewise, I think a decision to avoid exploiting animals (e.g. vegan) is emotional rather than rational. In my view, taking such a decision satisfies the decision maker in some personal way. I personally don't consider such a decision to be virtuous or correct or whatever term a vegan might wish ascribe.

 

[Doubt]

I kill animals that annoy me. No mosquito is safe if it tries anything.
I am perfectly willing to kill bigger animals for protean that tastes good.
I am not willing to kill humans for protean. I expect the same from other humans. If other humans do not do the same civilization is finished. I do not expect the same from bears, larger cats and sharks.

The boundary of what is food and what is not food is a necessary social construction. No killing people or their pets if avoidable. Animals that are wild and unowned are not part of any social contract. They also have no reason to expect a pleasant end to their life regardless of human actions.

 

[Brocolis]

Likewise, I think a decision to avoid exploiting animals (e.g. vegan) is emotional rather than rational.

Do you think human rights are also emotional?

You can either follow your natural impulses to maximize pleasure or you can acknowledge that there are other sentient who should be considered.

Can't logically do both. You can't grant rights for some people and harm others based on the fact that nature made you that way. You are picking and choosing the values you want to apply. Eating meat has the logical consistency of slavery. Some get rights, some don't, based on...gibberish

 

[Sledge]

Do you think human rights are also emotional?

You can either follow your natural impulses to maximize pleasure or you can acknowledge that there are other sentient who should be considered.

Can't logically do both.

Funny, I do both everyday. Every decision I make is based on what I want balanced against consideration for others. What would make you think it's an either/or situation?

 

[Morrigan]

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.

Wow, so much straw. What are you going to do with all of it.

Eating meat has the logical consistency of slavery. Some get rights, some don't, based on...gibberish

Oh dear. Do you think bacteria should have rights? If not, how are you consistent?

 

[tsig]

No, it doesn't answer the question (most of the posts here don't). Which is: if you believe in the golden rule and assuming you believe the golden rule applies to species other than humans, how can you justify killing animals?

My golden rule:

Do unto others as they would do unto you but do it first.

Applies to all species.

 

[tsig]

Watch seagulls or ravens fighting over food.
Lions chasing hyenas from their kills. (Lions are mostly scavengers.)
That's natures way.
We don't have to fight for it, mostly, is the only difference.

Never seen my workplace have you?

 

[Michael Redman]

The difference between why we freely carve our initials into a tree, but balk at carving them into a dog must mean something, morally.

No.

It may or not be immoral to carve your initials in a tree. Empathy has nothing to do with it.

It may or may not be immoral to kill a dog. A cop, in the line of duty, might shoot a rabid dog that is threatening a person, despite the fact that the cop loves dogs, and feels empathy for this particular dog. Or the cop may hate dogs. Or not think of the dog at all. Empathy has nothing to do with the morality of the situation.

Serial killers do not empathize with the victims. Their acts are immoral regardless.

Once captured, these killers receive very little empathy from the general public. Few would object to seeing them tortured. But that doesn't make it moral.

Empathy is a terrible basis for a system of morality.

 

[SonOfLaertes]

This is probably one of the most depressingly stupid vegetarianism/meat threads in some time.

People, people, people. The naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy. The fact that something is "natural" is in absolutely no way an argument for it being morally good. Any argument that starts waffling on about what behaviour or diet is "natural" for humans has nothing to say about what is moral for humans.

That applies to protecting your genetic relatives, eating meat, raping people, committing genocide, dying of polio, you name it. "Nature" has nothing to say about morality.

"Nature" has everything to say about morality, if it is more moral to hunt game than allow it to destroy it's environment.
If you have a different opinion, that's just your opinion. It doesn't make you automatically right, and it doesn't solve the problem of wildlife management.

Give me a viable, natural alternative to hunting, that doesn't assume the fallacious argument that humans are not natural apex predators in the food chain, and I will listen.

 

[Thunder]

i eat meat, because it is natural for humans to eat meat.

 

[Ron_Tomkins]

 

[I Ratant]

Never seen my workplace have you?

.
Worked with a guy who had a phobia for food!
If you left a partially eaten anything on your desk and left the room, when you returned, it would be gone!
Spare lunches from the chow hall would be stored in a refrigerator in the break room.
He could be seen standing in front of it for long periods, just gazing at the contents.
Ate 5 hot dogs and 3 hamburgers at one sitting at a barbecue.. and denied it, although all of us were counting.
And then went to chow for dinner.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Eating meat has the logical consistency of slavery. Some get rights, some don't, based on...gibberish

I hardly think "they are of a different, intellectually inferior species" is gibberish. Oh, and I'm referring to animals here, not slaves.

My golden rule:

Do unto others as they would do unto you but do it first.

Applies to all species.

So.. you shout, then sit still, staring at your dog, hoping it will give you food?

 

[tsig]

.
Worked with a guy who had a phobia for food!
If you left a partially eaten anything on your desk and left the room, when you returned, it would be gone!
Spare lunches from the chow hall would be stored in a refrigerator in the break room.
He could be seen standing in front of it for long periods, just gazing at the contents.
Ate 5 hot dogs and 3 hamburgers at one sitting at a barbecue.. and denied it, although all of us were counting.
And then went to chow for dinner.

Good thing he didn't like food then.

Or did you mean he was so scared of it he made it disappear by eating it?

 

[tsig]

I hardly think "they are of a different, intellectually inferior species" is gibberish. Oh, and I'm referring to animals here, not slaves.



So.. you shout, then sit still, staring at your dog, hoping it will give you food?

Yes, I go to the supermarket open the door and shout "fetch bacon" then wait and the dog comes running out with bacon! Now if he can be trained to give it to me I'm home free.