PETA President's Will

[triforcharity]

This has to qualify as one of the weirdest wills ever:
Ingrid Newkirk's Unique Will

I Don't know about US law, but some of her instructions for the disposal of her body would be ruled illegal in the UK.

yeah, some of the things that she wishes would be illegal here in the US also. Desecrating a dead body is against the law. Making lamps and sending them to people, is highly illegal.

 

[MarkCorrigan]

I have no problem with Vegetarians or Vegans in the same way that I have no problem with Christians or Muslims. You don't lecture me or try to convert me, and we will get on fine. As an aside, I've only ever had one vegan and 0 vegetarians attempt to convert me, so don't think I'm one of those assclowns who think you all do.

As for myself, I try as best as I can to buy from ethical farmers, and most of the meat I consume comes from either a range of meat with proper sourcing and ethical checking, or the farm down the road from me where I know they ethically rear their animals because I've seen the animals and spoken to the farmer. I never, ever buy organic meat, and while I will eat non-ethically reared meats if it's provided for me, I would not buy them myself.

I would have no issues with killing animals in the wild for meat, and only ill timing prevented me from going shooting for game. I believe hunting is only acceptable if you use the animals you kill, either to eat yourself or sell to others for consumption, and I think hunting purely for sport a la fox-hunting is a barbaric vicious waste of time.

As for animal testing, I will happily support any animal testing for medical procedures. Ever. On any animal. If it is legitimate medical research, I will stand beside the scientists doing it so long as they follow ethical practice. I would not be alive if it were not for animal testing. I do not buy cosmetics tested on animals, and make sure that I take my own shampoo, soap and conditioner if I am staying away from home for more than one night to ensure I use non animal tested products.

I will always support ethical, lower intensity farming, and will always be disgusted by factory farming practices, the crueller the more I will protest. I donate money to wild animal charities and the RSPCA when I can, although I will admit that I prioritise human charities such as those who work with children, the disabled or medical research.


I still think PETA are psychotic.

 

[Earthborn]

Not so much. Rational adults have moral agency, not superiority, in relation to their non-rational human and non-human counterparts who are otherwise in a class of moral patients.

If you claim that humans capabilities that all other non-humans lack (especially if that supposedly justifies putting them in a different moral category) then you are claiming superiority. Even moreso if you claim they can be "rational".

And regarding the unproven assumption that animals lack the rationality to make moral decisions about their diet, I don't think I've ever had a discussion of that sort.

There is a first time for everything.

Seems people on all sides of the animal rights debate agree that animals lack the capacity to make moral decisions about their diet.

But do they? I think it largely depends on how you define "moral decisions". We know that if you raise young predators closely with their natural prey, they are unlikely to choose that species as food later in life. Which is why dolphins and killer whales can be kept together. Is that a moral decision?

A large chunk of opposition to animal rights requires that premise to make sense in the first place, for example "they aren't rational / aren't members of the social contract / will never be moral agents, so how do they have rights".

A large chunk of the advocacy to animal rights requires that premise to make sense in the first place, for example "they aren't rational / aren't members of the social contract / will never be moral agents, so how do vegan moralities apply to them?".

I think many animal rights activists support full and equal human rights for the great apes, but I've never seen one say they make moral decisions about their diet.

I don't think apes often kill others from their own family group purely for food, and I think it is fair to say that not doing so is a moral decision.

Answers to those questions are speculative without evidence that animals are moral agents, or moot if they aren't.

I think a more interesting question is "how do we decide who/what is a moral agent/patient, and who/what is not?" I don't think a lot of scientific evidence is involved in how people make such decisions.

 

[Aepervius]

Let's try some variations on the same argument:







You may reject these 3 variants on the basis that race, nationality, and gender are not morally relevant characteristics, they are not a valid basis for drawing moral distinctions between individuals.

If you understand why you reject those versions, you will understand why I reject yours. Species membership is NOT, in fact, a moral characteristic, not a valid basis for making moral distinctions between others. The arguments against race being a morally relevant characteristic are identical to the arguments against species being a moral chracteristic, a point I made rather explicitly in a recent thread on whether race is a social construct:


If you want your argument to be more credible than the arguments held by racists, nationalists, and sexists, you need to explain why species membership is a meaningful morally relevant characteristic, explain why its a valid basis for drawing moral distinctions between entire classes of organisms regardless of the mental capacities, and explain how your argument does not logically extend to justify any possible irrational prejudice on the planet.


To answer the question in bold, Yes. See here:

I never saw that so I did not answer.

You want the moral argument to count more than a rational argument. That's ok for you. But us rational folk will always factorize our species above others. As do other animal species by the way.