What is your excuse for killing animals?

[Kevin_Lowe]

But I'm guessing you'd have trouble explaining why it's the fairest, as your choice of criteria is subjective and the terms involved (sentience, for example) are nebulous. You also probably can't explain why we should adopt your system because the argument you're making runs contrary to the beliefs and feelings of most people, and frankly, implementing it universally would be a detriment to most people as well.

Actually you're completely wrong, at least as far as modern society is concerned.

It's illegal to torture a cat, but not to torture a dust mite. It's harder to get ethics committee clearance for research that requires killing a chimpanzee than for research that requires killing a beagle, and harder to get clearance for the beagle than a rat, and for the rat than a fruit fly. People are more outraged about the killing of dolphins and whales than about the killing of mice or earwigs.

Our existing society definitely has a hierarchy of animal values similar to Brocolis'.

And my decision, and the decisions of most of the meat eaters that I've read here, are equally subjective and logical. So where do you get off dismissing everyone else's decision as gibberish?

Wherever it is that you draw the line between forms of life it is okay to kill and forms of life it is not okay to kill, do you honestly believe there isn't someone who thinks it should be just a little bit farther and who would dismiss your criteria as gibberish in the face of his own?

This is the kind of wilfully fuzzy-minded approach beloved of postmodernists and various other forms of irrational woo-woo.

What you need to do is answer the question "Why do I think it is not okay to kill humans?". Make sure your answer covers brain damaged humans, developmentally disordered humans, mentally ill humans, people with dementia and every other human that you think it is not okay to kill just because you feel like it.

Then ask yourself "Do any animals have any of the characteristics that make humans morally important?".

 

[Drudgewire]

Then ask yourself "Do any animals have any of the characteristics that make humans morally important?".

The second cows can answer that question for themselves I'll go vegetarian.

And they have to be able to defend ALL animals, instead of throwing chickens under the bus like they're doing now.

 

[Sledge]

The second cows can answer that question for themselves I'll go vegetarian.

What if the cow wants to be eaten?

"A very wise choice, sir, if I may say so. Very good," it said, "I'll just nip off and shoot myself."

He turned and gave a friendly wink to Arthur.

"Don't worry, sir," he said, "I'll be very humane."

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

The second cows can answer that question for themselves I'll go vegetarian.

Does that mean it's okay to put humans incapable of speech into gas chambers, unless they can answer such questions for themselves?

We could draw the line there. It would mean a lot of humans would fall below the threshold of moral importance and we could kill them whenever we wanted, but some people actually like that conclusion.

 

[Cavemonster]

Then ask yourself "Do any animals have any of the characteristics that make humans morally important?".

That assumes that any one of those characteristics by itself makes something morally important.

 

[Drudgewire]

Does that mean it's okay to put humans incapable of speech into gas chambers, unless they can answer such questions for themselves?

We could draw the line there. It would mean a lot of humans would fall below the threshold of moral importance and we could kill them whenever we wanted, but some people actually like that conclusion.

Or we could draw the line at making a distinction between humans and other animals because we understand the difference between real life and Disney movies where they all can sing in harmony and/or using skewed moral relativism to feel superior to the ham & eggers.

Yay for lines.

 

[phantomb]

Actually you're completely wrong, at least as far as modern society is concerned.

It's illegal to torture a cat, but not to torture a dust mite. It's harder to get ethics committee clearance for research that requires killing a chimpanzee than for research that requires killing a beagle, and harder to get clearance for the beagle than a rat, and for the rat than a fruit fly. People are more outraged about the killing of dolphins and whales than about the killing of mice or earwigs.

Our existing society definitely has a hierarchy of animal values similar to Brocolis'.

Of course it does. We empathize with things that are similar to us, and of course, laws against killing dust mites would be completely impossible for anyone to follow or enforce. That doesn't mean Brocolis's line in the sand syncs up with the feelings of most people, or that adopting said line in the sand universally wouldn't be a massive detriment to pretty much everyone (say goodbye to several entire industries that rely on the killing of animals, say goodbye to every person on this planet who relies on meat to survive).

This is the kind of wilfully fuzzy-minded approach beloved of postmodernists and various other forms of irrational woo-woo.

What you need to do is answer the question "Why do I think it is not okay to kill humans?".

For a couple of reasons: On the cold and calculating side of things, laws against human killing protect both me and my loved ones from being killed, and have proven to be of great benefit to human societies in various ways. On the emotional side, I was raised to abhor death and violence against humans, and I can empathize with a human I might kill or who I might allow to be killed and imagine finding myself in their position. I'm also of the somewhat idealist mentality that living things as intelligent as we are deserve some manner of respect.

Make sure your answer covers brain damaged humans, developmentally disordered humans, mentally ill humans, people with dementia and every other human that you think it is not okay to kill just because you feel like it.

It does. As I said to Brocolis, I would not strictly have a problem with you eating a person whose brain was the functional equivalent of the brain of your average non-human animal, though there are, or course, social reason why I don't think we should be eating the brain-dead and the extraordinarily disabled.

Then ask yourself "Do any animals have any of the characteristics that make humans morally important?".

A handful, if any at all. Certainly none of the ones that I eat.

For any of the reasons that I am against human killing to apply to a non-human animal, that non-human animal would have to have a brain that functionally approximates our own, at least in some ways. If it doesn't, giving it rights doesn't protect me and my loved ones, giving it rights is of no benefit to my society, I don't feel the same negative emotions when it is killed, I can't empathize with it, and my ideals don't cover it.

 

[SonOfLaertes]

post deleted

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Of course it does. We empathize with things that are similar to us, and of course, laws against killing dust mites would be completely impossible for anyone to follow or enforce. That doesn't mean Brocolis's line in the sand syncs up with the feelings of most people, or that adopting said line in the sand universally wouldn't be a massive detriment to pretty much everyone (say goodbye to several entire industries that rely on the killing of animals, say goodbye to every person on this planet who relies on meat to survive).

That's what's called the "argument from consequences", one of the canonical fallacies. Just because an argument would have bad consequences if it were correct does not mean that the argument is wrong.

Abolishing slavery would have been bad for the cotton industry back in the day. That doesn't mean slavery was moral.

For a couple of reasons: On the cold and calculating side of things, laws against human killing protect both me and my loved ones from being killed, and have proven to be of great benefit to human societies in various ways.

Argument from consequences again.

On the emotional side, I was raised to abhor death and violence against humans, and I can empathize with a human I might kill or who I might allow to be killed and imagine finding myself in their position.

People can be raised to believe in all sorts of things, and abhor all sorts of things. That can't determine what's moral or isn't.

It does. As I said to Brocolis, I would not strictly have a problem with you eating a person whose brain was the functional equivalent of the brain of your average non-human animal, though there are, or course, social reason why I don't think we should be eating the brain-dead and the extraordinarily disabled.

Fair enough then. On this point you're consistent.

However Alex the Parrot was smarter in important cognitive ways than a four year old human, so presumably from your point of view it's not okay to eat African Greys but it is okay to slaughter and barbecue a toddler.

(Granted toddlers might grow up to benefit society in some way, but assuming the toddler was surplus to requirements it follows that it's okay to kill it for food).

 

[Cavemonster]

Kevin,
I think you're misusing "Argument from Consequences" here.
People in this thread are using different definitions of "moral" but for most of them, "intentionally causing bad consequences" would be a part of it. So the truth value of a moral statement is very much linked to consequences. Without exploring consequences, there is no way to make a moral judgement.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Kevin,
I think you're misusing "Argument from Consequences" here.
People in this thread are using different definitions of "moral" but for most of them, "intentionally causing bad consequences" would be a part of it. So the truth value of a moral statement is very much linked to consequences. Without exploring consequences, there is no way to make a moral judgement.

Well, there are actually ways to do just that. Deontological moral theories tend to focus on the act and ignore the consequences of the act. I don't like such theories very much but they do exist.

That aside, utilitarian moral theories (those solely concerned with maximising good consequences) do take consequences into account but from Bentham onwards they've usually taken the consequences for animals into account too. So appealing to consequences is not a fast track to making it okay to eat animals. If anything, it immediately confronts you with the choice between blatant special pleading ("humans are special just because!") or having to explain how the benefit of steak being tastier than tofu justifies the cost of killing conscious beings.

 

[phantomb]

That's what's called the "argument from consequences", one of the canonical fallacies. Just because an argument would have bad consequences if it were correct does not mean that the argument is wrong.

I never said that Brocolis' argument was somehow wrong because of its consequences, I said that his rights movement probably couldn't give a good explanation for why their method of distributing rights is the fairest, or why people should adopt their method when it's argument runs contrary to their beliefs and its implementation would be detrimental. I didn't intend for anyone to draw anything more from what I said than that.

Argument from consequences again.

There's been some confusion. As I said before, I believe issues of morality like these are subjective. You asked "why do you think it is not okay to kill humans?", and I assumed you meant something more like "why do you not kill humans?" or "why do you support laws against killing humans?". Does that clear things up?

People can be raised to believe in all sorts of things, and abhor all sorts of things. That can't determine what's moral or isn't.

Again, I don't believe what's moral and what isn't can be determined objectively.

Fair enough then. On this point you're consistent.

However Alex the Parrot was smarter in important cognitive ways than a four year old human, so presumably from your point of view it's not okay to eat African Greys but it is okay to slaughter and barbecue a toddler.

Well, firstly, I'm familiar with Alex, and I believe the bird's intelligence is still contentious among animal intelligence researchers and linguists. Secondly, I never actually specified what cognitive ways were important. Admittedly, this is because it's a very difficult question. I've read quite a bit on intelligence and animal intelligence for the layman (the usual suspects: Dennet, Chalmers, Chomsky, Hofstadter, maybe a few others) and I've taken a few relevant courses at the college level, and from what I've read we have no generally accepted theory which can explain exactly how conscious experiences are produced by the brain or which, when given a specific brain, can predict what sorts of experiences that brain will produce.

(Granted toddlers might grow up to benefit society in some way, but assuming the toddler was surplus to requirements it follows that it's okay to kill it for food).

Yes, that's consistent with my views, assuming the toddlers in question fail to meet my criteria.

 

[Slimething]

So appealing to consequences is not a fast track to making it okay to eat animals.

Animals taste good. Is that too difficult to understand? Humans evolved eating many things, including animals. Worms ate Bentham, by the way.

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

Animals taste good. Is that too difficult to understand? Humans evolved eating many things, including animals. Worms ate Bentham, by the way.

Personally, I think a major reason humans (on their good days) are more important than animals is that humans are capable of rising above their instinctive behaviour. For example we are capable of using reason to evaluate whether individual instinctive urges, such as the urge to rape or eat meat, are morally defensible to act on or not.

Some people of course never get to that stage.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

What is your excuse for killing animals?

I don't need an excuse to kill animals. I live in a society where it's common and considered morally neutral at worst.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

(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?

They're tasty, tasty, tasty. So very tasty!

Roast beef (Welsh Black - best in the world), fillet steak (Welsh Black again), chicken dhansak, lime and coriander chicken, crispy duck etc etc.

Basically they're food and damn tasty, high protein, exactly what we've evolved to eat (and naturally selected them to eat) food. The golden rule doesn't apply to food.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

... having to explain how the benefit of steak being tastier than tofu justifies the cost of killing conscious beings.

But it is tastier than tofu. I mean quorn's ok but tofu? Blah.

Besides that steak only exists because we invested time and effort into rearing the cow (and, in modern society, giving it a realtively decent life until we slaughtered it humanely). No meat eaters = a lot less cows, if any. We meat eaters are the real animal lovers because we ensure the survival of their species. Natural selection in action - if it's tasty enough, we'll ensure it survives.

 

[Dragoonster]

I don't need an excuse to kill animals. I live in a society where it's common and considered morally neutral at worst.

That's one of the things that Singer and Dawkins discuss in that video c4llum linked (it's kind of long but deals with a lot of the things coming up here):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYNY2oKVWU

The argument (or clarifying question) would be whether you'd have used that reasoning to own slaves and oppose abolitionists 250 years ago, with no moral compunction against doing so.

They talk about how the social norm that killing/eating animals is fine allows for individuals to not think about it or act on it. For someone like Dawkins who recognizes the immorality I think it's more like recycling, or possibly voting--an individual doesn't think they can make a difference by only altering their behavior, plus it's easier to not seperate materials for recycling, and tastier and easier to eat meat, so there's a very low threshhold on justification. But as Singer points out the moral issue, for some people, is quite serious when one thinks about why we afford human rights, and what animals don't have that makes us completely dismiss them morally (as Kevin Lowe also brings up).

I eat meat because I'm a hypocrite, and for the can't-make-a-difference excuse for when recycling hadn't yet made any real difference. Another factor is that not many visit garbage dumps, or commercial animal farms. Makes the real suffering theoretical and easy to ignore.

 

[SonOfLaertes]

Except that the vast majority of meat is no such byproduct.

Who cares? If we are justified eating some meat, then there is no reason not to take advantage of other sources. As I have stated before, no matter how many domesticated animals we let free, they will multiply and destroy the environment. We might as well eat them, too.

To borrow your example, you might as well argue "Rape is moral if it's the only way to prevent a much greater harm (due to some bizarre set of circumstances). Therefore rape is always moral".

What a foolish point. See the word "bizarre" in your statement, and realize that your statement requires "bizarre".

You keep banging on about this morally irrelevant notion of "naturalness". Get over it. Whether a solution is "natural" or not is morally meaningless.

(It's also philosophically meaningless in a very important sense, seeing as whatever humans do is by definition natural for humans).

Wrong. "Natural" in this sense has a very well-known meaning - human actions that are in compliance with the ways of nature. Sterilization as a means of population control is not natural. Hunting is. By definition. Get over telling me to get over a well-understood definition of natural.

If we have a "natural role" at all, it's to do precisely whatever we end up doing. Whether that's killing deer, sterilising and releasing deer, feeding deer, or even raping deer. Whatever we do is natural for us by definition.

That's why your babbling about "naturalness" is an intellectual pratfall.

Raping? There you go with requiring "bizarre-ness" to bolster your argument again. Sterilization is not natural by definition. Or did we roam the plains of Africa 10,000 years ago with a syringe in our hand? I missed that Discovery channel episode.

Now you're compounding the intellectual pratfall of engaging in the naturalistic fallacy, by wallowing in the same error as the idiotic Social Darwinists.

I'm sorry, I'm losing track of your bizarre arguments.

Evolution is neither good nor crucial. It is merely adaptation to whatever works in the current environment. It's complete bollocks to claim that predation is beneficial for a species, unless you have some crazy conviction that devoting energy to being able to run better or hide better is good in some absolute, transcendental sense.

The fairy story that predators are doing a species a favour by killing off those least adapted to surviving predation is nonsense. Adaptation to survive predation is neither good nor bad, it merely is.

Bizarre. Here you are claiming that predation does not result in the selection of the fittest. I think this will be the last response I make to your counter-arguments, you obviously will grasp at any available straw to push your bias against meat eaters.

I did not ignore your point. I explained why your point was stupid from nose to tail. Yet here you are posting the same stuff again, only now with extra nonsense based on serious misunderstandings of science on top.

Sorry , apparently you weren't dodging my point. You believe that predation has no effect on adaptation. If that's the case, we really don't have anything to argue about. You need to take your points over to a "mechanism's of evolution" thread and bandy your theories about there.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Wrong. "Natural" in this sense has a very well-known meaning - human actions that are in compliance with the ways of nature. Sterilization as a means of population control is not natural. Hunting is. By definition. Get over telling me to get over a well-understood definition of natural.

Raping? There you go with requiring "bizarre-ness" to bolster your argument again. Sterilization is not natural by definition. Or did we roam the plains of Africa 10,000 years ago with a syringe in our hand? I missed that Discovery channel episode.

Why do you think something we did 10,000 years ago is more natural than something we do today?

And even more importantly, why do you think that "more natural" is better?