What is your excuse for killing animals?

[Dragoonster]

Please define explicity what use a moral judgement is for situations where the only possibilities are considered immoral, such as your odd hypothetical case of rape/murder being the only was to save 100 other lives.

If an act is the more moral of the available options, how is it useful to label it as immoral? Specifically.

First, not everyone is a utilitarian, some are absolutists. They disagree with committing any immoral act no matter how bad the alternative would be. So torturing is immoral regardless of context.

Even for utilitiarians, if you accept the torturing of 1 for 100, the process you use getting there has to recognize the immorality of the torturing. That's the whole reason it's a condundrum in hypotheticals--struggling to bring oneself to commit one moral act in order to not "inactively commit" many more by simply doing nothing.

To this thread, even someone claiming killing/eating animals is acceptable because it ensures human survival or whatever should include that that's why an immoral act is acceptable. Or if they justify it with "because they taste good", they need to explain why that's enough to make it moral, assuming they'd still find skinning a pet alive with no other context immoral. I just get frustrated when any morals or rights we'd grant to animals are flippantly dismissed, especially by people who do find torturing them immoral. Just not eating them or killing them? Why.

That video of Singer and Dawkins is a decent example--Dawkins realizes Singer's arguments about the immorality are sound (that is, Dawkins agrees with that morality), but he still eats meat. Part of the dismissal process is in not being able to admit and seriously appreciate the immorality, and I find the same in some of these arguments. And in some utilitarian arguments or all utiliarians who simply refuse to admit that they did commit an immoral act.

 

[Cavemonster]

First, not everyone is a utilitarian, some are absolutists. They disagree with committing any immoral act no matter how bad the alternative would be. So torturing is immoral regardless of context.

Even for utilitiarians, if you accept the torturing of 1 for 100, the process you use getting there has to recognize the immorality of the torturing. That's the whole reason it's a condundrum in hypotheticals--struggling to bring oneself to commit one moral act in order to not "inactively commit" many more by simply doing nothing.

To this thread, even someone claiming killing/eating animals is acceptable because it ensures human survival or whatever should include that that's why an immoral act is acceptable. Or if they justify it with "because they taste good", they need to explain why that's enough to make it moral, assuming they'd still find skinning a pet alive with no other context immoral. I just get frustrated when any morals or rights we'd grant to animals are flippantly dismissed, especially by people who do find torturing them immoral. Just not eating them or killing them? Why.

That video of Singer and Dawkins is a decent example--Dawkins realizes Singer's arguments about the immorality are sound (that is, Dawkins agrees with that morality), but he still eats meat. Part of the dismissal process is in not being able to admit and seriously appreciate the immorality, and I find the same in some of these arguments. And in some utilitarian arguments or all utiliarians who simply refuse to admit that they did commit an immoral act.

You didn't answer my question.

 

[megaresp]

Do you think human rights are also emotional?

Yes.

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

Actually I can do many more things than that. What is your purpose for imposing artificial limitations on the # of things I can do?

Can't logically do both.

I'm pretty sure I can eat chocolate and feed my cat at the same time.

You can't grant rights for some people and harm others based on the fact that nature made you that way.

I don't want to harm others.

You are picking and choosing the values you want to apply

As opposed to what? Having them foisted on me by you?

Eating meat has the logical consistency of slavery

How so? Please explain.

 

[phantomb]

the criteria to attribute rights can be very simple. We give rights based on what a specific life form is “interested” in.

Okay, so first thought: all you're doing here is explaining your criteria further. Nowhere in this post do you actually answer my question of how your choice of criteria is less arbitrary or "gibberish" than the criteria meat eaters in this thread have come up with.

A man is interested (among other things) in avoid suffering, driving a car, voting, etc...
So we give them all those rights

I assume you're talking about how you think we should decide rights, because this is not how we give things rights in the real world. A man is also interested in having food to eat, a home to live in, a job to work at, etc. but I know of no country in the world that guarantees those things as rights to its citizens. Rights are decided more-or-less arbitrarily by the people in a given society. They come from the people, they are enforced by the people, and they are applied to the people.

A baby, or a dog, or a cow is also interested in things such as avoid suffering, but they don't really care for voting or driving a car. so we don't give those rights to them.

Would you please define "interested" for me. Are plants, insects, bacteria, and all the other various forms of life I assume you're okay with killing and eating not "interested" in avoiding death and suffering (in the cases of ones that are capable of it).

By the way, are you paraphrasing PETA here, or do you just have similar ideas?

animals don’t always have the same rights as humans because their interests are not always the same as ours . . . For instance, a dog doesn’t have an interest in voting and, therefore, doesn’t have the right to vote . . .

Bacteria or plants have no brain, feel no pain, have no consciousness. They are just unaware life reproducing, so they don't care to have any rights

Well, as I said in my above post, I would liken most non-human animals to chemical machines, just reproducing with conscious experiences that are not comparable to ours.

Taking rights considering a being's race, specie or sex is gibberish, but giving rights based on what that life form is “interested” in makes good sense. That is the position

Why? Again, you have done absolutely nothing to explain why distinguishing by "interest" is not gibberish but distinguishing by species is? You also haven't done anything to explain why following your system of rights would benefit anyone.

Frankly, I don't think you can. This issue is almost completely subjective, with everyone involved using different reasoning to come up with their own conclusion about what rights, if any, should be granted to non-human animals. The only difference is you're going one step further and saying that the idea you came up with is somehow special while everyone else's are just gibberish.

 

[Dragoonster]

The thing is, things are always in context. To take an action out of that context deprives it of it's original meaning. If I take "rape" out of context, I get simply "sexual intercourse". Surely that is not morally wrong?

The answer is yes, it is, in the context where said intercourse is forced. According to my moral system it isn't morally right to force intercourse on anyone.. except in the context where said act of rape saves lives.

I don't consider the morality of my actions out of context, since that would be completely meaningless. In my moral system, the action that causes most good and least evil (or to be more accurate, the action perceived as such) is morally correct, and the fact that it does cause some evil does not change that.

Let's say you torture and rape someone because you believe doing so will cause 100 others to not be tortured and raped. That's your context of why the action is moral. Your victim though likely disagrees that it was moral, assuming he didn't give consent and objected to what you did to him. There are two contexts even though there's only one action--the relationship between you and your victim, and between you and the 100 you're committing the act in order to save. At least that's how I look at it; I'd commit an immoral act in order to secure a moral outcome. Simply because in the broader context it would be a moral act to committ doesn't mean the act itself isn't immoral.

Maybe I've gone way too far here in arguing what's a given? But it does seem an important clarification that some (apparently not you) seem to be dismissing in order to justify their larger morals. They don't even admit doing some evil.

 

[Dragoonster]

You didn't answer my question.

I think I did, certainly tried to.

Bye.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Let's say you torture and rape someone because you believe doing so will cause 100 others to not be tortured and raped. That's your context of why the action is moral. Your victim though likely disagrees that it was moral, assuming he didn't give consent and objected to what you did to him. There are two contexts even though there's only one action--the relationship between you and your victim, and between you and the 100 you're committing the act in order to save. At least that's how I look at it; I'd commit an immoral act in order to secure a moral outcome. Simply because in the broader context it would be a moral act to committ doesn't mean the act itself isn't immoral.

Maybe I've gone way too far here in arguing what's a given? But it does seem an important clarification that some (apparently not you) seem to be dismissing in order to justify their larger morals. They don't even admit doing some evil.

Bolding mine.

If the bolded statement is what you would do in the situation, then we aren't really disagreeing; we just mean different things by morality.

To me, a morally justifiable decision is the one that maximizes benefit. It's a relative measure, and as such, my worldview has no situations where all alternatives are immoral; there is always the most moral one, and that is the moral one. Also, to me, there is only one true context: reality. Any sub-context may be useful for thought experiments, but is not meaningful in determining the morality of a decision.

When you speak of morals, you view decisions in different contexts, and as such, find that each and every action you commit is both moral and immoral at the same time, in varying proportions. If you choose the action with most moral and least immoral component, then you'll notice you've reached the exact same action I did, only through a slightly different path.

The main difference in our ways of thinking, it seems to me, is that you feel there is some reason to consider even the most moral choice immoral because of the immoral components it contained. Or to put it more simply, you whip yourself over your sinful actions even when you did the best you could.

I should note that while in the example provided I would consider raping the woman to be the moral choice, that would not absolve me of responsibility. I would still be accountable to the woman, society, and myself, and the lives I saved would not change that. The cost I pay would have to be taken to account, too, when considering the morality of the action, although it would not matter too much. My moral system is closer to altruistic than utilitarian anyway.

One more interesting point:

Your victim though likely disagrees that it was moral, assuming he didn't give consent and objected to what you did to him.

He (did you have to make it a man?) might not agree with my decision, sure. But if he shared the same moral system I do, he definitely would. And if his moral system was different, then it would be to be expected that we would disagree on what is moral. My moral system is not dependent on whether or not everyone agrees with it, though.

 

[Dragoonster]

I should note that while in the example provided I would consider raping the woman to be the moral choice, that would not absolve me of responsibility. I would still be accountable to the woman, society, and myself, and the lives I saved would not change that. The cost I pay would have to be taken to account, too, when considering the morality of the action, although it would not matter too much. My moral system is closer to altruistic than utilitarian anyway.

Thanks, looks like our argument is mainly semantic. I hold very similar views, just describe it differently as the "least immoral" rather than "most moral". And yeah, I tend to whip myself up about it when the immoral component is seen as a relatively small matter. I don't think you think that now.

He (did you have to make it a man?) might not agree with my decision, sure. But if he shared the same moral system I do, he definitely would. And if his moral system was different, then it would be to be expected that we would disagree on what is moral. My moral system is not dependent on whether or not everyone agrees with it, though.

Nor should it, I just think it would only be (or should only be called) a fully moral thing to do if he agreed with it. I use "he" as the default for hypothetical people, wasn't meaning anything by using that instead of "she".

 

[Piscivore]

Who needs one? Seriously.

Even for killing human animals, often no "excuse" is needed. Look at history. Humanankind is very good at killing, and it does it frequently. The evolution of our cultures document a search for "excuses" not to kill, rather than the opposite.

 

[JimBenArm]

Some animals just need killin'.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Thanks, looks like our argument is mainly semantic. I hold very similar views, just describe it differently as the "least immoral" rather than "most moral". And yeah, I tend to whip myself up about it when the immoral component is seen as a relatively small matter. I don't think you think that now.



Nor should it, I just think it would only be (or should only be called) a fully moral thing to do if he agreed with it. I use "he" as the default for hypothetical people, wasn't meaning anything by using that instead of "she".

Glad we found a common note. By the way, do you think there could be any action you'd consider "fully moral"? It seems to me like you'd view every possible action as at least somewhat immoral.

There's nothing wrong with your worldview, of course, especially since we fundamentally agree. I just don't like whips much.

 

[Dragoonster]

Glad we found a common note. By the way, do you think there could be any action you'd consider "fully moral"? It seems to me like you'd view every possible action as at least somewhat immoral.

There's nothing wrong with your worldview, of course, especially since we fundamentally agree. I just don't like whips much.

That's a good question! Yeah, I suppose I'd have to see all actions as somewhat immoral. Building a refugee camp in Burma prevents one from being built in the Congo, and so on. My only defense there is I don't think choosing not to act is necessarily immoral. In practice I don't think as stringently as shown here, this thread has gotten me worked up because I do like animals a lot. I'll try to lighten up though and not blame people as much Thanks for the discussion!

 

[Mirrorglass]

That's a good question! Yeah, I suppose I'd have to see all actions as somewhat immoral. Building a refugee camp in Burma prevents one from being built in the Congo, and so on. My only defense there is I don't think choosing not to act is necessarily immoral. In practice I don't think as stringently as shown here, this thread has gotten me worked up because I do like animals a lot. I'll try to lighten up though and not blame people as much Thanks for the discussion!

Thanks to you as well.

 

[BTMO]

Nothing wrong with such motives. Enjoy!

But what about big game hunters who hunt for trophy animals so they can display them on their walls or floor?

Dunno, sorry. Like I said - I eat what I shoot, stab or spear...

 

[Kevin_Lowe]

I am not sneaking in some kind of "ought" claim such as "we ought not to allow animals to destroy their environment". I am overtly stating that "we ought not to allow animals to destroy their environment", so I can indeed logically get to the conclusion that it's okay to eat meat because meat is just a byproduct of some necessary act to stop animals destroying their environment.

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

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".

There is no other natural means of stopping that happening

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).

, and meat is just a byproduct of that activity, so that argument helps prove my point. If we must assume our natural role as predator

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.

Your last statement makes no sense. I asked for you to provide a viable natural alternative to hunting. By this I mean an alternative that assures the natural process of selection of the fittest occurs, which is not good but crucial to the long term viability of any species but man.

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

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.

You have ignored the whole point of my post and sidestepped the question with a snarky pirouette. Instead osf simply stating "your wrong so I'm taking my ball and not playing anymore", provide a viable alternative to hunting which assures that the least fit are culled from the gene pool.

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.

 

[Drudgewire]

Some animals just need killin'.

Especially minks. They're nature's jerkfaces.

 

[Brocolis]

The only difference is you're going one step further and saying that the idea you came up with is somehow special while everyone else's are just gibberish.

Going a step further is exactly what we are doing. That is what any rights movements do. In history, it is peculiar of each civilization what subjective reasons will be used to decide what groups get protected and what groups don’t. All rights movements do is to go a step further and say that there is a fairest way of how we should grant rights.

Now, that is a subjective, but logical decision. I think it is wrong to harm a sentient animal. I also don’t NEED to harm any sentient animal to live my life. Therefore I won’t harm any sentient animal.

 

[Mirrorglass]

Going a step further is exactly what we are doing. That is what any rights movements do. In history, it is peculiar of each civilization what subjective reasons will be used to decide what groups get protected and what groups don’t. All rights movements do is to go a step further and say that there is a fairest way of how we should grant rights.

Now, that is a subjective, but logical decision. I think it is wrong to harm a sentient animal. I also don’t NEED to harm any sentient animal to live my life. Therefore I won’t harm any sentient animal.

And that's fine. But you won't convince the majorities with that.

 

[Cavemonster]

Going a step further is exactly what we are doing. That is what any rights movements do. In history, it is peculiar of each civilization what subjective reasons will be used to decide what groups get protected and what groups don’t. All rights movements do is to go a step further and say that there is a fairest way of how we should grant rights.

Now, that is a subjective, but logical decision. I think it is wrong to harm a sentient animal. I also don’t NEED to harm any sentient animal to live my life. Therefore I won’t harm any sentient animal.

But I'm betting that you do. You vacuum right? That's killing thousands of dust mites, animals that have a nervous system capable of pleasure and pain. If you have eaten any red food in the last few decades, you were responsible for a massive slaughter of cochineals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal

If you have ever eaten honey or worn wool, you are using the products of animal enslavement. If your basis for not killing animals is the Golden Rule, why does it cover only murder and not slavery? Doesn't your Golden rule cover more than just murder for humans?

Only if you live a complete Jain lifestyle can you claim not to be harming any sentient creature. Anything short of that, and you need to justify why you draw the line where you do.

 

[phantomb]

Going a step further is exactly what we are doing. That is what any rights movements do. In history, it is peculiar of each civilization what subjective reasons will be used to decide what groups get protected and what groups don’t. All rights movements do is to go a step further and say that there is a fairest way of how we should grant rights.

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.

Now, that is a subjective, but logical decision. I think it is wrong to harm a sentient animal. I also don’t NEED to harm any sentient animal to live my life. Therefore I won’t harm any sentient animal.

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?