emmm... you're few months late, it was posted 
1 - 20 of 57 Posts
hmmm
tell me, If you'd have know that you'll be eaten, would you eat?
tell me, If you'd have know that you'll be eaten, would you eat?
i'll start eating people if the government won't let me eat animals
--- Edit... I'm deadly serious about this. I live off of carnerous diet.
--- Edit... I'm deadly serious about this. I live off of carnerous diet.
The issue about animal feelings and the amount of ethical consideration (or the ‘ethical weight of their desires’, to use the parlance of ethicists) is very complex.
Only a fool would say that all animals are devoid of feelings. As ChankastRules pointed out, mammals clearly display their feelings, and can even show very human emotions, such as rage or sadness (anyone who has or had a dog can confirm this). But ethical consideration isn’t bound to the displaying of feelings, at least not necessarily. Entire books have been written on this subject, so it’s very hard to be concise in one post (specially since I’m at work right now, so I can’t link you to a hundred online references, which I do happen to have in my bookmarks at home ).
I know quite a few people at >H (Transhuman) communities which are now vegetarians, because they feel that killing animals for meat is a violation of the rights of sentient beings. Personally, I haven’t reached that level yet. Right now I’m only advocating better treatment for farm animals.
Animal rights activist Peter Singer, on the other hand, is very radical on this subject. He thinks that animals’ desires (at least desires of the higher animals) deserve as much ethical weight as our own, therefore killing cattle would be tantamount to murder.
Singer also made his non-anthropocentric challenge, which no bioethicist to date has been able to provide a satisfactory solution. He says something along the lines of why a human baby who has just been born (i.e. has no knowledge, no desires of his own other than blind survival) deserves more ethical consideration than a dog who understands hundreds of spoken commands and has more refined desires (that is: killing a baby is murder; killing the dog is a light crime, or no crime at all). Only extremely anthropocentric bioethicists can meet this challenge, but anthropocentrism itself is highly flawed, both philosophically and morally (this also goes to the anti-AI folks), for reasons that are beyond the scope of this post (read the relevant literature on contemporary ethics, especially bioethics, if you want to know more about this).
For now, I’ll go on eating beef and pork. I’ll wait until someone comes up with a way to synthesize meat and I’ll eat it (as long as it has the same taste) and stop killing animals.
I can change my mind, though, if further evidence comes from neuroscientists, or our whole ethical systems get reviewed (that is: we would have to draw a line and choose the reference class which deserves ethical consideration, in a way to avoid the double standards of today’s bioethics).
It's too bad that most humans make their decisions based on their feelings, not rational thought.
Only a fool would say that all animals are devoid of feelings. As ChankastRules pointed out, mammals clearly display their feelings, and can even show very human emotions, such as rage or sadness (anyone who has or had a dog can confirm this). But ethical consideration isn’t bound to the displaying of feelings, at least not necessarily. Entire books have been written on this subject, so it’s very hard to be concise in one post (specially since I’m at work right now, so I can’t link you to a hundred online references, which I do happen to have in my bookmarks at home
).I know quite a few people at >H (Transhuman) communities which are now vegetarians, because they feel that killing animals for meat is a violation of the rights of sentient beings. Personally, I haven’t reached that level yet. Right now I’m only advocating better treatment for farm animals.
Animal rights activist Peter Singer, on the other hand, is very radical on this subject. He thinks that animals’ desires (at least desires of the higher animals) deserve as much ethical weight as our own, therefore killing cattle would be tantamount to murder.
Singer also made his non-anthropocentric challenge, which no bioethicist to date has been able to provide a satisfactory solution. He says something along the lines of why a human baby who has just been born (i.e. has no knowledge, no desires of his own other than blind survival) deserves more ethical consideration than a dog who understands hundreds of spoken commands and has more refined desires (that is: killing a baby is murder; killing the dog is a light crime, or no crime at all). Only extremely anthropocentric bioethicists can meet this challenge, but anthropocentrism itself is highly flawed, both philosophically and morally (this also goes to the anti-AI folks), for reasons that are beyond the scope of this post (read the relevant literature on contemporary ethics, especially bioethics, if you want to know more about this).
For now, I’ll go on eating beef and pork. I’ll wait until someone comes up with a way to synthesize meat and I’ll eat it (as long as it has the same taste) and stop killing animals.
I can change my mind, though, if further evidence comes from neuroscientists, or our whole ethical systems get reviewed (that is: we would have to draw a line and choose the reference class which deserves ethical consideration, in a way to avoid the double standards of today’s bioethics).
The yuck factor is still to great. You'll have to wait a lot of time before people even begin discussing this.Carnage said:
It's too bad that most humans make their decisions based on their feelings, not rational thought.
Well, just a bit of food for thought (no pun intended ):
What if mankind were captured by a more advanced alien race, and they used us cattle? Would you feel warm and fuzzy because you knew you were dying for a purpose (namely: feeding the aliens). Or would you think that it’s unethical to enslave a weaker race and eat them? Remember, out ethical codes must be symmetrical, or else they’re inherently flawed.
I’m not saying that earth’s cattle situation is analogous to the situation above (that is: I’m not sure whether lower mammals’ desires deserve full ethical weight), but I hope it adds some non-anthropocentric perspective to the discussion.
We could also change the alien thing for something less far-fetched (although highly improbable as well). Something along the lines of H.P.Lovecraft’s tale “The Rats in the Walls”, were an ancient cult practiced cannibalism on a lineage of primitive humans, bred in underground caves just like cattle, to be eaten by the cult members. Is it ethical to eat (i.e. breed as cattle) a less advanced lineage of hominids (say, one wants to clone Neanderthals and use them as livestock)?
I know that many of you will be tempted to say that the reference class should be restricted to humans, but this brings up a host of problems of its own. How do you define what a “human” is? Is someone with an extra chromosome a human? Justify your position, unambiguously, and without referring to metaphysical, unverifiable BS (like “humans have souls, therefore we’re different” – we cannot verify that we have souls, so it’s a useless criterion). If a robot emulated human cognition, would it be a human? Why?
I’m not pretending to know the answers to the questions above. I’m just showing that the problem is harder than most people think it is. Bioethicists are still fiercely debating those question, and have yet to arrive at a consensus.
):What if mankind were captured by a more advanced alien race, and they used us cattle? Would you feel warm and fuzzy because you knew you were dying for a purpose (namely: feeding the aliens). Or would you think that it’s unethical to enslave a weaker race and eat them? Remember, out ethical codes must be symmetrical, or else they’re inherently flawed.
I’m not saying that earth’s cattle situation is analogous to the situation above (that is: I’m not sure whether lower mammals’ desires deserve full ethical weight), but I hope it adds some non-anthropocentric perspective to the discussion.
We could also change the alien thing for something less far-fetched (although highly improbable as well). Something along the lines of H.P.Lovecraft’s tale “The Rats in the Walls”, were an ancient cult practiced cannibalism on a lineage of primitive humans, bred in underground caves just like cattle, to be eaten by the cult members. Is it ethical to eat (i.e. breed as cattle) a less advanced lineage of hominids (say, one wants to clone Neanderthals and use them as livestock)?
I know that many of you will be tempted to say that the reference class should be restricted to humans, but this brings up a host of problems of its own. How do you define what a “human” is? Is someone with an extra chromosome a human? Justify your position, unambiguously, and without referring to metaphysical, unverifiable BS (like “humans have souls, therefore we’re different” – we cannot verify that we have souls, so it’s a useless criterion). If a robot emulated human cognition, would it be a human? Why?
I’m not pretending to know the answers to the questions above. I’m just showing that the problem is harder than most people think it is. Bioethicists are still fiercely debating those question, and have yet to arrive at a consensus.
To spell it in plain english. We are the top of the food chain, so we eat whatever we want. OK. I don't feel sorry for these animals. They are raised for food.
I don't feel sorry for these animals. They are raised for food.
Since you are generalizing, I'll do the same:WindHydra said:
The dog is consicered a man's best friend.
(if your dog is your best friend, you don't have a life IMO
)Well usually when you have a pet like a dog, you have love for it a it has unconditional love for you. You get attached to it like a member of your family. A for cows and chickens, most people givea rats ass about them. So we kill them and eat them up
I told myself to take a break from anything trivial until I cleared some tasks I have ahead, but noooooo... I had to go to emuforums and click this thread. And several others.
FYI, as common sense tells me it, people who disregard animal life have an exponentially larger potency to have similar disregard for (read: able to mistreat) human life than those who do not.
The analogy you present is nonsensical even on the most basic level, as plants in general lack any functional brain, whereas mammals most definately do not. People feel sorry for animals because a lot of animals feel pain and display emotions; we can relate to them. The majority of people who take dogs (aside from the fact that a lot aren't suited to take them) treat them as if they were a family-member, or even a child. Pigs are fully able to fill the same position in each and every aspect, even though it is not commonly practiced. Plants are taken in for decoration or atmosphere.
I think it's horrible to read about and see pictures of terribly mistreated animals, including farm animals. Mock me for it, and no words are needed to further reveal an unsympathetic prick.
EDIT:
Before I get some smartass reply, saying: "klatch, you ****ing hypocrite! You don't care about tragedies involving human beings, but you DO care about animals?"
1. I can't explain my feelings any more than through educated guesses.
2. Most mistreated animals are helpless because they either can't or learned not to defend themselves against their ill-treaters. Furthermore, they cannot comprehend and relate the reason to their mistreatment, this while many being able to logically deduce consequences of iterated actions to a certain extent; many animals can learn and be trained. To me, there is nothing worse than seeing such a trusting (and dependent) animal being mistreated. If there would be "hell", I hope it keeps vacancies for torturers of practitioners of animal-cruelty. I don't think "hell" would want to frivolously dissipate my overabandunce of rage. IMHO, animal-cruelty is the pinnacle of injustice. One of the few things I can be very passionate about.
3. Animal-cruelty is condoned much too often, or given extremely subtle penalties. That's probably the biggest reason why it ticks me off more than human-cruelty: I hunger for the amount of justice this "branch" lacks.
BTW, my remaining dog is like a daughter to me.
There is no discussion about that, because A) "weather animals" do not exist, and B) quite an amount of animal species can and have displayed emotions such as anger or sadness. The flash movie concerns a pig; I find it odd you expect discussion hereof when the answer is so blatantly established each and every day.Player-X said:
..Player-X said:
FYI, as common sense tells me it, people who disregard animal life have an exponentially larger potency to have similar disregard for (read: able to mistreat) human life than those who do not.
The analogy you present is nonsensical even on the most basic level, as plants in general lack any functional brain, whereas mammals most definately do not. People feel sorry for animals because a lot of animals feel pain and display emotions; we can relate to them. The majority of people who take dogs (aside from the fact that a lot aren't suited to take them) treat them as if they were a family-member, or even a child. Pigs are fully able to fill the same position in each and every aspect, even though it is not commonly practiced. Plants are taken in for decoration or atmosphere.
I think it's horrible to read about and see pictures of terribly mistreated animals, including farm animals. Mock me for it, and no words are needed to further reveal an unsympathetic prick.
EDIT:
Before I get some smartass reply, saying: "klatch, you ****ing hypocrite! You don't care about tragedies involving human beings, but you DO care about animals?"
1. I can't explain my feelings any more than through educated guesses.
2. Most mistreated animals are helpless because they either can't or learned not to defend themselves against their ill-treaters. Furthermore, they cannot comprehend and relate the reason to their mistreatment, this while many being able to logically deduce consequences of iterated actions to a certain extent; many animals can learn and be trained. To me, there is nothing worse than seeing such a trusting (and dependent) animal being mistreated. If there would be "hell", I hope it keeps vacancies for torturers of practitioners of animal-cruelty. I don't think "hell" would want to frivolously dissipate my overabandunce of rage. IMHO, animal-cruelty is the pinnacle of injustice. One of the few things I can be very passionate about.
3. Animal-cruelty is condoned much too often, or given extremely subtle penalties. That's probably the biggest reason why it ticks me off more than human-cruelty: I hunger for the amount of justice this "branch" lacks.
I think the emphasis here (and in the flash movie) lies on the cruelty that is so common in the business. You won't find me complaining (at least, not yet) if the animal had a good life and was killed painlessly.Razor Blade said:To spell it in plain english. We are the top of the food chain, so we eat whatever we want. OK.
It's a figure of speech, originally applying to racial rather than individual friendships.Cid Highwind said:(if your dog is your best friend, you don't have a life IMO
BTW, my remaining dog is like a daughter to me. 1 - 20 of 57 Posts
