Animal rights, split from dictator thread

[Douglas]

Most Vegans have built walls of denial and dishonesty in terms of the pain felt by all plants.

 

Yes, plants feel pain, trauma and a morbid fear of been eaten.

 

severing the umbilical cord of a tomato

bad news for vegetarians

[imasmartgirl]

 

 

imasmartgirl' date='

 

 

I'm 5'8" and weigh ~120 lbs, but despite my petite build I'm actually very healthy. The whole medical history of my family is very sad (i.e. cancer, thyroid disorders, heart problems, blod clots, aneurisyms, and obesity), but I'm the only healthy person in my family and I think this has to do with the fact that I eat very well and keep physically fit.

 

The key to being a healthy vegan or veggie is planning until you get a good routine developed. According to the American Dietetic Assocation:

 

 

as long as you get enough protein.

[imasmartgirl]

Good point, I find it fairly difficult to drop a live lobster into a boiling pot, but I think it would be most disturbing to drop a live chicken into a boiling pot.

 

what about what they do in places like taiwan? they have a stove top turned up and then put the chickens on it live. and they dance around screeching cause of their feet getting burned. then the chef takes a knife and chops off their feet and serves them up.

i think its kinda silly that we have any feelings for these walking peices of meat. I don't think they even care if they are alive or not, they are just there. And they may be able to sense pain but not sadness. And when they do sense pain its not the same as how we sense it. Their minds work more like a machine, and we don't cry when we have to turn off a computer cause just like the chicken, it doesn't care.

[-Demosthenes-]

Did you strain the last carrot you ate to ensure you didn't ingest any nematode worms? Do you boycott purified drinking water because zooplankton died during the purification process?

I'd like to point out that zooplankton and worms (of any kind) are neither cute nor cuddly, and are therefore unprotected.

 

A lemming left to its own devices will uselessly give its life to a bottom of a cliff -- if we can take the little critter and do beneficial scientific research with it, it will have given its life to something a bit more worthwhile.

Lemmings do not jump off of cliffs, this is a myth started by a disney film maker that herded a bunch of lemmings off a cliff, taped it, and put it in a nature film (I've seen it, it's quite funny). But they are stupid enough to jump off with very little coaxing.

 

what about what they do in places like taiwan? they have a stove top turned up and then put the chickens on it live. and they dance around screeching cause of their feet getting burned. then the chef takes a knife and chops off their feet and serves them up.

i think its kinda silly that we have any feelings for these walking pieces of meat. I don't think they even care if they are alive or not' date=' they are just there. And they may be able to sense pain but not sadness. And when they do sense pain its not the same as how we sense it. Their minds work more like a machine, and we don't cry when we have to turn off a computer cause just like the chicken, it doesn't care. [/quote']

 

I would give animals a lot more credit than that. I wouldn't want an animal to suffer like that, and I don't think that many people would. They are not walking pieces of meat, no matter how stupid.

 

My point was that using animals is necessary. Animals may feel pain, and it would be negative and it is worth some sort of effort by humans to avoid negative or painful feelings in animals, however this feeling may be in place to incite a response (to get away from the thing causing pain, and thus survive) and probably does not involve the type of thinking or fear that a human would experience.

 

And I'd like to point out that although the situation described by imasmartgirl (the one with the chicken) is quite atrocious, there are a few oriental restaurants that gut, scale, lightly cook, serve fish alive, and they are partially consumed before completely dead with relatively no comment. Fish aren't very cute.

[Douglas]

what about what they do in places like taiwan? they have a stove top turned up and then put the chickens on it live. and they dance around screeching cause of their feet getting burned. then the chef takes a knife and chops off their feet and serves them up.

.

Does he serve up the feet or the chicken??

 

If he serves up the chicken, how come the chef doesn't cut off the feet so the chickens can't dance on the hot stove?...........or is the dancing for the amusement of the patrons, while they're waiting for their chicken fricassee??

[AL]

Lemmings do not jump off of cliffs' date=' this is a myth started by a disney film maker that herded a bunch of lemmings off a cliff, taped it, and put it in a nature film (I've seen it, it's quite funny). But they are stupid enough to jump off with very little coaxing.[/quote']

Thanks for pointing that out. I was not aware of that.

I've had several pet rodents, so I am well aware that they will walk off a cliff without much regard for gravity. In fact, my last hamster fell off a 15 foot drop twice. He survived both drops with no injuries though.

 

In any event, my point was that animal activities, ecology, behavior and so forth should be given consideration before we decide what sorts of moral protections to give them.

[-Demosthenes-]

Thanks for pointing that out. I was not aware of that.

You're point is valid reguardless, the lemmings gave little resistance to being herded off a cliff

[imasmartgirl]

Does he serve up the feet or the chicken??

 

If he serves up the chicken' date=' how come the chef doesn't cut off the feet so the chickens can't dance on the hot stove?...........or is the dancing for the amusement of the patrons, while they're waiting for their chicken fricassee??[/quote']

 

well when the chickens dance around on the hot stove all the blood goes to the feet or something and i think makes it taste better. and they serve the feet and the chicken. my dad took a business trip to taiwan and this is what he told me they did.

[imasmartgirl]

I would give animals a lot more credit than that. I wouldn't want an animal to suffer like that' date=' and I don't think that many people would. They are not walking pieces of meat, no matter how stupid. [/quote']

 

not all animals, just chickens are walking peices of meat. Its rare we would keep one as a pet. and i don't think they really suffer at all when thrown into the grinder. they don't have time to think about it.

[In My Memory]

As per usual, my tendency to cram a lot of responses into a single reply yields a very long post. Enjoy

 

 

Pangloss,

 

For what it's worth, you make the case for your side better than anyone else I've discussed the subject with.

Thank you, I appreciate it

 

 

Demosthenes,

 

I'd have to agree with Skye, we don't really care about fish, arthropods, or other "ugly" animals. People tend to like the cute furry animals. No one ever mentions fishing, which I would think would be the most traumatic even for any animal.

I've mentioned fishing and ugly animals before:

Although' date=' it isnt publicized as often, many vegans oppose very much eating fish, crab, lobster, shellfish, and other sea animals. And I dont know many vegans would would willingly torment a snake or a lizard, and there are some very admirable efforts to rescue sea turtles whos homes have been destroyed by oil spills or pollution, and environmentalists especially care very much for coldblooded and invertebrate animals such as those in coral reef systems.

 

Some vegans will even abstain from using products that destroy insect life, such as honey, various dyes, and certain makeups. For me, I dont believe that insects suffer nearly as much as mammals, however I still dont feel compelled to kill them (also, for environmental reasons, I buy my food from local organic providers who little to no pesticides).

 

The reason why endotherms recieve so much attention is because thats what so many people eat and experiment on.

No vegans I've ever known have said fish or reptiles or arthropods dont matter. Among other things, fish can feel pain and respond to anesthetics at least to the extent that a bird can (source) - I could only imagine that as a fish is brough from the water and the gases in its blood undissolve rapidly can only be compared to the human experience called "the bends", which I understand is very painful, and I cant imagine that it is pleasant at all to have ones gills dry out and die.

 

It just isnt true to say that vegans only care about furry animals, and I doubt you could find a single vegan who advocates such a position.

 

Again, while a women is just a capable as a man, animals aren't. There are inherent difference between people and animals. You're trying to appeal to feminism and bring women to your side.

Yes, but not explicitly. I was demonstrating how Renee's comments justifying human superiority parallel exactly the same arguments to justify male superiority, and that if she rejected one (which hopefully she does) she ought to reject the other because it is a logical extension of her reasoning.

 

But, now that you've mentioned femenism, I feel obligated to post the following excerpted from Peter Singer's "Animal Rights and Human Obligations":

... I am urging that we extend to other species the basic principle of equality [equal consideration of interests] that most of us recognize should be extended to all members of our own species.

 

All this may sound a little far-fetched, more like a parody of other liberation movements than a serious objective. In fact, in the past the idea of "The Rights of Animals" really has been used to parody the case for women's rights. When Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of later feminists, published her Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, her ideas were widely regarded as absurd, and they were satirized in an anonymous publication entitled A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes. The author of this satire (actually Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher) tried to refute Wollstonecraft's reasonings by showing that they could be carried one stage further. If sound when applied to women, why should the arguments not be applied to dogs, cats, and horses? They seemed to hold equally well for these "brutes"; yet to hold that brutes had rights was manifestly absurd; therefore the reasoning by which this conclusion had been reached must be unsound, and if unsound when applied to brutes, it must also be unsound when applied to women, since the very same arguments had been used in each case.

 

[singer describes how certain key points in Wollstonecraft's arguments, such as the right to vote, cannot be made for animals. Paragraph snipped for brevity]

 

...There are important differences between humans and other animals, and these differences must give rise to some differences in the rights that each have [such as the right to vote]. Recognizing this obvious fact, however, is no barrier to the case for extending the basic principle of equality to nonhuman animals. The differences that exist between men and women are equally undeniable, and the supporters of Women's Liberation are aware that these differences may give rise to different rights. Many feminists hold that women have the right to an abortion on request. It does not follow that since these same people are campaigning for equality between men and women they must support the right of men to have abortions too. Since a man cannot have an abortion, it is meaningless to talk of his right to have one. Since a pig can't vote, it is meaningless to talk of its right to vote. There is no reason why either Women's Liberation or Animal Liberation should get involved in such nonsense. The extension of the basic principle of equality from one group to another does not imply that we must treat both groups in exactly the same way, or grant exactly the same rights to both groups. Whether we should do so will depend on the nature of the members of the two groups. The basic principle of equality, I shall argue, is equality of consideration; and equal consideration for different beings may lead to different treatment and different rights.

 

(because' date=' after all, human infants are not sentient but obviously matter morally)[/quote']

Who has proven this?

Its a small point, but since you asked: define a working definition of sentience, such as percieving yourself over time, then compare to infants. As far as I know, the most primitive parts of infants brains (the parts that control involuntary actions and sensation of pain) are developed, but the parts that control sensation of ones self are just mush.

 

There is an article called Inner speech and conscious experience which corrolates for the ability to develop a sense of self with inner speech (it cites a case study of man who had a stroke, and for two weeks the internal monologue parts of his brain were functionless). These parts of the brain are located in roughly a dime-sized portion of the pre-frontal cortex - but in infants until a few years of age, these parts are still just mush, so there is reason to suspect they cannot percieve themselves over time.

 

Hopefully that should answer your question. If not, I would ask that you start a thread elsewhere on the board so as not to derail this one.

 

That being said, the comparison between infants and animals is acceptable. Based on your earlier comments about the wrongness of racism and sexism (that is, that there are trivial differences between the races and sexes that cannot justify inequality), then certainly you would find the following quote meaningful taken from Jeremy Bentham's On the Principles of Morals and Legislation:

The day may come, when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor (see Lewis XIV's Code Noir). It may come one day to be recognized, that the number of the legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum, are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or, perhaps, the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month, old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? the question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?

It is very true that infants have no intelligence, no sentience, no concern for their family, no capacity for moral reciprocity, no autonomy, no language, no ability to plan, no expectations - its also true that many of the aforementioned qualities are possessed by many animals to a greater extent than infants of perhaps a few years.

 

A newborn infant lacks all of the qualities that most people would agree denotes moral value, so why dont we section off a small proportion of them to be made into food, leather, and experiments? If the infant were so severely retarded that it could never develop the aforementioned capacities, would it then be justifiable then? Of course not, because that kind of treatment would be profoundly cruel, because despite the infants lack of all other qualities that makes them valuable, they can suffer and therefore merit moral consideration.

 

We value infants for a number of reasons, but above all else we know that they can suffer - and we find it frightening to believe that their suffering would mean less given the fact that they could serve some human needs. Animals, even if they do not have human intelligence or capacity for moral reciprocity to the same degree, do share with infants the capacity to suffer (and many can hold interests). Now, what is the justification for failing to consider animals in at least as much as we consider severely retarded infants?

 

Hopefully, you can see that your comments "there are real difference between Humans and other spices" and "There are inherent difference between people and animals" are irrelevant. I dont deny that there are some differences, but at the same time those differences dont matter; human superiority in intelligence is no more relevant than an eagles superiority in eyesight or a kangaroos superiority in jumping - those differences dont matter. However, where there are similarities between humans and animals, such as the capacity to suffer and hold interests, we should consider them.

 

Animals suffer' date=' plants do not.[/quote']

Who has proven this?

Come on, be serious.

 

 

AL,

 

IMM, I'm curious at what point you draw the line. Surely if animals are our moral equals, you'd extend the exact same moral protections you'd give to humans, no? Would you save a deer from a mountain lion?

One of the important points about humans and animals is that it really isnt necessary for humans to kill animals for their survival. My own existence, the existence of millions of other vegetarians and vegans across the globe, and the existence of the roughly 700 million vegetarian Hindis and Buddhists demonstrate this fact very clearly. Another important difference is that human beings have the capacity to make choice about the things they eat and kill.

 

However, when we talk about a lion killing a deer, we know the lion can make no choice about what it eats nor can it survive without killing other animals. I couldnt imagine that humans could play Big Brother and micromanage every aspect of carnivore killing without serious ecological disaster.

 

In general, there are only a few times when human interference is justified, such as flipping sea turtles and horseshoe crabs off their backs, rescuing a horse trapped in ice, cleaning animals after an oil spill, helping rabbits out of fences, etc. So, while human interference can improve the conditions of some animals some of the time, its generally a bad idea for humans to try to police all nature. If suffering is unncessary and can be avoided, then it should be prevented.

 

You may think I'm nitpicking, but these are some of the extremes that a Jainist might go through to minimize animal suffering, and unless you do same, the Jainists have you beat for moral consistency.

I mentioned in an earlier post the following:

[My veganism is'] Unlike the people who oppose eating animals for metaphysical reasons (i.e. "your next chicken could be your great-grandmother"), but for very mundane reasons such as the fact that animals feel pain and that they have an interest in continued existence.

That being said, here is an excerpt from an article called "Indian Ethics" by Purusottama Bilimoria[/url] (p. 9-13):

Jaina Ethics

 

The basic philosophic belief of the Jainas is that every entity in the world has jiva or a sentient principle, whose distinguishing feature is consciousness along with vital energy and a happy disposition. The idea is that consciousness is continuous and nothing in the universe is without some degree of sentiency at varying levels of conscious and apparently unconscious existence, from its more developed form in adult human beings to invisible embryonic modes at 'lower' animals and plant levels. (Here sentiency is not determined by pain-pleasure responses.)

 

Each and every sentient principle however, subsists in a contingent relation to the quantity of karma, which is described as 'nonconscious immaterial' matter of the most subtle form that determines the relative nature of the being. Activity, of both volitional and non-volitional kinds, induces karma and by association conditions the development of the sentient being, resulting in the eventual death and reembodiment of the particular 'soul'. (Jaini, 1979, 111-114).

 

... Ahisma refers to non-injury or non-harming of sentient beings and is perhaps the most fundamental concepts in Jaina ethics. With its broad understanding of sentience, Jaina ethics inevitably reflects an uncompromising 'reverence for all life'. The restraints comprise rigid dietary habits, such as non-consumption of meat, alcohol, and foods of certain kinds, and rules against the abuse, ill-treatment, exploitation, etc. of all 'breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures'.

 

... [After describing the apparently absurd lengths Jains will go to prevent intentional and accident killing] One imporant qualification, however, has to be noted here. While the vow of ahisma or non-injury may appear to have been practiced on altruistic grounds, the concern here is as much with the motive of avoiding injury or harm to oneself, which could occur through any number of actions, not just actions that lead to the suffering of others.

I am not a Jain, nor a spiritual nor superstious. I'm sure we both agree that the sun, rocks, bacteria, plants, etc. do not have a vital immaterial soul, and neither of us believe our mysterious souls will be reincarnated into other lifeforms. So, while the Jains are consistent, their philosophy isnt reasonable - put bluntly, the claim that there is a fluid consciousness found in every fiber of matter and life in the universe is false. Even still, they are not interested in reducing suffering because suffering is bad, they do so because they believe it will affect their spiritual rebirth.

 

I dont regard life as sacred in itself, and in fact there are a number of posts which I've said precisely the opposite: the mere fact that something is alive does not make it morally valuable, instead the moral value of a being is based on its capacity to suffer and hold interests (logically, this implies that sometimes, such as in the case of euthanasia, it can be morally correct to kill something to relieve its suffering). Obviously, the idea that many animals suffer and hold interests is factually true, and my reasoning that these things matter is philosophically sound - the same cannot be said for Jainists.

 

If you want to compare anyone to the Jains, compare the people who believe life is sacred and sanctified in itself but continue to eat animals. The belief that the there is some metaphysical property in human life, and only human life, that makes them the only valuable species on the planet is unjustifiable.

 

All of these non-moral factors need to be taken into consideration before we simply decide animals are our moral equivalents.

This is a contradiction in terms. By the very meaning of the words, non-moral factors (such as the color of your skin or whether your have a tail) can contribute nothing to the moral status of animals or humans.

 

A lemming left to its own devices will uselessly give its life to a bottom of a cliff

Heres an obligatory link to Snopes debunking that urban myth:

http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm

 

 

Bascule,

 

I see leading a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle as something noble in trying to reduce animal suffering, and I certainly try to avoid eating mammals and other animals as much as possible. But opposing biomedical testing increases human suffering, and that's something to which I am diametrically opposed.

Why is it alright to experiment on animals but not severely retarded humans or infants? Does it matter that each suffers to the same degree as the other?

 

 

imasmartgirl,

 

as long as you get enough protein.

See Protein the Vegan Diet. Proper nutrition is important, but fortunately most vegan diets are fortified with soy protein, yeast-derived B-vitamins, vegetable derived calcium, etc. so its really not a huge concern.

 

And they may be able to sense pain but not sadness. And when they do sense pain its not the same as how we sense it. Their minds work more like a machine, and we don't cry when we have to turn off a computer cause just like the chicken, it doesn't care.

You dont believe that do you?

 

The ability to feel pain isnt something magical, its an experience that is related to the most primitive parts of the brain, and there is nothing so radically different about human brains that makes their pain experiences different from animal pain experiences. It is absolutely false to say that these animals are just machines. Here's a short excerpt from Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation" (p. 11-12):

In addition [to behavioral signs of suffering], we know that these animals have nervous systems very like ours, which respond physiologically as ours do when when the animal is in circumstances in which we feel pain: an initial rise of blood pressure, dilated pupils, perspiration, an increased pulse rate, and if the stimulus continues, a fall in blood pressure. Although humans have a more developed cerebral cortex than other animals, this part of the brain is concerned with thinking functions rather than basic impulses, emotions, and feelings. These impulses, emotions, and feelings are located in the diencephalon, which is well developed in many other species of animals, especially mammals and birds.

 

We also know that the nervous system of other animals were not artificially constructed to mimic the pain behavior of humans, as a robot might be artificially constructed. The nervous systems of animals evolved as our own did, and in fact the evolutionary history of humans and other animals, especially mammals, did not emerge until the central features of our nervous systems were already in existence. A capacity to feel pain obviously enhances a species prospects of survival, since it causes members of the species to avoid sources of injury. It surely is unreasonable to suppose that the nervous systems which are virtually identical physiologically, have a common origin and common evolutionary function, and result in similar forms of behavior in similar circumstances should operate on an entirely different manner on the level of subjective feelings.

Animals and humans also share the same basic emotional responses: fear, anxiety, frustration, anger, contentment, pleasure, etc. Emotionally, there is little difference, except where areas of love and justice may be concerned (but keep in mind, children and infants dont have those emotions, but you would probably never play down the suffering of children and infants in the same way).

[bascule]

Why is it alright to experiment on animals but not severely retarded humans or infants? Does it matter that each suffers to the same degree as the other?

 

I've already answered this twice (see here and here), and my answer is ultimately that it would be hypocritical of me to condone experimentation on chimps and not on infants or the mentally deficient. And in fact, it's quite likely that interspecies variation means that we could accomplish the same research with fewer infants/brain damaged people than we do with chimpanzees.

 

But it's impractical. Newborns and the brain damaged have human families who decide their fate, and the number of families willing to donate newborns or the mentally deficient to research purposes is virtually nonexistent, therefore this is not a practical alternative to chimpanzees or other animals for animal research.

 

Animal experimentation is the only practical means to conduct biomedical research.

[john5746]

And I'd like to point out that although the situation described by imasmartgirl (the one with the chicken) is quite atrocious' date=' there are a few oriental restaurants that gut, scale, lightly cook, serve fish alive, and they are [i']partially consumed before completely dead[/i] with relatively no comment. Fish aren't very cute.

 

In Japan, I was treated to a dinner like this... Had shrimp wiggle down my throat, ate lobster while its claws were moving and watched some type of clam cut up while alive. I took for granted the great seafood over there!

 

I applaud you IMM, as usual you defend your opinions well. From a health standpoint, I should be vegetarian. I think the world would be a better place if we gave up eating meat.

 

It seems your main point is suffering. Nature is cruel. Many domestic animals have a better life than their wild cousins. I know, I raised a few cattle and had them named, before eating them. They were killed quickly, no suffering. Is this moral? Well, if I didn't want to eat them, they wouldn't exist in the first place.

 

Animal testing is one of those things that is easy to support when blind. Since I don't see it and don't know the animals, I don't feel much. Kind of like war in a foreign nation.

 

As far as eating animals, I am just too lazy and careless to be like you. It just isn't on my priority list. No good excuse. Now, some other Nations/people, not so sure it would be as easy for them to be vegetarian.

 

Testing animals? This is probably the worst, but I can't condemn this because I value my species over others. I also value my family over other people. I would hope it is used wisely and as little as possible. I respect your decision to forgo any animal testing for your individual benefit, but you don't have the right to keep someone else from benefiting, IMO.

 

If someone had the opinion to only eat animals and not plants, I would respect that also - not very healthy though. But, I would still want to use plants for medicinal purposes.

 

You draw the line at suffering, I draw the line at species, others draw the line at intelligence, etc.

[zyncod]

In other words, implicit endorsement (otherwise called tacit consent) cannot apply to anyone when there isnt a realistic alternative. In the second paragraph, Hume gives the example that if someone were on a ship then presumably they would tacitly consent to scrubbing the deck; but how could it be an implicit agreement to swab the decks and use the resources when the only alternative is to jump off the boat and swim for your life? Obviously, there isnt a viable option, so its not possible that anyone could, by the definition of a tacit agreement, could intentionally agree to such conditions.

 

Actually, neither "taking yourself off the grid" by growing your own food nor refusing to pay taxes in response to government policies rises to the level of Hume's analogy. The situation in these terms is closer to Locke's implicit contract. You're not being asked to sacrifice your life, only creature comforts and freedom. Thoreau managed to protest the Mexican War by not paying taxes - he went to jail for it. Do you really imagine that we'd be in Iraq right now if we'd managed to coordinate a million people to refuse to pay their income tax? But nobody really cares enough (including me) - they're more interested in shocking the "sheep" by walking around in a pink blowup phallus at the RNC protests. So my inability to sacrifice in any way that really matters as regarding the Iraq war I feel actually makes me more responsible for the 100,000 deaths than the Republicans, since I knew better.

 

My whole point here is that nobody holds the key to morality; the Bible didn't say many things that were very useful but "Let he who is without sin..." I find a meaningful statement. It's very dangerous when otherwise rational people start to deride others for faulty morality without examining their own- a problem that I have with many of my AR friends - but from your later posts, IMM, I don't think you really have that problem. We'll just continue to disagree on the absolute value of sentience, but that's not something I have a problem with.

[imasmartgirl]

You dont believe that do you?

 

The ability to feel pain isnt something magical' date=' its an experience that is related to the most primitive parts of the brain, and there is nothing so radically different about human brains that makes their pain experiences different from animal pain experiences. It is absolutely false to say that these animals are just machines.

[/quote']

 

 

exactly what i meant. they feel pain and have the basic instincts to get away ect but they don't have empathy or feel sadness or wonder why this is happening to them or see other chickens killed and feel sad and see their death coming. and babies are humans, we feel empathy for them even tho they may not feel back. i don't feel anything for a chicken cept maybe hunger. and humans are just machines too, just more complex in thinking. but donating to saving animals and such really doesn't help. just cause you don't eat them doesn't stop people from chopping them up and serving them. so might as well enjoy eh?

[-Demosthenes-]

There is an article called Inner speech and conscious experience which corrolates for the ability to develop a sense of self with inner speech (it cites a case study of man who had a stroke' date=' and for two weeks the internal monologue parts of his brain were functionless). These parts of the brain are located in roughly a dime-sized portion of the pre-frontal cortex - but in infants until a few years of age, these parts are still just mush, so there is reason to suspect they cannot percieve themselves over time.

[/quote']

 

1. the properties of "inner speech" haven't been entirely explored, it may not be the the process of awareness, and it may have different properties.

 

2. Infants "mush" for brains seems an awful lot like normal brain. Isn't that what gray matter is, "mush"? I have "mush" for brains, and I'm pretty aware.

 

3. "inner speech" is only associated with this general area of the brain. The brain may be able to have another part of the brain work with "inner speech" or awareness.

 

3.1 The blind have been known to use their visual cortex to help with their sense of touch. There are children who had more than half of their brain removed because of brain cancer, and they were still just as aware. The brain is very mysterious, we are not sure what controls what, and it has been known to change.

 

It is very true that infants have no intelligence, no sentience, no concern for their family, no capacity for moral reciprocity, no autonomy, no language, no ability to plan, no expectations

It's simply not true that we know that. It may be that infants are learning how to use their brains at first, and cannot show observable signs of intelligence. It's terribly hard to observe someone's intelligence when they haven't had enough experience to use it.

 

Animals suffer' date=' plants do not.[/i']

Who has proven this?

Come on, be serious.

Let's.

 

Both animals and plants have observable responses to harmful stimuli.

 

One of the important points about humans and animals is that it really isn't necessary for humans to kill animals for their survival.

 

But what if it is?

 

However' date=' when we talk about a lion killing a deer, we know the lion can make no choice about what it eats nor can it survive without killing other animals. I couldn't imagine that humans could play Big Brother and micromanage every aspect of carnivore killing without serious ecological disaster.

[/quote']

 

Ecological? This started out as a moral issue, because animals feel pain. The deer certainly feels pain, how is it less important than the lion? Because he's a natural predator?

The human is a natural predator. Makes you think eh?

 

I dont regard life as sacred in itself, and in fact there are a number of posts which I've said precisely the opposite: the mere fact that something is alive does not make it morally valuable, instead the moral value of a being is based on its capacity to suffer and hold interests (logically, this implies that sometimes, such as in the case of euthanasia, it can be morally correct to kill something to relieve its suffering).

 

You measure all morality on levels of pain? Using this philosophy it is better for something to die than feel any pain, better for children never to be born, and for people to never exist.

 

Heres an obligatory link to Snopes debunking that urban myth:

http://www.snopes.com/disney/films/lemmings.htm

Regardless' date=' a Disney film-maker would not be able to round up random [i']humans, film them walking around in a snowy landscape, and then herd them off a cliff, where they go willingly and mindlessly (like the lemmings).

It doesn't really matter if it's fake, they're just as mindless either way.

 

The ability to feel pain isnt something magical, its an experience that is related to the most primitive[/i'] parts of the brain...

 

Exactly, animals may be able to feel pain, but there is no evidence that they are aware in any way. Pain is just a response to stimuli to entice the animal to avoid harmful things.

 

Without awareness you got nothing.

 

but keep in mind, children and infants dont have those emotions, but you would probably never play down the suffering of children and infants in the same way

 

Your opinion of an infant being unaware is justifiable, but children being unaware is silly. I've been around a lot of children, and a 3 year old can be just as aware. They communicate as well, and are not much different from other people (relatively).

[AL]

However' date=' when we talk about a lion killing a deer, we know the lion can make no choice about what it eats nor can it survive without killing other animals. I couldnt imagine that humans could play Big Brother and micromanage every aspect of carnivore killing without serious ecological disaster.

 

In general, there are only a few times when human interference is justified, such as flipping sea turtles and horseshoe crabs off their backs, rescuing a horse trapped in ice, cleaning animals after an oil spill, helping rabbits out of fences, etc. So, while human interference can improve the conditions of some animals some of the time, its generally a bad idea for humans to try to police all nature. If suffering is unncessary and can be avoided, then it should be prevented.[/quote']

Well, a mountain lion's dietary restrictions isn't really the issue. The issue is the differential treatment of deer and humans -- why is it acceptable to allow a deer to be predated for ecological reasons but the human (I hope you agree), should be rescued from such a fate. Unless you actually feel that no effort should be made to rescue the human from a mountain lion assault, implicit in that is that you do value human life above deer life, despite that "insofar as deer suffer, they are our moral equals."

 

This is a contradiction in terms. By the very meaning of the words' date=' non-moral factors (such as the color of your skin or whether your have a tail) can contribute nothing to the moral status of animals or humans.

[/quote']

Perhaps I worded it poorly, but what I meant was that non-moral factors need be given consideration when making decisions that may have moral consequences (among other non-moral consequences). Even you explicitly agreed above that ecology and pragmatism will affect your course of action with regard to what steps you'd take to alleviate animal suffering, so it boils down to how much weight you give to moral considerations vs. these non-moral ones.

[In My Memory]

AL,

 

Well, a mountain lion's dietary restrictions isn't really the issue. The issue is the differential treatment of deer and humans -- why is it acceptable to allow a deer to be predated for ecological reasons but the human (I hope you agree), should be rescued from such a fate. Unless you actually feel that no effort should be made to rescue the human from a mountain lion assault, implicit in that is that you do value human life above deer life, despite that "insofar as deer suffer, they are our moral equals."

To your credit, I think you ask a very good question (probably because its one of the few I havent seen 1000 times before). My intuition tells me that this question differs slightly from similar ones about whether its justifiable to kill an animal in self-defense (yes it is), it also tells me that there really should be no difference between predation of a human or a deer (but that answer may not be correct).

 

There are two quotations that I think are relevant to your question:

1) The first comes from Peter Singer's All Animals Are Equal:

If a being suffers, there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering into consideration. No matter what the nature of the being, the principle of equality requires that its suffering be counted equally with the like suffering—in so far as rough comparisons can be made—of any other being.

 

2) The second quote comes from Peter Singer's The Drowning Child and Expanding Circle:

To challenge my students to think about the ethics of what we owe to people in need, I ask them to imagine that their route to the university takes them past a shallow pond. One morning, I say to them, you notice a child has fallen in and appears to be drowning. To wade in and pull the child out would be easy but it will mean that you get your clothes wet and muddy, and by the time you go home and change you will have missed your first class.

 

I then ask the students: do you have any obligation to rescue the child? Unanimously, the students say they do. The importance of saving a child so far outweighs the cost of getting one’s clothes muddy and missing a class, that they refuse to consider it any kind of excuse for not saving the child. Does it make a difference, I ask, that there are other people walking past the pond who would equally be able to rescue the child but are not doing so? No, the students reply, the fact that others are not doing what they ought to do is no reason why I should not do what I ought to do.

 

Once we are all clear about our obligations to rescue the drowning child in front of us, I ask: would it make any difference if the child were far away, in another country perhaps, but similarly in danger of death, and equally within your means to save, at no great cost – and absolutely no danger – to yourself? Virtually all agree that distance and nationality make no moral difference to the situation. I then point out that we are all in that situation of the person passing the shallow pond: we can all save lives of people, both children and adults, who would otherwise die, and we can do so at a very small cost to us: the cost of a new CD, a shirt or a night out at a restaurant or concert, can mean the difference between life and death to more than one person somewhere in the world – and overseas aid agencies like Oxfam overcome the problem of acting at a distance.

Please dont mind that I am conflating the intention of the second quotation to make my point - its just the first thing that comes to mind when I read your question.

 

Obviously, the problem of carnivorous animals doesnt make me question whether we are justified in eating cows for food (because based on the second quotation, the amount we "suffer" for not being able to eat a cow is much much less than the cow would suffer for being eaten, therefore its a small sacrifice to give up meat in favor of the much more delicious and nutricious vegan diet).

 

One of the things I think animal rights literature really lacks is information dealing with carnivorous animals (no, these arent related to the question "animals eat animals, why shouldnt I?"). Although I take pride in my veganism, I sometimes find some unusual philosophical dilemmas in veganism (if you follow the AR community, you should also be very aware of the philosophical differences between utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer and right-based philosopher Tom Regan). For instance, what are the moral implications of relocating a dangerous animal like a bear from a human community into an animal community? Should pet owner confine their pet cat indoors if it likes to eat birds and rabbits? And to the more absurd lengths, would it be ethical to elimate predators from the planet? (Peter Singer uses an ecological argument to deal with the last question on page 238 and 239 of his book "Animal Liberation", but I'm not convinced his response is as compelling as it ought to have been.)

 

Based on the second quotation, I think it would make sense for me to help a person if I saw they were going to be mauled by a lion, but by my own admission I dont have a clear explanation of why I should or shouldnt help a non-human animal in an identical situation. (I've been in a very remote sense, very close to this situation: I used to own a cat who liked to go outdoors, I saw him stalking a rabbit one day - I immediately took my cat indoors so he wouldnt kill the poor rabbit. This situation may not be comparable because my cat doesnt need to eat the rabbit to survive.) Until I have a better reply, I'll use Singer's ecological reasoning on pages 238 and 239 of Animal Liberation that, with the exception of preventing unnecessary suffering like I mentioned in the last post, once we give up the claim of "dominion" over other animals, then we have no right to interfere with them at all. This means we should not play Big Brother in trying to rescue deer from lions in the same way as we would rescue humans.

 

Its important to point out that my answer says nothing about humans having any more worth than any other animal nor does it say we should give preferencial treatment to our own kind (and certainly it does not justify humans killing animals our own benefit), we are still moral equals. However, answering the question in that odd way makes me uncomfortable, especially in light of the relatively little material addressing such an interesting topic - I will, of course, write and submit a short article on the problem to the academic community (i.e. a few of the nearby colleges) in the hopes that will generate some interest. (I would absolutely LOVE to write a book on the subject, but there are people with more expertise and time who could do a better job.)

 

 

Demosthenes,

 

I appreciate your post and questions, but I havent the time to reply at the moment. I work nights and usually pass the time by reading forums and pushing my work chores onto the people below me, but this morning is very busy for me so I really havent the time to answer your post. Just pretend I said something so incredibly compelling that it changed your life and made you want to rescue animals and eat tofu

[Mokele]

Ok, this may have already been covered, but it just occured to me after something Skye mentioned. Why does eating animal cause increased suffering, in a comparative sense?

 

First, I'd like to rule factory farms out from this. I don't like them either. For the purposes of this post, I'm referring to 'farms' in the more traditional sense.

 

So, we have two conditions, nature and farming. We can rule our death itself as a caue of suffering, since any living thing will eventually die, whether on the farm or in nature. While Farmer Bob might not use 100% humane approaches, neither does nature (wich goes double for everything we eat, since such animals are low on the food chain in nature), so I'd say there's no difference except in the cause of the death. If we exclude factory farms (as I explicitly did), the life on a farm involve much less suffering, since the animals are fed, cared for, and given medical treatment that they could never get in nature.

 

In fact, one could say that your average cow or chicken has a *much* better life even if it's eaten, since the average life of a cow in the wild is probably lose to 2 year, because of the extreme infant mortality. Worse for chickens (anyone whose seen what happens when a large rat snake gets into a chicken coop knows what I mean).

 

So, couldn't we simply view using animals for food as giving them a better life, a longer life and in return, we get to pick when and how it ends and use the carcass? Sure, they don't get a choice, but considering that the alternative for over 95% of them would simply be "death within the first year of life", I don't see that as a huge moral problem (especially since they lack the mental capacity to make that choice; in general herbivoes are exceptionally stupid animals).

 

Mokele

[AL]

One of the things I think animal rights literature really lacks is information dealing with carnivorous animals (no, these arent related to the question "animals eat animals, why shouldnt I?"). Although I take pride in my veganism, I sometimes find some unusual philosophical dilemmas in veganism (if you follow the AR community, you should also be very aware of the philosophical differences between utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer and right-based philosopher Tom Regan). For instance, what are the moral implications of relocating a dangerous animal like a bear from a human community into an animal community? Should pet owner confine their pet cat indoors if it likes to eat birds and rabbits? And to the more absurd lengths, would it be ethical to elimate predators from the planet? (Peter Singer uses an ecological argument to deal with the last question on page 238 and 239 of his book "Animal Liberation", but I'm not convinced his response is as compelling as it ought to have been.)

I think if it is held that killing an animal in self-defense is justified, then it is as well justified that predators be eliminated, since they must, of necessity, harm another creature (or we can cage them where they can do no harm, but that's tantamount to a death sentence anyway, since they must do harm to survive unless they are also detritivorous). Not that I advocate wiping them out, as they serve a vital ecological function, but of course, I acknowledge that this ecological consideration is not moral in nature.

 

2) Until I have a better reply, I'll use Singer's ecological reasoning on pages 238 and 239 of Animal Liberation that, with the exception of preventing unnecessary suffering like I mentioned in the last post, once we give up the claim of "dominion" over other animals, then we have no right to interfere with them at all. This means we should not play Big Brother in trying to rescue deer from lions in the same way as we would rescue humans.

I'm not sure how giving up dominion over animals isn't fundamentally equivalent to moral neglect. Well, I'm not really sure what "dominion" means in this context. But acknowledging that we have finite resources to tackle these sorts of problems (as acknowledged by the child drowning scenario), we are forced to prioritize who and what to give moral protections to. Unless this prioritization is done indiscriminately such that one would be just as willing to (say) save a rat as a human from a burning apartment complex, implicit in any discriminating heirarchy of priorities is that things on top have more value (by some measure) than things below.

 

I will, of course, write and submit a short article on the problem to the academic community (i.e. a few of the nearby colleges) in the hopes that will generate some interest. (I would absolutely LOVE to write a book on the subject, but there are people with more expertise and time who could do a better job.)

If you get feedback, don't hesitate to post it here. It never hurts to have new ideas to discuss.

[In My Memory]

Mokele,

Ok' date=' this may have already been covered, but it just occured to me after something Skye mentioned. Why does eating animal cause increased suffering, in a comparative sense?

 

First, I'd like to rule factory farms out from this. I don't like them either. For the purposes of this post, I'm referring to 'farms' in the more traditional sense.

 

So, we have two conditions, nature and farming. We can rule our death itself as a caue of suffering, since any living thing will eventually die, whether on the farm or in nature. While Farmer Bob might not use 100% humane approaches, neither does nature (wich goes double for everything we eat, since such animals are low on the food chain in nature), so I'd say there's no difference except in the cause of the death. If we exclude factory farms (as I explicitly did), the life on a farm involve much less suffering, since the animals are fed, cared for, and given medical treatment that they could never get in nature.[/quote']

I cant seem to find a way to break up my reply to fit your comments while maintaining logical flow, so I'll just put it in a large block with bold headings for clarity.

 

Explanation of why killing, even painless killing, is unethical

 

One of the first things that got me into studying morality in the first place was in asking "why is it wrong to destroy life". Before committing to veganism, I used to ask myself this question and actually never figured out the answer for many years. I used to wonder on what basis it would be wrong to take the life of a person (or animal) if it were killed painlessly and without its knowledge.

 

I later found a good reason for explaining the wrongness of killing: I've based my answer on a partial explanation by Peter Singer from his book Practical Ethics (p. 72 - 74), which is summed up very loosely as follows: taking a utilitarian approach, and understanding that it is morally good to fulfill more interests than not, then its very obvious that if you kill a being then you violate more interests than you fulfill (which include an interest not to be killed obviously, but also interests in fulfilling future goals, relationships, pursuing happiness, running through fields, etc.). If you kill an animal or a human, that means you systematically violate each and every one of its interests in the most absolute way - by reducing them down to nothingness; at the same time, you fulfill very few and very trivial interests, that being that you like the taste of the carcass. Although in general it is less unethical to kill a being painlessly rather than torment it before hand, killing of any kind produces a such lopsided utilitarian equation that it is never justified except in the the most extreme circumstances (i.e. self-defense). I hope that isnt too abstract, but its a general explanation for why its wrong to kill.

 

On that basis, I have to reject your statement of ruling out death itself. Death and killing do not imply the same moral consequences - natural death requires no violation of any interests, killing requires a violation of all of them. Adding to that, it is wrong to say that there is no difference between killing in the wild and killing in the farm, because animals cannot make moral choices about their diet nor can they consider an alternative diet, but human beings certainly can make those moral choices and live on an alternative diet.

 

 

Traditional Farming causes suffering

 

You mention raising animals on traditional farms. Animals on traditional farms certainly do suffer, and it isnt possible to raise them on a large scale without causing suffering. Here is another excerpt from Peter Singer's "Animal Liberation" (p. 145, citations and footnotes omitted for brevity):

... it is not only intensive farming that causes animals to suffer. Animals undergo numerous minor cruelties whether they are reared by modern or traditional methods.

 

... Nearly all cattlemen de-horn, brand, and castrate their animals. All of these processes can cause severe physical pain. Horns are cut because horned animals take up more space at a feeding trough or in transit, and can harm each other when packed tightly. Bruised carcasses and damaged hides are costly. The horns are not merely insensitive bone. Arteries and other tissue have to be cut when the horn is removed, and bleeding results, especially if the calf is not de-horned shortly after birth.

 

Castration is practiced because steers are thought to put on weight better than bulls - although in fact they seem only to put on more fat - and because there is a fear of a taint developing in the flesh from the male hormones. Castrated animals are also easier to handle. Most farmers admit that the operation causes shock and pain to the animal. In Britain an anesthetic must be used, unless the animal is very young, but in America anesthetics are not in general use. The procedure is to pin the animal down, take a knife and slit the scrotum, exposing the testicles. You then grab each testicle in turn and pull on it, breaking the cord that attaches it; on older animals it may be necessary to cut the cord.

 

[Paragraph on hot-iron branding omitted for brevity.]

I dont have the room to include a length excerpt, but the text continues to detail the transportation of cattle. The cattle are unfed for 12 to 24 hours (obviously because it isnt economical to slaughter an animal with undigested food), you have to pack the cattle tightly in train cars and transport them thousands of miles; in the summer this means the cattle suffer and die of thirst and dehydration, in the winter it means the animals will freeze. Due to the stress of transportation, many cattle will break a leg, develop sickness, scientific studies indicate that your average cow will 10% of its body mass in transit, at least 1% will die as a result, and finally there is the slaughter itself. You could never raise cattle for food on a large scale without suffering.

 

Hypothetically, what if we assume that a cow is raised in the happiest of conditions for its entire life, then killed for food. Would that make it ethical? Among the reasons mentioned above (in the "explanation of why killing is wrong" section), it still shows a prejudice in our moral reasoning: it gives greater weight to the interests of humans in wanting to eat animals than an animals interest in its continued existence.

 

 

Other things that came to mind

 

I could only imagine that it would be right to eat animals in a few cases (mind you that no vegan would be likely to join you because after the first few months on a veggie diet, meat is no longer palatable... its like quitting smoking):

- that the animal was euthanized to relieve its suffering (such as in the same way we treat human euthanasia)

- that the animal has died of natural causes

- that the animal has no interest in its continued existence or the capacity to feel pain (I think some insects fall into this category).

- that you compete with other animals for your survival (in a state of nature kind of way, or perhaps in self-defense)

But raising it with the intention to be killed for food, that isnt justifiable.

 

I should probably add something important: not all traditional farming methods are bad, one of the most kind vegans I had ever known used to keep three hens and eat the eggs. The hens were very happy and didnt seem to mind their eggs being eaten. I dont find anything wrong with this. (I know, it sounds like a contradiction for a vegan to eat eggs, but ethical vegans abstain from animal products for the sake of minimizing unnecessary suffering rather than the brute fact that it is an animal product. Ethically speaking, there is no inconsistency.) She used to say that the eggs from her hens tasted much better than a factory farm egg, probably due to the fact that factory farmers add a lot of added hormones and colorizing agents that try to make the tasteless commercial egg more appealing. At least in the case of chickens, not all traditional farming methods are unethical. (I would still recommend boycotting free range eggs and milks, and stick to egg and milk substitutes, because often the cows and chickens fair no better than at the factory or they are sold factories as soon as they no long produce.)

 

In fact, one could say that your average cow or chicken has a *much* better life even if it's eaten, since the average life of a cow in the wild is probably lose to 2 year, because of the extreme infant mortality.

We dont harvest chickens and cows from the wild, they are mass produced by breeders. It isnt the fact that the animals would have a better life in the factory than the wild, but more to the point these animals would never exist in the first place if they werent bred for the factory. This means it isnt true that the choice is either to have animals living in the wild or in farms, the choice is really to whether the animal will be bred for food or not be born at all.

 

 

AL,

 

I think if it is held that killing an animal in self-defense is justified' date=' then it is as well justified that predators be eliminated, since they must, of necessity, harm another creature (or we can cage them where they can do no harm, but that's tantamount to a death sentence anyway, since they must do harm to survive unless they are also detritivorous). Not that I advocate wiping them out, as they serve a vital ecological function, but of course, I acknowledge that this ecological consideration is not moral in nature.

 

I'm not sure how giving up dominion over animals isn't fundamentally equivalent to moral neglect.[/quote']

Maybe this would also add some clarification, Peter Singer replies to a critic critiquing Animal Liberation:

[Do we have a moral responsibility to prevent the lion's slaughter of the gazelle?]

 

As for wild animals, for practical purposes I am fairly sure, judging from man's past record of attempts to mold nature to his own aims, that we would be more likely to increase the net amount of animal suffering if we interfered with wildlife, than to decrease it. Lions play a role in the ecology of their habitat, and we cannot be sure what the long-term consequences would be if we were to prevent them from killing gazelles. (The way to do this, I suppose, would be by eliminating lions, perhaps by sterilization.) So, in practice, I would definitely say that wildlife should be left alone.

 

The remaining question is purely hypothetical, and perhaps it would be politic to refuse to answer it. Nevertheless, philosophers are supposed to answer hypothetical questions, so I will risk it. If, in some way, we could be reasonably certain that interfering with wildlife in a particular way would, in the long run, greatly reduce the amount of killing and suffering in the animal world, it would, I think, be right to interfere. Having said this, I should add that it is a consequence not of the idea of Animal Liberation in itself, but of the general moral views I hold. It would be quite possible, if one accepted other moral views, for instance some theory of natural rights, to be a non-speciesist and to hold that man had no right to impose his own designs on other species.

 

Replying to another critic:

Finally, as far as the wolves and the moose are concerned, it is notable that on all the occasions on which this stale argument has been dragged out, no one has put forward a serious proposal for reducing animal suffering without destroying the delicate ecology of the area involved. The reason that animal liberationists do not try to interfere with predator-prey relationships is that they are not as arrogant or stupid as other humans who, over the centuries, have imagined that they know how to rearrange nature by introducing a few rabbits here, or letting some goats run wild there. The outcome of past cases of human interference has been disastrous for the nonhuman animals, and often for the humans as well. There is no reason to believe that the kind of interference Raynor appears to have in mind would turn out differently.

(Singer sounds cranky in that paragraph, but if you read the whole exchange, the crankiness is explained because the critic attacks Singer on an intellectually dishonest basis.)

 

Generally, veganism is about minimizing unnecessary suffering, such as voluntarily refusing to use animal products and buying only organic food gardens* and clothing. I think it is hard to make an argument that carnivores in nature kill without necessity, or that their removal would be tantamount to minimizing unnecessary suffering (it could be precisely the opposite) - at least in that respect, I dont see that the claim of fundamental moral neglect is strongly justified.

 

* A quick unrelated footnote on organic gardens: I know some people who grow their own vegetables, and veggies really do taste much better when you grow them yourself. I grow strawberries in my own garden, but I cannot till my yard to grow vegetables - my state assumes that people living in my neighborhood plan to stay for non-permanent residence, therefore it is against the law to dig up your yard for a large garden (or underground pool for that matter). Gardens and shrubbery are set aside only for the 3 foot perimeter around your house. Even if there were no property restrictions, the snow and cold would make it impossible to grow veggies in the winter. People in my situtation usually opt to buy from organic providers.

 

Unless this prioritization is done indiscriminately such that one would be just as willing to (say) save a rat as a human from a burning apartment complex, implicit in any discriminating heirarchy of priorities is that things on top have more value (by some measure) than things below.

This scenario doesnt have to do with discrimination or giving more value to human interests. It really has more to do with a basic utilitarian maximizing principle: where the interests are in conflict, you should try to perform an action which will satisfy the greatest number of interests. I should mention that the scenario you pose is almost verbatim as the one featured on Peter Singer's Princeton Homepage - Frequently Asked Questions:

Q. If you had to save either a human being or a mouse from a fire, with no time to save them both, wouldn’t you save the human being?

 

A. Yes, in almost all cases I would save the human being. But not because the human being is human, that is, a member of the species Homo sapiens. Species membership alone isn't morally significant, but equal consideration for similar interests allows different consideration for different interests. The qualities that are ethically significant are, firstly, a capacity to experience something -- that is, a capacity to feel pain, or to have any kind of feelings. That's really basic, and it’s something that a mouse shares with us. But when it comes to a question of taking life, or allowing life to end, it matters whether a being is the kind of being who can see that he or she actually has a life -- that is, can see that he or she is the same being who exists now, who existed in the past, and who will exist in the future. Such a being has more to lose than a being incapable of understand this.

 

Any normal human being past infancy will have such a sense of existing over time. I’m not sure that mice do, and if they do, their time frame is probably much more limited. So normally, the death of a human being is a greater loss to the human than the death of a mouse is to the mouse – for the human, it cuts off plans for the distant future, for example, but not in the case of the mouse. And we can add to that the greater extent of grief and distress that, in most cases, the family of the human being will experience, as compared with the family of the mouse (although we should not forget that animals, especially mammals and birds, can have close ties to their offspring and mates).

That’s why, in general, it would be right to save the human, and not the mouse, from the burning building, if one could not save both. But this depends on the qualities and characteristics that the human being has. If, for example, the human being had suffered brain damage so severe as to be in an irreversible state of unconsciousness, then it might not be better to save the human.

 

(Please dont mind that the majority of my posts are quotations from a few animal rights resources. I'm wholly capable of speaking for myself, but I figure its best to quote the material from the actual AR supporters themselves because most people will never come in contact with the material otherwise. Also, I rather like Peter Singer's writings and find them so well-written and well-argued for a topic as complicated as our moral duties to animals.)

 

I also want to add my thanks. Its very rare I can mention and discuss my veganism (something I take very seriously but other people do not) without coming down to a cat fight, so I thank you for your civility, I really appreciate it .

[AL]

IMM, what I originally wanted to know was why you don't feel it is justified to sacrifice lab animals for medical research (not testing on cosmetics and so forth). I then went slightly off on a tangent to discuss why I feel that in some respects we do, whether we acknowledge it or not, give priority to human lives. The article you posted here by Singer is all well and good, but in it, I see nothing that condemns the use of animals to appease the suffering of humans. He even acknowledges that human experience is greater than that of a mouse, and from this I think a reasonable case can be made for lab animal research. Well, further, if we agree that it is acceptable for a carnivore to eat because it would perish otherwise, why is it unacceptable for us to kill an animal if a human, suffering some ailment that could possibly be cured through animal testing, would perish otherwise?

 

Don't get me wrong -- of course I wouldn't approve killing chimpanzees to develop allergy medicine, but giving tumors to mice to learn more about how cancer works is something else entirely.

[In My Memory]

AL

 

Well, further, if we agree that it is acceptable for a carnivore to eat because it would perish otherwise, why is it unacceptable for us to kill an animal if a human, suffering some ailment that could possibly be cured through animal testing, would perish otherwise?

You would be surprised how often I'm asked on what basis animal testing would be justified. I have a nearly canned response to this: because a retarded human infant possesses no characteristics fundamentally greater than any non-human animal, then all I have to ask is whether the experimenter is willing to perform his experiment on a retarded human infant at a similar mental level of an animal. If the answer is no, then the experiment would obviously not be justified to perform on an animal. Presumably, based on your comment that you wouldnt approve of experimentation on apes and chimpanzees (perhaps because they have the relevant mental characteristics), you would find this to be a reasonable starting point.

 

I personally find that, in the grand scheme of things, the case for animal medical research - the kind that requires some amount of pain to relieve the pain of many others - is stronger than the case for eating animals or cosmetic testing. That isnt to say that the case is sufficiently strong to make it the right thing to do, but just stronger.

 

Probably, this is going to come off completely morbid to you, but I want to assure you that it isnt my intention: if medical research to cure diseases is necessary, truly necessary to an extent that it requires lives to be destroyed, then on what basis do we have to infect more animals with cancers and rare diseases to test on them when we already have human subjects with those cancers and diseases to test on? I try not to make that comment completely arbitrarily, but its based on my recollection of several medical experiments that required inducing heat stroke in animals (by trapping them in heated boxes for hours) to reconfirm the techniques of treating heat stroke already in use on humans. This implies that if the ends of medical research is supposed to be to relieve more pain than is caused, then my suggestion (however morbid) is the logical end to the basis "relieving more pain than is caused" - the case for human experimentation can now be argued to have a more sufficient ethical imperative than animal experimentation. (I'm not saying that I advocate actually doing this because I find it frightening - there could be methods such as tissue cultures and computer modeling that might be better -, but merely pointing out how a consistency in ethics would lead us to this conclusion.)

[Mokele]

Death and killing do not imply the same moral consequences - natural death requires no violation of any interests, killing requires a violation of all of them. Adding to that, it is wrong to say that there is no difference between killing in the wild and killing in the farm, because animals cannot make moral choices about their diet nor can they consider an alternative diet, but human beings certainly can make those moral choices and live on an alternative diet.

 

With all due respect, I think you missed my point: animals die anyay, why does it matter which way they die? I strongly disagree with you assertion that natural death requires no violation of interests. If we attribute the interests you describe above to a mouse, and accept that killing the mouse ends those interests, how does a hawk or snake killing the mouse not end those interests with just as much finality as any mousetrap?

 

Basically, what I'm saying is that the animal is going to be killed by someone, human or animal (or even plant, considering my garden), so it's really just a matter of who does it. And if you mean "natural death" to be death by old age, that almost *never* happens in the wild; the vast majority die from disease, parasites, predators, fights, etc. Why is killing acceptable if it's a hawk rather than a human?

 

As for choice, yes, we do, but as I'm pointing out 1) there isn't nearly as much black-and-white as often claimed in the issue and 2) from the food animal's perspective, does the motivation of the predator really matter? Dead is dead, after all.

 

You could never raise cattle for food on a large scale without suffering.

 

Well, you *could*, but only in a system in which anything less than perfect conditions was prevented from coming to market, so that 'cheaters' couldn't drive down the price. But that's more of a economic debate.

 

Hypothetically, what if we assume that a cow is raised in the happiest of conditions for its entire life, then killed for food. Would that make it ethical? Among the reasons mentioned above (in the "explanation of why killing is wrong" section), it still shows a prejudice in our moral reasoning: it gives greater weight to the interests of humans in wanting to eat animals than an animals interest in its continued existence.

 

Why? Like I said above, the cow got something out of it (free food, medical, a life) that it would have otherwise lacked, and in return, we got to use it and pick when. Killing only becomes highly unethical if you fail to acknowledge that death is one of the two universal certainties, and that the manner of death doesn't really matter much beyond ensuring minimal pain. Sure, we kill the cows, but they would have died anyway someday, and I'd bet they'd've beem just as unhappy about it regardless of the timing or situation.

 

It isnt the fact that the animals would have a better life in the factory than the wild, but more to the point these animals would never exist in the first place if they werent bred for the factory.

 

So you're saying that no existence is better than some with a special termination clause? I don't buy that. Surely any existence is better than none at all, and said 'termination clause' an acceptable price.

 

Personally, I see farming as just hunting with less running around and hiding in bushes, and hunting as merely replacing another predator with us, so no net ethical change for the prey.

 

if medical research to cure diseases is necessary, truly necessary to an extent that it requires lives to be destroyed, then on what basis do we have to infect more animals with cancers and rare diseases to test on them when we already have human subjects with those cancers and diseases to test on?

 

Because medical ethics committees all but forbid true experimenation on humans. Oh, sure, we can given them a drug and see if it works, but *real* experiments with proper controls and such just are not possible without creating imprisoned, cloned/inbred lines of humans. Too much environmenal variation.

 

I personally find that, in the grand scheme of things, the case for animal medical research - the kind that requires some amount of pain to relieve the pain of many others - is stronger than the case for eating animals or cosmetic testing. That isnt to say that the case is sufficiently strong to make it the right thing to do, but just stronger.

 

Why would it not be strong enough? Isn't sacrificing a few hundred lives to save hundreds of thousands worthwhile?

 

Mokele

[-Demosthenes-]

taking a utilitarian approach, and understanding that it is morally good to fulfill more interests than not, then its very obvious that if you kill a being then you violate more interests than you fulfill (which include an interest not to be killed obviously, but also interests in fulfilling future goals, relationships, pursuing happiness, running through fields, etc.). If you kill an animal or a human, that means you systematically violate each and every one of its interests in the most absolute way - by reducing them down to nothingness; at the same time, you fulfill very few and very trivial interests, that being that you like the taste of the carcass.

 

Before you argument was that animals feel pain, now it's about taking life. There is a problem with the second argument, according to it's logic you shouldn't kill any life: plant, protist, or mold.

 

So, according to your "animals feel pain" argument, they shouldn't be allowed to suffer (but they can be killed painlessly). And in you other argument ("life is important") you can't kill any life. What you have tried to do is blend them together and take parts from both that you like, but in reality you must choose one, because they contradict each other.

 

You mention raising animals on traditional farms. Animals on traditional farms certainly do[/i'] suffer...

Again, this means nothing if the animal is not aware.

 

because a retarded human infant possesses no characteristics fundamentally greater than any non-human animal, then all I have to ask is whether the experimenter is willing to perform his experiment on a retarded human infant at a similar mental level of an animal.If the answer is no, then the experiment would obviously not be justified to perform on an animal.

Because no one will use a mentally retarded infant in experiments. It's not a question about "mental level". Just as someone won't experiment on their pet dog or cat, no one would ever do that to an infant.

 

I won't hurt a pet bird, but a chicken that has the same "mental level" I would eat.

[AL]

AL

 

 

You would be surprised how often I'm asked on what basis animal testing would be justified. I have a nearly canned response to this: because a retarded human infant possesses no characteristics fundamentally greater than any non-human animal' date=' then all I have to ask is whether the experimenter is willing to perform his experiment on a retarded human infant at a similar mental level of an animal. If the answer is no, then the experiment would obviously not be justified to perform on an animal. Presumably, based on your comment that you wouldnt approve of experimentation on apes and chimpanzees (perhaps because they have the relevant mental characteristics), you would find this to be a reasonable starting point.[/quote']

I don't generally oppose testing on humans either. Certainly if I were diagnosed with a terminal illness, I'd probably not be too concerned with the risks of trying out experimental treatment or pharmaceuticals (provided the known side effects aren't immediate death or agonizing pain), so I'd effectively be testing on myself. I'd probably encourage people I know in that situation to do likewise. In the case of a cognitively-impaired human, we might allow someone else to make that decision for them in the same way we allow a parent to make many decisions for their children.

 

Well, what constitutes acceptable decision by proxy is a topic for another debate altogether, but if we agree that the experience of a mouse is far beneath that of a human, I think we really ought to take that into consideration when deciding if the mouse can be used to relieve the suffering of the human, and compare it vis-à-vis the tradeoffs accordingly. With something much "higher" than a mouse, such as a primate, or a cetacean, or even a retarded human, more weight should be given to their lives when compared vis-à-vis the benefits experimenting on them may produce, such that we'd be less likely to want to use them in experimentation precisely because their experience is "greater" than that of some of the "lower" animals.

 

But an outright ban on animal testing would essentially equate the mouse's life experience with the human's life experience, and I think it cannot be consistent with any notion that we'd prefer to rescue a human over a mouse from a fire.