A tiger has every right to kill an antelope as a human has to kill a cow. The real ethical problem for me lies not in the killing of animals, but rather the conditions they live in prior to execution, and the method of execution. There is a way to ethically consume meat, and it is non industrial and requires each person to do the kill so as to not be alienated from the significance of killing an animal to feed oneself.
If they were smart, they’d do what their domestic counterparts do - make themselves masters of a family of human slaves. They’d be much better off at the price of a few purrs.
Sure, but that right is in question. Being a part of the ecosystem is fine, animal or human (which is an animal). It’s when we destroy the ecosystem to satisfy ourselves where I question the right to do so. It doesn’t matter what the animal is, except we’re the only animals capable of doing so.
Maybe in the past humans had to, but thats not the case anymore, as we have more thenen enough different sources.
But thats not even the issue. The issue is the gross amount of meat most people eat, that is not backed up by any kind of “but we allways did it this way”
I agree with you 100%. It baffles the mind how many chickens we kill so that some fatass can order a bucket of KFC every night.
And you know the thing, most people when shown the conditions of these animals and how abhorrent it is do create a consciousness about it and often try to do things better, though it almost always fails because our society is kinda set up in this way. But I do think that’s one day, maybe a millennia in the future we will look at how we treated animals today with the same sort of apprehension that we think of slavery.
But again my argument is that killing animals is not wrong, that is a right that every animal has. What is wrong is at the scale, and sheer barbarism in the way we do it.
This seems like a lot of work (both practically to do this and mentally to make this argument) when you could just…not eat meat? Seems a lot easier and more ethical.
The easiest path is not necessarily the best or right path. Though I do agree that in the context of modern industrial meat production the more ethical thing to do is not consume meat. But that is not the same thing as saying that eating meat is wrong, or immoral. The immoral thing is the way the animals suffer before being killed.
It’s also unethical because it destroys the planet, harming everyone and everything on it. That is baked in. Producing meat will always take several times more resources than an equivalent amount of plants. Since our society refuses to limit usage of water, ground nutrients, etc, to sustainable levels, eating meat will harm the environment. Every bite of meat you take steals from future generations.
Killing animals that don’t need to be killed is also wrong. And in a modern society, there is no requirement for us to eat meat, as we can live full lives on wholly plant-based diets.
The immoral thing is the way the animals suffer before being killed.
What is the difference between a human an an animal that means in one case there’s nothing wrong with killing a vulnerable individual who doesn’t want to die as long as they don’t experience physical pain, but a big problem in the other case?
I will leave this notification on so I can answer later. The reason I can’t answer now is that I want to publish the full framework first, because it does answer that question but it is extensive.
The short answer is that in absolute terms there is no difference, but because everyone says says it is worse then it is worse.
And a male lion after defeating and taking over the pride has every right to kill the children of the former leader, because they’re animals and act on instinct and can’t make moral decisions. Humans can.
You can make other arguments about eating meat but appeals to nature like this don’t work in a modern enlightened era where we have more decisions and understand the consequences of them.
Who says that the lion isn’t just needlessly cruel? You can only assume that it lacks the ability to make moral decisions, but then again humans kill children all the time for incomprehensible reasons. How are these lions and humans different except your perception that one has moral agency and the other doesn’t based on absolutely no empirical evidence except your belief in your own superiority.
Again this entire thing hinges on the notion that animals lack rationality, but the evidence increasingly dies not support that. But that’s neither here nor there, the nature of a lion is different to the nature of a human. And even then, we still do what you have described all the time. It may be wrong but we do it, and we will still do it a thousand years from now if we are still around. Now the argument is not because “it is part of your nature, you’re allowed to do it”, the argument is that all animals have a right to kill other animals in order to defend or feed themselves.
The other part of the argument is that unless you think for example another omnivore like a chimp (which fyi we have absolutely no reason to believe are any less rational than us ) is immoral if they decide to eat meat having plant based foods available then you shouldn’t think that about human beings.
If you want to improve animal welfare, you need to start believing that all animals, including human animals are equal. While society continues to believe humans are superior in any way to animals we will not be able to create a world in which all species are equally respected.
Who says the lion is just needlessly cruel? Fundamentally neither of us can know what’s happening in the lions head so there is no empirical evidence to be had. With passing judgement I tend to work on innocent until proven guilty so I’m just gonna assume the lion is acting on instinct.
As for your main argument of “all animals have a right to kill other animals in order to defend or feed themselves” if you combine that with your other argument of humans and animals are equal, can a human kill another human for food? Can a human kill another human in defense of a slap? This right your proposing is missing a key part and that’s necessity. If it is necessary, or the animal thinks it’s necessary for its survival, then that animal has a right to kill for food or defense. This is where modern humans and animals are different, humans are far more aware of what is and isn’t necessary for survival. A chimp doesn’t know whether it will or even can get enough food from just plants. Your average human, at least in the developed world, is aware that you can survive off a vegetarian diet and there is food available to do so. They wantonly choose to kill animals because they taste good. I also don’t judge people close to subsistence eating meat because they need every calorie they can get.
Your first point is exactly my point, but extended to humans. The idea that we are above instinct is so absurd, it requires putting us on a pedestal of rationality for which there is little evidence of. Is it more logical to think that all animal mental processes operate in much the same way or that for some reason humans simply are built different? There is some evidence that rationality is simply us justifying things we already decided instinctually.
My argument is not, “it is natural therefore it is right”, my argument is only and absolutely only about the morality of killing animals for food and is centered on the right to live of every animal. There’s other scaffolding about the insignificance of death but it’s unlikely to change your mind so I won’t go into it. Anyways should be obvious that Intra species relationships are different from interspecies relationships, human moral judgements are almost purely intra-species regulations. We don’t need to extrapolate my argument to make a universal claim about other things when I’ve been very clear that I’m simply talking about this issue specifically.
But to not sidestep around your argument yes there are instances in which humans may kill humans for food. Because survival overwrites any moral principles due to the right to live of every being which includes the right to kill for your own survival. How can you judge someone in a position in which there is only enough food to sustain 1 person as immoral if they are both thinking the same thing and one decides to take action? Should they both let themselves starve? Or how would you mediate it?
Now I may be predisposed to not do it due to social conditioning but I will not rationalize it by saying that it is because I’m more moral or ethical, I’m simply programmed differently and would not be able to kill another human for food. Or at least I do not think so, I don’t know what happens when my very life is on the line. I’m not sure that I would even be capable of killing an animal to be honest.
But again, that’s not really related to my argument in any direct way except that you are trying to turn it into a universal claim, which it isn’t.
I’m not saying humans are above instinct or lions have no rationality. I’m saying humans use rationality way more because of our far greater understanding of the world. Rationality requires knowledge of the world in order to form decisions, and humans have far more knowledge of the world then a lion.
I’m sorry for misunderstanding your claim as universal, but if it’s not you shouldn’t use universalist language: “all animals have a right to kill other animals in order to defend or feed themselves.”, rights, as I understand them, are universal as the more exceptions you have to a right the less it becomes a right.
I don’t understand them intra species vs inter species distinction, is cannibalism more wrong then inter species carnivory?
Back to the main point though, your initial claim that it’s fine to kill for food if you do it yourself and aren’t alienated from it, you said this is one requirement, are there any others? I’m saying that the necessity for survival is one of them. I think we agree on this as you base your claim for this “right” on the right to live of every animal, therefore an animal should not encroach on that right unless it feels its own life is threatened. If you live in the developed world with ample access to plant based foods and access to knowledge of how to eat a vegetarian diet, then it doesn’t matter if you go out into the woods naked armed only with a spear, your still wantonly killing. Your not killing to protect your right to life, your killing for the taste of the animals flesh, or sport, or to prove your masculinity etc. Those are not valid reasons to kill.
I have so many arguments against this I don’t even know were to start, so I’ll keep it simple: you need to abandon anthropocentrism.
Humans are animals and not particularly special or even intelligent ones. (Intelligence being defined as the ability to solve problems and learn from them) Our “intelligence” is actually just cumulative generationally passed knowledge. It is not clear that humans are indeed more rational than a tiger or that tigers or non human animals in general lack rationality, except only in the way in which a human would define rationality which cannot be a universal claim.
I’m not op and I’m an omnivore and i have to tell you, your reply is … not a good response to what op said. It’s full of strawmen arguments and nonsense. You seem to be arguing that humans can’t choose to be vegetarians? And you veer way off into nowhere arguing about what you think intelligence is? I dunno, for someone who said they have a ton of arguments, you sure picked a bunch of bad ones
Humans can choose to be vegetarians of course, that doesn’t mean that killing animals is immoral or wrong, necessarily. That notion can only exist if you think humans have a superior place in the world to that of animals. Anthropocentrism is central to this idea that humans are the only animals who cannot kill other animals to feed themselves without it being immoral.
Ie a chimp could choose to eat fruits if he wanted but they also often eat monkeys even if fruit is available. How is that different, from a human choosing to eat a cow even if he could eat grain? The difference is only that you think the human “knows better” than the chimp.
Your argument is: If animals do a thing then it can’t be immoral for us to do it. I’m sure at this point in the discussion you realize that that’s not a valid argument
That is not my argument at all. I never made such a universal claim.
My claim is that all animals have a right to feed themselves and as a part of that right there is a right to kill other animals. Therefore it is not more immoral for a human to kill an animal than it is for a tiger. I say that only in this context, because our biology evolved to also use meat. We can survive without it sure, but it is suboptimal. It is also true that we should be eating way less meat than we do. Therefore the immoral thing is not killing or eating animals but rather the industry around it.
In relating to other animals, there is no reason our standard should be any different than animals to one another. In relating to other people, it is reasonable to have a different standard.
Would you consider bestiality immoral then? The animal equivalent of bestiality (interspecies sex) occurs regularly between different species after all.
I am not able to provide an objective moral reason if other animals may be treated differently from humans. If consent cannot be taken into account, raping animals is not immoral.
The sole argument could be that bestiality harms or at the very least exposes an animal to a significant risk of harm. But then again, killing an animal certainly harms it much worse but this would be morally acceptable in such a system, so the harm an animal faces isn’t really part of the equation.
Look at human history we ate each other and other human species. We are not special we are not chosen by God. We are just animals that think we are special.
Even being vegan has an effect on the earth destroying habitat ruining bio diversity chemicals getting into the environment.
Nobody invoked intelligence or rationality. You have misread and now you are just confusing things.
To keep it simple: A tiger’s life depends on killing other animals. A human being can live to a record-setting age and never kill another animal. The tiger has no choice but to be violent to vulnerable individuals, but when a human does it, the lack of necessity makes it cruelty and abuse. When a human does have such a necessity, the math works out differently, but in the context of the comic strip, the subject had no necessity to kill those vulnerable individuals.
All life is supported by displacing or ending others. Even if you don’t view plants as ethically problematic, the agricultural practices to feed civilisation, by definition, must upset the natural ecological balance and harm animals.
The reason a vegan doesn’t feel upset about eating produce is the degree of removal from the animal harm. They don’t see the deforestation or destruction of wetlands or the damage done by pesticides or in fertilizer production. It’s no different than an omnivore not feeling guilt when a butcher kills an animal (even if they wouldn’t do it themselves).
This harm has always happened since we developed coordinated agrarian societies. The most ethical stance is that humans should return to their natural ecological niche, hunter-gatherers with minimal reliance on agriculture.
However, veganism isn’t possible in such a society. The ability to supplement the human diet with plant based alternatives at scale requires disruptive agriculture. Thus strict veganism* in this lens is inherently self defeating.
*The vegan concept of harm reduction isn’t impacted here, there are still lots of reasons to go plant based
I’d like to see a single human alive today who because of their actions has not killed another animal? I guarantee every single human alive today has been responsible for killing an animal. Sure it might not have been for food but your actions have resulted in the death of an animal.
It doesn’t need to be invoked, the higher moral agency placed on humans hinges on the notion of superior human rationality. You could choose to be a vegetarian and choose not to kill animals, but that doesn’t mean that it is a more ethical or moral choice because human biology evolved to require meat other wise it requires planning and supplementation that is not necessarily possible outside of industrial societies. I do agree that choosing not to eat animals due to the industrial nature of meat production is a more ethical choice, but not that killing animals is necessarily wrong.
I may not be explaining it well but basically: the idea that humans killing animals is wrong can only exist if you think humans are superior to animals. I reject that notion and that’s where my argument comes from.
That’s a really bad argument, sorry. Of course we place a higher moral agency on humans than on animals - otherwise you’d have yo argue that other atrocities like rape and murder shouldn’t be morally judged either.
A tiger cannot make moral decisions. You can. So you will be judged if you don’t.
Not to hold yourself to a higher standard morally than a literal predator would be downright psychopathic.
You are placing a higher moral agency on humans because you make some special distinction between humans and other animals.
Humans are just other animals and they have diverse conceptions of morality and ethics. Rape and murder are not equivalent to killing for sustanance.
Comparing our moral behaviour to a ‘literal predator’ is a value judgement where you denigrate animal behaviour and elevate human behaviour as somehow superior.
You are placing a higher moral agency on humans because you make some special distinction between humans and other animals.
Well, obviously. Because I believe I can be held to a higher standard than a tiger. They kill and eat disabled babies. Is that something you would deem acceptable for humans to do?
You are judging a tiger from a human centric perspective and making a claim that we know better than it.
Even that article point out that unlike lions tigers are not a social species. Therefore our sense of morality is not applicable to the tiger. A disabled or strange Tiger cub can’t mature into an adult tiger.
For humans it is different. But there are examples, such as Spartans, killing disabled babies which was not immoral to them.
My point is you can’t make a universal claim to the morality of humans killing other animals to sustain themselves since it is evidently how we evolved and our nature.
We can intellecutalize and make moral and ethical decisions to not eat animals for the many valid reasons in this thread which I also subscribe to but that doesn’t mean the moral claim that killing animals is wrong can be applied to all human animals at all times.
For example to switch to vegan diets relies heavily on industrialized society. Arguably our contemporary society which facilities the adoption of vegan diets is more immoral than the behaviour of previous human civilizations since the latter is limited in scope and in inpact while the former destroys entire ecosystems, biodiversity and causes mass extinction.
I think this is fundamentally true (although it has issues when it scales down to insects and below that requires an arbitrary line to be drawn) but I’m not convinced that being absolute about it is useful in harm reduction.
It’s objectively better that someone looks to buy meat from a farm that cares about the welfare of its animals than one that maximizes profit at the cost of the wellbeing and happiness of the animal.
Naturally it’s better still if they reduce or stop their meat consumption, but making it black-and-white can potentially result in a worse outcome by setting the bar higher than the consumer is willing to jump.
The one that has a life out in the field and then just dies one day without any stress. The one that is in a factory farm never sees the light is stressed their whole life. Guess what life is a bitch and unfair everything dies.
I genuinely can’t understand the disconnect you people have between the value of one life lived versus another only to be OK with that life being ended for the indulgence of your average McDonald’s customer.
I genuinely can’t understand the disconnect you people have between a plot of ecologically diverse forest life and a sterile field of corn just for the indulgence of a bag of Doritos.
See, it’s not hard to make disingenuous leaps. If you’re going to tell me about sustainable local farming don’t bother, I’ll dismiss it like local animal farming vs. factory slaughter.
So what is your solution for when a species is getting over populated and destroying an ecosystem? Is it not more ethical to kill some and preserve the ecosystem for the rest of the wildlife in that area?
Could be any number of valid reasons that have nothing to do with eating meat. For example, human safety. Unless you’re arguing for a dismantling of civilization due to its natural encroachment, I don’t know where you’re going with this.
I didn’t ask how these situations could have been prevented. That ship has sailed. I wish we hadn’t caused it to be this way, but here we are. Now the two options are to kill them back down to sustainable numbers, or allow them to destroy the ecosystem thereby condemning themselves and a host of other animals as well.
I’m not a hunter myself, and I personally probably don’t have what it takes to kill an animal even in these circumstances, but I also can’t provide a better solution. So I’m not going to shame people for hunting when it both provides food for them as well as brings balance to an ecosystem.
I will, however, shame them if it is done purely for sport and against non problem animals. I hope those folks that go to Africa and hunt elephants and lions and shit get eaten. Slowly.
That’s great for people that don’t live near these places. Most aren’t going to volunteer to have wolves or cougars or whatever reintroduced into their local forest and risk them to run wild through the neighborhood mauling children and pets.
This line of reasoning is very flawed. Lions regularly commit infanticide and dolphins rape, therefore these must be ethical things to do? It’s a classical appeal to nature fallacy.
“Yes I killed those people my honor, but tigers kill people too, and even my fellow humans kill other humans all the time, so it’s perfectly ethical if I do it too. It’s just my way to connect with nature!”
Would it be ethical in your view to cut the throat of a dog from time to time and eat the body parts, even if alternatives are readily available?
The tiger has no other choice, and no moral capacity, but we do.
I don’t think that serious violence against animals without necessity to do so can be justified, and taking a life is one of the worst things you can do to a sentient being that doesn’t want to die.
I already have stated a thousand times that this is not an appeal to nature, the claim is not universalist it is strictly related to the killing of animals in the context of subsistence. All animals have a right to live and as part of the right to live there is a right to kill in order to live and substist. Furthermore part of the scaffolding that I do not want to get into because then I have to write even more is that death itself absent pain is of no moral significance because the subject cannot be present for their own death and therefore cannot suffer it. Suffering is the only universally significant moral concept because all beings share in it and actively avoid it. Therefore we have a moral responsibility to not inflict suffering, but suffering ==death.
Yes it is ethical to kill a dog to eat it. I mean I wouldn’t do it but it is ethical. Just because I emotionally have a response to it doesn’t change the logic of the matter. I never justified violence against animals fyi, I’m absolutely against that because it inflicts suffering. So in this case you would need to kill the dog without it suffering.
But yeah the line of thinking in order to convince others requires a lot more elaboration than Im willing at this point to give here.
Maybe I’ll put it to paper and tag everyone here, it would at least make for some interesting discussion.
Tigers also lick their own bums clean, is that a good thing to do? Tigers don’t have dentists, so humans have no right to dentistry.
Or maybe you mean to say that hurting other people for your own pleasure is only ok if you do it close enough to see the whites of their eyes? Does a single tear need to roll down your cheek.
You are so stupid it actually hurts me. If you want to argue about the morality of killing you could at least pretend you have read a book.
That is a complete misrepresentation of my argument and it seems that you’re the one that needs to read a few books so you can develop your reading comprehension.
I like this idea on paper though in my imagination it looks horrible. But I do think it’s the ultimate solution. My biggest concern is that if we do not abandon Anthropocentrism we will continue to commit crimes against animals that are much worse than killing them for food (which I don’t think it’s wrong as I’ve stated here) . Like keeping them in cages, or using them for experiments that often don’t really replicate on humans. Etc.
A tiger has every right to kill an antelope as a human has to kill a cow. The real ethical problem for me lies not in the killing of animals, but rather the conditions they live in prior to execution, and the method of execution. There is a way to ethically consume meat, and it is non industrial and requires each person to do the kill so as to not be alienated from the significance of killing an animal to feed oneself.
I agree, but a tiger doesn’t breed antelope into being, and feed them at the expense of all life on earth just so they can have a nice meal.
If you’re hunting, fine. They were eating grass and stuff from the ecosystem.
If you’re farming then you’re creating massive amounts of waste to generate meat.
That’s basically the same thing as what they said though.
And let’s be honest, if a tiger was capable of farming livestock, it probably would.
Tigers are big cats, hence they are like their little domestic cousins, lazy as fuck. I doubt tigers would enjoy having a job.
Tigers aren’t as smart as you think.
If they were smart, they’d do what their domestic counterparts do - make themselves masters of a family of human slaves. They’d be much better off at the price of a few purrs.
The smart ones found their way into Disney, the rest are dumb.
Tigers are too big and dangerous to humans to be good candidates for domestication. Cats are just the right size to not be much of a threat.
Sure, but that right is in question. Being a part of the ecosystem is fine, animal or human (which is an animal). It’s when we destroy the ecosystem to satisfy ourselves where I question the right to do so. It doesn’t matter what the animal is, except we’re the only animals capable of doing so.
We are destroying our only home for fake shit. The only reason we do anything is for fake made up money.
Maybe in the past humans had to, but thats not the case anymore, as we have more thenen enough different sources.
But thats not even the issue. The issue is the gross amount of meat most people eat, that is not backed up by any kind of “but we allways did it this way”
I agree with you 100%. It baffles the mind how many chickens we kill so that some fatass can order a bucket of KFC every night.
And you know the thing, most people when shown the conditions of these animals and how abhorrent it is do create a consciousness about it and often try to do things better, though it almost always fails because our society is kinda set up in this way. But I do think that’s one day, maybe a millennia in the future we will look at how we treated animals today with the same sort of apprehension that we think of slavery.
But again my argument is that killing animals is not wrong, that is a right that every animal has. What is wrong is at the scale, and sheer barbarism in the way we do it.
This seems like a lot of work (both practically to do this and mentally to make this argument) when you could just…not eat meat? Seems a lot easier and more ethical.
The easiest path is not necessarily the best or right path. Though I do agree that in the context of modern industrial meat production the more ethical thing to do is not consume meat. But that is not the same thing as saying that eating meat is wrong, or immoral. The immoral thing is the way the animals suffer before being killed.
It’s also unethical because it destroys the planet, harming everyone and everything on it. That is baked in. Producing meat will always take several times more resources than an equivalent amount of plants. Since our society refuses to limit usage of water, ground nutrients, etc, to sustainable levels, eating meat will harm the environment. Every bite of meat you take steals from future generations.
Killing animals that don’t need to be killed is also wrong. And in a modern society, there is no requirement for us to eat meat, as we can live full lives on wholly plant-based diets.
Agreed! That’s why I’d only kill an animal when I’m hungry.
What is the difference between a human an an animal that means in one case there’s nothing wrong with killing a vulnerable individual who doesn’t want to die as long as they don’t experience physical pain, but a big problem in the other case?
I will leave this notification on so I can answer later. The reason I can’t answer now is that I want to publish the full framework first, because it does answer that question but it is extensive.
The short answer is that in absolute terms there is no difference, but because everyone says says it is worse then it is worse.
And a male lion after defeating and taking over the pride has every right to kill the children of the former leader, because they’re animals and act on instinct and can’t make moral decisions. Humans can.
You can make other arguments about eating meat but appeals to nature like this don’t work in a modern enlightened era where we have more decisions and understand the consequences of them.
Who says that the lion isn’t just needlessly cruel? You can only assume that it lacks the ability to make moral decisions, but then again humans kill children all the time for incomprehensible reasons. How are these lions and humans different except your perception that one has moral agency and the other doesn’t based on absolutely no empirical evidence except your belief in your own superiority.
Again this entire thing hinges on the notion that animals lack rationality, but the evidence increasingly dies not support that. But that’s neither here nor there, the nature of a lion is different to the nature of a human. And even then, we still do what you have described all the time. It may be wrong but we do it, and we will still do it a thousand years from now if we are still around. Now the argument is not because “it is part of your nature, you’re allowed to do it”, the argument is that all animals have a right to kill other animals in order to defend or feed themselves.
The other part of the argument is that unless you think for example another omnivore like a chimp (which fyi we have absolutely no reason to believe are any less rational than us ) is immoral if they decide to eat meat having plant based foods available then you shouldn’t think that about human beings.
If you want to improve animal welfare, you need to start believing that all animals, including human animals are equal. While society continues to believe humans are superior in any way to animals we will not be able to create a world in which all species are equally respected.
Who says the lion is just needlessly cruel? Fundamentally neither of us can know what’s happening in the lions head so there is no empirical evidence to be had. With passing judgement I tend to work on innocent until proven guilty so I’m just gonna assume the lion is acting on instinct.
As for your main argument of “all animals have a right to kill other animals in order to defend or feed themselves” if you combine that with your other argument of humans and animals are equal, can a human kill another human for food? Can a human kill another human in defense of a slap? This right your proposing is missing a key part and that’s necessity. If it is necessary, or the animal thinks it’s necessary for its survival, then that animal has a right to kill for food or defense. This is where modern humans and animals are different, humans are far more aware of what is and isn’t necessary for survival. A chimp doesn’t know whether it will or even can get enough food from just plants. Your average human, at least in the developed world, is aware that you can survive off a vegetarian diet and there is food available to do so. They wantonly choose to kill animals because they taste good. I also don’t judge people close to subsistence eating meat because they need every calorie they can get.
Your first point is exactly my point, but extended to humans. The idea that we are above instinct is so absurd, it requires putting us on a pedestal of rationality for which there is little evidence of. Is it more logical to think that all animal mental processes operate in much the same way or that for some reason humans simply are built different? There is some evidence that rationality is simply us justifying things we already decided instinctually.
My argument is not, “it is natural therefore it is right”, my argument is only and absolutely only about the morality of killing animals for food and is centered on the right to live of every animal. There’s other scaffolding about the insignificance of death but it’s unlikely to change your mind so I won’t go into it. Anyways should be obvious that Intra species relationships are different from interspecies relationships, human moral judgements are almost purely intra-species regulations. We don’t need to extrapolate my argument to make a universal claim about other things when I’ve been very clear that I’m simply talking about this issue specifically.
But to not sidestep around your argument yes there are instances in which humans may kill humans for food. Because survival overwrites any moral principles due to the right to live of every being which includes the right to kill for your own survival. How can you judge someone in a position in which there is only enough food to sustain 1 person as immoral if they are both thinking the same thing and one decides to take action? Should they both let themselves starve? Or how would you mediate it?
Now I may be predisposed to not do it due to social conditioning but I will not rationalize it by saying that it is because I’m more moral or ethical, I’m simply programmed differently and would not be able to kill another human for food. Or at least I do not think so, I don’t know what happens when my very life is on the line. I’m not sure that I would even be capable of killing an animal to be honest.
But again, that’s not really related to my argument in any direct way except that you are trying to turn it into a universal claim, which it isn’t.
I’m not saying humans are above instinct or lions have no rationality. I’m saying humans use rationality way more because of our far greater understanding of the world. Rationality requires knowledge of the world in order to form decisions, and humans have far more knowledge of the world then a lion.
I’m sorry for misunderstanding your claim as universal, but if it’s not you shouldn’t use universalist language: “all animals have a right to kill other animals in order to defend or feed themselves.”, rights, as I understand them, are universal as the more exceptions you have to a right the less it becomes a right.
I don’t understand them intra species vs inter species distinction, is cannibalism more wrong then inter species carnivory?
Back to the main point though, your initial claim that it’s fine to kill for food if you do it yourself and aren’t alienated from it, you said this is one requirement, are there any others? I’m saying that the necessity for survival is one of them. I think we agree on this as you base your claim for this “right” on the right to live of every animal, therefore an animal should not encroach on that right unless it feels its own life is threatened. If you live in the developed world with ample access to plant based foods and access to knowledge of how to eat a vegetarian diet, then it doesn’t matter if you go out into the woods naked armed only with a spear, your still wantonly killing. Your not killing to protect your right to life, your killing for the taste of the animals flesh, or sport, or to prove your masculinity etc. Those are not valid reasons to kill.
Morality isn’t some special thing humans have. Morality is what makes us succesful as a species, put through a filter of language and culture.
You can’t ethically take a life. A tiger has no choice whereas a human does.
I have so many arguments against this I don’t even know were to start, so I’ll keep it simple: you need to abandon anthropocentrism.
Humans are animals and not particularly special or even intelligent ones. (Intelligence being defined as the ability to solve problems and learn from them) Our “intelligence” is actually just cumulative generationally passed knowledge. It is not clear that humans are indeed more rational than a tiger or that tigers or non human animals in general lack rationality, except only in the way in which a human would define rationality which cannot be a universal claim.
I’m not op and I’m an omnivore and i have to tell you, your reply is … not a good response to what op said. It’s full of strawmen arguments and nonsense. You seem to be arguing that humans can’t choose to be vegetarians? And you veer way off into nowhere arguing about what you think intelligence is? I dunno, for someone who said they have a ton of arguments, you sure picked a bunch of bad ones
I believe they are saying you can’t place a universal standard of behaviour or ethics onto the multitude of human animals that live on the earth
Even if that’s what they’re saying, that isn’t a meaningful argument against what op said.
It is possible for a human to live a long and healthy life without eating meat.
It is not possible for a tiger to live a long and healthy life without eating meat. (without human intervention)
Humans can choose to be vegetarians of course, that doesn’t mean that killing animals is immoral or wrong, necessarily. That notion can only exist if you think humans have a superior place in the world to that of animals. Anthropocentrism is central to this idea that humans are the only animals who cannot kill other animals to feed themselves without it being immoral.
Ie a chimp could choose to eat fruits if he wanted but they also often eat monkeys even if fruit is available. How is that different, from a human choosing to eat a cow even if he could eat grain? The difference is only that you think the human “knows better” than the chimp.
Your argument is: If animals do a thing then it can’t be immoral for us to do it. I’m sure at this point in the discussion you realize that that’s not a valid argument
That is not my argument at all. I never made such a universal claim.
My claim is that all animals have a right to feed themselves and as a part of that right there is a right to kill other animals. Therefore it is not more immoral for a human to kill an animal than it is for a tiger. I say that only in this context, because our biology evolved to also use meat. We can survive without it sure, but it is suboptimal. It is also true that we should be eating way less meat than we do. Therefore the immoral thing is not killing or eating animals but rather the industry around it.
In relating to other animals, there is no reason our standard should be any different than animals to one another. In relating to other people, it is reasonable to have a different standard.
Would you consider bestiality immoral then? The animal equivalent of bestiality (interspecies sex) occurs regularly between different species after all.
I am not able to provide an objective moral reason if other animals may be treated differently from humans. If consent cannot be taken into account, raping animals is not immoral.
The sole argument could be that bestiality harms or at the very least exposes an animal to a significant risk of harm. But then again, killing an animal certainly harms it much worse but this would be morally acceptable in such a system, so the harm an animal faces isn’t really part of the equation.
this doesn’t refute what I said.
Look at human history we ate each other and other human species. We are not special we are not chosen by God. We are just animals that think we are special. Even being vegan has an effect on the earth destroying habitat ruining bio diversity chemicals getting into the environment.
No one said any of the stuff you seem to be arguing against. This is called a strawman fallacy if you’re unfamiliar with it.
Nobody invoked intelligence or rationality. You have misread and now you are just confusing things.
To keep it simple: A tiger’s life depends on killing other animals. A human being can live to a record-setting age and never kill another animal. The tiger has no choice but to be violent to vulnerable individuals, but when a human does it, the lack of necessity makes it cruelty and abuse. When a human does have such a necessity, the math works out differently, but in the context of the comic strip, the subject had no necessity to kill those vulnerable individuals.
All life is supported by displacing or ending others. Even if you don’t view plants as ethically problematic, the agricultural practices to feed civilisation, by definition, must upset the natural ecological balance and harm animals.
The reason a vegan doesn’t feel upset about eating produce is the degree of removal from the animal harm. They don’t see the deforestation or destruction of wetlands or the damage done by pesticides or in fertilizer production. It’s no different than an omnivore not feeling guilt when a butcher kills an animal (even if they wouldn’t do it themselves).
This harm has always happened since we developed coordinated agrarian societies. The most ethical stance is that humans should return to their natural ecological niche, hunter-gatherers with minimal reliance on agriculture.
However, veganism isn’t possible in such a society. The ability to supplement the human diet with plant based alternatives at scale requires disruptive agriculture. Thus strict veganism* in this lens is inherently self defeating.
*The vegan concept of harm reduction isn’t impacted here, there are still lots of reasons to go plant based
I’d like to see a single human alive today who because of their actions has not killed another animal? I guarantee every single human alive today has been responsible for killing an animal. Sure it might not have been for food but your actions have resulted in the death of an animal.
It doesn’t need to be invoked, the higher moral agency placed on humans hinges on the notion of superior human rationality. You could choose to be a vegetarian and choose not to kill animals, but that doesn’t mean that it is a more ethical or moral choice because human biology evolved to require meat other wise it requires planning and supplementation that is not necessarily possible outside of industrial societies. I do agree that choosing not to eat animals due to the industrial nature of meat production is a more ethical choice, but not that killing animals is necessarily wrong.
I may not be explaining it well but basically: the idea that humans killing animals is wrong can only exist if you think humans are superior to animals. I reject that notion and that’s where my argument comes from.
That’s a really bad argument, sorry. Of course we place a higher moral agency on humans than on animals - otherwise you’d have yo argue that other atrocities like rape and murder shouldn’t be morally judged either.
A tiger cannot make moral decisions. You can. So you will be judged if you don’t.
Not to hold yourself to a higher standard morally than a literal predator would be downright psychopathic.
You are placing a higher moral agency on humans because you make some special distinction between humans and other animals.
Humans are just other animals and they have diverse conceptions of morality and ethics. Rape and murder are not equivalent to killing for sustanance.
Comparing our moral behaviour to a ‘literal predator’ is a value judgement where you denigrate animal behaviour and elevate human behaviour as somehow superior.
Well, obviously. Because I believe I can be held to a higher standard than a tiger. They kill and eat disabled babies. Is that something you would deem acceptable for humans to do?
You are judging a tiger from a human centric perspective and making a claim that we know better than it.
Even that article point out that unlike lions tigers are not a social species. Therefore our sense of morality is not applicable to the tiger. A disabled or strange Tiger cub can’t mature into an adult tiger.
For humans it is different. But there are examples, such as Spartans, killing disabled babies which was not immoral to them.
My point is you can’t make a universal claim to the morality of humans killing other animals to sustain themselves since it is evidently how we evolved and our nature.
We can intellecutalize and make moral and ethical decisions to not eat animals for the many valid reasons in this thread which I also subscribe to but that doesn’t mean the moral claim that killing animals is wrong can be applied to all human animals at all times.
For example to switch to vegan diets relies heavily on industrialized society. Arguably our contemporary society which facilities the adoption of vegan diets is more immoral than the behaviour of previous human civilizations since the latter is limited in scope and in inpact while the former destroys entire ecosystems, biodiversity and causes mass extinction.
Well you certainly made a case for your own level of intelligence. At least word salad is vegan.
I have a mostly vegan diet but can’t updoot this enough.
You’re not vegan if you have a mostly vegan diet, sorry
Cool thanks for letting me know
I think this is fundamentally true (although it has issues when it scales down to insects and below that requires an arbitrary line to be drawn) but I’m not convinced that being absolute about it is useful in harm reduction.
It’s objectively better that someone looks to buy meat from a farm that cares about the welfare of its animals than one that maximizes profit at the cost of the wellbeing and happiness of the animal.
Naturally it’s better still if they reduce or stop their meat consumption, but making it black-and-white can potentially result in a worse outcome by setting the bar higher than the consumer is willing to jump.
Which killing of a cow is objectively better?
This is not a good-faith response. I’m not engaging further.
Yeah I’d bow out too if I were wrong.
Quick and fast
So the method is what’s important not the result? Just say you don’t value animal lives.
It’s a lot better than dying painfully and slow
Yes if an animal had to die then the less suffering way is better, but they don’t have to die.
everything dies
The one that has a life out in the field and then just dies one day without any stress. The one that is in a factory farm never sees the light is stressed their whole life. Guess what life is a bitch and unfair everything dies.
I genuinely can’t understand the disconnect you people have between the value of one life lived versus another only to be OK with that life being ended for the indulgence of your average McDonald’s customer.
Meat is not a dietary requirement. Full stop.
See, it’s not hard to make disingenuous leaps. If you’re going to tell me about sustainable local farming don’t bother, I’ll dismiss it like local animal farming vs. factory slaughter.
So what is your solution for when a species is getting over populated and destroying an ecosystem? Is it not more ethical to kill some and preserve the ecosystem for the rest of the wildlife in that area?
Why’d the overpopulation happen?
Not enough or no natural predators usually.
And why did that happen?
Could be any number of valid reasons that have nothing to do with eating meat. For example, human safety. Unless you’re arguing for a dismantling of civilization due to its natural encroachment, I don’t know where you’re going with this.
I didn’t ask how these situations could have been prevented. That ship has sailed. I wish we hadn’t caused it to be this way, but here we are. Now the two options are to kill them back down to sustainable numbers, or allow them to destroy the ecosystem thereby condemning themselves and a host of other animals as well.
I’m not a hunter myself, and I personally probably don’t have what it takes to kill an animal even in these circumstances, but I also can’t provide a better solution. So I’m not going to shame people for hunting when it both provides food for them as well as brings balance to an ecosystem.
I will, however, shame them if it is done purely for sport and against non problem animals. I hope those folks that go to Africa and hunt elephants and lions and shit get eaten. Slowly.
How about a third option:
Reintroduce predators that were native to that ecosystem.
If the rampant species has flourished for some time without predators, then they might be less agile in avoiding them, leading to better outcomes.
That’s great for people that don’t live near these places. Most aren’t going to volunteer to have wolves or cougars or whatever reintroduced into their local forest and risk them to run wild through the neighborhood mauling children and pets.
You absulotely can, that’s an absurd oversimplification.
But, if the human has the option not to, that option should always be exercised, which is currently not the case.
You can so ethically take a life.
I’ll just take you’re 7 word reply as the gospel then…
What is asserted gratuitously is denied gratuitously
This line of reasoning is very flawed. Lions regularly commit infanticide and dolphins rape, therefore these must be ethical things to do? It’s a classical appeal to nature fallacy.
“Yes I killed those people my honor, but tigers kill people too, and even my fellow humans kill other humans all the time, so it’s perfectly ethical if I do it too. It’s just my way to connect with nature!”
Would it be ethical in your view to cut the throat of a dog from time to time and eat the body parts, even if alternatives are readily available? The tiger has no other choice, and no moral capacity, but we do.
I don’t think that serious violence against animals without necessity to do so can be justified, and taking a life is one of the worst things you can do to a sentient being that doesn’t want to die.
I already have stated a thousand times that this is not an appeal to nature, the claim is not universalist it is strictly related to the killing of animals in the context of subsistence. All animals have a right to live and as part of the right to live there is a right to kill in order to live and substist. Furthermore part of the scaffolding that I do not want to get into because then I have to write even more is that death itself absent pain is of no moral significance because the subject cannot be present for their own death and therefore cannot suffer it. Suffering is the only universally significant moral concept because all beings share in it and actively avoid it. Therefore we have a moral responsibility to not inflict suffering, but suffering ==death.
Yes it is ethical to kill a dog to eat it. I mean I wouldn’t do it but it is ethical. Just because I emotionally have a response to it doesn’t change the logic of the matter. I never justified violence against animals fyi, I’m absolutely against that because it inflicts suffering. So in this case you would need to kill the dog without it suffering.
But yeah the line of thinking in order to convince others requires a lot more elaboration than Im willing at this point to give here.
Maybe I’ll put it to paper and tag everyone here, it would at least make for some interesting discussion.
Yay! We could have ethical discussion part 2. I’m on the side of the tigers.
Tigers also lick their own bums clean, is that a good thing to do? Tigers don’t have dentists, so humans have no right to dentistry.
Or maybe you mean to say that hurting other people for your own pleasure is only ok if you do it close enough to see the whites of their eyes? Does a single tear need to roll down your cheek.
You are so stupid it actually hurts me. If you want to argue about the morality of killing you could at least pretend you have read a book.
That is a complete misrepresentation of my argument and it seems that you’re the one that needs to read a few books so you can develop your reading comprehension.
So those unable to kill are less ethical than those able?
This is correct, but not how you mean it. The way to ethically consume meat is to be starving and have no other alternative.
Or to grow it without a central nerve system.
I like this idea on paper though in my imagination it looks horrible. But I do think it’s the ultimate solution. My biggest concern is that if we do not abandon Anthropocentrism we will continue to commit crimes against animals that are much worse than killing them for food (which I don’t think it’s wrong as I’ve stated here) . Like keeping them in cages, or using them for experiments that often don’t really replicate on humans. Etc.