I am very scared of the vegan movement, they will try to take our right away to have companion animals.

[HyperWoof]

It is not morally wrong if a grizzly bear kills a person (it would be unfortunate, but not morally wrong) -- the reason for this is that grizzly bears don't understand morality, whereas humans do.

Just because humans are intelligent does not give them the right to deprive another being of his/her life. Morally, humans are not "above" other animals.

Generally, when a human kills another human, it is viewed as wrong (with a few exceptions, such as the death penalty) -- similarly, when a human kills another living being who happens to be non-human, that should be viewed as wrong as well.

Never said it was immoral for the bear to kill someone. Only that what an animal desires is irrelevant to what should be done.

 

[knotinterested]

It is not morally wrong if a grizzly bear kills a person (it would be unfortunate, but not morally wrong) -- the reason for this is that grizzly bears don't understand morality, whereas humans do.

Just because humans are intelligent does not give them the right to deprive another being of his/her life. Morally, humans are not "above" other animals.

Generally, when a human kills another human, it is viewed as wrong (with a few exceptions, such as the death penalty) -- similarly, when a human kills another living being who happens to be non-human, that should be viewed as wrong as well.

There is no right or wrong if a person wants to eat meat. IT IS NOT MORALLY WRONG! You use your opinion as through it were fact. What you should try saying is that IN YOUR OPINION it is morally wrong. Then you wouldn't be putting it out there as if you are judging people that eat meat.

By the way you still have not answered the question I asked. What animal charities do you support with you monetary Donations?

 

[Tailo]

Maybe I have just decoded a part of why I am possessed of a desire to fuck animals.

What if it's a hunter's instinct? Generation after generation of hunter-gatherers would have had to make their living off of tracking animals through every possible kind of wilderness, and in order to predict those animals, they needed to be able to understand those animals.

Maybe it cost them more, emotionally, to kill an animal that they had become emotionally invested in, but maybe that would explain a part of why they originally began draping themselves in the cleaned skins of those animals. While they might have killed that animal and eaten its meat, they still missed it, and they craved the gentle feeling of its fur against their bodies.

The bear cult religion was a huge part of Holarctic prehistory. If you have ever seen the film Brother Bear, then it is probably inspired by the prehistoric bear cult religion. Hunter-gatherer peoples of the Holarctic needed the warm fur of bears in order to survive the harsh winters of that time. They did not just have respect for those bears, though, but they worshiped the animals. They even believed that they could transform into bears. This translated, in time, into one of the traditions of the cult of Artemis, in which little girls just entering puberty symbolically transformed into bears, thereby reliving the fate of Callisto: just as the nymph Callisto was transformed into a bear for being intimate with a man instead of remaining chaste for her goddess, the girls were transformed also into bears during this ceremony in which they ceased to be innocent little girls and began the process of becoming women. This obsession with the bear was deep, and perhaps it went back to the very roots of our evolution.

Perhaps that is why there are some of us zoos to whom our zooiness is even a part of our spirituality.

If this is feasible, then perhaps us zoos are hearing an echo of our ancestors, who lived in a very different world.

Zoos are most interested in dogs and horses though who have had a different main role in society than being hunted or kept for their hides. Hence I have posted a different idea before:

Although it may not seem surprising at all due to availability and compatibility reasons, I still find it curious that most zoos are into dogs, then horses—that is domesticated animals and ones that humans have kept for a long time mostly for other reasons than to eat them. I wonder whether this has an evolutionary background? People who were fond of these animals (not necessarily sexually) had an evolutionary advantage for thousands of years compared to humans who preferred not to cooperate with these animals. Could an affinity for certain animals have secured its place in the human genome this way? This could be another contributing factor to zoophilia.

But I agree that our capacity to take someone else's perspective is important for interaction with others, and also a prerequisite for morality by the way, and that it may have been refined in a cross-species hunter/prey relationship. Hunters are more successful in hunting when they can guess what the hunted is going to do. On the other hand, the hunted have better chances to escape when they can guess what the hunter is going to do.

 

[Tailo]

By the way you still have not answered the question I asked. What animal charities do you support with you monetary Donations?

I know I wasn't asked, but here's what I do: I always donate some change at the vet for an animal sanctuary. When I buy food for my dog, sometimes I donate some to the local animal shelter—they have a bin for that in my preferred shop. Other than that I have donated to conservation organizations to buy land to make sure it will be reserved for wild life and be never turned into agricultural land or used for human residence and transportation. I've also donated to an organization that conserves nature in a former military training ground and makes part of it accessible to hikers. The total volume of my donations isn't very high, it's a little bit here and a little bit there.

Yet how is this relevant? It sounds as if you wanted to imply that by donating for a good cause we could buy a right to do something morally questionable. I know the sentiment, the urge to balance wrong-doings, and I have acted upon it by giving to a good cause myself. Giving to a good cause is always commendable, so I don't want to say that it doesn't mean anything. But it doesn't make anything bad we did better either. Doing something good is definitely no justification to do something bad in the future. You know, you can give money to save a thousand lives or save them with your bare hands, but if you murder someone you will be still punished for murder. I may actually regard you higher as a person than someone who only murders, yet nothing good you do could change that you have robbed someone of his life and that this his been inherently wrong. Especially in the case of murder there is no way you could be forgiven in this life, since the one whom you did wrong to wouldn't be there to forgive you anymore.

 

[Tailo]

Generally, when a human kills another human, it is viewed as wrong (with a few exceptions, such as the death penalty) -- similarly, when a human kills another living being who happens to be non-human, that should be viewed as wrong as well.

By the way, the death penalty is abolished in the majority of countries because it is considered inherently wrong for a number of reasons. Considering the nature of this forum it may also be interesting to note that in a handful of countries that still apply the death penalty, bestiality is one of the offenses you can get it for. Be careful which vacation destinies to choose and what to do there.

 

[Tailo]

Never said it was immoral for the bear to kill someone. Only that what an animal desires is irrelevant to what should be done.

If

1. what an animal desires would be irrelevant to what should be done
2. and consensual sex with an animal is okay
3. then raping the animal would be okay too, because the difference between consensual sex and raping it is exactly in what the animal desires.

I disagree with the first premise. What an animal desires is ethically relevant. But I do recognize that there is often a conflict of interest and it is inevitable that someone's desires are not fulfilled, for example someone's desire to eat meat.

 

[knotinterested]

Tailo I put the question to Zoo50 to see if the moral judge of our forum is covering all of his bases.

I donate quite a bit of money to a few different charities. As you say it is not because I am righting a wrong but because I am fortunate enough to help out and I do so.

I do eat meat and I do not feel morally wrong. I do not feel as though I have a wrong to right in that respect. I don't judge others and absolutely feel that nobody has a right to judge me unless I were to commit a crime, then it would be expected.

 

[Tailo]

Thank you for the explanation.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

Zoos are most interested in dogs and horses though who have had a different main role in society than being hunted or kept for their hides. Hence I have posted a different idea before:

I had a bit of a pet obsession with ancient religions for a while. I even learned enough Greek to commit several lines of the Iliad to memory...in what I am pretty sure is perfectly enunciated ancient Greek. The potential link between the Cult of Atermis at Brauron and the bear cult that was descended from our neanderthal ancestors was one of the most interesting sub-topics for me. I am not sure that it is really related to the topic at hand, though. I was deeply immersed in the topic for years, and the mind likes to go down old tracks.

But I agree that our capacity to take someone else's perspective is important for interaction with others, and also a prerequisite for morality by the way, and that it may have been refined in a cross-species hunter/prey relationship. Hunters are more successful in hunting when they can guess what the hunted is going to do. On the other hand, the hunted have better chances to escape when they can guess what the hunter is going to do.

Therefore, empathy is a strong survival instinct. In an Ice Age winter, its trade-offs would hardly have hindered our neanderthal ancestors. They were people that were as capable of ourselves of feeling and intelligence and art that were born into the world knowing they were considerably more likely to die prematurely in a horrible way than to survive to raise offspring. Therefore, it was hardly a handicap.

However, the same hormonal regulator of empathy is also, curiously, implicated in war.

Oxytocin promotes coordinated out-group attack during intergroup conflict in humans

Intergroup conflict contributes to human discrimination and violence, but persists because individuals make costly contributions to their group’s fighting capacity. Yet how group members effectively coordinate their contributions during intergroup ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Maybe the same hormonal response that made it possible for us to congregate in groups also was related to us learning to make war upon each other and, by extension, assemble hunting parties to go and hunt down browsing animals.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

You know where the meat in the store came from (horrific, unethical slaughter)

It looks delicious, and when I see it, I don't see an animal. I see a cookout. Where it comes from is abstract.

Even the animal were not abstract, let me remind you that my father is a hunter, and he took me out on hunts from when I was just a baby. I grew up walking with him through the bushes of the paper company property near Shallote, North Carolina, watching and eventually helping him finish off deer. I have then helped skin them and process the meat, and then I have eaten it.

In the long-run, I realized that I honestly preferred a nice, calm, clean supermarket with Top 40 music. There is a very good reason why humans invented this idea. If this idea were not already some hundred years old, then someone that had recently invented it would be put up on a pedestal next to Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi. I have helped hunt my food, and I have shopped at supermarkets. What I learned from that is that I think that supermarkets are the cat's pyjamas.

Picking disease-infested tics off my body after going to get my food is not a necessary part of my life, and I am not going to do it. I think that my relatives are bonkers to continue doing it voluntarily. We invented supermarkets because they were a very good idea.

No matter what, though, I am still going to want to have my cookout, so somehow, you are going to have to convince me that I would rather have a non-meat option for the same purpose. If you want me, the consumer, to buy it, then the sticker that you put on your package of veggie-burgers had better show a smiling fat man with smiling fat children putting those dripping greasy wet veggie burgers on the grill. If you want people to buy your vegan alternatives, then I suggest that you market it as something that services their lifestyle.

I can guarantee that, once the people had gotten used to living happily and successfully off of a vegan product that services their lifestyle, most of them would actually be horrified if they heard about someone eating dead animal flesh. To them, the vegetarian option would be the new "normal," so if somebody were carving the flesh off of an actual animal, they would, say, in their Suburban New Jersey Dad accents, "Why does he want to do that? This isn't the stone ages!" To them, the vegan alternative would be normal and a part of their childhood memories, and scraping the meat off of the bone of a slaughtered animal would be eldritch and bizarre to even think about.

People will retaliate if you ask them to make a departure from things that are safe and normal to them.

Give people a new normal that fits into their accepted lifestyle, and they will probably embrace it.

Have a jolly fat man in flip flops at a 4th of July cookout just pronounce animal flesh to be weird, and demonstrate how the vegan alternative shows better grill marks, has a better consistency, and clearly satisfies his happy fat kids.

You will not win this argument without putting human psychology on your side.

 

[RoughFucker40]

humans are never managed/killed to "balance" an ecosystem.

You don’t get out much do you?

 

[HyperWoof]

If

1. what an animal desires would be irrelevant to what should be done
2. and consensual sex with an animal is okay
3. then raping the animal would be okay too, because the difference between consensual sex and raping it is exactly in what the animal desires.

I disagree with the first premise. What an animal desires is ethically relevant. But I do recognize that there is often a conflict of interest and it is inevitable that someone's desires are not fulfilled, for example someone's desire to eat meat.

You realize we were talking about how the order of life should be right? Not....sexual consent?

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

You realize we were talking about how the order of life should be right? Not....sexual consent?

You missed the point, didn't you?

@Tailo was trying to demonstrate how you can't really support meat eating as being acceptable unless you also think that raping animals is acceptable.

Maybe you do think that raping animals is acceptable. Maybe your perception is that animals are our servants and slaves, and if you want to get sexual gratification by tying them down onto one of those stands that are used for breeding a bitch, then that is as much your right as eating a pork chop.

Or just maybe, you don't really moralize about everyday decision-making in the clean and sanitized environment of a supermarket or a posh restaurant, and in that case, you would be a lot like me. I see a clean display. I know that the meat in the package tastes good when I cook it. It's not really my problem where the butcher gets it.

I wonder what people would say if we passed a law that said that meat can only be sold anywhere if the animal that it comes from is slaughtered on-site in full view of the public behind a plate-glass window, so people can watch the entire process from beginning to end. I would go and watch, actually. I have seen animals die before, probably messier and less humane than that would be.

See, I care a lot more about truth than I care about humanitarianism, but I'm crazy. Not everybody else is, and I don't expect them to be. While some demented weirdos like me might go and watch a few times, I think that meat eating would drop pretty precipitously.

I think that protecting people from the truth is not okay. I know the truth, but I still eat meat. If most people did, though, I think they would develop a taste for jack fruit pretty fast. I'd still eat meat, but if I couldn't get my meat off a clean sanitized display shelf without a house of horrors in the background, I am still pretty sure that I would eventually start thinking about how much more peaceful the produce section is.

I have watched animals die traumatizing horrific deaths by both man and beast and then cleaned and butchered the carcasses, and I could still not only hold down the meat but actually found it to be delicious. That said, I'd sooner put the same sauce on jack fruit for the trouble. With easily and inexpensively available alternatives out there, can other Americans handle that?

 

[HyperWoof]

See, I care a lot more about truth than I care about humanitarianism, but I'm crazy. Not everybody else is, and I don't expect them to be. While some demented weirdos like me might go and watch a few times, I think that meat eating would drop pretty precipitously.

Yeah I definitely get that impression from the nut house reply you just gave me.
That was 3 paragraphs of nonsense that had NOTHING to do with what I said, congratulations
You can't support eating meat without also supporting raping animals? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

Yeah I definitely get that impression from the nut house reply you just gave me.
That was 3 paragraphs of nonsense that had NOTHING to do with what I said, congratulations
You can't support eating meat without also supporting raping animals? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

You are being held to your own premises.

You can let go of those premises if you want to.

 

[HyperWoof]

You are being held to your own premises.

You can let go of those premises if you want to.

?

 

[knotinterested]

You know one of the things Zoo50 has said or insinuated in his arguments is that AI - Artificial Insemination is somehow cruel to animals. I want to explore this just for a few minutes. How is that viewed as being bad?

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

?

Did I stutter? @Tailo was correct to point out that your premises were flawed, and that should have been the end of the discussion. You can examine other premises if you want to, but the one you were using just does not translate into a basis for ethics that could ever be accepted by the wider zooey community. Nobody can stop you from eating meat as long as it's legal for you to buy it at the supermarket, but your current arguments are not going to come across as convincing to a person that has both reasonable intelligence and established vegan beliefs. I am not a vegan, but your arguments for not being a vegan just not good ones. It doesn't mean that you are necessarily wrong, but you are not going to change anyone's minds about it.

My reasons are very simple: A) meat is cheap, delicious and easy, and B) there is not a whole hell of a lot anyone is doing to stop me, so C) I will eat as much of it as I want to. My ethics are based on "not being a sorry lying motherfucker," and humanitarianism, while relevant to me, is a distant second on my list of priorities. I have gone as far as to prefer grass-fed pasture-raised beef because I have never seen cows in a pasture that looked even slightly unhappy, and I don't think they care all that much about growing old enough to suffer from arthritis. My opinion is that cows care about being fat and having an overall stress-free life, full stop. That said, I am actually becoming increasingly open-minded to non-meat alternatives, and I am actually starting to regard actual meat to be a little bit archaic. When Mosa Meat eventually produces a marketable product, I think that slaughterhouses are going to be a dying industry shortly thereafter, anyway. Although I do not have very strong moral hang-ups over meat, I am also perfectly comfortable with meat gradually becoming a thing of the past.

https://www.catster.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/cat-pajamas-600_0.gif

If the methods of slaughter are not ones that intentionally stress out the cattle, I am not exactly about to start having nightmares about the ghosts of cows haunting me in the night and saying "Howwwwwww could you doooooo this to uuuuuuus?" Horrific methods of slaughter that were clearly abusive and stressful to the cattle would probably not sit well with me, though, and I would probably not buy anything, in the future, from any company I had heard was allowing it to be a part of their supply chain. In that case, I actually would get haunted in the night by ghosts of cows that were saying, "This is a great opportunity for us to have a conversation that I feel is important for us to have, just hear me out!" and I would have to throw a shoe at it and say, "Okay, I won't buy anything from that company anymore, just STOP BLEEDING ON MY FLOOR."

This is closely connected with my own unique outlook on zooey ethics: I am chiefly interested in not stressing or badly traumatizing my animal. I am a classic utilitarian, insofar as fucking animals: I want my animal to feel good and, in general, to be happy. If somebody else has a problem with how I go about getting that result, then sucks for them. I am very established in my beliefs, and I am not intimidated by anybody that takes issue with my beliefs.

I might not convert a vegan over to eating meat on a regular basis, but I can at least produce a comprehensible argument as to why I am satisfied with myself insofar as my ethics.

Like you, I eat meat, but I feel that my argument from a utilitarian standpoint is a stronger one.

 

[HyperWoof]

Did I stutter? @Tailo was correct to point out that your premises were flawed, and that should have been the end of the discussion. You can examine other premises if you want to, but the one you were using just does not translate into a basis for ethics that could ever be accepted by the wider zooey community. Nobody can stop you from eating meat as long as it's legal for you to buy it at the supermarket, but your current arguments are not going to come across as convincing to a person that has both reasonable intelligence and established vegan beliefs. I am not a vegan, but your arguments for not being a vegan just not good ones. It doesn't mean that you are necessarily wrong, but you are not going to change anyone's minds about it.

My reasons are very simple: A) meat is cheap, delicious and easy, and B) there is not a whole hell of a lot anyone is doing to stop me, so C) I will eat as much of it as I want to. My ethics are based on "not being a sorry lying motherfucker," and humanitarianism, while relevant to me, is a distant second on my list of priorities. I have gone as far as to prefer grass-fed pasture-raised beef because I have never seen cows in a pasture that looked even slightly unhappy, and I don't think they care all that much about growing old enough to suffer from arthritis. My opinion is that cows care about being fat and having an overall stress-free life, full stop. That said, I am actually becoming increasingly open-minded to non-meat alternatives, and I am actually starting to regard actual meat to be a little bit archaic. When Mosa Meat eventually produces a marketable product, I think that slaughterhouses are going to be a dying industry shortly thereafter, anyway. Although I do not have very strong moral hang-ups over meat, I am also perfectly comfortable with meat gradually becoming a thing of the past.

https://www.catster.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/cat-pajamas-600_0.gif

If the methods of slaughter are not ones that intentionally stress out the cattle, I am not exactly about to start having nightmares about the ghosts of cows haunting me in the night and saying "Howwwwwww could you doooooo this to uuuuuuus?" Horrific methods of slaughter that were clearly abusive and stressful to the cattle would probably not sit well with me, though, and I would probably not buy anything, in the future, from any company I had heard was allowing it to be a part of their supply chain. In that case, I actually would get haunted in the night by ghosts of cows that were saying, "This is a great opportunity for us to have a conversation that I feel is important for us to have, just hear me out!" and I would have to throw a shoe at it and say, "Okay, I won't buy anything from that company anymore, just STOP BLEEDING ON MY FLOOR."

This is closely connected with my own unique outlook on zooey ethics: I am chiefly interested in not stressing or badly traumatizing my animal. I am a classic utilitarian, insofar as fucking animals: I want my animal to feel good and, in general, to be happy. If somebody else has a problem with how I go about getting that result, then sucks for them. I am very established in my beliefs, and I am not intimidated by anybody that takes issue with my beliefs.

I might not convert a vegan over to eating meat on a regular basis, but I can at least produce a comprehensible argument as to why I am satisfied with myself insofar as my ethics.

Like you, I eat meat, but I feel that my argument from a utilitarian standpoint is a stronger one.

I already congratulated you on creating an entire paragraph of irrelevant nonsense, you didn't have to outdo yourself by writing an entire essay of wacky shit that doesn't make ANY sense.

Can you please point out the section of your essay (Which you MUST have been huffing glue in the process of writing) that has anything to do with wildlifes wishes being relevant to what should be done?

 

[HyperWoof]

You know one of the things Zoo50 has said or insinuated in his arguments is that AI - Artificial Insemination is somehow cruel to animals. I want to explore this just for a few minutes. How is that viewed as being bad?

If it was his penis it would be perfectly fine though. Because the cow would have nodded to him when asked if it wanted to be screwed.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

I already congratulated you on creating an entire paragraph of irrelevant nonsense, you didn't have to outdo yourself by writing an entire essay of wacky shit that doesn't make ANY sense.

Can you please point out the section of your essay (Which you MUST have been huffing glue in the process of writing) that has anything to do with wildlifes wishes being relevant to what should be done?

No wonder anthropology is lost on you. Trying to talk about the Arktoi ritual of the Cult of Artemis at Brauron would be throwing pearls at swine: the swine do not understand that the pearls are pretty, and it will just annoy them. It was an off-topic tangent, anyhow.

As Heinlein put it, "Never attempt to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time and annoys the pig."

Let me put this in simpler terms.

You do not think like a philosopher. Attempting to participate in a philosophical discussion will just annoy and confuse you.

 

[HyperWoof]

No wonder anthropology is lost on you. Trying to talk about the Arktoi ritual of the Cult of Artemis at Brauron would be throwing pearls at swine: the swine do not understand that the pearls are pretty, and it will just annoy them. It was an off-topic tangent, anyhow.

As Heinlein put it, "Never attempt to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time and annoys the pig."

Let me put this in simpler terms.

You do not think like a philosopher. Attempting to participate in a philosophical discussion will just annoy and confuse you.

I love philosophy actually. However, magic mushroom fueled faux philosophy, not so much. Once again can you point out where in your essay you mentioned anything to do with the point I brought up?

"Let me put this in simpler terms." *doesn't put anything in simpler terms, just tells me I don't think like a philosopher*

 

[caikgoch]

If it was his penis it would be perfectly fine though. Because the cow would have nodded to him when asked if it wanted to be screwed.

I think the idea is that restraining the animal in a chute for safety and efficiency makes it rape. On the other hand, cows can show clear consent by a behavior known as "bulling", which usually how they are selected for AI.

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

I love philosophy actually.

Then demonstrate that you are capable of it.

However, magic mushroom fueled faux philosophy, not so much.

The stuff about the Cult of Artemis at Brauron was really a subtopic of anthropology. You don't seem to have very much capacity for talking about that, either. That was an odd little tangent I had, but it felt like it might tie in at the time. It is a little bit odd that humans would have empathy for animals at all, much less sexual attraction toward them, but it makes a lot more sense if you take into account how harsh Ice Age winters would have been on nearly bald apes that were attempting to survive in the Holarctic region. One would have had a difficult time convincing them that they did not like sleeping under several layers of animal skins in the name of any philosophy whatsoever, for one thing. For another, associating the sight of an animal with warm, fuzzy feelings (oxytocin) would have served as a highly effective reminder to them that perhaps they should attempt to obtain one. In an age where we it is not necessary for us to survive an Ice Age winter, we are left with the oxytocin rush that we associate with the sight of a cute furry animal, and in our comfortable and privileged time, we would frankly rather save it and perhaps keep one of them as a pet. Therefore, I could argue that veganism might actually, quite ironically, be related to an Ice Age hunting and tracking strategy: getting warm and fuzzy feelings at the sight of fur actually would have been highly effective at goading our ancestors into realizing that they were actually highly tired of being extremely cold, and once they were buried under the skins of those animals, they would have felt a lot better.

You don't seem to care much for anthropological tangents, though. You probably think that "The Cult of Artemis at Brauron" is something I got off of a roleplaying game. That's not entirely your fault. Ancient Attican religious beliefs is a fairly specialized niche subject to be interested in. I can recite multiple lines of the Iliad in perfectly enunciated ancient Attican Greek (I actually do shift the vowels to get the accent right), so I am most likely a lot more interested in that than most.

Once again can you point out where in your essay you mentioned anything to do with the point I brought up?

You missed an opportunity to rebut @Tailo's argument based on a utilitarian approach.

Under utilitarian ethics, it would only be necessary to avoid causing the animal unhappiness, and by extension, the humane slaughter of cattle only affects the cattle, who are most likely not capable of any sophisticated abstract understanding of their mortality, by sparing them of the unpleasantness of old age. Humane slaughter is probably substantially less stressful to them than getting their shots. In the long-run, the cattle would have had very well cared for lives. From their point-of-view, it's probably a good deal.

However, @Tailo could counter-attack by pointing out that we could apply the same logic to killing humans humanely, at the prime of their lives.

On the other hand, you could beat that by accusing him of making a false equivalence between humans and cattle. Humans actually do comprehend their own mortality, and they care quite a lot about living for as long as they are capable of living. Cattle, as far as anyone can tell, are pretty short-sighted and narrow-minded: their valences tend to revolve around seeing how fat they can get. Assuming that the animals can fully understand their mortality, in any abstract sense, is giving them too much credit.

Of course, this would not stop @Tailo from pointing out how convenient it is that you assume, without a whit of proof, that cattle are truly not capable of comprehending their mortality. Has anybody bothered to try teaching it to them?

You could go around and around on this track for weeks and get yourselves some pretty lively exercise out of it, just as long as neither of you took anything personally. Once personal frustration gets into the mix, it stops being philosophy and starts being a piss fight. You are presumably two grown men, though, and there is no reason why we ought to assume that it would come to that.

Either you understood that, or you did not.

 

[HyperWoof]

No wonder anthropology is lost on you. Trying to talk about the Arktoi ritual of the Cult of Artemis at Brauron would be throwing pearls at swine: the swine do not understand that the pearls are pretty, and it will just annoy them. It was an off-topic tangent, anyhow.

As Heinlein put it, "Never attempt to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time and annoys the pig."

Let me put this in simpler terms.

You do not think like a philosopher. Attempting to participate in a philosophical discussion will just annoy and confuse you.

Then demonstrate that you are capable of it.

The stuff about the Cult of Artemis at Brauron was really a subtopic of anthropology. You don't seem to have very much capacity for talking about that, either. That was an odd little tangent I had, but it felt like it might tie in at the time. It is a little bit odd that humans would have empathy for animals at all, much less sexual attraction toward them, but it makes a lot more sense if you take into account how harsh Ice Age winters would have been on nearly bald apes that were attempting to survive in the Holarctic region. One would have had a difficult time convincing them that they did not like sleeping under several layers of animal skins in the name of any philosophy whatsoever, for one thing. For another, associating the sight of an animal with warm, fuzzy feelings (oxytocin) would have served as a highly effective reminder to them that perhaps they should attempt to obtain one. In an age where we it is not necessary for us to survive an Ice Age winter, we are left with the oxytocin rush that we associate with the sight of a cute furry animal, and in our comfortable and privileged time, we would frankly rather save it and perhaps keep one of them as a pet. Therefore, I could argue that veganism might actually, quite ironically, be related to an Ice Age hunting and tracking strategy: getting warm and fuzzy feelings at the sight of fur actually would have been highly effective at goading our ancestors into realizing that they were actually highly tired of being extremely cold, and once they were buried under the skins of those animals, they would have felt a lot better.

You don't seem to care much for anthropological tangents, though. You probably think that "The Cult of Artemis at Brauron" is something I got off of a roleplaying game. That's not entirely your fault. Ancient Attican religious beliefs is a fairly specialized niche subject to be interested in. I can recite multiple lines of the Iliad in perfectly enunciated ancient Attican Greek (I actually do shift the vowels to get the accent right), so I am most likely a lot more interested in that than most.

You missed an opportunity to rebut @Tailo's argument based on a utilitarian approach.

Under utilitarian ethics, it would only be necessary to avoid causing the animal unhappiness, and by extension, the humane slaughter of cattle only affects the cattle, who are most likely not capable of any sophisticated abstract understanding of their mortality, by sparing them of the unpleasantness of old age. Humane slaughter is probably substantially less stressful to them than getting their shots. In the long-run, the cattle would have had very well cared for lives. From their point-of-view, it's probably a good deal.

However, @Tailo could counter-attack by pointing out that we could apply the same logic to killing humans humanely, at the prime of their lives.

On the other hand, you could beat that by accusing him of making a false equivalence between humans and cattle. Humans actually do comprehend their own mortality, and they care quite a lot about living for as long as they are capable of living. Cattle, as far as anyone can tell, are pretty short-sighted and narrow-minded: their valences tend to revolve around seeing how fat they can get. Assuming that the animals can fully understand their mortality, in any abstract sense, is giving them too much credit.

Of course, this would not stop @Tailo from pointing out how convenient it is that you assume, without a whit of proof, that cattle are truly not capable of comprehending their mortality. Has anybody bothered to try teaching it to them?

You could go around and around on this track for weeks and get yourselves some pretty lively exercise out of it, just as long as neither of you took anything personally. Once personal frustration gets into the mix, it stops being philosophy and starts being a piss fight. You are presumably two grown men, though, and there is no reason why we ought to assume that it would come to that.

Either you understood that, or you did not.

This is actually quite amusing. I think you're playing with a short deck, but in an amusing way. Once again you're not talking about anything I mentioned in my ONE sentence.
What you're doing is making up what you WANT me to have said and coming up with your own little discussion that you probably practiced with yourself in the shower.

What I was talking about was animals and their order in life. A trapper of old kills a rabbit to make into a pelt to sell to people who survive winter off of such clothing. Should those people taking into serious consideration that the rabbit wishes NOT to be used as clothing? No....the only thing the humans owe to that rabbit is a respectful end without unnecessary cruelty. There is no cruelty in killing a rabbit for its pelt.

Suggesting that it matters what an animal thinks without the intelligence to understand its place in the world is humorous, and one held undoubtedly by people who live in cozy little apartments buildings and whose concept of the wilderness comes from youtube videos.

But please.... keep going on about magical bears and artmesic cults of irrelevance

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

I am actually not entirely sure that the cult of Artemis was directly influenced by the holarctic bear cult, though. The similarity could simply constitute convergence. Although the neanderthal bear worship religion survived for a long time after pure neanderthals were altogether extinct, I am not aware of adequate evidence that the connection is direct. I probably should not have introduced the cult of Artemis to the conversation. It constitutes a pet subject.

I would prefer to focus chiefly upon the neanderthal religious faith.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I would like to point out that there was one kind of furry animal that neanderthals did not like very much. They could not stand dogs. Ironically, the inter-species alliance between humans and dogs just might have given humans an edge over the neanderthal man. While there was actually extensive inter-marriage between humans and neanderthal man, the truth is that humans were considerably more successful, and this is at least partly due to the alliance between humans and dogs. By the time there was very much intermarriage, neanderthal man had gotten into such a serious bottleneck that he was suffering from severe founders effect. The majority of neanderthal DNA that we do carry is problematic.

The fact that I enjoy fucking dogs is directly related to the fact that humans succeeded at outsmarting neanderthals. Without people like me, the human race might not have survived at all. Declaring it now to be illegal...talk about ingratitude.

However, vegetarianism comes to us directly from the Pythagoreans.

 

[HyperWoof]

I am actually not entirely sure that the cult of Artemis was directly influenced by the holarctic bear cult, though. The similarity could simply constitute convergence. Although the neanderthal bear worship religion survived for a long time after pure neanderthals were altogether extinct, I am not aware of adequate evidence that the connection is direct. I probably should not have introduced the cult of Artemis to the conversation. It constitutes a pet subject.

I would prefer to focus chiefly upon the neanderthal religious faith.

ON THE OTHER HAND, I would like to point out that there was one kind of furry animal that neanderthals did not like very much. They could not stand dogs. Ironically, the inter-species alliance between humans and dogs just might have given humans an edge over the neanderthal man. While there was actually extensive inter-marriage between humans and neanderthal man, the truth is that humans were considerably more successful, and this is at least partly due to the alliance between humans and dogs. By the time there was very much intermarriage, neanderthal man had gotten into such a serious bottleneck that he was suffering from severe founders effect. The majority of neanderthal DNA that we do carry is problematic.

The fact that I enjoy fucking dogs is directly related to the fact that humans succeeded at outsmarting neanderthals. Without people like me, the human race might not have survived at all. Declaring it now to be illegal...talk about ingratitude.

However, vegetarianism comes to us directly from the Pythagoreans.

You have to be just trolling at this point.

 

[Zoo50]

There is no right or wrong if a person wants to eat meat. IT IS NOT MORALLY WRONG! You use your opinion as through it were fact. What you should try saying is that IN YOUR OPINION it is morally wrong. Then you wouldn't be putting it out there as if you are judging people that eat meat.

By the way you still have not answered the question I asked. What animal charities do you support with you monetary Donations?

You're wrong. There is a right and wrong when it comes to the murder of animals -- killing animals is morally wrong, therefore eating meat is morally wrong as well. With regard to animal charities, @Tailo is right -- doing something good should not be used as an excuse to keep doing something bad (in this case, the "bad" thing is eating meat).

Meat-eaters think that vegans are imposing themselves on meat-eaters -- but what they forget is that meat-eaters are imposing themselves on animals (callously exploiting the dead bodies of animals for their own gain).

A human should not be killed, a cow should not be killed, and a pig should not be killed -- they are all living beings with a right to live. The fact that you only care about human interests makes you a speciesist.

I wonder what people would say if we passed a law that said that meat can only be sold anywhere if the animal that it comes from is slaughtered on-site in full view of the public behind a plate-glass window, so people can watch the entire process from beginning to end. I would go and watch, actually. I have seen animals die before, probably messier and less humane than that would be.

I think that protecting people from the truth is not okay. I know the truth, but I still eat meat. If most people did, though, I think they would develop a taste for jack fruit pretty fast. I'd still eat meat, but if I couldn't get my meat off a clean sanitized display shelf without a house of horrors in the background, I am still pretty sure that I would eventually start thinking about how much more peaceful the produce section is.

I have watched animals die traumatizing horrific deaths by both man and beast and then cleaned and butchered the carcasses, and I could still not only hold down the meat but actually found it to be delicious. That said, I'd sooner put the same sauce on jack fruit for the trouble. With easily and inexpensively available alternatives out there, can other Americans handle that?

You are so callous, and your arguments are so morally shallow. How something tastes is not as important as being's life. In other words, killing an animal in order to satisfy one's tastes is abhorrent, and it is not a justifiable reason to kill an animal.

If you really cared about animals, then animal suffering would bother you -- it is disturbing that animal cruelty and suffering doesn't bother you, and that you are indifferent to it.

My reasons are very simple: A) meat is cheap, delicious and easy, and B) there is not a whole hell of a lot anyone is doing to stop me, so C) I will eat as much of it as I want to. My ethics are based on "not being a sorry lying motherfucker," and humanitarianism, while relevant to me, is a distant second on my list of priorities.

Your morals are idiotic. All you care about is superficial things (like how something tastes), not about deeper moral concerns, such as the well-being of animals and their interests. In fact, one could argue that your perception of meat being "delicious" is sadistic -- that is, you are getting pleasure from another being's pain/suffering. Also, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

I have gone as far as to prefer grass-fed pasture-raised beef because I have never seen cows in a pasture that looked even slightly unhappy, and I don't think they care all that much about growing old enough to suffer from arthritis.

"Grass-fed beef" is just as bad as killing a cow the "normal" way -- ANY killing of a cow is morally wrong (in the same way that killing a human is morally wrong). "Grass-fed cows" are still murdered, so it is still unethical to buy "grass-fed beef". There is no such thing as "humane slaughter" -- slaughter is itself inhumane.

What I was talking about was animals and their order in life. A trapper of old kills a rabbit to make into a pelt to sell to people who survive winter off of such clothing. Should those people taking into serious consideration that the rabbit wishes NOT to be used as clothing? No....the only thing the humans owe to that rabbit is a respectful end without unnecessary cruelty. There is no cruelty in killing a rabbit for its pelt.

This is bullshit. Of course a rabbit's interests should be considered -- it is a living, breathing, conscious being (just like a human). And, just as it is wrong to kill humans, it is also wrong to kill rabbits. Killing a living being is itself disrespectful and cruel.

Suggesting that it matters what an animal without the intelligence to understand its place in the world is humorous, and one held undoubtedly by people who live in cozy little apartments buildings and whose concept of the wilderness comes from youtube videos.

There are some humans who are in a coma, in a vegetative state, or who are not intelligent in one way or another -- should their interests be considered? And why would their interests be more important than the interests of a rabbit, dog, or any other animal? The reason I bring this up is because you mention intelligence -- by your logic, humans that have brain disorders (and are not intelligent) are not worthy of moral value. (By the way, those non-intelligent humans do not understand their place in the world, because they can't).

ON THE OTHER HAND, I would like to point out that there was one kind of furry animal that neanderthals did not like very much. They could not stand dogs. Ironically, the inter-species alliance between humans and dogs just might have given humans an edge over the neanderthal man.

You're way off-topic. What does this have to do with anything? It's definitely a tangent.

 

[knotinterested]

You're wrong. There is a right and wrong when it comes to the murder of animals -- killing animals is morally wrong, therefore eating meat is morally wrong as well. With regard to animal charities, @Tailo is right -- doing something good should not be used as an excuse to keep doing something bad (in this case, the "bad" thing is eating meat).

You still did not answer the question. What animal charities do you support win your monetary donations?

If you are so much of an animal rights activist then unless you are putting something out of your pocket then you are just a bag of wind that wants to be a type of judge on the morals of people that do not believe as you do and you do not understand the meaning of the words "In my opinion"

You want only to come and say others are wrong. If they agreed with you then yes but they do not so to them, as myself we do not believe we are wrong. It is only in your opinion and those that share your opinion that we are wrong.

And BTW why do you say AI Artificial Insemination is wrong? How is that harmful to animals in your opinion?

 

[SigmaTheZeta]

All you care about is superficial things (like how something tastes), not about deeper moral concerns, such as the well-being of animals and their interests. In fact, one could argue that your perception of meat being "delicious" is sadistic -- that is, you are getting pleasure from another being's pain/suffering. Also, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

I do not actually enjoy killing an animal. The direct eye-contact with the animal is actually such an extreme mindfuck that, after watching my father finish off a deer using a hunting knife, I could never quite stop feeling that I was somehow like that deer. Its effect upon me was actually quite interesting.

"Grass-fed beef" is just as bad as killing a cow the "normal" way -- ANY killing of a cow is morally wrong (in the same way that killing a human is morally wrong). "Grass-fed cows" are still murdered, so it is still unethical to buy "grass-fed beef". There is no such thing as "humane slaughter" -- slaughter is itself inhumane.

I acknowledge that this is your point-of-view, since you believe that death is morally significant. I do not. Causing an animal unnecessary distress is more meaningful to me.

You're way off-topic. What does this have to do with anything? It's definitely a tangent.

Arguably, but it started with the fact that, when I started to get fed up with my father's sport-hunting, the reason why was that I started imagining myself as the deer that I watched being killed at the hands of him and his dogs. It was a rather macabre fantasy, but I have often macabre sensibilities.

I think it turned me a bit goth.