Are animals really not equal?

[tantric]

In the case of animals like deer in the US, I think we actually have a responsibility at this point to hunt them, due to our own actions. Because of habitat loss and also the driving away of natural predators (ie, wolves), deer are present in amounts too large to support them anymore. If we banned deer hunting, the deer would begin to destabilize the ecosystem worse and worse. It's not their fault because before we encroached they were part of a balanced ecosystem, but the fact remains that we did encroach, so we need to kill some of them. Plus, a person who goes out and kills a deer and actually uses it (for meat, hide, etc) is having a much smaller negative impact on the world than anyone who eats meat that is domesticated (whether in factory farms or organic, humane farms, because even those require large amounts of land and feed that could be used more efficiently to feed people).

deer were my study organism when i was in ecology/epidemiology. if they aren't hunted, the herds become heavily diseased. in fact, you can estimate the population of deer in an area by the parasite density on a few sample animals very accurately. given the trend in urbanization and the large areas of land that are being deserted, those herds are gonna be a proble unless we bring back pumas.

 

[swilow]

^If hunting is vital, that must be relatively recent development.

 

[tantric]

the post columbian ecosystem is a disaster. you can actually make significant links between the number of hunting licenses in a county/year and the number of deer/car wrecks. i'm 43 and i've hit 3 deer in my life, totalling 2 cars. shoot the bitches, please. bambi my ass. i'm surprised car insurance companies don't offer bounties.

 

[spacejunk]

Doesnt sound very buddhist...

 

[psychedelicsoul]

^If hunting is vital, that must be relatively recent development.

I think shooting animals is fun, and meat is delicious... Therefore, I support hunting.

I hate how people make all these excuses. It shows they secretly feel guilty about it. If I like hunting, I don't need to make a million excuses to convince people that we "need" to hunt or "need" to eat meat. If I think hunting is okay, then I shouldn't have to make up reasons to justify it.

 

[ForEverAfter]

Yep. Hunting is fun.
People who've never tried it try to convince me otherwise.
But, what the fuck do they know?

 

[tantric]

Doesnt sound very buddhist...

as a note, telling people how they live up to their religion, or how 'you're not really buddhist' is WILDLY offensive. FYI, buddhists do no insist on stale dogma over reality. ever. i mourn deeply for the train-wreck ecosystem i'm surrounded by, but deer are a pestilence and they will die, one way or another. i want them shot so they will be eaten, the other option is to die of diseases and so i thank the hunter. btw, we can basically assume that Pol Pot was buddhist, and nobody came to take away his membership card when he was industriously converting the urban population of cambodia to fertilizer. Buddhism and violence

 

[spacejunk]

Did i say "you're not really a buddhist?" You're misquoting me, thus taking my comment completely out of context.
You're very quick to take offence.
Have you considered that your perspective regarding the ecological imbalance that has led to an abundance of one animal over others is largely caused by human habitat-destruction and the massive drop in populations of native predators?

I don't care about one 'religion' or another - or how people practice their religious beliefs, but you do talk a lot about your buddhist ideology, which led me to simply observe that "shoot the bitches" sounds pretty far removed from any form of buddhism thought i've ever encountered. Perhaps i'm wilfully ignorant of the 'might makes right' motor-vehicle driving school of buddhist thought.

 

[tantric]

Did i say "you're not really a buddhist?" You're misquoting me, thus taking my comment completely out of context.
You're very quick to take offence.

i was going beyond your comment to the general. sorry if that went awry. someone else just made a similar comment. it's irritating because it is, in essence, orientalism. buddhists routinely beat the piss out of people. what were the Shao Lin Monks, legalists? ;-) [\QUOTE]

Have you considered that your perspective regarding the ecological imbalance that has led to an abundance of one animal over others is largely caused by human habitat-destruction and the massive drop in populations of native predators?[\QUOTE]

did i mention 3yrs of grad school in ecology with white tailed deer as my model organism?

I don't care about one 'religion' or another - or how people practice their religious beliefs, but you do talk a lot about your buddhist ideology, which led me to simply observe that "shoot the bitches" sounds pretty far removed from any form of buddhism thought i've ever encountered. Perhaps i'm wilfully ignorant of the 'might makes right' motor-vehicle driving school of buddhist thought.

ghetto buddhism - just talking trash, keepin it real.

i was going beyond your comment to the general. sorry if that went awry.

 

[Helpmehelptheworld]

Morally - There is nothing wrong with eating meat. If you want to talk about how they have feelings and shit. The truth is according to Intrinsic Value of Human Life animals don't matter. It's one of the few universal indicators of logic so... why stop? Plus I like gains. Do I think there's a way to get the same amount of protein and shit from plant based foods? Sure. But meat tastes delicious as fuark and it's easier to cook up some massive amounts of chicken breast (two racks on that oven baby) and some veggies on the side and call it a day.

GMO's- There's nothing GENETICALLY wrong with them. if you believe so you're incredibly miss informed. It's annoying to hear that argument. You wanna talk the WAY GMO'S are being controlled and run? that's a different argument. Organic vs GMO's macro for macro doe? GTFO

Veganism- I thought that if the whole world became vegan, due to killing animals is bad, the world would over populate and eventually we would need to start becoming predators to keep it down? no?
Eventually the eco systems would rise and rise and rise and spread disease etc, kill humans - and so forth. I read a few good papers on Deer populations spreading some massive amounts of disease in large clusters. Also read about the wolf hunting patterns in according to deer and how eventually the increase would endanger humans /shrug (something like that)

Scrolling up and reading tantric's post.. yeah I wasn't too far off

On that note. Time to eat some filet mignon, medium-rare, and hit the gym and prepare to deadlift a year (hopefully).

 

[Ninae]

It's only "fine" because of your emotional distance to the animal. Try killing and eating your pet. "But that's different" says the human.

 

[Xorkoth]

Morally - There is nothing wrong with eating meat. If you want to talk about how they have feelings and shit. The truth is according to Intrinsic Value of Human Life animals don't matter. It's one of the few universal indicators of logic so... why stop? Plus I like gains. Do I think there's a way to get the same amount of protein and shit from plant based foods? Sure. But meat tastes delicious as fuark and it's easier to cook up some massive amounts of chicken breast (two racks on that oven baby) and some veggies on the side and call it a day.

GMO's- There's nothing GENETICALLY wrong with them. if you believe so you're incredibly miss informed. It's annoying to hear that argument. You wanna talk the WAY GMO'S are being controlled and run? that's a different argument. Organic vs GMO's macro for macro doe? GTFO

Veganism- I thought that if the whole world became vegan, due to killing animals is bad, the world would over populate and eventually we would need to start becoming predators to keep it down? no?
Eventually the eco systems would rise and rise and rise and spread disease etc, kill humans - and so forth. I read a few good papers on Deer populations spreading some massive amounts of disease in large clusters. Also read about the wolf hunting patterns in according to deer and how eventually the increase would endanger humans /shrug (something like that)

Scrolling up and reading tantric's post.. yeah I wasn't too far off

On that note. Time to eat some filet mignon, medium-rare, and hit the gym and prepare to deadlift a year (hopefully).

I agree with a couple of things you said here but I find your attitude a bit cavalier. If I had to make a choice between saving a human I cared about and an animal I care about, I'd choose the human for sure. If I had to choose between an animal I don't know and a human I don't know, I'd choose the human. But if I had to choose between my cat and a human I don't know, the choice wouldn't be so easy. Animals certainly DO matter. Animals certainly do have feelings... I don't think any scientist studying animal brains would disagree with that. Mammals specifically evolved complex limbic systems and emotional responses, and we share those, being mammals. It's completely evident that some animals are conscious beings who think and feel, though almost surely on a different level than we do.

I eat meat, almost every day. I feel better when I eat meat than when I don't, and I think humans evolved to function best on cooked meat once we discovered fire and cooking and our brains began to develop quickly from the added nutrition. Some populations in particular (arctic populations most notably) eat almost exclusively meat because it's what's available. I don't think there's anything wrong with eating meat. However the current state of affairs with the meat industry is deplorable. The conditions in factory farms create an immense amount of suffering for animals that do indeed experience pain, fear and misery. Your example of deer populations i accurate... we drove out the wolves and inadvertently took their place as their natural predator. When deer are not hunted, they overrun ecosystems and cause all kinds of destabilization. Shooting a deer in the wild to provide a lot of food for you and/or your family is in no way an unethical choice, IMO. In fact, someone has to do it, because of the destabilization we've already caused to their habitats. And it certainly produces less impact than even buying organic, responsibly produced meat from the store.

I also agree with you on GMOs... I don't think there's something inherently wrong with doing it or with eating GMO products. In some cases they're modifying genes that controls drought tolerance, salt tolerance, etc, and it's allowing food crops to be planted and eaten in parts of the world where that was difficult, and desperately needed. But yeah, Monsanto runs it in a seriously fucked up and insane manner. I don't trust those fucks.

 

[Helpmehelptheworld]

Right on Xor. It was a gunslinger type of get at me bro attitude just for shits and gigs.

So ninae/xor what you're both talking about is subjective morality. Yeah, eating my pet would be uncomfortable but that doesn't make it morally wrong. Morals do not have subjectivity or extrinsic needs. To state that killing a pet is wrong - is a subjective statement. Stating that it is right to kill an animal, unfortunately, is morally correct. We are intelligent beings and therefore have empathy. With empathy comes and understanding that no, it's not REALLY okay to kill for fun because i wouldn't want that dog to kill me etc. also the reason why killing someone elses property (pet) carries a misdemanor sentence and killing a human carries a felony sentence.

As for the meat vs plant based food source an interesting argument arrives in the basis of relative morality. Killing and eating animals as we are currently is not wrong however if plant based eating will sustain the human population for a longer period and will allow us to strive for longer then relatively the morality for plant based eating would be more justifiable and if the two ideas clashed would be relatively more beneficial. Think about it as saving the life of a doctor who will help many and the homeless man. They are both people but who will benefit society more?

 

[Xorkoth]

Who knows how the homeless man might benefit society... homelessness does not equate to worthlessness which is a prevailing stereotype that is incredibly unfortunate and destructive to people who find themselves without a home. What if a person finds themselves laid off, screwed over in multiple ways (divorce settlement perhaps, or medical bills, or what have you), and unable to afford rent/mortgage, but 2 years from now this person would have gone on to become incredibly important in some way?

But what you probably meant was, a doctor or something vs a person who we somehow know will never contribute much to society.

Also, stating that it is right to kill an animal is, IMO, only morally correct in some circumstances. It's certainly not always morally correct to kill an animal. I would almost say that moral correctness never enters into it when it is acceptable to kill an animal. It's either wrong, or it's acceptable. Mostly this relates to survival/nutrition... if an animal is trying to kill you, then it's certainly the choice I would make to try to kill it. If I shoot a deer for food, then that decision is perfectly acceptable to me. If I kill an animal to build a subdivision, I would say that decision was morally wrong. If I kill an animal for fun, that's also morally wrong.

Also I don't believe that animals don't have subjectivity. Certainly probably some do not have any degree of self-awareness (insects come to mind), and hence, subjectivity, but it seems abundantly clear to me, having known several animals very well (cats and dogs) and observed others (such as dolphins and whales, and elephants), that they are experiencing something and have a sense of self. It is LIKE something to be an animal that possesses a certain level of intelligence. I think to believe otherwise is entirely too human-centric a view. Why should we be the only animals to have a subjective experience and sense of self?

 

[Helpmehelptheworld]

Lmao yes you pendantic mofo i meant clear cut - a doctor that will save lives vs a homeless person who doesn't contribute anything. Also in your example its - the homeless - potential does not equate into factors we can bestow upon. He might also have transmorphed into a ballon and been the first ballon human. Why? Because i simply believe so. Based upon my examples i said a doctor who will save lives vs a homeless person (addendum here - who will forever remain homeless). If we use your line of thinking we could also say that the doctor then, instead of using the logical grounds built around a doctor, becomes an evil scientist who implants a transmittable virus set to detonate all peoples mitochondria within 5 years. The virus spreads through farts and can inject itself cutaneously. While this scenario is humorous it is intelletually stifling and adds no weight or marrow to the discussion.

And no. The beauty of logic is that it does not need human input to remain true. Killing that animal to build a subdivison IS NOT wrong. Wether YOU as an individual believe it is, is a different story. Hence the SUBJECTIVITY on an OBJECTIVE idea. See - Intrinsic Value of HUMAN life. It's a universal indicator and it does not need humans to accept it to be true. It just is.


Now if you would like to argue that there should be an indicator for intelligent life then sure i'll listen to that argument for the sake of and if and when we meet orher intelligent life (who actually present themselves to us so to speak) the entirety of humanlife would then need to take this exact idea of intrinsic value and see if the mutual agreement of letting each other live is benefiting and morally correct to both races. Morals are weird man.

As for your subjectivity portion at the base. We don't but we are at the top of the food chain and therefore control all. If we were all dogs the same rules would apply. From a dogs point of view killing ALL else except for dogs and becoming master race is morally correct for dogs. But dogs don't understand morals so they don't know that, that logic exists. Hehe.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Veganism- I thought that if the whole world became vegan, due to killing animals is bad, the world would over populate and eventually we would need to start becoming predators to keep it down? no?

That is an insane premise and it leads to insane conclusions. Not to mention a personal attack in disguise. If you want to know how I feel about it, eat your meat. I'm sensitive enough to taste the suffering that went into it is why I chose a vegan diet. If I had a cow, I'd milk it and later in life eat it all while giving it love and tending to its needs. It would provide for me just like I provide for it. That's sanity. That's the difference. You want love you can feel. Earn it!

 

[Helpmehelptheworld]

You typed a paragraph but it didn't answer my question. Eventually we would need to hunt the animals, right? I don't see the personal attack tbh but I could be insensitive.

Also read my entiretyon morality. Currently nothing immoral about it even if we can think of the current animal farming, as it really is, disgusting as fuck.

 

[Xorkoth]

Give me an example of something that is objectively moral, separate from any person's/thing's perspective - I can't think of any. It sounds like you think advancing your own species is, but why is that? Is it because you think it is? What if someone else doesn't think it is? Either that thing isn't objective after all, or one is claiming that one's own subjective viewpoint is the same as the objective morality while the other person's is not (and you can see where the problem lies here; see: religion).

 

[Jabberwocky]

Insensitive. That's exactly it. We got enough overlords. Nobody taking away your meat. Nobody preaching at you. Maybe naive of me to think that animals and people could live a little more harmoniously together. Heck, lets kill all the wild ones cause money is tight in the budgets this year, that way we solve the problem once and for all. Anyways, you taught me enough. Thanks

 

[Helpmehelptheworld]

Genuine question! Have you ever taken ethics? If so, this should be pretty easy to consume

Okay so I'm gonna give a few examples to back up my point

1) the fault of subjectivity.

I now assign that you, xorkoth, have zero value. It is my moral belief that those named Xorkoth are not worthy of value and you have diminished to net sum of zero value. Do you have zero value? No. Of course not. If you allow subjective morality you have this problem occur. SO what is this ''morality'' called? BELIEFS! Even cultural morality is just a set of BELIEFS. It is separate from logic and it's an observable idea from a cultures tendencies (this includes religion - even though religion can sometimes be morally correct.)

Lets take another popular subject - Slavery. If you look back in the past. It was 'morally' correct to own slaves was it not? and now it's not morally correct. WRONG. It was, as you stated before, EITHER ALWAYS OKAY OR NEVER OKAY.

Why was it not okay? Regardless of the violence/disgusting mechanisms that took place (which is a big part and does devalue human life.) it is the fact that they are placing OTHER humans on a level BELOW THEM. It doesn't work that way. Why? ALL humans have intrinsic value

WHY IS IT CALLED BELIEFS AND NOT MORALITY? WHAT MAKES MORALITY DIFFERENT?

well glad you asked! Logic states that EACH individual person has Intrinsic Value. WUT? WHY? well here are some examples

A) an person was born, and sent off on a ship at birth, to an island. They are the only person there. Their parents die before the individual was ever recognized. As soon as it came out of the womb it was put in a bag and FORGOTTEN. The baby, miraculously (for the sake of argument) was able to survive on this island. Yet this island was all he knew. LITERALLY NO ONE ELSE KNOWS HE EXISTS. Does this person have value? Yes or No?

Yes.

Why? Because he is of the species Homo Sapien. And being born into this world as a Human, regardless of where or when or if recognized by all others or any other. THEY HAVE VALUE. But how? no one assigned value. No one even knows he exists. He doesn't even know that he is human. Intrinsic value of human life states that ALL humans have value and therefore are on an EQUAL level when compared to other SPECIES or WITHIN ITS OWN.

So how does this apply?

Anything that DEVALUES a human life, outside of the individual self, is WRONG morally. This means any harm or devaluation of Human life is the only REAL indicator of morally wrong. (Please keep in mind I am speaking of the species as a whole and have not touched RELATIVE MORALITY)

Here are some examples.

B) Suicide.
Is suicide morally correct? Answer: Yes. Question: Why?

In the act of killing oneself, regardless of whether or not it's for the right reasons, in a single moment you are TAKING A LIFE (Devaluing a human life) and the only way to balance that out is to kill the person who did it. You do both in one fell swoop.

Now what you need to see is that once again it's the play on Value of Human life. Regardless of whether you agree or not. This is the truth. That's what makes it hard to swallow. It's also why morals aren't directly placed into law.

C1) Is the death penalty MORALLY CORRECT for 100% case of murder?

Answer: Yes - Question: Why?
The death penalty involved the scale of human life. If it was 100% certain that the individual committed murder for the sole purpose of butchering another individual that individual may MORALLY be put to death. It levels the scales of justice. He has taken a life, devalued it to the point of no return, therefore he must be taken.

Problem - How do we know 100%? Well that's the issue isn't it, DNA proof isn't ALWAYS conclusive! Also, the circumstances? What about those? That's the argument against the death penalty. To even take a SINGLE innocent life is to be COMPLETELY immoral and therefore you lose the scales of balance.

C2)
Well what about self defense!?

Well there mr.smartypants. You're RIGHT! In the heat of the moment, a burglar gets into your house. Puts a gun to your head. Before pulling the trigger, you get your switchblade out and slaughter him. HE WITHOUT A DOUBT WAS GOING TO KILL YOU. Are you morally correct? Yes. - WHY?

Because your life was INEVITABLY going to be taken. That person has now devalued another life and therefore his own. He no longer has the same worth as other humans. He was going to WITHOUT A DOUBT take a life. Morally Correct!

Same scenario (a bit weaker example quite honestly - grey area)... except... You reach over, snatch the gun from his hands and kill him. Are you morally correct? Unfortunately no. Why? you have now removed the threat of your life. You are no longer in danger (for the sake of argument) and have now taken a life in anger and fear. You did what you did in the situation but it was not MORALLY correct.

What would have been right then? To take the gun and let him run / get the cops / hold him hostage / anything else but kill him really.

Also! 'AN EYE FOR AN EYE MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD BLIND' - Yes, thank you ghandi. But it still doesn't make it MORALLY wrong. I agree though. Look at countries where an eye for an eye is the norm. LOOKING AT YOU MIDDLE EAST. Damn, that shit is scary and brutal. It also doesn't allow for rehabilitation. We as a society have to also make judgment calls even if they don't follow a strict sense of morality.

D) A Woman steals a piece of bread from a cart owned by a Man.

1) It was to save her starving child. The bread getting stolen, if it does not cause a DIRECT devaluing of a human life (The Man dying due to THAT piece of bread, or going broke and becoming less of a human etc), is not actually morally wrong. I know it sounds weird but that's why even LAWS have leniency if things are stolen for the sake of keeping another life alive. (look it up

2) She steals for pure joy. Although it was a material object being stolen, and we assume this piece of bread put the man in a tough position to feed HIS OWN family or HIMSELF, then it was morally wrong. But this gets very complicated. Yet the theme here is that it's HUMANS between OTHER HUMANS.

E) Morals are not the same things as LAWS.

There's an important distinction between morals and laws. Laws adhere to the FUCKING STUPID and tries to adjust towards morality. Why? because of a multitude of reasons. Due to Morality being objective and logical it does not have any EMOTIONAL connection. LOGIC IS INTRINSIC, EMOTIONS ARE EXTRINSIC. So things like bullying and name calling and verbal abuse etc ARE NOT UNIVERSAL WITHIN THE RULES OF HUMANITY!

Question - WHY?

Because not all humans feel emotions. Literally that's it. So we have to be smart and decisive and REALLY fucking think about this portion of Morality - which are called Virtue Ethics (I believe). Once again, they are extrinsic so it really takes some effort to back up your logic behind it because it doesn't always have to be CLEAR CUT.

Objective Logic IS CLEAR CUT.

Do you now see that if we use this UNIVERSAL indicator of Intrinsic Value of Human Life... It cannot adhere to other species? Because it breaks what is intrinsically common within ALL humans. A dog is not a human. A cat is not a human. X is not Y etc.

On this planar, A lion killing a zebra - Even if it's for pure game (dunno when that happens but lets pretend it does) - Would not be morally wrong. From our point of view or from a lions point of view. But then again, they are incapable of understanding morality so... it's a bit obtuse to start THIS argument and have it be too solid *shrug*

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So, why do I believe advancing my own species is? Well that's a question for relative morality. If you're interested in it I can type more but I believe the above is already enough to swallow.

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@ levelsbeyond. You are getting upset over an objective statement. I don't understand lol. You literally just spiraled the idea into a slippery slope of shit. My statement is not false. But yours is extreme. And that would devalue human life because we would then not have any food to eat and that would starve out many people. You gotta slow down little one. You're getting mad over nothing. If you read my statement from a point of view that's objective and not loaded with an idea of harmony or ANARCHY. You would be able to see it a bit clearer. I even state that the current slaughtering of animals (in the manner it's happening) is disgusting. That much is true. But something being disgusting doesn't make it WRONG.