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How do you treat animals?
Shanadeus
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I used to eat all sort of animals without feeling anything about what was on my platter and went into my mouth. But after a couple of encounters and videos of the animals I used to eat I would feel more and more guilt for eating something that to me seemed to be comparable to the animals that I don't eat - such as cats and dogs.
I simply couldn't bear to eat a cow when I saw one being just as playful and endearing as a dog, I had to stop eating pigs when I saw how cute (very much like a cat) they are on youtube and had to stop eating fowl because they reminded me too much of my lovebird.
Before I go on I just want to point out that I'm not in any way trying to turn you into vegetarians, I'm just explaining my reason for treating livestock the same way some people treat their pets.
Anyhow, once I got started thinking this way I've slowly but steadily excluded more and more animals from my diet. I cannot eat octopuses and most other cephalopods because of their intelligence and am already starting to doubt whether or not it's right for me to eat fishes and lobsters due to their argued ability to sense pain
I guess that I'm basically trying to create some form of consistency in the way I treat animals.
I have no desire whatsoever to eat many animals and do not wish to support breeders/pet shops that raise animals purely so that they can be kept as pets. I used to have a lovebird but that's just because I him hurt in my garden and I don't see any wrong with getting abandoned pets that need a home.
Now what I'm interested in is how you view animals.
I in particular wonder how the ones of you who own pets feel about animals with the same intelligence and empathy as your pets?
But also how you in general decide what you personally can and cannot eat - is there anyone here living in the west that could see themselves eating an animal usually not eaten such as a dog?
And what about the practice of keeping animals, is okay to put the life of a hamster/rodent in the hands of a child?
Or maybe that's just a matter of parental irresponsibility.
Do you think it's in general okay to own living beings?
Share your thoughts!
I simply couldn't bear to eat a cow when I saw one being just as playful and endearing as a dog, I had to stop eating pigs when I saw how cute (very much like a cat) they are on youtube and had to stop eating fowl because they reminded me too much of my lovebird.
Before I go on I just want to point out that I'm not in any way trying to turn you into vegetarians, I'm just explaining my reason for treating livestock the same way some people treat their pets.
Anyhow, once I got started thinking this way I've slowly but steadily excluded more and more animals from my diet. I cannot eat octopuses and most other cephalopods because of their intelligence and am already starting to doubt whether or not it's right for me to eat fishes and lobsters due to their argued ability to sense pain
I guess that I'm basically trying to create some form of consistency in the way I treat animals.
I have no desire whatsoever to eat many animals and do not wish to support breeders/pet shops that raise animals purely so that they can be kept as pets. I used to have a lovebird but that's just because I him hurt in my garden and I don't see any wrong with getting abandoned pets that need a home.
Now what I'm interested in is how you view animals.
I in particular wonder how the ones of you who own pets feel about animals with the same intelligence and empathy as your pets?
But also how you in general decide what you personally can and cannot eat - is there anyone here living in the west that could see themselves eating an animal usually not eaten such as a dog?
And what about the practice of keeping animals, is okay to put the life of a hamster/rodent in the hands of a child?
Or maybe that's just a matter of parental irresponsibility.
Do you think it's in general okay to own living beings?
Share your thoughts!
Shanadeus on
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But really. I suppose its more of a cultural thing. Americans dont (usually) eat dogs and we keep them as pets. Americans (usually), love bacon.
Dogs and cats are a no-go while it's alright to eat pigs.
I'm sure that you can explain this with humans having closer connections to dogs as we've kept them for thousands of years and how cats too were highly regarded in past times - but really it's probably just a matter of practicality.
My problem is that pigs are, in my purely subjective opinion, just as cute&clever as cats and dogs
Anyone else feel the same?
However, cuteness hasn't stopped me from eating animals yet; deer are pretty damn cute (unless they're jumping in front of your car), and pretty delicious.
For part one, yes I think it's ok, but only if part of that ownership is making the child responsible for the animal's well-being. Teaching the child "hey, this animal needs food, a clean place to sleep, and in the case of rats especially, a lot of time out of the cage and with humans" is a great thing. Saying "keep that rodent in its cage, it's disgusting!" is absolutely not ok.
I also do think it's ok to "own" living beings, but I see it less as owning them and more as caring for them, and their being a part of the family. Part of that may come from my wife and I's difficulty in having children, but our four cats and two rats really are members of our family. We talk to them, care for them, and give them lots of attention. My bosses at work certainly get a bit annoyed when I have to leave early to bring a cat to the vet since, after all, it's "only a cat."
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
It is true that you can't really keep dogs/cats the same way you keep herds of cows but they're eaten in plenty of places as a regular meat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meat
I was a bit surprised that dogs were eaten more often than cats due to our history of keeping dogs for so long. Even China has tried to outlaw the practice of eating cats which occurs in some parts of the country:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_meat
Found this tidbit as well under the wiki article:
Can't eat their livers, but I think it's just Huskies. Same goes for polar bears.
Why treat them better? We're at the top of the food chain. Tigers don't worry about whether deer are happy.
I seriously don't understand people who treat their dogs like they're small children.
Why not treat them like children?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNyCV-XqCj8
Are you insinuating, sir, that humans have to take special thought about the animals they eat in ways that tigers don't?
Yeah, a dog's mental capacity is equal or greater to the mental capacity of a small child (or maybe an infant) so people who treat their dogs like they're small children are just disregarding the species of their dear subject in question.
I have never understood the American(and English, I think) revulsion concerning horse meat, since I find it to taste just fine. It seems to be a cultural thing. In the end though, an animal that's been treated well and raised for slaughter is all good in my books. I'm not a fan of factory farming though.
There is some ambiguity concerning some of the more intelligent creatures, that I haven't yet completely decided on. I'm semi-avoiding eating them until I form my final stance regarding them.
when I eat for need, like lunch, breakfast, I choose veg option.
I don't feel any remorse for consuming the animals that I do. What hunting and fishing has given me is a deep respect for the animals whom I take, and a great desire to see good conservation and management practices. Big game especially - it's fucking hard to track and kill a deer, even with all of the latest bells and whistles.
I'm not alienated from my food, and that's how I like it. The problem, I think, is not that people are eating animals or consuming animals products. We've always done that, in one way or another, and meat can be damned tasty. No, the problem is that people, especially in urban areas, are alienated from their food and not just meat either. It's not a bloody affair to harvest and package apples or cabbage like it is to butcher and prepare a cow or a goat, but we are just as disconnected regardless.
I won't argue that people ought to eat meat or not eat meat. I will only say this: you will have a much different perspective on things if you have been involved in the acquisition of food, especially meat, from the inception to the bitter and hopefully tasty end.
Also, fuck factory farming.
Because they're animals.
We chop off their balls, commit genetic experiment on them, and now half of them have some kind genetic deformity.
They're our little experiments.
A child will eventually grow up and be a productive asset to society. A dog is just drainage of resources.
If society ever fails, dogs and cats will be the first up on the chopping board.
that being said, im not sure why cuteness or even intelligence has anything to do with edibility.
By some weird logic that probably doesn't make any sense, it does seem to me that in order to responsibly be a meat-eater I should at some point kill an animal that I then eat so I can fully appreciate the process, and if I can't handle that maybe I should not eat as much meat. I dunno, maybe it won't actually make any difference at all.
I say we treat them better because causing an animal undue suffering is not needed. If we can treat them better we should, simply out of some sort of empathy. We are capable of realizing to an extent what it is like for an animal to suffer. We know how much suffering sucks, so we should limit that in animals.
I don't feel bad about eating animals.
It doesn't have anything to do with edibility but I'd say that it has everything to do with the morality of eating the edible thing.
Humans are edible as well for an example.
That said me not eating meat isn't going to make a difference to any bacon currently in stores. That pig is dead. Dead and delicious.
I, for example, am allergic to soy.
It would be pretty hard for me to keep a healthy amount of protein in my diet without meat.
When this stuff tastes good and is on the market for an affordable price, I will switch.
Think about it. What is morality? Where does it come from? It seems clear that most of our innate moral laws are the result of evolution. Why do we abhor murder? Because clearly, it's to the detriment of the group. All social animals have some form of selflessness and must obey some rules within the group. These are there for purely practical reasons. If you think about it, unless you are religious, there is not great book in the sky detailing what is wrong or not. You feel "wrong" when you do something bad because you were conditioned, in part through your genes and in part through your culture, to view selfish acts which harm the group as being immoral.
In that optic, you can understand why I don't care about eating livestock. Is there really anything inherently wrong about taking a life? Any argument you try to make to argue this is going to have to rely on some assumption you can't really justify (something like "but intelligence must be preserved!", which is completely arbitrary really). So then, why are people tried for murder? Well, the key is this: what kind of life did they take? Yep, a human life. There's nothing inherently wrong with taking a life, but ending another human's life (under most circumstances, there's such a thing as self-defence) hinders the group, which is why you are conditioned to think it's wrong.
Really, all of our moral laws are with respect to humans. We just are not made to care about animals. Why would we? What does it matter to the group if you hunt for sport, if everyone is well fed? It was not practical for us to develop moral laws against harming animals, which is why we never developed any.
You could fire back that we do care about some animals, but really, that's just because anthropomorphizing other animals. We love our pets because they kind of act like human children. We find tigers and lions to be "noble" (I can guarantee that the concept of nobility is totally alien to tigers). We care most about animals that remind us of ourselves, because that's what we are equipped to feel empathy towards. Have you heard about the PETA marketing campaign for fish? Since fish aren't really cute or human-like, it's pretty difficult for them to get you to care about endangered species of fish. People just don't really respond well. It's why you see hippies only manifesting to protect the cute animals; they only care about the ones that exhibit human characteristics. Rarely will you ever see someone shed a tear for a squashed bug, because they could hardly be more different from us.
Ok, so what's the point of that lecture? Well, the way you treat animals depends on your views of morality. If you are fine with morality being purely born out of practical arguments of survival of society, then you logically shouldn't really care about any other species. Animals are the square pegs to our moral round hole. We just are not equipped to care about the ones that don't remind us of ourselves. Then really, there's nothing wrong about treating them like another resource. This species is cute? Fine, let's adopt them as pets. This species can be fattened really easily? Fine, let's eat them. Oh, but it turns out they're pretty smart. Meh, befriend them if you want, but they're still tasty and a great source of proteins.
With this point of view, you can categorize animals like so:
1.The pets, our companions which we find cute and smart. We don't tend to eat them because we associate them with children too much.
2.Livestock. Most of them are ugly and easily fattened. Eat them!
3.Species which serve as symbols/are just plain aesthetically pleasing (things like whales, tigers, lions, bears, pandas, etc.)
4.Animals that play a critical role in the ecosystem, supporting species we actually care about. These ones should be left untouched.
5.Animals that can do work for us (things like horses and hunting dogs). No point in eating them, they are more useful as sources of labor than as meat.
6.The rest (I think few animals belong in that category, since group 4 contains most of the species we don't particularly care for). Who cares about them? I won't shed a tear if I read that they're endangered. These are mostly vermin.
And there you have it. I eat pigs cause I don't find them cute. I eat fish because I think they're stupid. I don't eat cats and dogs because they remind me of humans. Animals should be protected only if they are useful to us or a species we care about. We're free to treat them the way we want. That is a completely logically consistent set of beliefs. You might think it's cold, but I think that's really the way most people subconsciously view this moral dilemma. That's why it's a bit funny when vegetarians try to guilt-trip meat eaters, because we really are incapable of feeling guilt for eating livestock. We just don't care.
Now, you might be arguing that our nature shouldn't define morality, which is a completely different kettle of (tasty) fish. I would have to disagree with you there, but at this point we're pretty far from the original debate.
It's a nigh on 100% probability spinoff from any kind of serious stem cell therapy though, so I'm not too worried about the medium-term prospects.
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Human just tastes like salty pork anyways, so it'll probably just be a hazing snack.
I do find it silly that people have already resorted to the "hurf durf morality is subjective" line, though. You've "discovered" the obvious truth that there is no moral code written into the laws of physics. That doesn't mean shit, though, unless you're going to disregard ethics and morality completely. Obviously they are, to some degree, "made up".
Trying to argue that we feel empathy for animals like us and that therefore we ought to only regard humans as having ethical or moral value is ridiculous.
linked for big image: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/184/387785507_7f9e5ea9c4_o.jpg