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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   32527 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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Question then is, do you see anything wrong with abusing, torturing, or otherwise putting animals to other 'inhumane' uses.

Since once you've accepted that killing them for sustenance is permissible, seemingly anything else is on the table.

YesChad.jpg

I'm totally OK with the torture, murder or abuse of nonhuman animals of below human intelligence.

I don't do it myself, since I get nothing out of it, but I respect the right of anyone who cares to try.

I don't mistreat my dogs, since I love them, and it causes me emotional pain to see others mistreat their dogs. But barring an uncontrollable emotional outburst, if I have time to reflect and think, I would be content with letting them do their thing, as I am for people doing things I find no enjoyment in, but doesn't hurt me directly, or if it does indirectly, then only insignificantly.

Today, people are largely justified in being leery of people who crucify rats or microwave kittens. Those behaviors likely correlate quite strongly with sociopathy, including violence towards humans. That does not mean that those acts themselves are fundamentally malign as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps one day we can decouple the two, if we ever cared to, and I'd be totally cool with it.

Overall, I'm not fond of extending my moral circle of concern any further than I want to. And it's not too far.

I don't see how you equate the two. Animals have less moral worth than humans, not zero moral worth. Eating them is legitimate (yes, including pet animals). Torturing them for sick pleasure is not.

Torturing them for sick pleasure is not.

Can you expound on this, though.

If raising an animal with the explicit intent of cutting their life short for your own sustenance is 'legitimate,' why does it matter if you engage in torture or abuse during said short life?

Because the means matter as well as the ends? Torturing things for pleasure is just plain wrong, whether you do it to humans, animals or even plants.

This is the point I want to hear you explain your perspective on.

If we've granted that taking the life of the animal is acceptable, it doesn't seem 'plain wrong' to do anything else to them, if no other humans are harmed or involved.

I'm not trying to create a gotcha here, I really want to get the reasoning at play.

Killing animals for a good purpose is ok, torturing animals for no reason is wrong because of the effects pointless cruelty have on the people that perpetrate it.

Yes you can quibble about where to draw the line. Yes that means I’m ok with factory farming.

Killing animals for a good purpose is ok

I'd like to avoid the truism, though. "it's okay to do [x] for a good purpose" doesn't give us much extra information. We aren't clear on what 'good' or 'okay' means here.

I will even grant that sustain one's own life is a 'good' purpose.

But what of eating meat merely for the pleasurable enjoyment of the experience? What about keeping an animal in captivity because you enjoy their company or you like the status of owning a rare/expensive animal?

Humans historically have put captive animals to many, many uses. Which uses might be less legitimate in a world where we have artificial alternatives?

the effects pointless cruelty have on the people that perpetrate it

I think this raises the question of what does this mean for the people who operate animal slaughterhouses who are constantly killing animals that they, themselves, are not going to eat. What impact might it have on them?

I suggest that someone who does such things to animals is probably deluded in such a manner which indicates a propensity to harm actual people in similar ways.

Even extreme animal rights activists rarely think it's wrong to harm insects, but someone who likes pulling wings off insects just to see them squirm is probably a bad person.

So from a legal perspective, are we right to criminalize and punish animal cruelty whilst carving out a large exception for the animals we eat?

What are we defining as "torture?" I tend to think of "torture" as purposefully inflicting suffering with an intent or goal in mind (like, say, getting information or a confession out of someone). I get the sense that most of the suffering associated with the culturing of animals for food is not exactly anywhere near inflicting pain on them For The Evulz, so much as it's a consequence (however avoidable!) of "volume over quality" snaking its tendrils into every aspect of industrial production.

Yes.

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