this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
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You said they were morally equivalent when you called it murder, and you said it again just now. Why does killing an animal for food carry any moral weight? Cheetahs don't get any flak for hunting caribou.
A human is an animal too, so i might kill it for food with no moral weight to it. Great.
But if you compare yourself to a cheetah, I get that your intellect and morals are just... Primal π
So to be clear you are officially saying that killing an animal is morally equivalent to killing a human?
I actually didn't say anything and just followed this dude's logic. But actually I'd say it's not equivalent. The non-human animals are always innocent. Man is rarely.
Oh, I disagree. Ant colonies go to war with each other all the time. Basically all mammal species see every male in a 5-mile radius fight to the death over a single female. I'm curious what exactly it is the animals are supposed to be innocent of.
They don't act on intellect. They just do without knowing what they're actually do. If a dog kicks over your vase, do you see malignant intent? Is the ant-colony going to war for survival acting on greed or lust or the desire to spill blood?
Do they rape because they despise women? Do they kill because they love the control? Do they build political systems made to opress the dumb and/or weak? Do they actually have crab-mentality like we do? Do they actually destroy the planet for their own desires to own as much stuff as possible?
I probably could go on for ages but you get the picture. We do most things while knowing better. We do horrible things, even though we know what others feel. We do most things with intent and knowledge.
We might be innocent as long as we're a toddler crawling around the world, knowing nothing. But now we buy cheap shit made in china, knowing very well that we keep horrible slavery running this way. We know and we ignore. Examples are legion, but you live on this planet too, so you know.
I'd like to hear your proposed alternative. Or did you just want another excuse tonsay "humanity bad"?
I don't need an excuse for that. It's evidently visible all around us. Alternative? To what? To humans? Nature will sort that problem out.
I didn't, actually
I didn't, actually
Because humans aren't special unique beings with souls that make us the only ones with moral worth. Many animals are capable of suffering and emotion.
We are the ones with the social system allowing for moral frameworks to guide our decisionmaking. Cheetahs aren't moral agents. And if they are, they follow cheetah morality. Plus, they are obligate carnivores anyway (which is why your cat should not be deprived of meat)
Yes you did, that's what the word "murder" means
All right then. Do you believe that owning a cat is immoral, since in order for the cat to thrive, creatures with souls must die?
There are no creatures with souls. But no, I wouldn't say keeping a cat in general is immoral. There are definitely ethical concerns around things like kitten breeding mills and letting cats roam around outdoors, though
So if cats are allowed to eat meat, why aren't we?
please act in good faith or let me know that you're not interested in doing so
Why is me killing a chicken to feed to my cat morally acceptable, but me killing a chicken to feed to myself is not? In both cases the one with the moral code is doing the killing.
Do you believe that if there were a race of intelligent aliens who were obligate carnivores, they should be allowed to slaughter humans for food? It sounds like you think the answer is yes. I would agree, provided the humans were treated humanely.
If you've taken in a cat you have committed yourself to its care. It's not a matter of the moral agent being a killer as the combination of being a moral agent and not an obligate carnivore. You can choose not to consume animals because you don't need to. If you choose for your cat to not consume animals, you are killing the cat. But this is not a huge factor in the real world when it comes to the meat industry. Cat food is not nearly its main driver.
As for your alien hypothetical: Whether they should be "allowed" is kind of an unclear question. Who is allowing or disallowing this action? I think humans would be justified in fighting back to prevent our own demise. I think it would be ethical on the part of the aliens to strive towards a solution for their diet that doesn't involve killing or harming sentient beings
So it's just a matter of degree? Meat could be a delicacy for humans as long as we weren't overconsuming?
If they're obligate carnivores, what could they eat instead, if killing any living creature for food is morally equivalent?