Animal rights

[Fragony]

People mistakingly assume that animals feel as we do

Well I don't know if they do, but there is NEVER an excuse for cruelty.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

People mistakingly assume that animals feel as we do

Well I don't know if they do, but there is NEVER an excuse for cruelty.

Saying something is cruel involves assumptions. To keep a person confined to the house at all times would be cruel, but that's what you do to your cat to treat it well.

It is certainly possible to be cruel to animals, but you can't go by knee jerk reactions like animal rights people tend to.

[Viking]

Saying something is cruel involves assumptions.

As does the opposite, naturally.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

As does the opposite, naturally.

That's kind of a false equivalence isn't it? Assuming that animals react the same as humans is different from assuming they don't.

[Xiahou]

That's kind of a false equivalence isn't it? Assuming that animals react the same as humans is different from assuming they don't.

Another false equivalence would be equating slowly killing an animal for amusement to slaughtering one for sustenance.

I don't think I'm climbing too far out on a limb to assume that a bull doesn't enjoy being stabbed repeatedly. Does it feel fear or terror in the exact same way humans do? Probably not. But we still look down on people who have dogs fight to the death for entertainment.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Another false equivalence would be equating slowly killing an animal for amusement to slaughtering one for sustenance.

I didn't equate them, so...

You have the mistaken assumption that bullfights are about enjoying the pain of the matador or bull--do you think people watch boxing because they like seeing people in pain? I suppose the only reason people watch nascar is for the car crashes.

If you took a brain scan of someone enjoying a spectacle and scan of someone enjoying a steak how different would they be? Doesn't our feeling of enjoyment come from a certain chemical regardless of what we're enjoying? Dopamine or something? I don't know much about brain chemistry.

I don't think I'm climbing too far out on a limb to assume that a bull doesn't enjoy being stabbed repeatedly. Does it feel fear or terror in the exact same way humans do? Probably not. But we still look down on people who have dogs fight to the death for entertainment.

I said the same thing earlier

But once you stop equating animal experience to human experience then it is a question of how anthropocentric you are willing to be. Is it ok to to keep your dog chained up? Peoples gut tells them yes, just like it tells them that bullfights are wrong. But if you actually wanted to think about it you would have to come up with some criteria for determining when it is ok. You can't just rely on your moral instinct, because people generally don't do things they consider wrong...most criminals have justified their own actions and feel they are ok.

[miotas]

I think that animals should only be killed for a useful purpose and that it should be done quickly.

Would you arrest a lion for murdering a giraffe?

A lion doesn't inflict multiple small wounds with the intention of causing harm but not death, a lion is simply trying kill its prey to be eaten.

That said, I quite enjoy killing cane toads, which are Australia's worst pest. Ask any Queenslander or northern New South Welshman, it's practically a sport over here. Sure I wouldn't kill them if they weren't a pest, but I enjoy it, and I do it in ways that would probably be considered cruel, golf clubs, shovels, cricket bats etc, and having cane toad guts on your wheels is a testament to you driving skills

I suppose it comes down to what feels wrong, and that is different for everyone. I personally don't feel that squishing a cane toad till its guts are coming out of it's still living mouth to be wrong, but I do consider the example of bull fighting to be wrong.

But we should all remember that killing pandas for fun is always right.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I suppose the only reason people watch nascar is for the car crashes.

Of course they do, watching a car drive in a circle 300 times isn't fun. You Americans have funny taste in racing.

[Xiahou]

I didn't equate them, so...

You have the mistaken assumption that bullfights are about enjoying the pain of the matador or bull--do you think people watch boxing because they like seeing people in pain? I suppose the only reason people watch nascar is for the car crashes.

Yeah, I'd say bullfighting boils down to slowly killing the animal the same way that boxing boils down to people punching the crap out of each other. People can root for their favorite personalities and enjoy the skill shown by the participants, but the point and end result is to kill the bull. That's why you go- to see a man slowly kill a bull. At least in boxing, both participants are consenting. I'm sure in traditional bull-fighting areas it's also used as a hub for social gatherings and interactions, but the end purpose of it all is still the same.

I can accept "cruelty"- for a necessary purpose. Does hunting involve pain and suffering for animals? I think yes- in many cases. But at least that serves a population management purpose and also serves as food to the hunters in addition to the "sport" of it.

If someone wants to go hunting, blow the kneecaps off a deer and let it lie their struggling until his buddies can gather around and watch him finish it off with a sword- then I would have a problem with it.

If you took a brain scan of someone enjoying a spectacle and scan of someone enjoying a steak how different would they be? Doesn't our feeling of enjoyment come from a certain chemical regardless of what we're enjoying? Dopamine or something? I don't know much about brain chemistry.

Who cares? It's not the fact that people are enjoying themselves that's at issue. I don't mind if someone enjoys their steak- I just prefer it that that cow it came from was killed as quickly and painlessly as feasible.

But once you stop equating animal experience to human experience then it is a question of how anthropocentric you are willing to be. Is it ok to to keep your dog chained up? Peoples gut tells them yes, just like it tells them that bullfights are wrong. But if you actually wanted to think about it you would have to come up with some criteria for determining when it is ok. You can't just rely on your moral instinct, because people generally don't do things they consider wrong...most criminals have justified their own actions and feel they are ok.

I think a dog would prefer to be allowed to roam free, sure. But what's the purpose for chaining it? To keep it from getting run over by a car, or from killing or being killed by another dog, or even to keep it from attacking a person. Is it needlessly cruel to chain a dog for its protection and the protection of others? Of course not. You keep wildly tossing out these examples, but I fail to see how any are analogous with bull fighting.

A good analogy might be dog fighting...but then those are also viewed pretty universally as cruel too, so that may not help your case much.

[Meneldil]

But once you stop equating animal experience to human experience then it is a question of how anthropocentric you are willing to be. Is it ok to to keep your dog chained up? Peoples gut tells them yes, just like it tells them that bullfights are wrong. But if you actually wanted to think about it you would have to come up with some criteria for determining when it is ok. You can't just rely on your moral instinct, because people generally don't do things they consider wrong...most criminals have justified their own actions and feel they are ok.

Do you have any proof that animals don't feel the way we do?

First of all, you're assuming that all humans feel a same way, which is plainly incorrect. Some have a problem with bullfighting, some don't. Some have a problem with killing animals, some don't. Some have a problem with hurting others, some willingly decided to kill hundreds of other men. Some dislike pain, some enjoy it.

Second of all, there are several instances of animals showing what could be described as human emotions and feelings. Look at Louis VI's topic on homosexuality for example.
I remember this TV show in which an oran utang became friend with a cat. Some day, the cat died, and the ape spent days crying, not eating and lamenting alone.
Some animals have proved in many instances that they can feel what could be described as love, friendship, sadness, cruelty. Scientists and searchers still work on this topic, and all current work tend to prove that animals have feelings that are sometimes quite similars to humans' ones.
Assuming without any actual basis that animals don't feel like humans do is IMO a misconception.

To take your example, dogs certainly don't like to be chained up. They might not see it as slavery, they might not be outraged by it, but they don't like it nonetheless (or it is widely observed that they prefer to not be chained up).

I won't comment on bullfights, because IMO it's nothing more than the remnants of arenas ritual sacrifices.

Exactly. It's a fairly standard way for animals to hunt. Great Whites will bite once and the circle until their prey has bled and weakened (assuming it's big enough they can't swallow it) rather than risk injury.

So what ? Are you advocating that we shouldn't avoid painless dead, because it will be easier to kill a cow that way ? Because Great Whites do it when they hunt ? I'm kind of lost here.

We agree that it isn't the suffering of the animal that's wrong, correct? Otherwise it would be immoral not to stop animals from killing each other in the wild. And the discovery channel would have to be shut down, what with all the videos of animals killing each other they show.

It's only when a person becomes involved that we have a problem. And there is certainly merit to this. Our empathy for animals stems from the same part of our brain as our empathy for people. So someone who tortures kittens and puppies for fun probably has serious problems. But someone who keeps a house cat that tortures and kills mice and birds--we're fine with that because we know the person is still a good person.

Cruelty is not okay. Whether it's in the nature or in a slaughterhouse. Thing is, we cannot regulate how animals kill eachothers. Do you plan to set up a savannah police that will make sure the lion kills his preys decently ? We I watch a documentary in which a lion kills another animal, I'm not like "Hey, that's cool !". But then, I can't really put the lion in jail, or even convince him that he shouldn't do that. So heh, I don't bother.
Now, we can regulate how killing is done in slaughterhouse. We have both religious and secular laws to make sure that animal killing should be done accordingly to various principles that exclude unnecessary pain and cruelty.

In the end, it does not matter whether we think animals feel like us or not. Living accordingly to basic ethnic and rejecting useless cruelty is IMO what makes (some of) us specials.

After all this long rant, I'll conclude by saying that people who think it cool to kill a cat, a chicken or even a frog in the cruelest possible way, to record it and to put it on youtube deserve nothing but to be shot. Humanity deserves better than that.

[Viking]

That's kind of a false equivalence isn't it? Assuming that animals react the same as humans is different from assuming they don't.

The opposite of assuming something is cruel, is assuming it is not cruel. Humans cannot magically enter the equation.

If A is an assumption, then NOT A is also an assumption. If A is true, NOT A is false, and we no longer have assumptions about A, but assumptions regarding the validity of the established "truth" of A. I believe..

Assumptions begin where proof ends, no?

[Fragony]

I don't get the bullfighting dillemma, of course it's wrong. If that is your culture your culture is wrong. There is a lot of animal cruelty in Spain by the way, besides bullfighting tradition there is also the lovely hang the dogs after the hunt tradition, or the throw a goat from a tower festivities.

Second of all, there are several instances of animals showing what could be described as human emotions and feelings.

everyone with a pet knows that.

[Kralizec]

I don't think protecting animals against maltreatment is unimportant, but there's so much BS thrown around about it. A lot of people seem to think it's okay to wear leather clothes, but wearing fur is an abomination

And I'm a lot more concerned with say, the Japanese sponsored genocide against tuna in the Mediterranean sea.

[HoreTore]

If animals have rights then it is wrong to kill them for food

Of course not, they are food. Who said they should be given a right to protect them from being killed and eaten? Not me, I said they should be protected from being some sadistic nuts plaything. Which is something quite different.

and wrong to test vaccines and medicine on them.

If it's some unnecessary thing, sure, I'd put that in the "sadistic nuts plaything"-bin. But if it's something vaguely useful, then sure. They are, afterall, our underlings, and again, who said they should be given a right against being used in medical experiments?

To keep a person confined to the house at all times would be cruel, but that's what you do to your cat to treat it well.

WHAT?!?!??!?!

[Hax]

I must admit I spoke too soon;

In my opinion, animals (as HoreTore stated) animals should be protected against human cruelty. Rights is a bit of a vague term in this case. As far as we know (thanks for all the fish) animals lack the consciousness that humans have. The situation is even more difficult because we don't know any species who have the same consciousness (or close to) that humans have.

If it's some unnecessary thing, sure, I'd put that in the "sadistic nuts plaything"-bin. But if it's something vaguely useful, then sure. They are, afterall, our underlings, and again, who said they should be given a right against being used in medical experiments?

I prefer this being tested on humans. If we wish to mess around with natural selection, I'd say that we are responsible. Animals should not be made to suffer because of benefits to humans.*

Generally, I do not see animals as underlings, but just as different beings on this planet. In many aspects, I think their lives to be better of that of humans because they lack conscience. They work in perfect harmony with nature. Stephen Fry once said:

"If you look outside, the only ugly things you will see are manmade. Everything in nature, be it a desert, swamp, lake, plain is beautiful in its own right."

The same goes for animals, in my opinion. Not so much that they have extraordinary beauty (a rabbit with Shopes Papiloma can be quite revolting, but in the sense that they live in harmony with nature, which humans have trouble with at points. I'm not saying we are incapable of doing so, but in animals it is innate, for humans it has to be learned.

This might be my Buddhist philosophy coming up though.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Of course not, they are food. Who said they should be given a right to protect them from being killed and eaten?

Vegans.

If it's some unnecessary thing, sure, I'd put that in the "sadistic nuts plaything"-bin. But if it's something vaguely useful, then sure. They are, afterall, our underlings, and again, who said they should be given a right against being used in medical experiments?

Vaccines will have to be tested on living subjects at some point, it should always be animals first.

WHAT?!?!??!?!

Outside cats get all kinds of diseases. Our vet was fairly adamant that cats should be kept indoors and I tend to trust him because cats getting diseases would be good business for him...

Generally, I do not see animals as underlings, but just as different beings on this planet. In many aspects, I think their lives to be better of that of humans because they lack conscience. They work in perfect harmony with nature. Stephen Fry once said:

"If you look outside, the only ugly things you will see are manmade. Everything in nature, be it a desert, swamp, lake, plain is beautiful in its own right."

Ugly is a human concept though...and swamps are pretty ugly imo.

A lion doesn't inflict multiple small wounds with the intention of causing harm but not death, a lion is simply trying kill its prey to be eaten.

In a bullfight, they make the wounds to the neck not to cause harm, but to weaken the bull so that they can kill it safely. Lions probably do something similar to giraffes, and wolves certainly do to elk and such. House cats on the other hand, are well know for playing with their food, it's where we get the saying "a game of cat and mouse".

[HoreTore]

WTF part of "This is just between us" did you have trouble understanding!?!?

Naughty language, naughty boy! Do I have to give you another round of ?

Vegans.

They're irrelevant loonies. Nobody cares about what they have to say.

Vaccines will have to be tested on living subjects at some point, it should always be animals first.

Of course. Which is why I said so....

Outside cats get all kinds of diseases. Our vet was fairly adamant that cats should be kept indoors and I tend to trust him because cats getting diseases would be good business for him...

That vet should be slapped silly.