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Post by creature386 on Jul 30, 2019 21:16:50 GMT 5
They're not harming animals for no reason though, it's the principle of least harm for them (as we both agree though, they shouldn't have carnivorous pets in the first place though).
As for plants vs animals, I don't know about you, but for me, stepping on a flower is among the least henious "crimes" I could possibly imagine. Kicking a dog or a cat is in a whole different league.
And the claim that plants feel pain still needs to be proven.
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rock
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Post by rock on Jul 30, 2019 23:54:29 GMT 5
They're not harming animals for no reason though, it's the principle of least harm for them (as we both agree though, they shouldn't have carnivorous pets in the first place though). As for plants vs animals, I don't know about you, but for me, stepping on a flower is among the least henious "crimes" I could possibly imagine. Kicking a dog or a cat is in a whole different league. And the claim that plants feel pain still needs to be proven. it doesnt matter if they dont eat meat , someone else will not really they are both living things second of all plants do feel pain allthatsinteresting.com/plants-defense-mechanismeven if they did not feel pain , you are still taking a life , so it doesnt make it any more right , i am not saying dont eat plants or it is morally wrong to eat plants , but to say animals have more rights then plants seams silly seeing how they are both living things |
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Post by creature386 on Jul 31, 2019 0:13:45 GMT 5
it doesnt matter if they dont eat meat , someone else will Em, supply and demand? Bacteria are alive, too. Interesting, but it seems more likely a mechanical reaction to stimuli than a psychological reaction like humans and certain animals have. And even under the premise that plants and animals are equal, you generally need 10 kg of plant protein to produce one kg of animal protein. So even then, vegans harm far less plants than anyone else does. I think you're conflating a philosophical/ethical definition of life with a biological one. Same applies to pain which can either be a mechanical reaction or something in the mind. Not all definitions are equal. The law draws a line between adults and minors between 18 years, though any biologist can tell you how arbitrary this is. Same applies to alive. In biology, "life" refers to a self-sustaining and replicating chemical system. Now, what's so great about this? It's hard to see why something like a bacterium should be more valuable than a crystal. That's why a lot of people when they refer to "life" actually refer to consciousness (someone is considered dead when their brains stops working even when other biological processes still do). On the other hand, there's a clear difference between that which is conscious and that which is not which is why consciousness is what I think matters in moral questions (for me, HAL 9000, Bender or any other fictional AIs would be infinitely more "alive" to me than the bacteria in my gut, even if they do not fit the biological definition of life). Ultimately, when answering the questions "What do I value?", one must be honest and not rely on equivocation. I don't believe anyone is seriously more attached to a bacterium than a virus, even though the former is alive and the latter is not. And just out of curiosity, do you think humans are equal to plants, too? Is killing a human equal to stepping on a flower to you? |
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Post by dinosauria101 on Jul 31, 2019 0:15:08 GMT 5
To me, stepping on a flower vs killing a person - the difference is bigger than the size gap between a praying mantis and an elephant
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Post by dinosauria101 on Jul 31, 2019 0:52:35 GMT 5
Rock, I was asking if it is in general terms wrong to harm animals or not. In other threads, you stated plants can feel pain, but I'm sure you know no concept of plant cruelty. it depends on the circumstance , if is for food for dogs , cats , humans then it is ok , if it is beating the animal for no reason then it is not ok IMO , plants feel pain , animals feel pain , its part of life , if nothing felt pain we wont be able to eat. True, partly. I think that's in accordance with 'living things must die for other to live' |
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rock
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Post by rock on Jul 31, 2019 19:46:59 GMT 5
it depends on the circumstance , if is for food for dogs , cats , humans then it is ok , if it is beating the animal for no reason then it is not ok IMO , plants feel pain , animals feel pain , its part of life , if nothing felt pain we wont be able to eat. True, partly. I think that's in accordance with 'living things must die for other to live' its just the circle of life , this is not a disney movie , things have to die for us to live , its just the way or life. |
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Post by theropod on Jul 31, 2019 20:06:13 GMT 5
The ethical question here isn’t "do we have to harm living things in order to live" but rather "how many living things do we have to harm in order to live?". From the obvious answer to the first, it doesn’t automatically follow that the answer to the second question doesn’t matter, as you seem to be implying.
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rock
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Post by rock on Jul 31, 2019 21:52:23 GMT 5
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Post by theropod on Jul 31, 2019 22:32:29 GMT 5
What’s that supposed to mean?
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Post by creature386 on Jul 31, 2019 22:54:33 GMT 5
The ethical question here isn’t "do we have to harm living things in order to live" but rather "how many living things do we have to harm in order to live?". From the obvious answer to the first, it doesn’t automatically follow that the answer to the second question doesn’t matter, as you seem to be implying.  ?// If his post is difficult to understand, it's a bit like with the environment. Everyone of us harms the environment in some way, but it's a difference if your lifestyle requires four or two planets. Or, for a simple analogy, let's suppose you were a vampire. You'd have to kill humans and drink their blood to survive (and being one trophic level above them in the food chain, you'd have the "natural right" to do so), but I guess you wouldn't be too happy, so you wouldn't kill more than you need (and, if you're like Edward Cullen, you'd probably target those few who you don't think deserve to live in the first place, but that's a different topic). |
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Post by theropod on Aug 1, 2019 1:00:09 GMT 5
rock OK, I’ll give you a simple example of what I mean. I think we have established that it is justified and natural to harm plants in order to eat (even though we may not all agree what that implies regarding the meat issue). So if I plant some lettuce in my garden in order to eat it, I’d argue that’s ethically justifiable. But does that mean I can just as well cut down a rainforest to use the space for cattle-farming? Both harm living beings, right? But does that mean it doesn’t matter which one I do? I’ll let you answer that.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Aug 1, 2019 3:38:23 GMT 5
I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I just wanted to give my thoughts about something said on the previous page.
Pets "consent" to being pampered, not to being legally owned. Having experienced the benefits of being cared for in a human house, pets may return home even if left outside unsupervised for rather obvious and practical reasons. And keep in mind, the key word here is may: this doesn't even apply to all individual pets, as anyone who has ever had a dog or cat run away can testify (I know you're aware of this since you say "mostly", but I don't know if it really is most of the time).
Even if we were being generous and regarded a return home as an ambiguous signal (i.e. whether or not they consent to being owned), we don't consider ambiguous signals to be true consent. A "maybe" to sex is not consent.
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Post by creature386 on Aug 1, 2019 4:16:06 GMT 5
Shouldn't our concept of consent be intelligence-appropriate though?
I strongly doubt pets can grasp abstract concepts such as freedom (beyond something like "I want to do X in this very moment"), let alone property or the law. I'm pretty sure I didn't when I was two and even adult humans have written entire books to define such words. Our understanding of freedom is based on the concept of self-actualization which rests at the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and is thus probably something human.
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Post by Infinity Blade on Aug 1, 2019 4:45:06 GMT 5
What do you mean by "intelligence-appropriate"? As in, consent by the standards of their cognitive capacity?
If so, I don't think so simply because I don't think they have any sort of understanding of the concept of consent in the first place. And even if they did, it's at least debatable, if not flat-out false, that what they show by returning to a home is "consent", given the point I made about pets at least knowing which environment is more salubrious to them.
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Post by creature386 on Aug 1, 2019 13:52:46 GMT 5
From my knowledge on the subject, animals, especially those that do not pass the mirror test, carry for little more than short-term comfort.
Consent can help determine if what we are doing to them gives them pleasure or pain.
In the case of pets, staying at home can be a sign that they like it better than in the streets, but this is not the only evidence we have (most can't survive in the wild and mortality rates on the streets are also higher).
As for the question of legal ownership, I'd like to add that one could simply re-define pet "owners" as "guardians" (no-one considers being the guardian of a child to be bad and children and pets have comparable intelligence) and little would change.
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