Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

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RohanKanhai
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

Post by RohanKanhai »

Empiricist-Bruno wrote:Rowan,

You seem to mix motivation and intention. I would agree to say that there is no motivation in a firearm but I can still see the intention in it. I also agree that you have to understand what a motivation is in order to have one but I still don't see how this is necessary in regards to intentions. So, would you be kind of enough to expand on your notion of an intention as opposed to a motivation?
Sorry I could not respond earlier. I moved to a different country. Only now settled down.

There is an overlap in the meanings of intention and motivation in some circumstances, meaning that they are the same. But in other contexts there could be subtle differences.

For example, Person A has intention of killing an animal and goes ahead and does it. So, Person A has the INTETION to kill an animal, but his motivation for doing so is to satisfy his hunger.

Person B, also has an intention of killing an animal and does kill one. But Person B's intention was to save Person C who was being attacked by that animal.

Both A and B intentionally (not accidently) killed 2 animals. However, A is unethical because he killed the animal unnecessarily, because he had other options for food.

However, B has not done anything unethical (some would argue that B has done something ethical, because he saved the life of a person), since his motivation (i.e. intention) was to do something good, which is save the life of a person.
Empiricist-Bruno wrote:Rowan,
For instance, I don't see how you can put a motivation in a machine but I can see the intention it has. The motivation is always hidden. You seem to claim that the motivation can come to light under some control experiment but I sort of disagree because the moment you know someone is experimenting on you, you can behave in a such a way as to screw the results for whatever purpose you have in mind.

I'm very critical of your species-ism talk. What do you make of the wild child abandoned in the wild at an early age and who learns to live on his own like an animal, with no language and who defecates anywhere. After years in the wild and then being found and brought back in society, he... becomes human again though contact with other humans? Being human is a cultural thing or concept (arbitrary and not scientific)?

How do you know that everything in dreaming is involuntary, if I may ask? And is being a volunteer for a thought a requisite for thinking? Involuntary thoughts do not constitute thought?
As far as I am aware, no child living in the wild (search feral children in Google) has been "brought back to society and become human again". Can you give a link to one such successful case?

Human learning is adaptive, while in the case of animals, it is genetically programmed. That is one of the big differences between humans and animals.

A human baby, if neglected by the parents in the early years, will become like an animal (or feral child), while animals, without any help from it's parents will become who they are genetically programmed to be.

So, being human is not cultural, it's biological.

-- Updated March 18th, 2017, 5:12 am to add the following --

Above should read "But Person B's motivation was to save Person C who was being attacked by that animal.".

-- Updated March 18th, 2017, 9:33 pm to add the following --

Added:
Both A and B intentionally (not accidently) killed 2 animals. However, A is unethical because he killed the animal unnecessarily, because he had other options for food.
That is, his motivation is not well-founded.
"The mind sins, not the body; if there is no intention, there is no blame." - Titus Livy, Roman historian & philosopher (59 BC - c. 17 AD)
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Enjoy your new country, Rohan! I hope it works out for you.
RohanKanhai wrote:
There is an overlap in the meanings of intention and motivation in some circumstances, meaning that they are the same. But in other contexts there could be subtle differences.
I think in this discussion, we can and must differentiate the two. If we can't then, I feel that our discussion lacks something and can go no where really.

RohanKanhai wrote:For example, Person A has intention of killing an animal and goes ahead and does it. So, Person A has the INTETION to kill an animal, but his motivation for doing so is to satisfy his hunger.

Person B, also has an intention of killing an animal and does kill one. But Person B's intention was to save Person C who was being attacked by that animal.

Both A and B intentionally (not accidently) killed 2 animals. However, A is unethical because he killed the animal unnecessarily, because he had other options for food.

However, B has not done anything unethical (some would argue that B has done something ethical, because he saved the life of a person), since his motivation (i.e. intention) was to do something good, which is save the life of a person.
And what if C's motivation was to show off his own ability to kill another. Now, after realizing that this brings him trouble, he claims it was meant to save another person's life. What if D's motivation was unclear at the time of the shooting, as if, "I don't really know why I did this, or I'm not sure why I did this." Now this would only show that D is an idiot and irresponsible but D would still be a moral person. That is, if an idiot can be a moral person. Through idiocy, is it possible to escape doing immoral things because the morally wrong motivation doesn't appear present? Is that right? And now that you have given some precision about your take on what is a motivation, I must ask, can it be changed after the fact and why not, especially in the case of the person who wasn't sure why he/she did what she/he did? What motivates acting without thinking, with no reason? Is the devil doing that?

RohanKanhai wrote: Person A has intention of killing an animal and goes ahead and does it.

Go ahead and does what? Person A carries out a premeditated act? Is that what having an intention means, to premeditate one's action? Can't one have the intention to kill another while not being motivated at a particular moment to do it? Such story or understanding would not be possible or understandable if we understood motivation and intention as being the same as you suggest. I continue to believe that you need to clear up these definitions so that your message can be understood clearly.

RohanKanhai wrote:As far as I am aware, no child living in the wild (search feral children in Google) has been "brought back to society and become human again". Can you give a link to one such successful case?
You are now saying that a child who lived in the wild and who is brought back to society is not human?

And now a few sentence after that, you claim:
RohanKanhai wrote:So, being human is not cultural, it's biological.
How can anyone make sense of that?
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

Post by RohanKanhai »

Empiricist-Bruno wrote:Enjoy your new country, Rohan! I hope it works out for you.
RohanKanhai wrote:
There is an overlap in the meanings of intention and motivation in some circumstances, meaning that they are the same. But in other contexts there could be subtle differences.
I think in this discussion, we can and must differentiate the two. If we can't then, I feel that our discussion lacks something and can go no where really.
From what I understand, the differences are "subtle", meaning "minuscule" or "minute", meaning extremely small.

If A kills a chicken to feed his family, despite there being other non-animal sources for food, although his motivation was hunger, he still has intention, intention to kill (an animal).

If A buys a chicken from the supermarket to feed his family, his motivation is hunger, but in this case, he has no intention of killing any animal. So, whether he has any other non-animal sources for his food is not applicable here since he has no intention of killing any animals. In fact, intention is not applicable here since there is no animal to kill to test his intentions, hence the action is ethically neutral according to deontological ethics which uses intention , and not consequences, to determine the morality of an action.
Empiricist-Bruno wrote:
RohanKanhai wrote:For example, Person A has intention of killing an animal and goes ahead and does it. So, Person A has the INTETION to kill an animal, but his motivation for doing so is to satisfy his hunger.

Person B, also has an intention of killing an animal and does kill one. But Person B's intention was to save Person C who was being attacked by that animal.

Both A and B intentionally (not accidently) killed 2 animals. However, A is unethical because he killed the animal unnecessarily, because he had other options for food.

However, B has not done anything unethical (some would argue that B has done something ethical, because he saved the life of a person), since his motivation (i.e. intention) was to do something good, which is save the life of a person.
And what if C's motivation was to show off his own ability to kill another. Now, after realizing that this brings him trouble, he claims it was meant to save another person's life. What if D's motivation was unclear at the time of the shooting, as if, "I don't really know why I did this, or I'm not sure why I did this." Now this would only show that D is an idiot and irresponsible but D would still be a moral person. That is, if an idiot can be a moral person. Through idiocy, is it possible to escape doing immoral things because the morally wrong motivation doesn't appear present? Is that right? And now that you have given some precision about your take on what is a motivation, I must ask, can it be changed after the fact and why not, especially in the case of the person who wasn't sure why he/she did what she/he did? What motivates acting without thinking, with no reason? Is the devil doing that?
It's very simple in this case. In this case C is not just an idiot, he is insane. So, no further ethical analysis is possible or necessary. Insane people cannot make moral judgments. He could be sent to the lunatic asylum. These things happen in real life. Here are some examples:

(a.) http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/n ... e0838e0c83
“His mental illness diminished his moral culpability to a very significant degree,” said Justice Carolyn Simpson.

(b.) http://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/m ... 2446787936 - Schizophrenic who killed and dismembered girlfriend with a sword is now eligible for release from a Washington state mental hospital. KING's Jake Whittenberg reports.
Empiricist-Bruno wrote:
RohanKanhai wrote: Person A has intention of killing an animal and goes ahead and does it.

Go ahead and does what? Person A carries out a premeditated act? Is that what having an intention means, to premeditate one's action? Can't one have the intention to kill another while not being motivated at a particular moment to do it? Such story or understanding would not be possible or understandable if we understood motivation and intention as being the same as you suggest. I continue to believe that you need to clear up these definitions so that your message can be understood clearly.
Yes, you can consider it as premeditation.

It is impossible to "have the intention to kill another while not being motivated at a particular moment to do it". The only way for this to happen is either by mistake, or if you are insane.

Yes, motivation and intention is the same thing. The differences are very subtle, as I explained above, meaning very small. This means we can ignore these small differences.
Empiricist-Bruno wrote:
RohanKanhai wrote:As far as I am aware, no child living in the wild (search feral children in Google) has been "brought back to society and become human again". Can you give a link to one such successful case?
You are now saying that a child who lived in the wild and who is brought back to society is not human?

And now a few sentence after that, you claim:


(Nested quote removed.)
How can anyone make sense of that?
What I meant was, if being human is not biological, but cultural, we should have been able to make monkeys talk and behave like us. Just like we can teach human babies to talk and become human, we should be able to do it with other animals also. But we can never do that.

Human abilities are adaptive, meaning a human baby has to be thought these by the parents. The adaptive period is very small. If a human baby grows with animals or in the wild, there are no humans to teach him. So, he becomes like an animal. But an animal can behave like a animal even without it's parents help. Lion cubs without parents can survive if not eaten by some other creatures and become like a normal lion. Snakes leave the mother just as they are hatched and so on. So, animals don't have the adaptive qualities that make us human. Those adaptive qualities are biological and not cultural. I think it will be obvious now.

Thanks for your wishes also... :D
"The mind sins, not the body; if there is no intention, there is no blame." - Titus Livy, Roman historian & philosopher (59 BC - c. 17 AD)
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

Post by LuckyR »

The main problem with this thread is that it takes as fact the idea that killing an animal by whichever means, equates to "animal cruelty". That is one person's opinion but certainly far from a societal consensus and frankly violates the common use of the term.
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

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LuckyR wrote:The main problem with this thread is that it takes as fact the idea that killing an animal by whichever means, equates to "animal cruelty". That is one person's opinion but certainly far from a societal consensus and frankly violates the common use of the term.
People give opinions only relative to the ethical system they follow or believe in.

The department of philosophy in any university is not located in the school of sciences. It is found only in the school of humanities or arts.

Anything that is not a science, is, at the end of the day, is an opinion only.

The idea that killing an animal by whichever means equating to "cruelty" is also an opinion of some groups of people, albeit not people in your country.
That you can eat those same animals nonetheless is also another ethical system, again, not practiced by people in your country.

I think you are being arrogant and supremacist in not being being able to even acknowledge let alone accept that there are other ethical systems, completely different to yours, practiced by people of other cultures and countries.

Ethics at the end of the day are opinions only.

The powerful groups will basically shove their ethics down the throats of weak groups, especially groups which depend on them.

For example, when the developed countries in the west, give aid to poor countries, they put conditions that they will give aid only if, for example homosexual rights are upheld, even though the people receiving the aid are completely against it. :D

Also, you are forgetting that there is big difference between killing and cruelty. You can kill a cow by first stunning the cow with stun gun. Then the cow will feel no pain or very little pain and death will be quick. The cow will die in seconds.

Muslims on the other hand kill cows by killing them while alive, by slitting the throat and letting the blood flow. It takes minutes for the cow to die in great pain.

So, while the latter case is cruelty, the former case is not.

However, some people who are against killing any animal will be opposed to the former case also, on the grounds of not cruelty, but just taking a sentient life.

These are 2 very different cases.

Do you think that the majority of people who eat meat don't know that killing animals causes pain and suffering for the animals??? Of course they know. They majority knows. They eat meat anyway in-spite of this knowledge.

That's how things work, no matter how much we like if dislike it. :D
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

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RohanKanhai wrote:
LuckyR wrote:The main problem with this thread is that it takes as fact the idea that killing an animal by whichever means, equates to "animal cruelty". That is one person's opinion but certainly far from a societal consensus and frankly violates the common use of the term.
People give opinions only relative to the ethical system they follow or believe in.

The department of philosophy in any university is not located in the school of sciences. It is found only in the school of humanities or arts.

Anything that is not a science, is, at the end of the day, is an opinion only.

The idea that killing an animal by whichever means equating to "cruelty" is also an opinion of some groups of people, albeit not people in your country.
That you can eat those same animals nonetheless is also another ethical system, again, not practiced by people in your country.

I think you are being arrogant and supremacist in not being being able to even acknowledge let alone accept that there are other ethical systems, completely different to yours, practiced by people of other cultures and countries.


Ethics at the end of the day are opinions only.

The powerful groups will basically shove their ethics down the throats of weak groups, especially groups which depend on them.

For example, when the developed countries in the west, give aid to poor countries, they put conditions that they will give aid only if, for example homosexual rights are upheld, even though the people receiving the aid are completely against it. :D

Also, you are forgetting that there is big difference between killing and cruelty. You can kill a cow by first stunning the cow with stun gun. Then the cow will feel no pain or very little pain and death will be quick. The cow will die in seconds.

Muslims on the other hand kill cows by killing them while alive, by slitting the throat and letting the blood flow. It takes minutes for the cow to die in great pain.

So, while the latter case is cruelty, the former case is not.

However, some people who are against killing any animal will be opposed to the former case also, on the grounds of not cruelty, but just taking a sentient life.

These are 2 very different cases.

Do you think that the majority of people who eat meat don't know that killing animals causes pain and suffering for the animals??? Of course they know. They majority knows. They eat meat anyway in-spite of this knowledge.

That's how things work, no matter how much we like if dislike it. :D
Bravo!! Well spoken. Talk about arrogant, how about 1) taking a valid but outlier position and treating it as standard and 2) being the mouthpiece for this outlier position yet not actually practicing/believing in it oneself?
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

Post by RohanKanhai »

LuckyR wrote:
RohanKanhai wrote: (Nested quote removed.)

People give opinions only relative to the ethical system they follow or believe in.

The department of philosophy in any university is not located in the school of sciences. It is found only in the school of humanities or arts.

Anything that is not a science, is, at the end of the day, is an opinion only.

The idea that killing an animal by whichever means equating to "cruelty" is also an opinion of some groups of people, albeit not people in your country.
That you can eat those same animals nonetheless is also another ethical system, again, not practiced by people in your country.

I think you are being arrogant and supremacist in not being being able to even acknowledge let alone accept that there are other ethical systems, completely different to yours, practiced by people of other cultures and countries.


Ethics at the end of the day are opinions only.

The powerful groups will basically shove their ethics down the throats of weak groups, especially groups which depend on them.

For example, when the developed countries in the west, give aid to poor countries, they put conditions that they will give aid only if, for example homosexual rights are upheld, even though the people receiving the aid are completely against it. :D

Also, you are forgetting that there is big difference between killing and cruelty. You can kill a cow by first stunning the cow with stun gun. Then the cow will feel no pain or very little pain and death will be quick. The cow will die in seconds.

Muslims on the other hand kill cows by killing them while alive, by slitting the throat and letting the blood flow. It takes minutes for the cow to die in great pain.

So, while the latter case is cruelty, the former case is not.

However, some people who are against killing any animal will be opposed to the former case also, on the grounds of not cruelty, but just taking a sentient life.

These are 2 very different cases.

Do you think that the majority of people who eat meat don't know that killing animals causes pain and suffering for the animals??? Of course they know. They majority knows. They eat meat anyway in-spite of this knowledge.

That's how things work, no matter how much we like if dislike it. :D
Bravo!! Well spoken. Talk about arrogant, how about 1) taking a valid but outlier position and treating it as standard and 2) being the mouthpiece for this outlier position yet not actually practicing/believing in it oneself?
Where have I stated that my position is the standard???

I have never said this.

In fact, my position, view, or ethical system is not the standard. I know that.

This is the reason why I posted this thread.

To see the reactions from the people who have the standard position.
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Trump is a narcissist; he has a mental illness and is therefore insane. But instead of locking him up in a nut house, US citizens have locked him up in the White House. So now, the USA can act without fear of doing anything wrong (no moral responsibility) as if the United States now lived in God's Grace.

But the leader of North Korea, being a supporter of deontological philosophy, realize that the USA is a mad nation and he plans to correct this by obliterating it with nuclear weapons, and this is a valid moral intention, right? The leader of North Korea acts like a very moral person, right?

I have read recently that tigers born in captivity and who have received no hunting education by their parents will die of hunger if they are released in the wild. So, there goes one exception to your theory, unless you are willing to include tigers as part of the human family.

There is a glaring contradiction in your explanations: you suggest that a woman's baby is not fully a representative member of the human family until that point when the baby grows to think and talk like a normal adult human being does. My question is, do we all begin life as animals? If not then what is it we begin life as? According to you, should the killing of a human baby be viewed not as murder (the illegal killing of a human by another) but simply like the killing of an animal?

And what about the bird that is motivated to land on the branch that has been set up with a switch linked to a machine gun on a wind cock that then fires bullets and kill someone? The bird had not premeditated to kill but it did anyway. So, the bird is either crazy or it kills mistakenly?

I look forward to your usually fascinating answers.
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

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The main problem with this thread is that it takes as fact the idea that killing an animal by whichever means, equates to "animal cruelty".
Which thread are you reading? - apparently not this one. It is more about how livestock animals are treated when they are alive, how they are raised, not just about killing them. When one says that concentration camps are immoral, one is referring to more than merely the means by which the camp inmates may be executed.
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

Post by RohanKanhai »

I am a little bit confused and surprised at the lack of knowledge (i.e. ignorance), or even worse, nonacceptance of the fact that there are different types of ethical systems.

Some of you seem to think that "consequentialism" is the ONLY ethical system out there.

While I prepare my answers to your questions how about going through these links to get to know about this subject?? That is, the subject of "ethics"??

(1.) Normative Ethical Theories - http://moralphilosophy.info/normative-ethics/
(2.) http://braungardt.trialectics.com/philo ... l-systems/
(3.) https://www.thoughtco.com/atheism-types ... ms-4058406
(4.) http://sites.saschina.org/thiessen/file ... mpared.pdf
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

Post by Gertie »

I suspect most thoughtful ethical systems boil down to notions of well-being and harm, well-being being Good and Harm being Bad, tho there are different approaches to how this can be achieved, often framed in terms of Moral Agents and Oughts as ways to achieve Goods.

In this situation we can look at the Well-being and Harm issue, and if we believe (as scientific evidence suggests) that farm animals are capable of experiencing a quality of life, including something worth calling well-being and harm, we can identify a moral problem with unnecessarily slaughtering them for food and keeping them in conditions with cause suffering.

The moral remedy would require change, Oughts, for actors involved in the causal chain leading to the Moral Bad. This causal chain includes consumers, farmers, slaughter-house workers, supermarkets, etc. An easy way to effect the desired moral change is for consumers to stop eating meat. A lot of other changes would result which need planning for with such a major shift, but in principle it's a simple moral solution to a moral problem.
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

Post by LuckyR »

RohanKanhai wrote:
LuckyR wrote: (Nested quote removed.)


Bravo!! Well spoken. Talk about arrogant, how about 1) taking a valid but outlier position and treating it as standard and 2) being the mouthpiece for this outlier position yet not actually practicing/believing in it oneself?
Where have I stated that my position is the standard???

I have never said this.

In fact, my position, view, or ethical system is not the standard. I know that.

This is the reason why I posted this thread.

To see the reactions from the people who have the standard position.
Little words make big differences. I didn't say you presented your (outlier) position as THE Standard. I said you presented an outlier position as standard (or commonplace, if you prefer). If I had, i, too would be critical.
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

Post by RohanKanhai »

Empiricist-Bruno wrote:Trump is a narcissist; he has a mental illness and is therefore insane. But instead of locking him up in a nut house, US citizens have locked him up in the White House. So now, the USA can act without fear of doing anything wrong (no moral responsibility) as if the United States now lived in God's Grace.

But the leader of North Korea, being a supporter of deontological philosophy, realize that the USA is a mad nation and he plans to correct this by obliterating it with nuclear weapons, and this is a valid moral intention, right? The leader of North Korea acts like a very moral person, right?
That Trump is insane is just your opinion Bruno. It's just the opinion of some people who hate his guts. It could be due to jealousy and hatred that he won beating all odds, so you cannot handle his victory and so come up with things like this. :D

For Trump to be labelled as insane, he has to be diagnosed by a professional psychiatrist and only if the psychiatrist makes that claim can we believe it. There was a rumor circulating during the campaign by Clinton supporters that Trump was indeed insane, but when the Fox News anchor asked the guy to prove it by showing hospital or doctor records he could not do so. Here is a link to that controversy: https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/ ... trump.html

How do you know that Kim Jong-un is a "deontologist"??? How do YOU know that??? You don't that that either. So, again it's your opinion isn't it?? :D
Also, North Korea is not a person. It's a country. Ethics is applicable to individuals and not countries.

For example, are all Americans morally responsible for the dropping of the atomic bomb in Japan??

Are all German citizens who lived from 1939 to 1945 responsible for the Holocaust? It was done by Germany, the country, which according to you is a "person". So, all the people of that country should be, according to your logic responsible. But I think most people in this forum will realized that it is not how things work. If a country does something wrong like the Holocaust, the responsibility lies with the government that ran the country during that time.

When people like Peter Singer writes books, does he write for a "country"?? NO. He writes his books for INDIVIDUALS. Nobody writes ethics for countries.

So your questions cannot be answered because it is based on opinion and also it does not come under the preview of personal ethics.
Empiricist-Bruno wrote:I have read recently that tigers born in captivity and who have received no hunting education by their parents will die of hunger if they are released in the wild. So, there goes one exception to your theory, unless you are willing to include tigers as part of the human family.
Exceptions don't change the rule. For example, the exceptions that there are bad people in America like rapists and murderers don't change the rule that Americans are good people.
Empiricist-Bruno wrote: There is a glaring contradiction in your explanations: you suggest that a woman's baby is not fully a representative member of the human family until that point when the baby grows to think and talk like a normal adult human being does. My question is, do we all begin life as animals? If not then what is it we begin life as? According to you, should the killing of a human baby be viewed not as murder (the illegal killing of a human by another) but simply like the killing of an animal?
I did not say this. According to my beliefs (which includes some religious beliefs as well) even a 2 week old fetus is also human, so killing it is not a good thing, meaning unethical. I think like this because of my religion. So, because you do not a believer in my religion you will not accept it. This is understandable, since both religions and non-religious ethical systems are just opinions or beliefs. So, debating about things like these I think is futile because we are debating about what we believe and not about factual things. It's like Christians debating atheists whether God exists or not. It does not go anywhere much.

No, since according to my system which is partly motivated by religion, partly by empirical facts and logic, humans do not begin life as animals. Humans are born human. Humans are not animals.

So, yes, according to my ethical system, killing a human baby (like a 2 week only newborn baby) is clearly murder, completely different to killing of an animal.
Empiricist-Bruno wrote:And what about the bird that is motivated to land on the branch that has been set up with a switch linked to a machine gun on a wind cock that then fires bullets and kill someone? The bird had not premeditated to kill but it did anyway. So, the bird is either crazy or it kills mistakenly?

I look forward to your usually fascinating answers.
Birds are animals. Animals are not rational creatures. Animals cannot think. So, birds have no concept of motivation. So, associating motivation to a bird is meaningless. Birds work by instinct and genetic programming, and not by motivation. So, your question cannot be answered again.

-- Updated May 27th, 2017, 9:00 pm to add the following --
Gertie wrote:I suspect most thoughtful ethical systems boil down to notions of well-being and harm, well-being being Good and Harm being Bad, tho there are different approaches to how this can be achieved, often framed in terms of Moral Agents and Oughts as ways to achieve Goods.

In this situation we can look at the Well-being and Harm issue, and if we believe (as scientific evidence suggests) that farm animals are capable of experiencing a quality of life, including something worth calling well-being and harm, we can identify a moral problem with unnecessarily slaughtering them for food and keeping them in conditions with cause suffering.

The moral remedy would require change, Oughts, for actors involved in the causal chain leading to the Moral Bad. This causal chain includes consumers, farmers, slaughter-house workers, supermarkets, etc. An easy way to effect the desired moral change is for consumers to stop eating meat. A lot of other changes would result which need planning for with such a major shift, but in principle it's a simple moral solution to a moral problem.
Just curious. But if that is the case, would you not buy a car and use public transport instead??

There are little over a billion vehicles in the planet now.

So, if all 3.5 billion adult humans owns a vehicle (say about 3.5 billion vehicles) it would sound the death knell to this planet (i.e. your well being and harm motif), right?

-- Updated May 27th, 2017, 9:20 pm to add the following --
LuckyR wrote:
RohanKanhai wrote: (Nested quote removed.)

Where have I stated that my position is the standard???

I have never said this.

In fact, my position, view, or ethical system is not the standard. I know that.

This is the reason why I posted this thread.

To see the reactions from the people who have the standard position.
Little words make big differences. I didn't say you presented your (outlier) position as THE Standard. I said you presented an outlier position as standard (or commonplace, if you prefer). If I had, i, too would be critical.
You know, come to think about it now, I don't think my position is the outlier position.

Because, just think about it.

Do you think that the overwhelming majority of meat-eaters do not know that killing of animals entails great pain??? Do you think they don't know that they suffer other types of abuse in the slaughterhouses and farms??

I don't think so. I think most people know. But eat mean in-spite of knowing this.

If you ask them, the meat-eaters, like in some YouTube videos I have seen, that is, when vegan activists confronts meat-eaters in public, ask them questions etc, most meat-eaters don't know how to answer. They cannot say why they eat meat despite of the cruelty of the process of obtaining the meat. I have see quite a number of videos like this in YouTube. Search for something like "vegans confront meat eaters".

Why is this?? I think the reason is very simple.

The meat-eaters are not consequentialists, nor do they know anything about ethics or ethical systems either.

They however don't feel guilty when buying and eating the meat. Because they are in-fact deontologists who use intention to judge the morality of action.
It is human-nature to use intention, since humans are not animals and the only creature that can think, intention goes hand-in-hand with any action we do. It is kind of human-nature. It is inborn like fear or happiness we feel.

For example, when parents teach little children about good or bad, do they teach consequentialim?? NO, they give or teach them rules, like do not lie, do not steal, do no hurt etc. This is not consequentialsim. This is classic deontology. That is, the use of rules.

So, humans are by nature, deontologists who use intention to judge the morality of an action. We just don't know it or aware of it. I don't think we need to be aware of it either.

Since we don't know know, when the vegans confront the meat eaters, the meat eaters fumble and don't know how to answer.

I think this is what happens.

That is, why people eat meat in-spite of knowing it's a cruel process.
"The mind sins, not the body; if there is no intention, there is no blame." - Titus Livy, Roman historian & philosopher (59 BC - c. 17 AD)
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

Post by Empiricist-Bruno »

Rohan,
What do you make of a scientifique Study like this that shows crows can do a 5 year old's task? Before a child is that age, the child hasn't learn yet what a motivation is? How can genetics program a bird to do this sort of thing, or conceptual thinking. Is this another exception?


http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0092895

-- Updated May 28th, 2017, 7:16 am to add the following --

Rohan, and what about the feral child? Is it a human or an animal? Please make up your mind.

Rohan, is it a fact that I have an opinion or is it only your opinion? I may be simply dishing out fake news about Trump, not an opinion, right?
Last edited by Empiricist-Bruno on May 28th, 2017, 8:14 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Why meat-eaters are NOT promoting animal cruelty

Post by Jackdeber »

I'm not sure if this has been brought up on here, but is the non-culpability of the act you are referring to, a reference to Aquinas' double effect. Your saying that although the consumer is inescapably aware that a being has been sacrificed to feed him/herself, they aren't responsible for that act.
I think personally disagree with that idea as a basis for morality as knowledge of a dilemma automatically means that you have a duty to contemplate the morality. I don't believe that because you have become involved that you have to necessarily change your actions, but you are duty bound to consider the moralities involved.

When it comes to the example of a deer hunter offering you a tasty dish. I think that you could argue that you are responsible for that particular animals death, but you are making a statement that you support the past acts and supporting that this act continues, which would give you part responsibility for future deaths.

By not purchasing or eating meat you are making a statement to world that you do not support the whole system of rearing a slaughtering life stock.


I am a meat eater myself. I do, however, support a moral decision to choose not to eat meat.
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