The ethics of flogging a dead horse

[Sculptor1]

The latter displays our need to eat, but is, perhaps, also disrespectful.

Just as an incidental point, I'd see the need to eat beef, as opposed to some other kind of food, as roughly equal to the need to sit on a dead horse, as opposed to some other kind of chair.

Except that a dead animal is not a chair of any kind.
And I do not eat chairs. Neither do I ride chairs in races. Chairs are not waiting to be taken to the knackers for rendering into dog food.
So your analogy is poor.

[Steve3007]

Except that a dead animal is not a chair of any kind.

Some are. Some chairs are made of leather.

And I do not eat chairs. Neither do I ride chairs in races. Chairs are not waiting to be taken to the knackers for rendering into dog food.
So your analogy is poor.

I didn't say you did. I disagree that the comparison is poor.

[Sculptor1]

Except that a dead animal is not a chair of any kind.

Some are. Some chairs are made of leather.

Silly boy.
It is not the same to say that a dead is not a chair and that a chair is not a dead animal.

[Steve3007]

If instead of just sitting on it, he'd skinned it and stretched the skin across a wooden frame and then sat on that, would that be more respectful to the dignity of the dead horse?

[Steve3007]

Anyway, I guess this topic has probably run its course. Going on about it for much longer would probably just be ... flogging a dead horse!

[baker]

This thread has revealed about some posters here things because of which I cannot post here in good faith anymore.

[BobS]

It's "excessive" to suggest that there's a difference between thoughtlessly sitting on a dead horse and running over a living human being (or even a living horse)? Say what?

And lacking "sympathy, empathy and understanding" for whom? The dead horse? Are you really suggesting that that overshadows my suggesting sympathy, empathy and understanding for the horse trainer?

Really?

Yes, really.

Do I correctly understand you to be saying "yes" to both questions?

The two cases are similar in that the actor acts thoughtlessly; they give no thought to the consequences of their actions. The consequences themselves are quite different, and therefore difficult to compare.

Thus neatly avoiding a direct answer in the face of your obviously having said "yes" the first time around.

So, although you actually are capable of perceiving that "the consequences themselves are quite different", your original answer to the questions was "yes". To restate just the first proposition that you affirmed: in your world, yes, "It's 'excessive' to suggest that there's a difference between thoughtlessly sitting on a dead horse and running over a living human being (or even a living horse)."

Thus, according to your Alice in Wonderland logic, it's excessive to suggest that "there's a difference," even though "the consequences themselves are quite different, and therefore difficult to compare." Cool! Off with my head for making such an excessive suggestion!

You seem to place no priority on treating an animal, even a dead animal, with dignity and respect.

"No priority." OK, where did I say that?

As you know quite well, you didn't use those words. But your text seemed to communicate that sentiment, quite clearly, I would say.

Although I "quite clearly" communicated the sentiment that I place "no priority" on treating animals with respect, you're unable to quote language where I "quite clearly" did that? Maybe English isn't your first language, because I never came close to expressing that sentiment, as opposed to suggesting a sense of proportion, disagreeable as that is to the finger-pointers (such as yourself, it has turned out). Such difficulty to sort through plain language would also account for your remarkable ability to say, without blushing, that it's excessive to suggest that "there's a difference" where "the consequences themselves are quite different, and therefore difficult to compare."

But I suggest that more likely than a lack of reading comprehension, the real reason for your response it that, like so many holier-than-thou types, you simply couldn't handle someone's not having the same extreme reaction to the dead horse story that you did. In such a world, suggesting a sense of perspective regarding that story is itself considered "excessive," and then rephrased, for debating purposes, into a sentiment that places "no priority" on respect for animals.

My boy, it's as though the Internet Age was made to order for you.

As I've said elsewhere, one merely has to view threads such as this one so as to have no doubt as to why there are wars.

[BobS]

Consequences.

One of which is your current, gleeful message.

[Steve3007]

This thread has revealed about some posters here things because of which I cannot post here in good faith anymore.

But you're not going to say what those things that you say have been revealed or who those posters are? And you're not going to respond to any of the things that have been said to you? That's a pity.

[Pattern-chaser]

Thus neatly avoiding a direct answer in the face of your obviously having said "yes" the first time around.

So, although you actually are capable of perceiving that "the consequences themselves are quite different", your original answer to the questions was "yes".

As it happens, I was responding to your final question, not to all of them, but it doesn't matter. I mis-wrote, and as a result you misunderstood. My apologies. Have you never done such a thing yourself? And, when you have, have you reacted as angrily?


If you're prepared to continue with courtesy and respect, I will gladly do likewise. Otherwise, "my boy", this exchange is complete.

[Pattern-chaser]

Consequences.

One of which is your current, gleeful message.

What message?

[BobS]

Consequences.

One of which is your current, gleeful message.

What message?

The one to which I was replying.

I hadn't thought it was necessary to quote your full statement, because the "Consequences" bit was the important part. But since we're now a couple messages along in the thread, let me quote the entire thing:

He also lost business, as owners took their horses elsewhere. Perhaps his livelihood has disappeared, as a result of the public reaction to his actions. He may never work again. Consequences.

What? You didn't expressly say that you felt "glee"? Well, no one said that you did.

Let me quote your own words, words designed for just this kind of occasion:

As you know quite well, you didn't use those words. But your text seemed to communicate that sentiment, quite clearly, I would say.

Such was your justification for ascribing to me a complete lack of respect for animals, based on the fact that I had merely suggested that the issue be approached with some sense of proportion.

If that approach works for you, it works for me in the present case. The only difference being that your labeling of the horse trainer's possibly losing his entire livelihood as mere "consequences" certainly does evince delight in what's happening to the guy.

I say this of your reaction to the story of the "consequences" that the horse trainer is suffering:

I suggest that your reaction to this story is a bit excessive; it lacks sympathy, empathy and understanding, but that's just my opinion. I may be quite wrong; it's happened before.

[BobS]

Thus neatly avoiding a direct answer in the face of your obviously having said "yes" the first time around.

So, although you actually are capable of perceiving that "the consequences themselves are quite different", your original answer to the questions was "yes".

As it happens, I was responding to your final question, not to all of them, but it doesn't matter. I mis-wrote, and as a result you misunderstood. My apologies. Have you never done such a thing yourself? And, when you have, have you reacted as angrily?

The trouble is that your weren't responding to just the final question. (I'll address why that's problematic below.) It wasn't clear the first time around, which is why I asked, but you made it clear when you responded to my further question.

Here are the two original questions:

Do I correctly understand you to be saying "yes" to both questions? That is,

(1) You think it's excessive to suggest that there's a difference between thoughtlessly sitting on a dead horse and running over a pedestrian.

And

(2) You think it's excessive to suggest that sympathy, empathy and understanding for a dead horse should not overshadow sympathy, empathy and understanding for the horse trainer whose livelihood was threatened merely for sitting on a dead animal?

Here's your later clarification, after I asked you whether you were saying "yes" to both questions.

The two cases are similar in that the actor acts thoughtlessly; they give no thought to the consequences of their actions. The consequences themselves are quite different, and therefore difficult to compare.

Two cases being similar "in that the actor acts thoughtlessly" clearly concerns the first question, not the final one. The dead horse in the second question simply wasn't an actor that acted thoughtlessly. Agree?

As for whether it matters. No, the specific subject per se doesn't matter. But where it enters into this is that it's part and parcel of the overarching issue of how you've insisted on twisting my position about approaching issues with a sense of proportion into an immoral utter lack of respect for animals. (The village duh-meister did the same thing.) That first question was directed to the issue of proportion, and when you responded by agreeing with it, you were tacitly agreeing with my original point. But now that I've pointed that out, you back off and say that you were replying only to the final question.

Please explain to me why that's not disingenuous.

As for reacting angrily, I have two related things to say. First, "anger" is too strong a word; I am somewhat annoyed, but more than being annoyed I am amused by this process of how a "philosophical discussion" of ethics so easily leads to one side's making proclamations about the other side's inferior moral standing. Ethics, indeed.

Second, my annoyance has nothing to do with your purported mis-speaking. It's directed to your holier-than thou attitude, where, when you saw me suggesting that a certain ethical question should be approached with a sense of proportion, you leapt into the fray and glibly pronounced in this public forum that you discerned that I lacked all sense of respect for animals, that I lacked "sympathy, empathy and understanding."

Do you really not understand that that might make someone perhaps a little irate?

If you're prepared to continue with courtesy and respect, I will gladly do likewise. Otherwise, "my boy", this exchange is complete.

OK, saying "my boy" was disrespectful, and I apologize for that. I was caught up in my reaction to the lack of respect that you've shown me by twisting my position about lack of proportion into a position of lack of respect for animals, and reiterating your assertion after I've questioned you on it, despite your inability to quote anything I said that supports your position.

So I'm prepared to proceed on the basis that the slate has been wiped clean on the question of whether we've shown disrespect for each other. As a precaution against further difficulty along that line, I suggest that when you respond to something I've said, you respond to what I've actually said.

[Pattern-chaser]

I was caught up in my reaction to the lack of respect that you've shown me by twisting my position...

Clearly I have offered significant offence, for which I humbly apologise.

[Tegularius]

I'm just curious to know if you regard sitting on the dead body of a horse as disgusting and sick but hanging the dead body of a cow from a hook and wrapping bits of it in plastic to sell in supermarkets as acceptable? I'm not saying you shouldn't find that acceptable. I get why people have what might appear to be double standards on these kinds of issues. It's basically because, despite their similarities in terms of sentience, we have an entirely different historical relationship with horses than we do with cows.

You do make a very viable point though for me it's not based on any double standard. Whether they feed us or not animals are not commodities like a cardboard box but have sentience not unlike our own. They deserve respect in the way they are treated prior to serving us humans who have been served by them in so many ways. Only when the animal is dead does it become a commodity to us or another animal just as we would be if we allowed ourselves to be consumed as exists or existed among the Parsees and their Towers of Silence. Dead bodies of whatever variety either get cremated, buried or consumed. That’s all there is to a dead body.

Why might we think it disrespectful to sit on an animal's dead body but not disrespectful to keep it in a cage, kill it, hack it up, wrap in clingfilm, sell it and eat it? If we do think that, does it make our concept of "respect" a strange one?

In spite of the animal being dead and couldn’t care less, it’s not a chair to be sat on. It’s the symbolism of it which negates the respect one should have had for it. There would be intense moral outrage if one sat on a human dead body which isn’t worth more than the dead body of any other creature. The life of an animal, especially those raised to serve us, deserve respect and a reasonably good life prior to becoming a commodity.