Evenharmonics,
What's your point? Are you stating that burning dogs to death is fine because there's an overpopulation problem?
A lot of people "debunking" Cowspiracy use the UN's FAO figures of 15%. World Watch Institute determined the FAO had the cattle industry self-report their impacts. World Watch decided to do an an independent study. That's where the 47% to 51% range comes from. I tend to trust the cattle industry to report on their impacts about as little as I do the tobacco industry, so I have to rely on World Watch as a better reference.
By "Don't forget about the importance of making informed decisions." are you referring to the devastation and misery? There's an infinite spectrum of possibilities regarding being informed. I make my choices on the benefit and damage they can have.
What's your point? Are you stating that burning dogs to death is fine because there's an overpopulation problem?
A lot of people "debunking" Cowspiracy use the UN's FAO figures of 15%. World Watch Institute determined the FAO had the cattle industry self-report their impacts. World Watch decided to do an an independent study. That's where the 47% to 51% range comes from. I tend to trust the cattle industry to report on their impacts about as little as I do the tobacco industry, so I have to rely on World Watch as a better reference.
By "Don't forget about the importance of making informed decisions." are you referring to the devastation and misery? There's an infinite spectrum of possibilities regarding being informed. I make my choices on the benefit and damage they can have.
In other words, what I consider wrong is the hypothesis "If simply inflicting a painless death on an animal is wrong, " in the article you linked taken as general thing. It's a pointless discussion for me. A properly managed free range or wild animal will not realise anything about their death until the instant it arrives exactly as a natural death. Intensive farming is different and I agree there is suffering involved.
That's a belief or religion. In other words it is relative. We are talking about animals. I can only agree if we are talking about humans.
I personally think animals lose something of value when they die, pain or not.
Animals can have goals that require future existence to fulfill (the successful rearing of young, for example) and we deny them the fulfillment of those goals when we kill them. We certainly deny them future enjoyments of anything (goal directed or not).
There's actually a campaign organization that seeks to recognize the legal personhood of some animals (Great Ape Project - Wikipedia) and with it grant a 'right to life'.
Animals can have goals that require future existence to fulfill (the successful rearing of young, for example) and we deny them the fulfillment of those goals when we kill them. We certainly deny them future enjoyments of anything (goal directed or not).
There's actually a campaign organization that seeks to recognize the legal personhood of some animals (Great Ape Project - Wikipedia) and with it grant a 'right to life'.
I understand and actually stand corrected. I shouldn't say his hypothesis is wrong but just that I do not agree in general.
I actually tell you that I do not agree with many people that are not vegan as well...
Are humans animals? Have our capacities separated us completely or incompletely? We share many faculties across the animal kingdom. I would argue the separation is operative rather than inherent. We are still much more biological than virtual.
I have met dogs who are more human than some humans, in a positive sense.
I have met dogs who are more human than some humans, in a positive sense.
Yes, plants have to fulfill their goals too. Why an edible animal that has been grown up for feeding humans might have to fulfill also other goals and plants don't?
Me too. Actually around my place they use to say that a dog will take the character and education of his owner.
Not just animal kingdom, everything is related, there are more similarities than differences
Ultimately, probably. But sentient living things can enjoy (or be denied the enjoyment of) the fulfillment of those goals. Hence (in my opinion) they are capable of suffering 'harms' that wouldn't be 'harms' to a non-sentient living thing. To me that's enough to say animals can be harmed by being killed, whether they suffer pain in the process or not.
And I'm also a fan of the 'precautionary principle' - when we aren't sure about something, err on the side of non-harm. In this debate sometimes I think people can be a little too ready to say 'well, it's not completely clear that...' and use that as justification for erring on the side of harm.
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Yes, it does. But I think most people agree that you can be cruel to an animal in a way that you can't to a plant, because animals can suffer in a way that a plant does not. You can even say "sentience is vague / has degrees" and still think that there are clear examples on each side of the line.
The old 'carrots feel pain too' (you didn't use it, just making the observation) line always seems facetious to me, and usually indicative of a desire to disregard genuine animal suffering rather than make a real philosophical point.
When it comes to pain and what it is exactly, we can't know for sure I don't think, but we do know what it's for.That's totally unclear to me. Are you sure? I think that with animals is simply more evident. However I am experienced enough with both domestic and wild animals to know precisely when they feel harmed. Maybe this is not evident for people that don't deal with animals on daily basis and only judge at speculative level.
Example: when a boar comes out of the woods to feed in the field it does it in a natural way which is cautious by instinct regardless of the outcome. If I am there with a camera to film or with a rifle to shoot it doesn't make any difference to it. If the boar spots the danger (i.e. the intrusive presence) just runs away. So if hunting harms animals also filming/watching does. If I am there with a rifle, shoot the boar and bring the meat home why this should be different from any other predator act? I understand and respect that not all humans like the idea of being predators but it doesn't apply to me.
I haven't made the example of the boar randomly because this is an animal that is actually causing a lot of troubles. It is surely a problem requiring careful management in all continental Europe. In Italy it is an emergency. There are simply too many. There is no other viable choice but kill them because there are simply too many and no space for them to live in harmony. That's called pest. Killing them is not for eating (that's just a good use of resources in this case), it is to preserve biodiversity, avoid incidents on the roads and aggressions. The reason why there is such emergency is totally human fault. So is anthropization, the very same that might have ethical thoughts about killing animals, to blame because it's the real source of harm (if any...)?
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You believe that the difference between animal and plant suffering is solely how they express it?
Thought experiment: on your walk through the boar-infested forest, you stumble upon someone using a bowsaw to slowly dismember a live labrador vs someone using a bowsaw to slowly dismember a live tree. Are they ethically identical acts?
I think a very large majority of people would see them as different.
Not being 100% certain that animals suffer any more than plants is one thing (heck, I don't know with 100% certainty that there's any consciousness in the universe besides my own), but pragmatically I don't see why acting as if that outside possibility is definitely the case would be sensible.
Yes. It couldn't be the same because they belong to two different living realms.
No it's not the same thing but not because one is an animal and the other is a plant. There is no real "good" reason to kill a dog in the wood for me. It 's not an edible animal and dismembering a dog in a forest doesn't sound like a reasonable thing to do alone. What might be a valid reason? If you wrote dismembering a boar there would be no difference, assuming that cutting the tree has a valid reason (You can't cut a tree arbitrarily). And I would do that to the boar to best preserve the meat (one wants to remove the guts as soon as possible).
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I understand that and it is not the first time I read or hear it. I have come to the conclusion that is this more typical of people that live most of their time in town away from country life and even more from wilderness. Watching (and also contemplating) nature from outside and living in it are two different things. So point of views can be different if only based on possibilities. As a farmer (all my grand parents were) I would never rely on plants only because it is very easy end-up with no harvest. That's not the case with animals. Possibilities are much narrower. That's pragmatism too.
There are sensitivities at play here. There are people who really don't like the way nature is and get upset about what seems brutality to them, they can't help but to judge everything from their own perspective. As a society we construct moral codes for very good reasons. These are ours, invented by us, for us. I've heard so many bizarre analogies, "why don't we rape and murder each other, because that's nature, isn't it?" WTF?
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