[Cooker]

Humans evolved the ability to model the thoughts of other animals, because this helped us catch, kill, and eat them (and also to some extent avoid predators, but there is no doubt we indeed evolved in order to trap animals). This same ability now causes some of us to empathize so much with animals that they refuse to eat them.

Nature is a place of kill or be killed, so to have objections to killing things is absurd. How in the world can it be immoral to do what we are designed through evolution to do? A lioness isn't immoral when it tears a living antelope to pieces. And no meat eater is immoral. Don't believe we are designed to eat meat? Humans don't create energy through photosynthesis and have genetic defects that prevent us from producing certain ammino acids, we are required to eat other living creatures for energy and in order to obtain these amino acids. Lysine and tryptophan (two amino acids we must have to live but cannot produce) are poorly represented in plants. Sure modern day humans can substitute these amino acids into there diet and be fine, but this still shows that humans must have been eating meat originally or else we wouldn't have been able to survive with this defect.

Now comes the question of interest: Where do we draw the line? I think that humans should strip all ideas of rights and morality from their dealings with animals. There are no rights or morality in nature. Rights and morality are human constructs and only make sense when applied to interactions among humans. The only law in nature is "might is right." Rights and morality are codes that we extend to other humans, because they have allowed our species to be very successful. There is nothing I can do to another animal that would be immoral. I realize this begs the question, "should people that torture animals be punished?" And I say yes, but not because torturing animals is immoral, but because they are engaging in a behavior that is a gross waste of resourses and a typical display of overall mental defects. Therefore, this being a crime will cause someone caught doing this to be under closer scrutiny for most of his life.

On to dogs. I think you torture the dogs as long as the manpower required to torture the dogs is less than that gained by the cure. For example if it takes 3 man hours to torture the dogs and for that gain life for 6 hours for 1 man, then that is acceptable to me. If it would require 10 man hours, then I think it is a terrible waste and shouldn't be done.