Animal pain, suffering, and death: why does it matter?

[West]

I should mention that I haven't read any of the other replies in this thread, and I'm not sure if I'll bother to or not. This subject has been debated around here numerous times before.

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People think it is generally bad for anything to suffer, and bad for anything to die. But why?

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I think we should be clear about the obvious fact that suffering and dieing, and their counterparts, torturing and killing, are not exactly the same things.

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I feel that those of you who are not religious, and view the world objectively and with an open mind (as I strive to do) need to defend your postion on this if it is anything other than "It matters not at all, except by the effect it has."

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I'm not sure if everyone would agree on what "not religious" means, but I think your suggestion is ridiculous in any case. I assume you do believe that human suffering and death does matter, morally? If so, what exactly makes human suffering and death more important morally, than other animals.

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However, I stronly suspect that a large portion of agnostic and athieistic readers of this board maintain that it is immoral to torture a rat, or an unwanted mut, or to mass slaughter cows. Why?

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I consider it immoral to torture another animal for the same basic reason I consider it immoral to torture a human being: I wouldn't want to be tortured myself. It's not exactly that simple - I also wouldn't want to be killed and eaten, but I think the realities of our existence as we know it allow for a lot more justification on this than for torture, for obvious reasons.

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morals exist, and in a larger sense all norms and values, becuase they help society in so many ways (we could spend a lot of time on this but I do not wish to). This is the view of morality that I have found the majority of smart non-religious people hold.

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I think the idea of why the concept of morality exists isn't the same thing as what morality actually is, or should be. (If morality exists as a concept to us because of the benefits it has brought to human society, it doesn't follow that what is moral is only what "benefits" human society.)

A question for you: if you were ever "called on the carpet" by some sort of higher power, and asked to justify humans torturing animals, how would you defend it? What would you say that doesn't boil down to being on top of the food chain and might makes right?

[mrgold]

Once I admit that in a general moral sense every humans welfare is as important as mine there is no alternative but to accept utilitarian ethic (I am further assuming that the respect for moral principles is not important outside of the promotion of human welfare). By this I mean that the world in which the most people have the most of what they value is automaticaly the better world.

I dont nessecaraily consider this to be the same idea as "the individual is subject to society". I would not nessecaraily have an objection to a state that infringed on its members rights for the greater good. But I beleive that in addition to being considered normatively good by many memeber of society, individual rights tend to be nessecary for the proper function of the rule of law and a market economy, things which in turn contribute tremendoulsy to the greataer good.

[w_alloy]

It seems I am on a whole different paradigm than the rest of the board. I would appreciate it if you would read this to help me, not because I wish to be argumentative. In order for me to understand this disconnect between me and the rest of the world, I need to understand why you make the assumtions you make.

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I consider it immoral to torture another animal for the same basic reason I consider it immoral to torture a human being: I wouldn't want to be tortured myself.

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First, as I thought most people understood it, animals cant have "wants" as we conventially understand them becasue they are not sentient. If animals werent sentient this logic wouldnt flow. But I, as well as most of the people here apperently, view animals as sentient. I understand the semantics involved in this word, but I dont want to spend much time on it.

Second, you again are making a huge jump from you to the rest of the world. This is a faith based belief. I have not done near enough research on this, and havent had any upper level philosophy or ehtics classes, and I'm sure this has been discussed ad naseum by people much smarter then me.

That being said, you arent reasoning this out at all:

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I consider it immoral to torture another animal for the same basic reason I consider it immoral to torture a human being: I wouldn't want to be tortured myself.

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This is not a good reason!! Unless you are a relativist, this does not make sense. What does your wants have to do with anything, especially general morality in the world? This seems to be the same general argument everyone is making.

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I think the realities of our existence as we know it allow for a lot more justification on this than for torture, for obvious reasons.

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What justifications? To what higher power or ethic? You are again assuming, and I cant follow you here.

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A question for you: if you were ever "called on the carpet" by some sort of higher power, and asked to justify humans torturing animals, how would you defend it? What would you say that doesn't boil down to being on top of the food chain and might makes right?

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This question is absolutely ludicrous. Do you know what justify means? This is what this whole thread is about. You bringing a higher power into it suggests you are making assumptions which are not conducive to the type of discussion I want to have.

Regardless, I would respond by saying it has never been shown to me why this behaviour is inherently bad. I just know (if anyone out there stil cares about this and is even reading my posts) that people will say it has been shown to me and I have been blind to the logic. However, I maintain, IT HAS NOT BEEN SHOWN TO ME. People are making assumption which I dont agree with.

Which brings me to my last point.
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I assume you do believe that human suffering and death does matter, morally?

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I dont. I should have realized I needed to include this in my orginal topic. I did not want this thread to be me defnding my stance to everyone, but everyone defending their stance to me. I didnt realize everyone would use the assumption that human life is "valuable" on some kind of cosmic and supernatural level to say people are animals and hence there life is valuable too. This is not the logic I see in today's society; if this were the case either a) Murder would be against the law only as a social contract (like a peace treaty between all individuals). b) Murder would have a very simliar punishment as murder of more sentient animals, and there would be much more preservation and laws regarding the treatment and lives of animals. It is not plausible to me to support such a large disconnet, if scaling valuation is really what you belive. All values are relative, if humans are animals you cant say murder is always terrible, but murder of animals is sometimes ok especially if this is there purpose (how the f*ck can you divine their purpose, besides by arbitrarily assigning them this because you facilitated thier birth).

This kind of turned into a rant. Maybe I should have just focused on the last part. Irregardless, I regret starting this thread because its infuriating and depressing nature have caused it to become -ev. Ironicly I wish the thread dead just as it starts, because all of the above was just me clarifying what I was asking.

[purnell]

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We have empathy. Seeing an animal in pain makes us imagine our own suffering. It's distasteful.


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I agree, but just because something is distasteful or makes us uncomfortable does not make it wrong. I hate cleaning toilets. I also agree that most people think this is so wrong because hearing an animal suffer, especially if they express it in a humanlike way, reminds us of ourselves. I think a lot of people dont realize that this is the basis for their ethical standing on this subject.

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Just to clarify, I was only making an observation. I don't think a logical argument can be made for the existence of "right and wrong" (without resorting to the supernatural). We have need of some standards of behavior to make society function properly, but these are not absolute and can change according to our needs at the time. Anyway, since I don't believe in any absolute morality, I can't truthfully say "that's wrong".

I object to animal torture on a purely emotional basis.

[West]

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It seems I am on a whole different paradigm than the rest of the board. I would appreciate it if you would read this to help me, not because I wish to be argumentative. In order for me to understand this disconnect between me and the rest of the world, I need to understand why you make the assumtions you make.


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I don't wish to be argumentative either. I'm honestly not always that great at expressing what I'm thinking "verbally", but I will try to clarify where I'm coming from.

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I consider it immoral to torture another animal for the same basic reason I consider it immoral to torture a human being: I wouldn't want to be tortured myself.



[/ QUOTE ] First, as I thought most people understood it, animals cant have "wants" as we conventially understand them becasue they are not sentient. If animals werent sentient this logic wouldnt flow. But I, as well as most of the people here apperently, view animals as sentient. I understand the semantics involved in this word, but I dont want to spend much time on it.


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I'm not 100% sure what you mean when you say sentient. I believe that animals experience pain. The Golden Rule applies (do unto other things the way you'd have done unto you). I don't need to know animals' "wants" for this.

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Second, you again are making a huge jump from you to the rest of the world. This is a faith based belief. I have not done near enough research on this, and havent had any upper level philosophy or ehtics classes, and I'm sure this has been discussed ad naseum by people much smarter then me.


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I'm not sure what you are saying exactly, and what it is that you say is a faith based belief. That animals are sentient? Again, you'd have to clarify what you mean by that. I apologize, but I still haven't read anything else in this thread (normally I would, but as I alluded to, I've already participated in discussing this issue before in numerous threads).

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That being said, you arent reasoning this out at all: [ QUOTE ]
I consider it immoral to torture another animal for the same basic reason I consider it immoral to torture a human being: I wouldn't want to be tortured myself.

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This is not a good reason!! Unless you are a relativist, this does not make sense. What does your wants have to do with anything, especially general morality in the world? This seems to be the same general argument everyone is making.


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I believe the Golden Rule is the only logical place to start when it comes to morality. And I think it makes perfect sense.

Technically, IMO, on a personal level, my "wants" don't have anything really to do with morality, in the sense that an individual can be screwed up and have a skewed sense of what ought to be (I apologize that I am probably not expressing myself very well here). Yes, I think that in a general sense, what is moral does have to do with what's best for "everybody".

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I think the realities of our existence as we know it allow for a lot more justification on this than for torture, for obvious reasons.

[/ QUOTE ] What justifications? To what higher power or ethic? You are again assuming, and I cant follow you here.

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I mean justifications in terms of being objectively "right" (moral). Human beings eat meat. Maybe one day we won't any more, but we evolved killing and eating animals to survive, and we exist in a world of limited resources. Killing (as humanely as possible) and eating animals is on a completely different part of the moral spectrum than torturing animals.

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A question for you: if you were ever "called on the carpet" by some sort of higher power, and asked to justify humans torturing animals, how would you defend it? What would you say that doesn't boil down to being on top of the food chain and might makes right?


[/ QUOTE ]This question is absolutely ludicrous. Do you know what justify means? This is what this whole thread is about. You bringing a higher power into it suggests you are making assumptions which are not conducive to the type of discussion I want to have.

Regardless, I would respond by saying it has never been shown to me why this behaviour is inherently bad. I just know (if anyone out there stil cares about this and is even reading my posts) that people will say it has been shown to me and I have been blind to the logic. However, I maintain, IT HAS NOT BEEN SHOWN TO ME. People are making assumption which I dont agree with.


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I don't know what type of discussion you want to have (similar to what I said above, your wants are technically immaterial AFAIAC, ha ha). You basically said in your initial post that you don't "think" that animal suffering is "wrong" or "bad". I'm attempting to tell you why I disagree.

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I assume you do believe that human suffering and death does matter, morally?


[/ QUOTE ] I dont. I should have realized I needed to include this in my orginal topic. I did not want this thread to be me defnding my stance to everyone, but everyone defending their stance to me.

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I probably wasn't the only one who thought this was arrogant on your part. If you essentially don't believe that, all things being equal, suffering is bad, then I don't know what to tell you. Maybe if you go touch a hot stove or something it will help you see where I'm starting from when I consider morality.

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I didnt realize everyone would use the assumption that human life is "valuable" on some kind of cosmic and supernatural level to say people are animals and hence there life is valuable too. This is not the logic I see in today's society; if this were the case either a) Murder would be against the law only as a social contract (like a peace treaty between all individuals). b) Murder would have a very simliar punishment as murder of more sentient animals, and there would be much more preservation and laws regarding the treatment and lives of animals. It is not plausible to me to support such a large disconnet, if scaling valuation is really what you belive. All values are relative, if humans are animals you cant say murder is always terrible, but murder of animals is sometimes ok especially if this is there purpose (how the f*ck can you divine their purpose, besides by arbitrarily assigning them this because you facilitated thier birth).

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I don't think that what the law allows, nor what we as human beings do in practice necessarily matches up to what is "moral" (does anyone?) I don't think it's a revelation to say that human society has room for moral improvement. And again, with regards to animals, I'm primarily picking on the the suffering/torture aspect of your question, rather than simple death.

[sexdrugsmoney]

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Have to get it right the first and only time here(at least that is how I feel).

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Get what right?

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[bocablkr]

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Have to get it right the first and only time here(at least that is how I feel).

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Get what right?

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Obviously, that is a common expression. What I mean is that you must make the most of your life while you have a chance. You have to make a difference. I do NOT live my life and make decisions, as others have said here, based on what gives me the most happiness. I consider what is best for society and others (including animals) more so than myself. I do things that make me happy but that is not paramount in my life. I do for others and I don't need a god reference as a moral compass to do that. I know this is off base of the original post but you asked.

[sexdrugsmoney]

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What I mean is that you must make the most of your life while you have a chance. You have to make a difference. I do NOT live my life and make decisions, as others have said here, based on what gives me the most happiness. I consider what is best for society and others (including animals) more so than myself. I do things that make me happy but that is not paramount in my life. I do for others and I don't need a god reference as a moral compass to do that. I know this is off base of the original post but you asked.

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So you sacrifice your own happiness first and foremost for that of the state?

[bocablkr]

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What I mean is that you must make the most of your life while you have a chance. You have to make a difference. I do NOT live my life and make decisions, as others have said here, based on what gives me the most happiness. I consider what is best for society and others (including animals) more so than myself. I do things that make me happy but that is not paramount in my life. I do for others and I don't need a god reference as a moral compass to do that. I know this is off base of the original post but you asked.

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So you sacrifice your own happiness first and foremost for that of the state?

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For others. Does that mean the 'state' as you probably define it - NO. My own happiness is not the only thing that matters to me. I care about others and that includes animals (suffering, etc). Sorry you don't understand.

[sexdrugsmoney]

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What I mean is that you must make the most of your life while you have a chance. You have to make a difference. I do NOT live my life and make decisions, as others have said here, based on what gives me the most happiness. I consider what is best for society and others (including animals) more so than myself. I do things that make me happy but that is not paramount in my life. I do for others and I don't need a god reference as a moral compass to do that. I know this is off base of the original post but you asked.

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So you sacrifice your own happiness first and foremost for that of the state?

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For others. Does that mean the 'state' as you probably define it - NO. My own happiness is not the only thing that matters to me. I care about others and that includes animals (suffering, etc). Sorry you don't understand.

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I want to understand.

Do you believe Life is finite consciousness, and death is infinite unconsciousness?