You just made me put away the bag of cheesy popcorn.
As to the OP, I’d think you’d want to define “merciful.” Does mercy require intent? If so, I think the chances that spiders have mercy are very remote. Does it mean the lessening of pain? Consider that insects may not feel anything we consider analogous to pain.
In any case, I think the best case you might make for spider mercy is that their poison might anesthetize the prey animal, which gives the spider the advantage of having a more willing meal. Not sure if that’s merciful.
I read once that insects do indeed have nerves that can transmit pain. A Google search informs that many sources say No, but a more recent source says Yes: Do Bugs Feel Pain?
Mother Nature is red in tooth and claw. Some animals do render their prey unconscious before eating them. This is not because they are merciful. It is because unconscious prey is much less likely to injure you as you try to eat it.
Re Insects Feeling Pain
We’ve discussed this before. The biology heavy hitters of the Dope say they don’t. But, I’m open to a new thread on it.
You can’t really tell these sorts of things just by looking at nerves, and certainly the matter isn’t going to be resolved by a single essay by a crank.
If that is a response to my post above it, yes, of course, mostly* they do, but so what? You haven’t shown that recoiling from a harmful stimulus is a reliable sign of the presence of an actual experience of pain, and I am confident that you cannot do so in any way that would compel assent. We do not understand pain in particular, or consciousness in general, remotely well enough to come to any definite conclusion here.
¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
*No organism, or machine, including humans, reliably recoils from every stimulus that damages it or reliably fails to recoil from all harmless stimuli. Come to that, for humans we know there are things that harm us that feel good (e.g., heroin, or too much sweet and fatty food), and harmless or even beneficial things (e.g., medical injections) that cause pain.
WOW! Looks like the gopher is dead? Have you never seen a dog or cat play with a mouse or other rodent? It is quite intriguing to watch the victim attempt to get away. Feelings are “inflicted” upon them enough to make an escape attempt.
So the objection to insects feeling pain is just that they don’t have the same qualia that we do? That seems awfully weak, to me, given that we can’t even tell whether humans have the same qualia. Qualia are properly the domain of philosophers, not scientists: All scientists have to work with is what’s observable, and an insect’s observable behaviors with respect to “pain” are the same as that of more psychologically sophisticated organisms.
Does it look alive to you? Based on what, exactly? It doesn’t move its limbs at all.
I was referring to that video only. Of course cats and other predators do “play” with captured prey before killing it. And they prey of course feel fear and pain. But that says nothing about the motivation of the predator, or whether it is deliberately trying to inflict pain for its own pleasure. A cat playing with a mouse may have exactly the same motivation as one playing with a ball of yarn.
I do not know if it is alive or dead definitively. However, based on how other animals interact with their prey, I suspect there are better odds that the gopher is still alive.
I think torture is mostly defined from the point of view of the victim. If the gopher in the video is alive and thinks it is cool that this bobcat is throwing him in the air, then I guess he is not being tortured.
The point was in response to the point of view that humans might be the only animal capable of torture. Since torture is subjective, then when we view the video we can look from the gopher’s point of view and realize the original premise is probably false.
I think the bobcat is simply having fun with its food, I have no delusions that he is purposely torturing the gopher.
Based on how animals thrash about and move their limbs if they are in pain, I think the video provides pretty good evidence that the gopher is already dead.
From Merriam-Webster:
So yes, if an animal feels intense pain, that can be torture from its point of view. But one could say that the animal might also be tortured by disease, or by an injury caused by an accident, or other causes.
Since predators do not inflict pain in order to punish or coerce or to afford sadistic pleasure, they cannot be said to torture, any more than a falling tree that crushes an animal can.
So all we really know about the gopher when he is tossed in the air then is that he is not in pain.
And as far as torture is concerned it seems that there has to be intent to punish or coerce for an act to be considered torture. From the strictest sense of the word you are correct. But then what is a term for when someone or something repeatedly causes anguish of body or mind on another but does not have the intent to punish or coerce?
Your definition also included “sadistic pleasure,” which TommyNZR appeared to leave off. And look at the definitions of the verb “to torture.” Punishment and coercion are in there, but they’re not required.
But the definition does indicate that the meaning “especially” includes those elements.
The way the word is generally used does require malicious intent on the part of perpetrator (from the point of view of the perpetrator). From the point of view of the individual suffering torture, it doesn’t matter - you can be tortured by an itch or by a headache. However, with respect to the question in the OP, animals do not torture other animals, because their intent is not to inflict pain.
