# How many animal lives is one human life worth?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-animal-lives-is-one-human-life-worth/493662>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [April 19, 2009, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-animal-lives-is-one-human-life-worth/493662 "2009-04-19T22:45:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 85

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-animal-lives-is-one-human-life-worth/493662/85 "2009-04-22T21:35:52Z")

</div>

> [@mutantmoose](#):
>
> You really can’t see the difference between killing animals cleanly in a slaughterhouse for the purpose of food and going out with the express bloodthirsty desire to take an innocent life?
> 
> Hunters (such as the guy above) don’t need to shoot an elk for food. They can just go to a shop and buy a steak. They shoot elk because they get a kick out of it.

I also hunt. I’m not being bloodthirsty. I don’t kill animal I don’t intend to eat (with the exception that I reserve the right to kill an animal that is attacking me).

You might be able to make a case that persons who eat only plants are morally to meat eaters. But those people who buy meat from a grocery store or butcher have no such claim. A deer I go out and kill has led a freer and probably more pleasant life than one raised on a factory farm.

And if claiming that animals **that** die in slaughterhosuses die “cleanly” is sadly ignorant. Given the opportunities for research made available by the internet, it is also _willfully_ ignorant.

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-animal-lives-is-one-human-life-worth/493662)._