First here’s the thread in which he has vexed me. It began as a discussion of the woman in Germany who was mauled by polar bears in a zoo after going into their enclosure in what may have been a suicide attempt.
But it didn’t stay there (which is not to say that it’s been hijacked; it hasn’t been). First mutantmoose made the ridiculous assertion that non-human animals are more noble and honorable than humans, an assertion plausible only to someone who does not know what the words “nobility” or "honor’ mean. From there it has become a discussion about hunting. I explained why I hunt thus:
The above passage prompted this:
Until mutantmoose called me a murderer I was willing to slough off his awesome stupidity and self-delusion as the rantings of a diseased mind. But I don’t care to be insulted that way.
Killing an animal is not murder, mutantmoose, because murder is the unjustified killing of a human being. But that’s not really what vexes me. What vexes me is your smug, supercilous, self-righteous tone, your refusal to see the logical consequences of your frankly stupid argument. For, if killing an animal is murder, then you yourself are a murderer, one too cowardly to commit the act yourself. You PAY someone for meat. You PAY to contribute to a system that involves killing animals for your nutrition and culinary pleasure. You have no moral basis to criticize anyone who hunts only for food. Sadly, you are too dense and delusional to see that.
Of course, there is one way that you may not be guilty of murder, MM. Given your obvious lack of ratiocinative ability, it’s likely that a court would judge you not fit to stand trial. Certainly you’d fail the M’Naughten test.
I think the real crux of his argument (just from what you’ve quoted, didn’t read the other thread) is that slaughterhouses are more humane than shooting at something and maybe just wounding it. I think he’s wrong, but I’m not gonna go digging for cites. I think the murder thing was secondary.
Maybe I’m wrong, and I’m not defending him (or you-- I don’t have a dog in this fight). I just thought I’d give a second reading for you to consider before an argument gets going.
S/he is pretty obviously either yanking your chain or is a whackjob eco-nutball in the extreme. Either way I’m uncertain you should waste your time on this person.
YMMV, but anyone who is claiming a rattle snake doesn’t inject a full measure of venom out of some kind of noble spirit is…well, pretty out there.
Well, at first blush, the accusation of murder seems a bit strong so I re-examined my words.
I said that you left the house “with murder in mind” so I wondered whether maybe I had succumbed to the lure of alliteration and exaggerated - murder in mind (sounds good). So I rethought it all and looked up the word “murder” on dictionary.com.
And it turns out I was right. It is murder after all:
Y’know, I have a bit of sympathy for animal-rights vegans who have really thought the issue through and who consider meat to be “murder,” with murder defined as an immoral killing of a moral subject. I disagree with them, but I’ve read my Peter Singer and my Tom Reagan, and I know that you can make a detailed, coherent, robust argument for granting moral rights to certain nonhumans.
Further, I reject any defense of meat-eating among humans that rests on a naturalistic argument. There’s plenty of stuff that we do “naturally” (infanticide and rape, for example) that we condemn as immoral and unethical. The fact that our biology gives us competitive advantages is wholly irrelevant from the standpoint of moral philosophy–at least from the branches in which I find myself comfortable.
mutantmoose’s thinking sounds like that of the idiots who are for the death penalty(human) but won’t inject/shoot/hang/throw the switch on the condemned.
If you want to eat(or execute) something you should be able, or at least willing, to do the deed yourself.
What, then, do you call the unjustified killing of a wild animal?
Of course, you probably justify this killing by saying that you’re going to eat the animal.
Which would be justifiable if you lived in a time and place where you could only get meat by hunting it. But that doesn’t apply anywhere in modern America.
One should examine the difference between wild animals (such as deer) and species which have been domesticated and raised for thousands of years by humans solely as a food source (cows, chickens - which are not animals which you will find free in the wild).
Taking potshots at something from 50 yards away is not as humane as a well-regulated slaughterhouse.
I’m not so concerned about the “eaters”. It’s more the motivations of the “killers”.
Skald also eats meat from stores. It’s not a question of being “man enough”. He doesn’t have to kill to eat. He kills because he likes to kill. Why, I don’t know.
Die free? Die free?
What the fuck is that supposed to mean? How can you die free?
There’s a difference between accepting execution as a necessary evil and being overly enthusiatic to actually do it yourself.
And when people do that, it’s fairly contemptible. But that’s not the way hunting usually goes. By the way, how many slaughterhouses do you think are ‘well-regulated’?
How is that about the motivation of the killers? That’s a hypocritical reply as it comes from someone who eats meat himself. By eating meat, you are contributing to the killing of animals that either would have “lead a pleasant, free life” or not have been bread to be killed at all. The motivation of the killer doesn’t come into play in the above argument.
And do you know what the motivation of all hunters are? Some like the taste of wild game that generally isn’t found in a supermarket just as you enjoy your animals that have been killed by someone else.
And some like to to hire others to do their animal killing for them.
Those two groups insultingly cover everyone except plant murdering vegetarian fiends.
Didn’t PETA or someone sneak cameras into one of McDonald’s McChicken factories a few years ago, and discover it was a workers paradise for the birds?
They started a boycott over it or something.
Ah, here: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-9920304.html