I’d take the position that it’s only a mouse, it is vermin, and I don’t have any moral problem with what your friend did. The mouse probably suffered, but it doesn’t bother me if a mouse suffers.
I got no problem killing things, although I’d rather not if there’s an alternative. But there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to not kill something humanely. Even if it isn’t aware, you are! I’ve never had mice in my own house, and when we had mice when I was a kid we employed West Highland White Terrier traps (very effective and very quick).
Perhaps it’s because you’re morally shallow.
Here is an interesting site for it. This journal, based on Eisemann’s observations:
- an insect walking with a crushed tarsus continues “applying it to the substrate with undiminished force”;
- a locust carries on feeding while being eaten by a mantis;
- a tsetse fly, although half-dissected, flies in to feed.
So they basically react as if nothing has happened. It is already established that insects lack pain receptors, and do not have the same system as vertebrates do to feel such sensations.
Probably. How do you define “morally shallow”?
I’ll bet you wear leather, too. You make me sick.
Someone who thinks it’s morally OK to starve small mammals to death on a plastic sheet of glue without humanely dispatching them. So, essentially, you’re treating it as you would an inanimate object. You’re essentially condoning torture.
Using animals for their products is lightyears away from torturing them to death.
Depends a bit on how they’re raised and killed, doesn’t it?
It does, but I doubt they’re tortured to death. From a practical POV, it serves absolutely no purpose, is a waste of time and energy, and it would ruin the end product.
If someone disagrees with the op’s position they are “morally shallow”? Why bother asking “What do you think?”
It’s not really an issue of killing, more to do with the method of disposal.
To encourage discussion. I’d like him to justify such a morally shallow position. No, saying “it’s only mice” isn’t really an argument. That logic can be used with other animals, including ourselves.
Someone kicks his dog. How does the person justify that? “It’s just a dog”. Sounds like a convenient excuse of an a-hole to me.
I’m a softie when it comes to animals. That said, I understand that animals sometimes will be killed to provide food ( I do enjoy eating them) or to eliminate them due to undesireable impact on humans. When it’s time to kill them, I feel there is a “moral ought” to kill them as quickly and humanely as is possible. Right now I am dealing with moles that are tearing my lawn up. I’m not really concerned with appearance, it’s hitting the dirt mounds with the mower that’s really pissing me off. I would have no problem smashing one with a shovel or stomping one or letting my dog kill them as she sometimes does. I am having problems convincing myself to poison them however. That just seems so …I don’t know… Unfair?
As for the OP, I couldn’t just toss glue traps with living mice into the trash. I would have to kill them first.
That sounds like strongly projecting human sensations onto insects. Just because the female insect responds positively to something the male insect does during copulation doesn’t mean that she experiences “physical pleasure” as a sensory phenomenon in the way that we understand it.
The mating behaviors you mentioned might have made the male houseflies seem stronger or more vigorous or otherwise more desirable as mates (just as bigger or faster or brighter-colored males are typically perceived as more desirable mates), without any gratuitous assumption that the behaviors were actually physically titillating to the females.
“Pest” is most certainly a factual description, whether or not it can be used as a rationalization.
How do you know?
You know that sounds pretty good. I didn’t put the two together. I wonder if that would actually be faster than CO2?
Also, I am a bit in awe at the creativity you’ve demonstrated in wasting mice!
Or a mouse could be the 2nd most adaptable mammal this planet has ever seen and the single biggest mammalian contributor to our understanding of genetics, the roughly 3rd biggest mammalian contributor to our understanding of behavior, and a creature with a highly complex nervous system capable of an impressive variety of cognitive and emotional behaviors with a social system we know almost nothing about in the wild.
It would be too much of a pain in your ass to take a sledge to its skull before tossing it in the garbage?
Although I don’t agree that a person is morally shallow when they think its fine to treat vermin as vermin, I do think it reflects on a person’s ability to empathize with others if they let the category “vermin” frees them of an obligation to minimize suffering to a creature that they are fairly certain would suffer. That said, I think one of the best things about people is the ability to empathize, even if it doesn’t make much sense to, such as in the case of mice fucking up your shit.
I’m going to assume that you’re asking how I know that mice and hamsters are not really all that bright. Cuteness is definitely subjective, I think that those rodents ARE cute, but my mother doesn’t think that any rodent is cute.
At any rate, I’ve had a few pet mice and hamsters over the years. My completely subjective opinion is that mice are probably a bit smarter than hamsters. Hamsters will repeat behaviors that have negative consequences (they’ll walk off the edge of a table and bounce, for instance), and mice seem to be able to learn a little bit. I’ve also read anecdotes of other hammie owners, who report basically the same lack of learning abilities in their little hoarders.
I could be wrong, and I freely admit that I could be wrong. But to date, I’ve never seen or read anything that mice, and especially hamsters, are very intelligent. On the other hand, I’ve seen some fairly intelligent (for their size) domesticated rats.
If I have cause to trap mice or rats, I’ll try to kill them humanely. If I have cause to trap hamsters, I’ll put them back in their cages. If I have cause to trap a cat, I’ll take it in to the Humane Society if I can’t keep it myself, and give the HS a generous donation for blood money.