Morality and killing

Great Debates
1

I was reading through this thread, and it got me thinking about the morality of whaling, or the morality behind killing animals in general. If we put the method of death aside for a moment, one of the things I hear most people cite when they argue against killing certain animals is how smart they are. A whale is smart, a pig is smart, a dog is smart. It’s worse to kill something intelligent because it knows what’s going on. A cow, say, is okay, because they’re pretty dim overall.

On the other hand, when it comes to humans – killing an infant is considered far worse than killing an another adult. Because they have more life ahead of them – but also because the child is too young to know what’s happening, it isn’t fair (this is how I’ve heard it argued). Which seems to contradict what we feel about other animals.

My question is, what’s the moral logic behind this? In my books, morality on the whole is just empathy informed by reason: killing a human infant is worse because morality, IMO, is instinctual, and it feels that much worse to us. Killing an intelligent animal is worse than killing an unintelligent one because we have more empathy with the intelligent one; we understand them better, they’re more like us. I’m not so sure the unintelligent animal (let’s say a cow rather than a cockroach here) doesn’t feel fright and pain just as strongly as we do.

But I suspect not everyone chalks morality up to just empathy informed by reason, and that there are thought out arguments to support the view I’m talking about here. Or at least, something more than what I’ve given here, which sounds more dangerously tribalistic the more I actually think about it. Can any Dopers share them with me?

(PS – Not sure what forum to put this in. If this isn’t the right one, can a mod please move this for me?)

2

I don’t really see it that way. Killing a human is generally wrong because it causes great pain to others as well as the person murdered. It is a irrevocable act that cannot ever be adequately compensated. I don’t find killing an infant any more heinous than killing a senior. It might be a bit sadder, due to the shortening of what might have been a long and full life, but it is no worse. As to animals, it is always best to kill as quickly and painlessly as possible when necessary to do so. There is never reason to prolong suffering for it’s own sake. Part of life, is death however; and accepting that is necessary to making an ethical choice about your diet, euthanasia, research, or other areas which require the taking of animal life for some reason. If you can’t square the benefit with the taking of life then it is unethical. How you do this is personal though, and based on so many factors that I’m not certain it can be competently addressed.

3

It’s not just that; you can get around that anyway just by killing the animal by surprise. It’s that the smarter a creature it is, the more of an individual it is. And the smarter it is, the less it is just a collection of reflexes and the more it has goals and desires of its own that you are interfering with. That’s why it is acceptable to harvest the organs of brain dead humans.

4

Humans are meant to be “meat-eating”…our eyes are situated on the fronts of our heads for depth perception and hunting for food. Obviously Walmart has eliminated that last part, but that doesn’t mean the instinct disappears. Therefore, hunting animals is a normal human instinct; although it’s been phased out in most societies because of supermarkets. Therefore, in most people’s eyes, hunting and killing animals are “acceptable.”(for nutrition purposes only–no one would disrespect you if eating a dolphin was your only option to “live”) Random killing(killing not for nourishment) for selfish purposes is not exceptable in mainstream society, ever.

As for killing babies: A human has the inate instinct to first save themselves, and then to save their offspring. Every human is “supposed” to have these instincts. The further you get from these instincts, the further you are from sanity or civilization. Most humans would rather die themselves than hurt a baby. That is where our civilization is at. Right and wrong is defined SOLELY by the circles you travel in. So if you’re from a tribe from some remote, undiscovered(I know, outrageous), desert island south of Guam, it may be totally normal to kill your young. Spartans! Enough said.

5

To the OP; there are qualitative differences between humans and animals that mean it is not necessarily hypocracy to set certain different rules.

A baby might grow up to cure cancer, say; we can confidently say that an animal will not do this. More generally, a human will affect lives and the world more significantly and less predictably than an animal.
They also have a rich “experience” that you are ending prematurely. A human can behold the wonders of the universe or enjoy a fine piece of music, say.

Personally I don’t put a higher value on a baby versus an adult; but you can see how the above line of reasoning leads some to do so.
(In the case of the elderly, it becomes a grey area. If humans lived indefinitely, they would have an equal value to a baby to me. But in reality, the older you get, the less time you’re likely to have left)

The OP also says “putting aside method of death”, but then talks about how animals can suffer. I don’t think that’s fair.
The method of death is key. Killing an animal slowly and painfully I would see as immoral. Whereas killing an animal quickly and painlessly I would see as (roughly) amoral.

6

Ah, see, under what I’d said above, I’d consider harvesting the organs of brian dead humans acceptable because they presumably wouldn’t be able to feel it. At least, not like we could. What is it about individuality and individual goals and desires that makes it worse to kill those that have them? I assume less intelligent beings also have goals and desires, but of a baser nature…so it must be something about individuality itself? What is it?

7

But even so…within that, it’s considered better to kill a cow than a whale. Why?

I remember stories about one-child China where it’s considered alright to kill your young…is that something that’s been widespread? Can I have a cite for the explanations the cultures you know give for it? I don’t doubt you, it’s just something I’d like to understand.

8

Now that’s interesting to me; I’ve never heard anyone actually say that before. Could you give me a concise reason why?

I can’t actually say if I agree or disagree, at this point, but I’d like to hear why you think so.

9

Alright…I can see how my OP was a little hypocritical in this regard. I just meant to level the playing field. And then I forgot all about it and wanted to filter out all the horrific abuses of animals that could possibly be brought up in this post, as opposed to relatively humane methods. What I really meant was…all things equal, do you believe that killing an intelligent animal quickly and painlessly is amoral? Say, a dolphin or a whale? Do you believe that killing a human quickly and painlessly is immoral or amoral? (I’m not going to assume ‘moral’ :wink: ) - is that because of what the human may offer the world? Is it because of the rich experience they might have?

I guess, as a seperate question, I could ask - is it worse to make an intelligent animal suffer than a non-intelligent animal? I’d be interested in the answer to that, too, though it might be hijacking my own OP.

I will give you right off - a human has much more chance to affect the world significantly than an animal. Experience…I’d agree they may have a greater discrimination in experience. I have to ask though - what makes greater discrimination better than pure intensity?

10

Put it this way: if society has the right to punish anything, murder comes pretty high on the list. Essentially a murderer takes away everything I have, against my will, forever. It’s Super Theft. Of course I’m not around to complain about it, but that’s irrelevant.

Now why we don’t apply the same rules to animals, and indeed, why we haven’t even cared about animal welfare until recently, are separate issues.

Well my answer would be that I don’t find any life intrinsically more valuable than any other (ok people close to me and certain public figures I care more about, but I mean in principle). It’s that simple.

(Of course, in real life, it’s not really that simple; doctors have to play god sometimes, and sometimes we have to say “that kidney would benefit that 3 year old more than that 103 year old”).

But under most circumstances, morally and legally, all lives are considered of equal “worth”.

Well, where do you draw the line? Should I go to jail for 20 years for killing an ant?

Generally how we see it is that killing a human is immoral for all of the reasons given. Killing an animal is only fractionally as bad, because many of the reasons that apply to humans don’t apply to animals. And as you move towards more simple forms of life, that fraction of “like killing a human”-ness goes down.

ETA: Oh, but for suffering, the thing is: we don’t know how much they suffer. They may be zombies for all we know. As a practical matter, we treat the suffering of higher mammals to be approximately like a human’s suffering. While the former is considered less serious legally and philosophically, it is increasingly the case that individuals see higher mammal suffering as equally immoral to human suffering.

Well from the degree of understanding and learning that a dog has, the set of qualitatively different experiences that it’s capable of having is probably quite small.
Whereas the range of human experiences is much greater than you could fit into one lifetime.

11

Sure. As far as I’m concerned, all human life has value. I also believe that regardless of how we live our lives, we all have some basic value just for being human, for being sentient. During one’s lifetime, you can by your actions raise or lower your value to society, but you cannot raise or lower your value as a sentient being. It simply is; regardless of age, sex, gender, ethnicity or anything else. An infant has had no chance to provide value to society, nor is there any particular reason to assume that any given infant will be the next Hawking or Curie. Chances are overwhelming that they will just be another decent, average person making their way in the world. Their loss then can only be logically calculated as that which we ascribe to any human, no more no less.

12

That there’s something there to override or destroy in the first place. You can’t destroy a unique person by killing something if there’s no person there to destroy in the first place. Destroying a one of a kind artwork is a different act than destroying one photographic copy out of millions. Nor can you oppress desires that an animal or plant or rock doesn’t have.

13

Well, isn’t this to a large extent because of the sense of unfairness involved? We feel killing another adult in a face to face fight is less bad than killing them by waiting in a dark alley and jumping them, because there is a chance of defending themselves. An infant doesn’t have that chance, and so we view the killing of a child as more repugnant. It violates an innate sense of fair play.