I have thought over all the arguments one could make for preferring human welfare over that of animals, and the one that made the most sense is that suffering is wrong, but an animal has less capacity for suffering, so that when one hurts an animal to ease human pain, one commits a lesser sin. Animals only know present suffering; humans have a greater intellect, and therefore have a greater capacity for suffering pain. They can anticipate pain, and remember pain; animals cannot. One causes a small amount of pain to prevent a greater amount of pain.
My cat cannot plan, remember, or cogitate. (I rescued my cat from a miserable life and early death on the streets of Seoul, so I have no ethical problem owning her) I love my cat, but if a human infant’s life were weighed against hers, I would sacrifice my cat. Both options involve pain, but, as I said, humans can suffer more than animals can, so pre- venting human pain should be the desired goal.
OK, that’s a fair starting point. I disagree on a number of your propositions; particularly, I believe that animals (some species, anyway) can remember, plan and anticipate, in regards to pain as well as other things. Unfortunately, the only evidence we can gain is indirect, since we cannot ask them questions. I know my wife has links in regards to research of this type, so I’ll have to get them from her.
Elephants are an amazing case. They can not only recognize elephant bones among non-elephant bones, but they can recognize the bones of elephants to whom they are related. They will spend significant amounts of time running their trunks over elephant bones and investigating them. It’s entirely possible that they have a real concept of death.
It’s certainly a valid position, from a utilitarian standpoint, to want to minimize the overall experience of pain as you describe. I just question how well we really know how much suffering animals are capable of.
goboy said:
pl, don’t you think we have a greater allegience to our own species? I’m not saying that an animal life is objectively worth less than a human life. Life, I think, is life. But, as humans, aren’t we obligated to always choose another member of our species over another species?
Here’s an idea, guys. If you really want to understand what PETA is really about, open a thread in GQ. If you want to understand what pldennison is really about, open a thread in MPSIMS. If you want to make arguments about the ethical or intellectual values of anything or any one, open a thread in GD.
This is the Pit. Go fuck yourselves.
Tymp, honey, if I could do that, I’d never leave the house. :0
Now your going to get the homosexuals up in arms!
Not to hi-jack, but what about the Cleveland Indians baseball team? Theres a whole controversy going on about Their team name.
I believe they’re hungry…
Sure, if it was Charles Manson.
Tymp,
Here’s an idea, contribute to the discussion (even if it’s only in a frothing at the mouth way like PL does). Otherwise kindly shut the fuck up, hampster squicker.
BigJoe,
I’m sure you’re a great resource for advice on creative things to do with hamsters and I appreciate your input.
The point of my previous post, which I hope some people caught, was that there is absolutely no reason to act all surprised and offended when comments made in a rant are met with exceptionally abusive rebuttals. That’s what’s supposed to happen in the pit. This is not where people come to be sensible.
Now, BigJoe, should I sedate the hamster first, or are they, shall we say, hot-plugable?
pldennison, how do you and the rest of the PETA freaks feel about hamster squicking? Is it a lesser, equal, or greater crime than moron squicking? As you can plainly see, I’ve just been offered both opportunities.
Necros, this will be considered probably the most reprehensible thing I’ve ever said, but no, I don’t think so. I’ll take 1,000 poisonous asps over 1 Ted Bundy any day of the week.
There are 6 billion people in the world, and we aren’t running out soon. Tigers, OTOH, are being hunted to extinction. If we have to curb development just a tiny percentage to see that that doesn’t happen, I’m all over that.
Tymp,
Sensible I don’t expect. Vaguely coherent would be nice. I don’t really believe anyone here expects to get nothing but “me to” posts. But MPSIMS is not the place for “PETA is populated with knee jerk, reactionary fuck wads,” so it was posted here.
BTW, I didn’t see any PETA freaks asking for a squick - but if think there’s enough grey matter there, go right ahead. 
I saw an ad awhile back that showed a bunch of PETA people protesting. The caption to the ad said, “The people in the picture above can protest an average of 18.7 years longer because of animal testing.” Sorry, I don’t remember who paid for the ad…I’ll try and dig it up but it was awhile ago so I doubt my chances. Also, the ‘18.7’ years may have been ‘20.2’ or something else but I’m sure I’m in the ballpark on the 18.7 number.
On the flip side…
Some co-workers of mine were doing a job for a large pharmaceutical company. One of the guys was working in or near the area where lab animals are kept and couldn’t help but notice the yipping of several dozen beagles (dogs). He came back later that afternoon and remarked to another worker how quiet the dogs were that afternoon. The other guy looked at him sheepishly and said, “You don’t know? They remove the dogs voice boxes so they don’t disturb the scientists.”
For what it’s worth I know the person who told me that story extremely well and believe that story 100%. Considering the other things they do to those animals I wonder why I find that story so appalling…
As to the OT that is truly retarded. Must’ve been a slow week for PETA to pull that out of their ass. I mean c’mon! Of all the things people can throw their energy at in this world…of all the evil’s and injustices to apply ourselves against…does anyone HONESTLY believe changing the Packer’s name to Pickers or some other crap really rates very high?
Rl,
Here’s the line, and I think it’s fairly straight forward and clear: Gratuitous. Puppy mills? abhorant. It’s the gratuitous abuse of dogs for proffit. Cosmetic testing? I don’t see the need to harm animals because you want to look “better”. If you want to paint yourself, you take the risks. Ivory poaching? Barbaric. Killing such magnificent creatures just for a few trinkets is sick. If the harm to animals is gratuitous in relationship to the benifits gained, then it should be outlawed. BUT…The following are a list of causes which come from the PETA website and/or news reports which are just wacko.
PETA opposes Worls Vision sending goats to Rwandan children to provide dairy to aleviate starvation.
PETA demonstrated outside CBS to protest the survivers eating rats.
PETA wants Fishkill NY to change it’s name.
PETA wants the Packers to change their name.
PETA oposes world bank programs to increase the efficency of livestock raising in third world countries.
PETA boycots ecampus.com because they aired a humorous commercial in which a student eats a fish
PETA wants Wal-mart to stop selling animal urine.
PETA also aparently thinks any store that ever sold a pet, leather good or item where fur was used should be boycotted.
And so on. The problem I, and I would dare say, many others have with many of these actions is this. PETA takes a narrow philosophical view, as far as I can tell, “Animals are always good, humans are always bad in their treatement of animals, whatever animals do to each other is natural” This is denying the basic fact that humans are omniverous animals themselves. Many of the things PETA protests deal directly with humans producing animals for food. This is the way we are built! Denying it is pointless ( And please, plkease don’t trot out that tired old song and dance about humans being "natural’ vegetarians.Cecil debunked that one looong ago.) What I see with PETA is little different from what I see from many fundamentalist christian groups. They are so convinced that they know the “right” way to live that they want to force it on the rest of us. Well, my response to such ham handed tactics is usually MYOB.
Phil,
If I were you, I wouldn’t be concerned about what the folks here say. If you think that some of the basic causes of PETA have merit, and IMHO some do, I would be much more concerned about a marginal few takeing the organization to the fringes. If you believe PETA has value, than you should be doing your best to make sure that it dosen’t become nothing more than fodder for the late night talk show hosts and commedians worldwide. DON’T defend every assinine thing done in the name of PETA, stand up for what you truely believe are important issues. People eating food? Team/place names? Leave it alone. Puppy mills? Bullfighting? Endangered animal poaching? Give it your best shot. Otherwise you will have a tough time convincing anyone that you should be taken seriously.
I can totally understand why you are on the defensive at the moment, Phil, especially after reading some of those other anti-PETA threads. People have been pretty harsh on both sides.
I look at PETA as a classic example of good idea, poor execution. They have the right idea but “fringe” people, as weirddave said above, are the problem. Kind of like Greenpeace on the environmental front.
Just thought I’d jump in here because I feel like this is a case of people who mostly agree (I’m not sure any reasonable people think that dogs’ voice boxes should be removed) but because this is such a hot topic right now you are fighting over a “fringe” issue.
PL, do you really think its reasonable to ask the Packers to change their name? (I ask this seriously, I’m not asking it sarcastically.)
-S
Do I think it’s reasonable? I dunno. What could it possibly hurt to ask? What if they DID change their name–think of the PR coup for PETA.
It’s not like they asked the owner of the team to disembowel himself in public or to pay some big amount of money to some animal-related charity; they asked him to change the name. The anger it appears to stir up is at least as unproportional as some consider the act of asking to be.
pldennison said:
OK. I just wanted to get a handle on where you were going. And to get kind of a representative viewpoint of a PETA member.
If you think that animals should be saved at the expense of people because there are too many of us and not enough of them, I can respect that. Hell, I can even agree with it. There are too many people. There are too few animals. I definitely don’t agree with pepperlandgirl that “if it takes a million of whatever to save one person, it’s OK” or whatever it was she said in that other thread. I think people could definitely cut back on their propogation.
But, I suspect in most situations, we aren’t talking about animals that have that sort of numeric deficiency. Nobody’s doing cosmetic testing on tigers. They’re doing it on mice. That’s totally different. Moreover, they’re mice that have been bred for this purpose. Just as I would have no problem using human clones for organ harvesting if they were made for that purpose, I have no problem with using mice that were created to be tested on.
If you want reprehensible, ask me sometimes about what else I feel humans should do differently to stem our rise on this planet. 
In other news, weirddave said:
WD, you used this an example of things that PETA was protesting against that were silly. But, previously in your post, you said that some of the things they were against were OK because they were “gratiutous” uses of animals. And this isn’t? I’m sorry, but this is really abuse of animals for entertainment purposes. It’s not like those “survivors” really had to survive. I’m actually suprised that anyone who thinks animals have feelings could be against PETA’s stance on this.
Actually, I view the use of animals for food as apropriate. In a broad sense, if they had gotten hamburgers delivered to the island, cows would have died to feed them. Same thing
What PETA is asking the Packers to do is huge. Do you think all the Packers have to do is take down the ‘A’ from their name and replace it with an ‘I’? A name change would cost them a fortune. Jersey’s changed, sportsware sold on a national scale, name recognition, etc…
Nobody wants protesters marching outside their office…even if it’s for a good cause. PETA is does have enough followers that any organization can’t entirely ignore them no matter what they think of their requests.
On a slightly different track…
I assume on the whole PETA supporters do not wear or use animal products.
Do PETA members forgo medical treatment? At least modern medical treatment? I suppose chewing on willow bark is ok but how about taking an aspirin? What about anasthetic for surgery? Novocaine for a cavity to be drilled? Medication for that heart condition? This is a WAG but I’d wager 99% of the medications you find in a hospital were tested on animals.
Last question, would a PETA member forbid modern medical treatment of their child?
I’ll take your assumption - there is absolutely no ethical difference between a human and a non-human life. How does that support PETA’s position? The only way PETA’s position makes sense is that humans are somehow different from other animals, that because we can cogitate, we are ethically obliged to treat animals differently than “lower” animals treat each other. But if there is something special about humans, then doesn’t it follow that the life of the “special” human is more valuable than the “common” animal?
If, on the other hand, all animals are the same, than human use of animals as we see fit is appropriate. All animals manipulate the environment to their benefit, even if it is to the detriment of other animals. Are goats “unethical” if they eat all the grass in an area, causing the gazelles to starve? If there is nothing unethical about that, then there is nothing unethical about the human animal acting *just like other animals *.