Well, good, but I stand by my original question, though I withdraw the “three weeks dead” remark for being out of line in GD.
The infliction of pain on others for your own amusement is practically the definition of a sadist. Sadism is generally considered immoral.
Personally I am fine with killing and eating animals as a means of survival. Mother Nature is setup that way all over the place.
Inflicting pain just so you can have a little fun…that is another matter entirely.
I would guess that evolution would do it that way because spending extra resources to accommodate extra circuitry for consciousness when it is not necessary for self preserving behavior is costly. In humans the investment paid off because of many other reasons, like our hands and voice boxes and whatnot.
Well nothing less would have motivated you to engage in this debate, right?
I guess that’s where we differ. Yes dogs show all the mechanistic behaviors that tend to keep them alive when faced with painful stimuli. I think that this does not involve conscious awareness, to me they seem to be complicated machinery in the purest sense. Essentially, when faced with a lack of absolute certainty I tend towards erring on the side of thinking that the most advanced cognitive function, conscious awareness, is not common to every animal. I believe what is known about brain anatomy supports this tentative conclusion. No, as long as I am sane I will not meaninglessly torture kittens or stomp on turtles, but only because such acts cause me suffering, not because I think the animals suffer. Neither will I shed any tears for the slab of beef I will eat for dinner.
edit:
What does a cat do with a mouse?
It doesn’t strike me as reasonable to use suffering and happiness as a philosophical gauge to measure morality. First, how do we quantify happiness and suffering? Second, when the two are in conflict how do we determine which one takes precedence? Why should the animal’s suffering trump my happiness when it comes to eating meat?
Odesio
Good meat is ABSOLUTELY not vital for human health. I don’t eat meat and I am quite healthy, thankyouverymuch.
Yep…evil little beasties. Obvious to any cat owner. 
Are you suggesting the cat’s have a moral aspect they must abide by?
I wish people would stop saying it is necessary for good human health. I eat meat and I recognize that an individual can be perfectly healthy eating a vegetarian or a vegan diet. I just don’t consider either option to be morally superior or inferior to an omnivorous diet.
You say animals can suffer. That animals feel pain much as humans do, and remember it. I agree, most can. You then say that humans shouldn’t cause this suffering. This is ridiculous.
Look. Nature is cruel. All of those beautiful, majestic animals you see on TV? They will all, every single one, die pretty horrible, violent, gruesome deaths. To disease, with no antibiotics. To predators, eating them alive as they scream(or their equivalent) in pain. To exposure, as old age or an injury prevented them from gathering enough food before winter. To starvation or dehydration, when a drought or famine hits. They will die painfully, and they will die alone.
Thats the way of life. That deer that someone didn’t shoot won’t be spared any suffering. It will die sooner or later in a fashion that is entirely unpalatable to humans. Meanwhile, we gotta eat, and animals are tasty.
And here’s a great bit of cognitive dissonance for you: I love cats, and I even find their sadistic tendencies endearing. Yes, it’s cruel, but they’re just so cute! Yay kitties!
As stipulated (by me at least) killing to eat is fine. It is the way of the world from top to bottom.
However, as a human going out and inflicting pain on something for my own amusement, when my cupboards are already filled and all I want is a head on my wall is immoral.
Whilst I would personally not find very much enjoyment in doing something like that, I don’t see how you can use the term ‘immoral’ to describe that.
But I suppose to actually understand what you mean by such a vague term you’d have to first define it.
He means he thinks it’s icky, therefore it is wrong. as best I can determine.
I should point out that modern farming has a seriously large death toll of animals associated with it, come harvesttime. They’re all mice and other vermin style critters, but a lot of them just get gobbled up when it comes time to clear the fields.
He never said he inflicted pain for fun. You’re reading something into his post that he didn’t write. Someone can get enjoyment from killing and eating an animal without getting enjoyment from causing that animal pain or suffering. You seem to be assuming that “killing” necessarily implies “causing suffering”. This is not the case.
If he really got pleasure from causing pain and/or suffering to animals, why would he ever kill the animals? It would be better to keep them alive and torture them.
It’s impossible to eat without hundreds, thousands, millions of things dying to feed you. This is especially true for the modern diet. Agriculture, especially monoculture, does not just kill animals - it destroys whole species and ecosystems forever. Feedlots do very little harm in comparison, although they are also a disgusting and reprehensible way to feed people.
True. The kills with which I was most pleased could not have been quicker if the animal had been struck by lightning. I choose a weapon adequate to the task, load it with premium ammunition, and choose my shots carefully. In 35 years of very successful hunting, I’ve very seldom had to shoot an animal more than once.
This kind of thread comes up a couple times a year. It’s all about emotions. The OP and his supporters have certain emotional responses to animals and the killing of same. They want to make the case that they, somehow, are morally superior because of those feelings. I’ve yet to see a convincing argument for that POV.
I’m probably late to this thread but I can’t wrap my mind around your position Mojo Pin. Dogs are certainly capable of learning, remembering, and applying that knowledge in a simple manner.
Anecdotal: I clip my dogs nails at home. A few years ago I accidentally nipped one too close and Sienna immediately withdrew her paw and cried. That is pretty obviously a physical response to pain. After a bit of comforting I tried to finish clipping the other nails and she repeatedly withdrew her paw and hid them under her body. In the short term she was perfectly capable of associating the nail clipper with the physical pain in her paw. That is a fairly obvious example of the ability to mentally internalize the stimuli. Years later she STILL will fuss and withdraw her paws when she sees the nail clipper. She clearly has associated the clipper with a specific painful memory and acts accordingly.
Dog two on the other hand has never had a bad experience with the clippers and will sit for her nail trimming without complaint.
I’m really failing to see the difference between these type of observations and human suffering. Certainly humans can suffer more deeply and over a greater variety of things than animals, but they are perfectly capable of feeling pain.
I think that hunting taught me and my contemporaries a respect for life. I went home and vomited after I killed my first squirrel. I repeated the process a year later when I killed my first deer. Now, I don’t really give it a second thought.
I believe that it teaches a young person to understand where things we eat come from. The first time I was out hunting, I didn’t see anything, was bored, and took a shot at a bird. My Dad chewed me out and grounded me. He told me that we don’t kill animals just for the hell of it. That sunk in for me. I think that it is only fair that if I’m going to chow down on a Big Mac that I get an understanding of what goes along with that.
I think that the hunting debate (where there is one) goes hand in hand with the gun debate. It is very much influenced by culture. If you grew up in a certain part of the country, guns and hunting were a way of life and you don’t understand why there is a big deal made of it. If you grew up elsewhere, you weren’t exposed to it, don’t understand it, and fear it.
How is this any more immoral that allowing someone else to slaughter the cows and chickens that fill your cupboard?
Nope. You are presupposing that Humans were created to be something we are not. We are hunters and gatherers. Though technology has added middlemen between most of us and both roles, it does not redefine us. Our modern hunters are ranchers and slaughterhouse workers. Our modern gatherers are farmers and those who process what they gather. Except through remarkable rigor the diet of an early Human and a modern Human includes both meat and vegetable products, often cooked for full access to their nutrition.
We are not slaves to our nature, but it is also a bad idea to dismiss our nature for a philosophical ideal. Hunting and killing prey has been a part of us for thousands and millions of years. Our dentition and digestive tracts developed to digest a mix of (cooked) plant and animal food. It has only been recently that we could pretend that the hunting and killing could be separated from the buying and eating. A claim that “hunting is immoral” is both preposterous on the surface and disproved by the biology. Accept your fate and eat a cheeseburger or deny it and order a soyburger. The choice is up to you, not some moral code, but I suggest you keep an eye on the balance of the vitamins you take in or you will be courting pellagra.
The people doing that are not doing it for fun. They are not deriving pleasure trying to kill something.