Ale:
Medicine (animal testing)
Plowing a field (kills a bunch of animals, not cleanly.)
Slaughtering (There’s a degree of suffering that is pretty much unavoidable)
Literally just about any time we take something from an animal we produce suffering in that animal.
Exterminating vermin (termites in a house, or mice.)
So what distinctions are you making towards the types and goals of suffering, especially in the context of animals, which inspired your OP? Are you necessarily asking about slaughterhouses, or about plucking the fur off a kitten one by one with tweezers just for fun?
It may be easier to talk about it as a nebulous concept with no context, but it’s much harder to try to give you a satisfactory answer to your question in that case.
I was making a distinction, wheter there are instances were the only way to yield a benefit is through inflicting suffering, of your list perhaps only animal testing ranks there; because we extract the necessary data inflicting pain, causing disease, etc.
As for the other items, they show situations in which death is if not necessary (plowing) at least an unavoidable consecuence; however suffering has nothing (or shouldnt) to do with it, you dont fumigate a crop to rejoice over the agony of the bugs, for example (and if you do I don`t want to hang around with you 
)
Fair enough, but we agree that we should try not to cause unnecessary suffering, right? 
Hhmmm I agree that hunting is kind of “natural”… if you eat the hunted creature. Hopefully killing it fast too.
Then it struck me that it seems kind of “natural” that some people die so that others might prosper… and that means in a way you should accept US soldiers dying in Iraq to forward some peoples political agenda for example as part of a normal process. What is normal for some is not normal at all.
That might give you an insight to maybe how the anti hunting people think. (I dont have much formed opinion myself… not an issue in my country)
Well, why are you against gratuitous and wasteful suffering?
Basically, it seems to me that just about everyone recognizes that suffering is bad, but that sometimes it is worth enduring (or inflicting) for some greater good or higher purpose. The disagreement seems to be not over whether suffering is bad (however circular the “suffering is bad” argument may be, by being against “gratuitous” and “wasteful” suffering you seem to have implicitly conceded that point); the disagreement is over which sufferings are in fact gratuitous and wasteful. (Which is really a thousand separate debates, from killing animals for food, to hunting, to natural childbirth, to euthanasia, and so on.)
So I guess suffering and death isn’t a bad thing as long as it happens to others.
And, of course, isn’t all part of Intelligent Design.
If you aren’t convinced that causing suffering is bad, then there is no logical argument that will be able to convince you. Empathy is a feeling that some simply lack. I’m not sure what to do about it.
What is wrong about people that suffer and die for the benefit of myself? Do you have a different answer to that? Why?
I think MEBuckner and Apos with their recent posts are obliquely hitting on an important distinction:
Suffering, in general terms, is amoral. But the suffering of one individual caused by another individual can in some cases be wrong. (Hopeful this statement is agreed upon by everyone.)
The real ethical question then is not the blaise “Why is suffering bad?” (which begs the question “Is suffering bad?”) but rather “When is the infliction of suffering justified?” (Assuming we accept the general rule that sometimes infliction is justified… which seems reasonable.)
So really, Scylla, if you answer the question posed (“why are you against gratuitous and wasteful suffering?”) perhaps you can answer your own question. Of course, if you insist on answering with “waste should be ethically avoided since it denies the possibility of beneficial use”, that’s effectively “waste is wasteful”, which is no less circular than “suffering is bad” unless you explicitly pull in utilitarian logic.
I’m surprised no one has brought in Kant or at least the Golden Rule… I would posit that inflicting suffering on others is wrong in those conditions when, as a general rule, we would not wish others to inflict suffering on us.
As I’ve said in another thread; it makes little difference to the universe whether I die quietly in my bed while asleep or if I die screaming and thrashing while being eaten alive by hyenas - once it is done, the end result is much the same (except the hyenas go hungry the other way), so given the choice, why do I much prefer the idea of dying quietly in my bed?
Scylla, I take it your wife’s labour was traumatic. If you could have made it less so, would you have? If yes, then why? If no, how would you have explained your inaction to her at the time?
There’s nothing incorrect about asserting that causing suffering is wrong. Expressed that way, you are clearly looking at just the causation of suffering itself, not yet considering a specific case in which other issues which may or may not also weigh in to justify it for some greater good. The mere fact that you’d HAVE to run around looking for a convienient greater good to cover your ass is itself a pretty strong sign that you concede that causing suffering is in and of itself wrong.
I am convinced that needlessly causing suffering to animals is wrong.
But I readily acknowledge that my personal convictions in this area are not subject to any sort of objective proof.
Therefore, I don’t assert them as undeniable fact in debate.
Slight hijack, but can’t this be trivially proven to be incorrect? If we feed on herbivores, and the herbivores have enough vegetation, then obviously it would be even more efficient to simply eat the vegetation. After all, the herbivores are simply using consuming extra resources, water, and oxygen while gamboling about the fields (or feed lots). The strongest thing you could argue is that there isn’t enough of the * right * vegetation, given that we don’t eat grass and can’t digest cellulose.
As for Scylla’s OP, not long ago, he justified buying a large SUV for his wife on the grounds that it was safer. So clearly he has made a value judgement that suffering and death are bad and should be avoided or postponed as long as possible. Otherwise, why not just buy a Yugo and drive it recklessly?
Other humans have obviously made the same judgement-- very few people actively seek out suffering, and those who seek out death tend to do so in order to eliminate unendurable suffering.
We can also see abundant evidence that animals will attempt to avoid suffering and death – they flee predators and avoid painful stimuli. So even if we accept that animals have to die to provide us with food and resources, minimizing their suffering is just common courtesy.
If you don't buy the courtesy argumnet, you can argue more pragmatically that if people become inured to watching animals suffer, then they are more likely to tolerate the suffering of other humans, particularly those humans who can be distinguished from them in some obvious way. Eventually one of those hardened persons might encounter you or your family or clan and do damage. So it's in the individual's interest to reduce suffering on the grounds that you don't want it happening to you.
One last point – Scylla seems to accept that both suffering and death are inevitable. In fact, only death is. Suffering is common, but it can be avoided and minimized. Because it is not inevitable, there is no virtue in inflicting it unnecessarily.
I think this is is an idea accepted by the vast majority of people, Scylla as well. The rub is where the word “needlessly” is to be defined. I’ll describe a spectrum of actions below, and depending on the person, the line will be drawn on a different level.
Killing a deer for fun
Killing a deer for the antlers
Killing a goose for its liver
Killing a cow for its meat
Killing vermin to plow a field
Reasonable people can disagree at where to draw the line, and no amount of arguing is likely to change their opinion.
Scylla, one thing about the agriculture point, it takes less acreage to feed a person if we eat the plant rather than the meat. Cows and pigs and such waste a fair amount of energy turning plant matter into animal flesh. If we went veggie, we would still kill the vermin and cut down forests, but in fewer numbers. (of course, Finagle beat me to it)
Dangit, I was about to post the distinction between “suffering is bad” and “causing suffering is bad.” Curse you, mrblue, for beating me to it!
I think this distinction is key. A phenomenon is morally neutral, neither good nor evil; what sense does it make to say that a child’s burning to death is evil?
An act by a moral agent (i.e., a being capable of making moral decisions), however, may be evil/wrong/bad. It’s perfectly sensible to say that setting babies on fire is evil.
Once we acknowledge that, we can dispense with arguments about whether suffering improves our lives, whether suffering is inevitable, etc. It’s not the existence of, but rather the infliction of, suffering that can carry moral weight.
That said, why is it wrong to inflict suffering? According to my moral compass, I must treat others in essentially the way I want others to treat me. In other words, I want other beings to respect my wishes, my interests, and not to act against them unless they have good reason. The stronger the interest in question, the stronger reason they’d better have before acting against me.
Obviously, I can’t make that request of non-moral-agents: what sense is it for me to castigate a lightning bolt for striking me? Why on earth would I get angry at a snake for biting me? Such entities can’t make moral decisions.
However, some beings that cannot make moral decisions still have interests, and if I’m going to be morally consistent, I need to respect those interests unless I have a good reason otherwise. The stronger the interest, the better reason I gotta have.
My housecat wants to go eat fish. I don’t let her, because I have an interest in not cleaning her puke up off the floor in two hours. Minor interest in her part; a minor reason on my part is enough to justify my infliction of minor suffering on her.
A cow wants to not spend its life locked in a tiny cage. I don’t eat meat, because my desire to taste yummy beef doesn’t outweigh the cow’s very strong interest in associating with others of her kind, with roaming a field and chewing cud and breathing fresh air. In this case, I don’t have a good reason to inflict suffering.
Note that this isn’t an exact science: it’s unclear how to weigh my interests versus the interests of animals or of other moral agents. Nevertheless, I do think that such a scale exists, and it forms the basis of my morality. Being good means not violating other beings’ interests unless I have a damn good reason not to do so. And many beings have a strong interest in not suffering.
Daniel
What kind of answer are you looking for Scylla?
Meta-Physical: Animals in essense have given their all to provide food and other things for mankind, it is respectful to not cause them undo suffering when they have sacrificed so much already.
Natural: Overkilling may deplete a naturally replenshing food source to become too scarse to sustain itself biologically and causing suffering may imprint a instinctual response in the survivors to better avoid or to visciously fight mankind.
Culinary: Stressed and suffering animals do not taste as good as contented animals killed with a minimum of suffering.
Psychological: People who gratuitously inflict pain and suffering on animals have anger management issues that more than likely translate to cruelty to people.
Karmic: What goes around, comes around dude.
Politically Correct: it is far more “humane” and prudent to do all that is possible to reduce any form of suffering and death on our human-gene challenged worldmates. Besides it gets the PETA fanatics off your back.
I think Brooke Sheilds said it well:
“If you die, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.”
I dont have the answer but I think the OP started up with two entirely different questions.
What is wrong with Suffering?
What is wrong with Death?
Leaper:
If we need to be specific, let’s use hunting as a context.
MEBuckner
Excellent question. I am against them for purely logical reasons. Withing human society we are in something akin to the Prisoner’s Dilemma. If everybody wastes resources than there are fewer resources available for use, or a shortage. Therefore it is in my best interests and the best interests of society to not waste resources and to encourage conservation of resources.
As a further developed personal ethic (skipping the intermediate steps,) this leaves with an evolved concept of fair use. I am morally bound to put what I take to a high use, and I am morally obligated to use what I have taken well, since I have deprived others of it.
Following this ethic is in eveybody’s, including my own self-interest, and is logical and reasonable as far as I can tell.
David Simmons:
Perhaps you should frame your response in the form of a question. I experienced suffering though not death, and it was a rather intense experience. In my particular case it became a defining experience in my life, and a net positive. So, it most certainly was not a bad thing as it happened to me.
I have thought often about the nature of pain and the difference between pain and suffering. I have thought about our general abhorence of pain as a society, and the fact that we consider both pain and suffering to be synomymous, while I have concluded to the best of my abilities that they are actually very seperate and distinct things
I have also thought, though I’m not sure I can demonstrate it that our abhorrence and chronic avoidance to anything resembling pain actually increases our suffering as individuals in society.
I think that’s enough analysis for a drive-by comment. If you’d like to participate with me further, I’d ask you to pull some intellectual weight.
Apos:
Untrue, and easily tested. Give me a logical argument and see what happens.
Usually on fourth and long, I’d recommend punting. You could actually make an argument rather than insult me by insinuating that I lack empathy. It seems to me that that was a rather shallow accusation you cast at me.
Bricker:
I would agree that needless suffering is wrong. I however have proposed a rational as to why in my response to MEBuckner. What do you think of it?
Finagle:
I would argue that to a degree, it’s pretty much inevitable. Both pain and suffering are how animals learn things to avoid. Without them we are pretty much useless.
Cheesesteak:
But when I hunt, I don’t chop down the forest, I don’t plow and destroy an environment and every animal in it. I do not alter the ecology (if my hunting is sound from a conservation standpoint.) In fact, I may even be providing a service and reducing suffering by culling excess animals who would starve due to overpopulation. In any even, if I take a deer as food I have only killed a single animal. No crop grown commercially that I’m aware of can make that kind of ecological claim. When I hunt, I am working within nature instead of altering it for my purposes. Therefore I suggest that hunting responsibly is not only ethically benign, but a positive action compared to other forms of agriculture.
Daniel:
As far as you’ve taken it, I agree with you.
Xslayer:
Except for the last one what you say seems to make sense.
Apos:
Missed this the first time around. Yes, I do have a different answer. I do not confer rights to animals, only to people. I do this for the ethical reasons relating to self-interest that I have related to MEBuckner, above.
Gest:
Now that is a tough question.
The answer is no. My wife had a placenta previa accompanying a breach delivery that necessitated bed rest prior to an emergency caesarian when the placenta more completely detached.
The reason that I would not change it is because my wife chose this course of action. There were things that could have been done to lessen her suffering, yet she deliberately chose to suffer to give our child the strongest possible chance for both survival and health.
So, given the circumstances, I would not have changed a thing, even if it were my decision to make. Thankfully it was not.
Of course if you are asking me if I could have waved a magic wand and just made everything better without consequences than I of course would have done that.
That however was not a choice.
I think Suffering really sucks and I dont wish it upon anyone/anything because of a natural empathy (I think).
I dont have the data to answer the same question on death. I have no experience with death. I have been close to ppl who have experienced it but they fail to report back on how it worked out for them.