You’re right about the “drive by comment.” However, I really don’t see much of a debate here. To me it’s sort of like a debate about: Resolved, Gravitation is A Good (Bad?) Thing.
Pain and suffering are normal occurances in the day-to-day world and there isn’t a damned thing you or I can do about it except to try to relieve them to the extent possible, or not if that seems best.
Based on your post above maybe the subject could have been, “How a Period of Pain and Suffering Was a Net Positive For Me.”
But what the hell, the rest of you have my permission to go on with your “debate.”
Yes indeed. Nevertheless it had been proposed in the sport hunting thread that hunting is an unethical endeavor because it produces pain and suffering.
The underlying argument to this, as far as I can see is that there is something intinsically wrong with the infliction of pain and suffering.
I am asking what that is?
Simple in theory, but how do you go about judging these things? It seems an important question for something as intense as suffering and death, don’t you think?
Surely there must be a rational way to approach it.
[/quote]
But what the hell, the rest of you have my permission to go on with your “debate.” **
[/QUOTE]
I’m a newbie here (although I’ve basked in the wisdom of our Sun Cecil for a couple of years and lurked the boards as many), and I’d just like to excuse myself beforehand for all the newbie mistakes I’m bound to make. In addition I would like to use this little disclaimer to point out english is only my second language and I’m getting more dyslexic with the years (even though I don’t know if that’s even possible). That concludes this public service announcement.
In my book suffering starts when pain (mental or physical) is not relieved as soon as possible. Pain endured but treated to the best of knowledge and abbilities is an integral part of our learning process and as such has nothing ‘bad’ about it (except that it HURTS!). We need it to survive and have so long because of it. Pain however becomes unnecessary and bad when the pain is not relieved as soon as possible through inaction or incompetency, or is worsened through action for the pleasure of the perpetrator. That I think is suffering.
-The accident kind of suffering (car accident,burn, sickness or whatever) is always pointless so should just be avoided as much as possible. Nobody to blaim and I trust everybody will act to relieve the pain as soon as possible. I might not like it but there’s nothing ‘wrong’ here that I can do something about. Is it unnecessary? It does teach people not smoke in gas-stations…
-Determined suffering, like in killing animals for food,a soldier in a war, or a cat killing a bird should follow the rules I said earlier. No lengthening of the pain through inaction or incompetency. When the decision to kill is made you should follow through and try to end it within as short a period as possible and with as painless a method as is available.
The is-it-necesarry part is a muddled here because it depends on the motives of the action. I dislike a cat playing with a crippled bird for fun the same as hunters who shoot and discard their prey. It’s because IMO the ‘fun’ of killing is not reason enough to end the live of any being be it moose, dog, ant or plant. It’s just not cost-effective enough for such a small dosis of chemicals in the brain. Go buy a gameboy if you’re bored.
When you use the meat your actually replacing the meat you would have bought anyway. In both cases X amount of pounds of meat had to be killed and there’s enough to argue that a deer in a forest has a better live than a pig in the bio-industry, so it may even be better than your store-bought pork-chops. It’s just a bit more ‘out there’ in this age where people are only accustomed of seeing the end-product. The reminder of hunters actually killing bambi’s seems cruell because we tend to identify. That feeling tends to get less with every shrink-wrapping, industrial ‘harvesting’ or a pre-emptive destruction of meat-machines.
-Suffering for economical profit, as in the shady side of the bio-industy, is bad and unnesceserry. It is easily overcome by enforcing current laws and making (in some bad areas as pig transport in Europe) some additional laws. Of course we will all have to pay a bit more at the grocery store…or maybe do sum huntin’ of our own.
And scylla, I’m glad you feel you’re suffering has had a net gain in the end, but I just can’t imagine any example in which an animal would feel that way.
Mental note:1. Do not live up to username. 2. Lose anxiety. It’s just humans scrutinizing every mistake you make…
This is terribly ingenuous. The only reason your hunting can be sound from a conservation standpoint is that our population is not relying solely on hunting for food. Successful predation requires a large number of prey animals and a much smaller pool of predators. Hunting for actual survival takes a terrible toll on the environment, particularly when the predators are numerous and efficient. (Ask the bison, the solitaire, the passenger pigeon, and the vanished large mammals of the North American continent.) Any excess animals such as deer owe their very survival to agriculture and our raising of domestic livestock.
Yeah so. Seeing as we’re not relying on it, my action is sound and beneficial. If it weren’t those things perhaps I wouldn’t do it.
Why is this a problem?
But this is not what is happening The conditions under which I am hunting deer are ecologically sound.
There is currently an overpopulation of deer in my State relative to what conservationists beleive the environment can support. In the last few years they have sought to further reduce the population by extending more doe permits.
There is currently a shortage of predators relative to deer in my state.
If there was an excess of predators I would probably not hunt.
I did this in regards to the pheasant problem. Apparently a chicken virus wiped out a large number of pheasants. Though they still maintained a limited season, my neighbor advised me to not hunt pheasant on my property even though there was a healthy population on my farm. That way they could breed and spread.
So it is not that hunting is always bad or harmful to the environment. Like anything else it only becomes an issue when it is done irresponsibly.
No, it is true. You cannot logically compell someone to support a particular value unless they already support some aspect of it.
If someone were to insist that there is nothing bad about rape, there is nothing I can offer in the way of a logical argument as to why it, in and of itself, is wrong. I would have to give a moral argument, which itself would require some of the very moral assumptions our rapist is simply not granting. If you don’t accept that suffering, all other things equal, is wrong, then how could I convince you, even in theory? That IS the basic assumption.
Not only does it seems entirely arbitrary to me (self-interest? as an “ethic” in a certain sense perhaps, but no clear relation to wrong/right), but it seems like you didn’t even address suffering at all in that post. You discussed what you think is the proper usage of resources, not whether or not causing suffering to an animal for no particular reason other than your own amusement is itself wrong. I suppose you could argue that if you beat a dog a lot, it will attain some great inner character, but I doubt it. Minor rewards or punishments can train a dog: but cramming a chicken into a cage barely the size of its own body doesn’t teach it much that I can see.
Oh, for the record, I think hunting in the case of overpopulation is fine. A good marksman who eats his kill is both more humane and less wasteful than deer starving to death or being hit by a car.
Scylla, perhaps you could explain your dichotomy regarding humans and animals?
This seems entirely arbitrary to me. Why, then, confer rights to people if self-interest is all that matters? (You may argue that society itself provides a huge self-disinterest in causing suffering to humans called “jail”. However, one can also be imprisoned for systematic tortue or criminal neglect of animals, and so this alley is blind.)
That one can learn or “gain character” through suffering is undeniable, but I would question the idea that this makes it a good thing overall. An abused child might grow up to have great emotional resilience and mental toughness but this should surely not obscure the view that the world would be a better place if child abuse were absent from it.
I believe that ample opportunity to learn and grow via adversity exists even when we try our level best to minimise suffering. Any step towards justifying suffering because “it’s good for them” puts one in some very dubious company.
I was actually going to ask Scylla to clarify that particular line. I was thinking he may have meant that he doesn’t confer the same rights to animals. But none? By what basis do you feel no animals are right bearing entities whilst humans are? Are all humans and if not, how do you determine which ones get rights and which do not?
I’m sorry if this seems a hijack but I admire Scylla’s approach so far and hence am interested in seeing some background to his value system. I imagine many others would have taken the present overwhelming opposition quite personally and the thread would subsequently… degenerate.
I’d also like to see why rights are given to humans but not to animals; more specifically, why Scylla grants rights to the severely mentally damaged and to infants but not to animals, as such a conferral of rights cannot rely on enlightened self-interest arguments.
I would argue (and I think you would agree) that it is ‘morally better’, if you choose to eat meat, to kill the animal yourself rather than purchase an animal killed by another. I base this on the honesty; both with oneself, and the prey animal; necessary to take a life with your own hands. By distancing oneself from the death of the animal, one finds it easier to deny to ones-self any wrongs commited (if they are committed).
**
**
But if we eat enough vegetation to sustain us (and process enough land to build the farms), how much will be left for those herbivores to eat?
[/hijaak]
To the OP:
I think I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly, but to answer your question in a logical manner as best I can (and play a little DA). I for one am wholly for hunting as an activity, as long as it’s results are used to the best of the hunter’s ability, which I believe is the position you are coming from.
**
[/q]
The answer to both lie in the way we, both as humans and as animals are built.
As living animals, we have developed for a sole purpose, to spread our genes. When we die, we are no longer capable of doing so (duh). It is therefore, at least in healthy individuals capable of reproducing, against our natures to accept death.
Suffering goes along with death (though is only in a corelationship, not cause>effect as has already been mentioned) and is most often seen as a sign by an animal that death is immenent and every effort made to stop the suffering to prevent death. Flash forward this through the evolution of the human mind, and you get a creature (us), that is both hardwired to dislike suffering but philisophical enough to attribute this dislike to a moral rather than an impulse, and one capable (and again wired) to extend this impulse out to those around him.
I believe that death and suffering are no more ‘morally wrong’ than water, light, pleasure, air, and birth are. I.E. that they are subjects beyond moral distinction. However, as an animal, I find the reaction to avoid them for myself reflexive and nearly uncontrollable. As a thinking creature who is capable of seeing those around me as more than mere objects in a universe built for my own amusement, I find it hard not to extend that reaction of abhorrence, on one level or another, to those around me. That includes animals of a non-human nature.
Not only animals, but insects as well. Insects are living beings, and are worthy of just as much respect as humans, just ask the Save the Flies organization in Australia. Heck, why stop at animals and insects though, why not plants? Isn’t a carrot just as alive as we are? How do we know it doesn’t go through needless pain and suffering when we tear it out of it’s house, clean it and munch down, or is it ok, because we haven’t been able to measure a carrots feelings, so we don’t have any empathy for it? I feel for the carrot.
I’m still hunting for the mole in my back yard, and it will experience pain and suffering when I catch it, unless the trap kills it right away. Does the mole require the same respect as the files, carrots and humans?
Actually the last shouldve made more sense than the rest. Mayhaps I didnt word it quite right.
The world is full of causes nowadays. Animal rights, humane treatment of animals, ecological and environmental issues are all in the forefront now trying to get attention. Al lot of people support one cause or another and most people just dont want to hassle these fanatics. They dont care one way or the other if all of the cow is used. They dont care whether or not pigs live on dirt or on concrete. They are only slightly amused when they hear that turkeys drown in the rain.
But like all animals, mankind will avoid any form of suffering and that include being hounded by these new age causes. They would rather acquiese than stand up for what is right. People dont really give a rats ass about lab animals or some large game that happens to be dumb enuf to walk within range of a scoped rifle. But when these people are confronted, they would rather join in or not fight rather than be the target of these fanatics. Being PC is a form of intellectual cowardice that unfortunately a lot of people are adopting.
The most cynical comments here come from people who tink they have the right to look at animals as being there just for them to exploit.
Sorry… Complete disagreement here.
Animals have as much right to be around as you have.
And you have no right to make any animal suffer because you like that or because you think that is only normal or because you simply don’t care.
If you kill for food that is only natural if you are omnivore.
To kill or to make suffer because you have the arrogance to claim you can do that is inacceptable.
No, humans are not the “masters” of the earth. The human kind is responsible for its destruction and on top of it: the only animal capable of doing that an on top of that: willingly doing it.
Conclusion: Humans are the lowest creatures among the animals. They kill, torture and destroy just for the fun of it and fully aware of what they are doing.
I’ve never seen any other animal doing that.
Unless you define “fully aware” in a way that excludes all other animals besides humans, then I disagree – or haveyou never watched a housecat with a moth or a mouse?
Truth is, plenty of critters play, and predator critters will play with prey when they’re young. Mother nature is, and I forget who I’m quoting here, a mean old bitch.
But why is “natural” equivalent to “good”? I’d say that in discussions of what’s right and what’s wrong, what’s “natural” is a meaningless, and occasionally dangerous, red herring.
Just because you can’t do it doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
In fact, it’s very simple.
It is generally against my interests to be raped. If I condone the action upon other moral players in a society, I run the risk of being raped myself. I have a strong self-interest in a society in which I am not subject to sudden violence . Therefore it is bad and must be condemned.
Gest:
Animals don’t have rights because they are not capable of moral action.
Extending rights to an animal is about as useful as giving a Rolex to a fish.
Dan:
You use that word “can’t” pretty easily, and referring to the most innocuous things. “You can’t add two and two together!”
Infants and mentally damaged adults are moral players. They are just not currently capable of moral action. It is in my specific self-interest to confer and respect the rights of both these parties, specifically because it is to my advantage to be in a society where my rights will be respected if I become incapacitated.
I confer rights to infants because it is in my interests to be in a society where my children’s rights are respected, and because they represent either potential, or incapacitated moral players (depending on how I want to look at it.)
This is basically sophomore philosophy stuff. Social contract and all,
C’mon Dan. You know this.
The only wild animals I’ve seen ‘play’ with their food before killing it are either doing so to train their young or the animal doesn’t know better.
In the first instance I have seen killer whales injure a seal so the yound whales can ‘hunt’ the seal and learn to attack. I’ve seen lions do the same thing (gotta love Animal Planet).
In the second instance I have seen (personally in this case) house cats play with a prey animal (say a mouse) but most house cats don’t know the mouse is food. To them it is a nifty toy that they want to play with. Certainly the cat’s prey instinct is being tickled but unless the cat was taught by another cat (probably its mom) it just doesn’t know that it is supposed to kill and eat the mouse. From a natural standpoint it only stands to reason to kill quickly. A predator doesn’t want to take the chance its meal might escape by playing with it (or another predator being attracted by the ruckus taking its kill). It is absolutely in the predator’s interest to make as quick a job of killing as it can so it can get on with actually eating and get out of there.
Scylla:
I’d be interested in your answer to the following hypotheticals.
Why did you take your dog to the vet to have it euthanized (as opposed to either shooting it yourself or setting it free in some isolated area)?
If you had a dog that started suffering from a debilitating disease, say cancer, that was causing the dog pain would you have the dog put down or let nature take its course?
If you were driving down a seldom travelled road and saw a deer lying at the side of the road clearly injured (such that even a non-medical person would know this deer is done for…just a matter of time) would you keep driving or would you stop and kill the deer? (Assume you have your hunting rifle(s) with you and assume, for whatever reason, the deer will be of no value to you and you will leave it there.)
The above hypotheticals may seem to have obvious answers but I am having trouble seeing how the ‘obvious’ answers would fit in with your philosophy. In the hunting thread I was impressed at your philosophical outlook on hunting and then you completely lost me with your support (or at least refusal to condemn) canned hunting (for my money it flew in the face of what you espoused but that is probably best taken up in the other thread). This thread further confuses me hence the hypothetical questions above. Hopefully you will explain the reasoning behind whatever answers you choose to give so we (or at least I) can understand better where you’re coming from. I’m not trying to ‘bust’ you or anything. I may or may not agree with you but it’s cool that you post in a sincere fashion (i.e. not a dragonfly98 fashion) and I hope it continues (which is to say I am sincere and not being a troll in this case…I hope it is ok with board policy if I apply the ‘troll’ label to myself).
Whatever the reason for the “play” I bet the prey item being played with is very unappreciative of their current status as plaything/food and are really really stressed out about it.
OH! IANScylla but can I play??
Because it is illegal to do either. There are stringent laws against cruelty (shooting) and Abandonment (setting free in woods) not to mention the leash laws, environmental impact on releasing domestic pets into the wild and the pooper scooper laws…
I would have it put down but only because my dog is elevated in my mind as a companion. An anthropomorphized creature kept for my souls benefit. I treat it better than most animals. If i found a stray with the same condition of imminent death, it would merit a call to the local animal control for pickup. Wht they do with it is not any of my concern afterwards.
If I was driving around in my Porshe Targe and I happened upon a dying deer. I would stop and take out my Remington from my gun rack (?) and take it out of its misery. Another call to the local animal control for pickup. I aint strappin that beast on my new Porshe! Course Ifn I was smart and I is. Id be calling coosin bubba to haul ass and pick up this here deer and seel it and we’s split the profits 60-40. Bubba is none too smart.