Dear Vegans: Do you care about animal suffering *per se*, or only animal suffering caused by yourself?
Because this distinction is crucial in deciding the relative ethical-ness of a couple of things. For the record, I'm an omnivore who supports animal cruelty legislation but buys whichever eggs are cheapest, but this would be a more interesting discussion if it wasn't about me, I think.
Let's start with hunting. I would say ethical hunting vastly decreases total animal suffering and increases their happiness when it takes place in an environment without natural predators. Even leaving aside the environmental damage and danger to traffic of an out of control deer population, the starvation is a significant evil. Against that, living an life freely and naturally and then being swiftly struck down in the prime of life doesn't seem so bad.
Grass fed beef also comes to mind. The real life numbers probably don't work on this one, but if, hypothetically, more voles were killed/ more suffering caused by harvesting machines for a vegan diet than the small number of cows killed to provide meat, would you countenance beef eating?
Even more hypothetically, (please address the core issue rather than picking at the implausibility) if Obama offered to switch all of the US governments catering to vegan cuisine and stop subsidising factory farming on the condition that you personally ate meat every day/ took a job in a slaughterhouse/ something else that made little difference in the scheme of things but required you personally to get your hands dirty, would you take it?
tl:dr Is the priority your own purity, or the total cruelty/ suffering/ needless death in the world?
Posted Feb 1, 2011, 11:13 PM UTC
All life is suffering. People often excuse killing as "reducing suffering". That's why I think it's important not to focus on "reducing suffering" but rather on 1. not causing it ourselves (as we are only responsible for our own actions) and 2. not violating others' rights, regardless of whether we think doing so would reduce their suffering.
For example, re: #2, what's the difference between hunting starving deer and killing starving humans to "reduce their suffering"? If it is such a great mercy to the dear, why don't we consider it good for the humans, too? I don't believe it is our place to kill either. And if we truly care about their welfare and want to help, there are other options. (Fyi, hunters often cause the problems they say they're trying to "solve". Lots of money goes into maintaining those large populations of deer. Hunting itself, as usually practiced, often increases populations very quickly because of there is then so much more food per deer that deer breeding goes into overdrive.)
As for your other hypotheticals, again, I am responsible for my actions. And I do believe that knowingly, intentionally, and unnecessarily killing animals is wrong for me to do. What would you do if a serial murderer told you they'd murder 20 people if you didn't murder one? Would it be a matter of "personal purity" for you to refuse to kill someone in that situation?
As for those eggs, save your money. All egg production is cruel. Don't buy any eggs. They are easy to substitute in recipes (or just avoid).
Eggs were an example of how I'm not too fussed about contributing to animal cruelty, I also eat plenty of meat: not making too much distinction between beef and lamb which around here are raised fairly humanely, and pork and chicken which tends to be pretty rough.
I place great value on the rights of people, for other animals I'm less fussed about rights than quality of life. This is probably the key difference between myself and a lot of people in this thread. This is why I feel I can be consistent in abhorring the idea of culling humans, but support culling deer.
For the serial killer the problem is what happens afterwards: A scenario where I can ensure they keep their word is so absurd it messes with our intuitions. For the record, I would kill the killer to save 20, I'd have to think about whether to kill an innocent.
In NZ deer (and pigs and rabbits and possums etc.) are an introduced pest. At carrying capacity they overbrowse unadapted plants and cause erosion and ruin landscapes, out-competing the remaining native species. For protection of biodiversity alone I'm happy to hunt deer. When you add in that it also probably leads to fewer deaths than the collateral damage from mechanised harvesting, the fact that's myself doing the killing and not some anonymous farmer on a tractor inadvertently doing it in my name becomes insignificant.
So what exactly is it that makes people worthy of rights? Let's consider the right not to be intentionally hurt by someone without proper justification. Surely, the foremost relevant factor in determining whether an individual should be granted such a right would be that individual's ability to feel pain. Nutrition is not a valid justification for inflicting such pain, since we have alternate ways to fulfill our nutritional requirements without cause this harm. The pleasure or convenience we get from consuming animals is also clearly a frivolous justification. Self-defense or survival could be proper justifications. They are rare occurrences at best. How do you justify your intentional infliction of pain on animals?
Well, if it makes you feel better, I've thought at some length on this. The rambling nature of this post betrays that it's as much a discussion with myself as a response to you. I've previously been distinctly unimpressed by Singer's attitudes towards disabled humans, but it's hard to think of relevant distinctions between humans and animals that don't also exclude infants and such, unless I draw a line under man's rationality or similar and protect infants and such by reference to the feelings of "full" humans like I just did for cannibalism. But this is unsatisfying.
If I might introspect, rather than argue my case, it could well just be my post-Christian society inculcating me with the idea that man is a species apart, and animals are there for us to use as we see fit.
I found this quote while mining the relevant Wikipedia articles looking for hard ammo:
And that might just be it. I feel bad about the cruelty of factory farming, but not bad enough to stop enjoying the fruits of it. I'll find a more satisfying intellectual reason for it, but that's ultimately what it comes down to. My token offering against hypocrisy is that I try to occasionally immerse myself in the process of turning animals into food so that I'm at least not guilty of outsourcing what I'm not willing to do to others, although various ideals of masculinity and independence and suchlike probably have more to do with that.
tl;dr: I do care about pain (not death) caused to animals, but not enough to modify my diet. I'll support industry-wide changes though.
You have found the flaw with Singer. He is neither for human nor animal rights, despite sometimes being mistakenly portrayed as the "father of animal rights" (one of PETA's epithets for him, but then they are the animal rights group that isn't).
As I said above, though, we can't talk sincerely about quality of life when we are treating animals as our property. To just support industry changes but to not abstain from animal products is to try to pass the buck while being complicit in the unnecessary and inherently cruel system of animal exploitation. The industry will continue to exploit animals and no matter the size of the cages, it is still wrong.
The difference between homo sapiens and other animals is not one of kind but degree. We may be better at certain often arbitrary tests, but other animals do better at others. Many non homo sapien animals do show signs of reasoning, of communication, of moral thought even. We are not alone or set apart from nature.
The reason why you care more about your pleasure than another's pain is simple: it is your please, their pain. If it was reversed, you'd care a great deal more. At the end of the day, though, you must ask yourself whether you want to be that type of person who knowingly harms others for your pleasure just because you can get away with it -- especially when veganism is, I assure you, no great martyrdom. We do not ask that you forgo all pleasure, rather just take the time to find other sources.
Why are their lives less valuable than native species? Are non-native human New Zealanders' lives worth less than those of the natives?
What quality of life can there be without the recognition of rights? If we (humans or animals in general) do not have the basic right to our own bodies and the lives we live in them, then no matter how we are treated we are still slaves. And how humane is that? How humane can it be to be raised to be the slave and dinner of your owner?
There are many who would have you think that :p
But seriously, this argument is more a biodiversity one than a suffering one: I place a large value on the continued existence of NZ's endemic species, which outweighs concerns over suffering and death caused in that pursuit.
Slavery of fellow men is wrong because it denies their fundamental equality. Animals are not our equals, so I am happy to use them for my own ends.
Well, I don't. I believe the rights of individuals are more important the status of this or that group. They're all going to die, yes, but we don't have to be the ones intentionally killing them just because we prefer one species over another.
Well, it's very convenient for us humans to say that non-human animals are not our equals. (I won't even to get into "Equals in what?") Of course we are going to say that -- of course we are going to value our lives and those of our loved ones and our communities more. If they were the judges (and perhaps they do judge us sometimes), do you think they would agree with our self-serving assessment?
But let's just say for a minute that non-homo sapiens are definitely not our equals. Would it matter? Is it o.k. to enslave and use and kill someone just because they are not your equal? How superior a being do you have to be to have the right to own other sentient beings? Who gives you that power and why and how?