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Many animals would happily eat us. So if animals can think, does that mean that they've made a conscious decision to eat other animals? And if so, why are we wr

Many animals would happily eat us. So if animals can think, does that mean that they've made a conscious decision to eat other animals? And if so, why are we wrong for making that some decision?

shawndumas 11y ago
Benjamin Franklin became a vegetarian at the age of 16 but gave it up when he was on a boat and someone was frying fish and it smelled delicious. When the fish was cut open Franklin could see smaller fish inside: "…when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs: Then thought I, if you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you. So I din’d upon Cod very heartily and continu’d to eat with other People...”
- shasta 11y ago
  The way I heard it, old Ben saw the little fishes inside the stomach of the big fish and decided it should be OK to kill and eat the fisherman.
- SilasX 11y ago
  And so when intelligent aliens come to the earth, they can use similar justifications to eat us. (Or more realistically, enslave or take our stuff.)
ggreer 11y ago
That argument proves too much. It justifies eating cannibals, which nobody considers as acceptable as eating animals.
saiko-chriskun 11y ago
This might apply to old-fashioned hunter-gatherer tribes. This in no way applies to modern day animal agriculture.
rosser 11y ago
I don't think the comparison is particularly valid; other animals don't exactly subject one another to industrial-scale murder. I would be much more inclined to agree with you if every animal that a human ate, it killed, cleaned, and prepared itself.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  > I would be much more inclined to agree with you if every animal that a human ate, it killed, cleaned, and prepared itself. It shouldn't matter. Whether 7 billion people all kill and prepare their own animals, or most of them outsource it to the few running the meat industry, it's more-less the same amount of animals killed, for the very same purpose.
  - rosser 11y ago
    I disagree. Numbers are irrelevant. The GP's contention was that if non-human animals think, then maybe they're making a conscious decision to consume the flesh of another creature. We, buying meat at the store, are radically disconnected from the life we're consuming. Killing the animal you're eating is a visceral experience — literally, there are viscera involved. I submit that we would be much less sanguine about meat if we were more involved in its consumption than, "purchase, remove shrink-wrap, heat."
chc 11y ago
Many humans would kill you sooner than talk to you. Would I be wrong for making that same decision? I really think so. The lowest common denominator is not much of a moral compass. To quote one of my favorite sci-fi books: "The difference between raman (human-like aliens) and varelse (mere animals, with whom we cannot relate) is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging. When we declare an alien species to be raman, it does not mean that they have passed a threshold of moral maturity. It means that we have."
moskie 11y ago
Other animals don't have reasonable alternatives for survival. They are not intelligent enough, like us, to engage in farming practices that would allow them to survive otherwise. They also don't have the faculties to have a nuanced understanding of right and wrong. And even if what those animals do is "wrong," two wrongs don't make a right. There are a great many things that make the idea you've presented unsound.
- Amezarak 11y ago
  > They also don't have the faculties to have a nuanced understanding of right and wrong. Let's not put our year 2015 Western ideas of 'right and wrong' on a pedestal as the objective moral truth. They may not have your understanding of right and wrong, but they do have an understanding of right and wrong. To quote Nietzsche, morality is just herd instinct in the individual. It's no coincidence that though human moralities have differed incredibly - you have everything from total pacifism to an obligation to perform ritual sacrifice on other human beings - it pretty much always reflects, to greater or lesser degree, the basic principle of in-group altrusim, which is probably genetically encoded at some level. (Interestingly, in the past few hundred years, Western societies have made the "in-group" increasingly inclusive. Perhaps we will one day include animals more than we do.) Animals, particularly more social animals, certainly have 'moral' instincts (that is, a herd instinct.) Instinct and thought are not opposites, they're just gradations on a scale.
  - moskie 11y ago
    > They may not have your understanding of right and wrong, but they do have an understanding of right and wrong. Right, and I suppose I wasn't terribly clear in my wording, but I intended to communicate that all (or, most) animals have some sense of right and wrong, it's just that I believe we are capable of having a more "nuanced" one. Which, in my view, indicates that our actions should be held to a higher standard than that of animals. In the same sense that a person with mental disabilities that commits a crime might be held to a different standard than the average person, animals should be given some slack for similar reasons. Anyway, I essentially agree with you, and I advocate for the idea you mentioned, of increasing the inclusivity of our ethics.
sametmax 11y ago
Firstly: just because something behaves in a way doesn't mean we should do it too, or not. It's not relevant to the decision making process, as we are not eating them for what they do, but for what they bring to us. We are intelligent creatures capables of decisions based on something else than instincts, and this should be one of them. Secondly: our technology allow us a variety of diets and ways of life that the animal primitive way of living does not. This does not mean you should be vegetarian. I am, and I would certainly not enforce it on anybody. But if you take the decision to be veggie or not, it should be from the perspective of a modern, educated human in the context of our science and society.
- rosser 11y ago
  just because something behaves in a way doesn't mean we should do it too, or not. Oh, come on. The behavior of a hyena should totally be taken as normative for humans.
  - phantarch 11y ago
    I'd challenge that buried beneath the sarcasm, there's a bit of truth in saying that humans are more animalistic than we like to admit. Although we have the advantage of being able to reason about our more basic instincts and drives doesn't mean they aren't there. All too often people fall into the trap of viewing humans as distinctly separate from all other animals and not simply at one end of a continuum of development.
carapace 11y ago
As the fellow from New Guinea said to the missionary, "If God didn't want us to eat people, he wouldn't have made us out of meat."
drumdance 11y ago
They may eat humans, but they won't breed them and force them to live in horrific enclosures.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- maxxxxx 11y ago
  I don't eat meat but I am OK with people hunting animals for eating (not for "sports"). Same for cows living on a pasture until one day they get slaughtered. But industrial farming is just horrific.

Many animals would happily eat us. So if animals can think, does that mean that they've made a conscious decision to eat other animals? And if so, why are we wrong for making that some decision?

shawndumas 11y ago

Benjamin Franklin became a vegetarian at the age of 16 but gave it up when he was on a boat and someone was frying fish and it smelled delicious. When the fish was cut open Franklin could see smaller fish inside: "…when the Fish were opened, I saw smaller Fish taken out of their Stomachs: Then thought I, if you eat one another, I don’t see why we mayn’t eat you. So I din’d upon Cod very heartily and continu’d to eat with other People...”

shasta 11y ago
The way I heard it, old Ben saw the little fishes inside the stomach of the big fish and decided it should be OK to kill and eat the fisherman.
SilasX 11y ago
And so when intelligent aliens come to the earth, they can use similar justifications to eat us. (Or more realistically, enslave or take our stuff.)

ggreer 11y ago

That argument proves too much. It justifies eating cannibals, which nobody considers as acceptable as eating animals.

saiko-chriskun 11y ago

This might apply to old-fashioned hunter-gatherer tribes. This in no way applies to modern day animal agriculture.

rosser 11y ago

I don't think the comparison is particularly valid; other animals don't exactly subject one another to industrial-scale murder. I would be much more inclined to agree with you if every animal that a human ate, it killed, cleaned, and prepared itself.

TeMPOraL 11y ago
> I would be much more inclined to agree with you if every animal that a human ate, it killed, cleaned, and prepared itself. It shouldn't matter. Whether 7 billion people all kill and prepare their own animals, or most of them outsource it to the few running the meat industry, it's more-less the same amount of animals killed, for the very same purpose.
- rosser 11y ago
  I disagree. Numbers are irrelevant. The GP's contention was that if non-human animals think, then maybe they're making a conscious decision to consume the flesh of another creature. We, buying meat at the store, are radically disconnected from the life we're consuming. Killing the animal you're eating is a visceral experience — literally, there are viscera involved. I submit that we would be much less sanguine about meat if we were more involved in its consumption than, "purchase, remove shrink-wrap, heat."

chc 11y ago

Many humans would kill you sooner than talk to you. Would I be wrong for making that same decision? I really think so. The lowest common denominator is not much of a moral compass. To quote one of my favorite sci-fi books: "The difference between raman (human-like aliens) and varelse (mere animals, with whom we cannot relate) is not in the creature judged, but in the creature judging. When we declare an alien species to be raman, it does not mean that they have passed a threshold of moral maturity. It means that we have."

moskie 11y ago

Other animals don't have reasonable alternatives for survival. They are not intelligent enough, like us, to engage in farming practices that would allow them to survive otherwise. They also don't have the faculties to have a nuanced understanding of right and wrong. And even if what those animals do is "wrong," two wrongs don't make a right. There are a great many things that make the idea you've presented unsound.

Amezarak 11y ago
> They also don't have the faculties to have a nuanced understanding of right and wrong. Let's not put our year 2015 Western ideas of 'right and wrong' on a pedestal as the objective moral truth. They may not have your understanding of right and wrong, but they do have an understanding of right and wrong. To quote Nietzsche, morality is just herd instinct in the individual. It's no coincidence that though human moralities have differed incredibly - you have everything from total pacifism to an obligation to perform ritual sacrifice on other human beings - it pretty much always reflects, to greater or lesser degree, the basic principle of in-group altrusim, which is probably genetically encoded at some level. (Interestingly, in the past few hundred years, Western societies have made the "in-group" increasingly inclusive. Perhaps we will one day include animals more than we do.) Animals, particularly more social animals, certainly have 'moral' instincts (that is, a herd instinct.) Instinct and thought are not opposites, they're just gradations on a scale.
- moskie 11y ago
  > They may not have your understanding of right and wrong, but they do have an understanding of right and wrong. Right, and I suppose I wasn't terribly clear in my wording, but I intended to communicate that all (or, most) animals have some sense of right and wrong, it's just that I believe we are capable of having a more "nuanced" one. Which, in my view, indicates that our actions should be held to a higher standard than that of animals. In the same sense that a person with mental disabilities that commits a crime might be held to a different standard than the average person, animals should be given some slack for similar reasons. Anyway, I essentially agree with you, and I advocate for the idea you mentioned, of increasing the inclusivity of our ethics.

sametmax 11y ago

Firstly: just because something behaves in a way doesn't mean we should do it too, or not. It's not relevant to the decision making process, as we are not eating them for what they do, but for what they bring to us. We are intelligent creatures capables of decisions based on something else than instincts, and this should be one of them. Secondly: our technology allow us a variety of diets and ways of life that the animal primitive way of living does not. This does not mean you should be vegetarian. I am, and I would certainly not enforce it on anybody. But if you take the decision to be veggie or not, it should be from the perspective of a modern, educated human in the context of our science and society.

rosser 11y ago
just because something behaves in a way doesn't mean we should do it too, or not. Oh, come on. The behavior of a hyena should totally be taken as normative for humans.
- phantarch 11y ago
  I'd challenge that buried beneath the sarcasm, there's a bit of truth in saying that humans are more animalistic than we like to admit. Although we have the advantage of being able to reason about our more basic instincts and drives doesn't mean they aren't there. All too often people fall into the trap of viewing humans as distinctly separate from all other animals and not simply at one end of a continuum of development.

carapace 11y ago

As the fellow from New Guinea said to the missionary, "If God didn't want us to eat people, he wouldn't have made us out of meat."

drumdance 11y ago

They may eat humans, but they won't breed them and force them to live in horrific enclosures.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
maxxxxx 11y ago
I don't eat meat but I am OK with people hunting animals for eating (not for "sports"). Same for cows living on a pasture until one day they get slaughtered. But industrial farming is just horrific.