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I know this comment won't be accepted too well here, but as people become vegetarians/vegans even, but more importantly start seeing animals as other beings wit

I know this comment won't be accepted too well here, but as people become vegetarians/vegans even, but more importantly start seeing animals as other beings with souls - it becomes clear how barbaric our society STILL is. Again, only visible to some people that have rejected some pretty common norms. It is interesting because in those times it was politically and socially acceptable to be OK with other humans being sacrificed. A man explained how he hit a deer today, and I just filled with sadness, but his immediate POV was getting his car fixed, his tire no longer aligned and how his drive is wobbly. As a species we really don't have a built in moral system, it's nearly 100% socially driven morals.

protonimitate 8y ago
>> As a species we really don't have a built in moral system, it's nearly 100% socially driven morals. Our built is moral system is biology. We as a species are omnivores which means we have a predisposition to be O.K. with killing and processing game for food. I think its more of a miracle we are able to put our personal morals above biology and opt out of it.
roel_v 8y ago
What is a 'soul'? What animals have one?
- coding123 8y ago
  Apologies for that terminology, I personally believe in that, so for anyone else, scratch that note and replace with (start seeing animals that have the same right to live here as humans) and being more pedantic, if you believe humans being animals, scratch the distinction, and replace with animals of the species of human. I'm sure I'm offending more people in trying to fix this comment lol.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - red75prime 8y ago
    Extending the right to live to cattle, will quickly kill large part of them off, as businesses will stop providing food and care to them with no expected returns and the cattle isn't adapted enough to survive in the wild. Extending the right to live to wild animals is essentially void (if we aren't going to exterminate all the carnivores) and will probably cause a couple of ecological disasters as population control hunting will be off limits too.
  - roel_v 8y ago
    Oh I'm not offended, I just don't understand the concept, and as it seems that you have an at least somewhat defined understanding (or maybe as you call it 'belief'), I thought maybe you could explain. Of course I realize that there are many people who see some sort of relation between 'living creatures' and 'souls', but I rarely find someone who wants to explain in any depth (well, organized religions have large bodies of dogma that explain the details, but I tend to find them unsatisfying as at some point they rely on 'because we say so'; and apart from that, I don't think your argument comes from any mainstream religion's theology anyway). What I mean is - why do some living creatures have 'souls' (and, I think I can conclude from your argument, should not be killed by others? Maybe only not by others with souls? Not sure if there are living beings without souls?) Like, insects - do they have souls? And micro-organisms, say, fungi?
coginawheel 8y ago
Do you believe all other forms of life have souls? I'm curious because you made the vegetarian and vegan argument which I always find interesting. I was raised Hindu (now atheist) and the religion has a belief that all forms of life have a soul and have consciousness. As a consequence of this you accept that in order to live, your life relies on extinguishing other forms of life. I always find it weird that when people talk about diet, animal rights, and souls, there is an arbitrary distinction between animals and the rest of organism (plants, fungi, bacteria, etc.). The concept of a soul is an abstract non-scientific belief, so given its an abstract concept with no scientific basis, why do we make a distinction between one form of life and another?
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Because I don't want to be eaten if I become mentally disabled in an accident, but I want to eat things that could perform equivalently on some tests.
  - coginawheel 8y ago
    I don't understand your comment. Can you explain further?
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      In the west, the generally accepted public narrative is that only humans have souls, not other organisms. And whether or not it is acceptable to eat something is frequently more or less tied to intelligence. I really enjoyed your above comment. I sometimes give push back to the vegan moral superiority stance where they act like eating animals is evil, but eating plants is totally fine. I tend to view all organisms as "having a soul" so to speak and I don't think there is anything inherently morally superior from that perspective in eating only plants, not animals. (I think there are some other bases for arguing that it is morally superior wrt to preventing war, etc.) But when you see these arguments in public (among "westerners," for lack of a better word), they are almost always based on the idea that plants don't have brains, thus they don't have awareness, so this somehow makes it not a problem to kill them that we might live, where killing animals is posited to be a bad thing. If you take that argument to its logical conclusion, than perhaps it is morally acceptable to eat other people if they are in a vegetative state. It is one of my objections to such framing.
isoskeles 8y ago
I saw a car hit a deer on I-95 at least a decade ago. It was horrifying, and it looked like the passengers could have died. They were okay, but the level of wreckage and the fact that it happened on a highway made it clear how dangerous that can be. So it’s interesting to read you not really caring that this guy went through a potentially horrifying event, and then judging him for not treating the story of his own experience with the same emotions you felt. None of this is to say anyone wants deers to be hit by cars. My question is how would you make this different? That guy being sad isn’t going to bring the deer back to life, and it’s not going to prevent the next deer from being hit by a car either. And going vegan won’t prevent it. Why does his emotional behavior reaction matter enough to make a judgment on him?
topspin 8y ago
> but more importantly start seeing animals as other beings with souls Let's stipulate that non-human animals have a "soul," whatever you believe a soul to be. How to you judge the soul of, say, a raccoon; a creature than has been called the psychopath of the animal world? A raccoon is never happier than when it's slaughtering a nest full of cute, helpless babies. Red-tailed hawks are such a menace to other species that crows make it their business to hound these magnificent raptors incessantly, injuring and killing when possible. Is there a place for these creatures in your moral paradigm? What solution do you offer for the utterly ubiquitous violence that has been occurring among all these "souls" for hundreds of millions of years? We manage deer populations, factoring in hunting and other predation, disease, losses to automobiles, etc., and we thus have stable populations of deer. There is no rational reason to indulge some great sadness when a car hits a deer.
- mike00632 8y ago
  Raccoons don't have the capacity for moral judgement but humans do. It doesn't make sense to think of a raccoon's actions as a part of a moral framework but it does for humans. In fact, we already do. What vegans/vegetarians are doing is extending that logic to be more consistent in our diet.
  - nradov 8y ago
    Prove to us that raccoons have no capacity for moral judgment. Those clear dividing lines between humans and other animals are in reality not supported by much evidence.
    - mike00632 8y ago
      "Prove to us that raccoons have no capacity for moral judgment." Is that something I really need to prove? My argument is that we SHOULD make moral judgement about human behavior regardless of what raccoons do. I agree that there is not much difference between humans and others animals if we choose to examine it.
      - 8y ago
thedailymail 8y ago
I am not a vegan/vegetarian, but I do think that future generations will view meat-eating as immoral and see their ancestors as barbaric for eating animals. We already see this in the West with respect to limited categories of animals (whales, dolphins, dogs, cats). Probably the shift will involve a philosophical change in assigning moral status based on ability to experience pain (rather than the higher bar of self-awareness/higher consciousness) coupled with advances in food technology (including cellular agriculture/cultured "meat").
- learc83 8y ago
  >based on ability to experience pain (rather than the higher bar of self-awareness/higher consciousness) But without talking about consciousness what does experience pain mean. Insects respond to and attempt to avoid certain stimuli, but that's not really the same thing.
  - XalvinX 8y ago
    Who is to say what is going on inside an insect's head? Did anyone ever talk with one?
Fnoord 8y ago
The existence of a "soul" (or "light" or "sol" or whatever variation) isn't scientifically established. What is scientifically established is the existence of a CNS which means the species is able to experience pain. Mussels, clams, and mushrooms do not have a CNS, and one could argue they are therefore vegan.

protonimitate 8y ago

>> As a species we really don't have a built in moral system, it's nearly 100% socially driven morals. Our built is moral system is biology. We as a species are omnivores which means we have a predisposition to be O.K. with killing and processing game for food. I think its more of a miracle we are able to put our personal morals above biology and opt out of it.

roel_v 8y ago

What is a 'soul'? What animals have one?

coding123 8y ago
Apologies for that terminology, I personally believe in that, so for anyone else, scratch that note and replace with (start seeing animals that have the same right to live here as humans) and being more pedantic, if you believe humans being animals, scratch the distinction, and replace with animals of the species of human. I'm sure I'm offending more people in trying to fix this comment lol.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- red75prime 8y ago
  Extending the right to live to cattle, will quickly kill large part of them off, as businesses will stop providing food and care to them with no expected returns and the cattle isn't adapted enough to survive in the wild. Extending the right to live to wild animals is essentially void (if we aren't going to exterminate all the carnivores) and will probably cause a couple of ecological disasters as population control hunting will be off limits too.
- roel_v 8y ago
  Oh I'm not offended, I just don't understand the concept, and as it seems that you have an at least somewhat defined understanding (or maybe as you call it 'belief'), I thought maybe you could explain. Of course I realize that there are many people who see some sort of relation between 'living creatures' and 'souls', but I rarely find someone who wants to explain in any depth (well, organized religions have large bodies of dogma that explain the details, but I tend to find them unsatisfying as at some point they rely on 'because we say so'; and apart from that, I don't think your argument comes from any mainstream religion's theology anyway). What I mean is - why do some living creatures have 'souls' (and, I think I can conclude from your argument, should not be killed by others? Maybe only not by others with souls? Not sure if there are living beings without souls?) Like, insects - do they have souls? And micro-organisms, say, fungi?

coginawheel 8y ago

Do you believe all other forms of life have souls? I'm curious because you made the vegetarian and vegan argument which I always find interesting. I was raised Hindu (now atheist) and the religion has a belief that all forms of life have a soul and have consciousness. As a consequence of this you accept that in order to live, your life relies on extinguishing other forms of life. I always find it weird that when people talk about diet, animal rights, and souls, there is an arbitrary distinction between animals and the rest of organism (plants, fungi, bacteria, etc.). The concept of a soul is an abstract non-scientific belief, so given its an abstract concept with no scientific basis, why do we make a distinction between one form of life and another?

whatshisface 8y ago
Because I don't want to be eaten if I become mentally disabled in an accident, but I want to eat things that could perform equivalently on some tests.
- coginawheel 8y ago
  I don't understand your comment. Can you explain further?
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    In the west, the generally accepted public narrative is that only humans have souls, not other organisms. And whether or not it is acceptable to eat something is frequently more or less tied to intelligence. I really enjoyed your above comment. I sometimes give push back to the vegan moral superiority stance where they act like eating animals is evil, but eating plants is totally fine. I tend to view all organisms as "having a soul" so to speak and I don't think there is anything inherently morally superior from that perspective in eating only plants, not animals. (I think there are some other bases for arguing that it is morally superior wrt to preventing war, etc.) But when you see these arguments in public (among "westerners," for lack of a better word), they are almost always based on the idea that plants don't have brains, thus they don't have awareness, so this somehow makes it not a problem to kill them that we might live, where killing animals is posited to be a bad thing. If you take that argument to its logical conclusion, than perhaps it is morally acceptable to eat other people if they are in a vegetative state. It is one of my objections to such framing.

isoskeles 8y ago

I saw a car hit a deer on I-95 at least a decade ago. It was horrifying, and it looked like the passengers could have died. They were okay, but the level of wreckage and the fact that it happened on a highway made it clear how dangerous that can be. So it’s interesting to read you not really caring that this guy went through a potentially horrifying event, and then judging him for not treating the story of his own experience with the same emotions you felt. None of this is to say anyone wants deers to be hit by cars. My question is how would you make this different? That guy being sad isn’t going to bring the deer back to life, and it’s not going to prevent the next deer from being hit by a car either. And going vegan won’t prevent it. Why does his emotional behavior reaction matter enough to make a judgment on him?

topspin 8y ago

> but more importantly start seeing animals as other beings with souls Let's stipulate that non-human animals have a "soul," whatever you believe a soul to be. How to you judge the soul of, say, a raccoon; a creature than has been called the psychopath of the animal world? A raccoon is never happier than when it's slaughtering a nest full of cute, helpless babies. Red-tailed hawks are such a menace to other species that crows make it their business to hound these magnificent raptors incessantly, injuring and killing when possible. Is there a place for these creatures in your moral paradigm? What solution do you offer for the utterly ubiquitous violence that has been occurring among all these "souls" for hundreds of millions of years? We manage deer populations, factoring in hunting and other predation, disease, losses to automobiles, etc., and we thus have stable populations of deer. There is no rational reason to indulge some great sadness when a car hits a deer.

mike00632 8y ago
Raccoons don't have the capacity for moral judgement but humans do. It doesn't make sense to think of a raccoon's actions as a part of a moral framework but it does for humans. In fact, we already do. What vegans/vegetarians are doing is extending that logic to be more consistent in our diet.
- nradov 8y ago
  Prove to us that raccoons have no capacity for moral judgment. Those clear dividing lines between humans and other animals are in reality not supported by much evidence.
  - mike00632 8y ago
    "Prove to us that raccoons have no capacity for moral judgment." Is that something I really need to prove? My argument is that we SHOULD make moral judgement about human behavior regardless of what raccoons do. I agree that there is not much difference between humans and others animals if we choose to examine it.
    - 8y ago

thedailymail 8y ago

I am not a vegan/vegetarian, but I do think that future generations will view meat-eating as immoral and see their ancestors as barbaric for eating animals. We already see this in the West with respect to limited categories of animals (whales, dolphins, dogs, cats). Probably the shift will involve a philosophical change in assigning moral status based on ability to experience pain (rather than the higher bar of self-awareness/higher consciousness) coupled with advances in food technology (including cellular agriculture/cultured "meat").

learc83 8y ago
>based on ability to experience pain (rather than the higher bar of self-awareness/higher consciousness) But without talking about consciousness what does experience pain mean. Insects respond to and attempt to avoid certain stimuli, but that's not really the same thing.
- XalvinX 8y ago
  Who is to say what is going on inside an insect's head? Did anyone ever talk with one?

Fnoord 8y ago

The existence of a "soul" (or "light" or "sol" or whatever variation) isn't scientifically established. What is scientifically established is the existence of a CNS which means the species is able to experience pain. Mussels, clams, and mushrooms do not have a CNS, and one could argue they are therefore vegan.