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Bears also don't have any emotional strife about killing cubs to increase their odds of mating. Perhaps looking to them for moral guidance is not the best idea.

• JackFr 7y ago
  But that’s part of the point. We owe animals humane treatment because of what we are, not because of what they are. To be clear, holding tigers and bears to a different moral standard is human exceptionalism. I’m fine with that, but many people seem to feel we should treat animals humanely because they’re the same as us.
  • MockObject 7y ago
    Either animals are moral entities, or they're not. If they are, we owe them moral treatment, but then they are subject to being held accountable for their own moral failings. If they're not, then they can't be said to accrue any moral failings, and we don't owe them moral treatment.
    • mkane848 7y ago
      Hard disagreement, if something can feel pain and suffering then we should be striving to overcome the need to inflict that on them. Also, just because we don't "owe" it to them doesn't mean we shouldn't. Being nice or doing good in the world isn't something that should be earned by the recipients, it should be the default for how we treat each other if we're REALLY trying to progress and move forward as sentient beings.
      • MockObject 7y ago
        > it should be the default for how we treat each other What should be included in the set of "each other"? You're suggesting we include entities that are totally amoral, who happily destroy other sentient beings in the most painful ways, and who are incapable of reform. There is no imaginable social contract that could possibly include such monsters. Surely there must be some element of symmetry as a condition of such a set membership. It's implied by the very phrase "each other".
        • mkane848 7y ago
          I think trying to figure that out is the exciting part, and I'd prefer to err on the side of generosity.