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I absolutely respect your choices and your opinion, but I don't understand them. Is the wolf diabolically evil? No cash involved of course. Is that the issue

I absolutely respect your choices and your opinion, but I don't understand them. Is the wolf diabolically evil? No cash involved of course. Is that the issue? What if I hunt the animal and kill it and then consume it, like the lion, the tiger, the hawk, and the dolphin? Is the hunter morally superior to the farmer who raises a steer, providing clean water, well grassed pasture, and then kills in a humane manner for personal consumption? Is that diabolically evil? What about the middle man who makes some cash bringing the meat product to someone else who can use it. Is that where the evilness enters the picture? I am asking the fundamental question. I will agree completely that large scale food production has some real problems with animal treatment. I'm not defending or commenting on that. I'm just trying to understand the moral judgements associated with consuming another animal, as is done at just about all levels of the food chain in the natural world. Our digestive systems, our teeth, our nutritional requirements are all tuned to omnivorous consumption. Why is it wrong to exercise our natural nutritional choices, plant and animal, that have resulted from millions of years of evolution?

warent 5y ago
> Is the wolf diabolically evil? ... What if I hunt the animal and kill it and then consume it, like the lion, the tiger, the hawk, and the dolphin? As much as I respect the intelligence of those animals, what a remarkably low bar to measure ourselves against. May as well justify manslaughter and rape as while we're at it. Drawing a line that arbitrarily suits certain primal desires and justifying it by pointing at animals is how we move backward, not forward.
- tommit 5y ago
  This is such a good point to make. Us humans should definitely strive to hold ourselves to a higher standard than that. Also, it's a hell of a difference between the wolf, who has to kill in order to survive, and the man, who just has to choose something else to eat in the supermarket or restaurant. Justifying ones choice by comparing oneself to a wolf is incredibly flawed. No one here would bat an eye if, for whatever reason, people have to hunt and kill in order to sustain themselves, like some tribes probably still do. We wouldn't call them evil for it. What can be called evil on the other hand, is the systematic raising, torturing, and killing of billions of animals every year. Because it's needless. We could easily survive without it, but we choose not to, because bacon. I get it, it's delicious. But at some point it becomes very questionable, and I'm even setting aside the sustainability aspect.
  - arvinsim 5y ago
    Who is us on that regard? Who decides the standard?
    - tommit 5y ago
      Sorry, that is my personal expectation that I would hope the majority of the world would agree with, but I'm not trying to decide that standard for you. You do you. It's cheesy, but the with great power comes great responsibility quote kind of holds up the way I see it. We pretty much dominate every other species, but we shouldn't pick and choose traits of other species in order to win arguments. We aren't wolves, we aren't dolphins. We have the capabilities to make the choice and don't kill and still survive. All it takes is changing ones habits a bit. We also have the capabilities to understand and decide that rape is wrong, and most people don't do it. Can you imagine what it would sound like if an accused rapist would point to dolphins as defense? I'm not trying to set a standard for you. All I want to say is that pointing at other animals to justify our behavior is flawed and something we should be above as a species as a whole.
      - daddylongstroke 5y ago
        It's always very strange for me to hear this argument made. It seems you've elevated yourself above the other animals, and I gather, plants as well. Why do you believe that you are anything but another mammal, intricately woven into the biosphere and the food chain? Life eats life. This is the reality. You are an animal. You eat life. The plants that vegetarians and vegans are eating, also ate life. The microbes and fungus that fed the plants, also ate life. To pretend plants have no feelings, emotions, and capability to communicate intelligently (especially plants much much older than humans) is a common mistake, and one made out of lack of observation, and human hubris.
knuthsat 5y ago
But killing is not humane if the individual does not want to die. Humans give themselves incredible characteristics compared to other animals, it's like they are miles ahead of every animal when it comes to self awareness, emotion, rational thought, it's like evolution in their case made a giant leap and not an incremental step like it is for everyone. Why are then humans comparing themselves to obligate carnivores like lions, tigers to justify their actions? Why are they looking at their natural bodies to justify the actions? How come when it comes to taking a life of another animal for sustenance, sustenance that can be achieved without the kill, they do not want to lift themselves up and draw a line between nature and themselves? There are many things that come naturally yet we do not want to mimic that.
- louthy 5y ago
  > Humans give themselves incredible characteristics compared to other animals, it's like they are miles ahead of every animal when it comes to self awareness, emotion, rational thought, it's like evolution in their case made a giant leap and not an incremental step like it is for everyone. Didn't that leap in evolution come from being able to control our food supply to the point where we were able to consume energy at such an efficient rate that we evolved emotion, rational thought, society, etc? It could be argued that now we've achieved that we should be looking at the next stage of evolution, which may be mulch made into fake meat loaded with salt and preservatives, or even growing laboratory meat; but surely the reason we're here and having this discussion at all is because of our domestication and consumption of animals. It seems a circular argument to say that's immoral. Are we really evolved enough to move past that? We are certainly domesticating ourselves as every generation goes by, we see that from the massive decline in human-to-human violence over many millennia, and so a reduction in violence toward animals could also be seen in that evolutionary sense. I'm not convinced we're at a point where we're ready to 100% wean ourselves off animals for food. It certainly comes with its own set of problems.
lm28469 5y ago
I'm not even 100% vegetarian myself but looking at how animals are treated repulses me, watch this video and tell me what you think about good and evil again (nsfw): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O15Owo7jGtU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O15Owo7jGtU -- I think you missed the entire point of the comment you're replying to. It specifically mentions breeding and slaughtering animals, this has nothing to do with wolves or hunters > Is the wolf diabolically evil? Do wolves have a sense of good and evil ? Do wolves talk about the ethical and moral implications of breeding and slaughtering millions of animals every single day ? > Our digestive systems, our teeth, our nutritional requirements are all tuned to omnivorous consumption. Why is it wrong to exercise our natural nutritional choices, plant and animal, that have resulted from millions of years of evolution? A lot of people in the west eat meat two or three times a day, sometimes from multiple animals during the same meal, we didn't evolve to do that at all. We didn't evolve to sit all day in front of a computer, but here I am. We didn't evolve to use cars but we almost all do. Using evolution as an argument for anything usually is a very poor choice.... I personally have no issue with the idea of killing to eat, the problem is everything else in the process. We don't have to treat amimals like we do, we don't have to eat so much meat every single day
shlant 5y ago
animals do not have a concept of good and evil so why would we apply it to them? I think looking at how things in the animal kingdom work and using that as a justification for our actions is a very low bar. We have the cognitive and emotional ability to understand that things like murder/rape/etc. are wrong do we not? If you just take a small step from that and recognize the sentience of animals, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to afford them the same respect. PS: I think the idea of good/evil is pretty reductionist to begin with, but I understand it's a common way of looking at things
- igetspam 5y ago
  They don't have words for it but if you've met shelter dogs or animals that have suffered abuse, they definitely understand the concept of evil. I have a rescue pig that I adore but he doesn't trust men because he lived a life of abuse. I can only assume that he sees men as evil, even if he can't make that statement. Some things are just natural. Humans seem to think we have a superior understanding of all things but some things are immutable truths and natural law. They don't require calculus to understand, just to describe.
  - arunix 5y ago
    Your example of evil just seems like the animals having a sense of danger to me. Animals usually instinctively will try to avoid danger. This doesn't require them to have a concept of evil.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - igetspam 5y ago
      What's your definition of evil? If an animal finds a specific set of traits to be characteristic of something that's dangerous and/or likely to inflict harm, is that not the definition of evil? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evil https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evil We wrote these things down so that we describe them to each other. The concepts already existed. We didn't invent evil, we defined it but it was already there. We've also used arguments like this to separate ourselves from what consider be lesser, to distance us from our actions. This is mental gymnastics though. Whatever you have to do to feel ok about eating a chicken is fine but pretending we have some better sense of self than anything else feels like hubris. If our position in the world is truly better because we can articulate out feelings and we're smarter, why don't we eat dogs and mutes and the mentally handicapped?

warent 5y ago

> Is the wolf diabolically evil? ... What if I hunt the animal and kill it and then consume it, like the lion, the tiger, the hawk, and the dolphin? As much as I respect the intelligence of those animals, what a remarkably low bar to measure ourselves against. May as well justify manslaughter and rape as while we're at it. Drawing a line that arbitrarily suits certain primal desires and justifying it by pointing at animals is how we move backward, not forward.

tommit 5y ago
This is such a good point to make. Us humans should definitely strive to hold ourselves to a higher standard than that. Also, it's a hell of a difference between the wolf, who has to kill in order to survive, and the man, who just has to choose something else to eat in the supermarket or restaurant. Justifying ones choice by comparing oneself to a wolf is incredibly flawed. No one here would bat an eye if, for whatever reason, people have to hunt and kill in order to sustain themselves, like some tribes probably still do. We wouldn't call them evil for it. What can be called evil on the other hand, is the systematic raising, torturing, and killing of billions of animals every year. Because it's needless. We could easily survive without it, but we choose not to, because bacon. I get it, it's delicious. But at some point it becomes very questionable, and I'm even setting aside the sustainability aspect.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  Who is us on that regard? Who decides the standard?
  - tommit 5y ago
    Sorry, that is my personal expectation that I would hope the majority of the world would agree with, but I'm not trying to decide that standard for you. You do you. It's cheesy, but the with great power comes great responsibility quote kind of holds up the way I see it. We pretty much dominate every other species, but we shouldn't pick and choose traits of other species in order to win arguments. We aren't wolves, we aren't dolphins. We have the capabilities to make the choice and don't kill and still survive. All it takes is changing ones habits a bit. We also have the capabilities to understand and decide that rape is wrong, and most people don't do it. Can you imagine what it would sound like if an accused rapist would point to dolphins as defense? I'm not trying to set a standard for you. All I want to say is that pointing at other animals to justify our behavior is flawed and something we should be above as a species as a whole.
    - daddylongstroke 5y ago
      It's always very strange for me to hear this argument made. It seems you've elevated yourself above the other animals, and I gather, plants as well. Why do you believe that you are anything but another mammal, intricately woven into the biosphere and the food chain? Life eats life. This is the reality. You are an animal. You eat life. The plants that vegetarians and vegans are eating, also ate life. The microbes and fungus that fed the plants, also ate life. To pretend plants have no feelings, emotions, and capability to communicate intelligently (especially plants much much older than humans) is a common mistake, and one made out of lack of observation, and human hubris.

knuthsat 5y ago

But killing is not humane if the individual does not want to die. Humans give themselves incredible characteristics compared to other animals, it's like they are miles ahead of every animal when it comes to self awareness, emotion, rational thought, it's like evolution in their case made a giant leap and not an incremental step like it is for everyone. Why are then humans comparing themselves to obligate carnivores like lions, tigers to justify their actions? Why are they looking at their natural bodies to justify the actions? How come when it comes to taking a life of another animal for sustenance, sustenance that can be achieved without the kill, they do not want to lift themselves up and draw a line between nature and themselves? There are many things that come naturally yet we do not want to mimic that.

louthy 5y ago
> Humans give themselves incredible characteristics compared to other animals, it's like they are miles ahead of every animal when it comes to self awareness, emotion, rational thought, it's like evolution in their case made a giant leap and not an incremental step like it is for everyone. Didn't that leap in evolution come from being able to control our food supply to the point where we were able to consume energy at such an efficient rate that we evolved emotion, rational thought, society, etc? It could be argued that now we've achieved that we should be looking at the next stage of evolution, which may be mulch made into fake meat loaded with salt and preservatives, or even growing laboratory meat; but surely the reason we're here and having this discussion at all is because of our domestication and consumption of animals. It seems a circular argument to say that's immoral. Are we really evolved enough to move past that? We are certainly domesticating ourselves as every generation goes by, we see that from the massive decline in human-to-human violence over many millennia, and so a reduction in violence toward animals could also be seen in that evolutionary sense. I'm not convinced we're at a point where we're ready to 100% wean ourselves off animals for food. It certainly comes with its own set of problems.

lm28469 5y ago

I'm not even 100% vegetarian myself but looking at how animals are treated repulses me, watch this video and tell me what you think about good and evil again (nsfw): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O15Owo7jGtU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O15Owo7jGtU -- I think you missed the entire point of the comment you're replying to. It specifically mentions breeding and slaughtering animals, this has nothing to do with wolves or hunters > Is the wolf diabolically evil? Do wolves have a sense of good and evil ? Do wolves talk about the ethical and moral implications of breeding and slaughtering millions of animals every single day ? > Our digestive systems, our teeth, our nutritional requirements are all tuned to omnivorous consumption. Why is it wrong to exercise our natural nutritional choices, plant and animal, that have resulted from millions of years of evolution? A lot of people in the west eat meat two or three times a day, sometimes from multiple animals during the same meal, we didn't evolve to do that at all. We didn't evolve to sit all day in front of a computer, but here I am. We didn't evolve to use cars but we almost all do. Using evolution as an argument for anything usually is a very poor choice.... I personally have no issue with the idea of killing to eat, the problem is everything else in the process. We don't have to treat amimals like we do, we don't have to eat so much meat every single day

shlant 5y ago

animals do not have a concept of good and evil so why would we apply it to them? I think looking at how things in the animal kingdom work and using that as a justification for our actions is a very low bar. We have the cognitive and emotional ability to understand that things like murder/rape/etc. are wrong do we not? If you just take a small step from that and recognize the sentience of animals, it doesn't seem too unreasonable to afford them the same respect. PS: I think the idea of good/evil is pretty reductionist to begin with, but I understand it's a common way of looking at things

igetspam 5y ago
They don't have words for it but if you've met shelter dogs or animals that have suffered abuse, they definitely understand the concept of evil. I have a rescue pig that I adore but he doesn't trust men because he lived a life of abuse. I can only assume that he sees men as evil, even if he can't make that statement. Some things are just natural. Humans seem to think we have a superior understanding of all things but some things are immutable truths and natural law. They don't require calculus to understand, just to describe.
- arunix 5y ago
  Your example of evil just seems like the animals having a sense of danger to me. Animals usually instinctively will try to avoid danger. This doesn't require them to have a concept of evil.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - igetspam 5y ago
    What's your definition of evil? If an animal finds a specific set of traits to be characteristic of something that's dangerous and/or likely to inflict harm, is that not the definition of evil? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evil https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/evil We wrote these things down so that we describe them to each other. The concepts already existed. We didn't invent evil, we defined it but it was already there. We've also used arguments like this to separate ourselves from what consider be lesser, to distance us from our actions. This is mental gymnastics though. Whatever you have to do to feel ok about eating a chicken is fine but pretending we have some better sense of self than anything else feels like hubris. If our position in the world is truly better because we can articulate out feelings and we're smarter, why don't we eat dogs and mutes and the mentally handicapped?