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I see nothing immoral in a bear eating a human. It’s just being a bear. But just like any other social animal, as humans we’re of course going to kill that bear

I see nothing immoral in a bear eating a human. It’s just being a bear. But just like any other social animal, as humans we’re of course going to kill that bear so it stops eating us. It has nothing to do with us being superior than a bear. We just don’t want to die like any other animal! And as humans I see nothing wrong with eating other animals (outside of animal cruelty, e.g. factory farms). As animals, we naturally eat each other. If there is something immoral about this, does that mean a rabbit is morally superior to a fox?

cjrd 5y ago
A fox eats a rabbit out of necessity. In our modern economy, people don't need to eat animals; it's usually a matter of convenience, taste, and tradition. But in all reality, we can get by quite comfortably without doing so.
- wcarron 5y ago
  There is no moral obligation to abstain from meat, whatsoever.
  - etcet 5y ago
    Speak for yourself, I feel a strong moral obligation not to eat meat or otherwise support industries which exploit animals. Reducing suffering is a moral imperative.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jdavis703 5y ago
      If you believe you should reduce suffering, it would be better for you to quickly kill a chicken and eat it. Otherwise, a cat, bird of prey or other animal might kill that chicken. And cats are cruel killers that slowly torture their prey before eating them.
      - michaelmrose 5y ago
        Based on that logic I should suffocate you now in your sleep so you don't have to get old and die of cancer. Don't look out for me with my pillow I don't buy that logic either.
      - etcet 5y ago
        We can just stop breeding chickens for the slaughter?
        xxpor 5y ago
        Is it better to have lived and die, or not live at all?
        etcet 5y ago
        Correction: is it better to suffer and die or not live at all? The vast majority of the 8 billion plus chickens slaughtered in the USA each year experience primarily pain and stress for their short lives.
        michaelmrose 5y ago
        See the repugnant conclusion. I don't have a good answer save that arguments that deal with completely hypothetical people seem to result in completely useless nonsensical results. For example if your argument were correct it would be morally beneficial to breed as many human children as possible to live horrifying, painful, and short lives in order to end their tortured existence as kid burgers because any sort of life is better than none at all. If we admit the idea that some lives can have negative value for example if they consist solely of suffering it would be OK to breed kid burgers so long as they had a pleasant existence up until slaughter at 7 followed by a quick trip to McKid. I suspect that my moral philosophy and likely yours is simply insufficient to deal with hypothetical persons and we ought to simply reason about how to treat actual beings that exist.
      - meowface 5y ago
        This is the primary argument I see hunters use to justify hunting as an ethical form of killing, in contrast to factory farming. Obviously it's better to kill someone or something quickly and painlessly than slowly and painfully, but I don't buy this argument. If you truly had that motivation, you would be saving that chicken from predation and finding a sanctuary or home for it, and/or you'd be encouraging mass human euthanization campaigns across various parts of the world to reduce suffering and slow, painful deaths. If there were a human serial killer killing people via a projectile energy weapon that always instantly killed someone from a long distance before they had any idea what was happening, I don't think you'd argue for a greatly reduced sentence due to their humane method of disposal. If there were an ancient human civilization that went on hunting trips to kill and eat humans in other villages because they believed human flesh was the most prized meat, and they defended it by saying that they were probably all going to soon die of war or starvation or disease anyway, I don't think you'd just go "oh yeah true" without batting an eye. The sole reason - the necessary and sufficient reason - hunters find hunting justifiable is they attribute no moral value to the lives of non-human animals. Anything else is self-serving rationalization. If you attribute no moral value to them, that puts you in the company of almost everyone who's ever lived, but just state it plainly instead of trying to wiggle around it with mental gymnastics.
  - baq 5y ago
    Morality is like an ass: everybody has their own.
    - boston_clone 5y ago
      to try and extend this weird turn of phrase, human progress is the equivalent of making sure everyone's ass is clean.
  - boston_clone 5y ago
    This is ignorant of so much contemporary philosophy / analytical ethics. The amount of convincing arguments for needlessly causing suffering in beings that clearly experience it are vanishingly small.
    - wcarron 5y ago
      Your attempt to bend my morality to yours doesn't register with me, bud. Some things die so others may live. That is the way it always has been, and always will be, regardless if some subset of humans decides that "that's immoral". I will continue to eat meat and hunt animals and feel zero guilt. I do not care that something was killed for food when... I dunno, grass juice and pitaya could theoretically sustain me instead (lol). Animals taste good and are calorically dense. That's 100% convincing enough for me.
      - boston_clone 5y ago
        You stated "[t]here is no moral obligation to abstain from meat, whatsoever." Hand-wavy attempts at dismissing entire bodies of study within philosophy won't work with most intelligent people, either. Peter Singer is an excellent starting point for exploring the dimensions of morality for eating animal flesh. I can't argue against your own sense of guilt, since it's possible for some people to feel not at all [0]. Your other comment about willingly and guiltlessly drowning mice [1] in a bucket is not indicative of a healthy mind. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29871272#29877761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29871272#29877761
        wcarron 5y ago
        It is exceedingly hilarious that you took: 1. I drowned two rodents that lived, shit, probably bred, and carried diseases through my walls and attic 2. I eat meat and feel no guilt And then used that to call me a psychopath. Thank you for the amusement. Goodbye.
        5y ago
blacksmith_tb 5y ago
Though I do agree with the general principle that humans are animals, when it comes to eating each other, it's clear that our greater flexibility (and understanding of our own biology) allows us to choose our diets to a greater degree than other animals. Given that, us eating fewer animals (for ecologocial, health, and/or ethical reasons) seems like the best approach.
meowface 5y ago
>I see nothing immoral in a bear eating a human. It’s just being a bear. But just like any other social animal, as humans we’re of course going to kill that bear so it stops eating us. It has nothing to do with us being superior than a bear. We just don’t want to die like any other animal! Right. >And as humans I see nothing wrong with eating other animals (outside of animal cruelty, e.g. factory farms). Bears can't have moral culpability because they aren't intellectually sophisticated enough, much like how a theoretical profoundly mentally disabled human, or an infant human, wouldn't be morally culpable for killing someone. The "mens rea" can't be established. However, nearly all adult humans do possess the capacity for moral reasoning. >As animals, we naturally eat each other. Even though bears and humans are animals, and animals often eat each other, we're the only animals blessed/cursed with the knowledge that if we were to maul someone to death, they'd experience terrible pain and suffering, their life would be cut short, and their family would mourn their death and lose resource support and potentially suffer and die themselves. If a bear had those thoughts, they would be morally culpable, but they almost certainly don't. >If there is something immoral about this, does that mean a rabbit is morally superior to a fox? No, because a rabbit's moral reasoning is in the same class as a bear's and a fox's, and not a human's.
- cowninja 5y ago
  Individual beings who have a moral sense of personhood engage in behavior that can be classified as moral or immoral, right or wrong, permissible or impermissible. Their actions can be categorized as either condemnable or commendable. It makes sense to hold them morally responsible for their intentional actions. In contrast to humans, animals such as dogs, cats, birds, and fish are commonly held NOT to be moral agents or moral persons. In the jungle, a lion eating another animal or killing a human for any reason is not considered morally wrong or blameworthy. Pet owners frequently chastise their pets for undesirable behaviors such as urinating on the carpet, digging in the garden, or failing to obey a command, but yelling "bad dog" is not usually interpreted as moral agency. One could argue, however, that the owner is engaging in moral expectation or anthropomorphism.
adamc 5y ago
We have options, and options imply choices and therefore morality. I see lots wrong with it, since it creates pain and bad life experiences. This bothers me. But that's also a choice, of what kind of morality you embrace.
seph-reed 5y ago
Suffering is bad. Abuse is bad. Enjoyment is good. Suffering is inevitable, abuse is not. The best we can do in life is minimize abuse while maximizing enjoyment. Meat is not immoral, abuse is. It's really that easy. Unfortunately, most meat comes from abused beings.

cjrd 5y ago

A fox eats a rabbit out of necessity. In our modern economy, people don't need to eat animals; it's usually a matter of convenience, taste, and tradition. But in all reality, we can get by quite comfortably without doing so.

wcarron 5y ago
There is no moral obligation to abstain from meat, whatsoever.
- etcet 5y ago
  Speak for yourself, I feel a strong moral obligation not to eat meat or otherwise support industries which exploit animals. Reducing suffering is a moral imperative.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jdavis703 5y ago
    If you believe you should reduce suffering, it would be better for you to quickly kill a chicken and eat it. Otherwise, a cat, bird of prey or other animal might kill that chicken. And cats are cruel killers that slowly torture their prey before eating them.
    - michaelmrose 5y ago
      Based on that logic I should suffocate you now in your sleep so you don't have to get old and die of cancer. Don't look out for me with my pillow I don't buy that logic either.
    - etcet 5y ago
      We can just stop breeding chickens for the slaughter?
      - xxpor 5y ago
        Is it better to have lived and die, or not live at all?
        etcet 5y ago
        Correction: is it better to suffer and die or not live at all? The vast majority of the 8 billion plus chickens slaughtered in the USA each year experience primarily pain and stress for their short lives.
        michaelmrose 5y ago
        See the repugnant conclusion. I don't have a good answer save that arguments that deal with completely hypothetical people seem to result in completely useless nonsensical results. For example if your argument were correct it would be morally beneficial to breed as many human children as possible to live horrifying, painful, and short lives in order to end their tortured existence as kid burgers because any sort of life is better than none at all. If we admit the idea that some lives can have negative value for example if they consist solely of suffering it would be OK to breed kid burgers so long as they had a pleasant existence up until slaughter at 7 followed by a quick trip to McKid. I suspect that my moral philosophy and likely yours is simply insufficient to deal with hypothetical persons and we ought to simply reason about how to treat actual beings that exist.
    - meowface 5y ago
      This is the primary argument I see hunters use to justify hunting as an ethical form of killing, in contrast to factory farming. Obviously it's better to kill someone or something quickly and painlessly than slowly and painfully, but I don't buy this argument. If you truly had that motivation, you would be saving that chicken from predation and finding a sanctuary or home for it, and/or you'd be encouraging mass human euthanization campaigns across various parts of the world to reduce suffering and slow, painful deaths. If there were a human serial killer killing people via a projectile energy weapon that always instantly killed someone from a long distance before they had any idea what was happening, I don't think you'd argue for a greatly reduced sentence due to their humane method of disposal. If there were an ancient human civilization that went on hunting trips to kill and eat humans in other villages because they believed human flesh was the most prized meat, and they defended it by saying that they were probably all going to soon die of war or starvation or disease anyway, I don't think you'd just go "oh yeah true" without batting an eye. The sole reason - the necessary and sufficient reason - hunters find hunting justifiable is they attribute no moral value to the lives of non-human animals. Anything else is self-serving rationalization. If you attribute no moral value to them, that puts you in the company of almost everyone who's ever lived, but just state it plainly instead of trying to wiggle around it with mental gymnastics.
- baq 5y ago
  Morality is like an ass: everybody has their own.
  - boston_clone 5y ago
    to try and extend this weird turn of phrase, human progress is the equivalent of making sure everyone's ass is clean.
- boston_clone 5y ago
  This is ignorant of so much contemporary philosophy / analytical ethics. The amount of convincing arguments for needlessly causing suffering in beings that clearly experience it are vanishingly small.
  - wcarron 5y ago
    Your attempt to bend my morality to yours doesn't register with me, bud. Some things die so others may live. That is the way it always has been, and always will be, regardless if some subset of humans decides that "that's immoral". I will continue to eat meat and hunt animals and feel zero guilt. I do not care that something was killed for food when... I dunno, grass juice and pitaya could theoretically sustain me instead (lol). Animals taste good and are calorically dense. That's 100% convincing enough for me.
    - boston_clone 5y ago
      You stated "[t]here is no moral obligation to abstain from meat, whatsoever." Hand-wavy attempts at dismissing entire bodies of study within philosophy won't work with most intelligent people, either. Peter Singer is an excellent starting point for exploring the dimensions of morality for eating animal flesh. I can't argue against your own sense of guilt, since it's possible for some people to feel not at all [0]. Your other comment about willingly and guiltlessly drowning mice [1] in a bucket is not indicative of a healthy mind. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29871272#29877761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29871272#29877761
      - wcarron 5y ago
        It is exceedingly hilarious that you took: 1. I drowned two rodents that lived, shit, probably bred, and carried diseases through my walls and attic 2. I eat meat and feel no guilt And then used that to call me a psychopath. Thank you for the amusement. Goodbye.
        5y ago

blacksmith_tb 5y ago

Though I do agree with the general principle that humans are animals, when it comes to eating each other, it's clear that our greater flexibility (and understanding of our own biology) allows us to choose our diets to a greater degree than other animals. Given that, us eating fewer animals (for ecologocial, health, and/or ethical reasons) seems like the best approach.

meowface 5y ago

>I see nothing immoral in a bear eating a human. It’s just being a bear. But just like any other social animal, as humans we’re of course going to kill that bear so it stops eating us. It has nothing to do with us being superior than a bear. We just don’t want to die like any other animal! Right. >And as humans I see nothing wrong with eating other animals (outside of animal cruelty, e.g. factory farms). Bears can't have moral culpability because they aren't intellectually sophisticated enough, much like how a theoretical profoundly mentally disabled human, or an infant human, wouldn't be morally culpable for killing someone. The "mens rea" can't be established. However, nearly all adult humans do possess the capacity for moral reasoning. >As animals, we naturally eat each other. Even though bears and humans are animals, and animals often eat each other, we're the only animals blessed/cursed with the knowledge that if we were to maul someone to death, they'd experience terrible pain and suffering, their life would be cut short, and their family would mourn their death and lose resource support and potentially suffer and die themselves. If a bear had those thoughts, they would be morally culpable, but they almost certainly don't. >If there is something immoral about this, does that mean a rabbit is morally superior to a fox? No, because a rabbit's moral reasoning is in the same class as a bear's and a fox's, and not a human's.

cowninja 5y ago
Individual beings who have a moral sense of personhood engage in behavior that can be classified as moral or immoral, right or wrong, permissible or impermissible. Their actions can be categorized as either condemnable or commendable. It makes sense to hold them morally responsible for their intentional actions. In contrast to humans, animals such as dogs, cats, birds, and fish are commonly held NOT to be moral agents or moral persons. In the jungle, a lion eating another animal or killing a human for any reason is not considered morally wrong or blameworthy. Pet owners frequently chastise their pets for undesirable behaviors such as urinating on the carpet, digging in the garden, or failing to obey a command, but yelling "bad dog" is not usually interpreted as moral agency. One could argue, however, that the owner is engaging in moral expectation or anthropomorphism.

adamc 5y ago

We have options, and options imply choices and therefore morality. I see lots wrong with it, since it creates pain and bad life experiences. This bothers me. But that's also a choice, of what kind of morality you embrace.

seph-reed 5y ago

Suffering is bad. Abuse is bad. Enjoyment is good. Suffering is inevitable, abuse is not. The best we can do in life is minimize abuse while maximizing enjoyment. Meat is not immoral, abuse is. It's really that easy. Unfortunately, most meat comes from abused beings.