I would argue there is a distinction between the two because bestiality is performing these actions for sexual gratification. Your overall point I do agree with, that the way we interact with animals in factory farms is sexual violence, but it is a different sort
Sure and that's how the law categorizes it: your "purpose" when committing the act is what matters. I personally think the particular categorization of different purposes (so that economic reward is valid, gustatory sensual pleasure is valid, and sexual/sensual or sadistic pleasure is not) is arbitrary in a nakedly self-serving way. I have never seen any moral reasoning that one specific kind of sensory pleasure should justify sexual contact with animals but another should not; carnists usually fall back to arguments that eating animals is one way to satisfy a physical need. (Such arguments are of course inadequate to explain harm done simply to make food taste better, like restricting animal movement or gavage). In general we do give weight to purposes when people commit acts that they thought were good, or did not expect to result in negative consequences, so in theory intention is a valid thing to consider.
I personally reject the "we didn't explicitly want this subset of results, but we took this action knowing full well it was going to cause these results" liberal apologia that we see for military collateral damage and such.
I don't think all of this is wrong, but there's a blending between discussing concepts and actual practice. "Is it wrong to harm animals for pleasure?" is a useful question, but separate from "is it wrong to fuck animals for sexual pleasure?" and both of these are distinct from "can certain kinds of pleasure justify harm generally?" I don't think you're necessarily wrong to put them together because you are making a good point about complicity in atrocity, but it is not the kind of conversation I want to have.
mhm. all reasonably different questions. I hew consequentialist, so I don't really see why one's state of mind (anticipating gustatory pleasure or experiencing sexual pleasure) while fucking the animal makes a moral difference. I think that the distinction you see between the first two questions is largely informed by custom: in pre-modern times a function of what was "normal", and today a byproduct of how industrial agriculture sanitizes the process of raising animals for food to give us neat blocks of commodity on the grocery store shelf.
Tangential but you might find Why I'm Not a Negative Utilitarian interesting. I was gonna write something about utilitarian view of pleasure types but it's not really important.
Good luck in the posting war against anti-intellectualism. Honestly I'm kind of surprised by the comments here. Since the issue affects almost nobody directly I feel like everybody should be able to dispassionately debate-bro about it even though it's taboo.
![[CW: bestiality] Professional "moral philosopher" ponders whether it's OK to sexually assault animals, featuring AI art](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/f26b2dce-7254-4537-acd1-5de623b591e0.png){kind=link}
I would argue there is a distinction between the two because bestiality is performing these actions for sexual gratification. Your overall point I do agree with, that the way we interact with animals in factory farms is sexual violence, but it is a different sort
Sure and that's how the law categorizes it: your "purpose" when committing the act is what matters. I personally think the particular categorization of different purposes (so that economic reward is valid, gustatory sensual pleasure is valid, and sexual/sensual or sadistic pleasure is not) is arbitrary in a nakedly self-serving way. I have never seen any moral reasoning that one specific kind of sensory pleasure should justify sexual contact with animals but another should not; carnists usually fall back to arguments that eating animals is one way to satisfy a physical need. (Such arguments are of course inadequate to explain harm done simply to make food taste better, like restricting animal movement or gavage). In general we do give weight to purposes when people commit acts that they thought were good, or did not expect to result in negative consequences, so in theory intention is a valid thing to consider.
I personally reject the "we didn't explicitly want this subset of results, but we took this action knowing full well it was going to cause these results" liberal apologia that we see for military collateral damage and such.
I don't think all of this is wrong, but there's a blending between discussing concepts and actual practice. "Is it wrong to harm animals for pleasure?" is a useful question, but separate from "is it wrong to fuck animals for sexual pleasure?" and both of these are distinct from "can certain kinds of pleasure justify harm generally?" I don't think you're necessarily wrong to put them together because you are making a good point about complicity in atrocity, but it is not the kind of conversation I want to have.
mhm. all reasonably different questions. I hew consequentialist, so I don't really see why one's state of mind (anticipating gustatory pleasure or experiencing sexual pleasure) while fucking the animal makes a moral difference. I think that the distinction you see between the first two questions is largely informed by custom: in pre-modern times a function of what was "normal", and today a byproduct of how industrial agriculture sanitizes the process of raising animals for food to give us neat blocks of commodity on the grocery store shelf.
Tangential but you might find Why I'm Not a Negative Utilitarian interesting. I was gonna write something about utilitarian view of pleasure types but it's not really important.
Good luck in the posting war against anti-intellectualism. Honestly I'm kind of surprised by the comments here. Since the issue affects almost nobody directly I feel like everybody should be able to dispassionately debate-bro about it even though it's taboo.