fun fact: cows are carnivores. CW: baby chicken being eaten alive
Removed by modNSFW
Removed by modNSFW
fun fact: cows are carnivores. CW: baby chicken being eaten alive
Removed by modNSFWThe video is to prove a point really fast, but, cows actually do only eat proteins. They have three stomachs that they use to feed grass to bacterial colonies, which they then pull into their fourth stomach to eat, with any of the grass that's left un-eaten by the bacteria being shit straight out without being processed any further. They don't eat the grass, the grass is there to feed what they do eat, which is supplemented by eating any large animal small enough to fit in their mouth. I read a study once that almost all cows when dissected had at least 1 animal in their digestive system at a time.
The notion that cows are good peaceful harmless herbivores who eat nothing but grass is nonsense. Here's a video of a cow eating the corpse of a donkey. Of note: there's grass right next to the body. And it isn't just a result of cows being fucked up by human domestication, wild deer (who you cannot blame on humans malnourishing it or contaminating its feed or whatever) do it too.
constructing an elaborate worldview out of a kindergarten level understanding of biology and then getting extremely smug about it annoys me relentlessly. Cows would eat you if they had the chance
The point of highlighting children as a comparison is to show that despite us (human adults) having higher order moral obligations than children, we treat them with a greater degree of consideration than they themselves are capable of giving.
We (humans) can have higher order moral obligations (such as do not eat animals) than animals themselves are capable of.
There is no way that "you can’t humanize/personify non-human animals using this ethical framework and then neglect applying that framework to animals themselves. should we shame the cow or show them how much more ethical it would’ve been to not eat the baby chick?" is supposed to be interpreted to mean "using this interpersonal shaming to try & make the case that animal meat shouldn’t be consumed isn’t the same as making the ethical case for treating animals better."
This is the point of disagreement. You can think it's ethical not to eat animals without expecting non-human animals to refrain from eating animals. If that's something you agree with, then there is no argument at all.
Human children reach an "age of reason" and can be dissuaded from certain behaviors and convinced to recognize social limitations by this stage of development. We do not treat children as equal to animals in these considerations
I do not think that an individual choosing to refrain from eating animals is a "higher order moral obligation", that boils down to your opinion in this instance. I do recognize the individual's right & validity in making such a decision for themselves though.
In bringing up humanization & personification of animals, I wasn't saying that I think the cow that ate the chick can be reasoned with. I was saying the opposite. In the second instance, I was referring to interpersonal shaming among people who eat meat and those who don't. I choose not to moralize against vegans, because I recognize it's a personal & valid decision they are making. Vegans don't have to believe that meat-eaters are "moral actors" or inviolate in anyway, but that doesn't mean meat-eaters are unequivocally immoral or inferior in their "objective" moral standing.
You can think so, sure. But I don't expect non-human animals to refrain from eating animals, nor do I expect humans to refrain from eating animals. I do expect humans to refrain from eating humans though, and I recognize humans have to protect themselves in rare instances from being eaten by non-human animals.
Yeah, nobody said anything about treating children like animals. "The point of highlighting children as a comparison is to show that despite us (human adults) having higher order moral obligations than children, we treat them with a greater degree of consideration than they themselves are capable of giving.
We (humans) can have higher order moral obligations (such as do not eat animals) than animals themselves are capable of."
That's nice, I have no interest in debating that. I'm only opposing the assertion "you can’t humanize/personify non-human animals using this ethical framework and then neglect applying that framework to animals themselves."
Agree or disagree: you can give animals ethical consideration such as not eating them and do not need to apply that ethical framework to animals themselves.
You still haven't opposed the assertion I made, you've only attempted to confuse it. We humans have higher order moral obligations to one another within the species, and we have moral obligations of a different kind to the natural world and its non-human inhabitants. These sets of moral obligations aren't wholly separate, but the specific considerations & rationale are. We should treat animals as ethically as possible where we have direct interaction & contact with them. We should also treat natural ecology & habitat with moral obligatory concern.
These things are, in my opinion, more about self-preservation of the human species than they are about maintaining universally morally unassailable argumentative positions. It's about preservation of habitable & sustainable human living.
We can and do give animals ethical consideration. Refraining from abusing or causing undue harm and needless suffering to animals is a first order concern. This doesn't mean that applying human ethical frameworks to animals is justified.
Individuals can refrain from eating animals, and they can use personal ethical justifications in doing so. But that doesn't mean they can map their personal ethical justifications 1:1 onto the rest of the human species. Just as I do not think meat-eaters who try to "ethically" justify meat-eating should shame vegans into eating meat.
Okay, just for my own clarification, can you explain why exactly "you can’t humanize/personify non-human animals using this ethical framework and then neglect applying that framework to animals themselves" in a sentence or two?
If we expect animals to be treated as persons, then it would follow that animals would have the same or similar legal rights & cultural & institutional & rational considerations from the society as humans are supposed to get.
If we aren't issuing animals human passports or giving animals human citizenship & trying and sentencing them for criminal behavior, things that children can be subject to, then we are recognizing a sliding/hierarchical scale in these ethical considerations. We can justify or dismiss the cow eating the baby chick because it's not immoral for the cow to do so, but that's an explicit admission that the cow & baby chick aren't worthy of the same moral concern and strictures that humans are. We can think it's immoral for the human to eat the chick & the cow, but that doesn't mean we're benighted in thinking that, and it doesn't mean we're unequivocally morally correct in thinking that. There are contradictions to acknowledge here
We do not expect animals to be treated as persons. Not eating animals is not the same thing as "treating them as persons." Nobody expects animals to be treated as persons.
Cows and baby chicks can be considered less worthy of moral consideration than humans, and still worthy of consideration to the extent of not eating them. Not eating them does not elevate them to the same status as humans.
I agree that we do not expect animals to be treated as persons. Which is why expecting other people to refrain from eating animals on strictly ethical & human moral grounds is not a cogent argument.
We recognize that predators & omnivorous animals can eat meat and not have any soul-searching required of them. We also recognize that large predatory animals, after killing or eating humans, acquire a "taste" for human blood & must be culled or prevented from being able to attack more humans. We are placing material human concerns above ethical animal concerns in all of these instances.
I also agree that not eating animals doesn't elevate those animals, and while it's a valid & perfectly rational choice for individuals to refrain from eating animals, it's not a universally scalable or objective moral truth that everyone on Earth has to take on or feel inordinate shame over.
I'm not arguing about the morality of eating animals, I'm arguing about whether animals need to subscribe to human morality for us humans to have moral considerations (including not eating them) towards them.
It is does not follow from the assertion humans should not eat animals that animals must require the same morality.