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
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.
I'm not arguing about the morality of eating animals either, I am simply responding to your misinterpretations of what I've said.
I also never said anything about animals needing to do or become something in order to have moral considerations from humans. I said the opposite, and you still seem to be stuck on your misinterpretation of what I said. I said that animals deserve to have moral considerations & deserve to not be abused or subjected to excessive mistreatment from humans. But requiring humans to not eat the animals they typically hunt or raise for meat is not a moral consideration that is universal or scalable to all of humankind.
Never questioned or downplayed the individual's validity in choosing to not eat meat. Nor do I think meat-eaters should shame vegans.
I agree that it doesn't follow that animals require human-equivalent morality. Also that interpersonal stigma and trying to shame others into never eating animals is not an effective or coherent approach
If that's in agreement, then we can see that the assertion “you can’t humanize/personify non-human animals using this ethical framework and then neglect applying that framework to animals themselves," is incorrect because "it doesn't follow that animals require human-equivalent morality." It is in fact possible to treat animals in an ethical framework without having to apply that human framework between animals. You even provide an example of an ethical framework you expect of humans towards animals ("not to be abused or subjected to excessive mistreatment") which does not then require "applying that framework to animals themselves."
You again are misinterpreting what I've said here. We can't humanize non-human animals, nor apply human-human morality to animal ethical concerns, and this is largely but not totally due to the fact that animals aren't subject to human interpersonal/cultural, jurisprudential, or legal ethics.
I agree it's possible to treat animals ethically with regard to human-animal morality, and it remains true that applying a "human framework" isn't relevant in this instance.
Yes, I do expect animals to not attack or be violent toward humans (while realizing these animals do not operate or make decisions on the same ethical/rational level as humans). I also said that animals that do attack humans are usually & justifiably removed or forcibly prevented from repeating such attacks. They also aren't subject to criminal prosecution or human morality in these instances.
So I am still not sure what you're contending with exactly, outside of your mischaracterizations of what I've said