Random thoughts and questions

I have neither pets nor houseplants. I have had pets, and yes, there's an emotional attachment there. But it's one we ascribe to them - the value is not inherent in the animal, it is ascribed by us, the human. Therefore that animal is not inherently any more valuable than the plant by dint of the fact that it can walk around and slobber.

At no point am I saying "It's okay to be cruel to animals". You shouldn't be cruel to anything because it's wrong. But if keeping an elephant in a pen that does not physically harm it provides a benefit to a human - even if it is only an aesthetic one - I consider that acceptable. A pet is there to make you the owner feel good, anything more is simply fooling yourself.

This makes zero sense. Also, please look up the word "sapient" and confirm that that's what you mean before I respond to it. Your point is ludicrous either way, but you should at least make sure you're spouting the particular brand of ludicrousness that you intend to spout.

What about by the fact that it can feel pain both physical and emotional and that yes it does have an emotional connection to you and not just you to it. It being animate isn't the criteria for morality.

Then it is by definition immoral! Morality is what dictates right and wrong, if you believe something is immoral then it is wrong and vice versa. You're trying to have this both ways saying it's wrong to be cruel to animals but it's not immoral. If you deem the treatment wrong then it is by definition immoral.

What about emotional and psychological harm to the animal, which is absolutely possible. Animals can become depressed for example.

Sapient = able to think and judge, as opposed to sentient = able to sense things. Animals are sentient, people are sapient.

Dude, animals can think and judge. Ability varies by species, but it's there. Monkeys can premeditate, for example. (I'll get the article later.)

I am not convinced of this "emotional pain" thing. I think that we tend to anthropomorphize animals too much, ascribing emotional content to what's simply call-and-response reaction. If my PC is running sluggishly I don't think it's depressed - I think there is likely a combination of hardware and software faults that's causing the issue. I don't see an animal as any different.

But the end result - which is all that matters - is "don't be cruel to animals". The why is irrelevant. The why is always irrelevant.

Yeah you didn't do what I said. Regardless, it makes no sense. You're right that animals can't be said to behave morally or immorally, obviously, but it doesn't follow that there are no such things as moral or immoral ways of treating animals as a result. Moreover, you make not attempt to show that it does, you just say that it does. And more-moreover, you contradict yourself by calling cruelty to animals "wrong." And more-more-moreover you clearly have no understanding of animal intelligence, which is not a binary scale that contains only "human" and "non-human." And more-more-more-moreover...

...you clearly don't know what you're talking about re: animal emotions either. This is an enormous crock of anti-science bullshit and you should back away from it with all deliberate speed. The various parts of this line of thinking range from decades out of date to centuries, and if you were logically consistent about it you'd be justifying animal torture right now. Please stop thinking this.

You're telling me that science has quantified animal emotion. Really. I'd like to see that study, honestly.

Would you? Because it's an entire field of study that stretches from Charles Darwin to Temple Grandin with innumerable stops in between and you couldn't be bothered to even look up one word just now.

Except they very much are. I'm glad YOU don't see a difference but depression, happiness and other emotional and psychological states very much exist in animals there has been tons of research in this regard. The extents vary between species but you can emotional and psychologically harm many animals.

No, it's quite relevant and I think you need to do a little more thinking about the "why" as that is very much what the discussion is about. Otherwise you've got the critical thinking skills of a toddler and simply believe what you're told.

How do you explain separation anxiety?

I disagree. I believe that only the consequences of an action matter, the motivation has no bearing on the result.

Example: three people at different times help an old lady across the street with her groceries: One does so because the old lady reminds him of his grandmother and it makes him feel better. One does so because he thinks it is his religious duty and he fears spiritual punishment if he does not. The third believes that the old lady being helped across the street will cause a confluence of cosmic events that will summon the Great Old Ones and bring about the end of the world.

The end result in every case is exactly the same - the old lady gets across the street with her groceries - and the motivations of the people involved are completely irrelevant to that.

That's why I don't believe, all other things being equal, that motivations are at all relevant, so long as the action is done.

You can say "Don't be cruel to animals because it hurts them emotionally and that's immoral", while I say "Don't be cruel to animals because that can rob you of a valuable resource, and that's immoral" - and neither of those reasons actually matters as long as the outcome is the same.

I don't.

Sounds like your hypothesis sucks then.

However the only way to understand another's actions is to understand their motivations. The "why" isn't important to understand the consequences of an action it's to understand why an action was taken and, further, to make a determination of which actions one should take in any given circumstance. If you don't think that's important in life then you really do have the critical thinking skills of a toddler and operate only on absolute rules that others have bestowed to you without any understand of why those rules exist or why they should be followed.

Exactly.

What if my motivation for helping the old lady across the street is to rape her? Or to prevent her seeing that I killed someone? Or because touching old people gets me off? Or because someone wants to shoot me and I'm using her as a human shield until I can get out of the line of fire?

Would you still consider the motivation irrelevant to the selfless act, or would you maybe choose to blow that fucking blimp?

Evidence that animals experience emotion, as shown by their "What the fuck, seriously Nute?" expressions.

That's not the issue here, as people have told you several times. The issue is that "Don't be cruel to animals because that can rob you of a valuable resource, and that's immoral" doesn't make any sense, and not just because "wasting resources is immoral" is another stupid bare assertion. Need it spelled out for you? Ok, fine: a large majority of pets do not serve a function besides companionship. "But wait!" I hear you saying already. "I espouse the hip cynical viewpoint that says that if you have a pet, you're using it to obtain comfort and enjoyment, so it's a resource and I'm right!" Except this: to someone who likes to torture animals, torturing animals is how they get that enjoyment out of them. So again, by your own logic, it's ok to torture companion animals because they're a resource that's there to be used.

I hereby sentence Nute to watch the Nature Episode "Animal Odd Couples"



(Full Episode Here)

Also read this:

(Emphasis mine)

Whoah, what sorcery is this? You mean there's some sort of process by which hypotheses can be tested using observation and evidence?? That seems way more effective than just throwing out guesses based on your own personal worldview.

Back in August, a couple from Houston was arrested for torturing and killing animals to make and sell "crush" videos. What can be more resource-y than torturing an animal as a source of income? Sounds okay to me. Nute should call their lawyer and suggest his philosophical approach; I'm sure the judge will dismiss the case against them.

Thank you, that is what I was asking for. I will stipulate, then, that animals can indeed feel emotion.

Like I've said - you shouldn't be cruel to animals. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. Many people here are saying "You shouldn't be cruel to animals because they can feel pain, both emotional and physical". That is a valid viewpoint. I prefer to believe "You shouldn't be cruel to animals because animals are a resource", which is also a valid viewpoint.

Valid, in an emotionless robot or corporate raider way, sure.

What I don't understand is why you prefer the latter to the former. That's just fucking weird.

BTW, you should be sentenced to show this discussion to any woman you're trying to pick up at a bar after a kickball game. I don't like your chances.

I guess the main problem is what exactly to you makes hurting humans immoral? I don't think sapience versus sentience really comes into play, because all that sapience adds to that situation is the ability of a human to try and figure out why you are hurting them. The physical and emotional pain is nearly identical from a human to a elephant.

I'll try and explain, then. Say you're trying to develop a new sunscreen that can help prevent skin cancer. Noble goal that serves the greater good? Absolutely. But there's a chance that it might be harmful to certain skin types. Instead of testing on people with those skin types (causing harm to people), you can test it on an animal with similar skin type (potentially cruel, but in the service of the greater good). If the choice is "do harm to an animal in order to prevent harm to a human", I'll take it every time because the animal's existence as a resource (utility) supersedes its emotional and physical well-being as I see it.

I don't believe in unnecessary or pointless cruelty. There are a lot of areas where the benefit-to-harm ratio is skewed, and the reasoning gets fuzzy. Cosmetics, for instance. It's unclear, and I don't like that.

I believe that all things - be they animals, people, or objects - have value based on their utility and usefulness. I find that more useful than assigning everything an equal inherent "value" based solely on the fact that it exists. It makes prioritizing things much easier.

I really wish you hadn't used a cosmetics example for your example. You can test cosmetic type things on humans with little inconvenience to volunteers, and that's why cosmetics testing on animals is unnecessary and cruel.

I would go so far as to say "What the hell does any of that have to do with morality?" But I suspect the answer is that it's just a dumb statement that doesn't hold up to scrutiny, no matter how cursory.

It was the first thing that came to mind - I don't even know if they test cosmetics on animals anymore. But I agree, if it isn't necessary or there is no benefit, don't do it.

And that's how cruelty to hammers was ruled a worse crime than cruelty to dachshunds.

Edit: actually it's a good example of where your thinking leads, Nute. Based on their relative usefulness, it's ok to hit a dachshund with a hammer if that's what you like doing, but if you break the hammer in the process... prison?

Nute thanks. You've made everyone forget me and the whole 80's music kerfluffle.

There is moral grey area in this you know. You don't have to either exclusively catagorize animals as either useful or "omg they give me fuzzy feels and I just want to hugz them". Everything isn't either black or white.

(this first part was in response to jerri's question) Because Nute has a bizarre moral compass and he likes people to know it. I tried rectifying his rather dim views on people who, through their own actions, either passively (smoking) or actively (ramming a motorcycle into another vehicle), hasten their own demise, but there is absolutely no way I can rectify this or any of its justifications.

Nute, man, you're great for owning it when you're objectively wrong (helium shortage) and you're equally great for so zealously defending your opinions on more philosophical subjects (such as this one), but I am beginning to wonder how much thought you've put into these grand sweeping statements and cosmic judgments before you seek to espouse them to the masses. I respect (yes, who cares) that you aggressively believe that humanity deserves to lose its access to the great Shih'Tzu livestock herd if we have unscrupulously mined it for cute until the animal has become a dumb, useless, tangled mass of fur completely dependent on humans for its survival, because, as callous as it is, the "resource management" angle is the lowest level of conservationism; what I don't respect (yes, again, who cares) is that you, an otherwise intelligent, sharp, and compassionate person, who obviously does care very much about select important topics, aren't willing to put in the time and energy and spend the mental capital to reach a more enlightened state over this select, equally important topic.

If you don't want to put in the leg work philosophically, that's fine, but being so aggressively retrograde, and that's being nice, when the best thinkers among us have always reached for the stars and after them left us mere mortals to merely reach for the sky in their footsteps, seems risky in regards to your own status at best (do you want to turn into what you currently revile when you grow old?) and outright detrimental to the rest of us, communally and individually, at worst.

That is a very good point. A broken hammer is an obvious loss of functional utility. It's measurable. The dog... less so. Someone might have sentimental attachment to the dog - that's a form of utility. I'm not saying animals don't have utility in most cases.

I didn't want to do this but:

Attention Nute's Secret Santa:

Lump of Coal for Christmas

Well it is a form of utility, but providing pleasure to a psychopath via its suffering is also a form of utility, and that's the thing that I can't square with your philosophy in this regard. jerri blank was kidding when she brought it up, but I'll put it to you as a serious question: did that couple she posted about, who sold videos of them torturing animals to death for their own monetary gain and for the enjoyment of their customers, do anything wrong? If so, what and why? Because they extracted, at zero opportunity cost if those animals couldn't have been used for work (since they obviously had no sentimental attachment to them), a quantifiable amount of value from those resources, as you see them.

If you can reconcile this, your concept of the morality of our dealings with animals may still be illogical and ill-informed, but at least it might not be as monstrous.

The article itself is focused on physical data, not "omg sad elephants":

So, physiological harm.

Bryce - in short, I don't consider it a very important topic. I don't lose sleep about it.

When it comes to general information, if I'm wrong or uninformed about something, someone will tell me. Most of the time, they cite sources. That's useful to me, helps me improve myself. If you or anyone thinks I'm flat out wrong (me or anyone else for that matter), it's more useful to add a "and here's an article explaining why" as opposed to "you're a monster!"

In the first case, I tend to say "hmm, okay, I am now more informed". In the second, my response is usually, "Yes. And?"

I am well aware that I need to do this more as well.

You sure word things in a very robotic, spergy way sometimes. It's kind of off-putting.