Animals, Eating Meat and Moral Standing

I agree that all of those things are important, but why are they morally significant? After all, it may be important to me that I put on my left shoe before I put on my right shoe, but that doesn't mean it's morally significant that I put on my left shoe first.

You tell me. You're the one trying to justify your position, but after reading this thread I still have no idea what that position might be.

My position is that non-human animals are not moral agents and do not have rights. Whatever moral obligations we have toward animals are the result of our own ethical choices. In other words, if we have a rule prohibiting cruelty to animals, it is because we view cruelty as wrong, not because the animals view it as wrong

Even a single-celled protozoan will flinch from the sharp tip of a probe, yet I haven't seen PETA stage a whole lot of pro-amoeba marches lately. So either we accord rights to paramecia, or else there is some line in the animal kingdom below which the capacity to suffer is not morally significant.

They really push the Angus beef thing here in Canadia. I've never known any difference in taste in beef, other than that between ground chuck and ground round when buying hamburger, and that's a function of the higher fact (sic)content [/quote ]Noone can, they just think they can. I can make an old holstein cow taste really great by propr finishing and letting her laze about in a paddock. ANyway, there are about 5 or 6 different breeds that are actually sold as "Angus" Im amazed that US consumers dont storm the US D A. Our govt doesnt give a rats ass about truth in advertising. Hell look at these stupid "fat loss" and "make 10000 a month from your home computer" ads that swell up the Cable stations at night. How many people actually believe that ****? (God damn , dont answer that, Ive already been waay too amused at this thread)

There are plenty of ways one can argue that the comatose are entitled to moral consideration without arguing that the capacity to suffer is morally significant. A Rawlsian, for instance, might argue that, from a neutral position, it is better that people be accorded moral standing even when they're comatose than to allow open season on all comatose individuals. Indeed, a rule utilitarian would probably make the same argument -- and without the need to resort to any Benthamite circumlocutions about the capacity to suffer.

But to me, focusing on ending animal cruelty through a variety of reforms and means is more effective than making the case that it's morally wrong to eat meat at all. This is where I think a lot of advocates on the veggie side go wrong: they are picking the wrong argument with people

I do eat meat at restaurants, which I can't vouch for the care of the animal. But I buy my meat at home from a local ranching co-op that visits my farmers market; free-range, grass-fed, happy cows. The meat does taste better, though it is much more expensive... it's worth it though.

The ability of those non-humans to assert their own rights.

But then I'm not sure why you're even interested in discussing rights. There's always a beyond-the-looking-glass kind of quality to any discussion of "rights" with a utilitarian. After all, there are no "rights" in utilitarianism, just rules that are more or less utile.

That's fine. All we have to do, then, is knock out the animals and then we can do anything we want with them, since, although they have the capacity to suffer, they don't have the capacity for anxiety. That's a rather odd position, but I suppose it can be defended.

I'm far more confident that paramecia suffer than that they act morally. The first one that asserts that it is entitled to moral consideration will, however, have my undivided attention.

If those rights are their rights, then why the comparison?

And if you assert that humans surpass animals in their capacity to suffer, upon what do you base that?

Why stop there? We don't know if we're going to be born as a tree either, so we might as well accord rights to plants.

Factoring in the possibility of being born a dog rather than a human doesn't make much sense, since, if you were born a dog, you wouldn't be talking about morality -- you'd be talking about squirrels.

I think big Stew exemplifies this naive sense of how food is raised. Being a vegetarian as a statement of environmental concern or some moral twinge about animal cruelty needs to be braced with some education by visiting a mushroom farm or fruit farm or any vegetable truck farm. The support facilities for such opeartions include some very toxic substances that are applied in ten thousand gallon tanks and low sprayers or "big wheel" direct applicators. You need to spend as much time (if you wish to become "food activists") concerning yourself with all mthods of food production. To make it an "US V THEM" discussion that is a feel good for veggies, then you just dont know as much as you think about how veggies are farmed , delivered, and marketed.

Hey man, nowhere do I claim that the agricultural industry is a perfect example of food production

Here we are concerned with the moral standing of animals, which relates to how animals are used in food production.

it still doesn't make it right. Does it seem coherent to take half measures with slavery?

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Hey man, nowhere do I claim that the agricultural industry is a perfect example of food production

Yeh, Agreed , that was Fart.

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Here we are concerned with the moral standing of animals, which relates to how animals are used in food production.

Hence the term "factory farm" which Ive submitted that most of you do not even understand the meaning of. Even with the link posted, I submit that , in order to be economically viable "cruelty" will be practiced.

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it still doesn't make it right. Does it seem coherent to take half measures with slavery?

Slavery is a violation of HUMAN RIGHTS(natural law and derived law).
Animals have no similar standing, nor to carrots and rutabaga as far as I understand. Conferring such status on these life forms becomes a religious belief ( Fortunately, in the US yours cannot interfere with mine)

Referring to animal husbandry as 'slavery,' as some have here, is a little bit of a stretch.

Without pre supposing a major ethical theory...

But lets not trivialize the importance of interests (not saying that you are).

This in turn has to do with a person's very well being, no different from the strongs reasons why we attribute rights to life, liberty, and security. These sorts of interests are necessary for your moral well being.

Because I see no difference between humans and animals that precludes animals from obtaining moral standing. If we try and distinguish humans from animals via some characteristic thought to be distinctive only to humans e.g. rationality, a problem arises because we have cases of humans who lack this characteristic e.g. infants, the cognitively impaired, comatose patients and yet they are granted moral consideration.

Lighting an infant on fire is wrong, and the same should go for lighting a cat on fire. But why? Because I argue animals obtain direct moral standing, that is, they themselves make a moral claim on us. Like our interests to avoid painand suffering, animals too have this strong interest. If we continue to survey the similarities between and animals, we can note many strong interests that are similar between the two.

These similarities, in my mind, are sufficient reasons to recognize the moral standing of animals. That is, we must consider the reasons behind our actions that affect animals. If our actions that harm the interests of animals (just like humans) arn't justifiable in a normative sense, then we lack good reason for those actions.

First, why do marginal cases (infants, severly retarded) whom lack the rational capacity for making ethical choices aquire rights but not animals. It is logically inconsistent.

Second, the standard you propose for rights is too high. Again, why assume self reflective rationality as a necessary condition for obtaining moral rights. This requirement is too strong, because obviously it would exclude marginal cases.

By comparison, why not accept the condition that so long as the object in question has a valid interest in furthering it's interests, that suffices for moral rights?

We can recognize that animals have values that we also consider morally significant (as do marginal cases), and that ought to suffice for moral consideration.

I'm not a proposing that pain be the only interest of moral concern, though it certainly is important. With that said, you raise an interesting issue where the line begins to grow fuzzy, and I think what falls in and out of the scope of moral deliberation is contestable. However, this argument ought not to exclude those whom we know have strong interests not to be in pain e.g monkeys, dogs etc.

Here is the thing Joe, and it may not suffice for you, but it is more to the point of this thread. Supposing a particular ethical theory is obviously going to lead to disagreement about particular issues, since that is the nature of the ongoing debate within the field of ethics. The point of this thread, was merely to propose an incompletely theorized argument, that is, to discuss the general points we can agree on, without going deep into the issue with a particular ethical theory.

My general point was that animals, like humans have interests, and these interests warrant direct moral standing (moral standing being the primary issue at hand in this thread).

joefromchicago wrote:

The ability of those non-humans to assert their own rights.

By this logic, comatose patients should also have no rights, because they can't assert their own rights either. What gives?

There are rights in Utilitarianism.

They're just derived rather than axiomatic. Or to rephrase it in your language, "rights" is a one-syllable word for some of the "rules that are more utile". But that's different from saying "there are no rights". It's saying that "there are rights, and this is what they're made for".

Because there can arise cases where we must resolve a conflict between rights, and where the comparison is necessary to make the utility-maximizing tradeoff.

On our capability to imagine different possible futures for ourselves for years out, on our obvious capability to suffer or rejoice in those imaginations, and on the inability of animals to do the same, to the best of our zoological knowledge.

I agree on both points. We don't know, and we might. I just don't think that would change the laws of the society I'd want to be born into. After all, if I was a tree, I couldn't experience any pain, so couldn't be helped or harmed by the legal and moral rules of that society.

The same argument could be made against according rights to mentally disabled humans who can't reason about rights. Don't make me reread Rawls (1971) right now, because I'm still not finished with Kant. But I'm pretty sure that he does want a society with rights for the mentally disabled. I'm also pretty sure that he would justify them from an original position that accounts for the possibility of us being born mentally handicapped.