User:Fasten/Ethics applied towards animals
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- You can't trade with animals.
[edit] Ethics applied towards animals
Apparently humanity widely agrees on the behaviour that lesser species can be kept in cages for their whole lives, hunted, slaughtered and eaten without a proper analysis and understanding of their consciousness.
The precedent here is not necessarily as simple as "some lesser species are edible" but could be "species considered to be lesser species are widely treated according to unreflected prejudices and without a proper understanding of their intelligence, their consciousness or what is appropriate to their individual species." [1]
- Is the observation that a supermarket delivers the meat of a species, therefore that species must be edible sufficient?
- Is the observation that a religion has sanctified consumption of the meat of a species sufficient?
- Is the observation that some scientists claim the species is 'in general not particularly intelligent' [2] sufficient?
- Is visiting a farm, zoo or national park and observing the species in question yourself sufficient if you are not qualified to make such an observation? Most animals appear to be unintelligent if you don't try to understand their perceptional universe, especially the lack of abstract thought and language. Some animals may appear much less intelligent because they lack behaviour that is understandable to a human, like a pet playing with a toy. Some animals in captivity may also lack intelligence because the conditions of captivity didn't allow them to develop their natural level of intelligence. The precedent to thwart that potential could be seen as unethical as well.
- Would it be ethical to breed especially stupid individuals of a non-edible species to make them edible?
The precedent of consuming certain types of meat may be far less problematic than the precedent of consuming arbitrary meat without an elaborate analysis of the species that was killed and the conditions under which the species was held. [4]
Narrative causality could be explained as the statement: "Look, you wouldn't want a superior species to alter your world, even if the alterations were designed to be appropriate to your species, race, peer group or personal interests, would you?"
- [1] I remember that my decision that meat must be edible, as a child, was founded on the observation that everybody I knew was eating meat and it was an ancient custom. Although I challenged that custom at times I've never made a well-considered logical decision to abolish meat eating (until recently). Whenever I fell back to eating meat it was because it was on offer, it was convenient or it was what everybody else was doing. The point is: I've never really wondered what it might be like to be a cow or a pig and that is the first thing you might want to understand before you can decide if such a creature might be edible. A failure to make this analysis could be seen as a lack of ethics even by an observer who would agree that it actually might be edible. [3]
- [2] That may be to vague, even if the scientists have a clear understanding of the observable skills and potentials of a species. Some species may be more introvert than others and their intelligence may be more difficult to assess. Furthermore are the ethical borders what should not be done to what kind of intelligence difficult to specify and their assessment might easily be delegated to the expert as well.
- [3] The observer might, for example, concede that you can eat some species of fish but do you have an understanding of the individual intelligence of different species and have you considered bycatch of non-edible species, especially cetacean bycatch?
- [4] I think that's what tie-me is most often about: Failure to act when available information and ethics could demand actions, even when after further analysis the incident can be revealed as a hoax. This may include a failure to educate. [5]
- [5] Interestingly, in order to judge your judgement of whom to educate and whom not to educate, that might also require a judgement of the person in question, which is more judgement than I would expect (as ethics frequently appear to be left to be defined by the individual). It may, of course, also apply that your reasons for your judgements may be applied in judging your own actions at some other time irrespective of the person judged. Even if this is not true it could make you very careful about prejudices and insufficient analysis of your own motivations. [6]
- [6] To apply this to animals again: The judgement that "a creature can be held against its will even if that will has been communicated by all means available" (irrespective of the creature judged) could be a rather poor precedent if you do not have a conclusive idea why a species, that can be said to have a will of its own, can be treated that way. The judgement that a species qualifies for this because it doesn't speak a proper language, has a rather short lifespan or sometimes follows a taxis where it should know better may be held against you, as seen by a more developed species. (see Speciecism).
