Atheist vegetarians
I completely understand why people have ethical or moral reasons for vegetarian. Personally, I’ll put anything into my mouth, as long as someone, somewhere has considered it food.
It seems to me that high concentrations of atheists are also vegetarian.
When Flimsy was single, his mother used to tell him things like, “You’d better not wear so much black. You’ll attract the wrong kind of girl”. By wrong kind, she meant atheist, with tattoos and piercings, and vegetarian.
I had to tell his mother no less than five times over the course of the first six months we were dating that; in fact, I love to eat dead animals.
I’d really like to know the percentage of atheists who are vegetarian. Are you? Why or why not? Should we be?
It seems to me that high concentrations of atheists are also vegetarian.
When Flimsy was single, his mother used to tell him things like, “You’d better not wear so much black. You’ll attract the wrong kind of girl”. By wrong kind, she meant atheist, with tattoos and piercings, and vegetarian.
I had to tell his mother no less than five times over the course of the first six months we were dating that; in fact, I love to eat dead animals.
I’d really like to know the percentage of atheists who are vegetarian. Are you? Why or why not? Should we be?
posted by Ziztur
at
3:00 PM
90 Comments:
Because my moral system largely stems from "What the social contract needs to entail to ensure maximum freedom for all people in general and for me specifically", the question of whether eating meat is moral or immoral has a definite answer for me: If an animal has no value to me alive*, and it cannot prove to me that it is a person**, then it is perfectly acceptable that I kill and eat it.
So there are no moral reasons for me to not eat meat, and meat is delicious, and it takes a lot more work to get the nutrients you need out of plants than it is to get the nutrients you need from a well-balanced diet. Thus, I am not a vegetarian.
* A cat has much, much greater value to me alive than dead, for example. Same goes for just about anything cute. The killing of cute things is highly immoral.
** My working definition of "person"-hood involves something along the lines of "If you are a person, then you are capable of proving to me in some way that you are a person."
What constitutes proving to you that someone is a person?
And your "working definition" of personhood doesn't tell us what person IS---there seems to be an assumed but unstated definition in the definition itself.
As to myself, no, I'm not a vegetarian. But I've been seriously considering becoming one lately for ethical reasons.
I think that there are sound ethical arguments for vegetarianism. I'm not too interested in animal rights, the reason that has most power for me is that apparently to raise a single person's meat intake uses as much land as it would take to feed twenty vegans, or something like that. This obviously has implications for feeding humans globally. I'm not vegetarian, but I've implemented a meat-reducing diet in our household as an admittedly not-altogether satifactory compromise.
Justifications for eating meat seem to me to mostly consist of the argument from apathy ("well, what I do won't make any difference") and argument from tastebuds ("but pork chops taste goood") :).
I used slightly less specific terminology than I should have: I said "proving" when I meant something more along the lines of "making a proof". If you're intelligent and self-aware enough to make a coherent argument for your person-hood, then you are a person. That's what constitutes proving to me that you're a person. My definition of a "person", for the purpose of this argument, was someone a.) who can demonstrate that they are a person and b.) whose freedom I should take into account when calculating the morality of an action. No more, no less.
Why the freedom of all persons should be considered (rather than just me) and the freedom of non-persons should not be considered was something I definitely did omit, because it is hard to phrase properly, but I will try now. To wit: a more to the point addition to the definition of a person could be c.) An individual who is capable of acting based upon morality. Which is to say, if I act morally towards a person, I can reasonably expect that person to act morally towards me. Including non-persons in this carries no benefit: a non-person will act amorally no matter how I act towards them, so morality can safely treat them as commodities rather than attempting to maximize their freedom.
I simply make the (very arguable, I know) assumption that (c) and (a) are equivalent, but (a) is far easier to test than (c), and thus makes a much better metric for person-hood. I also make the obviously ridiculous assumption that all moralities are identical to my own, but that creates problems surprisingly infrequently.
If you're intelligent and self-aware enough to make a coherent argument for your person-hood, then you are a person. That's what constitutes proving to me that you're a person. My definition of a "person", for the purpose of this argument, was someone a.) who can demonstrate that they are a person and b.) whose freedom I should take into account when calculating the morality of an action. No more, no less.
Again, your definition assumed a meaning to the word "person" which it didn't state. Fortunately you basically stated that implicit meaning in the previous sentence: being intelligent and self-aware (and holding these qualities in such a degree as to be able to use language and reason).
Which is to say, if I act morally towards a person, I can reasonably expect that person to act morally towards me. Including non-persons in this carries no benefit: a non-person will act amorally no matter how I act towards them, so morality can safely treat them as commodities rather than attempting to maximize their freedom.
I take it then that the sole purpose of morality, from your perspective, is to benefit you? Enlightened self-interest, basically?
Its not the worst system available. But I aspire to more in a system of values than that which can be embraced by sociopaths.
Just found this after looking at your sleeping pill experiment (fab btw).
I'm a vegetarian for no moral reasons what so ever, I hated meats as a child and couldn't imagine eating them now. My mother became vegetarian out of convenience, but it does seem to have a role in her humanist outlook on the world nowadays. In that she feels a sense of moral obligation to other beings, but similarly she is none too happy about the fact that I will be looking inside small furry animals as part of my education-so it extends past vegetarianism.
I hadn't realised that atheism and vegetarianism were linked, particularly since (apart from mother) the only other atheists I know eat anything, and the only other vegetarians I know seem to be very into tarot/spiritualism stuff.
Nice conversation! It's been quiet around here lately, that made me sad.
@Malimar - Okay, so just so we're clear - is an infant a person? How about a human with severe mental limitations such that they cannot mak an argument for themselves?
Comfortable with my place at the top of the food chain, thank you, although I certainly prefer meat from animals that lived happily and comfortably up until they met an abrupt and humane demise.
I expect that atheism and vegetarianism have some link because atheists are not provided with a preset morality, thus we have to figure out for ourselves what’s ethical and what’s not. I am an atheist, and I am not a vegetarian, but I am the first to admit that I am treading in grey areas here.
I believe that humans have a right not to have violence initiated against them; thus it would clearly be unethical to kill and eat them.
I believe this on the basis of an improved version of the Silver Rule (mine runs “do not do unto others as they would not have you do unto them”), and I believe that anyone who is capable of appreciating that rule, and abiding by it, deserves to be treated according to it.
I also believe that some leeway should be made for those who have difficulty understanding it, such as children and some of the mentally handicapped.
Since it is extremely difficult to ascertain the intelligence of non-human animals, it’s hard to say where to draw the lines. Does a cow qualify for empathy by this rule? Almost certainly not; cows aren’t very bright. Does a chimpanzee, or a bonobo? Quite possibly indeed. A dolphin? A smart dog? A stupid dog? A pig? —Pigs are probably smarter than dogs by most standards.
And, as a [vegan] commenter on my own blog once pointed out, it gets hairy when you consider that some high-functioning “animals” may very well be smarter and more self-aware than some low-functioning humans. What is my justification if I choose to treat someone with more respect just on the basis of species? What if one individual is a human, incapable of walking or talking or otherwise communicating in more than, perhaps, ambiguous blinks of the eye, and the other a chimpanzee or gorilla that can speak limited sign language, or an African grey parrot capable of expressing intentions and desires in English, or a dolphin?
I do not have good answers to these questions. I have some answers, but they reek of post hoc rationalisation. I do not consider it impossible that I would try to convert to a vegetarian diet if not for my dietary restrictions. (Due to allergies, I can’t eat nuts or legumes, which excludes tofu, hummus, etc.; I can’t eat some common mushrooms; I’m allergic to a whole range of fruits. Vegetarianism would be insanely difficult for me, and I have trouble keeping up with cooking as it is. This obviously biases me.)
David B. Ellis: Yes, enlightened self-interest is a good way to put it. I've never come across or been able to come up with any really compelling (to me) reasons for morality that don't hinge on self-interest in at least some major way, so I figured I might as well make it an explicit foundation.
Ziztur: That very point occurred to me as I was writing my previous comment. According to this definition I have spelled out, no, an infant is not a "person", nor is a severely mentally handicapped individual, nor is a foetus. At this point it does become clear that "person" is not the best word for what I have described, considering all the extra baggage and connotations associated with it. "Sapient being" might have been a better choice (it's a little clunky and still has some baggage, but not as much as "person"). But I'll stick with "person" for now, though I shall henceforth put it in quotes to specify we're using my definition, not the regular definition. Also, the next three paragraphs suffer noticeably from me starting with the desired conclusions and attempting to artificially justify them, but the tortured reasoning can't really be helped.
Do note the additional cop-out in my original comment: "if an animal has no value to me alive". Cute things were an example of something that has more value to me alive (such that I can derive pleasure from looking at them) than dead. For me, the "cute" thing does not remotely apply to infants, but an argument can be made that infants have value insofar as they may eventually grow up to become "person"s, and thus contribute to the freedom of all people (and thus to me).
It can be perfectly moral to destroy a foetus, if the existence of that foetus interferes with the freedom of its parents to such an extent as to outweigh the probability that it will grow up to become a "person" with some value (as opposed to dying before then, winding up becoming a mentally handicapped non-person, becoming a psychopath (ie, an individual who tramples the assumption that (a) and (c) above are equivalent by passing (a) but not (c)), et cetera). As the foetus/child ages, the likelihood that it will eventually become a "person" increases, and eventually there comes some point where the child's value (adjusted for probability) is greater than its negative effects on the parent's freedom, and that's the point where it becomes immoral to kill the child.
The severely mentally handicapped are not "person"s and they have no value to me alive, but they also have no value to me dead (making the perhaps reasonable assumption that they are not delicious, and also assuming sufficient resources that they're not taking anything away from me when alive), and they could well have value to somebody else (their family, for example) alive, so killing them would reduce the freedom of other "person"s to enjoy their company, and thus, killing the mentally handicapped is immoral.
I'd also like to point out in passing that I am refining my morality still (and expect to continue to do so throughout my whole life), even if I'm sticking with all my original premises in this discussion for the purpose of argument and seeing where they go wrong so I can more adeptly craft their replacements. Although I have found the "If something increases total freedom for all the people in the world, it is moral. If it decreases total freedom for all the people in t world, it is immoral." foundation is quite sound and withstands much battering and I expect it to last me for many years. It's just when I try to define "people" that it runs into trouble. Also the assumption that increasing total freedom necessarily increases my freedom is shaky and quite possibly untenable, but much simpler and easier than the alternatives (not to mention it agrees better with everybody else's morality, and pretending I exist in a vacuum could swiftly land me in jail).
(I spent so long writing this comment the blogroll to the right cycled all the way through and back to the beginning at least once. Crazy!)
@Malimar You know I love you, which is why I must now play the Devil's Advocate. You said that the mentally handicapped have value to somebody else, and this is your justification for not killing them. Similarly, do animals, having value alive to somebody else, then fall under the same circumstances? Killing animals reduces the freedom of other "persons" to enjoy the company of those animals, or know that they are not being eaten.
The moral value of the mentally handicapped is a sticky situation for me, as I am an OT and have spent much of my life working with people with disabilities and several years working with children who have severe autism or other mental disabilities. Some of these children were much less capable of learning than my dog.
Defining people certainly is difficult, as the definition of people is a premise upon which a lot of morality is based, especially secular morality. I have yet to see a complete and working definition that places "person" in an appropriately defined scope (for my own personal needs, anyway). Flimsy and I have spent entire evenings hashing out what moral personhood really means.
Yay, I like being loved. And I do have an answer for that particular question! Although it does involve a slight retooling of my justification, or at least a return to more basic principles. To wit:
For any given animal that is generally considered both delicious and not cute, there will be more "person"s who want to eat it than "person"s who want to enjoy its company or know that they are not being eaten. Thus, killing it for consumption would increase the freedom of the many "person"s who want to eat it at the cost of decreasing the freedom of the few "person"s who want to enjoy it alive. Killing it and eating it would thus be a net increase to freedom in the system. If PETA and their ilk were any sort of majority, this could potentially go the other way.
By contrast, few "person"s actually want to eat the mentally handicapped (or see them dead in any way), while potentially many "person"s want to keep them alive, so killing them would increase freedom for a few while decreasing freedom for many, and thus would be a net decrease of freedom in the system, and thus would be immoral.
malimar, I don’t think the Tyranny of the Majority is morally defensible. Quite possibly, a majority of people think that both atheism and homosexuality are vile and morally reprehensible, but I do not think that they should have a freedom to silence us atheists, or a freedom to force the gays into the closet, just because there are more of them.
I am pressed for time, so I must be brief:
Me=hardcore atheist + hardcore carnivore = happy person ;D
*thinking about getting a "hardcore carnivore" shirt right now*
I concur, Petter. BUT! According to the metric I am using, freedom does not depend solely on how many people are affected; it depends to what degree they are affected, as well.
Imagine the case of a thousand people who are for some reason possessed of the desire to kill a single person. Either we can deprive all of them of a single freedom (that of killing this guy), or we can deprive the one guy of all the freedoms he could possibly ever have by allowing him to be killed. Assuming that he would otherwise be free to do more than 1000 things in his life, the latter would more net loss of freedom than the former.
Similarly, the freedom of nine people to pretend that gays don't exist is less total freedom than the freedom of one gay to live his life, y'know, freely (10% being roughly the proportion of gays in our society, according to my understanding, but the exact number doesn't really matter here).
This is all, of course, with the understanding that "freedom" can't actually be quantified in practise. I implied that a single "freedom unit" could be "freedom to do a single thing", but that's a gross oversimplification. Still, the basic principle should work as a theoretical construct, and prohibit anything like a Tyranny of the Majority.
Yes, enlightened self-interest is a good way to put it. I've never come across or been able to come up with any really compelling (to me) reasons for morality that don't hinge on self-interest in at least some major way, so I figured I might as well make it an explicit foundation.
I see no reason for our moral judgment to be limited to that which can be appreciated by sociopaths. We're capable of empathy, compassion and a general good-will toward others. If one fails to find intrinsic worth in these things, by all means, use enlightened self-interest. But I think there's better that can be achieved in the realm of values.
I believe this on the basis of an improved version of the Silver Rule (mine runs “do not do unto others as they would not have you do unto them”), and I believe that anyone who is capable of appreciating that rule, and abiding by it, deserves to be treated according to it.
Why only people capable of appreciating it? Why not all beings capable of wanting to live? Or all beings capable of suffering?
It seems to me that we, for the most part, invent fairly ad hoc moral justifications for our treatment of animals that have little, if anything, to do with the actual reasons for our behavior. We see our intelligence and abstract reasoning ability as a way of dividing the human from the animal so we take that as the justification for our actions. Evidence shows animals having more abstract reasoning ability that we imagine? No problem, we'll come up with some other justification.
I think its time we get into the habit of admitting this fact rather than engaging in the sort of facile rationalization most of us atheists look down on religious apologists for engaging in.
Fortunately, Petter acknowledges that:
I do not have good answers to these questions. I have some answers, but they reek of post hoc rationalisation.
I wish more of us meat-eaters did the same.
This is exactly the kind of thing I am talking about. I eat meat, I love meat, and I don't intend to stop consuming it. I realize though that I have insufficient justifications for why I should allow myself to consume animals.
So then, what is my justification for continuing to consume meat, even though I feel as though any justifications I might make are insufficient? I am not sure.
Come to think of it that may be the primary reason vegetarianism is more common among atheists than christians (I won't say than religious people, since I'm sure Hindus and Buddhists have us beat by a mile). Atheists are more in the habit of thinking critically about their beliefs and values than the general public---and more inclined to recognize the weak rationalizations for our culture's attitudes toward animals for what they are.
“Why only people capable of appreciating it? Why not all beings capable of wanting to live? Or all beings capable of suffering?”
Good question. Ultimately, we have to draw a line, however arbitrary. Each of us lives at the expense of other living things—vegetarians included—whether the lives of animals slaughtered for food, animals chopped up by harvesters or mauled by ploughs in agriculture, pests destroyed by pesticides natural or unnatural, parasites and microbial life destroyed by hygiene, sanitation, or immune reactions; the ants we step on…
Are plants capable of wanting to live, or of suffering? Certainly they respond to stimuli from damage; certainly they do their damnedest to live, in their own vegetative way. True, they do not have central nervous systems, but what difference does a mere central nervous system make, if it is so simple that it does not enable thought? As simple as an ant’s? …Where do we draw the line?
I am convinced one needs to be drawn, but I don’t know where.
Are plants capable of wanting to live, or of suffering?
There's no reason to think they are.
Ultimately, we have to draw a line, however arbitrary. Each of us lives at the expense of other living things—vegetarians included—whether the lives of animals slaughtered for food, animals chopped up by harvesters or mauled by ploughs in agriculture, pests destroyed by pesticides natural or unnatural, parasites and microbial life destroyed by hygiene, sanitation, or immune reactions; the ants we step on…
This smacks of exactly the sort of ad hoc rationalizing you mentioned. If we're determined to eat meat we will. But lets not BS ourselves about it.
Where do we draw the line? I am convinced one needs to be drawn, but I don’t know where.
It seems to me that the most moral way to behave is in such a way as to inflict no more suffering than is inevitable by being alive at all.
And that would be, of course, vegetarianism.
"It seems to me that the most moral way to behave is in such a way as to inflict no more suffering than is inevitable by being alive at all."
This is a very compelling and succinct way to put it. The issue then becomes not a problem of eating animals specifically, but of causing them to suffer for the purpose of eating them.
Example: an animal is badly injured or otherwise suffering. We choose to kill it to end its suffering. Then, we eat it.
Another example: Some sort of meat (from a previously killed animal) will be thrown away or eaten. So we eat it. (I am thinking of the meat at the local grocer which is near the expiration date and marked 25% off. Most of this is not sold but gets thrown away).
So, I think vegetarianism could include caveats or exceptions such as these and be similarly moral or perhaps more moral.
I suppose a decent moral society could not so much "refrain from consuming animal flesh" as "refrain from killing animals specifically for the purpose of eating them unless it is inevitable for survival"? Maybe?
With suffering as the sole criterion, there is no indictment of killing (methods of killing may well be cruel and cause suffering, but humane killing is possible). Certainly, I will happily argue for humane methods of slaughter!
In fact, I daresay that humanely slaughtered livestock may experience a lot less suffering than wild animals; a herbivore will most likely either get killed rather painfully by a predator that doesn’t know or care what it means to be “humane”, or succumb to disease, each of which will most likely cause a lot more suffering than a quick, clean kill with (say) something like a captive-bolt gun.
Oh, this is such a wonderful screed.
I will also happily argue for humane methods of slaughter, and I will also argue that an animal living in the wild - in constant fear of its own life - may suffer more than an animal raised to be killed.
This is a very compelling and succinct way to put it. The issue then becomes not a problem of eating animals specifically, but of causing them to suffer for the purpose of eating them.
To be clear, causing suffering is not the only morally relevent issue. I think we should also respect the desire to live of other beings. I should have made that more clear.
But, definitely, I think those of us who are meat eaters should still take steps to reduce the suffering inflicted by inhumane treatment of animals raised for food or on whom medical testing is to be done (some of which rises, or perhaps I should say descends, to the level of torture).
I will also argue that an animal living in the wild - in constant fear of its own life - may suffer more than an animal raised to be killed.
As someone who grew up on a cattle farm I've watched some pretty terrible suffering being inflicted. Watching dozens of bulls at a time driven into a shoot to be castrated with no provision for the pain inflicted is an unforgettable experience. I'll agree that we generally use more humane methods of slaughter than are suffered by animals killed by predators.
But, overall, I think animals raised on factory farms, as opposed to the small time operation I grew up with, suffer far worse than animals in the wild. The conditions there are often pretty horrible.
Apathy and lack of imagination mostly. I don't have an 'emotional' position on the issue really. And since my Dad's family had a farm I am more familiar with sheep and cow slaughter than most. I could be vegetarian but meat is so easy and convenient. If I was living with a vegetarian who wanted to do all the cooking, I wouldn't really care though.
As a deaf person, not so many years ago I would have been seen as being without language, not fully human, locked up and given no rights. Had I been born a few years earlier and in Germany I'd have been euthanized as being of no value. Had I lived in America prior to the Pope changing his mind in 1537, even being able to hear would not have made me human, or my suffering matter. Does it matter if I'm counted as a person? Does it matter if I suffer?
We can measure progress historically by what we count as our ingroups: our tribe, race, nation, fellow believers, “cute” animals, non-humans. We may include the deaf, the autistic, infants, a fetus, or “any organism with a human genome” as that Colorado fuckwit recently proposed, which would have me up on murder charges for violating the rights of the tumour I recently removed from my side. The boundaries are arbitrary and self-serving.
Who cares? What matters is not where we draw the lines, but WHY we draw them. Most often, defining a creature into the outgroup is simply to justify their mistreatment. There's not a lot of difference between neocons who support torture, humanists who approve of factory farming, Abrahamists who kill doctors ... they only draw the lines in different places. They apply the golden rule to their own ingroup, but to those outside it show neither respect nor mercy.
The golden rule—“Treat others as if they were you”—depends on what we include as “others”. Generally, people only apply it to their own ingroup. The Conquistadors excluded Americans, the Islamists exclude infidels, most Abrahamists exclude gays, some men exclude women, most humans exclude other species (except cute ones).
Personally, it doesn't really matter if you consider me a person, and I don't give a fuck if you eat me after I'm dead. Whether or not you hurt me is a different story. Same goes for my cute cat, and my ugly pig, and the loathsome creatures in my compost pile.
Scientifically ethically speaking person hood is dependent on the ability to take responsibility for rights. IE, have the ability to respect the rights of others and society. An animal is not a person because it is inherently enable to respect the responsibilities a member of society must have. Predators can't comprehend murder, and ALL animals naturally break laws against public indecency and nudity. Animals can't comprehend property or the rights of others. There are other criteria but that is a major one for personhood. This is why children effectively do not have full personhood, they are still learning, and aren't given full privileges (freedom of speech, movement, voteing, driving, drinking, major economic transactions) and those who show themselves unable or unwilling to respect those boundaries have rights taken away (imprisonment, commitment, lack of voting rights, scrutiny in work hiring and fire arm purchase). We (justifiably) have a species centric bias that gives more weight to genetically human animals, but on the whole the more you are able to comprehend the rights of others (in theory) the more rights you are given. Non-human animals are given more rights/respect for this ability and some 'mercy' rights for either their usefulness (Emotionally and practically dogs and cats, endangered species due to ideas of ecological balance), cuteness (Baby seals), or their superficial resemblance to humans (Dolphins have no sense of rights or the like, but their behavior has some human characteristics therefore they have mercy protection).
In related news: http://www.flickr.com/photos/passiveaggressive/3642661392/
Besides, I hear Deaf people are notoriously tough and stringy, no atheists wants to eat them. Sweet tender babies only thanks!
We (justifiably) have a species centric bias that gives more weight to genetically human animals, but on the whole the more you are able to comprehend the rights of others (in theory) the more rights you are given.
This seems just another ad hoc justification for our behavior---not the actual reason for it. Why should it only be regarded as wrong to do harm to species with the intelligence to comprehend morality and the idea of rights and not those who, through lesser intelligence, are essentially helpless before us and must suffer whatever we choose in inflict on them?
Do we not generally regard its treatment of the helpless to be a major measure of a society's decency?
"Why should it only be regarded as wrong to do harm to species with the intelligence to comprehend morality and the idea of rights and not those who, through lesser intelligence, are essentially helpless before us and must suffer whatever we choose in inflict on them?"
Because those others are infidels.
I think this post just broke this blog's record for most comments. Yay!
You and I may generally regard a given society's treatment of the helpless as a measure of that society's decency, but I am not sure all would agree with you.
We listen to conservative talk radio all the time, and those guys are pissed when we try to help the helpless, especially if we do it through social programs (I.E. we use taxes to take a small amount of their money to help the helpless). Though I suppose one could say this is because they want to help the helpless while not being forced to help the helpless. But I digress.
You and I may generally regard a given society's treatment of the helpless as a measure of that society's decency, but I am not sure all would agree with you.
No doubt. But I'd be interested in hearing their arguments for their position---I suspect they'll tend to make them sound like monsters to any reasonable observer. One can't prove the value of empathy to the stubbornly hard-hearted---but the fact that such people exist is no argument against the principle.
This seems just another ad hoc justification for our behavior---not the actual reason for it. Why should it only be regarded as wrong to do harm to species with the intelligence to comprehend morality and the idea of rights and not those who, through lesser intelligence, are essentially helpless before us and must suffer whatever we choose in inflict on them?
Do we not generally regard its treatment of the helpless to be a major measure of a society's decency?"
The reasoning is that morality is a social contract, as I explained. In order to have freedoms you have to have the capacity to recognize responsabilities and freedoms. Otherwise is anarchy. This is for the benefit of the animal and us as well. A murderer is locked away, a lion is not. We treat animals at LEAST on the terms they are able to treat us. For carnivores like bears and lions it is the law of the jungle, for smarter individuals we can interact on a stripped down social moral system.
This is also done for fairness. Why would we treat animals BETTER than our own helpless or despised? Why should animals have more freedoms to murder, molest, and engage in public anarchy, nudity, and obscenity while a human offender does not?
The other reason is that ultimately we need animals as a resource. For laboratory testing, to bio materials, to clothing, to labor, even without food we are still amazingly dependent on animal products. The ethical system is the minimum in some cases and in others the maximum.
Treating animals as full rights is ultimately not practical. As mentioned before even advocates largely go by their biased on what 'useful' animals are. Few argue for insect or vermin rights, and they have trouble getting support. Even fewer argue for microbial rights. Why are we morally obligated to kill disease carrying animals and disease causing organic creatures? Is it moral to let ourselves sicken and die for them? We are human centric because the underlying goal of humanity is to perpetuate humanity. We on the most basic level see other animals as they see us and each other, competitors for resources. We should in fact be APPLAUDED that we are even talking about animal rights, we have the self control to NOT out compete another species into extinction if we CHOOSE to. That ability to steward and govern is why we have more rights. We have more responsibilities. Animal rights are largly arguing for 'cute' animals to one degree or another. many sharks are more endangered than whales but get less sympathy. Wood ticks and mosquitoes are exterminated on sight because of the annoyance and risk they pose.
Additionally, we are justified in some ways in our human centricness as humanity debateably preforms a function of stewardship, as I hinted upon. With our technology we are able to save and protect other species from disaster (as well as inflict it but again the responsibility and moral issue). In the case of a cosmic impact like what HAS caused mass extinctions, we are the only hope for the cuddly pandas and kowalas. The rest of the biosphere in some ways is depending on us for protection on the global scale. If you believe in the Gaia principle (at least take it for analogy) we are the only ones that can act like an immune system (fighting off alien (organic and natural) threats, and/or eventually reproductive systems (spreading the biosphere to other host worlds). We are justified in expecting and forcing other species to support and take care of us because we give back to them.
"Why should it only be regarded as wrong to do harm to species with the intelligence to comprehend morality and the idea of rights and not those who, through lesser intelligence, are essentially helpless before us and must suffer whatever we choose in inflict on them?"
Because by expanding rights to all the "helpless" (many of which are not...again a lion is equally justified in eating any humans it can get away with) can result in intelligent animal death or disease. Would you take food out of a child or doctor's mouth to feed a prison inmate? Would you smother an old lady or an AIDS sufferer to save a rat? This is what happens. I love animals, but many of the arguments for animal rights as Peta wants result in human AND animal suffering. My ethical system is the one used for animal research. It is reasonable and practical as it produced results and betters lives. That is the minimum accepted morality, if you want to do more you are welcome but you are NOT willing to force your morality on others.
"No doubt. But I'd be interested in hearing their arguments for their position---I suspect they'll tend to make them sound like monsters to any reasonable observer. One can't prove the value of empathy to the stubbornly hard-hearted---but the fact that such people exist is no argument against the principle."
Yeah I really appreciate that ad hominum attack. Thanks for comparing me to Limbaugh and other assholes because I want to save people from AIDS and the like. I'm truely such a monster.
@Ing
I think Ellis was referring to those among us who do not agree that a given society's treatment of the helpless as a measure of that society's decency. I'm not sure he was referring to you as being a monster, though the comment is a little unclear.
Also, I am totally ready to hear D. Ellis's arguments for why he eats meat! This far, we've pointed out that many of our justifications for why it is okay to cause animals to suffer are ad hoc, which they are. How do we avoid this problem? We can take steps to reduce the problems such as treating animals humanely while we eat them (which is a step up from how they would be treated if an animal ate them, at last), but is reduction enough?
For the record, if I lived in a vegetarian society, I really would not have a problem being vegetarian. It's a lame cop out, but meat is convenient. I wish animals were treated better because often the way we treat them is unnecessarily cruel. Accomplishing the same goals of use without cruelty is an amicable, if potentially incomplete, goal.
The reasoning is that morality is a social contract, as I explained. In order to have freedoms you have to have the capacity to recognize responsabilities and freedoms.
I don't much buy this idea of a social contract. And I certainly don't buy it as an excuse to disregard the well-being of less intelligent life forms.
Otherwise is anarchy. This is for the benefit of the animal and us as well. A murderer is locked away, a lion is not.
And no one is proposing that lions be held morally culpable. But it does not follow that one lacks the intelligence to recognize right from wrong that one's well-being doesn't matter.
Why would we treat animals BETTER than our own helpless or despised? Why should animals have more freedoms to murder, molest, and engage in public anarchy, nudity, and obscenity while a human offender does not?
I have a friend who told me about someone they knew who had Alzheimer's (or some other variety of dementia). This old woman, who was in a nursing home, had a tendency to strip off all her clothes and go streaking down the nursing home halls when she got the chance.
The point is, we don't hold a being responsible for something it can't help. That's simply common sense.
It doesn't follow from this that we're illegitimately and unfairly granting them more rights than everyone else---we're simply recognizing that its unreasonable to hold someone to a standard they incapable of understanding or recognizing, much less keeping.
The other reason is that ultimately we need animals as a resource. For laboratory testing, to bio materials, to clothing, to labor, even without food we are still amazingly dependent on animal products.
I think we need them for these purposes, at this point, far less than one might think. Certainly, such issues are to be considered. But I don't think expedience alone should guide thinking on ethics---on that score we could justify a great many unconscionable things.
Treating animals as full rights is ultimately not practical. As mentioned before even advocates largely go by their biased on what 'useful' animals are. Few argue for insect or vermin rights, and they have trouble getting support. Even fewer argue for microbial rights.
I find no contradiction in this. It seems to me that more complex, richer minds are more to be valued than lesser ones.
Microbes have no brains and no consciousness. I suspect insect may have no consciousness as well but that's debatable. Regardless, though, I'm not proposing that we consider a gerbil as equal in value to a human being (or a chimpanzee, for that matter). I'd find a person morally culpable for a wrong who saved a lab rat from a burning building over a human or a chimpanzee or even a dog.
But from this it doesn't follow that we have the right to do with less advanced life whatever we like.
Animal rights are largly arguing for 'cute' animals to one degree or another.
Not any form of it I'm defending. Its not cuteness that the issue. Its the ability to desire to live and to be able to suffer. And being with either or both of those characteristics deserves, I think, far more consideration than we've been prone to extend to them.
Additionally, we are justified in some ways in our human centricness as humanity debateably preforms a function of stewardship, as I hinted upon. With our technology we are able to save and protect other species from disaster (as well as inflict it but again the responsibility and moral issue). In the case of a cosmic impact like what HAS caused mass extinctions, we are the only hope for the cuddly pandas and kowalas.
I don't think we want to base our idea of human worth on our role as "stewards" of the planet. We haven't done very well at it---if this planet's life goes prematurely extinction it might be because of an unfortunate run-in with a massive asteriod---buts its more likely to be due to our mismanagement. We're probably the greatest danger the biosphere faces.
Because by expanding rights to all the "helpless" (many of which are not...again a lion is equally justified in eating any humans it can get away with) can result in intelligent animal death or disease.
No one's proposing that lion's get the vote. Treating lower life forms humanely doesn't mean we act as if they aren't lower life forms.
The debate seems to have devolved to creating a strawman version of the position of those who think we should treat animals better. I'm certainly seeing positions being argued against that I haven't, nor has anyone else, proposed or even remotely implied. Below is a good example:
Would you take food out of a child or doctor's mouth to feed a prison inmate? Would you smother an old lady or an AIDS sufferer to save a rat?
I proposed that treating the helpless with compassion was a good measure of a societies decency and this is the response I get from critics?
Come now, at least address what I'm actually proposing rather than a caricature of my views.
Yeah I really appreciate that ad hominum attack. Thanks for comparing me to Limbaugh and other assholes because I want to save people from AIDS and the like. I'm truely such a monster.
Ziztur is correct. I was making a general statement about societies or individuals that do not, as Ziztur mentioned, have concern for the helpless as in any way a recognized moral principle.
They are not directed at any individual in this discussion (sorry if that wasn't clear). My criticism of the treatment of animals in our culture is directed as much at myself (I'm currently still a meat-eater) as anyone else. This is an issue I've been thinking about and reading about a lot lately and I think our culture needs to make improvements in our attitudes toward animals and how we treat them.
The first step, I think, is to recognize just how unjustifiably inhumane that treatment actually is---to strip away the rationalizations we've been telling ourselves on the subject (where we've bothered to reflect on it at all---which, it seems to me, we usually don't).
Also, I am totally ready to hear D. Ellis's arguments for why he eats meat!
I have absolutely no good reasons for it. Its simply a habit which I formerly hadn't seriously questioned and more recently have begun to.
I've cut back on my meat consumption and I suspect that I'll soon be completely vegetarian. That's where my thinking is trending.
Sorry for taking offense. I study and work in the animal science industry, so trust me. We relly on organic resrouces FAR more than most people realize. Furthermore the people who complain about animal rights are clueless. They wind up hurting animals as often as people and don't understand the practical issues involved.
I never said we can treat animals ANY way we want, we obviously have laws forbidding cruelty to animals and humane treatment, even lab animals are entitled to that more or less. But treating them as well as we treat people is not possible without lowering human life. My point was that animal rights and how we treat them is on a gradiant scale. The more intelligent they are the better they are treated. Other factors pop up. No animal deserves to be treated cruelly or unjustly. There is a difference between using animals and abusing animals.
For example, because of the health of the animal I am very much against the horse racing industry. What many horses get put through by their owners (not the skilled trainers) is systematic torture.
"I have a friend who told me about someone they knew who had Alzheimer's (or some other variety of dementia). This old woman, who was in a nursing home, had a tendency to strip off all her clothes and go streaking down the nursing home halls when she got the chance."
The key word here is nursing home. Because of her diminished capacity her right to free movement is diminished. Her ability to rise up to responsibilities is lowered so so are her privileges in society.
Her privileges are not reduced because she is able to take up fewer responsibilities. They are reduced only because of and to the extent that her diminished capacities necessitates it for her own well-being.
I never said we can treat animals ANY way we want, we obviously have laws forbidding cruelty to animals and humane treatment, even lab animals are entitled to that more or less.
The animal as experimental subjects issue is one I'm not yet well read on.
The only claim I'm willing to make on that subject is that I find the torture of any living being morally unacceptable. That it may benefit humans, even greatly, is simply not an excuse.
As to the actual state of contemporary animal experimentation and the level of suffering inflicted I'll have to learn more before I can comment on how I judge it.
Furthermore the people who complain about animal rights are clueless. They wind up hurting animals as often as people and don't understand the practical issues involved.
That's a generalization that may or may not apply to most people active in the animal rights movement. I don't know. I'm still learning about this subject.
Could you give examples of where they hurt animals? If this is actually the case then it can only help them to improve their efforts to reduce animal suffering if more are made aware of it.
The Alien comes out of hiding to say:
I'm semi-vegetarian, not by choice. Meat just doesn't like me, particularly beef and pork. I eat only bacon and some ham and few burgers, no beef. With people like Temple Grandin out there, I do not worry much about mistreatment of animals.
NICE COMMENT THREAD!!!
I am atheist and vegetarian. Here is what I have to say about this:
1. People are animals.
2. People are naturally omnivorous.
3. People are smart enough and have enough resources to choose to be vegetarian.
4. I don't think it is WRONG for people to eat meat, but the way we treat animals in this country is VERY WRONG and we should not support the factory farm industry.
5. Recommended reading: Writings on an Ethical Life by Peter Singer.
6. The reason so many people eat meat in our country is due to taste and convenience.
7. I think some people are naturally more empathetic than others. Jane Goodall and Mister Rogers are my role models; Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter are not. Goodall and Rogers are/were veg. Limbaugh and Coulter are selfish jerks.
I know I am more sensitive to and FEEL other people and animal's suffering more than my partner does. I have more empathy than him. I think our brains are wired differently. Some people who are exposed to more information on how animals are killed for food will be affected by it and go veg. Others will not be affected and see no reason to change.
When I see piece of meat on a plate, I feel disgusted because I am keenly aware as to how it got there. It is akin to roadkill to me.
I honestly believe that atheists and vegetarians are superior. They have evolved beyond the average person.
I'm an atheist, have a tattoo AND I'm a veggie. I MUST be evil!
The issue of eating meat and the issue of cruelty are two separate questions. My rabbits were the most contented bunnies anywhere, right up until the instant they died. They were well-fed, protected, happy and healthy, far more so than any wild rabbits. Killing them was among the hardest thing I've ever done, but the only pain suffered was my own, which is as it should be.
The issue of eating meat and the issue of cruelty are two separate questions.
Theoretically, yes. But in actual practice the desire for meat is being fed in this country (USA), if some of the things I've begun reading are correct, by factory farming that subjects animals to very cruel conditions.
Admittedly, though, its a subject I'm just beginning to read up on. I have a lot to learn about where the meat I eat is actually coming from and how most of the animals are being treated---though, as I mentioned before, I have first hand knowledge of how cruelly cattle are treated on small farms.
I am highly entertained by the extraordinary depth and intensity of open debate when one finds a rare issue on which strict rationalists and highly ethical persons differ greatly in opinion.
For my own part, it seems to me that we would take one of two broad ethical principles, or some combination thereof:
1. "Beings" that possess a consciousness at a certain threshold, a "cut-off point," if you will, should ethically possess full rights that cannot be violated. The question with this approach is to determine where that threshold is (or should be).
2. "Beings" should ethically possess a degree of rights in direct proportion to the extent that they possess a consciousness. The question here is determining the scale of rights that should be (or can practically be) granted.
I take what I consider to be a reasonable compromise between the two. I just find either position, taken by itself at face value, to be extremely problematic ethically and practically.
"Microbes have no brains and no consciousness. I suspect insect may have no consciousness as well but that's debatable. Regardless, though, I'm not proposing that we consider a gerbil as equal in value to a human being (or a chimpanzee, for that matter). I'd find a person morally culpable for a wrong who saved a lab rat from a burning building over a human or a chimpanzee or even a dog."
This seems much like the ethically-minded carnivore's stance, with one big issue; by this principle, one would have to include the *proportionate* degree of consciousness in our life-value scale. Otherwise, a young child's life would possess, by this principle in and of itself, far less ethical value than a teenager's, which in turn possesses less value than a middle-aged adult's. I'm not certain how one could make the argument that insects don't possess any consciousness; certainly, far less than a human being's, but not that much less than most other animals, relatively speaking. It seems to me that in this position, on a scale of value, an insect would simply be a bit further down on the scale than a cow or chicken. Thus, an insect's life's value should practically be considered no less than a cow's, in the same way that we consider a human child's life to be basically equitable to an adult human's life.
Basically, by a scale of intellect/sentience/self-awareness/moral consciousness/etc./whatever criteria we decide to use, (and this is simply how I lay out this issue in my own brain) stretching from 0 being, say, plant life or other organisms that possess no nervous system at all, to 100 having extremely advanced higher thought processes, insects and cows both are relegated to single-digit figures. Some chimps achieve a measure in the twenties, even the thirties, perhaps. On a proportionate scale, humans, even children or developmentally disabled individuals, lay in the nineties. This is why I take some reasoning from the first approach I mentioned above; at this time, there is sufficient difference - orders of magnitude - between "human" and "other life-forms" that I feel safe to make this judgment. I'm the first to admit that there is no hard and fast objective measure to this estimation, only that this *seems reasonable to me*, based on observations like the fact that we are having this discussion right now.
There are practical issues, too. I agree with David's assessment, in response to the anecdote of the elderly streaker; "Her privileges are not reduced because she is able to take up fewer responsibilities. They are reduced only because of and to the extent that her diminished capacities necessitates it for her own well-being."
However, this response is only adequate in such a case as this, wherein a person is a mere inconvenience to others. How would we deal with straight-up carnivores? I also agree with Ing, that with rights necessarily come responsibilities. To put it simply, if we imprison a human murderer (or more likely, simply punish in some way a human who kills and eats an animal), but do not similarly punish a bear who is caught red-handed with a brutally murdered salmon, it is exactly true that we have given the bear more rights than the human (or perhaps more accurately, we've sacrificed the salmon's rights for our convenience). Even if, in deference to it's lack of awareness of it's crime, we do not punish the bear to any greater extent than to keep it from hunting, killing, and eating animals in the future, we are literally signing off on a death sentence for . . . how many millions of exclusively carnivorous species, that would have to be similarly treated? Even setting aside the obvious logistical problems of the human and natural resources required to enforce such an ethical principle, the planet's ecosystem would instantly collapse. It simply can't be done.
My *tentative* conclusion is that our ('our' meaning the type of ethically-conscious carnivores currently involved in this discussion) current ethical principles (strongly avoiding torturing animals in any way except under extraordinary circumstances; when we do kill animals, doing so as humanely as absolutely possible; preserving endangered species; etc.) are both *sufficient* concerning ethical necessity, and at or near the limit of what we may *practically* achieve. I certainly agree, however, that much can be done to actually achieve these principles in practice. For my own part, as implied, I'm much more concerned with human rights in general.
Could you give examples of where they hurt animals? If this is actually the case then it can only help them to improve their efforts to reduce animal suffering if more are made aware of it."
Prior to PETA involvement it was legal to butcher Horses for meat in the US. This was doen for sick or injured or unwanted horses. The benefit was that it was done on US soil with US laws concerning humane slaughter and FDA health standards. Now farmers with unwanted or chronicly suffering horses have two options, either abandon the horse and let it die slowly or sell it to an over the border slaughter house that does NOT have the same regulations. The health quality is much lower and the animals are treated more cruelly than in the closed US ones. It is an unfairly inflicted cost on the farmers who now have to pay more to have the horse put down due to transport, so the incentive now is for them to let the animal suffer.
************
PETA supports the idea of releasing all pets into the wild. I don't need to tell anyone, I hope why having swarms of abandoned dogs and cats would be bad for them and bad for humanity.
"The only claim I'm willing to make on that subject is that I find the torture of any living being morally unacceptable. That it may benefit humans, even greatly, is simply not an excuse.
As to the actual state of contemporary animal experimentation and the level of suffering inflicted I'll have to learn more before I can comment on how I judge it."
Congratulations, you have just sentenced many diabetic, anemic, cancer patient, and HIV positive person to slow death. I'm sure though that the rats you have saved MORE than makes up for that callousness though. If you're sick do you take medicine for it? Do you take antibiotics? Does anyone you know take insulin?
I agree with Flimsy.
Main premise, if you are a vegetarian support genetic engineering studies and hope for one day we maybe be able to achieve transhumanistic ascension beyond heterotropness.
""The only claim I'm willing to make on that subject is that I find the torture of any living being morally unacceptable. That it may benefit humans, even greatly, is simply not an excuse.
As to the actual state of contemporary animal experimentation and the level of suffering inflicted I'll have to learn more before I can comment on how I judge it."
Congratulations, you have just sentenced many diabetic, anemic, cancer patient, and HIV positive person to slow death. I'm sure though that the rats you have saved MORE than makes up for that callousness though. If you're sick do you take medicine for it? Do you take antibiotics? Does anyone you know take insulin?"
WHAT? How does finding the torture of living animals unacceptable? Surely we can experiment on animals without torturing them. Animal studies are not always particularly useful in determining the cause/treatment of disease anyway. Saying that he needs to learn more before he comments on how he judges animal experimentation does NOT lead to your comments that followed. Woa non sequitur.
I meant, how does finding the torture of living animals unacceptable lead to the slow death of other sick people?
One more thought occures: If through some fluke we are able to establish communication with other animals even non-intelligent ones and they are able to convey a desire NOT to be in the position they are in, I would support the 'liberation' of said species. Until then I think our current use of ethics and utility is sufficient more or less.
on that note, according to recent research, cephlapods; of all things, may wind up being the animal that crosses the threshold :-p (I half joke, but they are very intelligent for what they are and do appear to communicate both visually and audibly)
I meant, how does finding the torture of living animals unacceptable lead to the slow death of other sick people?"
I'm responding more to pure critics of animal testing. Most people who research it from PETA like POV walk away with a skewed perspective. It's frustrating.
It depends on what you define as 'torture'. PETA and the like define any animal studies are inheriently torturous, especially if it results in some of the test subjects dying. Some experimentation that is necessary requires harsh methods. For those we try to use models like rats rather than animals like humans or dogs or whatever. Testing medicines or hormones or gene treatments are almost guaranteed to result in some lab rat death, some also require invasive operations to monitor physiological functions while the subject is alive. The discovery of chemical P for example by it's nature caused great pain in the subject (hint...P stands for PAIN). However, it lead to a great breakthrough in how the body processes pain and has cascaded into great innovations and benefits for humanity. These methods are vital to science but could be construed as torture. The people I listed are dependent on either past or future studies that resulted in sacrificed animals.
I'd also like to point out that such research also benefits animals, as a pre-vet student discoveries in human science find their way into veterinary science, allowing us to keep our pets, livestock, etc happy and healthy.
The point I was responding to is the absolute that ""The only claim I'm willing to make on that subject is that I find the torture of any living being morally unacceptable. That it may benefit humans, even greatly, is simply not an excuse." is an absolute that if upheld results in suffering and death of people. To put it this way, if the choice was that I could save 5 children with HIV or the like by torturing Jeffry Dalhmer, I'd do it and I think it's ethically justified. If I was given the option to substitute 100 lab rats for Dalhmer, I'd VERY much do that instead.
Prior to PETA involvement it was legal to butcher Horses for meat in the US. This was doen for sick or injured or unwanted horses. The benefit was that it was done on US soil with US laws concerning humane slaughter and FDA health standards. Now farmers with unwanted or chronicly suffering horses have two options, either abandon the horse and let it die slowly or sell it to an over the border slaughter house that does NOT have the same regulations.
Good example. My father, a lifelong horse lover and rider, had mentioned something about this to me a couple of months ago. And I agree that its an example of well-meaning but misguided law.
Congratulations, you have just sentenced many diabetic, anemic, cancer patient, and HIV positive person to slow death.
I'm not saying an absolute no to all animal testing. I'm saying a no to torture. If you find my unwillingness to inflict torture then so be it.
If you're sick do you take medicine for it? Do you take antibiotics?
I take it you're implying I'm a hypocrite---which would be true if my position was that we shouldn't use knowledge gained by animal testing. But that isn't my position---its that we should stop torturing animals (and I don't reject all animal testing). Allowing ourselves and our children to suffer and die will not save any animal that's been tortured in the past.
It depends on what you define as 'torture'.
I define it in the common sense way: to torture is to cause agony. Agony of course is a loosely defined term and reasonable people can disagree on the exact cut off point between discomfort/mild pain and agony. But no sensible person mistakes a paper cut for agony or having one's hand sawed off without anesthetic for a mildly painful procedure.
From @grneyedmonster:
I am an atheist and a vegetarian. I am a vegetarian because I do not want to kill anything I don't absolutely have to kill for survival. Plus, I find that when I eat meat, I get lazy - I don't work as hard to eat healthy foods because I'm getting protein (and fat) from meat. I eat healthier when I eat vegetarian. Also, many of the plagues of the past and illnesses of the present have come from farm animals, so I figure it's better to be safe than sorry.
Keep in mind, too, that in the not-too-distant past, people believed that animals could not feel pain, a theory we now know to be false. You never know what science will discover in the future about animal conscienceness. It's too easy to eat meat when it comes in little styrofoam packages and you don't have to kill it yourself or see it being killed. If you see it for yourself, you may think differently about eating meat. Then again, maybe not. Ask some farm folk or hunters for details.
That being said, if it's a survival situation and it's eat meat or die, sorry, Bambi, but you are going to be eaten. Outside of that, I apply the Castle doctrine to any critter that enters my home without permission and tries to feed off of my family and/or our food. Anything that is not paying a portion of my mortgage or gives me joy in some way is going to die (as humanely as possible) if it enters my home.
Anybody have any good recommendations for books arguing for or against animal testing? I'd like to read the best that both sides have to offer on the issue. Especially more recent works with up to date information on animal testing as its practiced today.
I am increasingly wondering to what degree my meat-eating is based on any justifiable reason, and to what degree it is a consequence of laziness and not caring enough.
Vegetarianism would probably be fairly difficult for me. I have a ream of allergies—I’m allergic to nuts; I can’t eat most legumes (and I can’t rely on any, as I would likely develop cross-reactions if I started to eat them a lot—I have in the past), so that rules out beans, lentils, chick peas, tofu, hummus… I’m also developing a sensitivity to some mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus, i.e. button/crimini/portobello mushrooms); and I’m allergic to a lot of fruits (peaches, plums, and apples for starters—man, I miss Granny Smith apples).
I’m also not a very good cook, and don’t enjoy cooking very frequently, so motivation is low. But I wonder, if I were persuaded that it was a logistically feasible option, what I would choose.
To the best of my knowledge, of course, it isn’t, and my diet is hard enough to manage safely as it is.
It's one thing to be against cosmetic testing on animals. Or to have no problem with animal testing that does not subject them to serious pain, harm, and/or death.
Unfortunately, though, many, many important breakthroughs in medical science (the polio vaccine and medical insulin for diabetics are just two examples from a very, very long list) have resulted directly from animal experimentation that resulted in extreme pain, harm, and/or death to the animal subjects involved.
We can all agree that this should be reduced as much as possible (reducing or eliminating cosmetic animal testing, for example). However, lacking any even remotely rational alternative to animal testing that I've ever heard of, it is WITHOUT QUESTION the case that animal testing, including very harmful testing, will improve or preserve human AND animal life on a scale orders of magnitude greater than the suffering and death required by the testing itself.
This is not a comfortable fact by any means, but is it a fact.
@ David, regarding material for or against animal testing-
I've only seen one or two articles on this topic (and no decent books) that I haven't found glaring logical fault with. Most material that you'll find will be against it, claiming, for example, that none of the breakthroughs we have achieved actually required animal testing. I've noted carefully that there never seems to be any mention of what we should do instead - test them on humans? Simply release the drugs to the population, and see what happens? Yes, the worthwhile advancements still might have occurred, but vast numbers of people would have suffered or died due to the drugs/vaccines/treatments that animal testing warned us had negative, or even fatal, side effects.
Perhaps the most common one I've seen (which is sad) is this one: "Animals' bodies are so different than human bodies that no such testing can be valid." This is completely absurd; a very, very few cases have occurred where an effect manifested in humans, yet it hadn't manifested in animal testing at all. These cases, though, are so extraordinarily uncommon that they make, to my mind, no impact whatsoever on the massive benefit that the immeasurably vast successful testing has had on human and animal life.
Unfortunately, as distasteful as it is, near as I can tell, this really looks like a clear-cut choice of killing, and yes, even torturing several hundred thousands of "lower" animals in exchange for vastly improving or saving the lives of millions or even billions of other animals, including human beings.
*Shrug* Shit, world's a messy place.
There is "The Animal Research War" by Conn and Parker, which is a pro-animal research book:
http://www.amazon.com/Animal-Research-War-Michael-Conn/dp/023060014X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245962862&sr=8-1
Atheists constantly criticize the religious for their simplistic black and white thinking, so its amusing to see us attempting to resist its attractions: No animal tests at all / unregulated testing; Full human rights/ no rights at all; and so forth.
Flimsy offers two ethical principles. The difference is just that the first one offers a binary cut-off where the second makes the boundary gradient. Either case is regarding who posses full rights that cannot be violated, with its corollary of those whose possible rights can be violated. Typical, traditional religious thinking based on no hard and fast objective measure, only that this *seems reasonable to me*. The answer is, those who have a soul: defined as believers, the baptized, or pale skin, or wev. Lately its popular to rephrase it in terms of a certain level of consciousness, or DNA, or rationality.
The default position is that there is no reason to respect a creature unless it has 'rights'. Wouldn't it be better to adopt a default position that we should respect all creatures, and everything, unless there is good reason not to. We have to kill to stay alive, doctors and dentists inflict 'tortures', and humans are used in experiments. Nevertheless, we can do so reluctantly, with regret, and precautions to minimize the damage we cause.
Unless others respect them in practice, “having rights” is meaningless. Being alive means your perceived rights are going to be violated, including, no matter how much the religious try to deny it, your right to life. Let's accept that our rights are negotiable, stop worrying about who has them, and extend respect to everything as much as we can.
“If through some fluke we are able to establish communication with other animals even non-intelligent ones and they are able to convey a desire NOT to be in the position they are in, ...”
This is an astounding remark. Go to a factory farm. They can't communicate with someone who refuses to listen.
Unfortunately, though, many, many important breakthroughs in medical science (the polio vaccine and medical insulin for diabetics are just two examples from a very, very long list) have resulted directly from animal experimentation that resulted in extreme pain, harm, and/or death to the animal subjects involved.
I'll be the first to admit I'm not knowledgeable about this subject. So could you go into more detail. Would it have been impossible to create the polio vaccine or medical insulin without inflicting torture on animals?
If so, why?
Any books or articles you could direct me to arguing for this position would also be appreciated.
Also a question: since you seem to basically be arguing from expediency what objections do you have to using death row inmates and other prisoners who've committed the worst sorts of crimes as test subject against their will?
I've noted carefully that there never seems to be any mention of what we should do instead - test them on humans? Simply release the drugs to the population, and see what happens? Yes, the worthwhile advancements still might have occurred, but vast numbers of people would have suffered or died due to the drugs/vaccines/treatments that animal testing warned us had negative, or even fatal, side effects.
I'm not, at this point, objecting to all animal testing. I'm objecting to doing so in ways that amount to torture.
If nothing else, there would seem to be the option of destroying the region of the brain that feels pain in animals on whom highly important experiments are performed which may result in extreme pain.
Yes, this would cost more money. But to meet what seems to me a bare minimum standard of decency in the treatment of animals who are to do so much for human welfare this seems not too much to ask.
Ziztur, thanks for the book recommendation. Unfortunately, a bit expensive so I'll have to get it through inter-library loan rather than buying it.
http://www.the-aps.org/pa/policy/animals/intro.htm
This is one of the easiest places I could direct you to; I think that it illustrates pretty conclusively how vital animal testing is to medical progress.
I cannot say that it's *impossible* to replicate such discoveries without animal testing, as even attempting to show such a thing would be a logical fallacy. Can we say that it would have been impossible for Charles Darwin to articulate or substantiate the theory of evolution without observing animal? Well, no, but the theory of evolution did come about as a *direct result* of that observation. Ditto with animal testing and many of the greatest advances of medical science you could name.
Additionally, as I've already said, animal testing is not just to demonstrate the effectiveness of a proposed drug or treatment. It's also (some might say primarily) to determine, relatively conclusively, if the treatment is safe on a complete biological system. I explained this in the first paragraph of my previous comment.
Re: Medical testing on death row inmates:
A. I thought we had already established that we agree that the value of a human being's life is orders of magnitude greater than that of a "lower life form."
B. No. I wouldn't, because in my estimation the death penalty is not sentenced fairly; it has a long history of being applied in prejudiced ways, whether racist, sexist, or classist.
C. Assuming that the death penalty is, in this thought experiment, applied fairly, in a way that I can ethically agree to, then yes, I have no ethical problem with a person who has committed a sufficiently horrible crime being used for experimentation purposes, even for testing that would cause injury, pain, or death.
Again, it's not a comfortable conclusion at all, but it seems quite clear to me what the most ethical course of action is, regardless of what my intuitive preferences might be.
I cannot say that it's *impossible* to replicate such discoveries without animal testing, as even attempting to show such a thing would be a logical fallacy.
Your comments in the above seem to be about animal testing in general. But what I'm objecting to is torturous animal testing. Though I'm interested in animal testing in general too what I'm most interested in is hearing arguments for why we can't do animal testing that doesn't inflict torture on them.
According to my understanding, the "torture"-style animal experimentation does not, in fact, happen anymore. For one thing, there are extremely tough regulations in place nowadays such that every animal-testing facility has to get every experiments approved by ethics boards by demonstrating that a.) there will be some benefit from the experiment, b.) the experiment cannot be performed in any other way, and c.) no animals will suffer any more than absolutely necessary. Moreover, unhappy animals will tend to give skewed results, so there's a strong incentive to keep the animals comfortable even without outside regulations and restrictions (unless they're studying some facet of unhappiness itself, obviously, but that's a fraction of a per cent of animal experimention). Even if these things weren't true, the potential benefit of increased freedom/happiness/health/whatever metric you choose to use will usually outweigh any suffering inflicted on the animals, even if you believe that animals qualify as people deserving of rights. So the case in favor of animal testing as it currently stands seems fairly iron-clad to me, and most arguments against it are actually arguments against primitive practices that have long since been abandoned anyway.
One more thought on the original topic: I, for one, will be happy when we have the technology (and the inclination) to do away with the animal farms and slaughterhouses entirely and just start mass-producing meat in labs as disembodied tumors, thus dispelling almost all ethical questions in one fell swoop.
You're right Malimar, we are largly beyond most of the nasty stuff of science (for example when we didn't know much about anatomy we basically had to open up living things and take them apart peice by piece to see how it works) My mother's old biology class had them chloroform rabits and then open the chest cavities to observe the beating heart...her's...wasn't totally asleep.....there was much screaming from everyone involved. When I did the experiment it was done on a simulation with a 'virtual frog'. I had to do everything I would have on a real animal (including pithing *shudder*) but it wasn't real.
Some still require extreme experiments depending on what it happens and depending on how you define torture. Everything Else Atheist, another blogger has a few posts about a project she was on involving inserting probe implants into a rats brain. The rat's while alive had to have their scalps opened up and exposed for the study. Her rat died of an infection.
One problem with vaccines testing is that you need a control group. Ie someone infected with the disease that receives no treatment. These rats/monkies/dogs most likely will die. The study examines if their comrades treated with the vaccine die as much. This keeps us from injecting worthless meds into people. intentionally infecting a human being with a disease IS torture and a human rights violation. We do it on animals so it will not have to be done on people. It's the best we got.
However, all of those studies have to go through bureaucracy first. Part of which is to make sure they stand up to industry standards and do not cause unwarranted pain. Anything involving live subjects goes through incredible scrutiny. The procedures for using prisoners is so harsh it's best to avoid it, even for non-medical non-invasive studies such as surveys.
One day we may go beyond that and use entirely virtual physiological simulations or 'test' meat tumors for all our studies. I'd be very glad if that would happen.
One more thought on the original topic: I, for one, will be happy when we have the technology (and the inclination) to do away with the animal farms and slaughterhouses entirely and just start mass-producing meat in labs as disembodied tumors, thus dispelling almost all ethical questions in one fell swoop.
A related ethical issue: what about brainless human clones kept alive by artificial means for medical testing?
I have no idea of when or if that would ever be possible but, if it is, what would you think of it?
It seems to me it would be a more ethical alternative.
hese rats/monkies/dogs most likely will die. The study examines if their comrades treated with the vaccine die as much. This keeps us from injecting worthless meds into people. intentionally infecting a human being with a disease IS torture and a human rights violation. We do it on animals so it will not have to be done on people. It's the best we got.
One of the arguments I've seen opponents of animal testing use is that animals don't necessarily respond the same way as humans. But I've yet to see hard numbers on what percentage of the time this is the case.
We've got so many topics here that I am inclined to break them into separate blog posts.
My kneejerk reaction is to say that keeping brainless human clones alive by artificial means for medical testing seems like an ethical alternative to inflicting suffering on other animals.
However.. why do I think that? I think that, because a brainless body is incapable of suffering. It was no consciousness.
Yet I'd sort of feel bad for creating this humanlike thing that could have been conscious, but isn't. Though, if had not chosen to create it, it would not have arisen on its own, so meh?
I've heard that as well; that an animal's physiology might not respond the same as a human body, invalidating animal testing as being reliable at all.
From what I've read, though, this is extraordinarily rare. For the most part, a rat/rabbit/chimpanzee/etc.'s lungs, heart, pancreas, kidneys, nervous system, etc. practically work in the exact same way as a human's. Thus it's extremely rare for the tested animals to react so differently from the human body that the animal testing turned out, in retrospect, to be worthless.
I searched diligently for such cases as this when I first heard this argument, maybe three or four years ago, and I found maybe somewhere between 5-10 cases where at least *relatively little* useful info was gleaned from the animal testing. They were all due to very specific, isolated factors that have been corrected for in subsequent testing (as it should be, of course). There could be more cases that I didn't see, or that have come up in the last couple of years, though. Still, compared to the hundreds of thousands of cases where animal testing was highly useful . . .
Concerning "torture," yeah, I realize now that I keep saying "animal testing! animal testing! animal testing!" when you specifically refer to such testing that we would reasonably label as "torture."
I just don't want to mince words. It would be tempting to say that (to continue an example that we've mentioned already) intentionally injecting animals with polio isn't neeecessaaaaariiily torture, I . . . I would just be full of shit. I figure that, talking about animal rights, would we consider intentionally injecting human beings with polio-infected tissue to be "torture"? Yeah, there would be no doubt in our minds; that's torture by any definition of the word, totally regardless of whether that same testing alleviates or cures the condition. And as Ing has noted, in any experiment, a control group is absolutely necessary, wherein there will be no treatment. This is exactly the sort of thing that will be needed in animal testing; I just don't want to fool myself into claiming that this isn't torture. I won't mince words to convince myself that a large portion of animal testing is, in fact, torture by any objective standard.
I know, it sucks; some of the things you mention have been things I've thought of before, myself. I figured, "Anaesthesia! Of course! That's what we should use!" But no, of course, pain is obviously one of the principle things that we need to test for in animal testing, and altering the brain physically or introducing additional chemicals would, in most cases, make the results of the testing worthless. I do agree, however, that in a case where we have very good, watertight evidence to conclude that such measures would not interfere with the testing, we should absolutely employ them. Unfortunately, from what I've read, this is relatively rare.
I also agree that testing on genetically-engineered slabs of human testmeat with no brain would be highly preferable . . . but we run into the same problem - we would have no way to test the effects of the treatment in question on the nervous system, or to check pain-related side effects, etc.
One of the arguments I've seen opponents of animal testing use is that animals don't necessarily respond the same way as humans. But I've yet to see hard numbers on what percentage of the time this is the case."
Yeah this is largely bullshit. We use animals that will be good models intentionally. We're not morons you know...
there isn't too much different in many mammals to cause many drastically WTF moments. As evolution would predict we have the same basic blueprint that is modified for each species. You'll get great differences like that testing a human disease say on...gold fish, but not on a mammalian model that you know...actually works.
Again that whole argument is absurd. Do you really think people like me in my field are sitting around jerking off as we pull off cat heads KNOWING that the data is useless because the physiology is too different? If it didn't work and our whole field is dependent on results (results we GET obviously as we keep getting new safe vaccines and meds) why would we waste time on pointless shit?
A related ethical issue: what about brainless human clones kept alive by artificial means for medical testing?
I have no idea of when or if that would ever be possible but, if it is, what would you think of it?"
This is actually VERY possible and conceivable in the near future. A big hurtle in it's research is the ethical concerns, but it'd be actually (relatively) easy to engineer a zygote to produce no brain. The condition occurs not uncommonly in nature, though of course that being is still born.
Again that whole argument is absurd. Do you really think people like me in my field are sitting around jerking off as we pull off cat heads KNOWING that the data is useless because the physiology is too different?
In one of the books I'm currently reading with essays from both sides of several animal rights issues, there's a paper by Kathy Archibald on the subject of drug testing on animals that claims its done more for legal than scientific reasons (to reduce the possibility of effective lawsuits).
Here are a few quotes:
"Many studies published in the scientific literature comparing drug side effects in humans and animals have found animal tests to be less predictive than a coin toss."
"Dr Albert Sabin, the inventor of the polio vaccine, swore under oath that the vaccine 'was long delayed by the erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease based on misleading experimental models of [it] in monkeys.'"
"Penicllin, the world's first antibiotic, was delayed for more than 10 years by misleading results from experiments in rabbits.....Sir Alexander Fleming himself said: 'How fortunate we didn't have these animal tests in the 1940's, for penicillin would probably never have been granted a licence, and possibly the whole field of antibiotics might never have been realized.'"
I'm currently reading the opposing article on the same topic but it doesn't seem to address most of the specific points in the other article. And none of the articles have endnotes citing their sources (though they do tell where the articles were originally published so maybe I'll be able to find the sources from them---its going to be a hassle having to search out all those different journals and publications though).
"Many studies published in the scientific literature comparing drug side effects in humans and animals have found animal tests to be less predictive than a coin toss."
Again BULLSHIT. Do you think we LIKE wasting our own time? Get a clue.
I wasn't endorsing the idea. I, in fact, find it rather suspicious. Which is why I wish the book cited sources.
But saying "bullshit", no matter how emphatically, is not evidence to the contrary either.
I'm going to try to track down hard numbers on the effectiveness of animal testing at my college library to be more confident what I'm reading hasn't been filtered according to anyone's agenda.
James, you're going to have to provide better evidence then that. A homeopath, acupuncturist, or psychic could say the exact same thing in response to someone telling them that their brand of pseudoscience does not work - that results of studies are bullshit, that they would not waste their time, and to get a clue.
Also, I can't believe this post has gotten so many comments.
Okay, not that much pressed for time this time, but then overwhelmed by the extent this comment thread has developed.
After reading through most of the dicussion, my brain feels like a hornets' nest. All I can add is a big
THANK YOU to everyone, for making it impossible for me to just sit down and enjoy my meal. Now I am doomed to weeks, or months, or maybe even years of brooding over my schnitzel sandwich, pondering the pros and cons of eating it. You guys *really* helped me :-P
Good point. Let me cite some quotations then
According to the British Royal Society, nearly every medical achievement in the 20th century is attributable to experiments conducted on animals. The following ailments would likely still be prevalent in the United States today without research conducted on the bodies of animals over the last 100 years: whooping cough, diphtheria and polio.
A link to the http://www.oprs.ucla.edu/animal/about guidelines about how animal testing is used.
I'd say Zitar the difference between the psionic and homephaty is that the science actually produces results. You can see and measure the medicine and treatments discovered. The difference is also one of profit. For homeopath and psionics it is in their commercial interest to call bullshit and NOT test, they don't want to be proven right. For pharmacies, testing is THE major obstical to getting a drug to market. Is it true that "many drugs with bad side effects" show up on the market despite testing. Yes, but what the animal rights nuts DON'T tell you is that many many many more drugs wind up NOT put on the market due to the testing. Many drugs never make it out of the gate due to phase one and two testing. Testing takes years, it is incredibly expensive and time consuming. For comparison I know from my socical network of every possible 'breakthroughs' in cancer research we probably won't see for 12 years at least due to testing. If animal testing were useless pharmacies would cut it out of their budget like THAT. It'd be a waste of money, a waste of time, and contrary to the best interests of the company. Some pharmacy industrialists are sleaze balls who release unsafe products despite the tests, but all in all they work for the best interest of the profit. Testing is not profitable...it's a sink hole.
"According to the researcher, the vast majority of conducted experiments involve simple cognitive tasks, such as hitting a button to receive a pellet. When I asked if the remaining experiments were more invasive, he told me the most pain his subjects ever experience are due to injections that last no more than a few seconds, a quick, fleeting burst of pain like you might experience when you stub your toe.
In addition, veterinary staff is always present in these laboratories, and the health and living conditions of the animals are consistently monitored. I’m not trying to paint the laboratory as some sort of rodent-primate utopia, but it’s far from the Inquisition-era torture chamber you’ll find in the Peta videos"
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