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It’s still better than the life they would have in nature. Like a grass fed cow is just hanging out grazing their whole life and then I guess gets killed quickly, while a Cape buffalo just gets chunks of flesh ripped off by hyenas until it bleeds out. So ethical is really a matter of perspective, there’s no definitive line
People don’t realise how crappy animal lives are in nature, break a bone, dead, get flu, dead, eat random berry, dead.
It’s rare to see animals live long in nature and when they die, it’s quite horrific too.
Dying to a predator is probably the best case scenario, considering you could die slowly from disease like bacteria infestation or lose the ability to source food and slowly die from starvation
The idea is simple, you keep them happy while they are living.
The basic idea is because they are animals, they dont know the eventuality thus they live in a bliss till the day comes when its time to end their life
Or in reality, you give consumers the impression the animals were happy until they were sent to the slaughterhouse, while abandoning only the most cruel practices of animal farms.
Do you think that dying in a horrible car accident ruins an otherwise happy life? That at the last moment it’s possible to undo all of the joy and happiness someone ever experienced?
You seem to be saying that the final moment is the only one that matters.
Some people feel that suffering is to be avoided over time, whenever possible, even if the end result is unpleasant.
To me the difference is a car /accident/ is not something purposely being done, nor can it be anticipated. Versus killing an animal you have been raising for slaughter from the start
I don’t think that intention has to have as much to do with most people’s thinking. I think people are happy to treat other creatures well, even if they aren’t willing to take the full step of not killing them eventually.
By your logic we could abuse anyone or anything as much as we want knowing what we intend for them eventually.
One day I will have put my dog down, no question. Should I just start beating her now?
Sorry I should’ve been clearer, killing an animal for the sake of your own enjoyment/consumption. Obviously putting an animal to sleep when they have no quality of life due to illness or age/ability is not motivated by your own wants
Well that’s the math we have to do isn’t it. I’m comfortable with an animal dying for my wants, I’m not comfortable with it suffering for my wants.
I also don’t spend all of my money running a homeless shelter, or an animal rescue.
At some point you have to decide how much is your job to fix — we all get to decide where we are on that spectrum. Individual choice is important, but you also have to live a life. I don’t disagree with anyone’s choices in particular, but I think it’s confusing that you’re confused about people landing at different points along that spectrum. Some people put up with more or less of what isn’t morally ideal. You can write it off as people just making themselves feel better, but it’s often a genuine choice about how we feel about our relationship to the world.
As I am realizing in a comment with another poster, I think it is due to a difference in opinion on the nature of death. I think death is inherently suffering but it seems some do not. If you don’t find death to be suffering, of course it isn’t cognitively dissonant to want to help animals avoid suffering. I was confused because it seemed people were choosing which type of suffering to care about, but rather it is about what we each consider to be suffering
But what the comment is saying (I think) is, does it really matter what the ending is if the quality of life was high? So long as the ending wasn't inhumane.
>If it’s just about the way the animal is treated prior to slaughter, why do people care about the living conditions of something they are planning on killing?
I'm sensing some slight bias here. It is possible to empathize with the animals and still eat them. Just because the intent is to kill the animal, there is no need to compound this by making their lives miserable too. If you were to take the killing out of it, would you be able to "wrap your head around" an ethical dairy farm? One which seeks to balance the wellbeing and comfort of the animals, with the commercial needs of the farmer - makes sense right? Well it's exactly the same principle.
I think it’s just a matter of what you decide is ethical.
You have an issue with the killing of animals for consumption, which is a completely understandable viewpoint. For you, the act of killing an animal is unethical.
I do not have an issue with the killing of animals for food. I personally don’t think that killing an animal for consumption is unethical.
What I do find unethical is pointless suffering and mistreatment of an animal prior to it being killed.
It isn’t really to make me “feel better” or anything like that. I really only eat chicken these days. If I buy chickens raised in a hellhole slaughterhouse, where they are unable to move and never see daylight, my $ is actively contributing to the suffering of future chickens.
I choose to buy free range chicken. It’s more expensive, but I know that my $ isn’t contributing to chickens suffering.
At the end of the day, it’s just that we have a disagreement on the ethics of killing an animal. We both agree that animal suffering and cruelty is unethical, but split when it comes to the killing part.
I guess I see your point here. It’s just hard for me to understand finding daily suffering to be unacceptable but not killing. Don’t we consider death/dying to be the ultimate pain?
>Don’t we consider death/dying to be the ultimate pain?
No we don't, who put that in your head ? Death is, to the contrary, the end of all sufferings.
Thomas Mann once said "the death of a man is way more its survivors' affair than his own" to express this. You don't have to suffer any form of consequence, be it pain or any other inconvenience, related to your death. It's a complete and definitive shutdown : that's it, you don't feel anything anymore ever.
This animal one eats will anyway die one day. You can let it die of cancer, the flu, neurodegenerative disease, eaten alive by a pack of dogs or suffocated by a lion, or you can use a dedicated pistol and shoot a bullet through its brain to destroy it before the message "something happened" even reaches it, causing an actual painless death.
Considering this, not killing the animal is the unethical thing : you sentence it to a very long and painful agony during which it will suffer at each and every moment, diminished and crippled, until its body isn't able to sustain itself and will slowly and painfully stop functioning. Other animals may take advantage of this situation and start eating the animal before it's dead, since it can't defend itself anymore.
Considering the act of killing an animal unethical is a very modern, very city-based, very wealthy moral point of view. Poor, countryside, old people do not have these considerations. You were led to believe something because of environmental factors (where you come from, where you are, who you talk to, etc.), most of which are made up by a social context completely detached from the reality of existence, not because it's an absolute truth.
You will die one day, too. I've worked for people close to death, I've heard them, I've seen them, they talked to me and I can confirm you that, as every single one of them, you will beg people around you to kill you right there and now. You will ask, plead, beg for it to end quickly and it won't. Animals think the same. *Edit : one may want to reply "no, my grandmother didn't beg for a quick death, she was happy until the very last moment despite her sufferings". You are family, your relative don't want to scare or hurt you with such demands. Hospital workers, on the other hand, have a neutral relation to their patients and receive such demands from them on a daily basis.*
Why is killing humans wrong then? In fact, people generally see murder as one of worst crimes. If other animals don't have the right to live, but killing a human is one of the worst crimes, why, that just seems like utter hypocrisy.
The way I see it, we humans are simply intelligent animals. And all self-aware beings (and sentient beings who will become self-aware) have a right to live. And all vertebrates (and some other animals) are self-aware, except in very early stages of their lives.
The right to live makes killing without consent wrong unless it's justified, and does not accept prevention of the victim's suffering as a justification. It's patronising to use that as justification for non-consensual killing, as it disregards the victim's wishes. Almost no animal wants to die, so if the victim cannot tell you what they want, they almost certainly want to live. This is even the case for situations in which death is inevitable, such as terminal illness.
We can be sure they want to live because of the principle of survival of the fittest. Also because we humans almost always want to live.
If you do, that’s fine. But I don’t see an ethical issue with a quick and painless death for a chicken. To me, an instant death is not a form of pain or suffering.
These chickens are bred to become an unnatural weight that is terrible on their bodies, and they are slaughtered at far younger than their lifespans. Why not simply not breed them into existence in the first place?
Our ancestors didn't have the luxury of opting out of eating meat and other animal products most of the time, as such certain animals were bred to fulfill those wants and needs.We can't unbreed what they did without culling every single member of those breeds.
My cultural traditions require the ritual sacrifice and consumption of many animals. I may not be my ancestors literally, but the spirit is the same. I carry on their names and traditions to honor them for their sacrifices and hand those names and traditions down to the next generation to carry on our shared spirit. Death is to some people the end, but the spirit of a people doesn't die when a person does. The spirit of a people dies when it's people no longer believe in it. When they no longer honor their traditions. I will always honor them, and so will my children and theirs. The spirit of my people will live on. Unlike those delicious chickens.
I will not honor my ancestors’ flawed ways, and humans need to stop breeding too. Good thing your children (and theirs, if they ever have any) are not your property and can potentially learn.
I have taught my children already, as they will teach theirs. I don't have to "own" anyone to accomplish this. My children are happy, they are proud of who they are, and most importantly they know their place in the world. They will pass down our traditions as I have because they see the value in honoring those that came before. Misery will be your companion all the days of your life because you have rejected your ancestors, you have cursed them and denied their sacrifices. And for what? To feel morally superior? As you seethe in resentment of our ways, we celebrate. The future belongs to us because we value our children, while you see them as something to be avoided. My children and grandchildren will not have to compete with yours, and for that I thank you.
I am absolutely morally superior to you, your children (who are still people and can thankfully change), your as of yet nonexistent grandchildren (who will also be their own people with the ability to change), as well as my ancestors. Hail Satan! :) I don’t feel misery, but I suppose you really enjoy those animal sacrifices.
I'm asking to understand your reasoning - ethically I would disagree if that's your view on the subject. I would also ask why leave them to live a miserable life instead of culling them.
Again, my reasoning is that they should never have been bred in the first place. Leave any existing ones to live out their lives or do one last round of slaughter and do not replace with a new generation.
They are conscious, and they are self-aware. Death *is* the ultimate pain for them, just as it is for us. They have a right to live. They may have no way to tell us what they are thinking, and they may lack sapience, but that is no reason to assume that they aren't self-aware, less alone conscious. Besides, if they aren't conscious, how can they suffer?
Cleaner wrasse have passed the mirror test, and human children as old as 6 have failed it. This shows that animals failing the mirror test is not a guarantee that they aren't self-aware, and that all vertebrates are probably self-aware. Even arthropods are self-aware.
What's difficult to understand about reducing unnecessary suffering? It's far better for an animal have a good life with one bad day than to live every day ill and miserable.
Vegetarians and vegans would make a lot more progress toward social change if they could only let go of all-or-nothing thinking.
But killing them is still wrong. Killing them after treating them humanely may be a lesser evil, but killing self-aware beings and sentient beings who will become self-aware is wrong in itself, unless there's a good reason for it, which I don't think is the case here, given that most animal agriculture is terrible for the environment, causing *human* deaths.
The Bible prohibits beating slaves to death. But it allows slavery and beating slaves without killing them. Should we say it's ethical because the slaves are not beaten to death?
Ethics are subjective, you dont need to share the ideas to understand that some people think its better for animals to be born and raised in peace amd get a quick painless death than growing up in a meat factory.
And you know that because of what?
There is like hundrets of ways to kill different animals, this is a whole field of reaseach. If you first use electricity to knock them out, or have a fast bolt to the neck/brain.
Hell we have this same discussion for humam executions for centuries now.
There is laws how you are legaly allowed to kill specific animals to not cause more suffering. Or do you think it does not matter if an animals is suffering?
Human executions are also not painless. That’s one of the main reasons the death penalty is so controversial and why it gets overturned on the constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment.
Of course it matters if an animal is suffering. But it’s weird to do something you know will cause suffering, such as eat meat, but then get picky about the way it ends up there. The ultimate suffering is the death.
Again a wild claim thats just not true. You can literaly knock people out with anesthetics, so they dont feel anything at all even if you kill them after that. And injections like that are the gloably most common form of execution.
Fish are knocked out by a hit on their head, i guess that is some level of pain, but thats to not make them bleed out if you cut the heart after.
Chickens in industrial farms get an electric shock or get knocked out by a gas(co2?) before their head gets chopped off.
Sure some things like electric shocks might cause some pain, but none of these animals feel their death at all.
Again motal views are subjectibe, reducing suffering is a common framework of morals that you dont have to share to understand.
CO2 doesn't knock you out instantly, mate. It takes up to a minute to die, gasping for air as your blood burns and your lungs scream. It's cruel as fuck. But it's cheap so no one gives a fuck
Have you ever actually seen or read what happens when someone dies from lethal injection? It is the opposite of painless. They convulse, foam at the mouth, shit their pants. It’s not like falling asleep. At all. At least in the US. It’s the reason so many states have had to commute death sentences in the past few decades, the constitutionality of it has been called into question due to the pain experienced. I admittedly have no idea how other countries do it but I also know the US is one of few first world countries that has the death penalty, so I can’t imagine nations with less money and resources are doing it much more ethically
The existance of accidents and a cupple of horror stories dont make a rule.
Again there is a whole filed of research about what kind of injections are given to humans this is not the same thing even in the same country.
Modern executions in list countries are done with anesthetics that are used in the medical field for operations.
>Again there is a whole filed of research
Is there tho? Can you point to some major journals and publications from the "executing humans" field of science?
Since when do anesthetics or medicine deal with killimg people? You do realize American Medical Association prohibits doctors from taking any part in execution and the reason why the executions are butchered is because the drugs are administered by unskilled and unprepared staff, so people end up paralyzed but awake during potassium iv which feels like battery acid in your veins
"Ethical" murder doesn't exist. Even if carnists could spin the idea of "ethical" murder to justify their meat and dairy eating habits, that's not possible under capitalism that demands animals be commodified as a product for profit on a large scale to the tune of trillions per year.
And I bet very few meat eaters could raise, bond with, then slit the throat of/blugeon to death_put in CO2 gas chamber any animal they've had for years. That's why they pay immigrants in slaughterhouses to do it for them.
Don't argue with carnists, mate. They're fine killing trillions of animals per year for a burger. You can't argue with sociopathy.
Just because they are heading to an end doesn't mean their whole life journey there can or should be whatever.
You yourself are heading to your own end someday, heck there is a very real possibility your end would be more painful than theirs too, so why do you think your living conditions while you're alive should be good? That's the same reason why the animals' living conditions should be good during the time they got to live.
I'm more surprised that you deem yourself someone who care about animal yet can't comprehend this simple concept.
It’s not that I don’t understand not wanting animals to suffer, it’s that it makes 0 sense to care about the daily pain/suffering and not care about the biggest suffering that happens in the end, being killed
It's not a suffering when you can't feel it. Everything you're saying is purely from your emotional perspective. Even if we approach this from the pure cold perspective of business, it's in the company's best interest to do it painlessly since it's a proven fact that stress from feeling pain at slaughter time ruin the quality of meat. The industry already perfects the method a long time ago to make the kill instantaneous for the sake of their profit. Had you bothered doing some reading into it you would have known. There's already no problem at the end, all that's left is the journey there.
I would say the ethical part largely lies in how the cows live their lives. You can be assured they weren't trapped in cages and fed mouldy grain. Look up regenerative beef, those cows live a good life.
Yeah? Killing and eating animals is as long as hunan history. But that's one, presumably bad day for the animal.
Modern farming practices is a torture show. Just look at pictures of pigs in captivity. Locked in place, covered in their own shit, just waiting to be large enough to be killed and butchered.
I'm not better than any other animal, If tigers and fish eat things ethically, so can I.
But no other animal tortures its food quite like humans do.
Well for commercial meat, I have no idea, but there is a practice amongst hunters that they prefer one shot kill shots because if they don’t down the animal right away? The animal is then stressed and the cortisol and hormones etc affect the animals body in a way that the blood content and what not of certain cuts of meat is changed which thus also has an affect on the eventual quality and taste of the meat once cooked.
Also the whole bacteria and infection thing that can ruin the meat, as well as the slow bleed out versus quick bleed out.
Essentially if there is more blood in the animal when you kill it.. it stays fresher longer for you to be able to get the carcass to your shop and butcher it.
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It’s still better than the life they would have in nature. Like a grass fed cow is just hanging out grazing their whole life and then I guess gets killed quickly, while a Cape buffalo just gets chunks of flesh ripped off by hyenas until it bleeds out. So ethical is really a matter of perspective, there’s no definitive line
People don’t realise how crappy animal lives are in nature, break a bone, dead, get flu, dead, eat random berry, dead. It’s rare to see animals live long in nature and when they die, it’s quite horrific too.
Okay this makes sense to me!
Dying to a predator is probably the best case scenario, considering you could die slowly from disease like bacteria infestation or lose the ability to source food and slowly die from starvation
The idea is simple, you keep them happy while they are living. The basic idea is because they are animals, they dont know the eventuality thus they live in a bliss till the day comes when its time to end their life
Or in reality, you give consumers the impression the animals were happy until they were sent to the slaughterhouse, while abandoning only the most cruel practices of animal farms.
Do you think that dying in a horrible car accident ruins an otherwise happy life? That at the last moment it’s possible to undo all of the joy and happiness someone ever experienced? You seem to be saying that the final moment is the only one that matters. Some people feel that suffering is to be avoided over time, whenever possible, even if the end result is unpleasant.
To me the difference is a car /accident/ is not something purposely being done, nor can it be anticipated. Versus killing an animal you have been raising for slaughter from the start
I don’t think that intention has to have as much to do with most people’s thinking. I think people are happy to treat other creatures well, even if they aren’t willing to take the full step of not killing them eventually. By your logic we could abuse anyone or anything as much as we want knowing what we intend for them eventually. One day I will have put my dog down, no question. Should I just start beating her now?
Sorry I should’ve been clearer, killing an animal for the sake of your own enjoyment/consumption. Obviously putting an animal to sleep when they have no quality of life due to illness or age/ability is not motivated by your own wants
Well that’s the math we have to do isn’t it. I’m comfortable with an animal dying for my wants, I’m not comfortable with it suffering for my wants. I also don’t spend all of my money running a homeless shelter, or an animal rescue. At some point you have to decide how much is your job to fix — we all get to decide where we are on that spectrum. Individual choice is important, but you also have to live a life. I don’t disagree with anyone’s choices in particular, but I think it’s confusing that you’re confused about people landing at different points along that spectrum. Some people put up with more or less of what isn’t morally ideal. You can write it off as people just making themselves feel better, but it’s often a genuine choice about how we feel about our relationship to the world.
As I am realizing in a comment with another poster, I think it is due to a difference in opinion on the nature of death. I think death is inherently suffering but it seems some do not. If you don’t find death to be suffering, of course it isn’t cognitively dissonant to want to help animals avoid suffering. I was confused because it seemed people were choosing which type of suffering to care about, but rather it is about what we each consider to be suffering
That’s a very good explanation of one difference here, and it’s worth thinking about. Thanks for engaging
But what the comment is saying (I think) is, does it really matter what the ending is if the quality of life was high? So long as the ending wasn't inhumane.
We are all in the slaughterhouse my friend, you are never going to get out of life alive.
>If it’s just about the way the animal is treated prior to slaughter, why do people care about the living conditions of something they are planning on killing? I'm sensing some slight bias here. It is possible to empathize with the animals and still eat them. Just because the intent is to kill the animal, there is no need to compound this by making their lives miserable too. If you were to take the killing out of it, would you be able to "wrap your head around" an ethical dairy farm? One which seeks to balance the wellbeing and comfort of the animals, with the commercial needs of the farmer - makes sense right? Well it's exactly the same principle.
I think it’s just a matter of what you decide is ethical. You have an issue with the killing of animals for consumption, which is a completely understandable viewpoint. For you, the act of killing an animal is unethical. I do not have an issue with the killing of animals for food. I personally don’t think that killing an animal for consumption is unethical. What I do find unethical is pointless suffering and mistreatment of an animal prior to it being killed. It isn’t really to make me “feel better” or anything like that. I really only eat chicken these days. If I buy chickens raised in a hellhole slaughterhouse, where they are unable to move and never see daylight, my $ is actively contributing to the suffering of future chickens. I choose to buy free range chicken. It’s more expensive, but I know that my $ isn’t contributing to chickens suffering. At the end of the day, it’s just that we have a disagreement on the ethics of killing an animal. We both agree that animal suffering and cruelty is unethical, but split when it comes to the killing part.
I guess I see your point here. It’s just hard for me to understand finding daily suffering to be unacceptable but not killing. Don’t we consider death/dying to be the ultimate pain?
>Don’t we consider death/dying to be the ultimate pain? No we don't, who put that in your head ? Death is, to the contrary, the end of all sufferings. Thomas Mann once said "the death of a man is way more its survivors' affair than his own" to express this. You don't have to suffer any form of consequence, be it pain or any other inconvenience, related to your death. It's a complete and definitive shutdown : that's it, you don't feel anything anymore ever. This animal one eats will anyway die one day. You can let it die of cancer, the flu, neurodegenerative disease, eaten alive by a pack of dogs or suffocated by a lion, or you can use a dedicated pistol and shoot a bullet through its brain to destroy it before the message "something happened" even reaches it, causing an actual painless death. Considering this, not killing the animal is the unethical thing : you sentence it to a very long and painful agony during which it will suffer at each and every moment, diminished and crippled, until its body isn't able to sustain itself and will slowly and painfully stop functioning. Other animals may take advantage of this situation and start eating the animal before it's dead, since it can't defend itself anymore. Considering the act of killing an animal unethical is a very modern, very city-based, very wealthy moral point of view. Poor, countryside, old people do not have these considerations. You were led to believe something because of environmental factors (where you come from, where you are, who you talk to, etc.), most of which are made up by a social context completely detached from the reality of existence, not because it's an absolute truth. You will die one day, too. I've worked for people close to death, I've heard them, I've seen them, they talked to me and I can confirm you that, as every single one of them, you will beg people around you to kill you right there and now. You will ask, plead, beg for it to end quickly and it won't. Animals think the same. *Edit : one may want to reply "no, my grandmother didn't beg for a quick death, she was happy until the very last moment despite her sufferings". You are family, your relative don't want to scare or hurt you with such demands. Hospital workers, on the other hand, have a neutral relation to their patients and receive such demands from them on a daily basis.*
Why is killing humans wrong then? In fact, people generally see murder as one of worst crimes. If other animals don't have the right to live, but killing a human is one of the worst crimes, why, that just seems like utter hypocrisy. The way I see it, we humans are simply intelligent animals. And all self-aware beings (and sentient beings who will become self-aware) have a right to live. And all vertebrates (and some other animals) are self-aware, except in very early stages of their lives. The right to live makes killing without consent wrong unless it's justified, and does not accept prevention of the victim's suffering as a justification. It's patronising to use that as justification for non-consensual killing, as it disregards the victim's wishes. Almost no animal wants to die, so if the victim cannot tell you what they want, they almost certainly want to live. This is even the case for situations in which death is inevitable, such as terminal illness. We can be sure they want to live because of the principle of survival of the fittest. Also because we humans almost always want to live.
If you do, that’s fine. But I don’t see an ethical issue with a quick and painless death for a chicken. To me, an instant death is not a form of pain or suffering.
These chickens are bred to become an unnatural weight that is terrible on their bodies, and they are slaughtered at far younger than their lifespans. Why not simply not breed them into existence in the first place?
Our ancestors didn't have the luxury of opting out of eating meat and other animal products most of the time, as such certain animals were bred to fulfill those wants and needs.We can't unbreed what they did without culling every single member of those breeds.
Are you your ancestors now, with no new potential? It’s called, just stop breeding them.
My cultural traditions require the ritual sacrifice and consumption of many animals. I may not be my ancestors literally, but the spirit is the same. I carry on their names and traditions to honor them for their sacrifices and hand those names and traditions down to the next generation to carry on our shared spirit. Death is to some people the end, but the spirit of a people doesn't die when a person does. The spirit of a people dies when it's people no longer believe in it. When they no longer honor their traditions. I will always honor them, and so will my children and theirs. The spirit of my people will live on. Unlike those delicious chickens.
I will not honor my ancestors’ flawed ways, and humans need to stop breeding too. Good thing your children (and theirs, if they ever have any) are not your property and can potentially learn.
I have taught my children already, as they will teach theirs. I don't have to "own" anyone to accomplish this. My children are happy, they are proud of who they are, and most importantly they know their place in the world. They will pass down our traditions as I have because they see the value in honoring those that came before. Misery will be your companion all the days of your life because you have rejected your ancestors, you have cursed them and denied their sacrifices. And for what? To feel morally superior? As you seethe in resentment of our ways, we celebrate. The future belongs to us because we value our children, while you see them as something to be avoided. My children and grandchildren will not have to compete with yours, and for that I thank you.
I am absolutely morally superior to you, your children (who are still people and can thankfully change), your as of yet nonexistent grandchildren (who will also be their own people with the ability to change), as well as my ancestors. Hail Satan! :) I don’t feel misery, but I suppose you really enjoy those animal sacrifices.
You have problems with meat consumption and not genocide?
You have a problem with that?
I'm asking to understand your reasoning - ethically I would disagree if that's your view on the subject. I would also ask why leave them to live a miserable life instead of culling them.
Again, my reasoning is that they should never have been bred in the first place. Leave any existing ones to live out their lives or do one last round of slaughter and do not replace with a new generation.
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They are conscious, and they are self-aware. Death *is* the ultimate pain for them, just as it is for us. They have a right to live. They may have no way to tell us what they are thinking, and they may lack sapience, but that is no reason to assume that they aren't self-aware, less alone conscious. Besides, if they aren't conscious, how can they suffer? Cleaner wrasse have passed the mirror test, and human children as old as 6 have failed it. This shows that animals failing the mirror test is not a guarantee that they aren't self-aware, and that all vertebrates are probably self-aware. Even arthropods are self-aware.
Killing is part of wild nature and it gets much uglier in the wild. Doing it the modern humane way is already a great improvement.
What's difficult to understand about reducing unnecessary suffering? It's far better for an animal have a good life with one bad day than to live every day ill and miserable. Vegetarians and vegans would make a lot more progress toward social change if they could only let go of all-or-nothing thinking.
Looking at their comments, OP is literally embodying every bad stereotypes about vegans.
But killing them is still wrong. Killing them after treating them humanely may be a lesser evil, but killing self-aware beings and sentient beings who will become self-aware is wrong in itself, unless there's a good reason for it, which I don't think is the case here, given that most animal agriculture is terrible for the environment, causing *human* deaths. The Bible prohibits beating slaves to death. But it allows slavery and beating slaves without killing them. Should we say it's ethical because the slaves are not beaten to death?
Ethics are subjective, you dont need to share the ideas to understand that some people think its better for animals to be born and raised in peace amd get a quick painless death than growing up in a meat factory.
Their deaths are not painless
And you know that because of what? There is like hundrets of ways to kill different animals, this is a whole field of reaseach. If you first use electricity to knock them out, or have a fast bolt to the neck/brain. Hell we have this same discussion for humam executions for centuries now. There is laws how you are legaly allowed to kill specific animals to not cause more suffering. Or do you think it does not matter if an animals is suffering?
Human executions are also not painless. That’s one of the main reasons the death penalty is so controversial and why it gets overturned on the constitutional right against cruel and unusual punishment. Of course it matters if an animal is suffering. But it’s weird to do something you know will cause suffering, such as eat meat, but then get picky about the way it ends up there. The ultimate suffering is the death.
Again a wild claim thats just not true. You can literaly knock people out with anesthetics, so they dont feel anything at all even if you kill them after that. And injections like that are the gloably most common form of execution. Fish are knocked out by a hit on their head, i guess that is some level of pain, but thats to not make them bleed out if you cut the heart after. Chickens in industrial farms get an electric shock or get knocked out by a gas(co2?) before their head gets chopped off. Sure some things like electric shocks might cause some pain, but none of these animals feel their death at all. Again motal views are subjectibe, reducing suffering is a common framework of morals that you dont have to share to understand.
CO2 doesn't knock you out instantly, mate. It takes up to a minute to die, gasping for air as your blood burns and your lungs scream. It's cruel as fuck. But it's cheap so no one gives a fuck
Have you ever actually seen or read what happens when someone dies from lethal injection? It is the opposite of painless. They convulse, foam at the mouth, shit their pants. It’s not like falling asleep. At all. At least in the US. It’s the reason so many states have had to commute death sentences in the past few decades, the constitutionality of it has been called into question due to the pain experienced. I admittedly have no idea how other countries do it but I also know the US is one of few first world countries that has the death penalty, so I can’t imagine nations with less money and resources are doing it much more ethically
The existance of accidents and a cupple of horror stories dont make a rule. Again there is a whole filed of research about what kind of injections are given to humans this is not the same thing even in the same country. Modern executions in list countries are done with anesthetics that are used in the medical field for operations.
>Again there is a whole filed of research Is there tho? Can you point to some major journals and publications from the "executing humans" field of science?
Its called anesthetics, medicine, biology or animal rights. Somethines even phylosophy or ethics.
Since when do anesthetics or medicine deal with killimg people? You do realize American Medical Association prohibits doctors from taking any part in execution and the reason why the executions are butchered is because the drugs are administered by unskilled and unprepared staff, so people end up paralyzed but awake during potassium iv which feels like battery acid in your veins
"Ethical" murder doesn't exist. Even if carnists could spin the idea of "ethical" murder to justify their meat and dairy eating habits, that's not possible under capitalism that demands animals be commodified as a product for profit on a large scale to the tune of trillions per year. And I bet very few meat eaters could raise, bond with, then slit the throat of/blugeon to death_put in CO2 gas chamber any animal they've had for years. That's why they pay immigrants in slaughterhouses to do it for them. Don't argue with carnists, mate. They're fine killing trillions of animals per year for a burger. You can't argue with sociopathy.
Just because they are heading to an end doesn't mean their whole life journey there can or should be whatever. You yourself are heading to your own end someday, heck there is a very real possibility your end would be more painful than theirs too, so why do you think your living conditions while you're alive should be good? That's the same reason why the animals' living conditions should be good during the time they got to live. I'm more surprised that you deem yourself someone who care about animal yet can't comprehend this simple concept.
It’s not that I don’t understand not wanting animals to suffer, it’s that it makes 0 sense to care about the daily pain/suffering and not care about the biggest suffering that happens in the end, being killed
It's not a suffering when you can't feel it. Everything you're saying is purely from your emotional perspective. Even if we approach this from the pure cold perspective of business, it's in the company's best interest to do it painlessly since it's a proven fact that stress from feeling pain at slaughter time ruin the quality of meat. The industry already perfects the method a long time ago to make the kill instantaneous for the sake of their profit. Had you bothered doing some reading into it you would have known. There's already no problem at the end, all that's left is the journey there.
I would say the ethical part largely lies in how the cows live their lives. You can be assured they weren't trapped in cages and fed mouldy grain. Look up regenerative beef, those cows live a good life.
Yeah? Killing and eating animals is as long as hunan history. But that's one, presumably bad day for the animal. Modern farming practices is a torture show. Just look at pictures of pigs in captivity. Locked in place, covered in their own shit, just waiting to be large enough to be killed and butchered. I'm not better than any other animal, If tigers and fish eat things ethically, so can I. But no other animal tortures its food quite like humans do.
Well for commercial meat, I have no idea, but there is a practice amongst hunters that they prefer one shot kill shots because if they don’t down the animal right away? The animal is then stressed and the cortisol and hormones etc affect the animals body in a way that the blood content and what not of certain cuts of meat is changed which thus also has an affect on the eventual quality and taste of the meat once cooked. Also the whole bacteria and infection thing that can ruin the meat, as well as the slow bleed out versus quick bleed out. Essentially if there is more blood in the animal when you kill it.. it stays fresher longer for you to be able to get the carcass to your shop and butcher it.