Animal Protection Is The Most Meaningful Cause

[kaichen]

I have had much compassion for animals since I was a child. When I was growing up, my faith and values changed several times, but my love and compassion for animals never changed. Now I finally realize that animal protection is the really meaningful cause.

Below are my answers to some questions, and a rough description of my animal protection concept.

Why must we protect animals?

Like we human beings, animals have consciousness and feeling, and can experience suffering and happiness.

No one wants suffering, and neither do animals. This is the enough reason why we must protect animals.

Why do we not advocate "protecting plants"?

Plants do not have brain or nerve, so that they do not have any consciousness at all, including any suffering or happiness.

Therefore, in terms of morality, there is no need to protect plants.

Why do we not advocate "protecting mosquitoes"?

All vertebrate animals, including human beings, have advanced nervous systems, and have strong feeling and consciousness. However, most invertebrates, such as insects, only have very simple nervous systems, so that most invertebrates' feeling and consciousness are very weak.

We do not say "protect mosquitoes" or "protect mites", because their feeling and consciousness are very weak.

Why we must not kill animals, although animals keep killing each other?

Animals should not be condemned for killing others, because animals have low intelligence, and cannot understand that their behaviors bring suffering to other individuals. It is just as you cannot condemn a child who is three or four years old for killing someone, because it knows nothing; in fact, many animals have the same intelligence level as a child at that age does.

However, adults' intelligence level is high enough for them to know that their behaviors may bring suffering to other individuals. Under the circumstance of knowing that, doing such behaviors is an obvious atrocity.

Why do we not obey the natural law which lets the strong ones prey upon the weak ones?

The natural law that allows the strong ones to prey upon the weak ones runs counter to the human ethics. If not, there would be no need to protect the disadvantaged groups.

The weak ones should be protected. The laws of nature are brutal, but the human ethics are compassionate. We human beings must fight against the brutality and stop the killing, not perform the killing.

Why should we be concerned about animals, rather than people?

People live really well nowadays. Most of the so-call disadvantaged groups and poor people are just have rough or less good living conditions. In addition, the human societies keep offering helps and opportunities to those disadvantaged people; with the development of societies, the helps and opportunities keep increasing.

In comparison, animals’ situations make me feel sorrier – at least those poor people will not be mistreated or killed. However, there is not even any relevant law to punish the murderers who killed animals cruelly. Now there is nothing more urgent than protecting animals.

Moreover, there is a distinction of good and evil in humans, but animals are all innocent and lovely – just as children (many animals have the same intelligence as children do); every single child is lovely.

Nowadays the rich and powerful people, have strong power, but always squander the power and capital on luxurious lives and meaningless faiths. I will be the owner of power, and use the power to make the greatest contribution to animal protection.

Strive for it!

 

[ideologyhunter]

My 2 cents: vegetarian since Feb. 1971 (age 16.) I can't put a strong philosophical superstructure on it -- I just know that, if dinner was waiting because I hadn't yet wrung a chicken's neck or shot a bolt into a cow's head, we wouldn't be eating 'til someone sent Aunt Tillie out to the garden to pull up some root vegetables and green beans. I feel a kinship with most every sentient being -- to the point that I try to trap the spiders, ants, etc., I find in my house and carry them out to the yard. The OP discussed mosquitoes -- I do kill mosquitoes, ticks, chiggers, fleas; parasites in general. All of this drove my mother crazy in '71 -- she did cave to my new lifestyle (and it was years before I really had a well-balanced diet. I'm still learning.) I feel no compulsion to "do" anything about my vegetarianism. It's just natural to me.
The larger issue about animals in our increasingly polluted, bull-dozed world: I've read that we're at the start of another era of mass extinctions. Who knows how it will compare to the one that did away with dinosaurs. You have to wonder if schools of tuna will exist in 50 years, along with whales, pond frogs, salamanders, honeybees, polar bears...

 

[Keith&Co.]

No one wants suffering,

Actually, we have had people on this board and its previous incarnation that laud suffering. Suffering is necessary to temper enlightened beings, they insist. Of course, this is usually something the construct as part of a defense of the Problem of Evil, but they still espouse the need for suffering.
I just find it a bit problematic that you make such sweeping statements, treating all humanity as sharing the same ethical code when they clearly don't.

I, for example, would ethically consider that protection of humans, specifically, more meaningful than the protection of other animals.

Why do we not advocate "protecting mosquitoes"? However, most invertebrates, such as insects, only have very simple nervous systems, so that most invertebrates' feeling and consciousness are very weak.

We do not say "protect mosquitoes" or "protect mites", because their feeling and consciousness are very weak.

What's your stance on lobster, then? Can we kill and eat them, based on the simplicity of their nervous system?

The natural law that allows the strong ones to prey upon the weak ones runs counter to the human ethics.

All human ethics? Or just some?

We human beings must fight against the brutality and stop the killing, not perform the killing.

is it the killing you're against? Because earlier, you were talking about 'suffering.' Can we harvest animals if we use methods that remove all suffering and brutality from rearing, raising and roasting them?

In comparison, animals’ situations make me feel sorrier – at least those poor people will not be mistreated or killed.

I think you need to get out more.

 

[jab]

Most of the so-call disadvantaged groups and poor people are just have rough or less good living conditions. In addition, the human societies keep offering helps and opportunities to those disadvantaged people; with the development of societies, the helps and opportunities keep increasing.

In comparison, animals’ situations make me feel sorrier – at least those poor people will not be mistreated or killed.

You're mistaken here. People, including

innocent and lovely . . . children

, are being mistreated and killed every day.

 

[abaddon]

If you’re arguing that farm animals should have decent lives and die as painlessly as possible, then yes that’s a good cause. My own concern is life’s diversity more generally and that we must not diminish it with our brutality towards the rest of nature (a brutality often based on stories about it being somehow lesser in significance than humans, and “less conscious” is among those stories’ themes).

Arguing against suffering has some weaknesses, as it's a necessary consequence of being sentient; you can't both have a nervous system and not suffer. Arguing against killing has some weaknesses, since life eats life is why we have a flourishing diversity of life on the planet.

 

[PyramidHead]

If you’re arguing that farm animals should have decent lives and die as painlessly as possible, then yes that’s a good cause. My own concern is life’s diversity more generally and that we must not diminish it with our brutality towards the rest of nature (a brutality often based on stories about it being somehow lesser in significance than humans, and “less conscious” is among those stories’ themes).

Arguing against suffering has some weaknesses, as it's a necessary consequence of being sentient; you can't both have a nervous system and not suffer. Arguing against killing has some weaknesses, since life eats life is why we have a flourishing diversity of life on the planet.

You're so close to articulating something I feel very deeply about but nobody else seems to understand. The fact that our flourishing biosphere is enabled by life devouring itself is reason to believe that a barren planet would be better than one teeming with organisms. The fact that suffering is a necessary consequence of being sentient is an argument against sentience, not an argument for suffering.

 

[dystopian]

To not kill animals sounds like a nice idea in theory, but even if you could convince people to stop eating meat (or manage to make lab-grown meat cheap enough), there's still a glaring flaw: not killing animals can actually increase animal suffering. For example, there's a re-wilding nature reserve not far from where I live; for years it was a completely hands-off affair, nature allowed to run its course with no human intervention. Great idea, but it quickly ran into problems. Animals started starving because there just wasn't enough food to go around. So we've been left with a number of choices in that example:

1. We do nothing. Starvation continues; causing suffering.
2. We forget the idea of letting animals roam free and put them all in captivity where starvation can be avoided. This of course assumes that we have the facilities to do this and enough money. This keeps them alive, but can undoubtedly cause psychological suffering of various kinds for animals.
3. We shoot the starving animals, ending their suffering while allowing the rest of the population to still live in the wild and have enough food. Some suffering is caused but more is prevented.

3 is the only sensible option in such a scenario.

So there goes the idea that we should never kill animals.

 

[PyramidHead]

To not kill animals sounds like a nice idea in theory, but even if you could convince people to stop eating meat (or manage to make lab-grown meat cheap enough), there's still a glaring flaw: not killing animals can actually increase animal suffering. For example, there's a re-wilding nature reserve not far from where I live; for years it was a completely hands-off affair, nature allowed to run its course with no human intervention. Great idea, but it quickly ran into problems. Animals started starving because there just wasn't enough food to go around. So we've been left with a number of choices in that example:

1. We do nothing. Starvation continues; causing suffering.
2. We forget the idea of letting animals roam free and put them all in captivity where starvation can be avoided. This of course assumes that we have the facilities to do this and enough money. This keeps them alive, but can undoubtedly cause psychological suffering of various kinds for animals.
3. We shoot the starving animals, ending their suffering while allowing the rest of the population to still live in the wild and have enough food. Some suffering is caused but more is prevented.

3 is the only sensible option in such a scenario.

So there goes the idea that we should never kill animals.

True, which is one reason I cringe whenever someone brings up the number of "kill shelters" sponsored by PETA, as if killing an animal can never be the ethical choice. In reality, especially for strays, it is often the only ethical choice (if you're the kind of person who wants to limit animal suffering).

 

[abaddon]

You're so close to articulating something I feel very deeply about but nobody else seems to understand. The fact that our flourishing biosphere is enabled by life devouring itself is reason to believe that a barren planet would be better than one teeming with organisms. The fact that suffering is a necessary consequence of being sentient is an argument against sentience, not an argument for suffering.

So close, I guess, for using similar words, but the values are totally reversed from mine. To me, life’s wondrous even in its “red in tooth and claw” aspect (which is an extremely reductive perspective…). I don’t know what to compare earth’s life to to make it seem awful. I’m thinking I must harbor the notion of a more perfect heaven or nirvana to have something to compare earth’s life against and say it’s horrific. You're neither, I take it (though I'm wondering what the influence is), and so have to compare it against a barren planet. I too compare it against a barren planet and find the teeming abundance of life-eating-sentient-life to be the preferable scenario. It's silly to compare the real against the imaginary only thereby to find the real lacking, when the imaginary lacks reality and probably always will for being unworkable.

If occasional pain is the price of life then I’m ok with paying that price, as most humans are. I look at other living entities and they all behave very much like they’d make the same choice.

Pain is much over-rated. For most organisms, for nearly the entirety of their lives except perhaps for some in their last moments, it’s occasional and endurable.

 

[Valjean]

Welcome to TF, Kaichen. Looks like you've jumped into the deep end. Liked your post.

To not kill animals sounds like a nice idea in theory, but even if you could convince people to stop eating meat (or manage to make lab-grown meat cheap enough), there's still a glaring flaw: not killing animals can actually increase animal suffering. For example, there's a re-wilding nature reserve not far from where I live; for years it was a completely hands-off affair, nature allowed to run its course with no human intervention. Great idea, but it quickly ran into problems. Animals started starving because there just wasn't enough food to go around. So we've been left with a number of choices in that example:

1. We do nothing. Starvation continues; causing suffering.
2. We forget the idea of letting animals roam free and put them all in captivity where starvation can be avoided. This of course assumes that we have the facilities to do this and enough money. This keeps them alive, but can undoubtedly cause psychological suffering of various kinds for animals.
3. We shoot the starving animals, ending their suffering while allowing the rest of the population to still live in the wild and have enough food. Some suffering is caused but more is prevented.

3 is the only sensible option in such a scenario.
So there goes the idea that we should never kill animals.

Strikes me that this rewilding reserve might not have a balanced biotic mix or adequate migration corridors if starvation is a chronic problem.
Question: Which animals are eating themselves out of house and home.

Option 4: Contraceptive darting -- works well with unguates.

 

[dystopian]

Strikes me that this rewilding reserve might not have a balanced biotic mix or adequate migration corridors if starvation is a chronic problem.

Indeed; which is going to be inevitable in just about any such reserve in the majority of the European landmass but especially in densely populated countries like mine.

Question: Which animals are eating themselves out of house and home.

Konig horses, Heck Cattle and Red Deer.

Option 4: Contraceptive darting -- works well with unguates.

Which doesn't help short-term and which might cause problems of its own down the line.

 

[Unbeatable]

It's silly to compare the real against the imaginary only thereby to find the real lacking, when the imaginary lacks reality and probably always will for being unworkable.

The future and the past are both imaginary, but people compare them to the present all the time. Every possibility not yet actualized is imaginary. It's not silly to imagine something better than the status quo. It's intellectually lazy not to.

If occasional pain is the price of life then I’m ok with paying that price, as most humans are.

It's not the price of life. It's just a current feature. Or a bug-- it's up to our discretion to decide which aspects of human existence we want to keep and which ones we want to improve upon. We've chosen to invent clothes, central air/heating, transportation, mass production, vaccines, eyeglasses, organ transplantation, prosthetics, birth control, etc. to improve upon various limits of ours. We could modify ourselves so that we experience less pain.

Pain is much over-rated. For most organisms, for nearly the entirety of their lives except perhaps for some in their last moments, it’s occasional and endurable.

Physical pain may be occasional, but psychological pain is constant, and it's clearly not so endurable that people aren't constantly motivated to do things to escape or ease it.

 

[Valjean]

Indeed; which is going to be inevitable in just about any such reserve in the majority of the European landmass but especially in densely populated countries like mine.

Question: Which animals are eating themselves out of house and home.

Konig horses, Heck Cattle and Red Deer.

Option 4: Contraceptive darting -- works well with unguates.

Which doesn't help short-term and which might cause problems of its own down the line.

"Rewilding" gives the impression there's a plan to release these animals into a wilderness area somewhere. I don't think that's the case.
This sounds more like an animal sanctuary. It doesn't sound like it's trying to create anything "natural." The horses and cattle were never natural species, and I doubt there are any four legged predators to keep them in check.

What complications do you think contraceptives would cause?

 

[4321lynx]

^^^ The above. ^^^

And Holland is too small and too heavily populated for a "wilderness" to be successful there.