I'm all fine with limiting cruelty to animals but I also dislike the hypocrissy with which it is often times preached...
"ohhhhhh We are the unique stewards of nature and we must save it from itself."

GoshisDead wrote:


GoshisDead, who are this people preaching so often: "ohhhhhh We are the unique stewards of nature and we must save it from itself"?

I am really interested as I actually have never heard such a nonsense. This people must be totaly confused. Nature never had any need to get saved from itself. And we are certainly not such unique stewards, but unique destroyers and the most brutal torturers this planet has ever seen.

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4. Everybody consuming products of the imprisoned creatures is a keeper and responsible.

That sounds odd. I play a very small role for the demand, so perhaps I am partly responsible in a narrow sense, but I'm certainly not responsible for the conditions in which they are kept.

I would like to hear some opinions about the issue "captive animals". I think this is a major of all ethical issues. Certainly it is also a very uncomfortable theme for many people, as most are indirect keepers themselves by consuming products from agricultures mass production such as eggs, meat and milk. Still, hopefully there is some will and readiness to even face such very difficult and important topic.

My standpoint:

1. The state of captivity is a creation of modern mankind and there has never been any kind of captivity in free nature.
2. Holding animals in captivity for their entire live, often in narrow cages just to produce cheap meals, is the spawn of arrogance.
3. There seem to be strong parallels to the Morlocks (H.G.Wells, 1885) when considering today's human society's behaviour toward the weaker creatures.
4. Everybody consuming products of the imprisoned creatures is a keeper and responsible.

Please do not widen the theme to the captivity of humans or killing of animals, as these two themes are discussed in other threads and/or the matter would get unmanageable.

I don't want to offend anybody, but I think that intelligent people like those here in this forum will have the courage to handle the issue without closing their eyes. I'm very curious about your opinions.

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It may be true that captivity is only committed by humans (but spiders keep insects captive in their web until they eat them), but that's only because we are the only animals that have the capacity to do so. Every predatory animal seeks to dominate. If lions had the intelligence and were to procreate at our pace I am reasonably sure that they would keep their favourite prey captive. Humans keep other animals captive in order to support their lifestyles and nutritional needs. This is the way of nature and we didn't make it this way. If you want to consume yourself with the suffering of every living thing then be my guest, but I refuse to hold a pessimistic view of what nature has deemed necessary.

I am a believer in animal rights against torture and cruelty, but I am an advocate of consuming animal products from food to clothing. I don't consider humanity cruel for domesticating and keeping livestock, but maybe that's because I have a different measure of cruelty than you.

To control a species in captivity (which means to feed it or even breed it) is impossible in the free nature.

Free nature is a very just and merciful system

Now you're just redefining things. First you were speaking specifically about placing animals in captivity. Now you're speaking about the things humans do to animals after placing them in capitivity. As noted, captivity does exist in "free nature", but if you just wanted to note that lions don't breed gazelle for their eating pleasure, well, I can't help but think you're right.

This makes me think you've never even been outside or have read any general articles on wildlife

What about when cubs are killed by male lions who take over a pride? What about parasitic worms which slowly but surely feed on the intestines of mammals, bringing about an immense amount of suffering in the process? What about viruses of all kinds? Do they employ mercy?

Certainly parasites can be unconfortable, but if you are healthy you will be mostly be fine and on the point where real torture and argony begins death is already very close at hand.

You can kill under the rules of free nature but you can not feed or even breed other living things. I think that's pretty easy to catch.

1. Regarding spiders /definition of captivity I have answered this two times already
2. The rest I have answered also in this thread, so please read my explanation of 01 23 2010. Some further notes on that:
Concepts of captivity would have happened even between bacterium organisms.
The interactions between the different life-forms are very complex; certainly there would have been billions of captivity-like connections, if such a development could theoretically lead to a durable food-source and not toward a waste of energy. Our inability to understand these inevitabilities is based on the misconception as if our own developments are complex, and those in the free nature are relatively primitive. In reality the opposite is correct.

This statement is an expression of the arrogance (not personal) toward the weaker living things that have clearly developed themselves to live a free life.

Pretty sure, you would protest tempestuously even if somebody puts you in a little cell only for a week!
So, if you would be forced to live in a little cell for your whole live without ever seeing the sun or anything else accept your skin-to-skin neighbours (all of you have your beaks cut to avoid killing each others) and so on, would you think this is alright and not cruel? I would appreciate a clear answer from you on that.

The torture of the living things that produces your breakfast-eggs is a horror spectacle that is extremely cruel and arrogant. In the free nature there could never be something like this even on the approach.

We are clearly creators of hell. I know you think I do overdraw, so here is one more question to you: Have you ever visited some of the industrial egg-farmings and spend some time between the cages? Probably not, it might be better to do that before discussing such a matter.

Anyway, in the free nature all cruelties and torture (including injury and illness) are ended pretty fast. This is cleary happening under some kind of natural rules and therefore the hell we have created will be ended very soon as well. Spend some time in the real outdoors just by yourself and you will understand that arrogance is absolute fatal.

With our leaving of the frame of free nature we have not only been given huge power but obviously also a huge chance. It seems we have failed.

But if animals deserve rights, don't plant's as well? They have no means of defending themselves (in many cases) from the predation of humans, who hold them captive in small gardens only to raise them to a level of maturity and then consume them. I wonder of Singer would agree that this is a form of Plantaeism?

Having not read any of Singer's works, I really do not know how he would respond, but there does seem to be an easy answer.

Plants do not have consciousness, or sentience.

But isn't the easy reply to the animal rights proponent, animals don't have language?

Just picking a feature that one group doesn't have and holding it up as the distinction doesn't work.

But the point of the plant/insect argument in the first place is to highlight that the animal rights proponents also make a cutoff, and that the cutoffs are what must be justified.

I don't see how their lack of human language negates their ability to experience pain and suffering.


Unless the feature we pick happens to be the feature that allows an entity to experience suffering. And that seems to be the heart of the matter: if animals experience pain, and it is wrong to unnecessarily inflict pain, then animals have a right to be free from this unnecessarily inflicted pain.

If an entity has sentience, then they can experience pain.

What is a person also believes that insects should not be unnecessarily harmed? That there is something wrong with school boys plucking off the legs of a caterpillar for jollies?

And if an entity is alive, it tries to remain alive. Why are you basing it on pain instead of life? If it is wrong to unnecessarily kill, then don't all living things have the right to life? Why should only beings who can feel pain have the right to life?

And this is the point--what if someone thinks that ants should not be killed? How does the animal rights proponent answer them?

Because it does not make any sense to safeguard the life of a particular entity if said entity has no sense of it's own life.

Okay, but what if that someone who believes that ants should be protected happens to be the animal rights proponent? You see?

It is possible for an animal rights proponent to believe that all sentient beings should be given moral consideration. Ants included.

I agree. To talk about insects having the right to life is to project humanity onto them--despite the fact that they work very hard to avoid death, they have no real concept of life.

They can feel pain, but what is there conception of pain like?

I'm reminded of a PETA video I saw where the announcer described how the animals were being forced to stand in their own feces. Animals eat their own feces...

Well, I suppose they don't walk on grass then

Ants aren't considered sentient though.

Careful now, I did not say "concept", I said "sense of life". Big difference, right? As in sensation of life. A nervous system and a brain produce these things. Ants, for example, have both.

Honeypot ants, also called honey ants or repletes, are ants which are gorged with food by workers, to the point that their abdomens swell enormously, a condition called plerergate. Other ants then extract nourishment from them. They function essentially as living larders.

These ants can live anywhere in the nest, but in the wild, they are found deep underground, literally imprisoned by their huge abdomens, swollen to the size of grapes.

We can ask the same question about other people, too. Sure, each of us feels pain, but the way we experience pain is clearly different for everyone, hence varying pain thresholds.

At times animals do eat their own feces. But they do not live in their own feces in a natural setting. Huge difference, especially considering the fact the prevalence of diseased meat being fed to humans because of those living conditions (so, even if you don't give a damn for animals, this treatment negatively effects the human carnivore - talk about karma!).

Take the gorilla as an example. You know a gorilla is sick when it begins to defecate in its own nest.

Some people do consider them sentient. And why wouldn't they be sentient?

I'm not sure about that, but we can agree that it's very different from our own sense of life, yes?

Yes, but I don't see where this leads...it seems to be in favor of my argument...

The point remains I think, huge difference or not. To force a human to live in feces is a level of cruelty far above forcing an animal that does not mind eating it's own feces to live in them, yes?

Sure, the life of an animal is different from the life of a human.



Even though our conscious experience of life may vary from person to person, from species to species, there is still a conscious experience of life.

If conscious experience of life is to be respected, then any being with conscious experience of life should be respected, not just humans.



I don't see why.