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I don't understand this either. What objectively makes an animal any less animal. I mean a mouse feels the pain of being eaten and so does a dog.

skj 12y ago
Given that at the end of the process they're both dead, the amount of pain felt ends up being irrelevant. What matters is the amount of empathy we feel with the creature. With dogs, we often think of them as our friends and companions. With mice, we often think of them as vermin and a problem. Though, I'm sure if you took George's mouse Milo and fed it to a snake George would be extremely upset.
- repsilat 12y ago
  > Given that at the end of the process they're both dead, the amount of pain felt ends up being irrelevant. That's pretty far outside the mainstream -- lots of jurisdictions have laws about the humane slaughter of animals. For obvious reasons, people tend not to restrict their moral consideration of pain to those beings that will never die.
  - skj 12y ago
    > That's pretty far outside the mainstream -- lots of jurisdictions have laws about the humane slaughter of animals. The vast majority of people don't care at all. But the people who do care care a lot, and make a lot of racket. > For obvious reasons, people tend not to restrict their moral consideration of pain to those beings that will never die. I honestly have no idea what you could possibly be talking about. Can you rephrase? Specifically, since the set of "those beings that will never die" has size zero, the sentence seems like a truism.
    - repsilat 12y ago
      >> Given that at the end of the process they're both dead, the amount of pain felt ends up being irrelevant. If I understand this correctly, you were saying that the animals' deaths essentially render their suffering irrelevant. It seems to logically follow that if everything is dead "at the end of the process" then there's no suffering that we need ever care about. I don't honestly think you hold that position, but it's at least consistent with your earlier post, so it'd be nice to know where your logic breaks from mine.

skj 12y ago

Given that at the end of the process they're both dead, the amount of pain felt ends up being irrelevant. What matters is the amount of empathy we feel with the creature. With dogs, we often think of them as our friends and companions. With mice, we often think of them as vermin and a problem. Though, I'm sure if you took George's mouse Milo and fed it to a snake George would be extremely upset.

repsilat 12y ago
> Given that at the end of the process they're both dead, the amount of pain felt ends up being irrelevant. That's pretty far outside the mainstream -- lots of jurisdictions have laws about the humane slaughter of animals. For obvious reasons, people tend not to restrict their moral consideration of pain to those beings that will never die.
- skj 12y ago
  > That's pretty far outside the mainstream -- lots of jurisdictions have laws about the humane slaughter of animals. The vast majority of people don't care at all. But the people who do care care a lot, and make a lot of racket. > For obvious reasons, people tend not to restrict their moral consideration of pain to those beings that will never die. I honestly have no idea what you could possibly be talking about. Can you rephrase? Specifically, since the set of "those beings that will never die" has size zero, the sentence seems like a truism.
  - repsilat 12y ago
    >> Given that at the end of the process they're both dead, the amount of pain felt ends up being irrelevant. If I understand this correctly, you were saying that the animals' deaths essentially render their suffering irrelevant. It seems to logically follow that if everything is dead "at the end of the process" then there's no suffering that we need ever care about. I don't honestly think you hold that position, but it's at least consistent with your earlier post, so it'd be nice to know where your logic breaks from mine.