Suffering of conscious beings is a negative thing.
can you support this claim?
There's obviously no way to prove this sort of statement, however every conscious being I've asked has told me they don't like suffering. Additionally, almost all conscious beings specifically go out of their way to avoid suffering. I personally find this evidence sufficiently convincing.
but pain in and of itself isn't bad. it can be justified or unjustified.
We're not simply talking about pain, though. I like the painful sensation from hot peppers, for example, but I wouldn't ever wish to subject myself to the systematic violence and awful conditions that farmed animals face.
and I wouldn't wish for you to be treated like an animal, either.
Can you supply a convincing argument for suffering? We are fully capable of living with much, much less meat production. Why should we continue to inflict pain on things which can experience it? It seems manifest to me
Can you supply a convincing argument for suffering?
i'm not saying it's a moral good. i'm saying it's amoral. as in it is neither good or bad in itself.
We have agency over our actions and the ability to reduce the negative impacts we have on the world. We are unique in this ability, and we should exercise it
it's not clear that animal suffering is a negative.
Would you kick a dog in the street? Shoot a cat with a bb gun? These are things that happen with frequency, but I wouldn't do because I think that causing pain to another animal, senselessly, is a bad thing.
Would you raise a chicken in complete darkness for its whole life? Would you raise a cow in a suffocatingly small pen among its excrement? Impregnate a cow constantly and steal its babies away for meat so you can continue to milk it until it dies? Animals feel pain. They communicate, they suffer, they mourn.
If you can supply an argument that causing suffering of innocent animals is good/doesn't matter, I'm all ears.
If you can supply an argument that causing suffering ... is good/doesn’t matter
sure. battlefield amputations cause suffering. sometimes it saves a life. it's good.
If you can supply an argument that causing suffering of innocent animals is good/doesn’t matter, I’m all ears.
"innocent" here is an appeal to emotion, since we don't regard non-human animals as moral agents.
Would you kick a dog in the street? Shoot a cat with a bb gun?
no. these are cruel. practicing cruelty toward animals may create a habit, and end with practicing cruelty toward people, which would be immoral. it is best not to practice cruelty at all.
Animal agriculture is necessarily cruel. It is efficient. By your logic, this cruelty is negative. It sounds like we are very close to agreeing, frankly
Animal agriculture is necessarily cruel.
i disagree.
Please show me that factory farming is overwhelmingly not cruel
cruelty would be inflicting pain for its own sake. in so-called factory farming, the pain is still only incidental. that is, if it were possible to create the same outputs with no additional inputs, and that process had no pain, there is no reason why a factory farming operation would prefer the painful process. so it is not cruel, it is only indifferent.
So you are arguing that because a ruthless and uncaring system is responsible for creating massive suffering, it doesn't matter? It's awfully convenient that we don't have to care about cruelty when it's inherent in the system. People created these systems. We have the capacity to reduce the suffering. Why wouldn't you want that?
If dogs were raised in these conditions, people would be outraged (see korea, china, puppy mills, etc.) It's a bit hypocritical, don't you think?
can you support this claim?
There's obviously no way to prove this sort of statement, however every conscious being I've asked has told me they don't like suffering. Additionally, almost all conscious beings specifically go out of their way to avoid suffering. I personally find this evidence sufficiently convincing.
but pain in and of itself isn't bad. it can be justified or unjustified.
We're not simply talking about pain, though. I like the painful sensation from hot peppers, for example, but I wouldn't ever wish to subject myself to the systematic violence and awful conditions that farmed animals face.
and I wouldn't wish for you to be treated like an animal, either.
Can you supply a convincing argument for suffering? We are fully capable of living with much, much less meat production. Why should we continue to inflict pain on things which can experience it? It seems manifest to me
i'm not saying it's a moral good. i'm saying it's amoral. as in it is neither good or bad in itself.
We have agency over our actions and the ability to reduce the negative impacts we have on the world. We are unique in this ability, and we should exercise it
it's not clear that animal suffering is a negative.
Would you kick a dog in the street? Shoot a cat with a bb gun? These are things that happen with frequency, but I wouldn't do because I think that causing pain to another animal, senselessly, is a bad thing.
Would you raise a chicken in complete darkness for its whole life? Would you raise a cow in a suffocatingly small pen among its excrement? Impregnate a cow constantly and steal its babies away for meat so you can continue to milk it until it dies? Animals feel pain. They communicate, they suffer, they mourn.
If you can supply an argument that causing suffering of innocent animals is good/doesn't matter, I'm all ears.
sure. battlefield amputations cause suffering. sometimes it saves a life. it's good.
"innocent" here is an appeal to emotion, since we don't regard non-human animals as moral agents.
no. these are cruel. practicing cruelty toward animals may create a habit, and end with practicing cruelty toward people, which would be immoral. it is best not to practice cruelty at all.
Animal agriculture is necessarily cruel. It is efficient. By your logic, this cruelty is negative. It sounds like we are very close to agreeing, frankly
i disagree.
Please show me that factory farming is overwhelmingly not cruel
cruelty would be inflicting pain for its own sake. in so-called factory farming, the pain is still only incidental. that is, if it were possible to create the same outputs with no additional inputs, and that process had no pain, there is no reason why a factory farming operation would prefer the painful process. so it is not cruel, it is only indifferent.
So you are arguing that because a ruthless and uncaring system is responsible for creating massive suffering, it doesn't matter? It's awfully convenient that we don't have to care about cruelty when it's inherent in the system. People created these systems. We have the capacity to reduce the suffering. Why wouldn't you want that?
If dogs were raised in these conditions, people would be outraged (see korea, china, puppy mills, etc.) It's a bit hypocritical, don't you think?
how?
cruelty is intentional. think of battlefield amputation: it hurts, but the pain isn't the point. the pain is only incidental.
you can see this is just an appeal to emotion, right?