They don’t have a brain really and kinda just float there. Do they even feel pain?

  • simplecyphers@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    There’s is a popular school of thought that the diet‘s sole purpose to reduce suffering. If a living thing has no central nervous system (or brain), it has no thoughts and cannot experience pain or harm.

    What about instant death? Like a farmer putting down a well-treated cow with a bullet to the head. In this scenario, the cow never suffered. In all likelihood it probably never even had much mental distress, let alone fear of death. Would that meat be ethical/vegan friendly?

    • SQL_InjectMe@partizle.com
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      1 year ago

      Replace cow with human and see if it passes the test.

      Is it ethical to give a human a scarf? Yes. Well it’s also ethical to give a cow a scarf.

      Is it ethical to shoot a human in the head? No? Well it’s also unethical to shoot a cow in the head.

      • simplecyphers@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I value every other species as worth less than a human and therefore they have different ethical considerations.

        But, far down are you willing to go? How small? Rabbits? Rats, mice? Insects? Is squishing a spider ethically identical as murdering some one? I would say no, what would you say? There is a line, be it soft or hard, somewhere.

        • debased@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          Just because they are worth less than a human doesn’t mean you are free to inflict pain and suffering upon them. I’m vegan and i see animals as below me, i’d kill an animal if it means saving a human life. However that alone doesn’t justify paying for them to be abused, raped, and have their throats slit for 15 minutes of taste pleasure when i can just eat something else instead.

          The line is to not hurt animals unless you have a reason to.

        • SQL_InjectMe@partizle.com
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          1 year ago

          If the spider is in your home without consent I support trapping it and kicking it out.

          If the spider or mosquito is trying to bite you, then I support your self defense actions much like if a human was trying to bite your arm you’d be in the right to use force.

          • simplecyphers@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Even in your examples you are treating animals as less than human. Why? Again, where is the line that involuntary trespassing is punishable by immediate death? If a person bit you, yeah you could fight them off and use force. But, to be compare fairly, you would have to kill the person that bit you. Even then this is still an unfair argument because

            1. That is not typical human behavior
            2. A human bite can do substantially more damage than a mosquito bite.

            So tell me where you can treat animals ethically identically as humans, and where you can’t. Where is the line?