Pet peeve, literally a peeve about pets!

[warpspeedpetey]

plague-like takeover of the earth.

either we are animals, and just another part of nature, another evolutionary pressure, or not. which is it?

 

[Sair]

If we were still living in caves and hunter-gatherer societies, I suspect our moral obligations regarding other animals would go something like: live and let live. Small hunter-gatherer communities, such as some African tribes and the Australian Aborigines, recognised the need to live in harmony with nature. That meant taking no more than they needed, and respecting the rhythm of the land and seasons.

In our modern society, though, our moral obligation has extended to make up for the extensive harm we have done to other creatures through our plague-like takeover of the earth.

In fact, I could take this one step further and propose that humans’ moral responsibility to other animals dates from our first assumption that we had power and dominion over nature. From that moment, we became obliged to care for the natural world and its creatures, but instead we have continually abused our power, and come up with self-serving reasons to justify said abuse.

 

[Squishy]

where did i claim to be omniscient? no where,

are you saying that as you lay starving to death, you would be happy to see a man with food feed a stray dog, and not you?

thats awful hard to buy.

I ducked out of this thread when it got into little more than tit for tat. However i will say, I would be appaled if anyone sat their eating food while a dog lay starving to death. We have a responsability to care for our world. That has nothing to do with scripture of any kind. We share this planet with many different spieces of animal, who all have the right to live. Many of which are reliant upon us, because we have taken their habitats or domesticated them in such as way that they cannot live on their own 2 feet.

The argument should never be to feed a homeless person or a stray dog. Why cannot we do both ?

 

[Cracker_Mom]

I ducked out of this thread when it got into little more than tit for tat. However i will say, I would be appaled if anyone sat their eating food while a dog lay starving to death. We have a responsability to care for our world. That has nothing to do with scripture of any kind. We share this planet with many different spieces of animal, who all have the right to live. Many of which are reliant upon us, because we have taken their habitats or domesticated them in such as way that they cannot live on their own 2 feet.

The argument should never be to feed a homeless person or a stray dog. Why cannot we do both ?

Two feet? My dog couldn’t make it on his own 2 either…

 

[warpspeedpetey]

**Originally Posted by Salonika **
Would have thought that with our superior brains and logic we would be able to produce enough synthetic food to feed ourselves.

Reply by warpspeedpetey
ok, whats your point

Reply by Salonika
We don’t need animals for food, we could manufacture all of it. Therefore, we don’t need to eat animals and if we don’t need to eat animals do you think they have any right or value to be on the earth?

1. we arent evolved to eat syntheitic food, we evolved as omnivores
2. then you have people who think plants are emotive screaming about using them.
3. if i dont need to eat animals, then why do i need to accomadate them at all? then i could just pave over the forest and jungle. make more room for crops and towns and factories, in this super effecient world of ‘synthetic food’

Reply by warpspeedpetey
As to emotion in the practice of religion, sure. so what? that doesn’t mean that you are required to emote unnecessarily.

but what does that have to do with the topic?

Reply by Salonika
Because you continue to tell us that you base your life rationality and that you consider that those who live by emotion or both rationality and emotion are mislead. Seems your answer admits to an emotional component of religion I wonder why the difference.

again, what does that have to do with the topic? nothing

that aside, for me religion is about rationality, check my posts on metaphysics.

Reply by warpspeedpetey
humans and animals are not equals, animals are chemically driven meat bots, you project suffering on to them in conditions which would make you uncomfortable.

Reply by Salonika
humans and animals are different – human babies, children, teenagers and adults are different. Humans and other species don’t have to be the same to be treated humanely.
Am I expected to leave a badly injured dog on the road to be re-run over because I can’t be sure that I am not projecting how I would feel if I was run over? When my cat was howling with pancreatitis should I have pout off taking her to the vet because I might be just projecting that she feels pain?

robots, regardless of meatiness, do not suffer.

if you step on a roomba, and break it, do you cry? do you rush it out to the service center, tell your kids it ran away?

no, why not? because it doesn’t look anything like you, it doesnt operate from the same carbon based chemistry you do, because of that you assume it cant suffer, which is no different than me assuming meat bots dont really suffer.

i admit that robots dont suffer no matter how much their chemistry is like mine, you dont, that seems to be the difference.

Reply by warpspeedpetey
if you see a tree cut down, a crystal broken, or bacteria killed with lysol, do you project your emotions on them? no ? why not?

because they arent cute little meatbots, your choice of what suffers and what doesn’t seems pretty arbitrary to me, to use your turn of phrase.

Reply by Salonika
I wonder if they know what is going to happen. I wonder if they suffer. Think it these situations it is better to assume that they may and act accordingly than assume that they don’t and cause them suffering.

no one is saying be inhumane to anything, i dont beat my roomba, or not give it electricity. same with animals, i like my cats, i just know they are meaty little robots, i feel about them the same as my roomba. at least my roomba doesn’t shed.

 

[Sair]

where did i claim to be omniscient? no where,

are you saying that as you lay starving to death, you would be happy to see a man with food feed a stray dog, and not you?

thats awful hard to buy.

And you call yourself a rational materialist.

Let’s suppose, for a minute, that I was starving, and somewhere in my immediate vicinity was a dog, also emaciated and ready to drop dead from malnourishment.

There is a man with food nearby. He offers the food to the dog, who gulps it down quickly before I have even a chance of reaching it. Sure, I might be disappointed and pushed even more deeply into despair at my imminent demise, but my frame of mind would not extend to condemning the man’s actions as immoral. The dog was starving too, and it may well have been closer to death than I. The dog’s mind would be focused on its own survival, and as far as dogs are concerned, finders are keepers. I couldn’t hold the dog’s nature against it, nor could I take this to negate its right to occupy the world, which is the equal of my right to do the same.

Let’s consider some other possibilities. I have no way of knowing that there isn’t some other person coming along who might not give me food. Perhaps, if every person who passed by gave food to the dog and not me, I might start to wonder if I was invisible, or if some providential power had decided it was time for me to die (I would of course be delirious by now). I, however, having a more complex mind than the dog, have the ability to sustain my feelings with optimism and suppose that there are other ways of obtaining food than just waiting for a stranger to hand it to me. I might go around asking for it, assuming I had the strength to move about, or I might employ the dog’s superior nose to lead me to a rubbish bin that might contain a few sustaining scraps.

It’s possible I might indeed react with crazed anger and attack the dog for eating the food, but that would hardly be a rational response with any resemblance to my usual state of mind.

What if the stranger chose to give me the food after all? If there was a starving dog nearby, I would be inclined to share at least a small portion of the food - otherwise, if the dog died and I had declined to do what I could to help it, I would be consumed with guilt for my inconsiderate action. You might not be, but I am not much like you, from what I can gather.

Bear in mind that all this would still hold true for me if my starving companion was human. (Except maybe the part about the superior nose…)

As usual, your simplistic pronouncements fall well short of the mark.

 

[Squishy]

Two feet? My dog couldn’t make it on his own 2 either…

My dog has learned how to drink from the tap(faucete, not sure how to spell the american term, the thing you get water from in the sink) on his hind legs and to open the fridge. The latter being extremly frustrating for us. He could easly survive on just 2 legs, but not if he didnt live with us.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Again, you’re stating as indisputable fact, things that you have no way of knowing with any degree of certainty. On the basis of the evidence I have referenced, I can at least claim probability for my inferences.

A completely meaningless comparison, and dodgy to boot. A monkey is far more similar to a human than it is to a computer, by virtue of the fact that the monkey is alive and a primate.

Firstly, unfamiliar challenges =/= radical environmental change. Secondly, you seem to be getting confused between individual learning and evolutionary change. You’ll actually find that they are quite distinct processes.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Scientists without predispositions are difficult to find. Most of them are predisposed to curiosity about a certain field of study, and predisposed to be interested in what they find. Those scientists who study animal behaviour and cognition have recognised PROJECTED at least two things - that animals exhibit the capacity for emotions such as fear, anger, affection, excitement, curiosity, contentment, etc. Secondly, they have recognised that the circumstances in which animals display certain emotional indicators are difficult to predict from a human point of view. Painstaking observation has been undertaken to inform scientists’ hypotheses about animal emotions and affective consciousness.

Because there is the likelihood that animals are capable of suffering - a quality they share with humans - their theoretical interest in avoiding pain is equal to that of humans (assuming, of course, that pain is an unpleasant sensation, indicating damage to the body). Some scientists and philosophers have suggested, actually, that the desire of some humans to believe that other animals can’t have emotions or experience pain is due to their fear that they wouldn’t be able to cope with the guilt if the opposite were the case.

not me brother, i named my first calf, in 1983, j.r. mooing, off Dallas. i bottle fed him, took pics with him, petted Him, sold him to my folks for bicycle money, and then we slaughtered and ate him, guilt free. he was yummy.

the suggestion that we might feel guilty if we think of animals as people is unwarranted opinion to say the least.

its on a par with saying that atheists are only atheist because they want to be able to sin, guilt free

 

[warpspeedpetey]

In fact, I could take this one step further and propose that humans’ moral responsibility to other animals dates from our first assumption that we had power and dominion over nature. From that moment, we became obliged to care for the natural world and its creatures, but instead we have continually abused our power, and come up with self-serving reasons to justify said abuse.

assumption? it seems demonstrable fact, as we are in fact the top predators on the planet.

that aside, how can we be abusing the planet, because we are successful?, the dinosuars were succesful, were they abusing the planet. when they died they left all that icky oil laying around, darn polluting dinosuars

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I ducked out of this thread when it got into little more than tit for tat. However i will say, I would be appaled if anyone sat their eating food while a dog lay starving to death. We have a responsability to care for our world. That has nothing to do with scripture of any kind. We share this planet with many different spieces of animal, who all have the right to live. Many of which are reliant upon us, because we have taken their habitats or domesticated them in such as way that they cannot live on their own 2 feet.

The argument should never be to feed a homeless person or a stray dog. Why cannot we do both ?

just put yourself in the starving persons shoes. if someone gave ffood to an animal, while you lay starving, would that be ok? no, of course not. you would rightly be mad as a all get out.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Two feet? My dog couldn’t make it on his own 2 either…

sweet!

 

[Cracker_Mom]

My dog has learned how to drink from the tap(faucete, not sure how to spell the american term, the thing you get water from in the sink) on his hind legs and to open the fridge. The latter being extremly frustrating for us. He could easly survive on just 2 legs, but not if he didnt live with us.

Your dog must have longer legs than mine or your sinks are a lot shorter.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

My dog has learned how to drink from the tap(faucete, not sure how to spell the american term, the thing you get water from in the sink) on his hind legs and to open the fridge. The latter being extremly frustrating for us. He could easly survive on just 2 legs, but not if he didnt live with us.

i just realized another benefit to chihauhaus, they cant reach the handle on the fridge! though i wish they coud jump up on the counter, that might keep the cats off of it!

 

[Sair]

I ducked out of this thread when it got into little more than tit for tat. However i will say, I would be appaled if anyone sat their eating food while a dog lay starving to death. We have a responsability to care for our world. That has nothing to do with scripture of any kind. We share this planet with many different spieces of animal, who all have the right to live. Many of which are reliant upon us, because we have taken their habitats or domesticated them in such as way that they cannot live on their own 2 feet.

The argument should never be to feed a homeless person or a stray dog. Why cannot we do both ?

Great post. You have neatly encapsulated the basis for humans’ moral obligation to other creatures, as well as each other. I know that most Catholics, and most humanist ethicists too, for that matter, are opposed to a morality based on might=right. Our greater power to operate in what is now a human-dominated world confers upon us the obligation to care for those who have been rendered weaker, not by any force of nature itself, but by the inconsiderate and unthinking greed of the human race, and our insistence on defying nature at every turn in order to get what we want. Of course, it’s not just nonhuman animals who suffer, but other humans as well, particularly those who have not kept pace with the rampant capitalism and technophilia of the West.

 

[Shin]

If animal suffering is something we are morally obliged to take care of – positing this… how exactly are we going to take care of it?

There are billions (trillions?) of fish in the sea… each day they die, without anesthesia… some deaths are quick, some are slow. . most often they are eaten alive by another fish and slowly dissolved in the stomach acids thereof.

I don’t know about you but being eaten alive and dissolved in stomach acids sounds about one of the worst ways to go possible.

If, supposing we were to somehow with all our modern technology intervene, what exactly would we do? We could for example, kill all the fish. This would end the quantitative amount of suffering immediately… certainly there would be fewer positively happy fish, but the suffering would be over.

We could for example, segregate all fish into separate underwater zoos, the small minority that could survive such a domestication adaptation…

We could for… but these are all ridiculous. Nothing can be done. And the standard is maintained that they should be allowed to kill, torture, and eat each other and exist in the wild as before… which is their normal mode of existence at the moment.

The animal rights groups base their moral duty of us towards animals on animal suffering, that is, they cannot bear to see suffering because -they- suffer seeing suffering, through their ‘empathy’ (which they are responsible for in themselves as can be seen by the different reactions here).

I see the animal rights groups basically following the same trend as the euthanasia groups for people – suffering is the moral fulcrum on which all existence hinges – and positive pleasure the other side of the coin that is the good.

But, to go back to the Catholic perspective for the briefest of moments (I don’t wish to interrupt) … no, this is not how it all works.

There is an overarching purpose to all existence that writes the moral laws of how we behave based on different criteria. Suffering and pleasure are part of those criteria… but not the pivot on which everything turns.

Perhaps there will come a day when ‘the lion shall lay down with the lamb’ but this day depends on human spiritual progress in the already established moral order, not creating something new that raises animals to the level of human beings – which can only harm both I might add due to its fundamental flaws.

 

[limerick]

Some differences between this post and some of the previous ones is that this one is direct, ugly (and incorrect), and not funny and the previous had a sense of humor. I’m enjoying this interesting thread, I’d hate to see it get ugly and be shut down.

I think that regarding emotions and animals, I am curious as to what scientists without a predisposition think are the actual emotions and reasons for them in certain animals, higher and lower.

Because as I indicated earlier animals are wired very differently and I fear that what emotions might be there, are likely -quite- different than what the overly sentimental and imaginative pet lovers want them to be.

I am thinking of the typical behavior of wild animals, and even of the rare cases of human beings raised in the wild as babies amongst animals and the deep seated problems this caused.

warpspeedpetey has been directly ugly to Limerick on more than one occasion - someone who reveres logic as he claims would have no call to resort to name-calling or any other form of derision. If you look back on the thread you may modify your perspective.

There is nothing incorrect in my post. You may disagree with them, but my observations are accurate. The aim is not to be funny. The aim is to rein in a player.

Limerick

 

[Sair]

not me brother, i named my first calf, in 1983, j.r. mooing, off Dallas. i bottle fed him, took pics with him, petted Him, sold him to my folks for bicycle money, and then we slaughtered and ate him, guilt free. he was yummy.

And yet you still think animals are on a par with robots. You’re not giving a good impression of your powers of perception here.

the suggestion that we might feel guilty if we think of animals as people is unwarranted opinion to say the least.

Exactly, which is why I explicity stated that it was the suggestion of some scientists and philosophers. Not stated as fact, but opinion. After all, that’s a get-out-of-jail-free card according to your reasoning.

its on a par with saying that atheists are only atheist because they want to be able to sin, guilt free

And yet I’ve seen several posters on this very forum state the same as indisputable fact. I hope you gave them a good drubbing for their irrationality.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

And you call yourself a rational materialist.

boy, that really seems to bother you doesn’t it? woulde it be better if i called myself a facts based reductionist? or a fliflamublated tortugermer? whats the hang up here?

Let’s suppose, for a minute, that I was starving, and somewhere in my immediate vicinity was a dog, also emaciated and ready to drop dead from malnourishment.

frankly a normal person would have eaten the dog long before their own death was imminenet.

There is a man with food nearby. He offers the food to the dog, who gulps it down quickly before I have even a chance of reaching it. Sure, I might be disappointed and pushed even more deeply into despair at my imminent demise, but my frame of mind would not extend to condemning the man’s actions as immoral. The dog was starving too, and it may well have been closer to death than I. The dog’s mind would be focused on its own survival, and as far as dogs are concerned, finders are keepers. I couldn’t hold the dog’s nature against it, nor could I take this to negate its right to occupy the world, which is the equal of my right to do the same.

thats because you think you and the dog are equals. i aint buying it, its easy enough to make that arguement when you aren’t actually starving.

really in that situation would be a whole different matter. what your saying simply isnt credible

Let’s consider some other possibilities. I have no way of knowing that there isn’t some other person coming along who might not give me food. Perhaps, if every person who passed by gave food to the dog and not me, I might start to wonder if I was invisible, or if some providential power had decided it was time for me to die (I would of course be delirious by now). I, however, having a more complex mind than the dog, have the ability to sustain my feelings with optimism and suppose that there are other ways of obtaining food than just waiting for a stranger to hand it to me. I might go around asking for it, assuming I had the strength to move about, or I might employ the dog’s superior nose to lead me to a rubbish bin that might contain a few sustaining scraps.

yeah, thats not credible either. i dont think you could take a night out in the cold by yourself, much less act with such incredibly inhuman reserve

the truth about people in these situations is ‘the donner party’

not ‘lassie’

It’s possible I might indeed react with crazed anger and attack the dog for eating the food, but that would hardly be a rational response with any resemblance to my usual state of mind.

attacking the dog and eating it, would be the nost ratioanl response a predator could make.

What if the stranger chose to give me the food after all? If there was a starving dog nearby, I would be inclined to share at least a small portion of the food - otherwise, if the dog died and I had declined to do what I could to help it, I would be consumed with guilt for my inconsiderate action. You might not be, but I am not much like you, from what I can gather.

ok, then, as long as there wasnt a person starving on the other side of the dog, thats ok

Bear in mind that all this would still hold true for me if my starving companion was human. (Except maybe the part about the superior nose…)

i know, remember the donner party?

As usual, your simplistic pronouncements fall well short of the mark.

gee, now that i see you would not bbe angry that a person fed a dog, while you starved to death, you must be right after all

oh give me a break, you would eat the dog, the rubbish, and anyone amoral enough to feed the dog before you.

to do otherwise is to be inhuman, just look up the donner party.

 

[Catholic90]

opcorn:All this talk of starving dogs and people…opcorn:made me hungry…opcorn:The dog and cats sit at my feet as I eat this popcorn, begging for scraps (the cats like the butter).

Having grown up on a farm, I, too, raised and slaughtered cows, chickens, pigs, and ducks. I also had and have dogs and cats as pets. All were named.

ANYONE who has had pets and is COMPLETELY HONEST with themselves knows some pets do show some emotion (excitement, guilt, etc.) Not all do, though. Can’t the same be said for people ,though? Some show lots of emotion - others seemingly have no emotion - no remorse, no guilt, no empathy.

I don’t have a lot of resources right now. I support my pets. I support those pets because I have a made a committment to them (and to my family) when I adopted those animals to care for and feed them. Does it mean that $100 a month I now spend on pet food does not go to a homeless shelter? Yes, BUT if I had the extra $100, it may or may not be going there anyway (actually probably not)! There are SO MANY charities that are worth supporting - so for me, right now, charity begins at home - feeding my pets and my children, and any extra money goes to my kid’s school, investing in the future! (However, when my kids outgrow clothing, it does go to the shelter for women and children, so I guess I am supporting it in that way - through clothing donations.)

I am just glad WSP is not my neighbor! He sounds like the kind of guy who would turn my dog over to the pound if it walked into his yard! (or feed it to homeless guys).

As a side note: A few years ago, our youth group took small groups of teens to one of our shelters/food kitchens that caters to primarily homeless men to help for a morning/lunch period. I volunteered to drive and chaperone. NEVER AGAIN! I was supervising a group of 5 13-14 year olds. These homeless men catcalled, whistled, asked the girls out, and were outright rude. The coordinators talked to the men, telling them to leave the girls alone, but it was very uncomfortable - they really made a bad name for themselves. I have never supported that particular shelter again and have not allowed my kids to go there to help out. Why should they be subjected to the abuse?