Which animals are okay to kill and which are not? How far can humans subjugate animals? Are we allowed to keep pets even if the tradition dates back to the savage times when we ate meat and subjugated women? If you think about, if eating meat is dominating animals which only feeds the male oppression of females, then the explicit ownership of animals as objects for our entertainment (cats and their endless supply of videos) should only feed male obsession over women and what they could provide a man in terms of pleasure. It can't be defended by tradition since vegans argue against meat consumption as a part of out traditional culture.
Also of note is killing animals that people can't identify with. To me, Marti Kheel said vegeantrians have no qualms about eating plants in part because they cannot place themselves in the plant's metaphorical shoes. It's much easier to imagine the pain a cow might go through as it screams and makes noise and therefore is easier one's self in the cow's shoes (or hooves?). But people don't have problems with killing mosquitoes or spiders and I haven't heard anyone call for rights and protection for insects. The questions comes, why is it not okay to kill a cow for food and clothing (leather) and okay to kill a spider, which feeds on crop destroying insects and disease carrying mosquitoes, if it is bugging you? It's like having double standards for 'cute' animals and 'ugly' animals, both of which have a life and a brain and can no doubt feel pain.
There are a few people who advocate for the rights of insects, but you're right, they're quite rare. As far as why killing a mosquito is less immoral than killing a cow (or, indeed, not immoral at all) I think that is because the cow can feel pain in more depth due to its much higher level of intelligence.
ReplyDeleteI think that it's interesting that you brought up the ethics of killing spiders. As Avery mentioned above, sentience is on a sliding scale, and we have to weight various sentience levels against our understanding of morality. As he also hinted at, there are people who are against the killing of mosquitoes or even blades of grass; the Jains are an example of such a group. Some people that I have talked to have suggested that the ethics of killing plants is the same as the ethics of killing animals, so they choose to kill both. Now, back to spiders; I think that killing spiders, based on your conclusions about the disease carrying mosquitoes, is certainly less ethically correct than killing mosquitoes.
ReplyDeleteAs a note, I do not kill insects when I can avoid doing so. I think that people are well within their right to kill mosquitoes, ticks, and other harmful insects. However, I think that the killing of other harmless insects is unnecessary; beetles, like lady bugs for instance, cause no harm, so why kill them? Also, some spiders like those within the Portia genus have exhibited an ability to learn and problem solve. I think that, unless the insect is a inconvenience to you, it may be morally wrong to go out of your way to kill one.
I agree also that killing bugs for no reason what so ever is wrong, but how would you define 'inconvenience?' Can you kill a bug if it's crawling up your arm and it's making you uncomfortable?
DeleteWhat I really want to ask and get at is your sliding sentience argument. I feel that, as a meat-eater, I could turn that argument and say that since cows are so mush more simpler than I, then I can kill the cow and eat. The only difference here really is scale.
In the case of most bugs, the level of inconvenience necessary to justify killing them is, I think, pretty low, given that they are not very sentient. As for the sliding sentience argument, if you're really interested I did a post on it for another class here: http://asfcmi2012s.blogspot.com/2012/02/animal-equality.html
DeleteMy problem is why does sentience matter in saying what lifeforms can be killed and what cannot? Spiders can form traps and complex webs. Ants are able to work together to overcome great hurdles. Cows, as far as I know, don't have these traits. Also, to kill a bug simply because it is bugging (all the pun intended) you, seems immoral. Its like if a teacher slapped a student for answering too many questions wrong and it annoyed the teacher that the student was unteachable.
DeleteOn Avery's blog post, you're making a hierarchy of animals based more or less on their evolution. It almost sounds like a meat-eating argument that if I consider some life-form to so beneath humans than I should be able to eat it. If I can calim how inferior animals are to us, then I can eat them like a vegan eats plants.
I also don't think you can make the claim that a cat suffers less psychological trauma then say, a human because of our differences in intelligence. We nay be more aware of what is death, but both we and the cat are clueless as to what it really is. We can hardly understand what goes on in a another person's head, much less what they experience in death and much less what goes on in cat's brain, living or dying.