WOW, PETA people really are crazy!

[tpir]

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Actually I have seen both and dogs appear to feel far less pain. This is most notable when getting a needle. Animals hardly react to a needle, if at all, while some people will scream and even go unconcious.

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lol. D-.


I think you had a chance to salvage your argument when this started, but you are quickly digging yourself a big logical hole. I would throw in the towel on this one my man.

[foal]

Peter, you don't know what you're talking about. You think suffering didn't exist before humans? You do realize we are over 99% genetically the same as many other animals right? Suffering goes back millions of years. And animals feel psychological pain, not just physical. I even know a dog who used to bite her front arms due to depression (she was put on anti-d medication).

[m_the0ry]

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I find it hard to believe that the only way to increase awareness about animal cruelty is to shove footage of cattle being slaughtered in our faces. Instead of ruining their own credibility like that, ...

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If they are against the unnecessary suffering involved with cattle butchering, then showing the practice is a perfectly valid tactic of exposing its brutality. To say this "ruins their credibility" merely demonstrates your own personal bias to what you want to see and what you don't want to see. And of course, showing slaughter footage is not "the only way" PETA advocates its goals, just one of many many efforts it undertakes. So again your point is moot from the start. You should attempt a logical argument next time, this is after all a science, math, philo forum where arguments should have more backing than just personal preferences.

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Back to the reputation, it only takes one sensationalist campaign to ruin the image of PETA. They never put context in their 'mix tapes of slaughter,' ever. There is no exception. They never mention stunning procedures. They never mention the legislation and why it is the way it is. They never argue against these procedures or legislation with facts - they just want to pluck heartstrings. It is SO easy to argue against the current legislation with the support of an animal neurologist or biologist. And yet they would rather spend all of their supporters' funds on reserving domains to lambaste Kentucky Fried Chicken's chicken hellholes. Yes the conditions are terrible. Do you really think the slob idiots that eat at KFC give a flying f*** about these animals anyways? Tell me, who is their target audience? Okay PETA, you successfully reached me, mthe0ry, I will boycott KFC. Oh wait, I never ate there to begin with. What are they trying to achieve? Look at PETA's track record. The only success one can even argue that they have had is the war against wearing fur. Knowing that I am fully in favor of ending animal cruelty, please list off some successes PETA has had. I'd love to hear about them, because they would be news to me.

Meanwhile, PETA will keep trivializing the Holocaust and AIDS. Bang up job, guys.

[vhawk01]

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<font color="blue"> Insert "moral agents" somewhere in there and this problem is resolved. Still, if Lestat gets to kill people so do I. </font>

Yes, but I think you need a reason. Certainly, a better one than; "if someone else gets to do it, so do I."

Again, I enjoy inflicting pain on those who enjoy inflicting pain upon the helpless. I feel the same way about child molesters/killers.

I'm not saying my murderous inclinations are justified by some morality, but I can at least pin my pleasure and reason for killing on *something*. Can you?

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Why would I need a better reason than that? Making sure we all have equal opportunity to kill seems at least as valid as enjoying killing cat-torturers.

[vhawk01]

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i'm pretty sure cats do sometimes torture and kill "for fun." so maybe the people are torturing the cats righteously.

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Exactly. One of the cruelest things I ever saw in my life was a pack of hyenas ripping apart a family of baby boars from its mother. I wanted to torture those beasts to death.

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Do people seriously ascribe animals with a moral and ethical awareness that they don't have to justify their own actions?

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Absolutely. I'm not sure if there was a thread about it on SMP, but there was on another board I frequent, when a pitbull raped a small infant and did all sorts of damage to it, the baby nearly died (or in fact may have died, I'm not sure). At least 2 out of every 3 posts was talking about this atrocious, evil, savage animal and how it deserves to die. Almost no one made the dispassionate claim that, since this dog has demonstrated a propensity to rape infants it is now slightly more dangerous than every other pitbull and should thus be put down. All of them wanted retribution on this sick, perverted dog. I thought it was hilarious (the anthropomorphizing, not what happened to the infant).

[vhawk01]

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i'm pretty sure cats do sometimes torture and kill "for fun." so maybe the people are torturing the cats righteously.

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Even when a cat doesn't eat what it kills (and appears to be playing), this activity actually hones it's hunting skills.

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ok, you said cats don't torture and kill for fun. they clearly do. it doesn't matter if there's a good reason the cat enjoys it.

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And even if you want to make the case that housecats are fed and have no reason to kill, they certainly don't have the cognative ability to realize their hunting instincts are no longer needed.

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that doesn't make the slightest difference. they're not killing because they value their hunting skills.

note: i'm just being nitty over details of fact, i don't actually apply morality to cat behavior.

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Cats also eat for fun. At least, the derive pleasure from it, for pretty much the exact same reason they derive pleasure from these more senseless killings.

[vhawk01]

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"Lack of long-term memory != incapable of suffering"

That is the only reasonable thing you said. What people view as "suffering" seems to be intimately linked with memory, intelligence, and rationality. Feelings like dread, loss and despair, which are the heights of human suffering cannot be felt by animals. Even physical pain requires a great sense of awareness of what is going on. We don't feel pain when unconcious. How concious is an animal really?

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Conscious enough to feel pain. If you ignore this, you are either a liar or a retard, possibly both.

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Backhanded insults are another thing that animals are incapable of. You are clearly anthropomorphizing animal conciousness and pain when it is clear that human awareness is on a completely different level. How sapient is an animal?

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Animals such as dogs exhibit all of signs and indications that they are experiencing pain, such as crying out, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, avoidance behaviors, and so on. Do I know if they are ACTUALLY feeling pain, in the same way I do? Absolutely not.

And the same goes for whether YOU feel pain, Peter. You want me to take your word for it, though, right? How conscious ARE you, really? Hopefully you cross the threshold!

[vhawk01]

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For example, they have the right to live. This is the claim that they exercice against the rest of humankind. It means that no one is allowed to kill a newborn child.
They don't have to sue anyone. The state will se for them. What is interesting in this case is that it is the same for an adult, as a murdered adult can't personnaly press charges.

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I think that philosophically we need to distiguish rights from laws. Laws prevent people from doing certain things. Rights are an entitlement based on a duty. Maybe we should start a thread discussing this.

A lot of people here have these two concepts mixed up and interchanged.

If we are willing to have laws regarding the treatment of animals, that's one thing. If we want to give rights to animals, that's quite a different thing.

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Law defines rights. If you have law preventing the murder of animals, it means that animals have the right to live.
You should not make up definitions and false distinctions to justify your points. Newborns do have rights.

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I don't think this is correct. Maybe pragmatically, but the United States, at least, was essentially founded on the idea that this was false.

[vhawk01]

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Anyone who has taken an introductory psychology course knows that pain perception is not merely an automatic reaction to stimulus, but has many contributing factors such as expectation, personality and mood.

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And anyone who has stepped on a tack or watched a dog step on a tack knows that both feel physical pain through similar biological mechanisms. So to take any subtle differences and pretend that means there are few similarities is disingenuous.

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Actually I have seen both and dogs appear to feel far less pain. This is most notable when getting a needle. Animals hardly react to a needle, if at all, while some people will scream and even go unconcious. The biological mechanisms are similar, but only to a certain point. The capabilites of our brain far advances that of our pets, with a corresponding perception of pain.

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Clearly, those people are far more conscious than I am, since I react much like a dog when getting shots. Sucks, because apparently I now get the legal and moral consideration afforded to a dog.

Wasn't there like some guy named Pavlov who demonstrated that dogs do, in fact, feel some type of fear of impending suffering, apprehension, stuff like that?

[foal]

I agree that PETA is not a great organization. I support their cause for the most part, but I think their methods are often unwise, as m_the0ry argued. It seems that activists have a tendency to get frustrated when people aren't paying any attention to the "obvious" horrible evil the activists are trying to enlighten them about, so they start switching to more extreme/exaggerated/sensationalist tactics. Facts start becoming less important. It's like the pro-lifers who wave around signs showing graphic pictures of mutilated fetuses or start hanging around abortion clinics spitting on young girls as they enter. Anyway PETA are flawed, but not all bad. I would like to see them either improve or get replaced as the poster anti-animal-cruelty group.