epepke

I've never had crocodile. I have had alligator. It's OK, but it's a bit gristly. The best I've had was at the restaurant on the artificial lake near the Grand Floridian hotel in Orlando.

premjan

Hmmm, yes my experience would be with milk cows mainly, though even they can show a little temper from time to time...

Aristophanes

look out! it's a marsupial lion! or was it the tiger? or perhaps the bear... oh my!

... nope, nope, it's just a wombat... nevermind

long winded fool

Attempting to protect animals from all suffering is a born to lose gesture, though on the non-vegan side I suppose a case could be made that human inflicted suffering on specific individuals in specific areas (herd culling) will reduce suffering in general over the long term throughout many species. Do humans have a responsibility to control animal populations with culling? If we do not, and we let nature take its course, are we being irresponsible? Nature routinely inflicts massive ammounts of suffering and death as par for the course. Nature wipes out entire species. Is this something that should be stopped? Do humans know better than natural selection?

BillyTheKat

IIRC, the condition of a dairy cow is considered to be cruel—constantly in calf to lactate, for eg.— as are the contingencies; calves go to slaughter so the mother can be in calf again to continue to produce milk.

Whereas one might argue though that human intervention to alleviate non-human perpetrated suffering might be morally worse in consequence than non-intervention, surely the moral concern is defined by the suffering of the subject, not the nature of the perpetrator?

The AntiChris

Not if the perpetrator is incapable of being influenced by moral praise or condemnation. It'd be pointless.

Chris

premjan

I think it is dreadfully sad to slaughter baby animals.

Hnefi

Allright, but it still doesn't hold water. If a human is starving to death for natural reasons, is it immoral to abstain from alleviating his/her suffering even if there are means available to do so? According to the original argument, it shouldn't be, since the original suffering wasn't a moral concern to begin with.

Morals don't work that way. Morals aren't nullified just because one tries to apply them to a situation that didn't arise because of morals to begin with. It's about how the outcome differs according to your actions.

The thing is, that if we didn't cull certain types of animals (deer, for example), they would multiply at a very rapid rate and many, many deer would die from starvation and disease - and after a number of years, from predators. Also, many humans would die because of car accidents and after a number of years, pets (and maybe humans) would die because of the new abundance of the aforementioned predators. Is it worth saving a few thousand animals if it means it will cause the painful death of many thousand more animals later down the line plus the deaths of a moderate number of humans?

The AntiChris

I think you've got your quotes confused.

Chris

The AntiChris

No. The argument still holds.

It's not the non-human inflicted suffering which is immoral, it's the the failure of the (human) moral agent to alleviate that suffering which is immoral. Of course it's only immoral if the agent is actually in a position to relieve that suffering ('ought' implies 'can').

Chris