If it is morally permissible for a business to slaughter cows to make leather belts, in what sense can it be immoral for someone to drown puppies?
Why would drowning puppies be a more trivial use of them compared to the use of cows for the trivial purpose of making leather belts?
If it is a question of cruelty, in what sense is killing a cow for a leather belt not cruel?
If someone drowned puppies to make belts from them, would that eliminate the cruelty?
Would drowning puppies be morally justified then? If not, why not?
Most people already accept that it is morally wrong to treat certain individual nonhuman animals as things and property; they are not ours to use or abuse as we please. The question is, by what relevant, non-arbitrary and consistent reasoning do most people accept that moral principle only in the case of some nonhuman animals and not in the cases of all nonhuman animals?
4 Comments
It would take a certain type of individual to drown a puppy. It believe that people who commit violent crimes against other people also have more than likely committed crimes against animals in the past. As a kid I must cobfess, that I burned an ant or two with a magnifying glass. I never put a firecracker in a frogs mouth ot tide two cats together and hang them on a clothesline. But I always heard of stories about that sort of thing.
I think that a person who would drown a puppy has reasoned out in their mind why it is necessary for them to drown your hypothetical puppy. The bottom line is that this is the easiest way to eliminate additional responsibility which they don’t want. The life of the puppy is weighed against what the slaughter considers convenient.
The problem, I think with this attitude is that humanities search for convenience has pretty much led us to where we are now.The Vegan ideal of Ahimsa, which is metaphysical, is one of non-harm. I think even Atheists feel it, too; even though they would not describe it as God. This is why I am a vegan. I can see that a society which concentrates on ‘easier’ has actually gotten much more complicated. The God’s must be Crazy is a great movie that expresses what I am trying to say. (even though the key player is a hunter).
Hi Bill!
I know, it would take a certain kind of warped mind to drown a puppy. (By warped, I don’t mean to say deliberately twisted – I think most people who commit atrocities are victims of past violence themselves.)
Have you read the recent New York Times Magazine article “The Animal Cruelty Syndrome“?
I think what bothers me is that we all accept the depravity of the “puppy drowner” but we excuse the actions of all of the rest of us who directly support the deaths of millions of other animals every day. As you say, this attitude has pretty much led us to where we are now.
Tim
Hi Bill,
It takes a certain kind of person to make belts out of cows, too. The difference is that the individual drowning a puppy is just an individual and doing it for just their own pleasure. They are easy to blame because they act alone. There are usually more people involved in raising the cows, killing the cows, skinning the cows, making the belts, selling the belts, and then wearing the belts. When many people are involved in something horrific, it tends to seem less horrific as the blame gets shared. The people at the beginning rest easy knowing that they’re doing their job for the people at the end, they’re just satisfying a demand. The people at the end are so removed from the suffering that most won’t even consider it as they pick out their belt. And, to all the people involved, it seems all the more justifiable since it’s “normal” and “accepted” by the many others involved.
More horrific things are done by large groups of people that would be much less acceptable if done by an individual acting alone. It is only once we break out of the system ourselves that many of us look back and realize the terrible things we have done that seemed perfectly normal at the time — because they were normal. Are people who do horrific things that are socially acceptable any better than those who do horrific things that aren’t socially acceptable because they just aren’t as common?
” went Vegan” 6/15/2010
Thank you very much.
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