Animal Suffering and Human Suffering

[vison]

yovargas, we aren't just animals, so I must say it is not reasonable, in my mind, to compare our actions to theirs. I think it is folly to make the comparison, because the comparison seems to let us off the hook. We ARE "worse", really, since we could exterminate all life and are the only "animal" who could do that.

Animals are not cruel, they are merely animals. The word "cruel" implies "intention to cause suffering" to me. A cat toying with a mouse is being a cat, I doubt that she takes pleasure in the mouse's suffering but she may well take a kind of instinctive bone-deep satisfaction or pleasure in her skill as a huntress. At any rate, I think it is a grave mistake to impute human-type motives to animals.

When there are too many deer, they starve or the wolves get them. Then there are too many wolves and the wolves starve. At times the wolves and deer are at equilibrium. But never does the wolf "deliberately" exterminate the deer.

Human actions seem very different to me. We have a different kind of brain. At some point in our history we separated ourselves from the other animals on this planet. I'm not sure when. But I would guess it would be around the time we achieved "consciousness".

Sadly, while humans do possess the ability to plan far into the future, they seldom do. The very things that make our domination of Nature possible are seemingly the very things that make it possible to destroy it, and in doing so, destroy ourselves.

We are an enormous evolutionary success. But we are not immune from the forces that shaped us, no matter how far removed we seem to be. If we poison the air we will suffocate. If we poison the water, we will die of thirst. If we poison the land, we will starve.

We have succeeded because we are a social and co-operative species. In small groups we seem perfectly capable of being caring and thoughtful. But there is some number --- I guess the opposite of a magic number --- that when we get there, we seem to lose our ability to care about each other any more. We become blind and arrogant.

Am I backing away from my belief in the innate goodness of people? No, I'm not. Because I only know the people I know, if you follow me.

But, yes, there are times when I despair of my species. I don't despair of individuals, but of our "race". Short-sighted, stupid, fat on the backs of those below us, and greedy: those are human qualities.

But so are kindness and mercy and love.

Wow, this thread is moving fast.

Edited to add: Eruname, the male lion is not doing "wrong". He's being a male lion. He is making sure that the next cubs born will be his, will carry his DNA. That's all. He can neither stop doing it, nor feel remorse. It is his nature.

I can certainly understand a person lashing out in anger or frustration at a child, because I've done it myself, as a sister, a mother, a grandmother. But the deliberate and constant abuse, torture, of a child, that takes place over a period of years as in the case of Jeffrey, that I cannot understand. I won't go into the details here, they are too distressing. One of the most horrible aspects of it is that people KNEW there was something wrong and no one interfered. The "authorities" knew, and did nothing. If the grandmother was a monster, what does that make those who put the child in her care and left him there? She and her partner were convicted child abusers!

What was that grandmother's life? Was she beaten, abused, tortured as a child? Does it let us all off the hook to pretend or assert or imagine that she was just "bad" and since we all do bad things sometimes there is no use caring what made her so much worse?

Yes, I know that even people from good and loving homes can go wrong. Psychopaths seem born, not made. Yet a friend of mine who was a prison warden tells me that she KNOWS nearly every inmate in her institution was abused as a child, and very often that abuse ended in a head injury. Most pedophiles were sexually abused as children, some in the most monstrous ways. Is there not some advantage to our society in realizing that and working to understand how this knowledge might stop present abuse or prevent future abuse?

[MithLuin]

Yes, Jewel, it goes both ways. Hopefully, I'm moving 'upwards', and helping other people to, as well.... But some days, I have my doubts.

But even the people who seem to be no longer human may still be salvagable. I don't see any reason to give up on people, as long as they still live. Trust them? No. But relegate them to the ranks of 'non-human'? I can't do that, even if they are truly horrible, monsters even.

Part of me hopes that you cannot (fully) lose your 'human-ness'. I may be wrong, though.

[Erunáme]

...

[yovargas]

Why is it immoral to feel so strongly for the welfare of animals and to feel more strongly for the welfare of animals than humans?

If you had to choose between saving the life of some random horse or of some random human and you chose the horse? Absolutely, I would view that as a horrifyingly immoral action.

[Cerin]

I don't think anyone has suggested that if it came to choosing between saving the life of an animal or the life of a human being, they would choose the animal.

[Erunáme]

...

[yovargas]

I don't think anyone has suggested that if it came to choosing between saving the life of an animal or the life of a human being, they would choose the animal.

I didn't say anybody had and don't expect anybody will. But it is the logical conclusion of being more concerned by animal suffering then human suffering, is it not?

[nerdanel]

yov,

I'm not sure it is.

To give a related example: I might feel more strongly for the suffering of an animal I know (say, a childhood pet) than the suffering of a human I don't know at all. I'm not even sure that makes me a callous person, although if the shoe fits I will wear it. To me, all that says is that I know and care about the animal, and I have no idea who the human is (it goes to Ang's monkeyverse concept).

But it does not logically follow, as far as I can see, that if the animal and the human were both drowning and I could only save one, that I would choose the animal because I care about the animal more and the thought of his painful death by drowning causes me great emotional anguish. I would recognize at some abstract, logical level that the human life is "worth" more, or that some concept of morality demands that I save the human life, and I would do so. (I might never want to see that person again, if I had to let an animal I care about die to save that person, but I'd still save them first.)

Similarly, I think that someone can feel more empathy towards suffering animals as a group (due to their innocence, or whatever else) than towards suffering adult humans, and yet recognize completely that in a life-and-death situation, their ultimate, principal duty is towards the human.
[This is not my stance. The suffering of humans bothers me more than the suffering of animals. But this is partly because I would see it as flat-out hypocritical for me to pretend great concern for the suffering of (cute and endearing, or majestic and wild) animals, while daily eating the meat of animals who were slaughtered by an American meat industry that does not meet humane standards by any stretch of the imagination.]

[Sassafras]

I don't think anyone has suggested that if it came to choosing between saving the life of an animal or the life of a human being, they would choose the animal.

I didn't say anybody had and don't expect anybody will. But it is the logical conclusion of being more concerned by animal suffering then human suffering, is it not?

yov, you brought up the same argument on b77.

This is what I said then and I still stand by it:

It depends which animal ... it depends which child or human being.

Choose between one of my cats and George Bush? No contest. Bush goes to meet his maker.
Choose between my daughter and an anonymous animal. Again no contest. My daughter lives.

Btw, I refer you to the following argument about false choices:

http://www.animal-law.org/commentaries/aug1.htm

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Friends, I'm going to split off part of this discussion, and move it to the Lasto Beth Lammen forum

[MithLuin]

Oh, I see how it is.

Safe, warm, welcoming discussion = TE
Vicious, at each others throats = LBL

And here I thought the distinction was sprituality/faith/religion vs. politics/current events.

Wouldn't morality be the former?

<Looks up>

Probably shouldn't have written that. I just hate the concept of splitting threads. But then I don't like sig pics either. I'm just a Neanderthal....

Oh, right, back to torturing animals...

There is a difference. I could kill an animal, to put it out of its misery, or because it was in my house, or whatever. I can set mouse traps.

I couldn't do that to a person. I couldn't 'put them out of their misery' or decide that they would be better off dead. It just...wouldn't sit right with me at all.

But then, I don't approve of the Death Penalty, or Euthanasia, or War, or Abortion, or Assisted Suicide, or any of that stuff.

But if someone said, "here, kill this rabbit," I could do that. I would want to know why, and I wouldn't like doing it... but I could do it.

I would not be okay with being stationed in Iraq, and told, 'if any vehicle runs the checkpoint without stopping, shoot the driver.'

I like leather. I gave up meat for Lent, but will certainly be eating some on Sunday. When my family had sheep, we ate our sheep. I'm pretty much okay with all of this, and don't consider any of it to be cruelty.

This post is getting very strange. I guess it would make more sense if I posted something coherent about what I really do think, rather than just a bunch of random stuff that results from that.

In brief, our responsibility towards our fellow humans is different from our responsibility towards animals, plants, the environment, etc. We have the responsibility to take care of everything else. We can make decisions about it (even decisions about what should live or die), but we are held accountable for those choices. So, we ought to treat them right. Take good care of them.

We also have a responsibility towards our fellow humans, but we aren't in charge of them. We aren't judge and jury. We have to treat them well, yes, even take care of them - but they deserve our respect as our equals. We cannot affectionately take someone on as our 'pet' - people deserve better than that.

So, going and staring a forest fire, needlessly breaking a dog's leg and beating an adult human are all wrong. But only the last one is a breech of human dignity on top of being a bad decision. Does that make any sense?

[Cerin]

Safe, warm, welcoming discussion = TE
Vicious, at each others throats = LBL

And here I thought the distinction was sprituality/faith/religion vs. politics/current events.

Wouldn't morality be the former?

TE was envisioned as a forum for discussing spiritual matters in a more careful atmosphere, where the focus is on understanding, and learning about others' beliefs.

Not all spiritually related discussions necessarily belong in TE, but rather, at the thread starter's discretion as to whether they would prefer a more debate style discussion or a quieter one with the emphasis on listening and trying to understand another point of view.

I'd say this discussion has veered away from its original premise into a more narrowly focused consideration of reactions to animal v human suffering, and with a more debating type of feel; so that would be my guess as to why Voronwë felt it would be more appropriate to continue it here.

[yovargas]

yov, you brought up the same argument on b77.

This is what I said then and I still stand by it:

It depends which animal ... it depends which child or human being.

Choose between one of my cats and George Bush? No contest. Bush goes to meet his maker.
Choose between my daughter and an anonymous animal. Again no contest. My daughter lives.

And in my above example of an unknown horse and an unknown human?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Oh, I see how it is.

Safe, warm, welcoming discussion = TE
Vicious, at each others throats = LBL

And here I thought the distinction was sprituality/faith/religion vs. politics/current events.

Wouldn't morality be the former?

<Looks up>

Probably shouldn't have written that. I just hate the concept of splitting threads. But then I don't like sig pics either. I'm just a Neanderthal....

That's okay, Mith, dissent is welcome here. (Though I can't help wondering what you have against sig pics .) And we don't do "Vicious, at each others throats" anywhere here. It is still required that people treat each other courteously and respectfully. But Cerin's explanation of why I split and moved the discussion is correct (with the additional fact that I was responding to a request to split and move the discussion.)

There is a difference. I could kill an animal, to put it out of its misery, or because it was in my house, or whatever. I can set mouse traps.

I couldn't do that to a person. I couldn't 'put them out of their misery' or decide that they would be better off dead. It just...wouldn't sit right with me at all.

This far I agree with you.

But then, I don't approve of the Death Penalty, or Euthanasia, or War, or Abortion, or Assisted Suicide, or any of that stuff.

So, going and staring a forest fire, needlessly breaking a dog's leg and beating an adult human are all wrong. But only the last one is a breech of human dignity on top of being a bad decision. Does that make any sense?

This I don't agree with. I think all of these things are breaches of human dignity (and starting a forest fire could result in a lot more harm to humans then beating an adult human).

[vison]

It isn't likely that I would ever be asked to make the choice to save only one: one of my pets or George Bush.

I don't like George Bush.

But I would pick him.

I don't know why, either.

Ask me: one of my pets or Saddam Hussein?

Now it gets tricky.

And I'm not sure.

[Jnyusa]

I dislike artificial moral dilemmas. None of us will ever have to choose between our household pet and George Bush or Saddam Hussein.

People who exhibit wanton cruelty toward animals also exhibit wanton cruelty toward other people. The only moral choice we realistically face is to decide as a society how much of that we will tolerate, and to decide as individuals how to respond when we see it happening.

For most of us, indifference to observed suffering is the potential we have to confront, and we confront it a lot more often when it is other people who are suffering than when it is an animal. How many of us would dare to report child abuse or spousal abuse by a neighbor? Take the risk? Spend the time to go to court and testify? How often do we say rather, "Not my business. I don't want to get involved."

Jn

[anthriel]

What was that grandmother's life? Was she beaten, abused, tortured as a child? Does it let us all off the hook to pretend or assert or imagine that she was just "bad" and since we all do bad things sometimes there is no use caring what made her so much worse?

I've been thinking about this, vison.

I'm going to take it apart, a bit, to think some more:

What was that grandmother's life? Was she beaten, abused, tortured as a child?

I would suspect yes. To some, or all of that. People CAN have normal levels of empathy suppressed or destroyed in their lives as a way of self-defence, of self-protection. The woman who sold me my horse is doing her psychology PhD study on this, by exposing emotionally abused children to... animals, oddly enough. She measures their level of empathy before their time with the horses, and then periodically thereafter. It DOES seem, btw, that being with these animals can help these kids regain some lost empathy. I love animals.

Does it let us all off the hook to pretend or assert or imagine that she was just "bad"

I'm not sure what "hook" we're talking about, here, but I do believe some people ARE just bad. Some people just were born without some snippet of DNA somewhere, and that abnormality makes their social interaction bizarre. I hope that doesn't make me seem cold, but I do believe that.

and since we all do bad things sometimes there is no use caring what made her so much worse?

I can't quite follow this, vison. Yes, we all do bad things sometimes... of course. But that fact doesn't have much to do (for me) with caring about what made this woman capable of such a horrific act. I would DEFINITELY want to know why she did what she did. If such an action were preventable, I'd say let's do whatever we can as a community to prevent it.

[Erunáme]

...

[Jnyusa]

Some people just were born without some snippet of DNA somewhere, and that abnormality makes their social interaction bizarre.

There is the double-Y chromosome which has been shown to be present in a large number of violent criminals.

Jn

[The Watcher]

It isn't likely that I would ever be asked to make the choice to save only one: one of my pets or George Bush.

I don't like George Bush.

But I would pick him.

I don't know why, either.

Ask me: one of my pets or Saddam Hussein?

Now it gets tricky.

And I'm not sure.

vison, that makes you a more moral person than I would ever be.

Seriously, I would not make any strong effort to save GWB at the expense of anything nearer or dearer to me, including my pets (family members and friends go without saying.) Hopefully, I could save GWB AND the pets
and that is how I would conduct my actions. But, honestly, if push came to shove, what would I really do? I honestly do not know.

I just want to make one small observation. I have been hinted at to come here and post on this board, and while for the most part I find it welcoming, I find some of this nit picking and pulling apart everyone's comments type of atmosphere FAR worse than what I have found at other places, including both TORC's Manwë and even B77.

A most curious place. I hope I have only found the most contentious parts by accident.