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Comment by 42772827 | Hacker News Reader

The key difference between humans and every other animal that has ever existed is our ability to reason about systems and the morality of actions.

Some birds will abandon weaker chicks to focus on the ones most likely to survive. Others will allow siblicide. That these behaviors exist and have existed for billions of years is a fact orthogonal to morality because birds don’t have the capacity to reason about systems and the mortality of actions.

“Living things” is a sleight of hand, logically. When it comes down to it, everything is just atoms in the end. So why not murder? Why not steal? Why not exploit the poor? Reductionism leads us down some very dark paths indeed.

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> Some birds will abandon weaker chicks to focus on the ones most likely to survive. Others will allow siblicide. That these behaviors exist and have existed for billions of years is a fact orthogonal to morality because birds don’t have the capacity to reason about systems and the mortality of actions.

There's something missing from this analysis. Namely that animals that have many offspring generally expect most of them to die and this is part of selective pressures that keeps the population healthy. If, for example, a mouse could reason morally it might still let many of its weaker babies die because keeping them alive would not be good for mouse-kind. It's inappropriate to assume that the child rearing morals of a low-fecundity, high-parental-investment species like ourselves applies to other species with different reproductive strategies.

> If, for example, a mouse could reason morally it might still let many of its weaker babies die because keeping them alive would not be good for mouse-kind.

I agree. If a mouse could reason morally and inside the system it currently inhabits, it might reason that way because it was unconscious of or had no access to alternatives for survival.

It’s is absolutely inappropriate to assume any morals on a species that has no capacity for reason.

Morality is arrived at through value judgement. We have a social contract with each other, not animals.

People generally dislike gratuitous pain and cruelty, hence we're seeing a push for cage-free hens and the like. They don't oppose slaughter in and of itself.

What people generally oppose today is a function of their consciousness and ability to access alternatives. They don’t oppose slaughter because they don’t think there’s an alternative, the same way that a person who is on the verge of starvation will steal food. They also don’t oppose slaughter because it’s hidden away from them, and done by others.

Slavery is an excellent cognate to this.

It’s a slippery slope, isn’t it? If you’re not careful with your compassion, you’ll end up having it for all sorts of beings you’ve come to see as like yourself.

> Slavery is an excellent cognate to this.

No it's not. I always find the idea that humans are not in some way special (at least to other humans) off-putting. Even animals treat members of their own species generally better than they treat other species.

I love animals, I think we should treat them with dignity and respect as much as possible. At the same time I would not hesitate to kill an animal for food or if it endangered another human.

The cognate here is about how attitudes about systemic actions can change due to a shift in consciousness and access to alternatives. Many people saw black people as not their own kind, and saw no reason — beyond economic imperative - to treat them with compassion.

You said yourself:

>I think we should treat them with dignity and respect as much as possible.

It becomes more possible to treat animals with more respect and dignity every day. For vast portions of the population (Not all! Not yet!) the slaughter of animals for food is becoming less and less necessary.

So the question becomes, given that you believe we should treat animals with as much respect and dignity as possible, do you believe you have a moral imperative to take advantage of these systemic advances?

Good points.

I think where we disagree is the question of whether slaughter is necessarily undignified or disrespectful. When I say "treat them with dignity and respect" I think the experience of the animal up to the point of death is what's most important. The slaughter, if done humanely and quickly, is not inherently immoral to me. For example, I think most people would agree that it's better to "put down" a suffering pet than let them die of natural causes.

My problem mainly lies with industrial farming practices like battery cages.

> My problem mainly lies with industrial farming practices like battery cages.

Yeah, we definitely have common ground here. I’ll also mention that industrial farming practices are also cruel to people. Slaughterhouses in the US are overwhelmingly staffed by migrant laborers who work in unsafe conditions, for low pay, being exposed to antibiotics that damage their long term health.

We can and should do better.

> They don’t oppose slaughter because they don’t think there’s an alternative

That's clearly not true, and a projection.

They don't oppose slaughter because they find no objection with killing an animal for nourishment, "necessity" having no bearing.

Some birds. And some people.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Children_for_Sale

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