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Comment by nimble | Hacker News Reader

I think its unfortunate that opposition to torturing animals is often lumped in with opposition to merely killing animals.

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I agree entirely. I was particularly taken by an interview I heard (NPR probably, was years ago) about a rancher who raises high-end free-range veal.

He said that these cows have exactly one bad day in their lives, as they spend their entire lives with their mothers in grassy pastures.

If we have the right to kill, why don't we have the right to torture?

The very act of torture requires a level of emotional depravity that merely killing does not.

You presuppose that torture is always willful. In the context of human-scale meat production, it seems unavoidable. Yet we accept this, as it is necessary for consumer demands. The employees of factory farm facilities may very well suffer "emotional depravity;" not as a prerequisite for their duties, but as a result.

The nature of torture aside, taking the life of a sentient being is the ultimate violation of its rights. I don't see how any act less than killing can be considered morally worse than killing.

Animals are not sentient. Higher animals have some form of emotion and a great capacity to suffer but as far as we can tell today, they do not have self-aware and self-reasoning intelligence.

Sentience doesn't mean what you think it does: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience

Okay, I used the wrong word. My point remains unchanged. Animals, in their various are not capable of enough intelligence or self-reasoning to be considered thinking beings requiring equal protection with people. It is not morally wrong for a human to hunt animals, farm animals, use animals for labor, or keep animals as pets.

This does not make it right for a human to deliberately cause harm to an animal for pleasure or entertainment. I also would consider trophy hunting to be immoral if one leaves the body to rot.

I agree with you. My point was: you used the wrong word. :)

Psychology Today: A Universal Declaration on Animal Sentience http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201306/u...

> The nature of torture aside, taking the life of a sentient being is the ultimate violation of its rights. I don't see how any act less than killing can be considered morally worse than killing.

Why?

That's easy.

They are different things that inflict a different amount of suffering and distress on a creature capable of feeling suffering and distress.

Because there is a purpose to killing, but the only purpose for torture in this case is the maximization of profit.

The companies condoning the torture are publicly traded companies which are legally obligated to maximize profits. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that this is happening on a massive scale. They only ways we can stop it are to create new regulations (the ones there today are ignored and the government is not staffed to enforce them) or for the public to stop buying from companies who torture animals. Both scenarios seem pretty unlikely to me, so I am not sure what to do.

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