Animal Welfare

[Kromovaracun]

Toward the end of AOG's Grand National thread, I asked a broader question as to why animal rights is the issue that it is - some interesting responses came up and rather than address them in that thread (which is now unlikely to be seen by many people), I thought I'd just start a new topic in the hope that some others might share their thoughts.

My question - and the responses - are on <a href="http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Que
stion883463-3.html">this</a>
page. My original question was this:

"I really don't understand why we get so het up over animals. Seriously. I honestly don't understand why the British have this fixation with animal welfare or why we can't just accept the fact that the way we feel about animals are contradictory and actually kind of silly. Then we have to move mountains to align with it... it just doesn't make sense to me. "

I'm going to respond to the people who answered in answers to this topic. Any comments would be appreciated as I know a lot of ABers in News feel strongly about this, and I'd like my own views to be challenged a bit.

[Kromovaracun]

Ganesh:

"We all know they feel pain as we do,we are not that far removed from them. " [is at the heart of what you wrote, I think]

A lot of people do say this - in fact it does seem to be at the heart of the issue. But what gets me is that people will say that, but it's applied so illogically and varies between individuals so much that I seriously question whether people deep in their hearts believe it. Most folk are horrified by harm done to dogs but really don't seem that fussed about anything that happens to, say, fish or rodents.

If it was just a fundamental of 'a living creature feels pain, pain is bad, therefore we should prevent them feeling pain' then surely it would apply unconditionally?

The uncomfortable truth is that all of us have some kind of hierarchy that we 'rate' animals on. Nobody would think the suffering of a fish on moral par with a badger, for instance. And nobody would seriously consider the suffering of a chicken to be level to that of a horse - one is distinctly more outrageous than the other.

What this looks like to me is basically that we'll care about animals according to how much we 'like' them for whatever reason (which will inevitably have variations between people), which I just think is a very silly knee-jerk basis to put laws (ergo animal protection) on.

[Kromovaracun]

Stupid HTML. Here is the link to AOG's thread:

http://www.theanswerb...Question883463-3.html


Zeuhl:

"For me it's an issue of mutual respect. And i think there is a high correlation between a person's showing of respect to animals and showing respect for other people."

I understand what you're saying here, but I'm not sure I buy it.

If you're talking about adults I think people seem quite happy to turn off thier 'respect' for animals whenever it's convenient. People will dote on their pets one minute (and don't forget the English are one of the most pet-keen nations in the world) and tuck into fried hunk of cow the next, knowing full well what they're eating and not particularly caring. That's a very curious form of 'respect'and I think indicates that it isn't particularly deeply felt.

If you're talking about kids, then it's incredibly common to show complete disregard for 'living things' - my cousin and I used to love dismembering wasps (again - think of the hierarchy that indicates versus the 'living thing' idea - kids can kill as many living insects as they like, but if they hurt a mammal it's a national outrage - we 'like' one animal better than another).

Don't you think that's really, really weird? It bothers me that people think there's a rhyme/reason to this and base laws on it.

I have to be honest, I don't really understand the latter part of your post. Are you saying it causes discomfort because the uniqueness of it is 'unnatural'? (in that deliberate cruelty is not seen in any other species)

[jno]

this is just a wild guess, but I think we respond to animals with faces. Two eyes, a nose and a mouth triggers a protective response in us. Spiders we're indifferent to; mosquitoes we hate (for good reason).

However, we may also dislike animals with faces that we think threaten us; wolves for instance. I don't like foxes, which are insanitary; but others disagree - I think foxes are probably on the cusp between like and dislike. We might hate tigers if they ran wild, but they don't.

Steaks don't have faces, so most people don't have a problem eating them. It's actually *seeing* the face that's important.

[jake-the-peg]

I have a similar but slightly different take on in jno.

I'd say that empathy is a fairly strong human driver. The ability to put yourself in someone elses shoes and feel their pain.

It underlies a lot of our notions about ethics.

This is particularly strong when that person is helpless especially a child - I think this has quite obviously evolved by enforcing the parent-child link - survival of the species etc.

This is easilly subverted and transferred to other species, particularly youg animals and particularly those that are helpless.

I differ from you in that I don't think this is different with things like wolves and foxes - see the emotion in the fox hunting issue and dogs are so similar to them and foxes that I suspect you may be introducing a touch too much personal predudice into your analysis?

I agree that the face is important but so is the motion - things that scuttle, mice, spiders are often disliked as are slitherers many people have an aversion to birds and it's the flapping that sets them off.

Personally I feel that animal welfare should be observed if there is no strong reason not to - we should not be needlessly cruel but I'd strongly defend medical vivisection and I seem to be in a small minority that really aren't bothered either way about fox hunting

[Kromovaracun]

See, I think at heart I'm just the kind of person who thinks it's best not to introduce laws unless we have good reason in favour of doing so. I understand a lot of what both of you have said but I really can't see any legitimacy in it for having anything on the statute books.

As I think you've both indicated, the human love for animals is just so riddled with contradictions - we're fawning over things that resemble us but not anything crawls on it's stomach. How we can make laws that are based on such ludicrous pronouncements about 'love for living creatures' when our own views on animals are so hypocriticial really does confuse me.

[jno]

yes, good point about the movement, jake.

As for personal prejudice - isn't that the whole point of the thread? The way we feel about animals? I felt I could never let jno jnr (when young) out onto our back lawn when foxes had been crapping on it, so to me my prejudice isn't irrational, it's just responding to a threat.

[jno]

oh, just to respond to your argument, Kromovaracun: I think what lies behind the laws is an unwillingness to let people take pleasure in the discomfort of others whether human or not. Some would see this as unnecessarily puritanical, barring people's pleasures; but in the days when you could equally attend bear-baiting and public executions, many felt that it was degrading - to humans - to encourage the suffering of others for entertainment. Something to do with desensitisation, I suppose - not a word used then, of course, but the idea seems valid to me.

[Zeuhl]

For me it's an issue of Rights.

All living creatures have a right to life and i will do nothing to conflict with that unless they are harming me and i can't avoid hurting them.

Therefore I will walk a long way to expel a spider but when an ants nest invaded the house last year i put down poison.

I accept many people kill and eat animals but there is a big difference between:

I will kill you as quickly and as painlessly as possible so that I might eat. - and
I will kill you because it's a laugh and I might win a few quid betting on how long you last.

[LoftyLottie]

I totally agree with Zeuhl on this one and have little to add. He sums up exactly what I feel and has expressed it much better than I could.

[Kromovaracun]

jno:

" I think what lies behind the laws is an unwillingness to let people take pleasure in the discomfort of others whether human or not. [...]. Something to do with desensitisation, I suppose - not a word used then, of course, but the idea seems valid to me. "

I hadn't thought of this (the 'densitisation' part)... I'll need to ponder on that one, I think. Thank you.

Zeuhl:

I'm not sure your summation is accurate - I think most of the time it's a lot more like this:

"We will kill thousands of you because we like meat"
versus
" I will kill you because it's a laugh and I might win some money if you live/die"

Granted, the latter is more disrespectful than the former - but is the first one -really- all that repsectful to animal life? I think a lot of people seriously delude themselves on this issue. Plus consider the hierarchy again - this only applies to certain groups of animals (again, those we 'like'). Nobody cares about fish or pigeons.

[LoftyLottie]

I do.... I really do care about fish and pigeons ;o(

[ganesh]

I do too,and all animals feel pain,including fish ,and most people sympathise,but you're right,some people do feel more than others. After all,some people hurt other people too-murderers and rapists for example,and it is said that the psychopath has no empathy which is why he can do such things.
I also agree that there are ridiculous contradictions where we don't want to hurt something cute that appeals to us but we're willing to scoff meat killed for us. Even I ,a veggie who doesn't eat meat or fish,have been known on several occasions to squash wasps without remorse if they merely enter my house!!
I still think that there is a difference between killing an animal quickly and as painlessly as possible,and abusing them for sport or money.

[NoMercy]

"Most folk are horrified by harm done to dogs but really don't seem that fussed about anything that happens to, say, fish or rodents."

Maybe not, but fish and rodents don't exude the sort of love and devotion to their carers that a dog, and to a lessers degree, a cat does. I am appalled by ANY form of animal cruelty, but if I had to choose between saving a fish and saving a dog, I would save the dog.

There was a case recently here in Spain where a 19 year old man tied a labrador puppy to a motorbike and sped off at 70 mph, dragging the terrified pup behind him. By the grace of God, a motorist managed to overtake the evil scumbag on the motorbike and stop him in time to save the little pup. And that is nothing compared to some of the horror stories I see in the expat papers on a weekly basis. You may not get "het up" about that kind of thing, but I, as a lover of all animals, do.

[jno]

Zeuhl, I'd like to believe animals have rights; but if they do, where do these come from? Believers might say they come from God, but non-believers can only conclude that they come from humans, and rather erratically at that. I wouldn't kill an animal for sport, but Spaniards and fox-hunters do so regularly. You can't really dismiss them as lacking empathy; most are perfectly nice people, but they just grant different rights to different animals from the ones I would.

In fact I think the Buddhist approach of respecting all life is the only logical one. But I don't follow it; there's no way I will let any mosquito live - and that's not out of cruelty, it's to avoid pain (and worse, malaria).

[ganesh]

I would dismiss them as having no empathy,and the hunters I know aren't very nice actually,not to me anyway,lol. Anyone who has seen a fox or rabbit ripped apart (or indeed watched one looking terrified in my garden while the foxhounds were hunting it) would not go or even support hunting if they had any empathy.Equally,someone watching a bullfight could not enjoy it while the bull was being speared if they had empathy.
If we kill for survival (and meat is sustenance for most people) then fair enough. I would also kill a mossy as they not only hurt but can carry some life-threatening diseases. I am allergic to wasp stings so I will kill them. I certainly wouldn't torture them or kill them slowly (as with bulls in the arena,for instance).