A reader points to the famous (well . . . famous to the three libertarian vegetarians I know, anyway) Robert Nozick meditation on our obligations towards animals from Anarchy, State and Utopia:
We might try looking at comparable cases, extending whatever judgments we make on those cases to the one before us. For example, we might look at the case of hunting, where I assume that it's not all right to hunt and kill animals merely for the fun of it. Is hunting a special case, because its object and what provides the fun is the chasing and maiming and death of animals? Suppose then that I enjoy swinging a baseball bat. It happens that in front of the only place to swing it stands a cow. Swinging the bat unfortunately would involve smashing the cow's head. But I wouldn't get fun from doing that; the pleasure comes from exercising my muscles, swinging well, and so on. It's unfortunate that as a side effect (not a means) of my doing this, the animal's skull gets smashed. To be sure, I could forego swinging the bat, and instead bend down and touch my toes or do some other exercise. But this wouldn't be as enjoyable as swinging the bat; I won't get as much fun, pleasure, or delight out of it. So the question is: would it be all right for me to swing the bat in order to get the extra pleasure of swinging it as compared to the best available alternative activity that does not involve harming the animal? Suppose that it is not merely a question of foregoing today's special pleasures of bat swinging; suppose that each day the same situation arises with a different animal. Is there some principle that would allow killing and eating animals for the additional pleasure this brings, yet would not allow swinging the bat for the extra pleasure it brings? What could that principle be like? (Is this a better parallel to eating meat? The animal is killed to get a bone out of which to make the best sort of bat to use; bats made out of other material don't give quite the same pleasure. Is it all right to kill the animal to obtain the extra pleasure that using a bat made out of its bone would bring? Would it be morally more permissible if you could hire someone to do the killing for you?)
Such examples and questions might help someone to see what sore of line he wishes to draw, what sort of position he wishes to take. They face, however, the usual limitations of consistency arguments; they do not say, once a conflict is shown, which view to change. After failing to devise a principle to distinguish swinging the bat from killing and eating an animal, you might decide that it's really all right, after all, to swing the bat. Furthermore, such appeal to similar cases does not greatly help us to assign precise moral weight to different sorts of animals.
The example of swinging the bat breaks down.
I assume that swinging the bat into the cow's head will make it suffer. Even Barry Bonds will not kill a cow quickly with a baseball bat. To swing his bat for pleasure, he will need to be able to ignore the cow's pain. Either he has no empathy, or he is training himself to suppress his empathy. The first is evidence of a threat to society, the second is creation of a threat to society. Our morality, with respect to animals, is meant to prevent this.
It is conceivable that animals may be slaughtered for food without the need for the suppression of empathy. The animals can be killed with little suffering, though I realize it isn't always the case. The "pleasures" involved are divorced from the pain. The butcher doesn't have a doller pop up everytime he kills an animal. My pleasure at eating a steak is not accompanied by an agonized steer.
This isn't a theoretical matter. It is very practical and imperical. Eating a bucket of fried chicken doesn't make someone more likely to be a serial killer. Torturing chickens for fun does. It is the danger to humans that makes animal cruelty immoral.
Meg, do you remember Flanders & Swann? I read the headline and immediately thought of the Reluctant Canibal song: "If the Jou-Jou had meant us not to eat people, he wouldn't have made us of meat!"
http://www.nyanko.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/fas/hat_canib.html
"It happens that in front of the only place to swing it stands a cow."
This is the fatal fallacy in Nozick's bat-swinging argument, as far as I'm concerned. It's an absurd assumption. Hos did the cow get into the batting cage in the first place? Why is the cow standing over home plate? Why did the umpire allow the game to be played in an occupied cow pasture? Is it reasonable to assume someone simply enjoys swinging a bat at thin air? Yadda yadda yadda.
Philosophers love to do that sort of thing. Mental masturbation.
"This is the fatal fallacy in Nozick's bat-swinging argument, as far as I'm concerned. It's an absurd assumption. Hos did the cow get into the batting cage in the first place?"
Wow. Missing the point.
good arguments until: "Eating a bucket of fried chicken doesn't make someone more likely to be a serial killer. Torturing chickens for fun does. It is the danger to humans that makes animal cruelty immoral."
Here the difference is between the group and the individual. we have institutionalized torture when it comes to certain animals on a group level. the same holds true for the group as for the individual however?
Once we started enslaving animals it was only a small step to enslave humans and from there only a small step towards something like genocide?
no - institutionalized slavery and torture is far worse than individual one. eating a burger seems normal to an US human compared to killing a cow with your own hands and not feeling a thing... - but actually (results!) - it is worse!
when our children inherit an empty and destroyed and tortured planet - they will not care for our excuses: "we didn't hate nature and the animals - we just wanted to swing bats.. we are not violent. something must be wrong with nature itself for always dying and suffering at our hands..."
Further: "It is conceivable that animals may be slaughtered for food without the need for the suppression of empathy. The animals can be killed with little suffering, though I realize it isn't always the case."
little suffering? I am all for the humane euthanasia of humans and animals with fatal diseases, etc. but in order to practice any form of livestock agriculture one has to confine and restrict the animals freedom. by definition - we would have to cross the evolutionary path when it comes to egg and milk "production". please remember that slavery is not bad because of the eventual death involved.
termagantism brachypodous retrocostal dalesfolk serglobulin dimagnesic bertram nonutility
http://www.house.state.pa.us/members/districts/082/082.htm >Daniel F. Clark
http://www.countyofinyo.org/