Moral or Immoral to swallow a live fish?

[James2097]

Gorillas can also be taught sign language. Dolphins are also very smart, following complex instructions etc...

This article is cool, its about monkeys.
http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=4102350

This article is even cooler (but similar), it features the first recorded account of monkey prostitution!
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/m...90&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

I'd say cognitive thought ain't too unique to humans.

 

[niky]

You're going to have to establish for me that plants and bacteria have "feelings". But are feelings really the test here? Are we worried about hurting the animal's feelings? Causing it fear? Is that really what makes this inhumane? Or is it pain? Or is it something else entirely?

See, the most basic of "feelings" is fear. All organisms fear instintinctively any environmental condition that they recongnize as harmful. Even plants, on a level. While I wouldn't equate those as "emotions" just yet, there is that. Pain is a natural neural stimulus for any organism.

I don't come down on the inhumane side for causing pain. It's the intentions for causing the pain that count. If pain is caused merely for the sake of causing pain, then that's psychopathic behaviour... and that person should be shot and incinerated, to prevent their genes from spreading.

I see different degrees of wrong being done between killing a human, a dog, and a plant. I see different categories of mind (consciousness) being eliminated. I see different capacities for thought, for experience, for understanding, creativity, and even emotion being eliminated.

Plants have almost no capacity for those things. They have no consciousness, no thought and so no wrong is done by killing them. Dogs have a greater degree of mental capacity, but still nothing close to human - which is why I think it is ok for the law to distinguish between people and dogs.

But if I said it was wrong to kill a dog I'd be a hypocrite... because I like bacon and pigs are smarter than dogs.

Torturing something that has a decent capacity to feel pain and understand bodily harm (like a dog) makes you a bad person. But fish?? Comeon! Fish have a fraction of the mental capacity of a dog. When was the last time you saw someone teach a salmon to fetch?

See, fish we can deal with, because we can't equate them with humans, ergo, we can't transfer the blatant disregard for the feelings of fish to humans, thus it's not inhumane to kill them. But still, fish do have a conscious identity, and a rudimentary form of self-awareness.

As for plants, I just chucked them in there to mess things up. ...it's ridiculous to think of them that way, but once you come down on the side of "don't torture the poor mice in lab experiments!", that's not far down the road.

 

[nissan man]

I have to say this is one of the most thought provoking threads i have ever read.

I agree that animals should be killed for food but ,as was said, NOT CRUELLY.
It should be done quickly.

I also strongly disagree with hunting for sport.

 

[skip0110]

A lion doesn't have remorse after killing an antelope to fill it's stomach. Why should I worry about killing a cow, or a chicken, or a lobster?

 

[Danny]

It's not immoral, it's just fishy practice unless you wish to de-bait it.

If you want to get your opinion about it heard, just drop them a line.




Too many puns...need...air.....

 

[Danny]

A lion doesn't have remorse after killing an antelope to fill it's stomach. Why should I worry about killing a cow, or a chicken, or a lobster?

But many animals haven't developed reasoning. A dog/lobster/blue footed boobie/Oryx/Great Tit doesn't know the difference between right and wrong.

We, on the other hand are much more developed. In evolution, we have created our own morals, an imaginary set of rules and etiquette.

 

[niky]

A dog has morals. Basically, morality is a survival mechanism, a way of thinking about interacting with other members of our species. A dog normally won't kill its mate or its pups. It will defend its home and its food. A dog will try to protect its pack from threats.

Some dogs may be anti-social, but they're not the norm, they're the exception.

That said, not all humans are moral anyway, either.

And animals can also extend this identification of sentience to other animals. Like that duck. Like my dear departed dog, whose pack consisted of a scraggly cat and a neighbor's goat. That still doesn't prevent a dog from ripping the throat out of another warm blooded mammal. It doesn't matter whether it is more chemical or electrical (hormones vs. neurons), the end result is still the same.

We're only different because we can extend this identification of sentience even further and worry about such abtruse and silly things as the feelings of a goldfish sliding down our throat. Morality and ethics are not just imagined, though. In practice, they form the basis of our culture and society, and that's true of most social animals.

What matters most to us is our contribution to the overall scheme of human development. Basically, senseless cruelty to any living, feeling and/or thinking creature represents the start of the breakdown of moral fiber, and a contribution to the downward slide of humanity. Not that it isn't bad already, seeing how blithe a lot of people are about killing others of our species anyway.

 

[James2097]

Nicely put. Humans are far from unique - animals possess and demonstrate their own form of morality, care, affection... (sometimes even when its unimportant for an animal's own survival or even it's own species' survival). More evidence that God doesn't exist... that we are just another animal on this planet, and just happen to be the ones with the most highly developed brains at this moment in the Earth's history...

Well some of us, anyway. My duck is smarter than some humans.