

An Animal’s Place (2002) - sergeant3
http://michaelpollan.com/articles-archive/an-animals-place/

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shasta
Main point to me: "What this suggests to me is that people who care should be
working not for animal rights but animal welfare–to ensure that farm animals
don’t suffer and that their deaths are swift and painless."

AFAICT animals don't worry about dying in the same way people do. They may
miss Wilbur but they don't sit around wondering what happened to him and
extrapolate it to concern for themselves. My moral sense is that treating them
well is much more important than not killing them.

~~~
mikekchar
I have witnessed birds who mate for life act very disturbed on the loss of
said mate -- for long periods of time. Of course it is not possible to
determine what they are thinking exactly, but this is part of the problem.

Most people are so disconnected from animals. You might have a pet or 2 in
your lifetime -- some people never have pets. Even if you have had pets in
your life, then you might understand dogs or cats, but you don't understand
the daily lives of the millions of species of animals on the planet (I googled
for the "millions" bit, but actually I don't really know how many different
animals there are). And finally, even if you know dogs or cats really, really
well, you tend to know them as pets and not in terms of the culture they might
have if given free reign.

So we extrapolate greatly from our very limited understanding of what an
animal thinks. For the most part we don't observe them for more than a few
seconds at a time and have no way of understanding how they might express
sadness or happiness. In fact, last night I was subjected to watching "Frozen"
(again) and I couldn't help but notice how the reindeer acts like a dog. Is it
because dogs are more expressive in their emotions than reindeer? Or is it
because nobody in the target audience would have any reference point to
understand the emotions of a reindeer?

I have kept fish in tanks before in my life and watched them enough to believe
that I could discern when they were happy or sad or stressed or carefree.
There was once an unfortunate incident when a small fish had a mishap with the
filtration equipment and I happened to witness it. The rest of the fish seemed
absolutely shocked for the rest of the day. Were they traumatized by the
event? Were chemicals (or blood) released into the water by the killed fish
that affected their attitude? Was I injecting my own feelings into the fish.
These are things that I don't, and for all intents and purposes, can't know.

I don't know one way or another, but it seems likely to me that animals think
and feel in some way that is similar to humans. It is more my lack of exposure
to their forms of communication and culture that makes it difficult for me to
understand and emphasize with their feelings. At least, I think this is more
likely than an animal's brain and nervous system working in such a different
way from a human's that they do not have these kinds of feelings.

From that perspective, it seems reasonable to err on the side of caution and
do your moral reasoning as if animals had at least some capacity for these
ideas and feelings.

~~~
tbirdz
The problem is, where is the line between empathy and anthropomorphism? How
can you tell if the animal is actually feeling the way you think it is
feeling, and that you are not just projection your own emotions and
assumptions onto it?

~~~
mikekchar
I suppose I could ask the same of humans. How do you know a human things and
feels the same way you do and that you aren't just projecting your own
feelings onto their actions?

I'm not trying to be glib. I think it is actually a difficult question to
answer (and I have misunderstood other people's feelings many, many times!).

------
chroma
I agree with many of Singer's arguments, but there's one crucial distinction
that needs to be made: We may care about animals, but animals don't care about
people. Almost all animals are sociopaths. The biggest reason your cat doesn't
kill you is because it's not big enough. Big cats _do_ kill people. Even our
closest relative, the chimpanzee, has been known to kill and maim human adults
and children without provocation.[1] They have even, without warning,
viciously attacked humans who raised them.[2]

While I don't think it's ethical to breed and slaughter sociopaths for food, I
do think animals' lack of morals means we should care little about their well-
being.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_chimpanzee#Attacks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_chimpanzee#Attacks)

2\. [http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a5609/chimpanzee-
attack...](http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a5609/chimpanzee-attack-0409/)

~~~
shawnb576
A lot of dogs could absolutely kill you, but they don't. My cat could be 100
lbs and she'd still be more interested in kibble and pillows than mauling me.
So, no not all animals are sociapathic (I'm not sure that's the right word in
any case). Wild animals are wild and do wild animal things, they absolutely
live and die by a different code.

But this whole argument, I think is spurious. Simply because they follow a
different set of rules doesn't mean that they don't deserve our caring and
protection.

Your argument sounds a lot like the one people make about other groups of
people who find themselves morally superior versus another group. Replace
"animals" with "muslims" or "jews" or "communists" or whatever and it may
sound familiar.

That we recognize and respect that animals have needs and feelings even if
they are not beneficial to us is exactly the point of this.

