(no subject)
My friend Justin made a post on facebook and there were some interesting discussions on it for a while that I am going to copy and paste here. Nobody reads this (I think; correct me if I'm wrong) so this is just for me to refer to later.
My friend Justin's post: A meme-like photograph of Abe Lincoln with a quote that says "When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad I feel bad. That is my religion." Justin's comment: Horray for Abe and secular morality!
Florian: Ah so sad. Reminds me of what I once heard. We've replaced being good for feeling good, and doing right for looking right...
Justin: I believe, and some excellent science has shown, that morality is innate to humans and other animals to varying degrees. We don't need any gods to do good. I hadn't reflected on it before, but I think that Lincoln's choice of "to do" over "to be" is key.
Florian: You really believe morality is innate? Maybe our understanding of what innate means are different, but I have never observed that. To me if something is innate, then it does not have to be taught. This is clearly not the case with morality. The best indicator are, in my opinion, children. I won't go into the case studies that show that there is absolutely NO moral character developed if children are completely deprived of parental care and love. No instead lets talk about moral values. It is innate NOT to have moral values. You don't have to teach selfishness, greed, deception, manipulation, and such to a child. They innately have those attributes. Innately the tendency is to take what you want when you want it if you can get away with it. In society we call that stealing, and it is somewhat frowned upon. One may say that the child simply has no concept of ownership, but we know that's not the case because if you try to reclaim what is rightfully yours, suddenly the concept of ownership and what is "mine" is very developed in a child.
So if indeed morality is not innate, then the values we teach our children have to originate from some source outside of our innate self-centered characteristics. How can you even define what is good (or evil) unless you have some reference point outside of that of innate selfishness? From an animal viewpoint, for example, rape is exactly what you want to increase your numbers - from a moral viewpoint we say that it is wrong. Again, where did we get our moral law? From ourselves? Is it wrong because it inflicts pain? If that were the only criteria then birth in and of itself would be morally wrong...as would be setting a bone or such. Clearly that is not the case...so the nagging question remains - where did we get our moral framework?
Justin: I am quite convinced that we have innate morality. For studies in support of the idea I recommend The Age of Empathy, Our Inner Ape, and the talk and article I've linked, although there are many others. The punchline of the article was: "Babies possess certain moral foundations - the capacity and willingness to judge the actions of others, some sense of justice, gut responses to altruism and nastiness."
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals.html
Justin: Sorry, forgot the article link. Although the view you espouse has been popular since Augustine, it is rightly on the wane.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?pagewanted=all
Me: It seems impossible to have animals that live in colonies without the animals having some sense of empathy and cooperation. Even insects are capable of these things. I feel like morality to some degree has to be innate because it's evolutionarily advantageous. Your species won't flourish if you're busy being self-absorbed jerks.
Ralph: The Apostle Paul agrees that man instinctively has a moral sense (Romans 2:14-15). The better question is where it comes from and whether it is sound.
Florian: Empathy and cooperation are a far cry from what I would call morals though. Sure insects will cooperate within their colonies...but it ends there. They don't have anything close to moral values that cause them to treat other insects of their kind from another colony and different than any other insect. For feelings of empathy to be truly that of morals it can't be just toward a very small subsector contained within family. If that is as far as the circle of morality goes, then me shooting someone from another family/ethnic background/language tree would not be immoral behavior. Just try explaining that one to a judge. No our moral values transcend ethnicity, family, etc. I'm amazed how scientists latch onto any figment of 'moral' behavior in animals as all conclusive proof, while ignoring the big picture that these altruistic gestures are limited to close relatives or other clans dominated by one alpha male/female. One might say that many human tribes have behaved in this exact manner, but that only reaffirms my original statement that clearly the moral law had to come from an external source outside of the realm of other animals...
Florian: I just read the moral life of babies... I don't see how that supports the claim that babies have an innate morality. The problem is that the fundamental premise is incorrect and rather using the evidence to form a hypothesis is the first place (like true science), the evidence is used to support a preconceived conclusion. If you remove the conclusion that babies have innate morality and just look at all the examples given, it is quite apparent that that another (in my opinion more plausible) hypothesis is that babies start learning from the moment they are born (well actually well before, but that is another topic) and based on what they have observed are able to form a moral framework. It's not something that they had all along, but something that they were learning all along.
The author even concedes , "Another possibility is that babies do, in fact, use their knowledge from Day 1, not for action but for learning". This is entirely accurate and not a 'possibility'...and anyone who has ever observed babies and toddlers would know that.
Me: People absolutely behave this way. That's why racism, homophobia, xenophobia, animal abuse, war and so many other vile things exist.
But that's beside the point, I think. I feel like people understand that being kind to others makes society flow more smoothly. But I really don't think humans are any more moral than animals. They are basically kind and cooperative and as long as niches/resources are plentiful they don't really bother each other. Besides, it's definitely possible to have degrees of morality. Not everyone can agree on everything that is right vs. wrong. I feel like it's wrong to kill and eat animals when we have the ability to live a completely healthy life from beginning to end without eating animal products. I know most people don't agree with me though.
Also I curious about what other qualities you feel need to be included in your checklist to see if something is moral or not.
Florian: Nobody mentioned a checklist for determining if something is moral. I was simply stating how I have always understood morality so that if I am incorrect in my assumptions it can be pointed out to me.
Uh, yes. Thank you for supporting my case. Indeed people absolutely behave 'that' way, and would you not agree that such behavior is immoral?
Hahaha. You're right. Morality has nothing to do with whether or not we eat animals. Just as an aside, do you think eatinrg animal products is inherently evil because it is cruel? Point to ponder - dairy cows actually welcome getting milked. If it is based purely on the idea that it is somehow evil to consume animal products, then what of your momma's milk? Was nursing too an evil and unnatural act? ;-)
Me: Morality and goodness mostly boil down to cooperation and empathy which mostly boils down to kindness. I was unsure what other qualities you feel need to be included in this assessment. Science shows that these behaviors are innate (genetic). Racism and those other intolerant behaviors are learned behaviors. Animals have territorial disputes over resources; they do not kill other animals because they have the wrong color of fur or because they pray at the wrong church.
Dairy cows are forcibly impregnated on a yearly basis. After they give birth to their young, the baby cow is removed from the mother and fed exclusively grains to get fat for veal and beef (males) and to start the cycle over (females). The milk the cow produces for the purpose of feeding her offspring is never used for that purpose. All mammals produce milk for the purpose of nurturing their young and their young only. It is wrong to force a cow to get pregnant and then take the baby away and then steal that baby's food. Also, have you ever looked at the milking machines used in industrialized farming? It milks the cows until they bleed, which I highly doubt they welcome. This is animal abuse and it is immoral. And my mom fed me cow's milk fortified with vitamins. I didn't say that morality has nothing to do with it (because it clearly does). I just know that some people do not include these things when they consider their definition of morality. It seemed like you had; you implied that animals hurting animals outside their species was wrong and proved they were immoral, so I figured you must apply those same standards to humans. For that reason, I did not expect to be condescended to and derided.
Socially desirable (moral) behavior is definitely innate because an individual demonstrating undesirable behaviors does not get to mate and therefore does not get to pass along its genes. This can start as a learned behavior and can in just a few generations become at the very least a combination of learned and genetic and a few more to be almost entirely genetic. An example: Humans started having sex face to face because it creates a bond between them that makes the male more likely to stick around for the first few years of the offspring's life. This started out at as a learned behavior, as this method of coupling proved to produce more and better offspring and created a community or family type of environment which helped protect the children until they could take care of themselves. As generations cycled through the human body changed in ways to make it easier to have sex and carry a baby this way. I could list more examples if it weren't bed time.
Justin: Dear Florian, With my respect, you are wrong about animal empathy being strictly 'in-group'. I can give you examples if you would like, many drawn from The Age of Empathy. I believe that you are mistaken about the implications of the article on baby morality. Infants less than a year old do not generally have many taught behaviors. Would you contend that the sense of justice demonstrated by the 8-month-olds was uniformly learnt from their parents?* I found the article to be fairly compelling and the experiments to be conspicuously well-designed.
Dear Katie, I feel a bit worse about drinking milk now. I agree that we ought not cause unnecessary suffering, but I do love meat and milk. Hopefully someday I'll edge closer to a less cruel diet. The biological underpinnings of morality certainly are fascinating, and it's a growing field. I'm especially interested in our sense of Justice, Cleanness, and Respect.
Dear Ralph, Thank you for joining in. I find the explanations offered by the scientific community to be quite sufficient. I really tend to prefer a morality based on compassion and other inborn traits to one imposed by fiat. Of course, my preferences aren't terribly important in the broad scheme of things.
* "we tested 8-month-olds by first showing them a character who acted as a helper (for instance, helping a puppet trying to open a box) and then presenting a scene in which this helper was the target of a good action by one puppet and a bad action by another puppet. Then we got the babies to choose between these two puppets. That is, they had to choose between a puppet who rewarded a good guy versus a puppet who punished a good guy. Likewise, we showed them a character who acted as a hinderer (for example, keeping a puppet from opening a box) and then had them choose between a puppet who rewarded the bad guy versus one who punished the bad guy.
The results were striking. When the target of the action was itself a good guy, babies preferred the puppet who was nice to it. This alone wasn’t very surprising, given that the other studies found an overall preference among babies for those who act nicely. What was more interesting was what happened when they watched the bad guy being rewarded or punished. Here they chose the punisher. Despite their overall preference for good actors over bad, then, babies are drawn to bad actors when those actors are punishing bad behavior."
Florian: Well, I can see there isn't going to be any consensus. I take it Katie, that you've never actually worked with either beef or dairy cows? Generally speaking, beef cows are not well suited for milking and dairy not well suited for beef production. I'm not sure if you've ever seen a mare or sow or cow or any other creature getting bred. Bear in mind that this would happen in the wild too. Artificial Insemination is the alternative.
As for milking machines, yes, I have seen them. I've seen them, handled them, up close and personal. Is it feasible that they could draw blood? Yes. Is that the general course of events? No. It should be noted that young animals also draw blood when they nurse. You think a puppy nursing with its razor sharp teeth is a joy to the bitch feeding it?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that your understanding in this matter has not come through personal observation by a patchwork of radical examples of "documentaries" highlighting the most extreme cases possible so as to persuade others of their agenda. I believe it is wrong to mistreat animals. Always have - though I didn't come by this through some innate morality but because my parents brought me up to respect life. I realized this was not innate based on observing some of my friends find amusement in de-limbing beetles and such. I formed my opinions based on personal observations not by watching some movie or other one-sided propaganda.
I don't have any "feelings" on this matter. I'm not incensed by the the meat industry, quite the opposite, I think we could do much better if production was scaled down again to smaller but more numerous farms. I have encountered a number of small farms where the animals were treated very gently and there was a somewhat harmonious co existence between man and animal. Believe me, putting up the hay and grains needed by those animals is hard work! The animals benefit from that and can survive the winter where normally they couldn't.
Me: I'm very uncomfortable with the assumptions you've made about my experiences with no knowledge about me. It's clear to me that you are not interested in actually learning anything about my experience or my beliefs, but badgering me about my choice to not participate in the exploitation of animals. This is the last thing I'll have to say on the matter, and only because I can't stand it when people make assumptions about where my beliefs come from.
I have been to a large scale production dairy farm. My family comes from Wisconsin and several of my family members are employed by dairy farms that I toured. I have spent time on a pig farm too, though it was much smaller and was mainly breeding pigs to sell to big farms to breed. I've seen the things I talked about first hand. My complaints in this thread discuss things that are considered standard practice in the factory farming industry. They are not rare examples or things taken out of context, they are things that are considered completely normal and are widely accepted practices. Other things that are completely accepted standard practice include de-beaking chickens (so they can't peck those collecting eggs) and killing all male chicks with what is basically a giant blender and used as animal feed. Yes, babies with teeth some time scrape and bite teats or clamp their gums down very hard but they do not cause bleeding by sucking too hard. Ask a woman who has breast-fed their baby. It's painful but it's worth it to feed your child. It's not something that is good and right for us to do to them just because the baby calf might also do it.
It is unjust and cruel to do any of these things to a human so why isn't it cruel or wrong or immoral to do these things to animals? If some one forced a human female to carry a child that was imposed on her against her will because she was going to have children anyways would you consider that to be acceptable? If these animals hadn't been bred to ridiculous specifications and then moved far from their natural habitat they wouldn't need our "protection" to survive the winter.
Your parents had to tell you that your friends were wrong to peel the legs off a beetle? That's a little disturbing. It's very sad when people believe that all people are basically bad and have to be taught to be good. Cruelty is not something in our nature. It's something that has to be taught to us and then kept around through cognitive dissonance and bizarre rationalizations.
Justin, it was not my intent to make you feel bad about your choices. Meat and dairy are indeed very tasty and that is why so many people have this cognitive dissonance surrounding it. If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask. I'm very interested in justice, cleanness and respect as well. I'm also interested in the way humans transitioned from being nomadic to mostly pretty stationary, and also how that has effected every aspect of humanity. Also, humanity in general. What makes us different? Something that will absolutely not be solved in our life time but is the subject of some extremely interesting scientific studies.
Florian posted a response and immediately deleted it. This is one of those rare times when I wish I still got email notifications showing what people posted so I could know what he had to say in his defense. The debate wasn't even supposed to be about whether the way animals are treated cruelly, it's about morality and where it comes from. He brought it up and then didn't want to stick around to hear my response and that drives me crazy. It's one of those things where people aren't listening when others are talking, they're waiting to speak.
My friend Justin's post: A meme-like photograph of Abe Lincoln with a quote that says "When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad I feel bad. That is my religion." Justin's comment: Horray for Abe and secular morality!
Florian: Ah so sad. Reminds me of what I once heard. We've replaced being good for feeling good, and doing right for looking right...
Justin: I believe, and some excellent science has shown, that morality is innate to humans and other animals to varying degrees. We don't need any gods to do good. I hadn't reflected on it before, but I think that Lincoln's choice of "to do" over "to be" is key.
Florian: You really believe morality is innate? Maybe our understanding of what innate means are different, but I have never observed that. To me if something is innate, then it does not have to be taught. This is clearly not the case with morality. The best indicator are, in my opinion, children. I won't go into the case studies that show that there is absolutely NO moral character developed if children are completely deprived of parental care and love. No instead lets talk about moral values. It is innate NOT to have moral values. You don't have to teach selfishness, greed, deception, manipulation, and such to a child. They innately have those attributes. Innately the tendency is to take what you want when you want it if you can get away with it. In society we call that stealing, and it is somewhat frowned upon. One may say that the child simply has no concept of ownership, but we know that's not the case because if you try to reclaim what is rightfully yours, suddenly the concept of ownership and what is "mine" is very developed in a child.
So if indeed morality is not innate, then the values we teach our children have to originate from some source outside of our innate self-centered characteristics. How can you even define what is good (or evil) unless you have some reference point outside of that of innate selfishness? From an animal viewpoint, for example, rape is exactly what you want to increase your numbers - from a moral viewpoint we say that it is wrong. Again, where did we get our moral law? From ourselves? Is it wrong because it inflicts pain? If that were the only criteria then birth in and of itself would be morally wrong...as would be setting a bone or such. Clearly that is not the case...so the nagging question remains - where did we get our moral framework?
Justin: I am quite convinced that we have innate morality. For studies in support of the idea I recommend The Age of Empathy, Our Inner Ape, and the talk and article I've linked, although there are many others. The punchline of the article was: "Babies possess certain moral foundations - the capacity and willingness to judge the actions of others, some sense of justice, gut responses to altruism and nastiness."
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals.html
Justin: Sorry, forgot the article link. Although the view you espouse has been popular since Augustine, it is rightly on the wane.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?pagewanted=all
Me: It seems impossible to have animals that live in colonies without the animals having some sense of empathy and cooperation. Even insects are capable of these things. I feel like morality to some degree has to be innate because it's evolutionarily advantageous. Your species won't flourish if you're busy being self-absorbed jerks.
Ralph: The Apostle Paul agrees that man instinctively has a moral sense (Romans 2:14-15). The better question is where it comes from and whether it is sound.
Florian: Empathy and cooperation are a far cry from what I would call morals though. Sure insects will cooperate within their colonies...but it ends there. They don't have anything close to moral values that cause them to treat other insects of their kind from another colony and different than any other insect. For feelings of empathy to be truly that of morals it can't be just toward a very small subsector contained within family. If that is as far as the circle of morality goes, then me shooting someone from another family/ethnic background/language tree would not be immoral behavior. Just try explaining that one to a judge. No our moral values transcend ethnicity, family, etc. I'm amazed how scientists latch onto any figment of 'moral' behavior in animals as all conclusive proof, while ignoring the big picture that these altruistic gestures are limited to close relatives or other clans dominated by one alpha male/female. One might say that many human tribes have behaved in this exact manner, but that only reaffirms my original statement that clearly the moral law had to come from an external source outside of the realm of other animals...
Florian: I just read the moral life of babies... I don't see how that supports the claim that babies have an innate morality. The problem is that the fundamental premise is incorrect and rather using the evidence to form a hypothesis is the first place (like true science), the evidence is used to support a preconceived conclusion. If you remove the conclusion that babies have innate morality and just look at all the examples given, it is quite apparent that that another (in my opinion more plausible) hypothesis is that babies start learning from the moment they are born (well actually well before, but that is another topic) and based on what they have observed are able to form a moral framework. It's not something that they had all along, but something that they were learning all along.
The author even concedes , "Another possibility is that babies do, in fact, use their knowledge from Day 1, not for action but for learning". This is entirely accurate and not a 'possibility'...and anyone who has ever observed babies and toddlers would know that.
Me: People absolutely behave this way. That's why racism, homophobia, xenophobia, animal abuse, war and so many other vile things exist.
But that's beside the point, I think. I feel like people understand that being kind to others makes society flow more smoothly. But I really don't think humans are any more moral than animals. They are basically kind and cooperative and as long as niches/resources are plentiful they don't really bother each other. Besides, it's definitely possible to have degrees of morality. Not everyone can agree on everything that is right vs. wrong. I feel like it's wrong to kill and eat animals when we have the ability to live a completely healthy life from beginning to end without eating animal products. I know most people don't agree with me though.
Also I curious about what other qualities you feel need to be included in your checklist to see if something is moral or not.
Florian: Nobody mentioned a checklist for determining if something is moral. I was simply stating how I have always understood morality so that if I am incorrect in my assumptions it can be pointed out to me.
Uh, yes. Thank you for supporting my case. Indeed people absolutely behave 'that' way, and would you not agree that such behavior is immoral?
Hahaha. You're right. Morality has nothing to do with whether or not we eat animals. Just as an aside, do you think eatinrg animal products is inherently evil because it is cruel? Point to ponder - dairy cows actually welcome getting milked. If it is based purely on the idea that it is somehow evil to consume animal products, then what of your momma's milk? Was nursing too an evil and unnatural act? ;-)
Me: Morality and goodness mostly boil down to cooperation and empathy which mostly boils down to kindness. I was unsure what other qualities you feel need to be included in this assessment. Science shows that these behaviors are innate (genetic). Racism and those other intolerant behaviors are learned behaviors. Animals have territorial disputes over resources; they do not kill other animals because they have the wrong color of fur or because they pray at the wrong church.
Dairy cows are forcibly impregnated on a yearly basis. After they give birth to their young, the baby cow is removed from the mother and fed exclusively grains to get fat for veal and beef (males) and to start the cycle over (females). The milk the cow produces for the purpose of feeding her offspring is never used for that purpose. All mammals produce milk for the purpose of nurturing their young and their young only. It is wrong to force a cow to get pregnant and then take the baby away and then steal that baby's food. Also, have you ever looked at the milking machines used in industrialized farming? It milks the cows until they bleed, which I highly doubt they welcome. This is animal abuse and it is immoral. And my mom fed me cow's milk fortified with vitamins. I didn't say that morality has nothing to do with it (because it clearly does). I just know that some people do not include these things when they consider their definition of morality. It seemed like you had; you implied that animals hurting animals outside their species was wrong and proved they were immoral, so I figured you must apply those same standards to humans. For that reason, I did not expect to be condescended to and derided.
Socially desirable (moral) behavior is definitely innate because an individual demonstrating undesirable behaviors does not get to mate and therefore does not get to pass along its genes. This can start as a learned behavior and can in just a few generations become at the very least a combination of learned and genetic and a few more to be almost entirely genetic. An example: Humans started having sex face to face because it creates a bond between them that makes the male more likely to stick around for the first few years of the offspring's life. This started out at as a learned behavior, as this method of coupling proved to produce more and better offspring and created a community or family type of environment which helped protect the children until they could take care of themselves. As generations cycled through the human body changed in ways to make it easier to have sex and carry a baby this way. I could list more examples if it weren't bed time.
Justin: Dear Florian, With my respect, you are wrong about animal empathy being strictly 'in-group'. I can give you examples if you would like, many drawn from The Age of Empathy. I believe that you are mistaken about the implications of the article on baby morality. Infants less than a year old do not generally have many taught behaviors. Would you contend that the sense of justice demonstrated by the 8-month-olds was uniformly learnt from their parents?* I found the article to be fairly compelling and the experiments to be conspicuously well-designed.
Dear Katie, I feel a bit worse about drinking milk now. I agree that we ought not cause unnecessary suffering, but I do love meat and milk. Hopefully someday I'll edge closer to a less cruel diet. The biological underpinnings of morality certainly are fascinating, and it's a growing field. I'm especially interested in our sense of Justice, Cleanness, and Respect.
Dear Ralph, Thank you for joining in. I find the explanations offered by the scientific community to be quite sufficient. I really tend to prefer a morality based on compassion and other inborn traits to one imposed by fiat. Of course, my preferences aren't terribly important in the broad scheme of things.
* "we tested 8-month-olds by first showing them a character who acted as a helper (for instance, helping a puppet trying to open a box) and then presenting a scene in which this helper was the target of a good action by one puppet and a bad action by another puppet. Then we got the babies to choose between these two puppets. That is, they had to choose between a puppet who rewarded a good guy versus a puppet who punished a good guy. Likewise, we showed them a character who acted as a hinderer (for example, keeping a puppet from opening a box) and then had them choose between a puppet who rewarded the bad guy versus one who punished the bad guy.
The results were striking. When the target of the action was itself a good guy, babies preferred the puppet who was nice to it. This alone wasn’t very surprising, given that the other studies found an overall preference among babies for those who act nicely. What was more interesting was what happened when they watched the bad guy being rewarded or punished. Here they chose the punisher. Despite their overall preference for good actors over bad, then, babies are drawn to bad actors when those actors are punishing bad behavior."
Florian: Well, I can see there isn't going to be any consensus. I take it Katie, that you've never actually worked with either beef or dairy cows? Generally speaking, beef cows are not well suited for milking and dairy not well suited for beef production. I'm not sure if you've ever seen a mare or sow or cow or any other creature getting bred. Bear in mind that this would happen in the wild too. Artificial Insemination is the alternative.
As for milking machines, yes, I have seen them. I've seen them, handled them, up close and personal. Is it feasible that they could draw blood? Yes. Is that the general course of events? No. It should be noted that young animals also draw blood when they nurse. You think a puppy nursing with its razor sharp teeth is a joy to the bitch feeding it?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I get the impression that your understanding in this matter has not come through personal observation by a patchwork of radical examples of "documentaries" highlighting the most extreme cases possible so as to persuade others of their agenda. I believe it is wrong to mistreat animals. Always have - though I didn't come by this through some innate morality but because my parents brought me up to respect life. I realized this was not innate based on observing some of my friends find amusement in de-limbing beetles and such. I formed my opinions based on personal observations not by watching some movie or other one-sided propaganda.
I don't have any "feelings" on this matter. I'm not incensed by the the meat industry, quite the opposite, I think we could do much better if production was scaled down again to smaller but more numerous farms. I have encountered a number of small farms where the animals were treated very gently and there was a somewhat harmonious co existence between man and animal. Believe me, putting up the hay and grains needed by those animals is hard work! The animals benefit from that and can survive the winter where normally they couldn't.
Me: I'm very uncomfortable with the assumptions you've made about my experiences with no knowledge about me. It's clear to me that you are not interested in actually learning anything about my experience or my beliefs, but badgering me about my choice to not participate in the exploitation of animals. This is the last thing I'll have to say on the matter, and only because I can't stand it when people make assumptions about where my beliefs come from.
I have been to a large scale production dairy farm. My family comes from Wisconsin and several of my family members are employed by dairy farms that I toured. I have spent time on a pig farm too, though it was much smaller and was mainly breeding pigs to sell to big farms to breed. I've seen the things I talked about first hand. My complaints in this thread discuss things that are considered standard practice in the factory farming industry. They are not rare examples or things taken out of context, they are things that are considered completely normal and are widely accepted practices. Other things that are completely accepted standard practice include de-beaking chickens (so they can't peck those collecting eggs) and killing all male chicks with what is basically a giant blender and used as animal feed. Yes, babies with teeth some time scrape and bite teats or clamp their gums down very hard but they do not cause bleeding by sucking too hard. Ask a woman who has breast-fed their baby. It's painful but it's worth it to feed your child. It's not something that is good and right for us to do to them just because the baby calf might also do it.
It is unjust and cruel to do any of these things to a human so why isn't it cruel or wrong or immoral to do these things to animals? If some one forced a human female to carry a child that was imposed on her against her will because she was going to have children anyways would you consider that to be acceptable? If these animals hadn't been bred to ridiculous specifications and then moved far from their natural habitat they wouldn't need our "protection" to survive the winter.
Your parents had to tell you that your friends were wrong to peel the legs off a beetle? That's a little disturbing. It's very sad when people believe that all people are basically bad and have to be taught to be good. Cruelty is not something in our nature. It's something that has to be taught to us and then kept around through cognitive dissonance and bizarre rationalizations.
Justin, it was not my intent to make you feel bad about your choices. Meat and dairy are indeed very tasty and that is why so many people have this cognitive dissonance surrounding it. If you have any questions about this, feel free to ask. I'm very interested in justice, cleanness and respect as well. I'm also interested in the way humans transitioned from being nomadic to mostly pretty stationary, and also how that has effected every aspect of humanity. Also, humanity in general. What makes us different? Something that will absolutely not be solved in our life time but is the subject of some extremely interesting scientific studies.
Florian posted a response and immediately deleted it. This is one of those rare times when I wish I still got email notifications showing what people posted so I could know what he had to say in his defense. The debate wasn't even supposed to be about whether the way animals are treated cruelly, it's about morality and where it comes from. He brought it up and then didn't want to stick around to hear my response and that drives me crazy. It's one of those things where people aren't listening when others are talking, they're waiting to speak.