Edit: Surprised at all the vegans in this thread. I didn’t think there were so many of you. I’m glad you care so much about animal rights, that you’re willing to forego eating them and using products made from them. If you’re not vegan and have moral objections for this, maybe you should look at yourself first and all the animal abuse you sanction by eating animals and using animal products. Did you know dairy cows have to be pregnant to produce milk? They’re artificially inseminated throughout most of their lives. I hope everyone complaining about this also complains about ice cream and cheese. Or else they would be hypocrites who just want to blame others but never look at themselves.
Everyone is rushing in here to say it’s fine because we eat meat too. But I find this whole thing g very revealing of attitudes we usually just don’t think about. We’d never farm organs in human embryos because GASP consent and GASP sanctity of life. But we’ll farm organs cross species, which is surely more difficulty, because we’re so comfortable doing all that to animals.
You can take the perspective that it’s fine because meat. Or you can use this to take a second look at eating meat and suddenly it seems pretty fucked up.
I eat meat. Am not talking down to anyone. I just do actually think about the ethics.
I take the perspective that it’s fine because human life is more important and valuable than animal life.
Same reason we should eradicate most mosquitos on the planet to end malaria
That’s not a perspective though, it’s a bald assertion. “It’s fine because we’re important” is like saying “it’s fine because it’s fine,” or more to the point “it’s fine because I say so.”
What makes us important?
A lot of people don’t seem to understand that their logic is circular. Ask someone why they chose the car they did, and half of them will say “well it’s the one I wanted.”
Animals are things and humans are people.
You’re allowed to devalue your own existence all you want but anyone entertaining the idea that all life is equal is fundamentally stupid in my opinion
All morality ultimately comes down to assertions like that though. Ethics aren’t properties inherit in the universe that can be objectively measured like the laws of physics. One can construct ethical frameworks, like utilitarianism or deontology or such, as useful tools to help one decide what one should do in an unclear situation, but ultimately, the choice of what framework to use or the rules of that framework comes down to certain things just not feeling right to a given person, and other things feeling okay.
