Animal-Rights Red Herrings

5. Fishing is less morally reprehensible than hunting. This idea is categorically false, by any interpretation of the word "moral". In fact, if one looks at the physical facts and bigger-picture issues, fishing is downright heinous compared to hunting. In hunting there is a "code" which is adhered to much more commonly than not, a code made up of two basic principles: 1) one should only take a shot at an animal if one is sure death will be instantaneous, and (hand in hand) 2) one should cause as little suffering to the hunted animal as possible. With fishing, there is no such code in sight. In fact, part of what is considered a "good fishing experience" is to have a fish who fights--who literally wriggles and jumps in agony and acute pain (imagine a hook digging into your cheek), and for as long as possible. Again: the basic idea in fishing is to hook an animal and watch it go through contortions of pain for as long as possible. In these plain terms we can see fishing for the moral impropriety that it is.

4. Animals we deem to be relatively intelligent are more worthy of our moral consideration than those we consider dumb. Another ball of balderdash. If we follow this sort of reasoning to its conclusion, we should care less for the mentally retarded than for those whose IQ is above a certain line. This line--of intelligence as a moral criterion--is only slightly worse than the line of sentience criteria. With sentience as a main criterion for moral consideration--on the surface, a decent proposition--we find ourselves necessarily in circumstances which invalidate all possibilities. Should we deign that the ability to feel pain or not alone is a determining factor in who and what should receive moral consideration, what are we to do about the species of barnacle with which the female has a highly developed neurological system (and therefore is quite capable of feeling pain) and the male has but a rudimentary neurological system? Protect the female and let the male of the species have all harm befall it? And what of forests, mountains, watersheds, wetlands, the air we breathe, the water we drink? Should we have no ethical guidelines (more than just government regulations) whatsoever for stewarding these elements of our world simply because they don't feel pain? I know that, were most folks to write a list of "things" they consider worthy of moral treatment, the list would include many "things" not easily put into under one heading, a list of say "sentient beings" or "intelligent beings"; most folks would start listings along these lines: my family, American citizens, the forests, the clean air, badgers, butterflies, bees, tropical flowers, American farmland, etc. Not "things" we can tether together morally with ease, not if we don't see the essential energy common-denominators between all animate "things," that commonality being that the animate sorts and seeks and chooses for low-entropy matter-energy [LEME], the only "stuff" of any use in the universe (high-entropy matter-energy, being of no use, is discarded by entropy sorters); inanimate "things" do no such sorting, don't do anything, and, in fact, are in many cases the very LEME which entropy sorters are looking for. A tree does actively (some would use the morally imbued word "consciously") seek out light and water, with its branches and roots, for example; a mama bear actively seeks high-calorie food, water, and shelter for her growing young; plants on a farm actively seek nutrients in the soil. A new criterion, one never yet seen in history, is what is needed. That criterion will, I believe, have everything to do with these entropic process inherent to every part of the universe. That which is worthy of moral consideration is that which sorts for low-entropy matter-energy (LEME taking a myriad of forms, from freshly harvested grains, to hunks of coal, to humus-rich topsoil, to clean water, to species in no danger of dying out). Please see the essays on my web site 'Necessary Steps to a Land Ethic' and 'Entropic Origins of Value' for more on this topic.

3. As I myself am a vegan, largely for moral reasons, I should feed my dog or cat a vegan diet too. To feed a pure carnivore (like dogs and cats) anything but a carnivorous diet is quite literally abuse. A pet cannot make decisions for itself as to what it will be fed. To make the decision, without any way of getting the pet's consent, that a pet should eat a diet totally unsuited to its nature is to make a decision that is more antagonistic to animal rights than most decisions one can make. Until one meets a dog or cat who can stand up and say, "Gosh darn it, I want to be a vegan," one should definitely feed them what nature designed their bodies to digest, no matter how repulsive to one's own, personal set of ethics.

2. The fact that people in China eat dogs and cats is outrageous and they need to be stopped. A sickening lump of ignorant self-righteousness this is, really. In China, dogs and cats are not considered as pets, so it is absolutely no more heinous to eat one than it is to kill, butcher, and cook up a cow. If one is to get worked up seriously about Chinese folks eating dogs (dog stew is a specialty in Hunan), than one is morally required to get equally worked up about anyone anywhere eating cows, lambs, chickens, or any other animal which could be seen by someone somewhere as a pet. Otherwise one is in a morally untenable position. On an interesting and relevant note, in South Asia for example, the cow is quite literally sacred and has been considered so for millenia (yes, millenia), everything about it, everything it does, everything it produces, from milk to dung. In Hindu India, eating a cow, or bringing harm to one in any way, is not only categorically a sin, it's also illegal. Eating a dog or cat probably wouldn't even hit the register.

1. There was once a perfect golden age when humans and beasts lived in harmony and there was no violence on either side. No there wasn't, ever, and there never will be.