this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2025
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Perry Bible Fellowship
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This is a community dedicated to the webcomic known as the Perry Bible Fellowship, created by Nicholas Gurewitch.
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A tiger has every right to kill an antelope as a human has to kill a cow. The real ethical problem for me lies not in the killing of animals, but rather the conditions they live in prior to execution, and the method of execution. There is a way to ethically consume meat, and it is non industrial and requires each person to do the kill so as to not be alienated from the significance of killing an animal to feed oneself.
I agree, but a tiger doesn't breed antelope into being, and feed them at the expense of all life on earth just so they can have a nice meal.
If you're hunting, fine. They were eating grass and stuff from the ecosystem.
If you're farming then you're creating massive amounts of waste to generate meat.
That's basically the same thing as what they said though.
And let's be honest, if a tiger was capable of farming livestock, it probably would.
Maybe in the past humans had to, but thats not the case anymore, as we have more thenen enough different sources.
But thats not even the issue. The issue is the gross amount of meat most people eat, that is not backed up by any kind of "but we allways did it this way"
I agree with you 100%. It baffles the mind how many chickens we kill so that some fatass can order a bucket of KFC every night.
And you know the thing, most people when shown the conditions of these animals and how abhorrent it is do create a consciousness about it and often try to do things better, though it almost always fails because our society is kinda set up in this way. But I do think that’s one day, maybe a millennia in the future we will look at how we treated animals today with the same sort of apprehension that we think of slavery.
But again my argument is that killing animals is not wrong, that is a right that every animal has. What is wrong is at the scale, and sheer barbarism in the way we do it.
This is correct, but not how you mean it. The way to ethically consume meat is to be starving and have no other alternative.
Or to grow it without a central nerve system.
I like this idea on paper though in my imagination it looks horrible. But I do think it’s the ultimate solution. My biggest concern is that if we do not abandon Anthropocentrism we will continue to commit crimes against animals that are much worse than killing them for food (which I don’t think it’s wrong as I’ve stated here) . Like keeping them in cages, or using them for experiments that often don’t really replicate on humans. Etc.
You can't ethically take a life. A tiger has no choice whereas a human does.
I have so many arguments against this I don’t even know were to start, so I’ll keep it simple: you need to abandon anthropocentrism.
Humans are animals and not particularly special or even intelligent ones. (Intelligence being defined as the ability to solve problems and learn from them) Our “intelligence” is actually just cumulative generationally passed knowledge. It is not clear that humans are indeed more rational than a tiger or that tigers or non human animals in general lack rationality, except only in the way in which a human would define rationality which cannot be a universal claim.
I'm not op and I'm an omnivore and i have to tell you, your reply is ... not a good response to what op said. It's full of strawmen arguments and nonsense. You seem to be arguing that humans can't choose to be vegetarians? And you veer way off into nowhere arguing about what you think intelligence is? I dunno, for someone who said they have a ton of arguments, you sure picked a bunch of bad ones
I believe they are saying you can't place a universal standard of behaviour or ethics onto the multitude of human animals that live on the earth
Even if that's what they're saying, that isn't a meaningful argument against what op said.
It is possible for a human to live a long and healthy life without eating meat.
It is not possible for a tiger to live a long and healthy life without eating meat. (without human intervention)
Humans can choose to be vegetarians of course, that doesn’t mean that killing animals is immoral or wrong, necessarily. That notion can only exist if you think humans have a superior place in the world to that of animals. Anthropocentrism is central to this idea that humans are the only animals who cannot kill other animals to feed themselves without it being immoral.
Ie a chimp could choose to eat fruits if he wanted but they also often eat monkeys even if fruit is available. How is that different, from a human choosing to eat a cow even if he could eat grain? The difference is only that you think the human “knows better” than the chimp.
Your argument is: If animals do a thing then it can't be immoral. I'm sure at this point in the discussion you realize that that's not a valid argument
I'm relation to other animals, there is no reason our standard should be any different than animals to one another. I'm relation to other people, it is reasonable to have a different standard
Nobody invoked intelligence or rationality. You have misread and now you are just confusing things.
To keep it simple: A tiger's life depends on killing other animals. A human being can live to a record-setting age and never kill another animal. The tiger has no choice but to be violent to vulnerable individuals, but when a human does it, the lack of necessity makes it cruelty and abuse. When a human does have such a necessity, the math works out differently, but in the context of the comic strip, the subject had no necessity to kill those vulnerable individuals.
It doesn’t need to be invoked, the higher moral agency placed on humans hinges on the notion of superior human rationality. You could choose to be a vegetarian and choose not to kill animals, but that doesn’t mean that it is a more ethical or moral choice because human biology evolved to require meat other wise it requires planning and supplementation that is not necessarily possible outside of industrial societies. I do agree that choosing not to eat animals due to the industrial nature of meat production is a more ethical choice, but not that killing animals is necessarily wrong.
I may not be explaining it well but basically: the idea that humans killing animals is wrong can only exist if you think humans are superior to animals. I reject that notion and that’s where my argument comes from.
That's a really bad argument, sorry. Of course we place a higher moral agency on humans than on animals - otherwise you'd have yo argue that other atrocities like rape and murder shouldn't be morally judged either.
A tiger cannot make moral decisions. You can. So you will be judged if you don't.
Not to hold yourself to a higher standard morally than a literal predator would be downright psychopathic.
Well you certainly made a case for your own level of intelligence. At least word salad is vegan.
I have a mostly vegan diet but can't updoot this enough.
I think this is fundamentally true (although it has issues when it scales down to insects and below that requires an arbitrary line to be drawn) but I'm not convinced that being absolute about it is useful in harm reduction.
It's objectively better that someone looks to buy meat from a farm that cares about the welfare of its animals than one that maximizes profit at the cost of the wellbeing and happiness of the animal.
Naturally it's better still if they reduce or stop their meat consumption, but making it black-and-white can potentially result in a worse outcome by setting the bar higher than the consumer is willing to jump.
Which killing of a cow is objectively better?
This is not a good-faith response. I'm not engaging further.
Yeah I'd bow out too if I were wrong.
Quick and fast
So the method is what's important not the result? Just say you don't value animal lives.
It's a lot better than dying painfully and slow
Yes if an animal had to die then the less suffering way is better, but they don't have to die.
everything dies
Not everything is killed though.
So what is your solution for when a species is getting over populated and destroying an ecosystem? Is it not more ethical to kill some and preserve the ecosystem for the rest of the wildlife in that area?
Why'd the overpopulation happen?
Not enough or no natural predators usually.
And why did that happen?
I didn't ask how these situations could have been prevented. That ship has sailed. I wish we hadn't caused it to be this way, but here we are. Now the two options are to kill them back down to sustainable numbers, or allow them to destroy the ecosystem thereby condemning themselves and a host of other animals as well.
I'm not a hunter myself, and I personally probably don't have what it takes to kill an animal even in these circumstances, but I also can't provide a better solution. So I'm not going to shame people for hunting when it both provides food for them as well as brings balance to an ecosystem.
I will, however, shame them if it is done purely for sport and against non problem animals. I hope those folks that go to Africa and hunt elephants and lions and shit get eaten. Slowly.