this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2025
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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.
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 for us to do it. I'm sure at this point in the discussion you realize that that's not a valid argument
That is not my argument at all. I never made such a universal claim.
My claim is that all animals have a right to feed themselves and as a part of that right there is a right to kill other animals. Therefore it is not more immoral for a human to kill an animal than it is for a tiger. I say that only in this context, because our biology evolved to also use meat. We can survive without it sure, but it is suboptimal. It is also true that we should be eating way less meat than we do. Therefore the immoral thing is not killing or eating animals but rather the industry around it.
Look at human history we ate each other and other human species. We are not special we are not chosen by God. We are just animals that think we are special. Even being vegan has an effect on the earth destroying habitat ruining bio diversity chemicals getting into the environment.
No one said any of the stuff you seem to be arguing against. This is called a strawman fallacy if you're unfamiliar with it.
In relating to other animals, there is no reason our standard should be any different than animals to one another. In relating to other people, it is reasonable to have a different standard.
Would you consider bestiality immoral then? The animal equivalent of bestiality (interspecies sex) occurs regularly between different species after all.
I am not able to provide an objective moral reason if other animals may be treated differently from humans. If consent cannot be taken into account, raping animals is not immoral.
The sole argument could be that bestiality harms or at the very least exposes an animal to a significant risk of harm. But then again, killing an animal certainly harms it much worse but this would be morally acceptable in such a system, so the harm an animal faces isn't really part of the equation.
this doesn't refute what I said.
What I tried to say is:
If treating other animals like they behave towards other animals is acceptable, the only reason beastiality would be illegal is because of "ew".
I'd say that's one reason why our standards should be higher than the standards of animals. Suffering is bad even when non-humans are affected.
laws are bad, and don't have anything to do with morality
Substitute illegal with "prohibited according to the social contract of your anarchist commune" then. Or with whatever form of society and its rule system you would like to live in where the rules are a moral guide.
that's not how morality (or rules) works at all. morals are formed from an ethical system. deontologists have the categorical imperative, utilitarianism and hedonism have the maximization of pleasure, divine command theorists have the command of the deity, virtue ethicists have moderation between competing extremes. if any of them prohibit sex with animals, it's probably only divine command theory and maybe the categorical imperative. I guess the big "eww" factor could put off the virtue ethicists, too (bestiality isn't very aesthetic).
rules and laws are meant to keep social order. where they prohibit thing like killing or some other ethically bad thing, it is only a coincidence.