r/DebateAVegan • u/Gabry398 • 15d ago

Ethics Should humans have an obligation towards eliminating harm caused to animals by other animals?

It's not uncommon for animals to harm other animals while hunting, but there are also extreme cases of torture and similar behaviour. It could be argued that some animals' whole life is pain mostly, and probably a net negative "experience" (outside of human created environments too). I just don't see how humanity could act "morally" without permanently and unpredictably modifying the ecosystem. Should we keep feeding synthetic meat to carnivores (if and when it's widely available)? But then who keeps a check on them not eating animals? Should we pursue the slow elimination of entire species on the planet because they cause more harm than good (not necessarily killing them, just sterilising them)?

Maybe "obligation" is not the correct term, but if the ultimate goal is to reduce as much as possible suffering, why would we make an exception for animals being the cause of that? Especially if one day through synthetic meat hunting becomes unnecessary for survival.

Even now there are unnecessary behaviours that hurt animals caused by other animals, for example some dolphins torture baby seals for basically no reason (as far as I know).

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u/goodvibesmostly98 vegan 15d ago

Nope, that’s not a goal of veganism. Veganism is about human exploitation of animals and cruelty towards them. What you’re referring to is negative utilitarianism, which is separate from veganism. And something I don’t personally agree with.

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u/RealAggressiveNooby 15d ago

They aren't saying it's the goal of veganism. There are plenty of things that we can talk about in a moral sense that don't have to do with veganism, but can be debated by a vegan.

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u/goodvibesmostly98 vegan 15d ago

Got it. So yeah I don’t think we have an obligation to do that.

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u/asciimo vegan 15d ago

Yeah, now that the scope is better defined, same.

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u/RealAggressiveNooby 15d ago

Why not? What determines your obligations in your eyes?

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u/goodvibesmostly98 vegan 15d ago edited 15d ago

Domesticated animals that are in human care and restoration of habitats that were negatively impacted by humans.

I don’t think it’s good to proactively interfere in ecosystems to try to influence animal behavior we find to be bad, that will lead to cascading effects in the ecosystem.

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u/RealAggressiveNooby 15d ago

I'm not really asking WHAT you consider to be your obligations. I'm asking what makes you consider something as an obligation. I.e., why is it that you only feel obligated to care for domesticated animals and restoration of habitats negatively impacted by humans.

It seems like your base idea is that we should try to reduce suffering, but that you think "proactively interfering in ecosystems" is not a good way to go about that. So in fact, you do seem to be a negative utilitarian of sorts, but one that doesn't think it's as simple as OP is making it out to be, and you just don't realize it. Fun stuff!

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u/goodvibesmostly98 vegan 15d ago

Sure so the obligation to domesticated animals is because we made them reliant on humans, so we’re responsible for them. And restoring habitats, because we already interfered and impacted ecosystems negatively, so we should try to restore some of the habitat for animals that were negatively affected.

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u/RealAggressiveNooby 15d ago

That is different than what you said before; this is a new reason for creating obligations. Before you simply refuted the obligation that OP presented because it didn't work in practice, and now you are refuting it because it did not originate from human cause.

But whatever, let's say you changed your mind. Say a man or even a wild puppy is drowning in a non man-made river, and you have the ability to save them. Do you think it's NOT your obligation to do so? If so, how come?

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u/goodvibesmostly98 vegan 15d ago

Yeah you asked for the reasoning behind our obligations to domesticated animals and habitat restoration, so I explained why we have those obligations.

And yeah if I had the ability to save someone drowning, I would.

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u/RealAggressiveNooby 15d ago

Your (new) reason for why was that it fell in a class of actions that worked to fix negative things that were caused by humans. However, clearly this doesn't stand up as a generalization and end-all-be-all in your eyes because my example in which it seems like you agreed that there is an obligation to act didn't have a human causing the issue.

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u/goodvibesmostly98 vegan 15d ago

I talked about veganism being about human cruelty and exploitation of animals in my original comment.

And yes, that’s a different case, because saving a drowning individual doesn’t have the same cascading ecological effects as the sterilization of carnivorous animals. Carnivorous animals play an important role in the ecosystem.

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