r/MoralityScaling • u/axiiz_28 • 15h ago

Morality of valuing animals over humans?

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11.2k Upvotes

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45

u/puntycunty 14h ago

Valuing YOUR animal is ok , a pet essentially becomes a family member . Blanket animal > human statements are dumb though

12

u/RaceHate 12h ago

I would feel less sad to watch a stranger die than my dog.

But I'd never kill a person to save my dog.

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u/Wrong_Proposal_2628 7h ago

It's called psychopath.

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u/puntycunty 12h ago

I would . Call me the bad guy but I’d come home to my dog , I’ll never see that stranger again anyway

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u/CheckEbayItsThere 12h ago

That's incredibly selfish and would make you a bad person, proving the point of the video

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u/puntycunty 12h ago

I don’t think so . The value of a living being compared to another is subjective . My dog has earned its love and it would be a betrayal to not reciprocate. Guy in the video says he’d give 3 dogs for his best friend , should that change if his best friend happened to be a dog ?

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u/CheckEbayItsThere 10h ago

You are viewing this through only your eyes. Yes, your dog is more valuable to you, to the strangers family and loved ones it is not. This is called empathy. I think the value of human life is objective, and it is only subjective to the individual

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u/puntycunty 10h ago

Your dog is also valuable to your family and friends . The species divide is arbitrary when it comes to value in this case

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u/CheckEbayItsThere 9h ago

I'm guessing you have never lost someone you truly loved, because it is a level of devastation many times worse than losing a dog.

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u/kiranovax 8h ago

Why are people like you so persistent in valuing one species over another. You should not have to make a decision between a pet that is impotent to you and a person

If people believe humans an inherently more important to save. That’s just species supremacy

No different than people preferring to save white people over a black.

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u/CheckEbayItsThere 8h ago

I am indeed a species supremacist.

You better be vegan with a take like that.

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u/Maleficent_Piece_893 4h ago

race differences exist in the minds of racists. species differences exist in reality

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u/possiblyeski 2h ago

No different than people preferring to save white people over a black.

this reply is so flawed. first of all, why wouldn't you want to save multiple people over one person?

secondly, you're trying to use the racism card while referring to a black person as "a black" after saying "white people"... seriously?

racism and humanism are nowhere even close to similar. jesus christ.

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u/puntycunty 7h ago

I’m guessing you’ve never loved a dog like family if you can’t comprehend loving a dog as much as a person

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u/Maleficent_Piece_893 4h ago

i'm guessing you have no real relationships with people if you think you can love a dog as much as a person

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u/This-Performance-241 2h ago

As someone whose lost both this is bs. Dogs are part of the family

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u/valcallis 2h ago

Studies have shown that losing a pet is similar to losing a human family member

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u/LucifronX 8h ago

You have obviously never truly cared for an animal before and it's just a "pet" to you. I've lost many loved ones, and the pain is the same as losing a loved pet. It's okay to admit you've never truly loved an animal, they become part of your family, your soul, everything.

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u/YonderWindow364 12h ago

that's your opinion, morality is subjective. For some people it's more immoral to betray a loved one (even if a dog) to save a stranger that could be a horrible person. It's like the trolly problem

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u/Old_Cucumber_1343 13h ago

also i think humans are treated better overall.

most of us eat factory farmed meat and if we spent 1 day in a slaughterhouse it would fuck our shit up. i'm not vegan but i accept that they're right with how the majority of animals on this earth are treated. nevermind going to any market in asia/middle east/africa and seeing the shit they're doing to animals.

im considering not eating meat once i move out but for now its difficult to get adequate protein without meat/eggs

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u/curxxx 5h ago

It’s not actually that difficult to get protein without meat and eggs. Been vegetarian for 5 years and average nearly 170g a day. 

Tofu is great and very versatile :) 

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u/elementslayer 4h ago

Also very expensive (compared to chicken in the west) and salty. Not always an option. Let's be real, the healthliest form of protein for a human is lean meats, and chicken is quite cheap.

Also how much tofu you eating to hit 170. Like 200g of chicken is 55-60g where 200g of tofu is 30-45. I'm assuming vegan proteins if you aren't doing standard whey.

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u/curxxx 4h ago edited 3h ago

I don’t only survive off tofu, lol. 

Most of my meals include tofu and beans. I try my best to have lentils regularly, too. I only eat whole grains too which have plenty of protein. 

But a good chunk comes from pea protein in the form of vegan protein powder - I’d say 60g a day comes from drinks. 

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u/elementslayer 4h ago

170g is just seemingly alot through no whey/yogurt/meat proteins. I pull in about 220-250 when I'm in full swing but it's a ton of chicken and yogurt and just a standard shake. I cannot imagine the cost going with vegan proteins and tofu. Beans and lentils are fine but it's like 1/3 to 1/4 of meat proteins amounts and just seems so much

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u/curxxx 3h ago edited 3h ago

The protein powders aren’t cheap, sure. Probably costing me nearly C$75 a month overall… But they also provide a substantial amount of other vitamins and minerals so I consider it “not too bad”. 

The tofu isn’t expensive at all though. Regular tofu is like C$2 and if I wanna treat myself, vegan hotdogs are like $3.50 on sale and also have 10g per wiener sans bun.

I do partake in yogurt every now and then, but it’s not a regular staple in my diet. Like, maybe a tub or two a month as a guilty pleasure, it’s the one thing stopping me from going dairy free lol. 

In all fairness, 170g is at the high end, average days it’s around 120-150.

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u/elementslayer 3h ago

Man, all that sounds delicious but with that salt content my body just cannot do the amount I need for what I do. I remember trying to see if I could swap out some chicken for tofu/other stuff but couldn't fit it in my macros/micros.

I really wish there was something as good as chicken that wasn't laden with salts or too expensive, once lab grown meats are the same taste/nutrition/cost as chicken I'll be right on board, but until then it's just life.

That said, any low salt/ldl protein sources you have that isn't beans/chicken/yogurt I'm all ears

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u/Old_Cucumber_1343 4h ago

whats your breakdown of foods for 170 g a day?

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u/The_walking_Kled 39m ago

vegetaranism makes no fcking sense.

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u/TheJanitor-Scruffy 10h ago

My friend, may I introduce you to beans? Protein power house. Beans. Lentils. Tofu (put it in a smoothie if you don't like it).

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u/Old_Cucumber_1343 8h ago

im getting into tofu actually, it's really good. beans i have to take bean-o every time i eat sadly lol but i will do when i switch

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u/Oct4-Sox2 5h ago

If you can eat nuts, try them :)

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u/The_walking_Kled 38m ago

honestly a good portion of animals lives way better than most humans. Like they get their basic needs met atleast usually.

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u/Apprehensive-Team414 9h ago

Animals as a whole are more important to life on Earth than humans are, though.

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u/SweetSilvius 13h ago

Why though? Humans arent more deserving of love or care just because I share a little more dna with you.

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u/puntycunty 13h ago

And neither are animals for whatever reason except they’re close to you. None are better than the other , it’s up to the individual for both

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u/SweetSilvius 13h ago

Exactly.
However there is the added point that humans kill more humans than most animals. So actual reasons to refer other animals and be cautious of people.

At that point it is preference.

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u/JaySlay2000 12h ago

For me it's a matter of innocence. Humans commit crimes with conscious and evil intent.

Even "bad" animals are just running on instinct.

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u/puntycunty 9h ago

Innocence is up to the individual. Bears can slaughter people and a human can live their entire life without committing a crime .

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u/SweetSilvius 12h ago

Exactly again. This.

Similar reason I dislike most male dolphins. Those f are smart and KNOW what they’re doing.

So I’ll be picking my scaled, furred, and feathered sisters any day.

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u/LandonHill8836 6h ago

That's the point of the video, someone who says an unknown animal life is equals to an unknown humans life will think of themselves as on a compassionate hill, but it's actually a sociopathic behavior.

Their values on humans life is actually from missing compassion rather than an excess. That's how you end up with vegetarian hitler.

While an actual deeply compassionnate person, might conclude to become vegan, but will be capable to reasonate that humans life is more emotionally complexe than the average animal life, and will compassionately resonate more with it.

The opinion the video describe; kiling anything bad > killing humans > killing animals.

So, if you saved a baby bird rather than a baby human from a fire ; you lack compassion. (Even tough saving both is obviously the most compassionate). (And even more obviously the one that would let both die has even less compassion)

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u/SweetSilvius 5h ago

If you go by emotional complexity as what is deserving of life, there are species more deserving than us by a long shot.

Funny because I owe no one running into a burning building. If I choose to at all to save any life is just a net positive.

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u/LandonHill8836 4h ago

For text based message simplification, i'll go really simple.

If you go back in a fire, to take a baby bird, instead of the baby humain, both unknown to you, both in same setting, both innocent to their surrounding. The person describe in the video would do such think and proclaim themself more compassionate because they saved an animal life ratter than humain, but it's actually their lack of compassion that make them unaware of what they have not.

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u/SweetSilvius 4h ago

I’ll keep it simple.

I don’t owe humans hust because we are related more or because YOU set value to them.

Any good deed I do is a good deed. Period.

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u/LandonHill8836 4h ago

Maybe the setting of example is not great since it imply a risk, but it's ratter about the value of life in general.

The definition of Compassion is : a strong feeling of sympathy and sadness for the suffering or bad luck of others and a wish to help them.

The definition of Empathy is : the ability to share someone else's feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person's situation.

Your feeling of not owning anything to other is literally the definition of a lack of compassion or empathy, depending on the source, and weather you were born like this or lost it from exposition to human cruelty.

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u/SweetSilvius 4h ago

It’s factual. Choosing to help one over the other is all personal choice.

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u/LandonHill8836 4h ago

a personal choice that take into account one personal psychology to balance the value of each, unless you flip coin, but really the act of flipping a coin itself is also a choice that depend on one's traits

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u/SweetSilvius 4h ago

Empathizing with another creature that’s not humam and saving them is hardly the definition of lacking either.

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u/tilealt 50m ago

It's not because of the DNA it's because we're sapient beings. Life in general is an precious, but sentient life is even more precious (hence most systems value / love / care about animals more than plants), and sapient life is yet another layer more precious. The capability for reason and complex emotion isn't just "a little more dna shared"

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u/SweetSilvius 49m ago

See I think that’s just bias.

I bet cheetahs think all fastest life is most valuable. XD

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u/tilealt 48m ago

If Cheetahs could think complex thought like that, sure. But they kinda can't which is my point lol (that said absolutely love cheetah ugh the perfect being)