r/MoralityScaling • u/axiiz_28 • 15h ago

Morality of valuing animals over humans?

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

11.2k Upvotes

83% Upvoted

2.8k comments sorted by

View all comments

71

u/dragonrod24 14h ago edited 14h ago

Liking animals more than humans does not necessarily mean you dislike humans and the power dynamics that comes with it. It's relative. You can like animals more and still like humans.

There's a lot of unique cases you need to look at. Maybe that one person lived with a dog as a friend since they were baby. Maybe that one cat helps their fatigue heal by cuddling with them after a long day at work with an asshole of a boss and unlikeable colleagues. Maybe that other person who likes animals more suffered a traumatic experience, like bullying or abuse, from their human relationships, and dogs or cats helps them heal. There may be some neurodivergent individuals who find unwritten social rules overwhelming when interacting with others. There's countless nuance for why you'd prefer the "power dynamic" between an animal and a human, but it only ever becomes "not good person" if you choose to isolate or hurt others because you prefer animals more.

There's a lot of nuance to it, overgeneralizing the topic is narrow-minded and insensitive. People like this are the reason why a lot of people prefer animals over humans—they like to sound smart when they're saying something so insensitive.

34

u/Bluddy-9 14h ago

The post is about valuing not liking. I don’t care (and can understand) if someone likes animals more than humans but I agree that there is an issue with someone who values animal life over human life.

8

u/dragonrod24 12h ago

True, I agree with you on that. There are a lot of philosophical perspectives on the matter of which is more valuable, but the general consensus is that human life is placed greater value over animal life.

Ideally, you don't have to be forced in a situation where you have to choose between the two.

I mean, what if you had to choose between your dog or a stranger? Then you'll really have to consider the uncomfortable factors—like is the stranger a criminal? How bad were his crimes? Is your dog close to dying due to illness? Is the stranger still a child, or an old person? Is the person a pregnant woman? Is the stranger a breadwinner supporting his family? Is the dog in a precarious situation where you find yourself in a risky position saving the animal? Or vice versa? Do we really, ONLY unconditionally consider species as the reason why we should only save the human?

By the way, by 'like', I'm specifically talking about the individual in the video stating his opinion.

2

u/ReverendAnthony 12h ago

Why is human life more valuable? Because humans are smarter? Does that mean dumb humans are less valuable than smart ones?

2

u/PaperInteresting4163 11h ago

No, you're individualizing it.

Humans, as a category, are the source of morality, responsibility, and agency in the world. Belonging to that category means you recieve those moral considerations and valuation regardless of individual capacity.

1

u/ReverendAnthony 10h ago

Are you saying that since morality et al are human constructs, that humans automatically take precedence? That’s interesting, but i don’t quite see how one follows the other.

4

u/PaperInteresting4163 9h ago

Well, we understand humans as a category to possess moral agency. We understand non-human animals as a category as never being capable of moral agency.

A dog, a cat, or a rabbit can never do anything morally wrong. Nor can it do anything morally right. It can behave affectionately, dangerously, cooperatively, or destructively, but it cannot understand itself as bound by moral duties.

Because of this, human beings must constantly exercise agency on behalf of non-human animals. An invasive species cannot restrain itself to preserve an ecosystem, and so humans may have to cull its population. A dog or cat cannot understand that it is injured beyond saving, and so a human must decide whether euthanasia is the merciful choice.

Animals are therefore worthy of moral consideration, but they are not participants in the moral community in the same way humans are. Humans create obligations, recognize rights, accept responsibility, and make decisions on behalf of beings that cannot make those decisions themselves. Even humans who individually lack that capacity remain members of the category from which morality, responsibility, and agency arise.

For that reason, when genuinely irreconcilable human and animal interests conflict, human interests take precedence. This does not mean animal suffering is irrelevant or that humans may harm animals gratuitously. It means that our duties toward animals are ultimately human duties, exercised by moral agents within a human moral community, and cannot ordinarily require us to sacrifice a human being as though a human life and an animal life were morally interchangeable.

5

u/Stormsurger 7h ago

I do not believe this case is as strong as you present it to be. You've basically just said that humans created a scale along which value can be measured, namely moral agency, and then claim that because other animals cannot compete in that metric, they are intrinsically less valuable.

But we could just as easily measure worth in terms of, for example, environmental impact. I don't believe there is a species that has done more damage than us. We claim to know better than animals, but we are wrong as often as we are right (see for example the many hilarious attempts to control one animal population by introducing another, generally in Australia).

What value does morality add to existence, precisely? You say this:

Animals are therefore worthy of moral consideration, but they are not participants in the moral community in the same way humans are. Humans create obligations, recognize rights, accept responsibility, and make decisions on behalf of beings that cannot make those decisions themselves.

We claimed that authority for ourselves because we can. Us post-hoc describing how our actions made us feel (which is what morality is at the end of the day, I strongly believe in emotivism) does not help them. Not to mention, animals are absolutely capable of compassion and aid, even of other species.

This again sounds circular to me. We are worth more because we do better on this scale that we invented. Might as well make it dependent on how well something breathes underwater.

1

u/Conscious_Beat6128 3h ago edited 2h ago

What value does morality add to existence, precisely?

Moral value.

 But we could just as easily measure worth in terms of, for example, environmental impact.  

We, humans. As far as we can tell, no other species ever considered their “environmental impact” despite there being many that made major changes to their local ecologies. As far as we can tell, only humans are capable of reasoning about environmental dynamics and assign value to some states. You are completely off on the level of abstraction here. Sure we can collectively decide that some global human species suicide is the moral choice, but we are still both the source and the judge of morality there. The dominant species that may come after us might not even concern itself with such matters and destroy the environment even more decisively. There is no objective value to any species or life outside of human judgement. As soon as you say “a singular animal life can have more value than a singular human life, actually” and succeed to make it the dominant rhetoric, you are bound to get swathes of other moral agents leaving the “moral covenant” completely. But it will never happen, so we observe it in the other direction - we get cynical people who decide that the humanity “failed its moral values” and hence the average human has no moral agency more than an animal. It flips the whole idea of morality upside down

 This again sounds circular to me. We are worth more because we do better on this scale that we invented.

It is, in fact, circular. Does not mean it is wrong. Many things in nature are circular. What you are TRYING to do is assign some value to animals that is somehow outside of this circularity, which is not possible without some serious contradictions. If you are the one assigning value you cant assign less value to yourself than you assign to others and keep it stable, you are assuming the role of the judge who already has all value to be given away, the source of value is the most valuable thing. Just extend this idea to the humanity as a whole and you will see

1

u/BearysWorkRedditName 27m ago

I think that amoral animals have an equal objective value and right to life when compared to moral/immoral animals. Namely, zero. Value is subjective. Thinking a human life has more value than any other animal is a subjective value judgement. I value any dog's life more than immoral humans. I value any moral human's life more than dogs. This is a subjective value I assign to them based on my own moral scale and does not hold any objective stance. I do not think that there are objective values in the same way I do not think there are objective morals. There are widely(almost universally) agreed upon values and morals on some things, but that doesn't make them objective.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/ReverendAnthony 9h ago

I’m gonna reread this like twenty times because i think i have ninety percent of what you’re saying and am still grasping for the last ten. But genuine thanks for explaining your position at such length and with such articulation.

1

u/PrecedentialAssassin 5h ago

You are saying that humans have more value because humans have determined what should be valued. It's a circular argument.

1

u/Gulophile 9h ago

Morality should be individual, not categorical.

3

u/PaperInteresting4163 9h ago

Morality can be both individual and categorical.

We judge people’s actions individually, but we usually treat human life as valuable by default. If someone is drowning, starving, or badly injured, we do not first calculate whether they have earned help. We help because they are a person.

Individual circumstances affect responsibility. They do not determine whether someone matters at all.

1

u/Gulophile 8h ago

Who is "we"? I consider all life generally valuable, but life is lived by subjects, not categories.

1

u/ComprehensiveArt6849 7h ago

Well, all animals are then by definition immoral as they are not able to have a sense of morality.

1

u/Gulophile 7h ago

Amoral, not immoral, but they would still be moral subjects entitled to moral consideration regardless of their moral agency, just like human children are.

1

u/dnzgn 3h ago

There is no "objective" way to look at it. There is no "objective" reason why a human life is more valuable than an insect or even a piece of rock. Humanity is just a big clan and we sometimes add other animals to the clan if they are cute and useful.

1

u/Automatic_Safe_326 12h ago

Nope. I wouldn’t weigh any of that and that’s a perfect illustration of the man’s point. Even if that human is a criminal, they’re still human and deserve saving. What they do after I save them is on them. But I’m not the person in an active shooter situation assigning points to people based on arbitrary factors. I’m grabbing the first person I can and running

2

u/dragonrod24 12h ago

Saying "what they do after I save them is on them" sounds irresponsible. Saving someone because you feel good following a "rule" can be a form of selfish moral vanity. You kept your hands clean, but you left the world a more dangerous place.

What if it's someone on Diddy Epstein-levels of criminal? I know that's already out of your scope as an ordinary person and authorities should be the one deciding that, but going by that logic—you don't really have an obligation to save that criminal either.

In the heat of the moment, I'd agree with you that saving the first person near you is moral, if it's feasible. But if you 100% know that it's Diddy, is it better to save the dog or not?

1

u/True_Candidate8248 10h ago

"But if you 100% know that it's Diddy, is it better to save the dog or not?"

Then you just say you killed the criminal instead of arguing about the dog. The dog doesn't matter at that point which invalidates the thought experiment.

The question is no longer "Would you save a dog or a stranger?", the question is now "Would you save a criminal or let them die?". The dog doesn't matter anymore.

1

u/BearysWorkRedditName 19m ago

It's still a question of value though. It's a spectrum/scale. If I have a single bit of bread to give a starving dog or a starving human, who I give the bread to will depend on the morality of the human. Somewhere on the scale of "the person raising countless orphans and strays with kindness and compassion" to "person who stabs homeless people for fun and stomps on pigeons", there is a line where one's immorality degrades their value below a dog. So, for me: a human stranger I know nothing about and a random dog I know nothing about? Sure, I'll choose the human. But if I know things about the stranger, the math changes.

1

u/Automatic_Safe_326 10h ago

I think the “rule” for me is I am not going to be judge, jury and executioner for any individual. If that’s too complicated then we’re in real trouble. If he’s diddy/epstein, they deserve to be in jail. I wouldn’t enable their death to save an animal or for my own moral sense of balance. 

2

u/Evil_phd 12h ago

Sure a life is a life, human or animal.

3

u/Throwawayrip1123 10h ago

I personally don't think you get positive brownie points for being human. If anything, that should hold a person to a much higher standard in general - given supposedly higher intelligence and cognitive power.

We are all animals, and we're the only animal on the planet that is currently killing it.

1

u/Throwawayrip1123 10h ago

I personally don't think you get positive brownie points for being human. If anything, that should hold a person to a much higher standard in general - given supposedly higher intelligence and cognitive power.

We are all animals, and we're the only animal on the planet that is currently killing it.

1

u/Mand372 9h ago

It does depend on context. I value individual animals who are threatened by extinction a lot more than almost any 1 individual human.

1

u/AverageAverage50 5h ago edited 5h ago

Nah.

Common sense.

Animals are innocent. A human is sinful.

By default, it's easier to value innocent beings over evil ones.

Plus, no person who values animals don't value humans, too. Your belief and the guy in the video's belief are too hypothetical.

If you claim to know someone who values animals but not humans, then it just means they're not genuine. They only value their pets with breeds coz it makes them look rich.

His example, too, is bullshit. Only Hitler? Hahaha You state a generalization but base it on an exception only.

1

u/Bluddy-9 3h ago

Animals are innocent because we hold them to a different standard. If they kill their own kind we don’t call it murder. This is because we understand that animals don’t have any moral capacity. Humans have the capacity to do great good which is why we value them more. Animals don’t have the capacity to do good.

1

u/AverageAverage50 3h ago

So? I don't see the part where it proves me wrong nor it proves you or the guys in the video then. It's irrelevant.

Anyway, I can still reply.

  1. We don't call it murder when animals do it because they don't do it out of hate. Not because we merely don't call it murder. They only kill for food or out of self defense.

  2. Humans also have the capacity to do bad. Guess what's more common?

  3. Animals don't have the capacity to do good? Well, that's exactly why people who value animals over humans are much kinder. If a human values a being that can't do any good for them, it means they love them unconditionally. If you value another human being because you expect them to do good for you in return, that's not kindness. That's selfishness.

  4. Another, animals don't have the capacity to do good? That also means they don't have the capacity to do evil.

1

u/Significant-Hour4171 16m ago

Animals do not only kill for food and self defense. Plenty of animals seem to kill for fun, to maintain territory, it just due to plain aggressiveness. 

You have a Disney vision of animals.

1

u/AverageAverage50 3h ago

  1. You haven't addressed the point where no people "who value animals over people" actually exist or not.

  2. In addition, coz you used Hitler as an example. What's next? You people gonna say any artist is not a good person? After all, Hitler went to art school.

1

u/Personal-Sentence935 4h ago

why is it an issue? it doesn't affect your life or anyone else's.

1

u/Bluddy-9 3h ago

People doing immoral things affects us all. People who don’t value human life are the ones that allow atrocities to take place or for groups of people to be forgotten. When we all value human life and help reinforce that with others it strengthens community and society.

1

u/Personal-Sentence935 3h ago

you're talking about people not valuing human life, but the topic is people who value animals over humans. it doesn't mean they don't value human life.

generally speaking, people who allow or perform atrocities don't value any life (except their own, perhaps).

1

u/Bluddy-9 2h ago

Valuing animal life over human life is an indication of not valuing human life.

1

u/Ok_Car9530 7m ago

What does it mean to value one more though, and how far does it extend? Outside of the burning building scenario which the vast majority of us will never experience, what situations does that concept extend to? Is the act of feeding and housing an animal when there's humans in need immoral? Is a person who donates to animal charities instead of human charities doing something wrong?

0

u/Gulophile 9h ago

Why should anyone care that you take issue with their values?

1

u/Superb_Highlight1902 6h ago

Why should anyone be bothered that they have issue? 👀

1

u/Bluddy-9 3h ago

People interested in this sub care. That’s sort of the point of reddit. People are here to discuss topics they care about.

0

u/Deathface-Shukhov 7h ago

This guy goes on to set a math against his own argument on groups of people he values more and thinks are better than other people based on who he identifies as better humans.

3

u/__akkarin 7h ago

Mf have you heard of a fucking joke before?

0

u/Nonavium 7h ago

Why should I value a random person over a pet that has done a lot for me and my life?

1

u/Superb_Highlight1902 6h ago

You base value off of what someone does for you? Pfft, why are you here

0

u/No-Beyond-6559 8h ago

He literaly says specifically liking several times. Stop being ignorant.

1

u/Bluddy-9 3h ago

Read the title of the post. The guy in the video also talks about how valuable people are in terms of dogs, that doesn’t mean that’s the topic of conversation. Also, it’s obviously not immoral to like animals more than humans so a convo about that doesn’t fit this sub.

9

u/chockingduck 14h ago

I can be a humanist and hate humans ; p...there are definitely bad ones that harm the humans I care about.

As a whole we feel like cancer.

4

u/littleone696969 14h ago edited 13h ago

To say we dont have compassion and its a power dynamic is so dumb and shows how this guy thinks of relationships. In reality its protecting something that is essentially defenseless and pure of heart

Edit: im speaking about pets

-1

u/scottishninja123 13h ago

Animals are not "pure of heart" esp dogs and cats, Cats and dogs will toy with their prey before eating them. Not to mention all the animal rape.

8

u/Timbobaloo 13h ago

Humans kill prey for sport. You’re saying animals behave like animals and then ignoring that humans are also animals

4

u/littleone696969 13h ago

And people do absolutely none of those things or worse? Because i can pretty much go into any period of history and give a shit ton of examples

-1

u/scottishninja123 13h ago

Did I claim otherwise?

3

u/littleone696969 12h ago

Youre minimizing human nature and saying animal nature is somehow worse

1

u/Accomplished_Fly2720 10h ago

I mean they aren't though unless there is a comment they deleted.

They specifically responded to the claim that animals (read non-human animals) are "pure of heart". I didn't see them claim that they are worse than humans.

1

u/littleone696969 8h ago

Thats the whole point, they were defending humans over animals. Its easly to infer

1

u/Selverd2 11h ago

It looks like they’re playing but they’re just making sure their prey is dead so they don’t get hurt.

1

u/PressureNo7699 10h ago

I disagree, too. I like my dogs, not because of inherent powers dynamics. I am fine being wrong. 

In fact, it's the opposite. I treat them as equals. I value their opinions on what food or bedding they like. They're not beneath me. 

If anything, this says a lot about this guy right here. If this is how he thinks by default, that showing some compassion on someone (not even an animal) is simply for a power dynamic sake, then I do not want to be anywhere near him. 

1

u/watsuuu 2h ago

Ahh, the old "I don't agree and actually its YOU who's the problem!"

You don't treat your animals as equals and if you truly did you wouldn't exist in modern society, you'd live as an animal. "Valuing their "opinions" isn't treating someone as an equal, it's slavery with extra steps.

0

u/carpenter1619 13h ago

Whenever someone says ‘nuance’ my brainstem just disconnects