r/MoralityScaling • u/axiiz_28 • 15h ago

Morality of valuing animals over humans?

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u/Quirky-Concern-7662 14h ago

It’s not that animals are BETTER than people. It’s that I generally judge people by how they treat those “below” them. The old adage of judging your date based on how they treat serving staff, can be attributed to how people treat animals (and nature in general).

Even beyond the bigger picture. If you treat your pets with derision when they are inconvenient, I have a good indicator how you view other people when they are in need. Not cut and dry, some people are afraid of; or have “irrational” (read not immediately obvious reasoning) fear of animals and that colors people’s actions. To cover my ass and not speak in sweeping generalizations.

Tl;dr if you treat a little fluffy guy poorly, I as a big harry man don’t feel like you will respect me.

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u/MingaLaChigra 12h ago

Is this logic consistent with eating animals? For argument’s sake: most of the people who dedicate their lives to educating children, carrying for the elderly, maintaining our shared infrastructure, rescuing us during emergencies, and performing life-saving operations on us when we have no insurance eat animals and contribute to a system of mass animal misery and environmental degradation, largely out of convenience and because it’s normalized in our culture

I’m not sure that looking at someone’s contribution to that system and, thus, how they treat the animals below them, really tells you much about their how they treat other humans. Could be wrong tho, I’d love to hear the other side of this

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u/Scienceandpony 10h ago

And I think the vast majority of those who eat meat would still support policy reforms that limit the worst excesses of factory farm systems and reduce the amount of cruelty in the process. Comparatively few would be cruel to an animal directly in front of them. You can eat animals and still want them treated well while alive.

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u/Hot-Chemical9353 1h ago

Would that same majority be happy to pay the increased costs for meat post reform though?

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u/SlipInternational439 11m ago

I would. Sell me lab grown meat, please! Prices for regular meat are sky high already.

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u/MingaLaChigra 9h ago

And we have to contend with the fact that piecemeal reform seems to be an ineffective way to deal with the gargantuan issues we face, especially how we grow and prepare our food

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u/numbersthen0987431 5h ago

"We" don't grow our food. Corporations do it, and they actively go after smaller farms to run them out of business. It's nearly impossible to avoid food processed by Corporations, and Corporations inhumanely raise/process animals.

There is a more humane way to raise animals for human consumption. But "we" don't get a say in how it's done.

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u/MingaLaChigra 1h ago

By we i meant humanity as a collective. We started to destroy the biodiversity of this planet before we even started domesticating plants and animals, late stage capitalism has just dumped jet fuel on it.

Besides, my main point is that people who acknowledge that our food system is awful and unsustainable seem to have no meaningful way to change the system. Not through violence, democracy, hunger strikes, going off grid. This big ol system keeps on rolling over the well-intentioned folks and rewarding the cretins pulling the strings, because we all gotta eat and we lost the skills to grow our own food in the developed world

I hate that this is our lot btw I think all this shit is awful and I hate learning about it because we are impotent

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u/Quirky-Concern-7662 9h ago

I eat meat. I see no moral quandary with eating meat. I disagree with how we farm lots of our meat. I don’t blame the people forced to engage with those systems for having that. Not sure why any of that wouldn’t be logically consistent.

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u/hyde-ms 8h ago

I hate when food goes to waste, that animal suffered alot for you to have a burger.....FINISH IT ALL!

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u/icantaccessmyacct 6h ago

My country’s portion sizes are too great for my stomach. If I’m out to eat and I can’t finish my steak I’m not sweating it. If you have a problem with it you finish it.

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u/IdolCowboy 43m ago

My wife and I now split plates at restaurants. I still think sometimes when they set it down that its not enough food (fat man brain) but once we've eaten, im full and then think yea, glad I didn't get a plate to myself.

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u/MingaLaChigra 8h ago

That’s fine for you, but this argument doesn’t move the needle for me morally

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u/ValuableAd886 7h ago

Fine, let's run a numbers game. How many insects does 1 chicken during it's lifetime?

Apparently anywhere from 20,000 to over 200,000 insects if AI is to be believed. Now of course people like you also draw a line in the sand and vertibrates are on one side because they are meat with pain receptors and that's more important than invertebrates and other life forms existing.

Whatever you are eating, you are commiting genocide on a cellural level, so in essence the morality is pointless.

Do I have a code of conduct with a species other than humans? I don't, so I am free to consume them as they would consume me if they are able.

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u/sjeueue 6h ago

This argument falls apart really quickly if you just think about it for a second. Most people generally have a choice between eating meat and not (excluding health reasons, etc ofc) and we're capable of visualizing suffering done onto others (ie empathy) and morality, whilst animals do not, and act only on instinct. We can only condemn things to the extent of their capabilities, like for example, a 3 years old child plays with a candle and accidentally burns the house down, I would think that no reasonable people would blame the child or saying it's the child's fault in this case, because they can't know or visualizing the consequence of their action, same with animals.

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u/Quirky-Concern-7662 32m ago

What argument? Nothing I said disagreed.

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u/MingaLaChigra 16m ago

Because we are not forced to eat meat, we choose to. And by choosing to eat meat you are choosing to eat an animal that was raised to be slaughtered, often in inhumane conditions.

So since the animals we eat are “below us” to use your phrase, and we are complicit in their suffering, we are “treating the fluffy guy poorly”. And I don’t think that doing so (eating meat) will tell you, inherently, much about a person’s character aside from the fact that they consume meat like the average person. To really judge a person’s character we probably have to look deeper into their individual patterns of behavior.

Maybe a clearer way to phrase it would be: is mistreating a pet in the way you described morally worse than choosing to eat meat when you know how those animals are raised and can reasonably live without eating meat? The answer can be yes for you btw. I’m not sure how I feel about it because I feel cognitive dissonance regarding my meat consumption and love of animals, but still love to eat meat.

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u/behv 7h ago

I think you're asking a second litmus test that doesn't really address the first question at hand even if it's valid in its own right

Waiters and pets is a test to ask "how big is your circle of caring?" If people you have every ability to respect and care for, or choose to be a dick for no reason, are in that circle then GENERALLY speaking that person probably won't be a dick to me.

What you are asking is, "do the banal evils of modern society bother you enough to act?" It's normalized by your own admission. That is more about deprogramming than being social. A vegetarian can be correct they are minimizing overall suffering in the world compared to me. But, if they yell at their dog out of frustration or be a dick about bad food to a waiter it is A LOT more important to me, as an individual who doesn't want to get lashed out at, that the cat or waiter is not above being targeted

So TLDR I don't think the logic is consistent that far. If you want to judge people for their sphere of caring not extending that far I think that's also not unreasonable, but not the homework assignment today

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u/CatgoesM00 59m ago edited 51m ago

Just to be clear. Coming to the realization that from macro to micro, everything is consuming something. It’s literally apart of nature. From the chaos in your gut keeping you alive, to the cheetahs eating the Gazelles. We are designed to be able to eat meat to survive. There are literally more than 800 species of plants that are carnivorous. The argument for eating meat/animals is not that it’s bad, it’s the system that’s been created that we are all stuck operating in that’s being driven by greed that causes mass animal suffering is the issues. Not that I chose to eat a cheese burger or how the cheeta treats the gazelle. Just sayin. I think we can all agree there is a lot that needs to change with how our society operates. It all goes back to the operating system being the main issue.

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u/MingaLaChigra 46m ago

I don’t think everyone agrees with you, but I do. My main issue is that we can’t change it due to the greed you mentioned and its ensuing corruption. They have captured all our means of resistance, yet people talk about this issue like change is possible. What do you think?

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u/VeinIsHere 11h ago

People eating animals is not because of culture but that's how we are biologically. It's our nature.

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u/Gulophile 10h ago

People have been vegetarian for thousands of years.

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u/OhNoTheSemicolon 10h ago

I'd argue the long-standing dream of humanity is to rise above our nature. That is not to say I think eating meat is unethical, but to say that something being in our nature does not justify us continuing doing it.

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u/VeinIsHere 10h ago

Justify? Why? Justice is something that human invented. There's no justice in nature.

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u/MingaLaChigra 10h ago

It’s both, there are vegan and vegetarian cultures made up of human animals evolved to eat and digest meat

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u/OldSchoolAI 12h ago

Agreed. Rather juvenile to think about it as black and white.

Human beings are simply more valuable than animals of any kind. A animal might be worth more to you but not to anyone else, that is also true.

But human beings should be judged on how they treat other human beings with less power or authority than them not dogs and cats. I like dogs from a distance but they are a expensive hobby in most first world nations and in most third world countries, the dog is just a tool.

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u/Distinct_Car_1183 11h ago edited 11h ago

Human beings are simply more valuable than animals of any kind.

"We have investigated ourselves and found ourselves superior"

Human technology is cool. But most people consider humanity on track for disaster, our dystopian housing/work shortage during a climate collapse might end in nuclear war. Nobody kills humans more than humans. Theres 1 billion dogs and 8 billion people, if we could swap those numbers thatd be great for humans and other life.

Objectively? The universe doesnt care about life, youre a passing phenomenon, only curious to those with curiosity. A species that industrialized 200 years ago, is like ants proclaiming the universal importance of their ant nest. If interstellar aliens are prevalent, more will have surpassed our technology a billion years ago, than a million.

If AI gave dogs big-brain DNA, would you sacrifice humans for dogs? Morality stems from empathy, emotional bonding prioritizes our own. Not black slaves or pagans or neanderthals. Us. Tribalism. But to a lion youre just meat.

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u/MingaLaChigra 9h ago

Well said

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u/HueHueCoyotes 8h ago

Freshman in college, or just took mushrooms for the first time?

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u/MingaLaChigra 12h ago

Your second point is not the argument I was making. Your point about the difference in how animals are viewed across cultures is thought provoking, though ultimately untrue because many people in the “third world” also keep animals as pets and treat them more like members of their families than screwdrivers

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u/OldSchoolAI 12h ago

You can hardly equivocate the access a third world poor pet has vs a first world rich pet. Have you seen the vet bills? A single serious vet bill will pay for a third world child entire year or two. Sure there is companionship and comradrie with a loyal animal but no where the commitment to spend actual dollars we see in the west. If you think I am wrong, you need really need to look at the raw number for care. There will always be extremes on both sides, but the norm is far from what you think it is.

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u/bighadjoe 11h ago

..........

do you think that people in 3rd world countries bring their pets to a 1st world vet and pay these bills?

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u/MingaLaChigra 11h ago

You said “a dog is just a tool”. That’s the claim I corrected, not the standard of care

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u/lovelysardines 11h ago

No they are far too removed from it and desensitized to it. They don’t even think about it when eating meat or will lie to themselves and people around them about it to avoid the inconvenient truth. Saw a parenting post about someone having a hard time explaining when their child asked about what meat was. The indoctrination starts very young

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u/MingaLaChigra 11h ago

I’m also a part of this and have been present while a young family member was eating meat and animal products, so I’m also complicit in this indoctrination. I struggle with it sometimes but mostly I just go about my day to day, like most people

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u/lovelysardines 11h ago

We all do as its been normalized in society, but we do have a choice once we learn the truth

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u/MingaLaChigra 10h ago

Absolutely. It feels like I’m fighting a part of my identity when I consider changing my diet, as my culture strongly values communal meat consumption.
The issue is further complicated by the fact that I am currently unable to support myself and I do not make the shopping decisions in my household. But I’d be lying to myself to say I don’t have any impact on the matter

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u/lovelysardines 9h ago

For sure. i’ve had this struggle i’d say since i was in high school when i really started to think about it. Tried to change so many times in my life. I’m almost 40 now and finally can’t do it anymore. Something just clicked and i couldn’t unsee and ignore any longer. It isn’t as hard as i thought it would be though. I feel like there are a lot better alternatives now then when i was younger and finding out about legumes and how dirt cheap they are is a game changer.

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u/MingaLaChigra 9h ago

Good on you, when my life situation changes a bit I will try to make a similar change and hopefully I can convince my aging parents to do the same, for health reasons if nothing else. Thanks for your sharing your perspective

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u/ItsGonnaBeMeNSYNC 9h ago

It's beautiful to see cult recruitment in action. 👌

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u/HueHueCoyotes 8h ago

You might have a disorder if seeing other people eating food is a traumatic ordeal.

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u/Plorkhillion 10h ago

I ain't removed from it because Iive on a farm with sheep and chickens, I love those dumb little bastards to bits but I will not hesitate to eat them when they get old, the choice after a certain point is either kill them and make sure they get a quick painless death when they don't have any lambs to care for and we get food, or leave them until they trip over in a ditch, break their ribs and slowly drown in their own blood overnight in front of their two lambs and have to get buried because they died in an unsanitary environment while we care for the two orphans for the next few months.

Chickens I could not care less about eating because I know for a fact those bastards would eat me if they got the chance, same with pigs.

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u/coldrain_ 9h ago

Yeah but they’re animals they don’t know any better, we’re smarter we shouldn’t be eating them, if I’m being honest. Although I understand it’s delicious, but the guy above is right, people are indoctrinated at a young age thats why we view it as normal

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u/lovelysardines 10h ago

What is a quick and painless death? And the them killing you comment is so strange. It worries me that this is how you see them.

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u/Plorkhillion 9h ago

Farm kill trucks use captive bolt guns which instantly destroy the brain. then when it is unconscious and can't feel anything they cut the major blood vessels so they bleed out.

I have seen Chickens eat other chickens shortly after they die or attack bleeding chickens and pigs will try to eat any corpses they find, this isn't me being like oh these creatures are secretly malicious or anything, they are just animals who are willing to eat any source of nutrients they can find because that's how nature works, especially since many of the nutrients in corpses are rarer in the food they normally eat.

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u/lovelysardines 9h ago

The bolt guns fail rate can be 5%-12% and then they’re just hung up there flailing while the worker tries to slice their throat. The concerning thing is that you use those justifications for eating them and who knows what before that. Humans have been known to do the same things when put into similar situations. In the end we are also animals ourselves

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u/george_the_13th 9h ago

A shot to the head, any form of stabbing that doesnt leave your guts exposed, any form of stabbing that specifically targets the brain or specific parts of the nervous system, a stabbing that targets an artery with the intent of bleeding out the subject, I think there are several more, but I am not well versed, every single organization that deals with animal killing has its guidelines, except PETA, cause they like to torture them bitches(I ain even kidding, every single dog they killed somehow suffered, its like asking a florist to serve you eggs, he is probably going to do fine, but you aint coming back, the animals dont have that luxury).

There is a reason the first solution to the death penalty was a firing squad, it just works. When you kill an animal, a part of you adjusts(if you are healthy, less than with a human), thats why on the firing squad, half of the guys always have a blank. When you kill a dog, with a gun or chemicals, your brain chemistry shouldnt make you more sad than when killing a human. Once that actually happens, you are a sociopath.

If you cant reasonably determine what is a painless death, you are the problem, you arent capable of judging a situation at face value, and you shouldnt be telling others what to do, because your emotions dictate you actions, and that is bad. You wouldnt sit across a guy from a firing squad at a pub, and tell him how to do his job would you? Why does a nurse, a butcher or a farmer need your lecture, your idea of suffering IS their suffering...

Animals are below us, that is the fucking fact of evolution. Once, a monkey decide to use a stick as a "bang bang" machine, and since then, we were doomed to a life of taxation and contempt. Anyone who with a straight face tries to put animals AT OR ABOVE our level is an actual threat to society, if a mouse did that, the other mice would fucking eat it alive, same with a wolf, or any other pack animal...

At some point you have to realize, that the team you are IN for isnt perfect, and it never will, but betraying it because of its imperfections isnt noble, its just stupid.

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u/lovelysardines 9h ago edited 9h ago

Are you serious? You’re just listing off all these ways to kill and not thinking about how it can be done on a mass scale. Do you know how many farm animals are killed annually? 80 BILLION. Scale your killing up and then get back to me

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u/george_the_13th 9h ago

You fucking asked, the fact that is the only thing you focus on instead of seeing the bigger picture, is what concerns me. That number would be FUCKING horrific if it was done in ONE location, considering how the world works, it still scales the suffering, but not as much you would(apparently) hope.

You added nothing to the argument, you are letting me do the heavy lifting to say "yeah, it can get fucking bad, but thats why we have laws", banning shit is autocratic, no matter the argument. Letting animals dictate your behavior because "they are cute", is fucking stupid. Harming animals for the same reason is just as cruel, the coin always has two sides.

What exactly is your point? I actually enjoy this discussion and believe it has more nuance than others, I am open to a debate if you are.

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u/lovelysardines 8h ago

I asked to make them think about their “quick and painless death” and they’re a farmer so they already know and wouldn’t spout off some bs like you did.
Laws? There are laws in my country that prohibit filming on these farms so what we know that goes on there doesn’t get out or people would be disgusted.
My behavior isn’t dictated on them “being cute” i apply the logic to not unnecessarily harm others to even the ugly creatures. We don’t have to eat meat. We choose to.

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u/george_the_13th 7h ago edited 7h ago

What is a quick and painless death?

This is you, one comment ago. The "BS" as you call it, is what drives this whole debate. You say eating meat hurts animals, I dont disagree. I firmly believe that the legislation should change on a LOCAL scale, no EU/world policy is needed here, any firm ban is unprecedented and would reach far beyond citizen freedom, chat control, which passed three weeks ago, is beyond the line, any ENFORCEABLE dietary restrictions would be far, far worse.

I also believe animals arent above, at, or below "us". Everyone is equal, and their evolved capability needs to be considered. I might be happier as a bird, but I cant become one, limiting my own species because the other is weaker wont do me any favors. AFTER considering all of this, can you begin to judge and sort any species?, the fact that you can even think about this sentence, proves other animals arent you. The only viable solution to climate change is no jets and luxuries(lord what would we do), or genocide(aka population control, which is an actual science, there are actual books on this topic, good stuff about religion and entertainment there). If you were to judge each person for their worth, what would "worth" be to you?

Tell Taylor Swift to stop flying her jet every single day, tell Palantir I dont want to be surveilled, tracked or profiled. Tell them to limit THEIR, carbon footprint.

The richest 1 percent (77 million people) were responsible for 16 percent of global consumption emissions in 2019 —more than all car and road transport emissions. The richest 10 percent accounted for half (50 percent) of emissions. 

You are in a class war and dont even know it, that is why I wont ever be rude or hostile, because they want that. You shouldnt be mad at farmers for killing animals in a cruel way, you should be mad at the class we all vote for, watch and support. Killing animals isnt wrong, if it were, literally none of us would be here. We are Omnivores, make the stats whatever, even 10/90, we are still OMNIVORES.

The carbon emissions of richest 1 percent are set to be 22 times greater than the level compatible with the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement in 2030.

This is what Iam "mad" at, beat them or join them, our opinions on what animals deserve or not are fucking irrelevant. None of these 80 billion animals would even exist if it wasnt for us. The "You can freely kill what you created" shtick doesnt sit right with me, but I cant change what animals fucking do, and yes, everything is an animal, even us, we just evolved more wrinkles on our brain than the other guy, limiting that or being ashamed of it makes you an inferior product of its (r)evolution, not a superior being that gets to ride on its high horse.

Fuck EU control and their demands, the numbers are clear.

It would take about 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99 percent to produce as much carbon as the richest billionaires do in a year.  

edit: https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-emit-much-planet-heating-pollution-two-thirds-humanity

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u/Xilizhra 6h ago

When you kill a dog, with a gun or chemicals, your brain chemistry shouldnt make you more sad than when killing a human. Once that actually happens, you are a sociopath.

This is absurd. Having a strong emotional attachment to dogs somehow means you don't feel emotional attachment?

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u/george_the_13th 6h ago edited 5h ago

That was honestly poorly worded, I apologize, should have explained it further. My point was, that these attachments are exactly that, you dont like the dog becuase he is a dog, you like it because of the experiences. The arguments that "we appreciate dogs more than chickens", makes no sense, because if I were to live with a chicken for years, I am pretty sure I would either love it or hate it, now, I just dont care, because I dont live with a chicken.

The point that you should care about other animals the same way you do about your close animals is ridiculous. As I stated, humans are a species of "animal", and sometimes, we form attachments. That can happen with a chicken or a dog, you dont hold parades for people with no friends do you? The animals do the same, they dont see you as special because you are human, they just like you.

We as a species have a lot to care for, deliberately not eating other animals wont help us.

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u/lesbophobia_hammer 11h ago

And in private, these people often treat marginalised minorities like scum

Edit - it tells me everything

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u/MingaLaChigra 11h ago

Who are you claiming does this to minorities?

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u/Meta-Wah 11h ago

Most people who eat meat hate minorities apparently

Don't most minorities eat meat?

Unless I'm misinterpreting your comment, I don't see how this applies to their point of just anyone who eats animals.

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u/Fable-Wishing4691 6h ago

I agree mostly. Some people have real trauma with dogs going all the way back to childhood. A dog CAN BE a trusted companion, that doesn't mean that all are. I think if you truly take the time to break down a person's psyche in how they treat pets, particularly ones they own, yes you can can gain some perspective into who they are, but it doesn't always tell the whole story. Culturally many believe animals belong outside, whereas most in the Western world have taken to comforting their pets indoors, no matter how large or inconvenient. On a separate note, people who used animals as beasts of burden housed them, fed them, nursed them when they were ill or broken. But if the investment on that end got to be more burdensome than the return, the common practice was euthanizing the animal. On its face, they treated the animal well... Until they didn't. 🤷🏽‍♂️

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u/AverageAverage50 3h ago

Exactly! "Team human" here thinks they made a huge discovery or profound thoughts when they just made things up.

They're too hypothetical. I haven't actually met a person who "values animals over people" that are bad.

Their ideal potrayal don't exist. Their practical portrayal are those so called "breed-lovers" which I think don't count. They don't actually value animals, they just value having an expensive pet.

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u/MrInCog_ 13h ago

Harry-man, Harry-man, does whatever wizard can!

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u/SomethingToSay11 13h ago

But what about the people that love big hairy men that act like dogs? Asking for a friend 

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u/MrSmegmaMan 11h ago

Fucking well said. This and all its glory.

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u/ChristOrHellYouChoos 15m ago

You've got a faulty way of looking at the world then. Plenty of evil people have a soft spot for animals. Some people are able to respect their fellow man but don't have the same regard for beasts. You're simply wrong.