When does killing an animal constitute murder?

They're torturing animals. Its not coincidence that that is what crash was asking you "Falling" is torturing animals, the net is there to keep them from "beating their wives"... it not being needed is the point you've missed.

No, only X+Z is covered. If society wants X to be counterindicated, that's the purpose of laws against X. Here, in this thread. You believe that it should be a crime for people to destroy property they own, including animals.Your posts to me are meant to advocate this position. When are you arguing for their protection? Right now, here, as you type these messages into the text box. That's true but I don't see the relevance - that's not at all what I asked, is it?I asked you if the researchers that perform these cosmetic tests, or medical tests on animals, or other scientific tests on live animals, are more likely to commit domestic abuse, murder, or other crimes. Are they?If they're not, that would seem to disprove your notion that preventing people from torturing animals makes them less likely to torture humans. I disagree. Morals that you can't actually follow have no purpose. Only if it was their property. But it doesn't hurt anybody. David Letterman taking those actions doesn't take food out of anybody's mouth or keep someone from owning a car. The people who don't have new Mercedes lack them because they cannot buy them; one extra Mercedes for sale doesn't reduce the price low enough for them to suddenly afford one.I don't consider David Letterman's actions immoral under any standard. By making it illegal to destroy a limited natural resource held in the human trust, obviously. I wish you would have put that at the beginning. I don't want to open a thread for it but I'm not going to erase what I've already written.

But those crimes considered most heinous pertain to those acts which society considers most immoral. Genocide. Rape. Murder. Strangely these acts are all acts against humans. Not roaches or ants. I didn't say you could. And I thought you (currently) denied that there is anything that could be called the "collective moral outlook" anyway? Of course society has a position on the relative consideration accorded to human life over other forms of life.As far as society is concerned you can do anything you want to roaches without any recourse. If you intentionally kill animals like cats and dogs there will be some social comeback. And if you kill a human being, even accidentally, you can expect society to put you under considerable scrutiny and demand consequences. To pretend that this is not indicative of the higher moral value placed on human life by society is to deny the facts. So society does have a collective morality? And you adhere to it in terms of behaviour. But you refuse to have an opinion on whether you agree with society's stance on this.Do you personally agree with society's moral stance on this issue or not? These murderers - What is the heinous and immoral act that these people have committed? It wasn’t splatting roaches or trampling ants was it? So even your murderer example at root demonstrates the greater moral consideration granted to human life both by the overwhelming majority of individuals and by society. Both of which are reflected in societies laws and punishments for such acts.Strangely there is no such moral consideration accorded to the life of roaches. But it does. Society does consider those who kill innocent humans more immoral than those who kill innocent roaches. Or indeed any other animal. This is a fact.

Well on the basis that you probably don't pop out for toddler burgers I wondered what you stance was on animals with (arguably) a similar level of sentience. Apparently sentience is not a criteria upon which you personally apply moral consideration? Baby burger. Kid kebab. Person pizza. Yet you have no moral problem eating monkeys. Do you have a moral issue with eating humans? (extreme survival cases aside) What one is willing to eat on moral (as opposed to taste) grounds, as many vegetarians will testify, can say a lot about the relative moral worth one accords to different species.For example I know many people who will not eat battery chickens or eggs. This is a moral stance on their part. Most of these same people probably wouldn't eat chimp meat for similar moral reasons."Monkey meat" is relevant to this topic.

Do you really assign all things equal "moral worth"? Honestly?If offered a research job in a society where killing humans for research purposes was considered legal you would have no moral qualms about taking that job? You would treat humans as you treat your arthropods if your science required it and it wasn't illegal?

no shit, really?you know his mother was white, on his birthday after spending 9 months in a white womb, he slid out of a white vagina. I agree, though I love how somebody from the UK always wants to step in on Americans discussing their president.Where is your Black King, or Black PM?
Don't have one? Never had one? then STFU (Shut The Fuck Up), and don't lecture us about racism. I don't know for sure but I would guess your government goes back at least to the 870s (Alfred the Great), that's 1140+ years, of an exclusively white ruling body of government.I agree with your logic indeed.
If stupid and racist people have a government, where only elite whites may enter, and they mold and raise a nation for over a thousand years: that nation will probably be stupid and racist.My ancestors where done with that shit in the late 18th century, I guess yours were not.

Lol can i join in Slovenija has a Black mayor in one of the coastal cities, and the number of black people in Slovenija is so low that you could probably count them on your fingers. and a noter famus black person in slovenija from a tv show. The funny thing is his name Janez Belina (john white) Edited by frako, : No reason given.

I quoted the part I was disagreeing with: Was that too complicated for you to follow? Are you surprised that when you make stupid racist posts in a public discussion forum people respond?
Or are you just expanding your bigotted opinions to include people from the UK? So...you think that I chose who is King and Prime Minister.
That suggests a level of political ignorance previously unsuspected. You also think that I decided who is King and Prime Minister for the past 1140+ years?Well, I guess stupid racist is as stupid racist does.

Hi, Straggler. No, I would not take the job. Nor would I take the job if it involved killing deer or blackbirds for research. This is because I don't approve of killing things (except arthropods for research, an exception that I acknowledged in the quoted text above).I interpret this as assigning equal "moral value" to everything, at least as far as killing things myself goes.As far as other people killing people, I think I would really only care that much under one of two conditions: (1) the person killed was somebody I knew and/or liked (e.g. grandma or Bon Jovi); or (2) it makes me worry that my loved ones or I may also be in danger of being killed.As far as killing animals to eat meat, I'm not sure I could do the killing myself, but I apparently don't mind eating an animal that someone else had killed. This appears to be an inconsistency in my moral views, because I'm pretty sure I wouldn't eat a human or approve of killing humans for food, except under extreme circumstances.So, I suppose I should state my moral views as granting equal "moral worth" to all animals (humans included), with the exceptions of arthropods (the killing of which is acceptable for the sake of research) and livestock (the killing of which is acceptable for food).

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Straggler. Can you clarify something?If I take a position against something because I'm afraid that that something might happen to me if I don't oppose it, does this still count as a moral position?Edited by Bluejay, : No reason given.Edited by Bluejay, : "a" is not a pronoun

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Correlation is not cause. There are social reasons for those acts to be considered crimes but not necessarily moral ones. But that's exactly what you're trying to do, use the existence of laws that single out humans as evidence of a "special" moral attitude toward humans. Society has a different legal position toward animals than toward humans. We're talking about moral positions here. It may be illegal to jaywalk but few people would consider it immoral. On the contrary, you haven't presented any such facts. All you've done is conflate legal positions with moral ones. Let's say that society has collective expectations about its members' behaviour. My behaviour conforms to those expectations to the point that I can accept the repercussions. I don't walk into my neighbour's house uninvited and drink his beer and watch his TV without his permission. Those acts would be considered rude (and illegal) but not immoral. I refuse to have a catchall opinion. I'm not going to say that I live in a "moral society" because I agree with 51% of its moral values. Flouting social norms. Not long ago, people were executed for horse theft, which doesn't reflect on the value of human life. Please learn the difference between immoral and illegal.

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"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

You seem to be misunderstanding what I am saying. Let me try to explain it again:     If Society deems as immoral the mistreatment of things which are clearly non-human, then anyone who accept this viewpoint is less likely to apply criteria for 'human' that may exclude, for example, the mentally deficient, babies, etc. In other words, if someone accepts this morality, then they are less likely to think of babies and mentally deficients (for example) as less than human.You seem to be misunderstanding me to say:     If someone doesn't accept this morality, then they are more likely to think of babies and mentally deficients (for example) as less than human.Now, unfortunately, this re-rendering of my position is an illogical one; an example of the inverse error fallacy. And, indeed, if this were what I was truly arguing, then I'd certainly have no reason to disagree with your assessment that my position be nonsensical. However, this is not my position; but my position is what has been laid out in the first indented paragraph.Interestingly, when my actual position is considered, we have evidence that it might be somewhat correct; that evidence is in the beliefs of none other than Crashfrog himself. Crash does not view as human things that society would rather he view as human (e.g., in his case, children who have not yet learned language); he also does not accept the viewpoint of society in general that mistreatment of certain animals is immoral in and of itself. The argument is thus strengthened by this modus tollens re-rendering. This certainly doesn't prove my argument that these things are implanted by society as moral safe measures, but it does help to strengthen it if even just a little.So, If you still have something to say about my actual position, or if you still are unclear about it, please, feel free to pass me some more replies. But I would ask that we now try to put an end to working with an inaccurate portrayal of my argument as much as we can.Jon

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Check out Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Huh? X is contained in X+Z. What sort of logic are you using? And we're not talking about laws; we're talking about the reason society may decide to deem certain things immoral. I don't believe anyone owns anything. That you exchanged some crap you thought you owned for some crap someone else thought he owned and so now he thinks he owns what you used to think you owned and you think you own what he used to think he owned does not really mean anyone owns or owned any of it. If it came from the Earth we share, then to the Earth we share it belongs.But perhaps you're talking about legal ownership; which is just made up and extends up to the point where the government may begin collecting money. Our legal rights to the ownership of inanimate objects isn't even infinite: e.g., property taxes. Buying something doesn't always make it yours. Uncle Sam giveth and Uncle Sam taketh away. I don't much care that you disagree. And I'm not here to defend my own morality. No, but see my reply to CS. Your question is not related to my argument; you and he have both misconstrued my position. And this isn't related to the question you just asked. And what is another word for this destruction when said limited natural resource is an animal, a living creature?Jon

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Check out Apollo's Temple!
Ignorance is temporary; you should be able to overcome it. - nwr

Not really since I think everything is sentient at some level. To me it would then seem pointless to try and ascribe some vague "amount" of sentience for each species. See, I chuckled for that.I think I would have a problem with now switching to human meat, or for that matter, monkey meat and/or any really exotic meat.However, disregarding the law for this extreme example, I would have no problem being in a society where hunting and eating humans was the norm. I would see it the same as hunting and eating any other animal. That's because they weren't raised in a place where no other option existed. There are no vegans in Darfur, dude. There are no vegans in a tribe in Peru. You eat what we got. Roots today, iguana tomorrow - just eat it.Some people however, are just awarded the luxury of being able to make-up some superficial moral position about meat eating, but put them in a poverty striken place and all that gay shit flies out the window.And note, I'm not talking about extreme situations, I'm talking about people who for generations have lived in these conditions. Not just starvation, but areas where no other food supply exists. You eat what we got. I assume none of these people live in a place where there is only monkey meat to eat?Would these same moral people consider a tribe of people who only have monkey to eat as immoral? If not, why not?- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

Algebra. You used algebra so I followed suit. X only equals X+Z if Z is zero.If society wants X to be illegal, then society makes laws against X. Laws against Z have nothing to do with laws against X, so your argument makes zero sense. I'm very much talking about laws and always have been. If you're talking to me then you're talking about laws. You might have said so in the beginning. Obviously if you fundamentally don't accept the very notion of discreet, private property then we're clearly not going to ever agree on what rights property owners have.Which is fine. I don't expect to convince you on something that basic and I don't expect to be convinced by you. If you'd simply said that you don't believe in property it would have saved a lot of time, though. No, we've not. You were pretty clear about it:

quote:

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When society implants into the minds of the individual the notion that the mistreatment of certain animals is wrong, it helps to assure that these individuals will now include as wrong the mistreatment of less animal-like creatures, even if these creatures (perhaps homo sapiens by decent) are more like these animals and less like an average human.

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When I asked you if the people who experiment on and torture animals for scientific or industrial purpose - people who clearly have not been "implanted" with the notion that what they do is wrong - are more likely to commit domestic abuse, you evaded the question with the observations that those scientists don't experiment on cute animals, at which point I told you that was 100% wrong, and then that point was the first time you claimed that the question was irrelevant. Funny, apparently you thought it was relevant the first time I asked it.So, answer it: are scientists who do animal research more likely to beat their wives or husbands, in your view? Yes or no. Why do we need any other word? Using another word when the resource is an animal would fail to protect all the limited natural resources that aren't animals. A law against the destruction of limited natural resources protects all limited natural resources, animal or nonanimal, without infringing on the rights of property owners (which, I understand, you believe don't exist.)