When does killing an animal constitute murder?

Laws can have some basis in morality. Other bases include convenience, discrimination, etc. Some laws are downright immoral. You certainly can't use laws to deduce some kind of lowest-common-denominator collective morality.

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

Hi, Straggler.I don't want to drag my part of this out much further. I thought I could clarify some things, but I feel like I've only made it worse, so I'll back off a bit. I think the focus on extreme cases is useful in demonstrating the point that "moral worth" varies. Whether or not it justifies the protracting of this discussion by refusal to provide a non-universal generalization is a different matter entirely.I'm perfectly comfortable saying that, in a large majority of cases, I would favor a human over pretty much any animal. Therefore, I am comfortable generalizing and saying that I assign humans more "moral worth" than animals.However, I don't really like people all that much, and I've never been very good at socializing, so my personal feelings lead me to suspect that I would often favor animals over humans in many situations where most people would find it wrong and immoral to do so. So, I feel that, even though I would usually choose the human, I would do so more because of social pressures than because of a perception of greater "moral worth" for the human.So, in terms of personal morality, I think the "moral worth" of humans overlaps more with the "moral worth" of animals that it does for other people.-----On a related note, I did a summer job with a prairie dog survey team, and we spent time mapping out prairie dog colonies and counting prairie dogs. In case you weren't aware, prairie dogs get a bad reputation for causing problems in agricultural fields and pastures, even though literally all data sets collected have demonstrated that they are responsible for pretty much none of the damage they are accused of.People shoot them and poison them all the time based on the misconception that horses and cows break their legs by stepping in prairie dog holes, that prairie dogs damage crops, and that farming equipment can be damaged by hitting prairie dog mounds. There is technically a $20,000 fine for killing prairie dogs in Utah (the Utah prairie dog, Cynomys parvidens, is endangered), but, because the people who should be enforcing it sympathize with the spurious claims of the farmers, fines are never exacted or collected.I think this behavior is morally wrong. Prairie dogs are killed and persecuted basically because of ignorance, mass hysteria and conspiracy. I don't really think it's my place to enforce it and don't really want to speak out about it, but I feel that people who behave this way are behaving immorally. People have a responsibility to validate their claims before they set out to exterminate things: it is never morally acceptable to decide to kill anything without having good, informed reasons for doing so.

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

The topic of this thread requests that you detail the criteria upon which you personally accord different forms of life different moral status.I have given my own views on this here Message 7 and here Message 108What is your personal moral view with regard tom the question asked in this (I think) very interesting) topic?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

So you don't think the laws of society as they are in the US or Europe reflect the relative moral consideration accorded to humans as compared to roaches that those specific societies have collectively decided upon?The two are completely unrelated as far as you are concerned? The fact that there are very specific laws regarding killing humans but none regarding killing roaches tells us nothing about the relative worth or value human society places on human life versus roach life as far as you are concerned?Nothing at all? Utterly unrelated?

Simple: They ain't us. Even vampires know this:

quote:

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There is but one crime...

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...among us vampires here.

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It is the crime that means
death to any vampire:

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To kill your own kind.

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Laws take time to catch up...I think there are activists out there for apes to be better protected by law than, say, cows. If they're ancestors then they *is* us. No, not really.I could draw lots of lines though... and I think they'd sorta follow the nested hierarchy.I could put a line between other apes and animals, between other primates and other animals, between other mammals and other animals, between other vertibrates and other animals, etc.I don't find much of a moral distinction there though.

As I said, laws may be partly based on moral considerations and partly on other things. You can't evaluate the "collective moral outlook" of a society by looking at nothing but its laws. Read what I wrote. You haven't demonstrated that the difference is based on moral considerations.

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

Except perhaps to say that the more laws they have the less moral the society.Edited by jar, : fix subtitle

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

No, it doesn't. The question in the OP is:

quote:

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Meldinoor in Message 1:

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Do you believe there is a sharp moral distinction between the killing of one subset of animals and all other animals, and where do you place it?

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To 'detail the criteria upon which you personally accord different forms of life different moral status' is only necessary if you in some way answer 'yes' to the first part of that question.Several folk now have answered 'no', and so they are exempt from indicating the nature of a distinction they don't believe exists; which is why your jumping on them to 'detail the criteria upon which you personally accord different forms of life different moral status' is entirely inappropriate.Jon

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

I think you're missing the point...In lab animal research facilities, like the National Institute of Health for example, they do all kinds of terrible things to dogs and cats and monkeys, etc. The researchers there are not any different than regular people; they do not have any negetive effects from the lack of these "safe measures" that you've brought up.

It's a safe measure. Not everyone needs it to be safe; the net's only there for if you fall.JonEdited by Jon, : confusing wording

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

Hi, Straggler. My general moral view is that intentional killing should always be justified, and that every possible effort should be made to avoid accidental killing.I don't really like or want to kill things personally, so I guess that counts as assigning all things equal "moral worth" (except for arthropods, which I kill all the time in the name of science my PhD). Admittedly, this decision may be more about my squeamishness than about morality, but I'd like to think it's my moral stance.I also believe that a one of the duties that comes with life in a society is to live up to the standards set by the society. So, since the rules of society involve greater "moral worth" of humans, I feel that it's my moral obligation to assign greater "moral value" to humans than to animals.I honestly don't think I assign humans greater "moral value" based on a system of personal morality (though, in general, humans do rank quite high), but based on a system of societal expectations. But, even if I didn't have the societal expectations, I doubt I could be a murderer, because the thought of killing things---anything---is difficult for me to deal with because of my own fear of death.However, without the pressures of societal expectations, I could easily see myself as potentially selecting animals over humans in some situations based on rather superficial reasons. I'm not particularly proud of that, but I could legitimately see myself making that sort of decision.

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

True. The less internalized people's morality is, the more they depend on outside sources to tell them what's right and wrong - and the more likely they are to make poor decisions in specific situations.

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

That's just stupid.The point is that people *are* falling and they don't need the net, so it seems that the net isn't doing anything at all!

Huh? How are those scientists falling? Are they killing babies in their cribs? Do they beat their wives; wait at bus stops and snipe off random people?They aren't falling at all; that is why they ignore the net.JonEdited by Jon, : clarity

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

Then why are you ask me about monkey meat?I answered everything you asked me in the post. C'mon! Kentucky Fried Monkey and not even a chuckle? pfftttt I would think my criteria is limited to things I can see and interact with, I give these species more consideration than a bacteria or a fly. I've interacted with all of those animals you mention, I guess that kinda gives us a bond that I can see being equal to bonds I make with a human.I guess my criteria would be anything I can make a human bond with. And monkey meat!- Oni