Quote:
Originally Posted by tore
I think killing for fun or food as both being simply to "increase human pleasure" is a generalization which simplifies too much and hides what I think are important moral considerations. To me, if someone does it for a reason like the thrill of the hunt or the satisfaction of being able to provide for oneself, I can't morally consider those the same as doing it out of a sadistic pleasure for pain and suffering. What people think and the motives behind their actions is important to me and also something I think you too readily ignore.
I think the average member of a jury would agree!
|
I agree I am simplifying the situation, Tore, since people who kill for food *and* pleasure do get food (in addition to the psychological pleasure of eating it). Yet to me killing an animal for "the thrill of the hunt" is not morally *very* different from killing an animal out of "sadistic pleasure for pain and suffering."
I feel that people who kill animals to provide for themselves or to enjoy the hunt as sport (by which I mean pure fun, whether or not they eat some of the animal...and most hunters do eat part of their "harvest") are ignoring or minimizing the significance of the fact that they *are* intentionally causing (unnecessary) pain and suffering for that animal they are killing.
When someone hurts and kills an animal intentionally (though she could have stopped herself from killing it if she had wanted to), apologizing or feeling some regret may make the person feel better, but it doesn't help that animal being killed one iota. So, this is one reason people's motives (rationalizations) for killing an animal (whether for sport or unnecessary food) don't seem so important to me.
I am more understanding of how people would make the choice to kill animals to survive when people don't have access to other foods (though I still don't think it makes killing the animals a *good* thing). But when the killing is not necessary for a person's survival, then killing animals for food seems like pure hedonism to me. I don't mind hedonism at all (I'm certainly hedonistic in many ways)...but I am troubled when it causes others to experience unnecessarily pain and suffering or an end to their lives.