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Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA
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.
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I understand it's the consequence, specifically the consequences for the animal by which you rate how an action scales morally. By now, I guess it's clear that I don't agree .. If I applied your views very strictly, that would mean a lot of the people I know and like a lot rate about as high morally as sadists who revel in torturing animals. Yet they don't! It seems quite unfair to me.
Generally speaking, consequence to me is usually just part of what makes an action morally good or bad. I wouldn't want someone who kills someone by accident (bumped'em down the stairs) to get punished as harshly as someone who murdered with intention, even if the consequences - death - are the same.
edit :
I should add that while I read what you write, I have trouble believing your view wouldn't conflict with your emotions.
As an example, let's say you're in the english countryside and witness two scenarios. In the first, you see a man with a rifle shoot a hare, killing it instantly. In the second, you see a man slowly torturing a hare to death while clearly getting enjoyment from it's suffering.
I believe you would find both acts morally wrong, but I believe the second one would disgust you more. I think you'd think much less of the sadist. Now, of course it's possible that you do your best to follow morale by rationale and logic rather than emotions and that's allowed of course, but if that as well as my assumptions about how you'd react are true, then I think you should at least admit that what your intellect thinks of morale and what your feelings feel about morale might come in conflict.