Throw in a bit about how happy they are singing in the fields, and that pretty much WAS the argument.FelixG said:
I'm actually not. This nuance seems to escape a lot of people, but whatever.Buretsu said:
Is it immoral to keep pets?
- Thread starter JoJo
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So some aliens take me from my current life, then spend an immense portion of THEIRS feeding me, washing me, taking me out on walks, playing with me, doting over me, keeping me healthy, taking me to parks where I get to make friends other humans, and giving me a massage because I've decided to lie on their lap?
Yeah, that sounds like a bad life. *rolls eyes*
In all seriousness, animals don't have the complex cognitive functions that humans do. On the whole, they're thick. This isn't to say they don't have any emotion, but they process it in a different way to humans. You can't 'upset' a dog, for instance.
For evidence, watch the dog whisperer. It's an entertaining enough show, and the animal psychology they talk about is quite interesting. To summarise it: "Dogs are happiest when they are being dominated by a pack leader".
Also, as mentioned in my sarcastic hypothetical, animals live in freakin' luxury. In the wild, there are only two real sensations that an animal will feel - fear and hunger.
Yeah, that sounds like a bad life. *rolls eyes*
In all seriousness, animals don't have the complex cognitive functions that humans do. On the whole, they're thick. This isn't to say they don't have any emotion, but they process it in a different way to humans. You can't 'upset' a dog, for instance.
For evidence, watch the dog whisperer. It's an entertaining enough show, and the animal psychology they talk about is quite interesting. To summarise it: "Dogs are happiest when they are being dominated by a pack leader".
Also, as mentioned in my sarcastic hypothetical, animals live in freakin' luxury. In the wild, there are only two real sensations that an animal will feel - fear and hunger.
Wow, I don't even know how to respond to this paragraph because it starts out telling people that their stance on this morality subject was poorly thought out and ends with comparing an act of compassion and companionship to murder. You even pointed out that it's a logical extreme which means you should also know that it's a logical fallacy that should never be used to support your argument.Vegan_Doodler said:
Well I don't know what I can say that hasn't been said in this thread before, but animals are not like us. They don't have our cognitive ability, and for all intents and purposes (and in very inaccurate non-biological terms) are stupider than we are. While your argument might hold some limited ground for some species (non of which come to memory at the moment unfortunately), it certainly does not apply to common house pets. That said (and this is coming as another university level student of biology), if you are really interested in what they are feeling there are ways to figure that out. There are a variety of experiments that you can run to figure out what exactly is going on, but I'm almost positive (like 99%) that your results wouldn't be contradictory to what people have been saying here.JoJo said:
It's only immoral if you don't provide all the love and care they deserve. I'm talking about you, people who neglect their pets.
Look at my avatar. Do you think he would do very well in the wilderness? No. We keep our pets safe, some of them keep us safe (not mine, obviously). We keep each other company. It's a win-win situation.
My cat is sort of an odd duck. Like so many other animals around here, he must've been a dump case, left behind when a family moved or something. So he had a good taste of 'freedom'.
If that's preferable, then I ask, why did this little bundle of fur and claws invite itself into my apartment? I'd gone outside for a minute and he followed me in, despite my best efforts to shoo him away. He's been here ever since; even though I'm on an extremely fixed income, I've still bought him food, litter, box, toys, treats... I think this cat knew what he was doing. He's been repaying the kindness in purrs and snuggles ever since.
Or I'm just really well-trained now. *lol*
If it's the more ethical choice to let animals run free, then you've never seen the packs of strays around here, skinny and, more often than not, mean. You haven't seen a stray cat darting under a fence with one eye crusted closed due to infection. And if it's so horrible to 'own' a pet and they should all be left to run free, then tell that to the little kid who just lost their best dog friend, too.
I'm not going to argue on the subject of what animals think; I'm not one of those animals, so I really couldn't say. But I will say that my cat seems content to steal my seat and chill on the chair, even if the door's wide open.
If that's preferable, then I ask, why did this little bundle of fur and claws invite itself into my apartment? I'd gone outside for a minute and he followed me in, despite my best efforts to shoo him away. He's been here ever since; even though I'm on an extremely fixed income, I've still bought him food, litter, box, toys, treats... I think this cat knew what he was doing. He's been repaying the kindness in purrs and snuggles ever since.
Or I'm just really well-trained now. *lol*
If it's the more ethical choice to let animals run free, then you've never seen the packs of strays around here, skinny and, more often than not, mean. You haven't seen a stray cat darting under a fence with one eye crusted closed due to infection. And if it's so horrible to 'own' a pet and they should all be left to run free, then tell that to the little kid who just lost their best dog friend, too.
I'm not going to argue on the subject of what animals think; I'm not one of those animals, so I really couldn't say. But I will say that my cat seems content to steal my seat and chill on the chair, even if the door's wide open.
When cats rub against people they're marking them, you belong to it nowZack Alklazaris said:
[/quote]Haha yeah that would explain his presents next to the door.
Actually many people still have outdoor cats. They can disappear for weeks and come back perfectly healthy so I do believe cats would have a better chance than dogs if we suddenly disappeared. Dogs on the other hand have pretty much evolved around us and most are incapable of supporting themselves. I had one dog that ran off to chase something, never did figure out what.trty00 said:
Anyway he was gone for 3 days and when we finally found him he was beyond starving and injured.
They are evolved to the point that they are near dependent on humans, if they are in the wild some would survive but the majority would die. (could you imagine a sausage dog surviving in the wilderness?)
In fairness, as pets they have a longer, happier life.
In fairness, as pets they have a longer, happier life.
I really didn't mean mean it like that, I should have made my self more clear, I apologise.Orekoya said:
I didn't mean that people hadn't thought about it, I just meant that it seemed like the responses where knee jerk, I'm not saying they are, it just seems like that to me. Again I'm probably wrong, I was just asking if people could give it a little more thought.
I wasn't comparing pet keeping to murder, I was trying to show the flaw in the statement, "...if you have a pet you'll have more of an insight into the morality of pet-keeping than if you do not...". Because if someone thought something was immoral then they wouldn't do it. There is also a difference between a 'logical extreme' and a 'logical fallacy'. Fallacy is a flaw in the argument, where as a logical extreme is applying an idea to an extreme situation to see if it holds up, that's all I did.
I didn't mean to offend, I was just voicing my opinion.
I think there's a fine line between an appropriate pet and an inappropriate one. Higher mammals have been shown to have simple emotions and to understand things such as empathy and equality. Any organism capable of these should only be kept as pets if they are unable to live among their own i.e. rescue animals, captive bred etc.
The majority of household pets, lower mammals, reptiles, fish, all function primarily using their instincts, and thus we might reasonably assume that living with humans is a good deal safer, more healthy and fulfilling than living in the wild.
The majority of household pets, lower mammals, reptiles, fish, all function primarily using their instincts, and thus we might reasonably assume that living with humans is a good deal safer, more healthy and fulfilling than living in the wild.
I think this thread was a great idea. The guy knew that he wouldn't be able to use the internet until September so he intentionally made a thread that would make a lot of people, myself included, upset. I am actually kind of impressed at his craftiness. It's almost as if he never left.
Except there are things you cannot know without experience, like childbirth. As a man, my knowledge of it is incomplete and thus I am not an authority to speak on the subject matter. Companionship, compassion and love would be other things I would say you cannot know without experience. Also I was referring to the logical fallacy of appealing to extremes where one erroneously attempts to make a reasonable argument into an absurd one, by taking the argument to the extremes. Of course "logical fallacy of appealing to extremes" is wordy so some refer to it under its sibling fallacy of "slippery slope" or just call it as a logical extreme after the hypothesis testing method of the said name.Vegan_Doodler said:
I guess that is where we disagree then, when it comes to something like childbirth I don't have all the information, so yes, I lack some variables to understand that fully, but I only accept something if it can be applied to all similarly structured situations at the same time.Orekoya said:
Allowed to have an opinion on pet keeping > Must own a pet
Allowed to have an opinion on killing > Must have killed
The only thing that has changed is the variables, the core concept stays the same.
The thing is though everyone dose this all the time, we can look at a posted or trailer for a film or a game and because we have seen all the individual elements before we just know weather or not we will like it, now someone who has never seen a particular film can't really judge the quality of the film but they can still tell if its for them. E.G. I haven't seen the last four Harry Potter films because I know I wouldn't like them but I do also accept that means I don't have all the individual variables to say weather or not it is objectively a good film.
My point is if someone thinks that keeping a pet is immoral then they wont keep a pet to see if its immoral.
As for the statement, "Also I was referring to the logical fallacy of appealing to extremes where one erroneously attempts to make a reasonable argument into an absurd one, by taking the argument to the extremes."
I don't really know how to argue against this because apart form the "erroneously" and "reasonable argument" it's true, using extremes is a way of showing the flaws in any argument, not just ones that are perceived as reasonable. The best example I can think of is Schroedinger's cat.
Also for the record, in my original post I actually say I'm not against pet keeping as such just the fact that we're in this situation now, and I have actually owned pets so unlike Harry Potter I do have the variables for this particular situation.