RE: Animal Slavery
March 26, 2014 at 5:09 pm
(This post was last modified: March 26, 2014 at 5:11 pm by bennyboy.)
Pet animals are a special case. They've been bred so long to BE pets, that to allow them to exist in any other capacity would represent a horrific violation of contract: "YOU will have your evolution controlled by us, WE will cuddle and feed you and take care of you in every way that we can imagine, since we've destroyed the natural viability of your species." You can't take a miniature poodle and set him "free." That would be retarded.
The same goes for large-uddered milk cows: they'd surely be unviable in nature because of the phenotypes we've imposed on them through selective breeding. Or pigs-- I don't think if you turned domesticated pigs loose in nature that they'd be anything but a snack for wolves or other natural predators.
That being said, the forced EXISTENCE of millions of animals in poor living conditions-- food animals whose lives are spent in enclosed spaces and then shortened by slaughter, for example-- is morally wrong in my opinion. One of the arguments for abortion is that it's wrong to bring a child into the world if you already know it is doomed to have a horrible life. I don't see any non-anthropocentric and -arbitrary reason why this same standard of preknowledge of suffering shouldn't mean we should not force the existence of those animals.
The same goes for large-uddered milk cows: they'd surely be unviable in nature because of the phenotypes we've imposed on them through selective breeding. Or pigs-- I don't think if you turned domesticated pigs loose in nature that they'd be anything but a snack for wolves or other natural predators.
That being said, the forced EXISTENCE of millions of animals in poor living conditions-- food animals whose lives are spent in enclosed spaces and then shortened by slaughter, for example-- is morally wrong in my opinion. One of the arguments for abortion is that it's wrong to bring a child into the world if you already know it is doomed to have a horrible life. I don't see any non-anthropocentric and -arbitrary reason why this same standard of preknowledge of suffering shouldn't mean we should not force the existence of those animals.
