Declawing Cats

[Shell B]

Thinking that your furniture is more important than claws to a cat is indeed barbaric and should be banned.
Neutering cats is also barbaric. I mean if somebody can't handle the scratching and can't handle the nasty pissing smell, then they should not have a cat as a pet.

Neutering isn't about the nasty piss smell. It's about overpopulation of cats, stray cats, feral cats, etc.

[Shell B]

Individual revulsion is not a basis for general moral principle.    Morality is not a laundry list of private squeamishnesses.

Then what is it that you think morality is? Do you think it's merely rules for the betterment of society and humans? Then, that's not morals. That's just laws.

[Anomalocaris]

We had no general fundamental moral position on animal cruelty.  If anything we thought it was morally good to modify animals to better suit our needs.    What many people had were not a moral position but laundry lists of ad hoc "thou shall not"s with respect to particular coddled animals, which they then frequently sought to impose on others.

Isn't that what all of "morality" is? As for the particular coddled animals part, I've already established that my argument is the hypocrisy is what needs to be corrected, not the fact that we're making it a criminal act to harm animals.

Tribal morality might be just a list of thou shall nots.   But in a complex society the basis of morality should be principles that can both be generally agreed to and not self-defeating in the sense that it relies on acquiesce of people who might come to strongly perceive their interests to lie else where.

[Shell B]

“People” who declaw cats should have their thumbs cut off.

Oh, but people are more important than cats, as are leather couches.

[Anomalocaris]

Individual revulsion is not a basis for general moral principle.    Morality is not a laundry list of private squeamishnesses.

Then what is it that you think morality is? Do you think it's merely rules for the betterment of society and humans? Then, that's not morals. That's just laws.

Individual morality might be different, but imposing individual morality on others is problematic.   Societal morality is just a cover for good laws.

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“People” who declaw cats should have their thumbs cut off.

Oh, but people are more important than cats, as are leather couches.

O h, they are.   Morality is a thing of people, if aspects of societal morality don't implicitly make people more important than other objects of morality, then that aspect of morality will gradually go away after a while when people take stock of their interests.

[Shell B]

Isn't that what all of "morality" is? As for the particular coddled animals part, I've already established that my argument is the hypocrisy is what needs to be corrected, not the fact that we're making it a criminal act to harm animals.

Tribal morality might be just a list of thou shall nots.   But in a complex society the basis of morality should be principles that can both be generally agreed to and not self-defeating in the sense that it relies on acquiesce of people who might come to strongly perceive their interests to lie else where.

So, it's acceptable to base our moral principles as a society on the feelings of yuppies toward their couches because their interests lie there? That's not how it works, and is why moral philosophy has long included the interests of animals and our duties toward them. I don't know where you get the idea that it hasn't been part of society and human morality in more than just the above-mentioned case-by-case scenario, but that's incorrect. As long as we've been pondering morality, we've been establishing our duty to animals. That being unnecessarily cruel to animals is morally wrong is as long held as the idea that you shouldn't kill someone.

[Shell B]

Then what is it that you think morality is? Do you think it's merely rules for the betterment of society and humans? Then, that's not morals. That's just laws.

Individual morality might be different, but imposing individual morality on others is problematic.   Societal morality is just a cover for good laws.

---

Oh, but people are more important than cats, as are leather couches.

O h, they are.   Morality is a thing of people, if aspects of societal morality don't implicitly make people more important than other objects of morality, then that aspect of morality will gradually go away after a while when people take stock of their interests.

Of course we're not more important. We just feel more important. In the grand scheme of all that is, you are probably devastatingly unimportant. It's okay. Everyone is, even the animals in our care. Still, we've made a deal that we'd establish societies and principles and we have to weed out the problems in them and correct them as a result.

[The Grand Nudger]

Focusing on the couch is framing. The damage to the couch is a loss to a human creature. Loss to creature is the basis of humane objections in the first place.

While I prefer cats with claws to undamaged furniture...I can’t categorically reject the motivation as baseless or obviously out of whack. We modify animals and ourselves for a whole host of reasons. Not destroying the furniture us one of them.

I could only say that I probably like cats more than people who declaw them, lol.

[Anomalocaris]

Tribal morality might be just a list of thou shall nots.   But in a complex society the basis of morality should be principles that can both be generally agreed to and not self-defeating in the sense that it relies on acquiesce of people who might come to strongly perceive their interests to lie else where.

So, it's acceptable to base our moral principles as a society on the feelings of yuppies toward their couches because their interests lie there? That's not how it works, and is why moral philosophy has long included the interests of animals and our duties toward them. I don't know where you get the idea that it hasn't been part of society and human morality in more than just the above-mentioned case-by-case scenario, but that's incorrect. As long as we've been pondering morality, we've been establishing our duty to animals. That being unnecessarily cruel to animals is morally wrong is as long held as the idea that you shouldn't kill someone.

Actually, yes.  Because they do value their couches more highly then their cat's claws, over the long run they will resent not being able to do what they think are appropriate to their cats to protect their couches.    No real generally accepted morality says non-human life or well-being, pet or not, has priority over property.  The value of animal life and the value of property is subject to contingent evaluation.   Only human life (in most cases), and not even well being,  has principled priority over property in our morality.




We've been trying and failing, because ultimately only those constraint on our behavior towards animals which plausibly benefit our society will stick.  Abstract notions of our duty to animals only create numerous one-off inconsistencies that degrade the overall legal system and generally don't progress significantly further in making prevention of cruelties towards animals some consistent moral foundation, because a general consistent  principle of prevention of all form of a treatment of animals that in the case of some animals might be considered cruel is too detrimental to our collective economic interests.    As more one-off inconsistencies are added to the legal structure, it makes the entire legal structure gradually less respected and less workable.

[WinterHold]

Thinking that your furniture is more important than claws to a cat is indeed barbaric and should be banned.
Neutering cats is also barbaric. I mean if somebody can't handle the scratching and can't handle the nasty pissing smell, then they should not have a cat as a pet.

Neutering isn't about the nasty piss smell. It's about overpopulation of cats, stray cats, feral cats, etc.

I know it's to stop the spraying. Never heard about the overpopulation; but it might be the right justification for some people to do this nasty thing.