Thanks for the input. I’ve actually had debates like this before, too.
But fundamentally I still disagree with you and I don’t see the similarities as superficial. People have been treated by the Nazis like animals in this industrial killing process. And they’ve actually been “harvested”. Not sure in how much detail I should go, but at least in some extermination camps the Nazis collected various human Organs, like their hair, their skin, their nails and also all the possessions they’ve had.
Regarding your argument of animals as protein and generally placing them as an inferior other that has been historically treated as such, you seem to tap into some fallacies. It is never good to base an argument solely on traditional practices. Because then what else has been practiced for thousands of years? Abuse, wars, enslavement and a lot of other very horrendous stuff. Also, isn’t this the whole point of discussing how animals should be treated in the first place? That it is ethically wrong. And you seemingly draw a mental line that you don’t want to cross, so you refer to traditional practices. But this is exactly how many people justify sexism, racism to themselves. Women shouldn’t vote because they’re brain isn’t capable of it, or biological races exist and thus some people are inferior are similar to animals can’t comprehend what’s going on and it is therefore ethically acceptable to treat them badly.
I was confused at first, why you kept referring to how bad you think of killing animals. But apparently that’s were you’ve decided to draw the line for yourself. That what we do to animals is killing them and nothing else. I would argue, that the killing is actually a result of structural devaluation of animals that encompasses so much more than just the killing part. And now I could go into critique of capitalism and intersectionality. How people that are made to be powerless cogs in this system seek to have at least some power over others. And how this then breeds all kinds of discriminations, abuse, etc. Also against animals. Or how our understanding of the world is very much informed by false dualities that place woman against man, savage people against the civilized white man, inferior animal against superior human, nature vs culture. (Or have a look at Edward Said’s Orientalism, making a similar analysis for oriental against civilized west.) In short, all of this is about power. I would argue that exploitation of animals surely stems from a need for resources but that in our current world it is very much about power as well.
I also disagree that animals aren’t sapient. Like, how would you define sapience in the first place? Continued studies over the last decades have shown that animals are pretty much capable of everything we thought would be limited to humans. And we constantly keep searching for the next distinction how animals are fundamentally different from humans, and we keep failing! So no, I don’t see a fundamental difference in animals vs humans. Again, this is a false duality. We are animals!
Thanks for the input. I’ve actually had debates like this before, too.
But fundamentally I still disagree with you and I don’t see the similarities as superficial. People have been treated by the Nazis like animals in this industrial killing process. And they’ve actually been “harvested”. Not sure in how much detail I should go, but at least in some extermination camps the Nazis collected various human Organs, like their hair, their skin, their nails and also all the possessions they’ve had.
Regarding your argument of animals as protein and generally placing them as an inferior other that has been historically treated as such, you seem to tap into some fallacies. It is never good to base an argument solely on traditional practices. Because then what else has been practiced for thousands of years? Abuse, wars, enslavement and a lot of other very horrendous stuff. Also, isn’t this the whole point of discussing how animals should be treated in the first place? That it is ethically wrong. And you seemingly draw a mental line that you don’t want to cross, so you refer to traditional practices. But this is exactly how many people justify sexism, racism to themselves. Women shouldn’t vote because they’re brain isn’t capable of it, or biological races exist and thus some people are inferior are similar to animals can’t comprehend what’s going on and it is therefore ethically acceptable to treat them badly.
I was confused at first, why you kept referring to how bad you think of killing animals. But apparently that’s were you’ve decided to draw the line for yourself. That what we do to animals is killing them and nothing else. I would argue, that the killing is actually a result of structural devaluation of animals that encompasses so much more than just the killing part. And now I could go into critique of capitalism and intersectionality. How people that are made to be powerless cogs in this system seek to have at least some power over others. And how this then breeds all kinds of discriminations, abuse, etc. Also against animals. Or how our understanding of the world is very much informed by false dualities that place woman against man, savage people against the civilized white man, inferior animal against superior human, nature vs culture. (Or have a look at Edward Said’s Orientalism, making a similar analysis for oriental against civilized west.) In short, all of this is about power. I would argue that exploitation of animals surely stems from a need for resources but that in our current world it is very much about power as well.
I also disagree that animals aren’t sapient. Like, how would you define sapience in the first place? Continued studies over the last decades have shown that animals are pretty much capable of everything we thought would be limited to humans. And we constantly keep searching for the next distinction how animals are fundamentally different from humans, and we keep failing! So no, I don’t see a fundamental difference in animals vs humans. Again, this is a false duality. We are animals!