måndag 3 juni 2013

Vegan reply: Does 'species have a drive to live' justify killing for food?

Stephanie,
Now I finally got to it to write a reply.

You wrote:
“All species have a drive to live. This is what keeps them alive. To equate this with some kind of evil is to destroy what keeps them alive. Both the chimps did the right thing because they did what chimps do.”

One of the chimpanzee participated in a behaviour to inflict harm upon another being. The other chimpanzee tried to stop the harm of taking place. I think the second chimpanzee did the morally right thing. We also have the drive to live. However, we are able to reach the moral understanding that it is wrong to kill another innocent sentient being in order to keep us alive - regardless of whether it is a human or nonhuman animal, e.g. to make an unprovoked attack of an innocent sentient being. Whether animals of other species can reach this moral understanding or not is an interesting question, but let us focus on us living an ethical lifestyle.

You wrote: “You have said that because humans have a conscience, that we are expected to do better than the animals do. That's fine. That would then mandate a standard for us, but does not mandate one for the animals, and we could not say that they are immoral/unethical.”

It was Hannah that wrote that.
Say that an animal of a species isn’t aware of how to live an ethical life. This wouldn’t change whether her actions are immoral or not. Most humans are morally unaware that it is unethical to kill other animals for food, just like I was until last autumn and most vegans were until they made the realizations which eventually caused them to become vegans. This doesn’t change that their action of hurting and killing another being is unethical.

Anyways, these are all interesting questions, but the most essential question is for us humans, how to live ethical lives, and to act upon our knowledge.
Is there any moral justification for any human to kill any other sentient being for food or clothing? Is there any moral justification for any human to use another animal as a resource (see the thoughts expressed in the following article)?
What do you think of the thoughts expressed in this article?:
http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/clarifying-the-meaning-of-a-right/#.Ua0Jb5xc18F

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