Production and sale of foie gras banned in CA by Arnold Schwarzenegger

[Bella]

The signing of a bill by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last week banning the production and sale of foie gras in California was a watershed moment in a protracted battle of culinary politics. [more from The New York Times...] (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/06/dining/06FOIE.html?oref=login)
Opinions? Gripes? Hoorays? I've seen videos of the feeding of these animals, and while it doesn't look particularly pleasant, the ducks and geese don't look like they're hurting, either. They come to the feeding station when it's time to eat and situate themselves for the long haul, and when the feeding is done they just waddle away, good as new. Or so it seems to me, anyway.

[Beth]

I personally support the ban. But I also only eat free range chicken or seafood. Preferably seafood because I think the meat industry is rather cruel.

[Socratoad]

It does seem like a politically soft target ......lets get the cheese-eaters, however I really cannot read Ahhnold's small mind, so I shall give him the benefit of the doubt.

So that said I support him on this bill, cuz anything that lessons cruelty is a good thing.

[viscousmemories]

I think it's a fascinating issue. I don't have a problem with killing animals, but I don't think they should be tortured and being forcefed until your liver is engorged sounds like torture. At the same time, I agree with the people that pointed out that these ducks don't seem to have it as bad as some cattle and poultry, and it's amazing that a Republican governor would set that kind of precedent given the power of the beef and poultry lobbies.

I also found it pretty amazing that there are only two foie gras developers in the US, and only one in California. Plus hmm... two famous actors on the side of the ducks against one civilian foie gras distributer, and the new actor-governor signs the bill. Coincidence?

Anyway the bill gives the guy 7 years to come up with a more humane way to produce the foie gras, and the dude seems perfectly willing to do just that, so... works for me. Then again I can't stand the stuff, so I might have a different opinion otherwise.

[LadyShea]

I would need to see the research on the conditions for the fowl. I fell for the anti-fur people's propoganda hook, line, and sinker for a long time. When I finally researched the fur industry, I did not find the deplorable and inhumane conditions I had been told about AT ALL. Have to wonder if this is the case here.

[viscousmemories]

I would need to see the research on the conditions for the fowl. I fell for the anti-fur people's propoganda hook, line, and sinker for a long time. When I finally researched the fur industry, I did not find the deplorable and inhumane conditions I had been told about AT ALL. Have to wonder if this is the case here.
Here's (http://www.hsus.org/ace/11507) the Humane Society's take on it. I've just started reading it so I'm not sure if it's persuasive data or not.

Edit: Okay yeah, that's severely fucked up. I support the ban.

In 1992, the HSUS sent a veterinarian to investigate a New York State foie gras producer, which resulted in a police raid and cruelty charges against the farm. Necropsies taken of the dead birds revealed many painful conditions: The force-fed birds had chronic heart disorders; ruptured liver cell membranes; cirrhosis; traumatic esophagitis; and lesions in their gizzards and intestines. Dead birds were found with food filling their esophagi and spilling out of their nostrils.

[LadyShea]

Yeah looks bad. Also seems as if there isn't any way to make the pate WITHOUT forced overfeeding (there are humane ways to treat other food animals, but looks like the whole point here is to get swollen livers). I also support the ban.

[livius drusus]

Another supporter here. You can pate from perfectly normal run of the mill chicken livers, so there's just no reason I can discern to accept the kinds of practices elencated by the Humane Society.

My mom make chicken liver pate all the time and it kicks ass. Sure, it's not as delicate and rich as foie gras, but it's damn tasty slathered on some champagne crackers and works just fine for me.

[Kamen]

I think one day I will write a book titled Confessions of a Veal Eater.

I eat Veal. I eat foie gras. I eat oysters. I can't afford fur, so I make do with skinning animals I adopt from the shelter under false pretenses (Cue Mr. Burns). I eat all kinds of things. Part of it is selfishness, but another is serious distaste for PETA and related hype. I read a fascinating article on PETA in the New Yorker about a year ago, and I admit it turned me off that organization. I have an instinctive dislike of organizations that attempt to anthropomorphize animals, and kick people straight into the emotional solar plexus. What will this ban achieve? Will 99% of cattle and poultry be better treated? Are they in fact poorly treated? I do not like people showing me a picture of a kitten blinded for experimental research, without knowing the purpose of the experimentation. I am unwilling to handicap scientists either by government or by animal rights activists, and I am unwilling to support minimal, feel good, and in large scale meaningless measures.

Now you might ask, where do we start and stop? I support supervision of the food industry, and I do not support vivisection. But reforms, if any, have to address real issues, not emotionally evocative ones.

This rant delivered to you courtesy of Sadists 'R Us.

PS Livius- Chicken pate is another of my grandmother's surviving recipes. Her secret? Cognac :D

[viscousmemories]

I have an instinctive dislike of organizations that attempt to anthropomorphize animals, and kick people straight into the emotional solar plexus.
I can understand that. I don't have any moral problem with breeding animals to kill and eat, and I'm not someone who believes that they need to be afforded a particularly high quality of life. But I personally draw the line at physical torture. Animals appear to have a very similar reaction to physical pain as I do, so I don't think it's necessary to anthropomorphize them in order for me to empathize. Here are the facts about foie gras production from the Humane Society. Not intended to provoke an emotional reaction necessarily, but to give you the facts of the process so you can decide for yourself if you want to support it:

The Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Welfare for the European Union found many examples of abuse as a result of force-feeding, including:

* Birds are routinely confined to small cages or crowded pens.

* Birds are force-fed tremendous amounts of feed via a 12- to 16-inch plastic or metal tube, which is shoved down their throats and attached to a pressurized pump.

* The force-feeding may be performed twice daily for up to two weeks for ducks and three to four times daily, for up to 28 days for geese.

* Force-feeding causes the liver to increase in size about 6-10 times compared to the normal size for a bird.

* Increased liver size forces the abdomen to expand, which makes moving difficult and painful. An enlarged abdomen increases the risk of damage to the stretched tissue of the lower part of the esophagus.

* Force-feeding results in accumulated scar tissue in the esophagus.

* The liver can be easily damaged by even minor trauma.

What will this ban achieve? Will 99% of cattle and poultry be better treated? Are they in fact poorly treated?
Actually this ban applies only to foie gras, and so will only impact ducks and geese. I can see how it might lead to broader legislation, though, which is why I'm surprised Arnold enacted it.

I do not like people showing me a picture of a kitten blinded for experimental research, without knowing the purpose of the experimentation. I am unwilling to handicap scientists either by government or by animal rights activists, and I am unwilling to support minimal, feel good, and in large scale meaningless measures.
I understand and completely agree with the first part, but the last part isn't so clear to me. Would you consider this measure minimal, feel good and in large scale meaningless because all it prevents is the torture of geese? It seems to me that torturing animals to produce a snack food is either morally defensible or not, and if not then any restriction of such torture is a positive thing.

Now you might ask, where do we start and stop? I support supervision of the food industry, and I do not support vivisection. But reforms, if any, have to address real issues, not emotionally evocative ones.
I think that's a false dichotomy. Which is to say I don't believe an issue has to be either real or emotionally evocative. The idea of force overfeeding geese to enlarge their livers to 6+ times the normal size with many painful and sometimes lethal effects is emotionally evocative to me, and because I think torturing animals to produce a snack food is immoral I consider it a real issue.

This rant delivered to you courtesy of Sadists 'R Us.
So what does that make me? :D

PS Livius- Chicken pate is another of my grandmother's surviving recipes. Her secret? Cognac :D
Oh and trying to win liv over to your viewpoint with a cooking tip isn't emotional blackmail? :P

[livius drusus]

I think one day I will write a book titled Confessions of a Veal Eater.

I eat Veal. I eat foie gras. I eat oysters. I can't afford fur, so I make do with skinning animals I adopt from the shelter under false pretenses (Cue Mr. Burns). I eat all kinds of things. Part of it is selfishness, but another is serious distaste for PETA and relate hype. I read a fascinating article on PETA in the New Yorker about a year ago, and I admit it turned me off that organization. I have an instinctive dislike of organization that attempt to anthropomorphize animals, and kick people straight into the emotional solar plexus.

What exactly does PETA have to do with the foie gras ban? I didn't see any references to them in the article, nor do I think that organizations like the ASPCA, HS, or Tufts' Center for Animals and Public Policy qualify as anthropomorphizing PETA-related hype.

What will this ban achieve?

Well, it protects Mr. Gonzalez from lawsuits first of all, but it seems to me that the best case scenario is finding a non cirrhosis-inducing way to enlarge them livers. Whether it will achieve that I can't say, but 7 years is a long time for ingenuity with strong incentives to flourish.

Will 99% of cattle and poultry be better treated?

If so, it won't be because of a ban on foie gras.

Are they in fact poorly treated?

Yes. In the case of poultry, I've seen it with my own two eyes, but in any case the viciousness of the meat and related industries is quite extensively documented. I don't just mean inhumane conditions for the animals, btw. I'd look up the footnotes in my copy of Fast Food Nation, but frankly, I have no idea why I'm still awake and I'm well aware it shows.

I do not like people showing me a picture of a kitten blinded for experimental research, without knowing the purpose of the experimentation. I am unwilling to handicap scientists either by government or by animal rights activists, and I am unwilling to support minimal, feel good, and in large scale meaningless measures.

How does your position on vivisection apply here? Do you mean that the foie gras ban is a minimal, feel good and large scale meaningless measure?

Now you might ask, where do we start and stop? I support supervision of the food industry, and I do not support vivisection. But reforms, if any, have to address real issues, not emotionally evocative ones.

You make an excellent point, but I guess I don't see how it's an either or issue. If those geese are treated as viciously as the Human Society research indicates, then that is a real issue even if the industry is miniscule compared to the industrial farming hell-holes.

This rant delivered to you courtesy of Sadists 'R Us.

Hey! Quit looking at my ferrets like that!

PS Livius- Chicken pate is another of my grandmother's surviving recipes. Her secret? Cognac :D

Mmm... That sounds delish. I'm not sure what my mom's secret is. Presenting me with the finished product, probably. :D

[Kamen]

Liv and VM, you both present interesting and valuable rebuttals to my somewhat off the cuff rant. I want to address them in full, but I am about to fall asleep. I will attempt to put together a semi coherent commentary tomorrow. It might not surprise you to hear we do not disagree too much. :cool:



Mmmm....ferretlicious....

[dave_a]

Don't know anything about the ban, but frankly I could care less about how farm animals are treated.

I think people are just silly sometimes getting concerned about such things.

Watch how these animals treat each other and then tell me that feeding them too much is "cruel".

Animals are some of the meanest, most "inhumane" things I can think of. I like to feed wild ducks. I don't feed them bread like everyone else because it is bad for them so I buy unmedicated chicken feed and give that to the ducks. This way the ducks get good nutrition and eat in a fairly civilized, orderly manner.

Reread the above paragraph if you think I dislike animals or support cruelty.

When I used to feed bread to the ducks I would always try to toss the bread to the babies because the adults wouldn't let them get any food. The adults would rip the bread right out of another duck's mouth if they could catch it. Injured ducks that were slow due to a broken leg would also have food taken before they could get to it.

These ducks are fairly polite to each other in comparison to how some other animals behave. Animals rape each other, even gay rape each other. Animals kill each other. Animals eat other animals and some species even eat their own. They don't clean kill first, they eat them while alive and feeling the pain.

Ever wonder how folks living on a farm can deal with slaughtering animals? It's because folks who live on farms grow up seeing how the animals treat each other and by way of comparison a quick slaughtering, a feed until you bloat up or an inject you with growth hormones existence is kind compared to the animal's natural life among it's peers. It isn't like the cute, adorable, gentle creatures you see locked behind bars or glass walls in the zoo, city folks.

I don't support the ban. It's simply a case of insisting that humans treat livestock animals like people. They aren't people. They are food.

I like eating them and don't really care how they are treated before they end up slaughtered, carved into pieces in the store and tossed onto my grill and then cut up with a knife, stabbed with my fork and chewed by my teeth.

Who is going to ban the live lobster displays in the grocery store next? Isn't that cruel crowding them together on display like that? Putting rubber bands on their claws? The bands are so the lobsters don't kill each other in a murderous frenzy in case you didn't know.

Animal rights, in my opinion, is simply a reflection of humans being so far divorced from the natural world that we don't really understand how nature works anymore. Never met a farmer/rancher animal rights activist. Just city folk who only see animals at the zoo take up that cause.

[livius drusus]

Mmmm....ferretlicious....

Hey, we don't descent them for nothing, if you know what I mean. :ferret:

[LadyShea]

I think one day I will write a book titled Confessions of a Veal Eater.

I eat Veal. I eat foie gras. I eat oysters. I can't afford fur, so I make do with skinning animals I adopt from the shelter under false pretenses (Cue Mr. Burns). I eat all kinds of things. Part of it is selfishness, but another is serious distaste for PETA and related hype. I read a fascinating article on PETA in the New Yorker about a year ago, and I admit it turned me off that organization.

I also eat veal, I don't care for foie fras or oysters but have eaten both. I wear fur (vintage furs are amazingly affordable but I have a few new pieces as well). I also hate PETA. But, from research and experience (grew up in Colorado, have seen people raise and slaughter pigs and cattle), I know that it is not necessary to torture my future food or fur prior to harvesting and am careful in my purchases. The only reason to do this is economic, so they can get an extra 40.00 tin of pate out of each goose or whatever. There is simply no need for it.

[viscousmemories]

Animal rights, in my opinion, is simply a reflection of humans being so far divorced from the natural world that we don't really understand how nature works anymore. Never met a farmer/rancher animal rights activist. Just city folk who only see animals at the zoo take up that cause.
You almost got me. I actually had a page long, point by point rebuttal typed up and ready to post before I realized you're just trolling. You gave yourself away by making the obviously ridiculous claim that you care so much about animals you buy unmedicated chicken feed to give wild ducks but it doesn't bother you at all that some ducks get tubes shoved down thier throat and forcefed until their liver expands to 8 times it's normal size.

[Farren]

I've yet to see the consistent torture of one animal by another animal stretching over days or weeks documented and yet to see it myself in nature. Nature without human intervention is not some vast teeming hell of unremitting cruelty.

Whether the meat industry produces a surfeit of animal rights campaigners or not is largely irrelevant to discussions about how animals are treated. If companies who mass manufacture sneakers denied the existence of Asian sweatshops, I wouldn't stop believing they exist.

Recognising that animals have sensations and feelings is "anthropomorphising them? Bullshit. It isn't "anthropomorphizing" creatures to recognise that they have a CNS and a brain and obviously feel pain in a similar fashion to us. Its common sense. Any arguments along these lines are as ridiculous as asserting that newborn babies can't suffer the way adults do. Such assertions are patently ridiculous.

Our embryonic development reflects our massive similarity and common heritage with other creatures, to the point of us having gills at one point. So I'm frankly flabbergasted by assertians that utility ("they're food") should be the sole criteria in our consideration of animals and ethics.

Its a cop-out. A way of writing off an area of ethical consideration simply because its convenient, not because its self-evidently unimportant.

Our criteria for ethical treatment of humans is similarity with them. Since we're evidently more similar in composition and behaviour to a cow or a duck than to a car or a light bulb, why shouldn't we accord them more respect and kindness?

[seebs]

And here I was thinking it'd be because the resulting food is clearly aimed at girly-men.

[Beth]

I grew up around farms. I went on tours of cattle farms, saw the little areas that the livestock were confined to. I have seen pig farms, I have seen the cruel living areas they, the pigs, were confined to. I have seen mite-infested poultry and the horrid conditions the chickens were confined to.

(My state has passed a law to force more humane treatment in pig farming but I am not sure about the laws for the rest of the meat industry in the state. )

I am not an animal rights activist because I am aware that I do buy beef and pork occasionally for my family to eat (I eat something else). I try to buy beef and pork and chicken from sources that I know the animals are raised ethically. Not only because I believe that we, as humans, should not contribute to the unnecessary misery of any creature, but also because I think that well cared for animals are healthier and their meat poses less of a health risk to my family.

The animals I buy that are allowed to live more freely and are usually fed better and are not subjected to unnecessary antibiotics and growth hormone. The food costs more and my family may eat less meat than the average American(or I hope they do), but that is cool, they get a correct portion size, or a little above it...but too much meat is not healthy anyway.

I like the ban, I think it may help change the laws in the meat industry in California, and hopefully it will spread accross the nation.

I am not a PETA person, I do wear leather, but no furs, as I think that in Florida there is no use to wear a fur, so I am aware that I would be a hypocrite if I advocated PETA-type stuff. I also think that animal research is invaluable to the betterment of mankind. (But I do think it serves no purpose to have a kitten blinded to test my hairspray or base make up)

The reason I do not eat beef or pork is because I grew up around these animals. I saw intelligence and kindness in them that made it increasingly difficult to eat them. I also grew up around chickens and saw how utterly stupid those birds were and felt less bad about eating them. I could easily snap a chicken's neck and pluck it and dress it for dinner, but I could not slaughter a cow or a pig. So, I suppose that I eat what I could kill in a non-starvation period.

Oh, I also eat oysters, raw, they are soooo yummy, but not always that healthy, but I have never eaten foie gras because I learned how it was produced when I was a child, due to some Mystery Theater program. I could never, with good conscience consume something so decadent because I know it was made out of the torture of a poor creature.

[dave_a]

Animal rights, in my opinion, is simply a reflection of humans being so far divorced from the natural world that we don't really understand how nature works anymore. Never met a farmer/rancher animal rights activist. Just city folk who only see animals at the zoo take up that cause.
You almost got me. I actually had a page long, point by point rebuttal typed up and ready to post before I realized you're just trolling. You gave yourself away by making the obviously ridiculous claim that you care so much about animals you buy unmedicated chicken feed to give wild ducks but it doesn't bother you at all that some ducks get tubes shoved down thier throat and forcefed until their liver expands to 8 times it's normal size.

Trolling? Overstating my position to get a reaction yes, but I dunno if that's really trolling. It is my actual position, just worded more strongly than I really feel about the subject.

I was completely truthful that I feed wild ducks unmedicated chicken feed. Unmedicated because ducks aren't susceptible to the array of diseases chickens are so I don't want to feed them inappropriate medications. And I don't do bread anymore after I learned how bad bread is for their health.

I live in a hunting state, but I don't hunt. I have no moral issues whatsoever with hunting, I simply don't want to be the one who pulls the trigger on 'bambi'.

So I am truthful when I say I don't wish to cause any harm to any creature.

I am also truthful when I say I don't care if a chicken is raised in a coop or free range or however. I don't care if an animal is forcefed. I don't care if a lab animal has stuff dumped in it's eyeball to test something.

I am absolutely against cruelty for the sake of cruelty, but I am not against cruelty that arises from utility.

Again, I look to nature for an idea of how wildlife treats itself and others. When the natural world routinely eats other things while they are alive, when momma birds routinely abandon their young who are a bit slow in learning to fly, when members of the same species will cause the starvation of others by using their superior speed or size to hoard all the food, when creatures violently rape each other etc. I just don't feel all that bad when humans use animals as food sources.

Sure, it would be nice if the animals were all raised in the Taj Mahal until their slaughter, but that isn't a requirement I wish to pay for when purchasing food.

To each their own.

[viscousmemories]

Trolling? Overstating my position to get a reaction yes, but I dunno if that's really trolling. It is my actual position, just worded more strongly than I really feel about the subject.
Yeah that's what I meant by trolling. As I was responding to the final chunk it occurred to me that too much of your rhetoric was blatantly inflammatory to make sense in a response to what you seem to consider a non-issue.

I was completely truthful that I feed wild ducks unmedicated chicken feed. Unmedicated because ducks aren't susceptible to the array of diseases chickens are so I don't want to feed them inappropriate medications. And I don't do bread anymore after I learned how bad bread is for their health.

I live in a hunting state, but I don't hunt. I have no moral issues whatsoever with hunting, I simply don't want to be the one who pulls the trigger on 'bambi'.

So I am truthful when I say I don't wish to cause any harm to any creature.
I didn't doubt the truth of your statement. I remember you mentioning on the gun thread that you don't hunt because you don't want to kill animals. I guess I just don't understand why you don't. I had previously thought it was empathy with them, but now you seem to be denying that you have any. So what bothers you about the idea of being the one to pull the trigger on 'bambi'?

I am also truthful when I say I don't care if a chicken is raised in a coop or free range or however. I don't care if an animal is forcefed. I don't care if a lab animal has stuff dumped in it's eyeball to test something.

I am absolutely against cruelty for the sake of cruelty, but I am not against cruelty that arises from utility.
So if a dog stepped in your path would you just give it a nice hard kick in the belly to get it out of the way? You'd probably only have to do that once or twice before it learned not to get in your way again, and that would be useful if you didn't want to have to go around or step over it in the future.

Again, I look to nature for an idea of how wildlife treats itself and others. When the natural world routinely eats other things while they are alive, when momma birds routinely abandon their young who are a bit slow in learning to fly, when members of the same species will cause the starvation of others by using their superior speed or size to hoard all the food, when creatures violently rape each other etc. I just don't feel all that bad when humans use animals as food sources.
Fortunately most humans are limited by a moral conscience and don't take their behavioral cues from wild animals. Otherwise rape, torture and murder would very likely be far more prevalent than they are.

Sure, it would be nice if the animals were all raised in the Taj Mahal until their slaughter, but that isn't a requirement I wish to pay for when purchasing food.
False dichotomy, of course. The opposite of "forcefeeding until your liver expands to 8 times it's size and sometimes explodes" is not "living in the Taj Mahal". Again if you have no moral problem with other people engaging in protracted animal torture to produce a snack food that's your prerogative. But don't pretend the only possible alternative is treating them like royalty.

To each their own.
Thank god for that.

[dave_a]

I didn't doubt the truth of your statement. I remember you mentioning on the gun thread that you don't hunt because you don't want to kill animals. I guess I just don't understand why you don't. I had previously thought it was empathy with them, but now you seem to be denying that you have any. So what bothers you about the idea of being the one to pull the trigger on 'bambi'?

I don't hunt because it would involve my killing animals which is something I don't wish to do. I fish, but very rarely do I keep/kill the fish I catch, I fish for the fun of it and buy my fish to eat in the store. I have no objections to killing/eating/mounting fish. I just don't like to be the one who ends the life. Take the case of deer as an example. Where I live there are always deer on the site of the road dead from getting hit by a car. I support hunting them because it thins their numbers and reduces accidents like this. When I went deer hunting as a kid I had a bambi in my sights, but just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger. I understood that it was fine to do and well justified, I just didn't want to be the one who ended it's life. So, I don't object to it, I just don't want to do it.

I am also truthful when I say I don't care if a chicken is raised in a coop or free range or however. I don't care if an animal is forcefed. I don't care if a lab animal has stuff dumped in it's eyeball to test something.

I am absolutely against cruelty for the sake of cruelty, but I am not against cruelty that arises from utility.

So if a dog stepped in your path would you just give it a nice hard kick in the belly to get it out of the way? You'd probably only have to do that once or twice before it learned not to get in your way again, and that would be useful if you didn't want to have to go around or step over it in the future.

No, I wouldn't kick the dog. And I would hold anyone who did in very low esteem.


Fortunately most humans are limited by a moral conscience and don't take their behavioral cues from wild animals. Otherwise rape, torture and murder would very likely be far more prevalent than they are.

Yes, but moral conscience is usually subjective, not objective and it varies widely from person to person. Folks who mentally equate a cow with the family dog are going to be much more concerned about the cow's treatment than the person who equates a cow with a hamburger or steak. Consider Beth's differentiation between chickens and other farm animals that appeared to display intelligence. The more one views one's food as akin to a companion animal/person the more concerned about it's treatment they tend to become. Other than PETA is anyone really concerned about how snails are treated before becoming food? They get taken out of a natural environment and fed copious amounts of grain by products so they taste better. This is somewhat similar to the force feeding issue. But who cares about snails? It's all relative and the moral conscience is no different. It's relative. What makes the snail less worthy of 'good' treatment than a cow? Nothing objective. What makes the chicken less worthy than a goat? Nothing objective.


False dichotomy, of course. The opposite of "forcefeeding until your liver expands to 8 times it's size and sometimes explodes" is not "living in the Taj Mahal". Again if you have no moral problem with other people engaging in protracted animal torture to produce a snack food that's your prerogative. But don't pretend the only possible alternative is treating them like royalty.

God I hate having logical error names tossed about. Anyway, my point is plain. I just don't care how food animals are treated prior to their being slaughtered and served. With a few exceptions most food animals have better lives than they would in the wild where they are eaten alive by predators and bullied by faster/stronger members of thier own kind.

Now, others may be very concerned and I think that's fine and dandy. Everyone is free to choose to pay a bit more for food that is raised in a manner their consciences feel better about.

I don't support the ban in question though because it removes the option of not paying more (or having to do without) from those who don't care and I don't see any logical reason for humans to give rights to food animals. The only sense in which regulating the food industry makes sense to me is in promoting food that is healthy for human consumption, not the well being of our food before we eat it.

It seems much more logically consistent for those who are opposed to how food animals are treated to stop eating meat. Then the animals won't be slaughtered at all. But to say slaughtering them is OK, but they have to be "treated nice" before the slaughter seems illogical to me.

That's my 2 cents anyway and as always the rest of the world is free to see things differently. I just wish the rest of the world would cease regulating things like this.

[Farren]

How do you feel about torturing newborn babies, dantonac? I mean, they can't communicate with us adults so any assumptions about there suffering is just adultomorphising them, isn't it? Also, they obviously don't have our intellectual capacity.

Wait, wait, I can guess at one of the possible responses in advance. "There's no utility in torturing them". So lets just imagine, for the sake of discussion, if there was some utility. Would it be cool? Is usefulness the sole criteria for vindicating cruelty?

[dave_a]

How do you feel about torturing newborn babies, dantonac? I mean, they can't communicate with us adults so any assumptions about there suffering is just adultomorphising them, isn't it? Also, they obviously don't have our intellectual capacity.

Lack of sensing pain and lack of intellectual capacity weren't the criteria I used in determining my comfort level in how food animals are treated.

Wait, wait, I can guess at one of the possible responses in advance. "There's no utility in torturing them". So lets just imagine, for the sake of discussion, if there was some utility. Would it be cool? Is usefulness the sole criteria for vindicating cruelty?

I don't consider using animals for their utility value to constitute cruelty. I don't consider it cruel when the lion bites and claws at it's prey to weaken it before going in for the kill. I don't consider it cruel when the snake injures a mouse and proceeds to swallow it whole while it still has some life left in it.

I don't consider it cruel for a human to stuff an animal full of food to increase the available food mass.

It's the way it is and I don't have any problem with the way it is.

As I noted others are free to feel differently. I do not, however, see the relevance of comparing livestock to babies. I mean if you are so against "torturing" babies then you must be anti abortion right? Cuz 2nd trimester abortions kill off living organisms that in many cases are able to sense the trauma.

So, you start supporting a ban on abortions of perfectly healthy fetuses and your equating livestock with humans might be consistent, otherwise I see no relevance, it rather seems like a contradiction in position.

[viscousmemories]

When I went deer hunting as a kid I had a bambi in my sights, but just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger. I understood that it was fine to do and well justified, I just didn't want to be the one who ended it's life. So, I don't object to it, I just don't want to do it.
Okay fair enough.

I am absolutely against cruelty for the sake of cruelty, but I am not against cruelty that arises from utility.
So if a dog stepped in your path would you just give it a nice hard kick in the belly to get it out of the way? You'd probably only have to do that once or twice before it learned not to get in your way again, and that would be useful if you didn't want to have to go around or step over it in the future.
No, I wouldn't kick the dog. And I would hold anyone who did in very low esteem.
Okay I suppose you wouldn't kick a dog that's in your way for the same reason you mentioned above: you wouldn't want to. But why would you hold anyone who did in very low esteem? What's wrong with kicking a dog out of your way?

Fortunately most humans are limited by a moral conscience and don't take their behavioral cues from wild animals. Otherwise rape, torture and murder would very likely be far more prevalent than they are.
Yes, but moral conscience is usually subjective, not objective and it varies widely from person to person. Folks who mentally equate a cow with the family dog are going to be much more concerned about the cow's treatment than the person who equates a cow with a hamburger or steak. Consider Beth's differentiation between chickens and other farm animals that appeared to display intelligence. The more one views one's food as akin to a companion animal/person the more concerned about it's treatment they tend to become.
My point was that getting your cues about what is and isn't appropriate in your treatment of animals from how animals treat each other fails, because we are guided by a moral conscience whereas animals are guided only by instinct.


Other than PETA is anyone really concerned about how snails are treated before becoming food? They get taken out of a natural environment and fed copious amounts of grain by products so they taste better. This is somewhat similar to the force feeding issue. But who cares about snails? It's all relative and the moral conscience is no different. It's relative. What makes the snail less worthy of 'good' treatment than a cow? Nothing objective. What makes the chicken less worthy than a goat? Nothing objective.
Of course this has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. This argument isn't about whether snails should be allowed to have their own condos, it is about whether the physical torture of ducks and geese in pursuit of a snack food is morally defensible. It has nothing to do with cows, chickens, or the price of tea in China.

False dichotomy, of course. The opposite of "forcefeeding until your liver expands to 8 times it's size and sometimes explodes" is not "living in the Taj Mahal". Again if you have no moral problem with other people engaging in protracted animal torture to produce a snack food that's your prerogative. But don't pretend the only possible alternative is treating them like royalty.
God I hate having logical error names tossed about.
Probably not as much as I hate it when people employ fallacious arguments.

Anyway, my point is plain. I just don't care how food animals are treated prior to their being slaughtered and served. With a few exceptions most food animals have better lives than they would in the wild where they are eaten alive by predators and bullied by faster/stronger members of thier own kind.
Your point has been far from plain to me. For one thing you have used the terms "animals", "farm animals", "food animals", and I think "wild animals" all pretty much interchangeably. So I'm not sure if your total lack of empathy is for all non-human animals or only those animals we traditionally eat. Of course until I know why you said you would hold someone in low esteem for kicking a dog I can't be sure.

Now, others may be very concerned and I think that's fine and dandy. Everyone is free to choose to pay a bit more for food that is raised in a manner their consciences feel better about.
Your patronizing rhetoric about how only a person raised in the city could possibly care about animal rights gave me a different impression of your opinion.

I don't support the ban in question though because it removes the option of not paying more (or having to do without) from those who don't care and I don't see any logical reason for humans to give rights to food animals. The only sense in which regulating the food industry makes sense to me is in promoting food that is healthy for human consumption, not the well being of our food before we eat it.
Fortunately you are in the minority with that viewpoint, and legislation prohibiting animal cruelty has become fairly widespread. But really in all fairness you should leave logic out of it if you're going to complain when I point out logical inconsistencies in your arguments.

It seems much more logically consistent for those who are opposed to how food animals are treated to stop eating meat. Then the animals won't be slaughtered at all. But to say slaughtering them is OK, but they have to be "treated nice" before the slaughter seems illogical to me.
It seems perfectly logically consistent to me to differentiate between killing animals for a primary food source and torturing them for a frivolous snack.

That's my 2 cents anyway and as always the rest of the world is free to see things differently. I just wish the rest of the world would cease regulating things like this.
And see things differently we do. But unless there is a pretty dramatic change in the political tides I wouldn't hold your breath for animal cruelty laws to be repealed. This legislation is another positive step in the direction of restricting unnecessary torture of animals, and I expect to see more in the future.

[dave_a]

Okay I suppose you wouldn't kick a dog that's in your way for the same reason you mentioned above: you wouldn't want to. But why would you hold anyone who did in very low esteem? What's wrong with kicking a dog out of your way?

If we are talking about a nudge, nothing. If we are talking about a damaging, painful kick I think it is cruel and since there is no reason to do it it informs me the individual in question is not a very compassionate person and likely has serious anger management issues..


My point was that getting your cues about what is and isn't appropriate in your treatment of animals from how animals treat each other fails, because we are guided by a moral conscience whereas animals are guided only by instinct.

In my view it doesn't matter whether animals are guided by a conscience or instinct. The point is the way animals treat each other is what I consider their existence to be like. If humans aren't treating animals worse than the way other animals and nature itself treats them then I don't see that mankind is really harming them. I don't believe humans have an obligation to treat animals better than how they would live in the wild.


Of course this has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. This argument isn't about whether snails should be allowed to have their own condos, it is about whether the physical torture of ducks and geese in pursuit of a snack food is morally defensible. It has nothing to do with cows, chickens, or the price of tea in China.

I do think it is relevant to the topic at hand. On what basis would you argue that the treatment of a duck or goose needs to be better than the treatment of a snail? Snails are ugly, ducks and geese can be cute. Both are non human lifeforms that as far as I know are capable of feeling pain or at least sensing distress. My point, and the reason I think the analogy is relevant is that there seems to be a tendency to hold some animals in higher esteem than others. Some might object to force feeding fowl, but not snails. Some might want good conditions for cows, pigs and goats, but not be at all bothered by a chicken being used as a football. I don't see any objective reason to have different standards for one type of creature over another.


Probably not as much as I hate it when people employ fallacious arguments.

My objection to the labels being thrown about is that it is usually used to dismiss an argument without even trying to understand it. Many times a logical fallacy is cited, it is not explained how the argument constitutes said fallacy and I don't see the argument as qualifying as such. So by citing the name of a fallacy without explaining how the argument constitutes said fallacy much of the time it simply reveals the argument was misunderstood.


Your point has been far from plain to me. For one thing you have used the terms "animals", "farm animals", "food animals", and I think "wild animals" all pretty much interchangeably. So I'm not sure if your total lack of empathy is for all non-human animals or only those animals we traditionally eat. Of course until I know why you said you would hold someone in low esteem for kicking a dog I can't be sure.

As I noted above I don't see how one type of animal differs from another in terms of acceptable treatment. The division lines are fairly arbitrary and totally subjective. I would not approve of someone eating a dog or cat, but in a culture where it is normal to do so I wouldn't object to it at all. I love eating cows, but some cultures consider that a big no-no. It's subjective, not objective.

So, I do believe dogs and cats or anything that is being used as a companion animal should be treated better than a food/farm/wild animal. Of course that is my subjective opinion, it's not based upon anything objective.

So in terms of animals intended to be used as food I don't understand/can't relate to a person who is fine with the animal being born and raised in captivity for the sole purpose of being slaughtered and used/sold as food, but objects to the fact that it doesn't have optimal living conditions or is pumped full of growth hormones or is force fed or whatever. Likewise I don't relate to one being OK with lesser treatment for whatever animal they personally don't much care for, but object to comparable treatment of an animal they personally are more fond of or have, in the past, had an emotional attachment to.


Your patronizing rhetoric about how only a person raised in the city could possibly care about animal rights gave me a different impression of your opinion.

That's not what I said. I said the further one is removed from nature the easier it is to lose sight of how nature treats those who live in it and to not be aware of how violent and downright cruel nature and animals are. When the only nature one is exposed to is a zoo or a family dog it can be impossible to understand how nasty birds whether they are geese, ducks or chickens can be and are. Even the dove, the symbol of peace, is a ruthlessly violent creature that can and sometimes does peck other doves to death over seemingly nothing. Same applies to other animals. You call it patronizing, but I call it reality. I have lived almost all of my life inbetween cities and rural farmland. There is a wide gulf that is easily observable between those raised in concrete jungles and those raised among animals/nature. It also seems to me that those who live in urban areas see fit to judge those in rural areas negatively and vice versa. It's simply a lack of understanding of the experiences/culture of the other.


Fortunately you are in the minority with that viewpoint,

Really?


It seems perfectly logically consistent to me to differentiate between killing animals for a primary food source and torturing them for a frivolous snack.

You are calling one a primary food source and the other a snack. This is an artificial distinction. You are also labelling as torture something that I doubt very much is being done sadisticly. I don't know, but I doubt the force feeding is particularly painful except in cases where it does go too far and results in organ damage. It's a tube down the throat with food then pumped in.


And see things differently we do. But unless there is a pretty dramatic change in the political tides I wouldn't hold your breath for animal cruelty laws to be repealed. This legislation is another positive step in the direction of restricting unnecessary torture of animals, and I expect to see more in the future.

Who is 'we'? I am not interested in repealing animal cruelty laws. Not most of them anyway. I do think it is stupid that in some states you can't kill your suffering, terminally ill pet, but you can take it to the humane society and have them do it. These types of laws I think it is completely fair to call city slicker laws because I can't think of any of my rural living friends who wouldn't shoot their dog at the end of it's life. In their view turning their pet over to a stranger at the end of it's life to experience that stress in it's last moments is what is cruel . Of course this just applies to dogs and cats, not livestock, nuisance animals or fish/reptiles/parrots. Those people can kill at home :wall:

So I would like to see a more uniform standard applied in such laws, but I have nothing against laws prohibitting animal cruelty. I just don't view force feeding a rat with wings as constituting a cruelty worthy of outlawing.

[viscousmemories]

Okay I suppose you wouldn't kick a dog that's in your way for the same reason you mentioned above: you wouldn't want to. But why would you hold anyone who did in very low esteem? What's wrong with kicking a dog out of your way?
If we are talking about a nudge, nothing. If we are talking about a damaging, painful kick I think it is cruel and since there is no reason to do it it informs me the individual in question is not a very compassionate person and likely has serious anger management issues.
I gave you two ways kicking the dog as hard as you can could be useful. It would get out of your way faster and be less likely to get in your way again. And you said "I am absolutely against cruelty for the sake of cruelty, but I am not against cruelty that arises from utility." So by your own reasoning there should be nothing wrong with kicking the dog.

My point was that getting your cues about what is and isn't appropriate in your treatment of animals from how animals treat each other fails, because we are guided by a moral conscience whereas animals are guided only by instinct.
In my view it doesn't matter whether animals are guided by a conscience or instinct. The point is the way animals treat each other is what I consider their existence to be like. If humans aren't treating animals worse than the way other animals and nature itself treats them then I don't see that mankind is really harming them. I don't believe humans have an obligation to treat animals better than how they would live in the wild.
Okay, yet you have provided no examples of ducks or geese abusing each other to anything near the extent that the human foie gras producers abuse them.

Of course this has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. This argument isn't about whether snails should be allowed to have their own condos, it is about whether the physical torture of ducks and geese in pursuit of a snack food is morally defensible. It has nothing to do with cows, chickens, or the price of tea in China.
I do think it is relevant to the topic at hand. On what basis would you argue that the treatment of a duck or goose needs to be better than the treatment of a snail? <snip off-topic content>
I have never made that argument, hence my insistence (still) that it is irrelevant.

Probably not as much as I hate it when people employ fallacious arguments.
My objection to the labels being thrown about is that it is usually used to dismiss an argument without even trying to understand it. Many times a logical fallacy is cited, it is not explained how the argument constitutes said fallacy and I don't see the argument as qualifying as such. So by citing the name of a fallacy without explaining how the argument constitutes said fallacy much of the time it simply reveals the argument was misunderstood.
Yeah I hate that too, which is why I almost always explain exactly what I mean when I accuse someone of fallacious argumentation, exactly as I did in this case. I didn't just say "false dichotomy" and leave it at that. I explained exactly what I meant. Here it is again:

False dichotomy, of course. The opposite of "forcefeeding until your liver expands to 8 times it's size and sometimes explodes" is not "living in the Taj Mahal". Again if you have no moral problem with other people engaging in protracted animal torture to produce a snack food that's your prerogative. But don't pretend the only possible alternative is treating them like royalty.

Your point has been far from plain to me. For one thing you have used the terms "animals", "farm animals", "food animals", and I think "wild animals" all pretty much interchangeably. So I'm not sure if your total lack of empathy is for all non-human animals or only those animals we traditionally eat. Of course until I know why you said you would hold someone in low esteem for kicking a dog I can't be sure.
As I noted above I don't see how one type of animal differs from another in terms of acceptable treatment. The division lines are fairly arbitrary and totally subjective. I would not approve of someone eating a dog or cat, but in a culture where it is normal to do so I wouldn't object to it at all. I love eating cows, but some cultures consider that a big no-no. It's subjective, not objective.

So, I do believe dogs and cats or anything that is being used as a companion animal should be treated better than a food/farm/wild animal. Of course that is my subjective opinion, it's not based upon anything objective.
I find that really bizarre. I don't believe in an objective morality, but my morals aren't dictated by society. I believe it's wrong to rape little girls, for example, and I would continue to believe it's wrong to rape little girls even if I was visiting a culture where it is perfectly acceptable to rape little girls. Do you have no moral standards that are your own, or do you make all your determinations about right and wrong based on the environment you're in?

Your patronizing rhetoric about how only a person raised in the city could possibly care about animal rights gave me a different impression of your opinion.
That's not what I said. I said the further one is removed from nature the easier it is to lose sight of how nature treats those who live in it and to not be aware of how violent and downright cruel nature and animals are. When the only nature one is exposed to is a zoo or a family dog it can be impossible to understand how nasty birds whether they are geese, ducks or chickens can be and are. Even the dove, the symbol of peace, is a ruthlessly violent creature that can and sometimes does peck other doves to death over seemingly nothing. Same applies to other animals. You call it patronizing, but I call it reality. I have lived almost all of my life inbetween cities and rural farmland. There is a wide gulf that is easily observable between those raised in concrete jungles and those raised among animals/nature. It also seems to me that those who live in urban areas see fit to judge those in rural areas negatively and vice versa. It's simply a lack of understanding of the experiences/culture of the other.
And I consider this clarification "patronizing rhetoric - the extended re-mix". I experience pain, animals experience pain, I empathize with animals and prefer to avoid causing them unnecessary pain. Where I grew up doesn't have a damn thing to do with any facet of that.

Fortunately you are in the minority with that viewpoint,
Really?
Well I can't say for sure, but it appears so. Laws against animal cruelty seem to be on the rise, so it seems unlikely that a majority of people share your opinion that they should not be given any rights.

It seems perfectly logically consistent to me to differentiate between killing animals for a primary food source and torturing them for a frivolous snack.
You are calling one a primary food source and the other a snack. This is an artificial distinction.
What is an "artificial distinction"? Obviously more people use beef and poultry as primary food sources than pate fois gras. I don't know where I would begin to find the data to prove that point, but I wouldn't think I should have to.

You are also labelling as torture something that I doubt very much is being done sadisticly.
Intent has nothing to do with it. Deliberately inflicting pain is torture.

I don't know, but I doubt the force feeding is particularly painful except in cases where it does go too far and results in organ damage. It's a tube down the throat with food then pumped in.
Then you haven't read the information from the Humane Society that I not only linked to early on, but the key points of which I posted in this thread. Or do you not believe the study? Organ damage is the whole point of the process, and protracted pain is a very probable outcome of it.

And see things differently we do. But unless there is a pretty dramatic change in the political tides I wouldn't hold your breath for animal cruelty laws to be repealed. This legislation is another positive step in the direction of restricting unnecessary torture of animals, and I expect to see more in the future.
Who is 'we'? I am not interested in repealing animal cruelty laws. Not most of them anyway. <snip>

So I would like to see a more uniform standard applied in such laws, but I have nothing against laws prohibitting animal cruelty. I just don't view force feeding a rat with wings as constituting a cruelty worthy of outlawing.
I think it's ironic that you have repeatedly brought up people making arbitrary distinctions between favored animals that deserve special treatment and non-favored animals that don't (a point that I'll remind you again I never remotely approached) yet you very clearly make those distinctions yourself. Ducks and geese are just "rats with wings" that don't deserve consideration, but it's morally unacceptable to kick dogs here in America, 'cause dogs are our friends. But you'd eat a dog if you were in a country where it's cool to do so. Honestly dantonac I am not a step closer to finding a strand of consistency in your position here. I'll probably just leave it here, though. We seem to be just going round and round now.

[dave_a]

I think it's ironic that you have repeatedly brought up people making arbitrary distinctions between favored animals that deserve special treatment and non-favored animals that don't (a point that I'll remind you again I never remotely approached) yet you very clearly make those distinctions yourself. Ducks and geese are just "rats with wings" that don't deserve consideration, but it's morally unacceptable to kick dogs here in America, 'cause dogs are our friends. But you'd eat a dog if you were in a country where it's cool to do so. Honestly dantonac I am not a step closer to finding a strand of consistency in your position here. I'll probably just leave it here, though. We seem to be just going round and round now.

Yup, that's exactly what we are doing, going round and round. I guess we will just shut down all the producers in the US and just import it from France.

Favored animals and other animals do exist in people's minds. You brought up kicking dogs for a reason. Dogs hold an elevated place in our society. In some others they don't. You asked if my morality was relative on this issue. No, I don't think it is. My position is that animals have no rights other than what humans choose to extend them. While I do think a person who intentionally mistreats an animal (any animal) for kicks has some serious issues, I don't think the animal has any rights to demand better treatment. I am OK with banning cruelty for the sake of cruelty (for the most part) because it gives law enforcement a means of dealing with sickos. A person who inflicts pain on any living thing for no reason other than to inflict pain is a sicko in my mind.

So, here we hold dogs in high esteem. I share that opinion. I couldn't eat a dog and if I found a person in the US who was eating dogs I would have problems with that. If I were in a country where eating dogs was common I would not have a problem with those folks eating dogs although I might turn down a dinner invitation.

Does this make my morality relative? No, animals have no rights. In the US I would have issues with eating dogs because it is abnormal here and if I found someone eating dogs I would have to wonder what the hell was wrong with them. In a country where it is normal I wouldn't find it any more right or wrong than eating a hamburger made from cow here.

So, going back to the duck/goose thing I don't view those critters as having any rights other than what humans choose to give them. I called them flying rats. That might cause you to think I don't like rats. Until recently when they died from old age I had 2 rats that I thought were great pets for my 5 year old (he got them when he was 3). I have a lot of respect for rats. I wouldn't have been mean to those rats because I assigned them a high status as 'pet'. Now, if I had wild rats in my house I wouldn't hesitate to put down poison and I have no objections whatsoever to using rats in scientific experiments. A rat is a rat is a rat, it's only how I, as a human, value them that determines how they will be treated.

So, I wish to have them as pets, someone else considers them a nuisance rodent and poisons them and someone else considers them test subjects. Same rat, just different valuations from humans.

Ok, so again returning to the geese/ducks with huge livers. I don't mind that someone uses the animals this way to produce a food item. I wouldn't ever do such a thing to a bird, but I am not doing it. For me ducks and geese are creatures to be feed at the park for fun. To my hunting friend they are things to be hunted, shot and grilled. To some others they (particularly the geese) are nuisance animals that crap all over the place and are to be gotten rid of by any means possible and to yet someone else they are something to be fed lots of carbs to get big livers. I don't have a problem with any of these views because animals have no rights other than what we assign them and it is my opinion that banning the production of pate fois gras is silly. In my view the 'abuse' or 'torture' doesn't rise to a level where I believe any laws are necessary. Now, if someone came up with a game where geese were used like footballs for kicks and that was banned I would be OK with it. I view food production as being legitimate, just kicking a bird around for fun I do not. It's cruelty for the sake of cruelty vs a legitimate purpose that may seem cruel. Peta folks think owning a pet is cruel. It's a subjective valuation.

Anyway, the one thing that has come out of this is I now have something new to try. I have never had the stuff and am now curious as to what it is like although if it tastes anything like any other liver product I have had it will be nasty.

[Corona688]

I'm for the ban. I'm an unrepentant meat-eater, but that goes way too far. It's pretty hard to not consider that torture.

[dave_a]

I'm for the ban. I'm an unrepentant meat-eater, but that goes way too far.

In what way does it go "way" too far?

[Corona688]

I'm for the ban. I'm an unrepentant meat-eater, but that goes way too far.

In what way does it go "way" too far? It goes way too far in that I don't think "it makes them taste better" is a good reason to torture geese in this fashion. My standards for the living conditions of food animals aren't that exacting, but this is the kind of thing nightmares are made of.

It's a value judgement, but the line must be drawn somewhere if we have any consideration for their living conditions at all. And let's face it, we can probably live without pate foie gras.

[dave_a]

It goes way too far in that I don't think "it makes them taste better" is a good reason to torture geese in this fashion. My standards for the living conditions of food animals aren't that exacting, but this is the kind of thing nightmares are made of.

It's a value judgement, but the line must be drawn somewhere if we have any consideration for their living conditions at all. And let's face it, we can probably live without pate foie gras.

I know I can certainly live without it, I have come this far without ever eating it. And I have no problem relating to the comments you and others have stated about the force feeding issue being a bit more than you can accept.

I don't share the view, but I certainly can understand it.

Just for kicks I asked a couple coworkers who live rurally, one on a semi working farm if they supported the ban and they both said no. They both have dogs and one has a dog and a cat and they are very good to them.

I asked other coworkers who live in the city what they thought and they supported the ban. Pure ancedotal evidence, but it reinforces, for me, my previous belief that the further removed one becomes from the actual process of obtaining meat food, the more likely one is to support the ban.

[viscousmemories]

It goes way too far in that I don't think "it makes them taste better" is a good reason to torture geese in this fashion. My standards for the living conditions of food animals aren't that exacting, but this is the kind of thing nightmares are made of.

It's a value judgement, but the line must be drawn somewhere if we have any consideration for their living conditions at all. And let's face it, we can probably live without pate foie gras.

I know I can certainly live without it, I have come this far without ever eating it. And I have no problem relating to the comments you and others have stated about the force feeding issue being a bit more than you can accept.

I don't share the view, but I certainly can understand it.

Just for kicks I asked a couple coworkers who live rurally, one on a semi working farm if they supported the ban and they both said no. They both have dogs and one has a dog and a cat and they are very good to them.

I asked other coworkers who live in the city what they thought and they supported the ban. Pure ancedotal evidence, but it reinforces, for me, my previous belief that the further removed one becomes from the actual process of obtaining meat food, the more likely one is to support the ban.

Just out of curiosity had they heard of the ban, or did they get the details about it from you? Because frankly I don't think you understand or appreciate the issue fully, so if you were their only source of information I doubt they were able to get a full view of it themselves.

Specifically, you keep referring to it as a "force feeding issue" as though it's the feeding itself that some of us find inhumane, when in fact it is the physical torture that results from the force feeding. In particular:

* Force-feeding causes the liver to increase in size about 6-10 times compared to the normal size for a bird.

* Increased liver size forces the abdomen to expand, which makes moving difficult and painful. An enlarged abdomen increases the risk of damage to the stretched tissue of the lower part of the esophagus.

* Force-feeding results in accumulated scar tissue in the esophagus.

* The liver can be easily damaged by even minor trauma.

Contrary to your insinuations I am not someone who believes that food animals deserve a cushy quality of life. I could personally not care much less if they are raised in cages or on the range, for example. However in my opinion inflicting this degree of physical trauma on an animal in an effort to produce an expensive, unhealthy snack food is unjustified cruelty, and unlike you, I oppose all unjustified animal cruelty.

[dave_a]

Just out of curiosity had they heard of the ban, or did they get the details about it from you? Because frankly I don't think you understand or appreciate the issue fully, so if you were their only source of information I doubt they were able to get a full view of it themselves.

Of the rural folks one had heard of the ban, the other had not, but both know *exactly* how it is produced. In the town I live in we have an "Octagon House" which has historical significance (it had central heating and air conditioning as well as running water 150 years ago). On the same property we also have the first kindergarden in the US. There are also historical/cultural exhibits. One of those exhibits is a stuffed goose and model livers, one normal size and one enlarged along with a textual description of how the pate is made. This kind of activity goes way back and it isn't something that people here are particularly ignorant of. I am not saying everyone in the state knows about this intimately or anything, but we are a rural state with a few large cities. (medium compared to really large cities). The agrigarian/livestock raising culture is still the predominant way of life here outside of Milwaukee and Madison.

Specifically, you keep referring to it as a "force feeding issue" as though it's the feeding itself that some of us find inhumane, when in fact it is the physical torture that results from the force feeding. In particular:


I know the effects on the bird.

Contrary to your insinuations I am not someone who believes that food animals deserve a cushy quality of life. I could personally not care much less if they are raised in cages or on the range, for example. However in my opinion inflicting this degree of physical trauma on an animal in an effort to produce an expensive, unhealthy snack food is unjustified cruelty, and unlike you, I oppose all unjustified animal cruelty.

I understand your position. I am not telling you that your opinion is wrong. I am telling you that our opinions differ. I am also telling you that you are subjectively drawing a line between acceptable and unacceptable as am I. We just draw the line in different places and my opinion which is backed up by my ancedotal evidence (and yes, I understand that isn't worth a whole lot) is that a trend exists and it probably is useful as a predictor of whether one views the ban as good|bad|indifferent.

I don't mean that those who have been born and raised in a large metropolis and have never experienced rural living are in any way inferior to those who are from small towns. Just that the environments are quite different and the environment is a fairly decent predictor of attitudes.

Take gun control which we discussed previously. From where I sit I just shake my head at the entire idea of gun control. Feingold, our Democratic Senator (and the only Senator to oppose the patriot act), emphatically swears he is pro 2nd amendment and was not in favor of extending the assault weapon ban. Go into Milwaukee (where the murders happen) or to Madison and you will find a lot of support for gun control. Leave those 2 cities and people will just look at you like you are a space alien if you tell them you think they should have any limitations like waiting periods.

Different cultural/experiential backgrounds.

Having lived in the inbetween zone most of my life I can see the differences pretty plainly. I can understand *why* the rural folks have the attitudes they do and I can understand why the urban folks have the attitudes they do. On this particular issue I share more of the rural attitude, but understand yours.

And no, I don't think 100% of rural people would be against the ban nor 100% of urban people for it. Not even close. I do, however, believe there is a trend that influences where one chooses to draw this subjectively placed line between acceptable and nonacceptable treatment of food animals (animals intended to be used as food).

[Bella]

Do you buy free-range chickens over regular old IGA chicken because you want your meat to have run around in the sunshine a bit before its head gets chopped off? Do you buy wild Atlantic salmon because the little fishies got a chance to swim upstream before becoming dinner? If you do, that's great. If not, that's OK too. What I do care about is having a choice between the two extremes.

For example, if a great majority of people were outraged at the way cattle were treated prior to slaughter and therefore stopped purchasing all meats which were raised in this manner, you'd bet the producers of such products would do something about it. The fact that this hasn't happened yet is because currently, people are not willing to A) purchase organic, free-range, non-hormone-injected beef at triple the cost of 'regular' meat or B) go meatless until the cattle are treated better. We just don't care enough about the cows to fork out extra money or go without a hamburger. So for now, it's either bgh or grass-fed Bessie - offering a choice to the consumer.

If you're pissed about how foie gras is raised, don't buy it. Simple as that. If everyone cares so much, then a boycott will eventually shut down the industry. I don't think that the government needs to be telling us what types of foodstuffs we should or shouldn't be purchasing if they're not going to be consistant across the board.

[Beth]

Bree, I understand, but this enters into the realm of animal torture, there are animal cruelty laws. I do know that a chicken farmer, although he is allowed to keep them caged, can face severe penalties or jail sentencing if the conditions are cruel and neglectful.

Animal torture should not be tolerated by the law, even if the end product is desired by people.

[viscousmemories]

I understand your position. I am not telling you that your opinion is wrong. I am telling you that our opinions differ. I am also telling you that you are subjectively drawing a line between acceptable and unacceptable as am I. We just draw the line in different places and my opinion which is backed up by my ancedotal evidence (and yes, I understand that isn't worth a whole lot) is that a trend exists and it probably is useful as a predictor of whether one views the ban as good|bad|indifferent.
I would say the same, but with one minor difference. I am saying your opinion is wrong. I'm not saying you're an evil person or anything, but since I believe that torturing ducks and geese in the production of an unhealthy snack food is immoral, I can't just agree to disagree on the subject.

You have said in no uncertain terms that you believe "food animals" should be granted no rights, and as such that you do not consider torturing them in the production of foie gras immoral. I believe they should be given rights - specifically the right to not be physically tortured during their lifetime - and in that context I believe that torturing them is immoral.

Again I'm not saying that therefore anyone who produces, eats or buys foie gras is an evil person. I'm just saying that I can not personally condone what I consider an immoral process and I am in no way opposed to legislation that requires development of more humane production methods.

[livius drusus]

Do you buy free-range chickens over regular old IGA chicken because you want your meat to have run around in the sunshine a bit before its head gets chopped off? Do you buy wild Atlantic salmon because the little fishies got a chance to swim upstream before becoming dinner?

:deepsigh: I'm pretty sick of people minimizing their discursive opponents' points of view with exaggerated rhetoric like "run around in the sunshine a bit" or "little fishies got a chance to swim upstream". That's a caricature, Bree, and if anyone here had actually made any such arguments, you would have had something to quote instead of having to rely on strawmen of your own invention.


What I do care about is having a choice between the two extremes.

The state has every right to reduce your options if any one of them is deemed to be unacceptable for any number of reasons. There are many things you don't get to do. If the state of California determines that certain business practices are too harsh to countenance, then you can choose to leave the state, or do your shopping elsewhere, or even break the law.

For example, if a great majority of people were outraged at the way cattle were treated prior to slaughter and therefore stopped purchasing all meats which were raised in this manner, you'd bet the producers of such products would do something about it. The fact that this hasn't happened yet is because currently, people are not willing to A) purchase organic, free-range, non-hormone-injected beef at triple the cost of 'regular' meat or B) go meatless until the cattle are treated better. We just don't care enough about the cows to fork out extra money or go without a hamburger. So for now, it's either bgh or grass-fed Bessie - offering a choice to the consumer.

The supply and demand argument doesn't fly. Corporations can't sell crack nomatter how much consumer demand for it there is. They can't employ 9 year olds on assembly lines or build factories without fire escapes. They can't let beef carcasses wallow in their own feces. Regulations on industry exist to limit damaging practices because otherwise the "market" would allow everything under the sun in the name of increased profit.

If you're pissed about how foie gras is raised, don't buy it. Simple as that. If everyone cares so much, then a boycott will eventually shut down the industry.

People have more than one avenue to effectuate social change. Boycotts and protests are two options. Petitioning the government is another. If it weren't for public opinion swaying government to institute new regulations, we'd still have the slaughterhouse practices in place that Upton Sinclair described in The Jungle a hundred years ago.

I don't think that the government needs to be telling us what types of foodstuffs we should or shouldn't be purchasing if they're not going to be consistant across the board.

Restaurants don't have to pay their waitstaff minimum wage. Does that mean we should just do away with it because some industries or small businesses or home-based companies are exempt?

Besides, state regulations aren't inconsistent just because they don't match federal ones. In the case of industry farming, state regs would be meaningless. The only reason the foie gras ban has teeth is because there's just the one guy in California doing his thing, and he gets 7 years to figure out how to do it without crossing the line into animal cruelty.

Is that line arbitrary? Sure. So is the age of consent. That doesn't mean the state doesn't have a perfectly fair interest in establishing on which side of the line any given practice finds itself.

[Corona688]

In my view it doesn't matter whether animals are guided by a conscience or instinct. The point is the way animals treat each other is what I consider their existence to be like. If humans aren't treating animals worse than the way other animals and nature itself treats them then I don't see that mankind is really harming them. I don't believe humans have an obligation to treat animals better than how they would live in the wild. That's the naturalistic fallacy to a tee. Just because that's 'natural' doesn't mean it's the way we have to do things. Pate foie gras certainly isn't natural, anyway.I do think it is relevant to the topic at hand. On what basis would you argue that the treatment of a duck or goose needs to be better than the treatment of a snail? Snails are ugly, ducks and geese can be cute. Both are non human lifeforms that as far as I know are capable of feeling pain or at least sensing distress. Geese are just SLIGHTLY more aware than snails, don't you think?My point, and the reason I think the analogy is relevant is that there seems to be a tendency to hold some animals in higher esteem than others. Some might object to force feeding fowl, but not snails. Allow me to be the first to point out that they are not the same. Some might want good conditions for cows, pigs and cats, but not be at all bothered by a chicken being used as a football. That is the reason we have laws about stuff like this. I don't see any objective reason to have different standards for one type of creature over another. Snails and geese are not the same thing. Geese are a lot more aware.As I noted above I don't see how one type of animal differs from another in terms of acceptable treatment. The division lines are fairly arbitrary and totally subjective. I would not approve of someone eating a dog or cat, but in a culture where it is normal to do so I wouldn't object to it at all. I love eating cows, but some cultures consider that a big no-no. It's subjective, not objective. I think it has more to do with the relationship with the creature. Stewed rabbit would be an unusual thing for me to eat, but I could do it. But stew a pet of mine and I'd be quite upset.So in terms of animals intended to be used as food I don't understand/can't relate to a person who is fine with the animal being born and raised in captivity for the sole purpose of being slaughtered and used/sold as food, but objects to the fact that it doesn't have optimal living conditions or is pumped full of growth hormones or is force fed or whatever. I'm noticing a trend. You lump a lot of things together, but they're not the same - only related. There is a qualiative, but huge difference between not raising ducks free range and force-feeding them until their organs are distended. Even if this happened in nature, which it does not, it is not something that is necessary to do even if we must have duck liver.Likewise I don't relate to one being OK with lesser treatment for whatever animal they personally don't much care for, but object to comparable treatment of an animal they personally are more fond of or have, in the past, had an emotional attachment to. Didn't you just say you support the idea of treating pets better than food animals? This sounds like a flip-flop but I'm probably just not understanding you here.the further one is removed from nature the easier it is to lose sight of how nature treats those who live in it and to not be aware of how violent and downright cruel nature and animals are. When the only nature one is exposed to is a zoo or a family dog it can be impossible to understand how nasty birds whether they are geese, ducks or chickens can be and are. Even the dove, the symbol of peace, is a ruthlessly violent creature that can and sometimes does peck other doves to death over seemingly nothing. Same applies to other animals. These animals do not define human society. The human animal does. And the issue is not how nasty these animals are, but whether we should be allowed to torture them.It seems perfectly logically consistent to me to differentiate between killing animals for a primary food source and torturing them for a frivolous snack.You are calling one a primary food source and the other a snack. This is an artificial distinction. No, they are not the same. Related, but not the same. The same food source, duck liver, can be obtained more efficiently without forcefeeding; this makes pate foie gras purely a luxury item. Qualiative differences can be relevant, and tossing them out the window does not make them cease to exist.You are also labelling as torture something that I doubt very much is being done sadisticly. I don't think it matters whether it's sadistic or not.I don't know, but I doubt the force feeding is particularly painful except in cases where it does go too far and results in organ damage. The whole point of forcefeeding them is to damage their organs, since one organ in particular tastes better that way.So I would like to see a more uniform standard applied in such laws, but I have nothing against laws prohibitting animal cruelty. I just don't view force feeding a rat with wings as constituting a cruelty worthy of outlawing. Personally, I'd have the same objections to rat foie gras. And probably more besides.

[Bella]

I'm pretty sick of people minimizing their discursive opponents' points of view with exaggerated rhetoric like "run around in the sunshine a bit" or "little fishies got a chance to swim upstream". That's a caricature, Bree, and if anyone here had actually made any such arguments, you would have had something to quote instead of having to rely on strawmen of your own invention.
The fact that I had to "minimize ... discursive opponents' points of view with exaggerated rhetoric like "run around in the sunshine a bit" or "little fishies got a chance to swim upstream" is for the exact reason you stated: no one in the thread made such claims, and I never said they did. Those are my words. Perhaps I should have said it this way: I think it's a ridiculous to use animal rights as the sole yardstick used when making a food purchase. In my opinion, the quality of the end product should be the primary deciding factor. Often times this corresponds with more "humane" treatment of the meat (although the FDA claims organic items do not taste or look different from their mass-produced counterparts) but sometimes it does not.

From the looks of the thread, it is obvious that people do not agree on what constitutes "animal torture" (and please note that I haven't given my opinion, so don't go assuming how I stand). IMO, in order for the government - state, federal, whatever - to make such a law sensibly, they need to have a working definition of what 'torture' and 'inhumane' really mean. My usage of "exaggerated rhetoric" in my previous post was an attempt to illustrate how people look at the same situation in entirely different ways and how difficult it is to decide on a good definition.

For example: I think that a chicken bred, raised, and slaughtered in the traditional manner is in no way inhumane. Some people - in fact, many people - would argue that the traditional ways are cruel to the animal. I was shopping at my local co-op and the butcher's assistant was waxing poetic about how salmon need to swim upstream because the freedom means the fish is uninhibited and therefore is less cruel to the animal. Apparently a lot of people feel this way because they're paying $21.99/lb for this fish. I personally think it's bullshit. You can even go further and believe that consuming any animal product - including honey - is exploitation and therefore cruel to the bees. It's all a matter of perspective. This law, I feel, was made with regard to only one industry. None of the other meat industries were examined for inhumanity to the animals or cruelty or torture. Shouldn't everything have been examined equally?

The bottom line for me is this: I don't want the government telling me that traditional versus organic or "humane" methods are either better or worse for me, morally or bodily. I want to make my own choice based on factors that I personally find important.

Corporations can't sell crack no matter how much consumer demand for it there is. They can't employ 9 year olds on assembly lines or build factories without fire escapes.
I'm very sorry liv, but to me there is a huge difference between the government regulating child labour and the production of foie gras. I can see where you were going with the parallel but I think it is too extreme.

[viscousmemories]

Ironically, it seems the Humane Farming Association (http://www.hfa.org) and various other animal rights groups initially supported this bill, but switched to opposing it. Apparently the original bill would have banned the production and distribution of foie gras in California immediately, and would not have affected an existing civil suit against the sole manufacturer in California.

The amended bill (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1501-1550/sb_1520_bill_20040929_chaptered.html), however (the one Arnie signed) dismisses the existing civil litigation and protects the manufacturer from any other criminal or civil litigation until 2012, at which time the 'ban' will take effect only if a more humane process hasn't been discovered. In other words, the passing of this bill makes California the first State in the country to explicitly legalize foie gras production using the current force feeding method, at least through 2012.

So it seems that we've all been arguing the wrong sides of this thing. According to the HFA if you oppose duck torture you should oppose this legislation.

[dave_a]

People have more than one avenue to effectuate social change. Boycotts and protests are two options. Petitioning the government is another. If it weren't for public opinion swaying government to institute new regulations, we'd still have the slaughterhouse practices in place that Sinclaire Lewis described in The Jungle a hundred years ago.

As far as I know the role of governments is to regulate human behavior for the best interests of humans. We are talking about animals whose only purpose in existing is for human consumption. These animals are bred and born into captivity and every ounce of food they eat is to make their meat more marketable. The way they are housed is for efficiency and to lower our cost. Its a hard cold reality and a ban like this only serves to make people feel like they are more 'humane' while really they are just moral busibodies.

I am with Bree that voting with your dollar is the only control anyone should have over such matters. We aren't dealing with humans, we are dealing with geese. Animals that we routinely hunt, shoot, raise for food and otherwise use for whatever purpose we wish. They are utilitarian animals that we treat as such. Any attempt to ascribe rights to them becomes immediately hypocritical due to it's selectiveness and arbitrariness.


Is that line arbitrary? Sure. So is the age of consent. That doesn't mean the state doesn't have a perfectly fair interest in establishing on which side of the line any given practice finds itself.

When the animal kingdom establishes a government with a constitution your argument will hold more water than it does now. Why not just ban mowing lawns since it results in the cruel decapitation of the grass? Yes, that would be incredibly stupid. That's the point. I trust when you walk you are always on the lookout for bugs and if you accidently step on one and injure it you always go back and mercy kill it rather than let it suffer in agony, right?

They are damn geese, liv, and they are raised for food, period.

[dave_a]

amended bill (http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1501-1550/sb_1520_bill_20040929_chaptered.html), however (the one Arnie signed) dismisses the existing civil litigation and protects the manufacturer from any other criminal or civil litigation until 2012, at which time the 'ban' will take effect only if a more humane process hasn't been discovered. In other words, the passing of this bill makes California the first State in the country to explicitly legalize foie gras production using the current force feeding method, at least through 2012.

So it seems that we've all been arguing the wrong sides of this thing. According to the HFA if you oppose duck torture you should oppose this legislation.

Sweet. Sorry to gloat.

[livius drusus]

The fact that I had to "minimize ... discursive opponents' points of view with exaggerated rhetoric like "run around in the sunshine a bit" or "little fishies got a chance to swim upstream" is for the exact reason you stated: no one in the thread made such claims, and I never said they did. Those are my words.

Your OP asked for our opinions. It is customary to respond to those opinions in order to further discussion, so it's hardly surprising that I or anyone else might see your only other post in this thread besides the OP as a caricature of our contributions. If you were simply responding to your butcher's assistant's opinion then perhaps you could have said as much.

Perhaps I should have said it this way: I think it's a ridiculous to use animal rights as the sole yardstick used when making a food purchase.

Oh? I don't recall you saying any such thing. You said it was ridiculous for the government to limit your purchasing choices, not for people to make their own choices based on whatever yardstick they prefer. In fact, you specifically said that was fine with you.

In any case, what makes you say animal rights is the sole yardstick anyone uses when making a food purchase? I buy organic and animal rights is only one of many reasons: the damage factory farming does to the environment, its disgusting and shockingly dangerous labour practices, avoiding chemicals/preservatives/synthetic processes, an attempt to even approximate the quality of the food I was raised on in Italy, just to name a few.

IMO, in order for the government - state, federal, whatever - to make such a law sensibly, they need to have a working definition of what 'torture' and 'inhumane' really mean. My usage of "exaggerated rhetoric" in my previous post was an attempt to illustrate how people look at the same situation in entirely different ways and how difficult it is to decide on a good definition.

Well, with all due respect, that subtext was hardly clear as day especially since you never once mentioned anything about working definitions of torture and inhumane treatment in that post. Having said that, animal cruelty statutes vary, of course, but I betcha every one of them includes a definition of terms. Have you read any of them?

For example: I think that a chicken bred, raised, and slaughtered in the traditional manner is in no way inhumane. Some people - in fact, many people - would argue that the traditional ways are cruel to the animal.

Speaking of definitions, just what exactly is the traditional manner of slaughter? Factory farming methods hardly strike me as traditional.

I was shopping at my local co-op and the butcher's assistant was waxing poetic about how salmon need to swim upstream because the freedom means the fish is uninhibited and therefore is less cruel to the animal. Apparently a lot of people feel this way because they're paying $21.99/lb for this fish.

Did you by any chance actually ask the person if that was his/her sole reason for buying wild salmon? I see no reason to assume that is the case. Having said that, the main reason I avoid farmed salmon is an easy one: I'm not a big fan of carcinogens (http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/01/08/salmon.pollution.ap/).

This law, I feel, was made with regard to only one industry.

This law, as it turns out, seems to have been made to save that industry from pending lawsuits and criminal charges, so the rest of your argument turns out to be rather moot in this context.

None of the other meat industries were examined for inhumanity to the animals or cruelty or torture. Shouldn't everything have been examined equally?

I don't see why. Different governments have different priorities, powers, consituencies. Why should California pass laws about midwest slaughterhouses?

Now, if you're talking about the federal governement, hell yes they should examine all meat industry practices for cruetly and torture. They should also examine them for OSHA violations, for purity, for illegal labour sources, for waste disposal procedures and the plethora of other ways factory farms piss on the spirit and letter of the law. Once they've done that, then they should raise the bar even further.

The bottom line for me is this: I don't want the government telling me that traditional versus organic or "humane" methods are either better or worse for me, morally or bodily. I want to make my own choice based on factors that I personally find important.

Again, I have no idea what you mean by traditional. When you say that, I think Slow Food Movement (http://www.slowfood.com/), but obviously that's not what you mean because you seem to think current meat industry practices are "traditional" while small farming organic practices are, what? Novel? Cutting edge?

I'm very sorry liv, but to me there is a huge difference between the government regulating child labour and the production of foie gras. I can see where you were going with the parallel but I think it is too extreme.

I didn't equate the two. Your claim was the government shouldn't have regulatory power. You did not qualify that in any way. I pointed out that the government has that power for reason (ie, the common welfare) and raised child labour and crack slinging as other examples of how that dynamic works.

[viscousmemories]

Its a hard cold reality and a ban like this only serves to make people feel like they are more 'humane' while really they are just moral busibodies.
That's a funny way to put it. 'Humane' is, by definition, "showing kindness, compassion and mercy". I've noticed that throughout the few debates you and I have had where talk of animal rights comes up you like to tell stories that cast you in a humane light (i.e. feeding special birdseed to ducks, not "killing Bambi", etc.) and yet you don't appear to have any real compassion for animals. On the contrary you think they should have no rights at all, and there should be no laws against torturing them. For those of us who disagree and believe that animals deserve the right not to be tortured, it only makes sense to seek legislation that restricts the behavior. Saying we're "moral busybodies" is just empty rhetoric. The whole point of passing laws is to meddle in the affairs of others to prevent them from acting in an way that the majority of the community agrees is immoral.

Animals that we routinely hunt, shoot, raise for food and otherwise use for whatever purpose we wish. They are utilitarian animals that we treat as such. Any attempt to ascribe rights to them becomes immediately hypocritical due to it's selectiveness and arbitrariness.
How about this: All animals have the right not to suffer systematic, protracted physical torture for any reason.

Nothing selective or arbitrary about that. Are you against it?

[Socratoad]

How about we just start with the concept of empathy, and then try to apply same to all sentient life as much as possible considering that not everyone everywhere even has the option of being a vegetarian. As the Toad sees it since the dawn of history most of the world's problems can directly be traced to lack of empathy. Empathy does not end with your immediate family, tribal group, nation or even species. Empathy is empathy and should be the foremost consideration when interacting with all forms of life and everything that nourishes and supports life on this planet. That is my concept of a civilized society.

So sayeth the Toad

[Farren]

Its a hard cold reality and a ban like this only serves to make people feel like they are more 'humane' while really they are just moral busibodies.
That's a funny way to put it. 'Humane' is, by definition, "showing kindness, compassion and mercy". I've noticed that throughout the few debates you and I have had where talk of animal rights comes up you like to tell stories that cast you in a humane light (i.e. feeding special birdseed to ducks, not "killing Bambi", etc.) and yet you don't appear to have any real compassion for animals. On the contrary you think they should have no rights at all, and there should be no laws against torturing them. For those of us who disagree and believe that animals deserve the right not to be tortured, it only makes sense to seek legislation that restricts the behavior. Saying we're "moral busybodies" is just empty rhetoric. The whole point of passing laws is to meddle in the affairs of others to prevent them from acting in an way that the majority of the community agrees is immoral.


I agree wholeheartedly with the spiriit of vm's point, although I recognise the problematic nature of appealing to consensus at the end.

Dantonac, I thnk you're a fine person so don't take this as a condemnation of everything you stand for, but I feel your entire position on this issue is a big, fat cop-out.

It smacks of the kind of thinking young earth creationists engage in. You've got a foregone conclusion that vindicates your ability to eat whatever the hell you want with an untroubled conscience and builds a case that will arrive at that conclusion.

Having previously gone down this road with you (IIRC, on IIDB) I'm firmly convinced that you've built an edifice of ideas around the conclusion, such as oblique and direct attacks on the concept of empathy with animals despite a vast amount of evidence suggestng that nature has equipped us with the means to evaluate the internal mental states of animals without verbal and logical means.

I think it was you I had a lengthy discussion with on IIDB about empathy, feral children and many related topics some time ago. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but the salient issues are the same.

There is scientific evidence for and some extremely obvious reasoning in favour of, the idea that we can achieve understanding of the feelings of animals through non-verbal and non-intellectual means.

As most of our ethics are founded on the idea of showing compassion and making allowances for others "like us", there is a very strong case for treating cows and geese differently from rocks. Not doing so is more arbitrary than doing so.

To attempt to make the distinction according to simple usefulness is specious reasoning. If we applied the same to other humans, strong cases could be made for slavery and facism.

[viscousmemories]

I agree wholeheartedly with the spiriit of vm's point, although I recognise the problematic nature of appealing to consensus at the end.
I don't think my reasoning was fallacious, though. My point was that new laws are passed to enforce the consensus view, not that animal cruelty is immoral because the majority might think so. Of course I agree with the rest of your post completely.

[Bella]

...animal cruelty statutes vary, of course, but I betcha every one of them includes a definition of terms. Have you read any of them?
Yes.
Speaking of definitions, just what exactly is the traditional manner of slaughter? Factory farming methods hardly strike me as traditional.
Sorry for not clarifying - "traditional" meaning the way that meat is currently processed in factory farming methods, to use your terminology.

[livius drusus]

...animal cruelty statutes vary, of course, but I betcha every one of them includes a definition of terms. Have you read any of them?
Yes.

Then you know that the terms are in fact defined for legal purposes. So what's the problem then? That the definitions vary between districts?

Speaking of definitions, just what exactly is the traditional manner of slaughter? Factory farming methods hardly strike me as traditional.

Sorry for not clarifying - "traditional" meaning the way that meat is currently processed in factory farming methods, to use your terminology.

Ah. Conventional, I think, is the term used in opposition to organic, not traditional.

[dave_a]

Its a hard cold reality and a ban like this only serves to make people feel like they are more 'humane' while really they are just moral busibodies.
That's a funny way to put it. 'Humane' is, by definition, "showing kindness, compassion and mercy". I've noticed that throughout the few debates you and I have had where talk of animal rights comes up you like to tell stories that cast you in a humane light (i.e. feeding special birdseed to ducks, not "killing Bambi", etc.) and yet you don't appear to have any real compassion for animals. On the contrary you think they should have no rights at all, and there should be no laws against torturing them. For those of us who disagree and believe that animals deserve the right not to be tortured, it only makes sense to seek legislation that restricts the behavior. Saying we're "moral busybodies" is just empty rhetoric. The whole point of passing laws is to meddle in the affairs of others to prevent them from acting in an way that the majority of the community agrees is immoral.

I 'tell stories' to avoid the misconception that I am not compassionate in my treatment of animals. You will have to believe me or not, I can't prove it. You might equate my position on this topic with the type of individual who likes setting housecats on fire or something. I don't agree with your assesment that compassion or empathy should govern our food gathering/raising practices. If such were the case everyone who was able to do so would have to be a vegetarian.


How about this: All animals have the right not to suffer systematic, protracted physical torture for any reason.

Nothing selective or arbitrary about that. Are you against it?

No, animals have no rights. Why do you support the right to murder millions upon millions of animals to feed an obese society, but forcefeeding a bird troubles you so much?

I think the reason to ban animal cruelty is to attempt to prevent humans with violent/sadistic tendencies from deadening their conscience to the point that they can turn sadistic on humans. It all goes back to humans, not animals.

[dave_a]

Having previously gone down this road with you (IIRC, on IIDB) I'm firmly convinced that you've built an edifice of ideas around the conclusion, such as oblique and direct attacks on the concept of empathy with animals despite a vast amount of evidence suggestng that nature has equipped us with the means to evaluate the internal mental states of animals without verbal and logical means.

I think it was you I had a lengthy discussion with on IIDB about empathy, feral children and many related topics some time ago. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but the salient issues are the same.

I don't recall any of these conversations. It's possible I had thrm and don't recall, but I don't think so.

There is scientific evidence for and some extremely obvious reasoning in favour of, the idea that we can achieve understanding of the feelings of animals through non-verbal and non-intellectual means.

As most of our ethics are founded on the idea of showing compassion and making allowances for others "like us", there is a very strong case for treating cows and geese differently from rocks. Not doing so is more arbitrary than doing so.

We kill and eat animals that I suspect according to your definition are 'like us'. Are you advocating vegetarianism?

To attempt to make the distinction according to simple usefulness is specious reasoning. If we applied the same to other humans, strong cases could be made for slavery and facism.

Yes, if we applied the same reasoning to humans. We don't do so because we recognize it isn't in our best interests. If we enslave humans then we too can become slaves. It's in our best interest to hold our own race to a different standard.

[Farren]

I don't recall any of these conversations. It's possible I had thrm and don't recall, but I don't think so.


Possibly it wasn't you. But if not, your arguments are remarkably similar.


We kill and eat animals that I suspect according to your definition are 'like us'. Are you advocating vegetarianism?


I was a vegetarian for 10 years and still don't eat red meat or poultry. But no, I'm not advocating vegetarianism. At least that's not my point in this discussion. I do advocate vegetarianism but not as a moral necessity, since we are omnivorous creatures and there are certain difficulties associated with vegetarianism. For instance, IIRC, there are people who suffer from particular types of anemia who require nutrients found in red meat.

No, I'm saying that there is clearly a scale along which all the things we can conceive of can be placed, where some things are more like us and some things are less like us. Where things are on that scale should factor into our moral considerations


Yes, if we applied the same reasoning to humans. We don't do so because we recognize it isn't in our best interests. If we enslave humans then we too can become slaves. It's in our best interest to hold our own race to a different standard.

The underlying assumption of the above argument is the point on which our thinking diverges. What's implicit in the above statement is that you believe morality rests purely on rational self-interest. I'm guessing you believe even altruism is simply enlightened rational self-interest. I don't agree.

In order to explain why I don't agree I have to raise a ton of things so bear with me, this may be a long post.

A vast amount of our psyche is outside of the realm of our conscious thoughts and intentions, as evidenced by the fact that our body language often betrays us when we intend to decieve.

There are things which we convince our conscious mind to accept without necessarily accepting it at a deeper, hidden level. IOW, we intellectually believe something to be right, wrong or normal but have a nagging subconscious sensation that the reverse is true.

This background anxiety, denied the means to express itself by the firmly resolved conscious mind, makes us generally less happy and taints our thinking with a generalised negativity.

The relevance of such conflict with ourselves will, I hope, become apparent later. But first I have to articulate some other ideas.

Our emotional response to other humans isn't founded on logic or reason. The desire we feel for members of the opposite sex, the nurturing instinct we feel towards our offspring, the protective instinct we feel towards members of our "pack" or family group are all instinctive reactions that precede any values we then ascribe to them.

One may cast such instincts as a natural, unreasoned form of enlightened self interest but that is simply an intellectual casting of a natural phenomenon. It's not the natural phenomenon. It adds an ingredient, higher purpose, that simply doesn't exist in the phenomenon.

We don't nurture our young, protect our own and desire members of the opposite sex in order to perpetuate the species. We simply do those things because we do those things. Period. That the result is perpetuation of the species doesn't invest any higher purpose in the instinct to do those things. Nature has no intent.

It may seem a trivial distinction to make but in much of the evolutionary literature I've read it emerges as a critical distinction because failing to understand it leads to incorrect conclusions. The most obvious one is that a belief in natural purpose leads to assumptions about what those purposes are, which in turn leads to blindness to other effects of the same phenomena. IOW if a particular behaviour of a creature leads to A, B and C, we may ascribe the purpose of the phenomena as A and discard B and C - yet B and C are still consequences.

Now many of our instinctive responses rely on cues that are not exclusive to our species. They're remarkably subtle, too. One study I read a few years back where fourier analysis was done on the "baby sounds" made by various mammalian mothers, including humans.

The conclusion was that specific frequency patterns that are not common to all communication are common to the nurturing sounds made by the majority of species studied. IIRC the frequency patterns were even used by some species of birds.

The silly baby-talk that people lapse into around children is actually informed by instinct and contains hidden codes for the child to assist them in learning favourable and unfavourable responses to behaviour while bereft of language. The underlying patterns in the cry of delight from a mother when a child says its first word is a code, as is the distress in her voice when something is wrong.

Some of these signals are likely a result of our common heritage with other creatures, but others may emerge by convergence. There's a moth grub that ants "milk" that can actually communicate distress with ants via formic acid signals, allowing it to signal to them that, for instance, its being attacked by a moth. Its doubtful these kinds of signals are the result of common heritage. Rather, its an example of convergent evolution.

There's ample evidence of this second kind of signal-sharing in different species. In rain forests, especially, many creatures recognise the distress calls of other species and react to them. Arboreal primates, for example, often understand and respond appropriately to the cries of birds warning of dangerous predators. Given that man in all likelihood evolved from an arboreal primate originally, its likely that we still utilise or have the vestiges of many of these interspecies signals.

To return, then to my initial point about reasoned morailty and the unconscious:

Bereft of instinctive emotional response a human being is an android, a hollow robotic shell. Emotion provides the motive force for our actions. If we had no emotions, we would do nothing, period. A purely rational creature has no motive.

The converse is not true. Bereft of the intellectual faculties that single out humanity from other species, we would continue to act, to desire, to strive, to feel satisfaction when our needs are met.

My premise, then, is that morality ultimately serves emotion and the plethora of instincts that implies in our subconscious mind.

We are a social animal, so any of those instincts recognise and desire the good of the many. Note that I'm not actually investing any purpose here, just talking about the emergent and observable phenomena and their emergent and observable consequences. That homo sapiens sapiens in even their most primitive state banded together and worked in concert is evidenced by our examination of ancient camp sites, caves and so on where their remains are found.

Stating that the purpose of such collaboration is perpetuation and advancement of the species homo sapiens sapiens is faulty reasoning. That such consequences arise does not mean a plan was formulated and followed. At some point humans began to intellectually consider, discuss and plan towards their desires and at that point higher purpose can be presumed but its reasonable to believe that there was some prior point were the only purpose was the direct seeking of attainment of instnctive goals, such as filling an empty belly.

We have an instinct then, towards social good, and the service of that instinct is the root of all of our morality - not the simply perpetuation and advancement of the human species. The latter aim is derivative of the first premise and involves a choice that denies some aspects of our own instincts.

The reason I raised signalling between species earlier is that its quite clear there are a host of subtle signals shared by many species including ourselves and by extension we can empathise with other species. Such empathy, in turn, implies that our instinct to social good would extend to those species.

This is the fundamental reason many of us feel moved to nurture and try to heal a bird with a broken wing and so on - not "anthropomorphisation".

You may ask "Why don't other animals exhibit that kind of altruism then?", but the underlying premise of that question, that they don't exhibit that altruism, would be wrong. Apart from the host of accounts of dolphins helping humans, there are also a host of documented cases of wolves and other animals rearing children. Here's an interesting site with a lot of examples

Feral Children (http://www.feralchildren.com/en/index.php)

In Namibia conservationists were seeking to balance the needs of farmers with the desire to preserve leopards that preyed on their livestock. The solution they found was the introduction of an Anatolian mountain dog that will consider itself one of the goats if raised with goats. Leopards are fairly cowardly when it comes to attacking other predators so encountering another creature that's 100% willing to take on the leopard in defense of its "family" is adequate incentive to seek food elsewhere.

Obviously the last example is an artificial situation but it nonetheless ably demonstrates my point, since