Kurt Zouma and animal abuse

[Callum Todd]

WARNING: This thread is going to be about animal abuse. Naturally there's likely to be some reference to - or explicit description of - acts of violence. That might make some of you uncomfortable. Personally I'd recommend you read it anyway if you would otherwise be interested, as we all need to face up to the realities of these things. But if you're feeling particularly vulnerable at the moment and don't feel up to the task of acknowledging the details of the violence, maybe come back to this thread another day.

~

For those who haven't heard, a video recently emerged of West Ham United footballer Kurt Zouma physically attacking his pet cat. News story here. I haven't seen the video and I'm not interested in seeing it. I've read in news stories the description of what happens in video and I think that's sufficient for me to understand it.

What surprises me is how big a deal this is turning out to be, at least in the football world. I'd be interested to hear from any of you who don't really follow football news if you have heard much about it just from the general news cycle. Certainly in football news the fact of Kurt Zouma being selected in the Starting XI to play in West Ham's game against Watford last night was the leading headline from that match. Not that West Ham's victory put them back in the Champions League qualification places, or that Watford's defeat put them in deeper relegation trouble, but that one of the 22 players starting the match was recently found to have conducted an act of animal cruelty.

West Ham manager David Moyes had to field a lot of questions about the Zouma cat incident in his post-match interview. BT Sport dedicated a fair bit of airtime to their ex-players turned pundits discussing the incident.

It was this morning that I realised this story seemed to be going beyond just football news as a story that West Ham sponsor Experience Kissimmee had commented on the incident featured prominently on the general news bulletin on the breakfast radio show I was listening to. Also, after the Metropolitan Police said they weren't looking into the incident, Essex Police have said they will be investigating as they believe the incident may have taken place in Essex.

What I don't understand about all this fuss is that, as far as we know, Kurt Zouma eats meat, eggs, and dairy. As far as we know, David Moyes does as well. Joe Cole, one of the pundits on BT Sport who said West Ham had 'miscalculated' by allowing Zouma to play last night, said in 2018 "I am more or less a pescetarian now. I don't eat meat. I try to cut down on fish and just have it once or twice around games, apart from that I am a vegetarian", so as far as we know he still eats fish, eggs, and dairy. Experience Kissimmee have no problem promoting steakhouses and ice cream parlours on their website. This is a genuine unedited (bar cropping the sidebars and stuff out) screenshot of their twitter page at the time of writing this post:



So what's the big fuss? Did animal cruelty only become taboo in the three hours between Experience Kissimmee's retweet of a picture of pieces of the corpses of tortured and slaughtered birds, coated in the nectar of insects that were gassed to stop them from protecting their life's work from human invaders, and their confident assertion that they "in no way condone animal cruelty"? Or is animal cruelty only okay if you pay for it but don't do it first-hand, or do it first-hand but get paid for it?

I realise the last couple of paragraphs might seem a bit dickish of me. I'm not trying to have a go at individuals for what they eat, and I'm certainly not claiming to be perfect myself. But I think that if a case of animal cruelty is going to be made so high profile, we simply must have the discussion about the much greater animal cruelty that goes on at a huge scale every second of every day in every corner of the world that most of us continually actively support. Let's have the conversation. Is it really okay to decry Kurt Zouma kicking his cat while tucking into a steak, milkshake, or omelette?

[Marc Meakin]

You can go further and say that the very notion of having a pet is cruel if you accept that removing a baby from its mother shouldn't happen.

Man eats meat and we have to deal with that.
We have to accept that we are not naturally vegetarian, we have teeth designed for a carnivorous life.
The best we can do as a society is to make the rearing and killing of animals as humane as possible.
I would never knowingly eat halal meat or battery eggs.
But i won't be guilt tripped into being vegan or vegan
Its interesting that most plant based meals are processed to high heaven.
I was a vegetarian for 2 years and there are some great choices now but I try to eat red meat rarely and I still like veggie pasta dishes and Richmond meat free sausages

[Mark James]

It's a strange one alright because I would be equally aghast at someone who kicked a cow that was on its way to the abattoir.

[Fiona T]

Not a big footie fan and I read the news story yesterday.

Yes, we're all (or most of us are) hypocrites, but there is a difference between deliberate calculated cruelty for one's own amusement, and food production. (Many meat eaters are at least nominally concerned about animal welfare in farming.)

And yes the latter needs to get it's act together, but they're separate issues, just as the hungry families in Leeds are a separate issue to the starving people in East Africa.

[Elliott Mellor]

Not a big footie fan and I read the news story yesterday.

Yes, we're all (or most of us are) hypocrites, but there is a difference between deliberate calculated cruelty for one's own amusement, and food production. (Many meat eaters are at least nominally concerned about animal welfare in farming.)

And yes the latter needs to get it's act together, but they're separate issues, just as the hungry families in Leeds are a separate issue to the starving people in East Africa.

This is a very eloquent post and sums things up well. No matter where you draw the line, a line can always be drawn lower - almost everybody uses paper on a daily basis, which (usually) comes from trees being felled, which causes loss of habitat for species and indirectly causes deaths to occur. I'm sure you could find lots of other examples of commonplace things that (directly or indirectly) compromise animal welfare that people don't even consider. Now it's of course the personal choice of an individual as to what level of animal welfare being compromised that they're happy to live with in their day to day choices and I certainly wouldn't shun someone for their veganism, but I equally don't think you can put "kicking an animal for amusement" in the same category as "eating an occasional bacon sandwich".

[Callum Todd]

Cheers for the response guys, appreciate the engagement in what can be an uncomfortable conversation.

I'll write some specific responses to individual comments later when I'm on a computer. In the meantime just a quick note to clarify that I'm not trying to demonise meat-eaters or conflate them with animal abusers such as (allegedly (?)) Zouma.

I merely wish to use this opportunity of animal cruelty being in the spotlight to open a discussion about where else animal cruelty occurs and what we can do about it. I think about this topic for many hours every day so on the unfortunately rare occasions when I see others thinking about it I'm going to jump at the chance to start a conversation.

Brief foreshadow of my later more thorough post: of course intent is important in judging the abuser, Zouma is (allegedly (?)) a tit, but the experience of the subject of abuse is important too, animals experience far worse cruelty in agriculture than I suspect many of you know.

[Gavin Chipper]

This is a good discussion topic. I've had discussions with people before about the outrage that happens when some "trophy hunter" kills a lion or tiger or something and yet these people carry on eating meat etc.

But I think the point is that people "compartmentalise" and basically all of us are guilty of holding contradictory opinions or behaving in contradictory ways. I'm a vegetarian but not a vegan, and you wouldn't believe the amount of stick I get from a vegan that I know. I mean, you really wouldn't. Though I do try and reduce egg and dairy to some extent.

But this guy kicking a cat is such an immediate event. He's just set out deliberately to hurt a cat. When people eat meat, although there is animal suffering involved, it's not the intent - if you think that makes a difference. Plus most people would probably prefer there to be better animal welfare laws for this kind of thing. They might be against animal suffering but not against eating meat per se. The fact that there is animal suffering they would want changed, but they don't necessarily think that them stopping eating meat is the way to achieve that.

[Fiona T]

I think about this topic for many hours every day

I absolutely mean this with love and kindness, but that really doesn't sound healthy.

You've done absolutely the right thing in taking responsibility for your own actions and modifying your diet and behaviour to ensure your personal impact on the issues you feel strongly about is as minimal as possible, but you're not responsible for changing the world, or for the behaviour of the rest of us. Of course you should discuss it when someone is receptive or asks you about it, but I'm not sure it should dominate your thoughts.

I don't know if you're familiar with the 'Serenity Prayer' - sound advice whatever your religious views!

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference

[Callum Todd]

So as promised, here is my response to some of the individual points raised in response to my OP. Once again, thanks to everyone in this thread for engaging in the conversation.

Man eats meat and we have to deal with that.
We have to accept that we are not naturally vegetarian, we have teeth designed for a carnivorous life.

Certainly our species have been omnivores for a long time, so I accept your assertion that "we are not naturally vegetarian" but I do not accept that just because that is how we have been for a long time that is how we must continue. Therefore I would prefer to rephrase your assertion that "man eats meat" as something more like 'man has eaten meat'.

If your aim is to argue that our evolutionary history shows that the humans of today are incapable of surviving/thriving on a plant-based diet then that is simply untrue. The evidence is fairly conclusive on this front: humans do not need to consume animal products to be healthy.

If however your aim is to argue that the cruelty of our animal agriculture systems is morally justified by our history of meat eating, then I strongly disagree with that. There are lots of things we rightly consider unethical now that have been a major part of our history, including many kinds of violence. You could make an identical argument for all sorts of unsavoury things. I'd rather not go into specifics as the most obvious adjacent argument to this is an extremely unpleasant one, but I'll leave you to work it out for yourself and see that the argument that exploiting animals for food now is morally justified on the grounds that it has been done throughout history doesn't stand up to any decent level of scrutiny.

The best we can do as a society is to make the rearing and killing of animals as humane as possible.
I would never knowingly eat halal meat or battery eggs.

Again this is obviously not "the best" thing we can do. I really don't like the word "humane" but of course the further we can reduce the suffering of the sentient beings we farm for food the better. But the BEST thing we can do is STOP the cruel practice of rearing and killing animals, rather than just making it less cruel. Something that I think a lot of people don't realise is just how cruel the 'kinder' systems of animal agriculture still are. You may be right (at least some of the time) that non-halal-butchered animals and 'free-range' hens, as well as 'grass-fed' or 'grazing' cattle, suffer less than halal-butchered animals and battery hens, but they still suffer an awful lot. 'Happy eggs' and similar are blatant gaslighting marketing ploys. No farm animals are happy being tortured, exploited, and killed.

Its interesting that most plant based meals are processed to high heaven.

As you might expect, I do disagree with this somewhat although I'll save that debate for another time as this thread is just about the ethics of the animal cruelty we commit in our food production, not about the healthiness of plant-based vs. animal-based food.

It's a strange one alright because I would be equally aghast at someone who kicked a cow that was on its way to the abattoir.

Yep, this sort of cognitive dissonance is really common and exactly what I was aiming to highlight with this thread! Obviously it's your choice what you feel comfortable to philosophise about but for what it's worth I would personally recommend you think on this as much as you can tolerate and see where it leads you.

Not a big footie fan and I read the news story yesterday.

Thanks, it's good to know that this story is breaking into the mainstream beyond just football news. I hope it can be a teachable moment for those of us who are concerned about animal welfare and believe more people need to think and talk about it. Not seen much of that yet but even if it's contained just to quirky little corners of the internet like this forum then that's better than nothing!

Yes, we're all (or most of us are) hypocrites, but there is a difference between deliberate calculated cruelty for one's own amusement, and food production. (Many meat eaters are at least nominally concerned about animal welfare in farming.)

And yes the latter needs to get it's act together, but they're separate issues, just as the hungry families in Leeds are a separate issue to the starving people in East Africa.

This is a very eloquent post and sums things up well. No matter where you draw the line, a line can always be drawn lower - almost everybody uses paper on a daily basis, which (usually) comes from trees being felled, which causes loss of habitat for species and indirectly causes deaths to occur. I'm sure you could find lots of other examples of commonplace things that (directly or indirectly) compromise animal welfare that people don't even consider. Now it's of course the personal choice of an individual as to what level of animal welfare being compromised that they're happy to live with in their day to day choices and I certainly wouldn't shun someone for their veganism, but I equally don't think you can put "kicking an animal for amusement" in the same category as "eating an occasional bacon sandwich".

The difference in intent between an animal-abuser like (allegedly (?)) Kurt Zouma and an animal-loving meat-eater like (allegedly (?)) David Moyes is obviously quite important. I don't believe anyone would walk into a café really fancying a chickpea salad but choose to order a cheeseburger instead because they get a kick out of cows being tortured and killed. But when deliberating on any case of abuse I think it's really important to draw a distinction between the experience of the abuser and the abused. These are not always (and by no means even mostly) zero-sum. Sometimes the abused experiences a lot more suffering than the abuser intended malice. This is really important, especially in cases where a judgment of the abuser is being considered, because the intent of the abuser tells a lot about what we can predict them to do in future.

But while a lack of malice in the intent of the abuser may excuse them from too much judgment, it doesn't change the fact of the suffering experienced by the abused. So while Kurt Zouma's (apparent) malice towards his cat while (allegedly) kicking it about tells us that he's (probably) a nasty piece of work who could have done more bad things before and is possibly likely to do more bad things in the future, while David Moyes dining on medium-rare ribeye followed up with a blancmange tells us he's just an ordinary bloke with no malice in him who probably loves animals as much as he claims to, it doesn't change the fact that the cows that were tortured and killed so that David could enjoy his dinner experienced just as much (actually much much more) suffering than Kurt Zouma's unfortunate kitty did.

So to Fiona's point referencing hungry Leeds families and starving East African people, and Ell's point about not equating kicking an animal with eating a bacon sandwich, these may be two separate issues from the perspective of the abuser, but the suffering experienced is the same issue from the perspectives of the abused animals. Also Ell, if you meant to imply that the pig whose corpse one eats in a sandwich suffered less than Kurt Zouma's cat, I would gently suggest you do some more reading into what happens in pig farms if you feel up to it. If the line of acceptability on animal cruelty is to be drawn so that it excludes allowances for kicking a cat about, it will also exclude allowances for all animal agriculture as we know it today.

And as for the "personal choice" thing, yes diet is a highly personal topic and I do feel a bit awkward proselytising to people about it. But while you can make your personal choice to eat animals, what about the animals themselves? Do they get a choice? Obviously they can't communicate their choice to you (with words anyway, if you watched and listened to animals in the food production system I'm sure that between their cries, screams, and convulsions of pain you'd pick up that they weren't entirely happy with their lot in life) but if they could speak their mind about their predicament what do you think they would say? You can attempt to justify any cruelty by saying it's your "personal choice" to do it. What about the abused party? What of their choice?

But I think the point is that people "compartmentalise" and basically all of us are guilty of holding contradictory opinions or behaving in contradictory ways.

Yes. The folks who profess themselves to be animal lovers - and deeply concerned for Kurt Zouma's cats - in between mouthfuls of animal-based foods, either have their heads completely buried in the sand or are practising doublethink. Well if people are compartmentalising in their minds about animal welfare, I'm here trying to knock the walls between the compartments down. We're going open plan.

But this guy kicking a cat is such an immediate event. He's just set out deliberately to hurt a cat. When people eat meat, although there is animal suffering involved, it's not the intent - if you think that makes a difference. Plus most people would probably prefer there to be better animal welfare laws for this kind of thing.

I agree that intent is the crux of this debate and have already addressed it in the above paragraphs. The UK actually has some of the 'best' animal welfare laws in the world and they still allow for some truly shocking cruelty.

They might be against animal suffering but not against eating meat per se.

Yep, this is compartmentalising. Animal suffering is inextricable from eating meat. If you're against animal suffering you simply must be against eating meat. You just might not have realised that yet.

The fact that there is animal suffering they would want changed, but they don't necessarily think that them stopping eating meat is the way to achieve that.

I think about this topic for many hours every day

I absolutely mean this with love and kindness, but that really doesn't sound healthy.

You've done absolutely the right thing in taking responsibility for your own actions and modifying your diet and behaviour to ensure your personal impact on the issues you feel strongly about is as minimal as possible, but you're not responsible for changing the world, or for the behaviour of the rest of us. Of course you should discuss it when someone is receptive or asks you about it, but I'm not sure it should dominate your thoughts.

I don't know if you're familiar with the 'Serenity Prayer' - sound advice whatever your religious views!

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and wisdom to know the difference

Fiona, your disclaimer wasn't necessary; I know you well enough to know how your message was intentioned, and it is appreciated Please rest assured that this topic doesn't get me down, quite the contrary! The impetus to evoke positive change is a huge motivating factor for me. It provides me with inspiration and meaning in my life.

And this is why I have quoted your post together with the last line of Gavin's because they both address the belief about how much it is within our power as individuals to address the problem of animal cruelty in the food industry once it has been acknowledged. Maybe I'm deluded but I truly believe we can make positive change to drastically reduce and, eventually, eliminate the animal cruelty perpetuated by animal agriculture. To say otherwise would be to imply that the current system of animal agriculture is the best it can be for animals, which is patently absurd and demonstrably false.

Animals suffer terribly in our agriculture system. We do not need to consume animal products to survive or be healthy. Therefore we are perpetuating more (far, far more) suffering than is necessary. If we reduce (ideally eliminate) our consumption of animal products, we reduce their suffering. We CAN do that, so let's do it!

And while collective efforts can as ever be helpful I believe that the necessary changes must, like most things, be administered at the individual level. Individual human beings can change their behaviour in a way that will reduce the suffering of their sentient cousins. Isn't this what gives our lives meaning?! We are all individuals encountering suffering in the world. Reduce it. Do you have anything better to do?! This individual doesn't.

Edit: fixed a couple of typos

[Matt Morrison]

Excellent stuff Callum. I'm a lazy vegan and don't do anywhere enough learning, teaching, and yes, probably proselytising too, as I should. I used to think that in my lifetime it would be considered absolutely bonkers - as it should be - to kill things for food. I'm very much less sure of that now, thanks to all the compartmentalising as we've called it here, and the blissful (or perhaps learned) ignorance that is so rife amongst all the "animal lovers". I have definitely - at least in the sort of people I associate with - noticed a marked increase in awareness of the wrongness of eating meat in the last 5 or so years but this is nearly totally attributed to climate change rather than the fact that it's stone cold mental to kill an animal for food.

Aside from being lazy I'm also too self-conscious to ever want to be seen as annoying or preachy so, rightfully or (really) wrongly, I don't seem to find myself getting involved with many animal rights / meat eating chats. I just try and do my own bit. But you're awesome for saying all that and having more passion than I do!

[Fiona T]

I suspect my views are fairly common -

I don't see eating animals as fundamentally wrong. This is probably the main area I differ from your views. But I do think there are very convincing arguments for reducing animal product consumption - both welfare and environmental.

If everyone reduced their animal product consumption by half, the impacts on welfare and environment would be huge. Many of the welfare problems are from intensive farming to meet increased consumer demand. Personally I have reduced my meat consumption and have an increased awareness of the issues, but I'm a long way from going vegetarian/vegan, and currently have no intentions of doing so.

We have an ever-increasing population - I was gobsmacked to read recently that of all the people who have ever lived - ever since year dot - 15% are alive today.

The biggest impact we can have on future quality of life - for both people and animals - is to stop having children! (or more controversially, stop prolonging life)

[Marc Meakin]

I think its closer to 7% but still an amazing stat of nearly 8 billion people

[Callum Todd]

Cheers Matt. I'm still optimistic that I will see the majority of the 'first world' at least go mostly plant-based in my lifetime. Maybe that's a false hope but I suppose I'd rather be blissfully optimistic than blissfully ignorant and that belief gives a foundation to my motivation to do my own bit.

I do worry about being preachy. It's a trait often ascribed to vegans and not without reason to be honest. But if people are going to be having a conversation about animal suffering, as they appear to be doing in light of the Kurt Zouma case, I'm going to join in and bring all my placards and brimstone with me

Fiona, reducing is great! Especially when you look at the other reasons why animal agriculture is bad from a practical level - environmental, personal health, public health, etc. For obsessive moralists like me it's much more tempting to go for the absolutism of total abstention but I'm a firm believer in not letting the perfect be an enemy of the good (although somewhat cynically in this case it might be better to say the neutral being an enemy of the less bad) so by reducing your consumption of animal products you are changing your behaviour to reduce the suffering of our cousins in Animalia, as well as bettering the lot of our siblings in Homo sapiens and our planet. Great!

As for the population thing, I'm again (perhaps naively) optimistic on this one. I think models of the unsustainability of our population are weighed down by the assumption of us continuing our current practices. If we change these practices (end animal agriculture, innovate clean power sources and modes of transport, stop being wasteful with our resources, etc.) we can certainly be much kinder to Mother Earth, even with a few billion more of us. That's what inspires me to think and speak about topics like this. It's not all just dreary talk of prohibition and limitation! There are positive, generative solutions out there. The problem is they're new and scary and often have interests counter to those of our entrenched systems which make a lot of people a lot of money at present. Though of course having children is a huge responsibility and should not be taken lightly.

But anyway, I didn't intend this to become 'The Veganism Thread' so if people really want to talk about the implications of animal agriculture on sustainability, personal health, public health, etc, then I'd love to do that in another thread. If it's not too late to keep this thread on track, it's really only meant to be about animal cruelty. I'm not merely trying to hijack the Kurt Zouma publicity to push my predetermined narrative here though, as I've said I think this is a teachable moment because people are already engaging with the topics that they may not have realised are also relevant to the huge topic of animal abuse in agriculture. I'll try summarise the links below in bullet point form and then take my bow on this thread because I don't want to continue to give off the impression that The Callum Todd Church of Veganism is in Service:

• People are outraged and concerned when hearing about what Kurt Zouma has (allegedly (?)) done to his cat. While they are thinking about animal suffering and how bad it is, they may be interested to learn that billions of animals the world over suffer to a greater extent than Kurt Zouma's cat, and nearly all of us are actively paying for this to happen. Read into what happens in animal agriculture. Don't just chalk it up to horror stories about the worst offenders. It's not just the rule-breaking farms, although a shocking proportion of farms break the rules anyway. It's not just the intensive megafarms, although a ridiculously high proportion of animal products we consume come from such farms anyway. The average, well-within-the-rules farm animal suffers awfully. If you are genuinely concerned for Kurt Zouma's cat, please think about the animal who gave their life to fill your next sandwich and realise that you paid for them to suffer more.
  
  Realising this, a common defence is that animal abuse such as what (allegedly (?)) Zouma did is much worse because of his sick intent. Yes, there is no doubt that someone who kicks about their pet cat for fun is as an abuser worse than someone who eats a ham sandwich because they are hungry, and I wouldn't dream of saying anyone reading this is just as bad as (allegedly (?)) Kurt Zouma because they eat meat, but this isn't about you! It's about the animals!! The intent of the abuser may change how we judge them, but it doesn't change anything about the objective fact of the suffering experienced by the abused animal. The farm animal you eat suffered just as much as, and in most cases much more than, the pet animal whose abuse you heard about on the news.
  
  Having acknowledged the suffering of one's food, the next defence is often that eating animal products is a 'necessary evil'. It is not necessary. Yes, we need to eat. No, we do not need to eat animals or their secretions. The evidence for this is clear. The phrase that is so often used as a defence of eating animal products says it all. It really is personal choice. You can choose to pay for extreme suffering before you eat, or you can choose not to. I am suggesting you choose not to.

If anyone really does want to talk about veganism more generally, not just the ethical side of things, feel free to start a thread about it and I'm sure me and my big mouth will have something to contribute. In the meantime, while I find myself to have - as ever- been more verbose than articulate, I'm happy to leave this thread having rolled out my manifesto of animal rights. Sincere thanks to everyone for taking the time and introspection to join the conversation.

Amen.

[Marc Meakin]

I think expecting society to give up meat because of the cruelty and lack of benefits is ad likely as telling people they cannot have more than one child because of global over population.
Both need doing but in reality will never happen

[Fiona T]

Your arguments are very persuasive, damn you!

[Christy Cooper]

Maybe they should rename him to (Animal) Hurt Zouma...

[Callum Todd]

The fairly high-profile vegan activist Ed Winters just posted a YouTube video on the Kurt Zouma story last night.

I think his analysis comes packaged is quite characteristic of him: it has bit of sarcastic edge to it, is more judgmental of people than I'd prefer, and occasionally tends to straw man arguments (he describes the West Ham vs Watford football match that Zouma played in as '"inconsequential"), but is also more articulate and succinct than I managed above so if you are interested in this debate but would like to hear my side of it in a more digestible fashion then this video might be for you.

I think he seems to come across as more 'team vegan' than 'team animals' if that makes sense, and definitely is more critical of regular meat-eating folk than I was so it's a shame there wasn't more emphasis on the point about how the behaviour by the animal abuser or meat buyer isn't always equal to the severity of suffering experienced by the animal that I really tried to stress. But I think it's good that someone with a platform as large as his is putting this side to the Zouma story out.

[Marc Meakin]

Maybe they should rename him to (Animal) Hurt Zouma...

I feel this gives my the right for this little gem
At the Watford game a small section of the crowd started to sing I'm forever booting tiddles......
I'll get me coat

[Josh Hurst]

I 100% agree with and echo essentially everything that Callum has said on here. He's done a great job of articulating the points of this very important topic. Well done and thank you, Callum.

It's encouraging to see some genuinely thoughtful discussion on this topic for people who entered it with differing views. Well done folks, it's not easy to have these conversations.

FWIW - until I learned about this video on Tuesday I would describe my consumption habits as 100% vegetarian, 95-99% vegan because I am a stage behind Matt in that I am a "lazy non-vegan wannabe vegan", and have been that way for about 6 odd years. Now, rather than using the emergence of this video as a chance to get people to hold up the mirror to themselves and their "compartmentalising", I realise that I should be doing that myself. I think this could be the turning point in aligning my consumption habits to my beliefs and getting rid of that cognitive dissonance. It's on record now so I feel accountable :p

Cheers,

Josh

[Callum Todd]

West Ham vs Leicester is kicking off soon and Zouma was named in the starting line-up but withdrawn during the warm-up. The official line is that he said he was feeling ill, but the feeling of the analysts at Sky Sports is that the entire stadium, including the West Ham fans, were booing and heckling him as he warmed up so he chose to withdraw as he felt uncomfortable.

Graeme Souness is working as a pundit for Sky Sports today and he went on an impassioned rant on air about Zouma's behaviour.

A few months ago Sky broadcast the 'Game Zero' match between Tottenham and Chelsea, where extra measures were taken to make the football match and broadcast of it carbon neutral. As the Sky Sports team were discussing environmental issues before kick-off, I was surprised when the presenter mentioned that Graeme Souness eats an entirely plant-based diet. I was even more surprised (and delighted!) when Souness said that he actually does so for animal welfare reasons rather than environmental and said on air something like "the way we treat animals is disgusting". I was really impressed that a figure as high-profile as Souness had said this on a platform as big as Sky Sports during broadcast of a live Premier League game.

So I'm not surprised he was particularly incensed by Zouma's animal cruelty. He hasn't yet made any mention of animal cruelty in agriculture yet on today's broadcast but I'm sure the Zouma topic will be raised again at half-time and after the match so maybe he will. Go on Graeme!

[Marc Meakin]

I think Graeme heard you
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sport ... video.html

[Jon O'Neill]

At least some of the West Ham fans were supportive!

[Callum Todd]

Going to link a video of a guy talking about this but warning: there's some really nasty footage in the video. I had to look away several times. Not for the faint-hearted.

This guy makes the points I was trying to make pretty well. I'd like the opportunity to explain to him why football is so emotive though

[Charlie Reams]

Interesting thread, thanks for such a level-headed discussion! FWIW I'm a fairly strict vegetarian nowadays (and don't drink milk anyway because that shit is gross) but in fairness to people on all other points of the spectrum I do think you have to factor in some kind of "human pleasure" to the equation as well, and the extent to which that pleasure can be considered "legitimate". That's always a subjective judgment, but I think most people would agree that you're not really supposed to be deriving pleasure from kicking a cat, whereas you might derive some legitimate pleasure from eating a burger. So it's not completely self-inconsistent to argue that the former is unacceptable and the later is acceptable, it really depends how much you weight each of those factors in your own moral assessment. Personally I don't like meat enough that it feels like a reasonable trade-off to me, but I don't have a particularly good argument against anyone who feels differently.

(I also do engage in lots of other things which I know are morally bad, like being mean to other people or not buying Jono that pint I owe him from eight years ago. And those could easily be argued to be worse than being complicit in the murder of a cow.)

[Marc Meakin]

Is feeding your cat or dog vegan food only tantamount to animal abuse?
Is keeping a pet also cruel?
Just keeping the conversation going, albeit going off on a Meakinesque tangent.

[Callum Todd]

[...] in fairness to people on all other points of the spectrum I do think you have to factor in some kind of "human pleasure" to the equation as well, and the extent to which that pleasure can be considered "legitimate". That's always a subjective judgment [...]

Fair point, so far I have mostly based my arguments purely on a measure of suffering, without saying much about the inverse side of things. I think it's also quite important that you specified it is human pleasure that is under consideration, as another factor in this equation must be how much preferential treatment you want to give to humans over non-human animals.

If we were to treat non-human animals' experience as equal to our own then obviously we would be morally obliged to forego all animal problems* as however you try and measure it you're never going to get as much pleasure out of eating a non-human animal or its secretions as they got suffering out of producing that food for you. But I think it's fair to say all of us (sorry to any radical Jains reading this) do give more consideration to human experience than we do to non-human animals' experience. The question is: how much more? As you say, that's always a subjective judgment.

Personally, my judgment is that we'd have to give an awful lot more in order to justify the way we currently treat animals in agriculture, and I think it's very risky to push that slider too far in the direction of 'more'. That way lies 'might is right' thinking and it only takes a slight shift in parameters for some really nasty adjacent arguments to pop up in relation to human populations as well as non-human animals.

Oh and also it's worth noting that it's perfectly possible to find pleasure through food on a plant-based diet!

[Callum Todd]

Is feeding your cat or dog vegan food only tantamount to animal abuse?
Is keeping a pet also cruel?
Just keeping the conversation going, albeit going off on a Meakinesque tangent.

The issue of whether or not to keep pets, and how to treat and particularly feed them if so, while adhering to a vegan philosophy is a really fascinating one. I know most vegans who have pets prefer to call them 'animal companions' as they consider the idea of 'pets' to be linked to ownership and subordination.

Personally I don't have an 'animal companion' although the cat and dog I lived with before moving out still live at my mum's house and I enjoy spending time with them whenever I go round to visit my mum. If I ever wished to get an animal companion I would treat it as a huge responsibility, akin to having a child. I thinkl there's actually a lot of similarities between the debates on keeping pets and having children, with the 'no pets' argument being closely related to antinatalism, and there's also a pretty big debate on how vegans should feed their (human!) babies, similar to the debate on how to feed cats and dogs.

Certainly the animals that were killed to produce meaty cat/dog food suffered an awful lot, so I think this links nicely to Charlie's point about equating for pleasure, although in this case we're considering both the pleasure the human derives from animal companionship, and the pleasure the cat/dog gets from their food.

P.S. love the use of 'Meakinesque'

[Gavin Chipper]

There's this video on the BBC about cats going on a vegan diet from a few years ago. Quite interesting.

[Marc Meakin]

I like the term animal companion far more than fur baby

[Gavin Chipper]

[...] in fairness to people on all other points of the spectrum I do think you have to factor in some kind of "human pleasure" to the equation as well, and the extent to which that pleasure can be considered "legitimate". That's always a subjective judgment [...]

Fair point, so far I have mostly based my arguments purely on a measure of suffering, without saying much about the inverse side of things. I think it's also quite important that you specified it is human pleasure that is under consideration, as another factor in this equation must be how much preferential treatment you want to give to humans over non-human animals.

If we were to treat non-human animals' experience as equal to our own then obviously we would be morally obliged to forego all animal problems* as however you try and measure it you're never going to get as much pleasure out of eating a non-human animal or its secretions as they got suffering out of producing that food for you. But I think it's fair to say all of us (sorry to any radical Jains reading this) do give more consideration to human experience than we do to non-human animals' experience. The question is: how much more? As you say, that's always a subjective judgment.

Personally, my judgment is that we'd have to give an awful lot more in order to justify the way we currently treat animals in agriculture, and I think it's very risky to push that slider too far in the direction of 'more'. That way lies 'might is right' thinking and it only takes a slight shift in parameters for some really nasty adjacent arguments to pop up in relation to human populations as well as non-human animals.

Oh and also it's worth noting that it's perfectly possible to find pleasure through food on a plant-based diet!

While people make their own judgements on how much importance to put on human pleasure/suffering v animal pleasure/suffering, you could argue that it shouldn't really fall upon us to all individually come up with our own judgement. In many cases the "agreed-upon" morals are put into law. We can no longer keep slaves, or generally harm other humans without a very good reason for doing so. But with animals, it seems to be much more down to personal judgement. Well, you could argue that it's the same and that the law has simply decided that animals' moral status is just quite low and people should not have to make any personal decision beyond that. But there is definitely an argument that the law goes nowhere near far enough with animals, and is also arbitrary and inconsistent.

But regardless of the law, there is also a view among people that it is and should be purely down to your own morals and your own choice. E.g. "I really respect you for being a vegan and your moral position on that, but it's no something I could or would ever do myself." But that seems a bit weird and their doesn't seem to be any parallel situation with how we treat humans. It's more clear cut what counts as being an arsehole. But anyway, the question is - should we be allowed to exploit animals in the way we do and just put it down to personal choice? Where to draw the line is very tricky because I'm sure most vegans would even argue that it's OK to use animals to further medical research, for example. But when we eat meat or dairy, it is basically completely unnecessary, certainly in more "advanced" countries like the UK. It's largely down to our own selfishness. Well, some people might find it hard to immediately adapt to a vegan diet and get all their nutrients etc. and cheaply too, but if this was ever going to be made into law, it's likely to happen gradually, and the availability of quality and cheap vegan food would shoot up in the meantime. So there wouldn't be a problem on that front. In any case, I would certainly argue for far more stringent laws, regardless of where the exact line would be drawn. Callum would too I'm sure, but he's too polite to outright say to people to just go vegan (though it seems to be what he's hinting at).

One final thing on pets - in that video I linked to one of the people pointed out that it's nutrients not ingredients that cats need, and you can make vegan cat food with the right nutrients. Also on whether it's "natural", one guy pointed out that the food we feed to cats often comes from animals they'd never encounter in the wild and then processed as well so there's nothing particularly natural about what happens now. And if you think it's cruel to give cats vegan food, well as one woman in the video says, why is your cat ranked above the animals killed for your cat? Isn't it cruel to them? Obviously if you go out in the wild, you'll see animals killing each other all the time, but once we take animals in as pets, you could argue that they become part of our "moral economy" and we should source their food using the same moral compass that we use for our other activities. Plus animals killed in the wild are still living their own lives before they are preyed upon, not existing on some farm. (Although we could have a discussion about which is better for their well-being overall.)

But as I say, I'm not a vegan. I am a vegetarian who tries to reduce egg and dairy for now. What an arsehole.

[Gavin Chipper]

(Also I wonder if we should just merge the threads.)

[Charlie Reams]

Well, you could argue that it's the same and that the law has simply decided that animals' moral status is just quite low and people should not have to make any personal decision beyond that.

Yep, I think this is pretty accurate in practice. The law upholds a fairly minimal standard that most people can agree on. But maybe that will tend to leave animal rights lower than they "should" be relative to the general consensus because (for example) animals can't advocate for themselves, have no coordinated lobbying power, have no option to relocate to more equitable jurisdictions etc. (I'm sure some Jeremy Bentham or someone has said this better, but basically what I'm getting at is that I think many of the factors that increase standards of human rights for reasons other than their fundamental moral justification are not really applicable to animal rights. Which sucks if you're an animal.)

[Marc Meakin]

As nobody else has said it yet I will do it.
Would you be OK with an animal suffering in order to save your or a loved ones life.
Im talking about testing drugs on animals mainly.
Although i do have a mechanical heart valve, I was originally offered a pig or cows valve so I guess that too

[Gavin Chipper]

As nobody else has said it yet I will do it.
Would you be OK with an animal suffering in order to save your or a loved ones life.
Im talking about testing drugs on animals mainly.
Although i do have a mechanical heart valve, I was originally offered a pig or cows valve so I guess that too

I alluded to it above.

But anyway, the question is - should we be allowed to exploit animals in the way we do and just put it down to personal choice? Where to draw the line is very tricky because I'm sure most vegans would even argue that it's OK to use animals to further medical research, for example.

[Marc Meakin]

As nobody else has said it yet I will do it.
Would you be OK with an animal suffering in order to save your or a loved ones life.
Im talking about testing drugs on animals mainly.
Although i do have a mechanical heart valve, I was originally offered a pig or cows valve so I guess that too

I alluded to it above.

But anyway, the question is - should we be allowed to exploit animals in the way we do and just put it down to personal choice? Where to draw the line is very tricky because I'm sure most vegans would even argue that it's OK to use animals to further medical research, for example.

Sorry, I didn't fully read your comment.

[Callum Todd]

There's this video on the BBC about cats going on a vegan diet from a few years ago. Quite interesting.

Yeah. This was the suggested next video too: basically the same thing but for dogs.

I think it's really tricky with cats because it seems pretty cruel to me to make a cat live exclusively indoors, as many people do. I think cats should be allowed outside. So you can feed them a nutritionally-sound commerical plant-based cat feed but I don't think that would mean that when the cat goes outside they would embrace the vegan lifestyle, stop hunting mice and birds, go for a tofu wrap at a smoothie bar, and start philosophical threads on gameshow-based internet forums. But then I suppose there's an argument that while it might be cruel to the cat to keep it indoors, it's quite cruel to the local wild mouse and bird populations to set a predator loose amongst them. The ethics of cat ownership/companionship seem to me to be a bit of a minefield.

Dogs strike me as more straightforward, they're basically a human-created species whose whole deal is about human companionship so as long as you treat them lovingly and give them a safe environment and ample nutritious food (which can be plant-based) they would surely be very happy. I do think it's a bit cruel when people leave their dogs alone locked indoors at home for hours on end though. I realise that most people have little choice on this front because of their commitments but in that case maybe they're not in a position to get a dog. As I've said above, I think taking care of a 'pet' animal is a responsibility akin to having a baby. A baby or companion animal is not here for your entainment; they're an individual sentient being in their own right so you can't just do what's convenient for you. You have to take your duty of care seriously and be willing to sacrifice all manner of freedoms for their sake.

[Callum Todd]

While people make their own judgements on how much importance to put on human pleasure/suffering v animal pleasure/suffering, you could argue that it shouldn't really fall upon us to all individually come up with our own judgement. In many cases the "agreed-upon" morals are put into law. We can no longer keep slaves, or generally harm other humans without a very good reason for doing so. But with animals, it seems to be much more down to personal judgement. Well, you could argue that it's the same and that the law has simply decided that animals' moral status is just quite low and people should not have to make any personal decision beyond that. But there is definitely an argument that the law goes nowhere near far enough with animals, and is also arbitrary and inconsistent.

But regardless of the law, there is also a view among people that it is and should be purely down to your own morals and your own choice. E.g. "I really respect you for being a vegan and your moral position on that, but it's no something I could or would ever do myself." But that seems a bit weird and their doesn't seem to be any parallel situation with how we treat humans. It's more clear cut what counts as being an arsehole. But anyway, the question is - should we be allowed to exploit animals in the way we do and just put it down to personal choice? Where to draw the line is very tricky because I'm sure most vegans would even argue that it's OK to use animals to further medical research, for example. But when we eat meat or dairy, it is basically completely unnecessary, certainly in more "advanced" countries like the UK. It's largely down to our own selfishness. Well, some people might find it hard to immediately adapt to a vegan diet and get all their nutrients etc. and cheaply too, but if this was ever going to be made into law, it's likely to happen gradually, and the availability of quality and cheap vegan food would shoot up in the meantime. So there wouldn't be a problem on that front. In any case, I would certainly argue for far more stringent laws, regardless of where the exact line would be drawn. Callum would too I'm sure, but he's too polite to outright say to people to just go vegan (though it seems to be what he's hinting at).

I think the law frames an acceptable range of judgements, and individuals can make their own judgements within that range. But the law can sometimes get the range wrong, like in the 18th century when it said slavery was okay, or in the 19th century when it said women couldn't vote, or in the 20th century when it said homosexuality was immoral, or in the 21st century when it said it was okay to torture, kill, and eat sentient beings. In those cases it's up to individuals to speak up - for example by starting a thread on c4countdown.co.uk - and try raise awareness of how the law is failing to frame an acceptable range in the hope that other individuals will realise the law is misleading us morally, change their own behaviour, and eventually the law will catch up.

The "personal choice" line is just a really empty statement to be honest. Of course it's someone's personal choice what they eat. That doesn't mean it's not a bad choice that causes harm. It was Kurt Zouma's personal choice to kick his cat about for a laugh. Most people rightly thought that was appalling and immoral, because of the suffering it caused to the cat. I started this thread in the hope of using that fleeting moment of sympathy with suffering animals to make people realise that our personal choice to systematically enslave, torture, kill, and consume animals is appalling and immoral because of the suffering it causes to the animals. Everything we do is personal choice. It is (in my opinion) our moral responsibility - and purpose for living! - to use our choice wisely to reduce the suffering (and I suppose if possible also increase the pleasure) of our sentient cousins.

In terms of where I would like a line to be drawn legally, I'm really quite ignorant of legal matters. I know nothing of how the law works. I'll leave my part in anything law-related to having discussions like this, and voting for Gavin when he stands for election. So yes, I think people should go vegan, because I think it's the right thing to do morally. But I agree that such a decision, given current laws, is their personal choice. I can't make that choice for them but I can raise their awareness to the fact of animal suffering and how it is funded by their choice, in the hope they will choose differently.

[...] I'm not a vegan. I am a vegetarian who tries to reduce egg and dairy for now [underline added]. What an arsehole

The underlined words encourage me!

[Callum Todd]

(Also I wonder if we should just merge the threads.)

I think they are sufficiently distinct topics to warrant different threads, although I appreciate the nuance may seem quite subtle to some and the same topics have come up tangentially in both threads. To clarify my understanding of the two:

This thread is specifically about animal suffering, be it through Zouma-esque pet abuse or through agriculture. Therefore the philosophy of veganism is incidentally relevant to this thread.

The 'Veganism discussion thread' is for all things to do with veganism, including environment, nutrition, plant-based meat/dairy substitute products, pandemic risk, etc. It is specifically about veganism. Therefore tales of animal abuse, including in agriculture, will be incidentally relevant to this thread.

So while nothing in this thread would be out of place in the Veganism thread, I think much of the Veganism thread would be out of place here. This thread has remained mostly quite focused on philosophical and ethical questions regarding the treatment of animals. A quick succession of multiple posts talking about which supermarket sells the best pea protein filled pastries would distract from the topic, in my opinion.

[Fiona T]

There are degrees of sentience though...

Anne Robinson - "Callum's got a degreeee in sentience from Oxford University"

... the self-awareness of different animals covers a vast range.

For example, the cow who cries for her missing calf, vs the fish who eats her young.

So the more "emotional" an animal (for want of a better word), arguably the greater cruelty in giving them less than ideal living conditions.

Similarly "pain" - an animal with a very primitive nervous system (e.g a bivalve mollusc) is unlikely to experience pain as we understand it.

We're not all equal, and humans are at the top of the emotional range, so the comparisons with human rights issues, especially slavery, make me quite uncomfortable.

BTW, my cats own/exploit me, not the other way round

[Fiona T]

BTW, my cats own/exploit me, not the other way round

Actually, my previous cats (brothers) are a good example of the point I'm badly making about human sentience vs animal world. They were super-affectionate to each other (and us), always curled up together, cleaned each other and were just the loveliest cats. I still miss them lots. Lived to a very old age, one cat went blind, and stopped responding in the same way. His brother completely ignored him. We did the humane thing (which definitely should be an option for humans!) and thought his brother would pine for him - they had been together 18 years - nope - seemed perfectly happy. The pain we experienced at the loss of our cat was far greater than his brother appeared to experience.

Current cats (sisters) don't give a shit about each other or us - no worries about them

[Callum Todd]

There are degrees of sentience though...

Anne Robinson - "Callum's got a degreeee in sentience from Oxford University"

... the self-awareness of different animals covers a vast range.

For example, the cow who cries for her missing calf, vs the fish who eats her young.

So the more "emotional" an animal (for want of a better word), arguably the greater cruelty in giving them less than ideal living conditions.

Yep, that's fair enough. I think we alluded to this issue earlier when discussing Charlie's point:

If we were to treat non-human animals' experience as equal to our own then obviously we would be morally obliged to forego all animal problems* as however you try and measure it you're never going to get as much pleasure out of eating a non-human animal or its secretions as they got suffering out of producing that food for you. But I think it's fair to say all of us (sorry to any radical Jains reading this) do give more consideration to human experience than we do to non-human animals' experience. The question is: how much more? As you say, that's always a subjective judgment.

Personally, my judgment is that we'd have to give an awful lot more in order to justify the way we currently treat animals in agriculture, and I think it's very risky to push that slider too far in the direction of 'more'. That way lies 'might is right' thinking and it only takes a slight shift in parameters for some really nasty adjacent arguments to pop up in relation to human populations as well as non-human animals.

The disparity in sentience/"emotional range" between humans and nonhuman animals is the reason that most of us give more consideration to human experience than nonhuman experience. And obviously you can fractionate that consideration between all different animals too, so perhaps you care more about pigs than chickens, or more about mammals than fish, etc. I still think we should do so with caution, however, for reasons outlined above. It's also very difficult to get this down to an exact science (exactly how much more valuable is a human's experience and life than a pig's? and how much a pig's than a salmon's?) and doing it in a slapdash way basically just equates to speciesism.
(I don't agree with everything that linked article says and it could be seen as a bit radical; just posting it to give an overview of speciesism to anyone who isn't familiar with the concept. It also invokes Jeremy Bentham, who seems to be worming his way into this thread )

And just because an animal might deserve less consideration than another animal, that doesn't mean it deserves no consideration, or that any cruel treatment of it is fair game. I think the Kurt Zouma case is clear evidence of 'speciesism'. His cat's suffering was deemed unacceptabe by a population that routinely pays for other (likely more sentient) animals to suffer to a greater extent.

Any fans of the 'trolley problem' might be interested to frame this question as such.That would be an interesting way of framing Marc's earlier question too:

Would you be OK with an animal suffering in order to save your or a loved ones life.

Do you pull the lever to kill one person instead of killing five? How about one cow instead of one human? Or ten cows instead of one human? Or fifty cats? Or 2000 fish?

an animal with a very primitive nervous system (e.g a bivalve mollusc) is unlikely to experience pain as we understand it.

Bivalveganism is a thing. Personally I don't yearn for an oyster enough to justify taking the risk but at a cursory glance it seems a fair enough concept.

We're not all equal, and humans are at the top of the emotional range, so the comparisons with human rights issues, especially slavery, make me quite uncomfortable.

This one is a bit tricky and I do try to be careful how I frame things when talking about animal suffering. It's difficult because none of us can truly know what it feels like to be a cow, or a chicken, etc, so we're limited to just sympathy rather than true empathy, and in our efforts to describe the experience of the animals we will naturally be inclined towards anthropomorphising their experience, both in our understanding of it (as we can only conceptualise a human experience of stimuli such as pain) and our articulation of it (as our language is based on human experience). It's difficult therefore to avoid drawing comparisons (or at least appearing to draw comparisons) between the suffering of animals and the suffering of humans. As discussed above, there is some difference in this experience but it's difficult to detail exactly the scale of that difference and determine how that should inform any difference in our treatment of animals.

So while I wouldn't claim that the experience of, say, a dairy cow is equal to the experience of a human slave, I don't think there can be any doubt that any normal dairy cow can be considered to be "enslaved". Perhaps bovine enslavement is altogether different to human enslavement and really we need another word for it, but I would argue 'enslavement' is closer to an accurate description of what we do to animals in agriculture than any existing alternative such as 'husbandry', which strikes me as just another euphemistic term we use to preserve our doublethink (see also: 'meat' rather than 'carcasses/corpses', beef/cowflesh, pork/pigflesh, etc.) Certainly if you don't believe the average dairy cow is enslaved, I would challenge you to describe a treatment of a cow that would be more enslaving.

None of this means that I am suggesting a dairy cow (for example) suffers more or as much as a human slave, although philosophically you could ask yourself 'would you rather be a human slave in the 18th century west, or a dairy cow today?' and it would make for an interesting meditation on the differences between human and cow experience. But the really uncomfortable part of this is precisely the danger I previously alluded to of giving too much weight to the notion that the suffering of certain sentient beings deserves less consideration than that of others. That was how much of slavery was justified (by the perpetrators) historically, with the sickening doctrine of racial inferiority. Obviously we now realise that those believes were (and are, for where they sadly still exist) categorically wrong as all human experience is equal, regardless of ethnic characteristics, whereas it is surely true that there really is a difference in experience between different species. Again, I would just urge caution in how zealously we estimate human superiority over pigs, or pig superiority over fish, for example.

I'm close to going down the rabbithole here on species-based morality so I'll stop before I end up writing a thesis and be late for work, but there's so much more to consider here beyond the ethics of animal exploitation as we see it today. In summary for now:

Yes, humans appear to have more emotional capacity than nonhuman animals. Yes, some animals appear to have more complex nervous systems and therefore likely feel more pain than others. But they still feel pain and emotional suffering and we should do what we can to avoid causing pain and suffering to them. Currently we cause a shocking amount, primarily through animal agriculture. Let's stop doing that

[Marc Meakin]

The biggest dilemma for someone with an animal companion is how to manage its life when it is seriously ill.
Most sensible owners would euthenaise rather than prolong its suffering.
Its a shame that the same feelings don't apply to humans, but that is a discussion for another thread.
Ive had to euthanise 3 pets in my lifetime on advice from a vet its heartbreaking but i feel necessary.
I also think spaying your pet is another necessary evil.
Again with some people the same should apply .
But there would be an argument against these interventions but I do not advocate Jainism

[Gavin Chipper]

We're not all equal, and humans are at the top of the emotional range, so the comparisons with human rights issues, especially slavery, make me quite uncomfortable.

Callum replied to this with what I would consider to be a slightly waffly response in an attempt to be diplomatic, but I'm going to be a bit more blunt.

I think it misses the point of what an analogy is and you quite often see this sort of response - "how can you compare x with y when y is far worse?" The point is not to say that they are equally or similarly bad (although some might consider it to be the case). An analogy is just using one point of similarity between cases to make a point.

And the point with animals suffering for our dinner is that it is something that many people think is a wrong that will be seen as outdated one day but still today considered quite normal by many. Most examples of things like this from the past will involve humans. It's very hard to make a non-human analogy. And one of the most obvious examples that has already played out is slavery. It's not a discussion of the magnitude of the wrong, just a comparison of the specific point of similarity. It's what an analogy is. Overruled.

[Fiona T]

We're not all equal, and humans are at the top of the emotional range, so the comparisons with human rights issues, especially slavery, make me quite uncomfortable.

Callum replied to this with what I would consider to be a slightly waffly response in an attempt to be diplomatic, but I'm going to be a bit more blunt.

I think it misses the point of what an analogy is and you quite often see this sort of response - "how can you compare x with y when y is far worse?" The point is not to say that they are equally or similarly bad (although some might consider it to be the case). An analogy is just using one point of similarity between cases to make a point.

And the point with animals suffering for our dinner is that it is something that many people think is a wrong that will be seen as outdated one day but still today considered quite normal by many. Most examples of things like this from the past will involve humans. It's very hard to make a non-human analogy. And one of the most obvious examples that has already played out is slavery. It's not a discussion of the magnitude of the wrong, just a comparison of the specific point of similarity. It's what an analogy is. Overruled.

I'll take my diplomatic hat off then too

Something can be simultaneously correct and offensive.

Personally I think using slavery as an analogy for farming is grossly offensive, and probably best avoided if you want to persuade people round to your way of thinking.


Edit: googling "is comparing slavery to farming offensive" gives some interesting discussions on the topic - will leave to the reader...

[Gavin Chipper]

I'll take my diplomatic hat off then too

Something can be simultaneously correct and offensive.

Personally I think using slavery as an analogy for farming is grossly offensive, and probably best avoided if you want to persuade people round to your way of thinking.


Edit: googling "is comparing slavery to farming offensive" gives some interesting discussions on the topic - will leave to the reader...

Well maybe you have a point about persuading other people, which is why I would always think twice about using a Nazi analogy in any debate about anything, for example.

But regardless of the example used, it's likely to feature humans in some capacity since virtually all righted wrong from the past involve them.

Edit - If I was involved in a debate on the subject in a "real life" setting, I'd probably say something like "There are many examples from the past where behaviour that was seen as normal by many or most people later became seen as a moral wrong by basically everyone. I won't give specific examples because I don't want people to think I'm putting specific cases on the same moral level, but I'll leave it up to the good audience to come up with their own if they want to."

[Callum Todd]

I'm genuinely really sorry to have given offense here. Looking back I should have been more careful when using the word "enslave", or just found a different word altogether if such a suitable one exists (although as stated above I'm not sure one does). And then in my initial response to the accusation of making comparisons with slavery missed the tone altogether and I even went on to actually sort of discuss the idea of comparing the experience of farm animals and human slaves, which was really stupid of me. Sorry. I'll try be more careful around sensitive subjects in future.

[Fiona T]

I'm genuinely really sorry to have given offense here. Looking back I should have been more careful when using the word "enslave", or just found a different word altogether if such a suitable one exists (although as stated above I'm not sure one does). And then in my initial response to the accusation of making comparisons with slavery missed the tone altogether and I even went on to actually sort of discuss the idea of comparing the experience of farm animals and human slaves, which was really stupid of me. Sorry. I'll try be more careful around sensitive subjects in future.

Apology not necessary (on my account). I'm not personally offended, and as has been pointed out there are definitely parallels that can be drawn upon. It is arguable, and has been argued on this thread, that animals suffer in the same way as humans.

For me the offensiveness is that historically slavery existed because of the inherent belief that black people were inferior, so choosing slavery as the analogy for farming would appear to be comparing black people to animals. I know that's not your intention, and for the most part you've argued your case very eloquently.

Generally I think the more you can make your case without using overly emotive language that anthromoprhises animals, the more receptive your meat eating audience are likely to be.

[Callum Todd]

I'm genuinely really sorry to have given offense here. Looking back I should have been more careful when using the word "enslave", or just found a different word altogether if such a suitable one exists (although as stated above I'm not sure one does). And then in my initial response to the accusation of making comparisons with slavery missed the tone altogether and I even went on to actually sort of discuss the idea of comparing the experience of farm animals and human slaves, which was really stupid of me. Sorry. I'll try be more careful around sensitive subjects in future.

Apology not necessary (on my account). I'm not personally offended, and as has been pointed out there are definitely parallels that can be drawn upon. It is arguable, and has been argued on this thread, that animals suffer in the same way as humans.

For me the offensiveness is that historically slavery existed because of the inherent belief that black people were inferior, so choosing slavery as the analogy for farming would appear to be comparing black people to animals. I know that's not your intention, and for the most part you've argued your case very eloquently.

Generally I think the more you can make your case without using overly emotive language that anthromoprhises animals, the more receptive your meat eating audience are likely to be.

Thanks. I think I have been guilty of using my posts in this thread to sort of 'think aloud' and try be very openly philosophical, but the downside to that is I got careless and didn't consider possible different interpretations of my words. I'd like to try and explain what I was trying to convey more carefully for the benefit of anyone coming to this thread later who might also think I was making an inappropriate analogy, but please understand I'm not doing this as one of those phony 'half-apologies' to try and make excuses for myself or avoid responsibility for the impact of my words. As stated above, I was careless in using a word that evokes a very sensitive topic and then when questioned on it responded even more insensitively. As was the crux of my argument when using Kurt Zouma's animal abuse story to talk about other forms of animal suffering, my good intentions and my ignorance of the consequence of my words doesn't reduce any harm caused by them, and I am really very sorry for causing that harm to anyone who was or might be offended by what I said. Anyway, here goes:

The example of 18th century law was merely given as evidence to support my statement that "the law can sometimes get the range [of morally acceptable behaviour] wrong". The examples from consecutive centuries that followed, culminating in the treatment of animals in the 21st century, were further evidence and were absolutely not intended to be compared to each other or put into some hierarchy of moral wrong. But for what it's worth my personal opinion would be that slavery is the very worst not only of the examples I listed but of all the things humankind have ever done, and possibly even could ever do.

My casual use of the word "enslave" later in that same post to describe our treatment of animals today was very clumsy. I intended to communicate something like "commoditise, strip of individuality, imprison, and exert complete control over the life of" but to do so in fewer words. The word "enslave" occurred to me and I used it without a second thought. I should have considered the connotations of that word and instead just used however many words were necessary to convey what I meant.

And then my discussion of the relative experiences of animals and humans later was just meant as an abstract thought experiment. I realise now that while maybe that sort of thing might be feasible in an academic philosophical context where anything goes, the focus is clearly defined, and relevant disclaimers are given, this forum isn't really the right place to start pondering like that, especially when trampling over very sensitive topics.

I hope my reckless jumping into the weeds doesn't detract from the point I was trying to making before I misstepped, which is that the treatment of animals in agriculture today is abhorrent and unnecessary, and most importantly is terminable through the method of individuals using their personal choice as consumers to reduce their support of the systems that propagate the suffering.

[Callum Todd]

Callum replied to this with what I would consider to be a slightly waffly response in an attempt to be diplomatic, but I'm going to be a bit more blunt.

I think your description of my writing style as "slightly waffly" is very diplomatic

[Callum Todd]

He's in court tomorrow.

Good to hear that "causing unnecessary suffering" to or "fail[ing] to protect... from pain, suffering,injury or disease" an animal is considered wrong. As is even "aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring" someone else to do so.

Good job that law is applied selectively though or we'd all be in the dock.

[Callum Todd]

This video articulates the point I was trying to make (about the experience of the animal, rather than the intentions of the human, being paramount) quite well.

[Fiona T]

https://www.rspcaassured.org.uk/farm-an ... aceration/

FWIW (probably not a lot) "Whilst maceration is a legally permitted method of killing in the UK at present, the majority, if not all, male laying hen chicks in Britain are killed using gas." RSPCA Assured eggs are from hatcheries where Argon gas is used.

[Gavin Chipper]

Interesting stuff. By the way this word "maceration" that is used to describe male chicks being killed in a machine with blades:

macerate

VERB
1 (especially with reference to food) soften or become softened by soaking in a liquid.

with object ‘macerate the mustard seeds in vinegar’

2 archaic with object Cause to waste away by fasting.

‘these men lodged in tombs and macerated themselves with fasting’

Not sure where it comes from then. And that site Fiona linked to with the title "What is maceration?" doesn't actually answer its own question. You have to watch the video. It's all very strange.

[Callum Todd]

Thanks for the context Fiona. I think sometimes vegans can be guilty of overpushing the maceration thing as it's such a visceral image, but to be fair most arguments that are aimed at a global audience often have the US in mind, where animal 'welfare' standards in the agriculture industry are usually inferior to those in the UK. But happily switch out the 'man macerates ducklings on his lawn with lawnmower' for 'man gasses ducklings on his lawn with lawnmower (fumes)' and the logic works just as well.

Some interesting stuff elsewhere on that link you share; I was quite surprised to hear how involved the RSPCA are in the animal agriculture industry. While their assurance standards surely reduce the cruelty that would be occur if they didn't get involved (although if you were to look at things cynically you could question the integrity of an animal welfare organisation that receives so much work and funding from companies who use animals as resources for production), it seems a pretty big stretch to say they're "prevent[ing] cruelty to animals" rather than just reducing it. Rhetorically at least it would be nice if the RSPCA had the courage to take a stance similar to that of, say, PETA.

A really interesting bit in that RSPCA Assured page is the bit on 'Why do we not eat male chickens?':
"Chickens used in the egg-laying industry are a different breed from those in the meat industry. Male chicks hatched in the egg-laying industry will not grow to produce large breast and leg muscles, and therefore, are not reared for meat, although they may be used as food for exotic pets and birds of prey."
The selective breeding of animals in agriculture is something that I think doesn't get nearly enough discussion in this debate, and most people are totally unaware of it. Animals in agriculture (particularly in intensive farming) are now effectively more like artifacts of human technology than they are of nature.

[Callum Todd]

An interesting phenomenon I noticed during the recent heatwaves that reminded me of the Zouma cat case was the plethora of news stories about police officers rescuing dogs from hot cars. Most often police officers were in a supermarket car park or similar place when they noticed a dog left unattended in a car with the windows up on a hot day. The police officers would then smash the window of the car and extract the dog, give them water and take them to a vet. Frequently these police officers were described as "heroes". In none of these stories (I read four or five of them) was it ever mentioned what the owner of the car had to say about the police officer's actions upon returning to their vehicle (in one of the stories there was a video of the police officers' bodycam footage which showed they immediately all left the scene with the dog in the car to take them to the vets, so presumably the car owner returned to find their window smashed and dog disappeared and didn't know why!)

I thought this was really interesting as it shows that the police officers who are supposedly there to protect humans and their property are allowed to, and heroised for, damage the property (a car) of a human in order to protect a non-human (a dog). I do wonder what happens when these hero cops drive past a livestock transporter vehicle, or a slaughterhouse, or a dairy farm, etc.

Presumably the explanation for the police officer's behaviour lies in the law. Just as Kurt Zouma was prosecuted in a court of law for kicking a cat but farmers and slaughterhouse workers aren't prosecuted for torturing and killing other animals, the law seems to protect humans, cats, and dogs in ways it does not protect pigs, cows, and chickens. I'd be interested to hear the details if any of you have an understanding of the specifics of law that protects traditional companion animals but not traditional farm animals.

Of course while the law explains the actions of the police officers, it does not explain the difference in sentiment held by the public who heroise the dog-saving police officers but defend the continued funding of mass imprisonment, torture, and killing of other animals.

[Marc Meakin]

Anyone leaving a dog in a hot car needs prosecuting and being banned from keeping dogs

[Callum Todd]

Anyone leaving a dog in a hot car needs prosecuting and being banned from keeping dogs

How about anyone leaving a pig in a gas chamber?

Or, what if the person leaving the dog in the hot car was doing so because they were planning to then butcher the dog's corpse and sell it for meat?

[Gavin Chipper]

It might be how they cook meat.

[Marc Meakin]

Anyone leaving a dog in a hot car needs prosecuting and being banned from keeping dogs

How about anyone leaving a pig in a gas chamber?

Or, what if the person leaving the dog in the hot car was doing so because they were planning to then butcher the dog's corpse and sell it for meat?

Easy tiger.

Hope you wasn't talking about The Holocaust.
Disclaimer, I'm Jewish so I am allowed to joke about it

[Callum Todd]

Anyone leaving a dog in a hot car needs prosecuting and being banned from keeping dogs

How about anyone leaving a pig in a gas chamber?

Or, what if the person leaving the dog in the hot car was doing so because they were planning to then butcher the dog's corpse and sell it for meat?

Easy tiger.

Hope you wasn't talking about The Holocaust.
Disclaimer, I'm Jewish so I am allowed to joke about it

No, I was talking about what actually happens to pigs in UK agriculture today. And I wasn't joking.