Anthropomorphism, Domestication (of Pets) vs. the Wildlife Management Paradigm.
14 November 2016 [link youtube]
Youtube Automatic Transcription
got a top here to address that his
philosophical but brief I had a message that i believe was from a patreon supporter asking me basically about in principle all everything we have to say about animal rights and ideal or optimal treatment of animals put it that way everything we have to say about the optimal treatment of animals is based on human beings looking at animals and then human beings imposing on to those animals human expectations human values human feelings right that in some sense fundamentally when we look at how animals live and how we best could treat them uh we're thinking about how we would feel if we were in those circumstances Utah test mutandis so with necessary changes obviously if you look at a dolphin that's in a tiny swimming pool it you can't say well if I were that so i would i feel if you're looking at whales and dolphins are treated it's one thing when we're looking at a monkey living its whole life in a cage it seems pretty easy for us to make the leap of inference that that monkey would be happier if it weren't alone if it were with a group of monkeys if it had a bigger cage if it had trees that could climb on within its cage etc etc but all of this line of reasoning doesn't it rely on the human observer imposing human values on to the monkey onto the animal in question whether it's a mammal or insect or otherwise so this person writes to me I probably have to skip some parts this letters a long letter izel I've been a long aware of people who would argue that pet ownership was morally wrong but I regarded this position as ridiculous and never bothered seeking it more information if this accomplishes nothing else thank you for your videos on the topic I'm not sure where I stand but I now realize it's ethically important and I realized the need to be more open mind in the future I'm having difficulty with reaching a conclusion as it seems impossible to consider the issue without anthropomorphizing the pet I'm so glad I managed to pronounce the word anthropomorphize egg without its stumbling on it oh this is in the class of words you don't have a lot of practice saying out loud the mainstream opinion a la unnatural vegan is given that the animals needs are met owning a pet is morally good or at least morally neutral I too found this convincing for a long time because if I were going to be transformed into a dog I would much rather have somebody filling my bowl than being obligated to forage for food you on the other stand if I understand you correctly sorry you on the other hand if I understand you correctly believe that giving the dog the opportunity to fully realize the exercise of its instincts its body and mind involves letting it fend for itself among other dogs in the wild and to add inayat this opportunity is immoral perhaps this is the truth but it doesn't seem to escape putting human characteristics on to dogs although you're imposing another personality type yours you so often speak of living a meaningful life and whether you're a dog or a human that seems impossible if someone else is making choices for you given that we can't communicate with animals to determine what their thoughts are on these matters how are we supposed to know the right thing to do how do we know animals preferences or rights without projecting our preferences on to them don't you feel that your own personality never my personality influences your beliefs on this issue okay says an interesting and philosophical question from Max it's interesting and it's philosophical I also think it's irrelevant it's irrelevant in two ways the first of which I'll say really briefly because I think everyone watching this is already vegan the first sense in which it's irrelevant you guys already know we don't need to get into this level of sympathetic and speculative understanding of an animal's perspective of the world to come to the conclusion that a cow does not want to live its whole life in a tiny metal and concrete cage to produce milk for human beings to then be slaughtered and cut up and consumers meat so that's one sense and that's not you know obviously I'm not using this to stub him but in terms of veganism as a social movement you know our opposition to the dairy industry doesn't get into these these fine points the distinction the second sense in which it's a relevant I think is that he's making the error of continuing to think of animals as pets as ineluctably as intrinsically inevitably as playing the role of being the you know court jester for human beings as existing for our entertainment and so on when you start with this paradigm even though he's examining it even though he's questioning here you're thinking of pets in the role of your houseguest you're thinking what should I do to make my guests comfortable right which is natural I completely understand why you think of animals that way given that for many people in the modern world living in a city the main role you see animals in is as our houseguest is as ain't you know living in your house but not cooking for themselves not paying the rent not contributing you know in terms of production which they did of course in medieval and you know pre-modern societies so you see yourself as the role of the good host and you're questioning only the morality of how a good host should treat his or her house guest my perspective instead is to look at the wilderness as a foreign country it isn't truly but to look at the willna wilderness as almost a foreign country as something that has its own borders sin that has its own integrity Sun that exists separately from you know our own sense of hospitality of making people comfortable a view I'm not concerned with the animals comfort I'm not concerned with the animals desires I'm not concerned with the animals happiness I'm not concerned with what that animal would choose so I mean one of the most absurd examples but I should debated this with non vegan and I've seen a couple other vegans on YouTube talking about this I do not think it's the role of human beings to interfere when one bear and the forest tries to eat another bear bears do engage in aggressive cannibalism bears kill and eat other bears and it's beautiful brutal and horrifying and even if you watched a lot of nature documentaries you may have never seen that it's just a site of how bears really live that humans don't want to generally look at or face up to so you know if you actually believe the bears are part of our society and you see one bear trying to eat another do you call the police you know if you see bears as your pets as your house gets if you have two bears in a zoo it's immoral to put two bears together have them fight to the death and eat each other for human entertainment to have a gladiators ring for bear sure but I'm not talking about the zoo I'm not talking about you know that the dog that lives as your houseguest I'm talking about the integrity of those bears living on their own terms killing on their own terms and dying on their own terms in the wilderness and thus the wilderness the sling that stands apart from the morality of the good host as instead something where our role is to maintain that border the first and foremost human beings have to stop other human beings from cutting down the trees with the stop other human beings from hunting the Bears we have to maintain that preserve and then as I've said a million times I don't believe in nature red in tooth and Fang I do believe that ultimately we are talking about wildlife management that ultimately they're human beings who are concerned with is the population appears too high or too low or what have you so within that um you know in a sense you're right you could say am I just someone who values independence imagine someone who values dignity everything dignity is really the crew crucial cannot even independence what I value is dignity and my concept of dignity is probably not the same as your constituting I think there can be dignity in a wild animal starving to death instead of you know being castrated domesticated broken and eating every meal out of the palm of a human hand I think there's dignity in a dog or a wild boar living in the forest on its own terms and that we are depriving the animal of that dignity when we reduce it to being a decoration on our carpet you've heard me say these things before so yes my concept of dignity is ultimately a human created concept it's sung that reflects my character and it's true i'm projecting it but i would say that i'm projecting it mostly in how i construe this argument in trying to convince you that's the main function of my psychology here is in how I'm expressing myself when talking other vegans it is not really part of how I look at animals feel about animals understand how I would treat a domesticated dog in my own house if I was in that situation or what have you um so me you're right it's an interesting point I also think the point is very limited validity for the two reasons I've already stated this kind of wanting to look into the mind of an animal and understand from that animals perspective what it would enjoy that's only relevant if you're starting from assuming the role of human beings as being the being the good host taking care of a house guess what would my guests prefer and it's not relevant when you realize our role is not to know that I don't want to hook up dogs to an MRI scanner and figure out what makes them happier and I've literally had vegan suggests to me that that's going to be the future for veganism is understanding animal desires that we know the point she is exactly to recognize you know not to impose my human nature on to them but to recognize the dog and dog nature Pig and pig nature bear and bear nature are things we preserve things we should value things we should care about but the main way we have to value them is exactly by allowing those animals to seek out their own livelihood in the wild and they may find it and they may fail to find it they may starve to death and of course they wouldn't prefer to starve to death but we're making a judgment based on the integrity of the wilderness itself not based in the happiness of any particular bear and as soon as you cross the line go the other way which I think we do I think we will do inevitably I think you'll find in the wilderness a bear that has one broken leg and you have to make the decision do we leave this bear to now die in the wild or do we amputate the leg take it to a zoo or take it to a circus and give it a second life where it's just a plaything for human beings take you to the circus castrate it cut off its leg give it a million dollars with a veterinary care and then what you're going to try to make that money back I guess but a spectacle out of this three-legged bear I understand and sometimes people are sincerely compassionate when they see that they say this is a bear that could live another ten years or something if we intervene I completely understand that I think there are vegans who have big hearts and they want to do exactly that there are vegans who would get up out of their seat right now they're so moved by thinking about a three-legged bear and they would want to adopt that bear or keep it in its bat in their backyard or what have you but it's trouble and bears are not vegan if you take that bear into your care now you're into killing cows to feed your bear now you're into speciesism and now you're actually into what I see as a terrible downward spiral of domestication of animals because as soon as you deprive that bear of its dignity as soon as you deprive that bear of the possibility of living on its own terms and of dying on its own terms you're taking it into human society you're making it into a play thing instead of letting it live and die as as an animal
philosophical but brief I had a message that i believe was from a patreon supporter asking me basically about in principle all everything we have to say about animal rights and ideal or optimal treatment of animals put it that way everything we have to say about the optimal treatment of animals is based on human beings looking at animals and then human beings imposing on to those animals human expectations human values human feelings right that in some sense fundamentally when we look at how animals live and how we best could treat them uh we're thinking about how we would feel if we were in those circumstances Utah test mutandis so with necessary changes obviously if you look at a dolphin that's in a tiny swimming pool it you can't say well if I were that so i would i feel if you're looking at whales and dolphins are treated it's one thing when we're looking at a monkey living its whole life in a cage it seems pretty easy for us to make the leap of inference that that monkey would be happier if it weren't alone if it were with a group of monkeys if it had a bigger cage if it had trees that could climb on within its cage etc etc but all of this line of reasoning doesn't it rely on the human observer imposing human values on to the monkey onto the animal in question whether it's a mammal or insect or otherwise so this person writes to me I probably have to skip some parts this letters a long letter izel I've been a long aware of people who would argue that pet ownership was morally wrong but I regarded this position as ridiculous and never bothered seeking it more information if this accomplishes nothing else thank you for your videos on the topic I'm not sure where I stand but I now realize it's ethically important and I realized the need to be more open mind in the future I'm having difficulty with reaching a conclusion as it seems impossible to consider the issue without anthropomorphizing the pet I'm so glad I managed to pronounce the word anthropomorphize egg without its stumbling on it oh this is in the class of words you don't have a lot of practice saying out loud the mainstream opinion a la unnatural vegan is given that the animals needs are met owning a pet is morally good or at least morally neutral I too found this convincing for a long time because if I were going to be transformed into a dog I would much rather have somebody filling my bowl than being obligated to forage for food you on the other stand if I understand you correctly sorry you on the other hand if I understand you correctly believe that giving the dog the opportunity to fully realize the exercise of its instincts its body and mind involves letting it fend for itself among other dogs in the wild and to add inayat this opportunity is immoral perhaps this is the truth but it doesn't seem to escape putting human characteristics on to dogs although you're imposing another personality type yours you so often speak of living a meaningful life and whether you're a dog or a human that seems impossible if someone else is making choices for you given that we can't communicate with animals to determine what their thoughts are on these matters how are we supposed to know the right thing to do how do we know animals preferences or rights without projecting our preferences on to them don't you feel that your own personality never my personality influences your beliefs on this issue okay says an interesting and philosophical question from Max it's interesting and it's philosophical I also think it's irrelevant it's irrelevant in two ways the first of which I'll say really briefly because I think everyone watching this is already vegan the first sense in which it's irrelevant you guys already know we don't need to get into this level of sympathetic and speculative understanding of an animal's perspective of the world to come to the conclusion that a cow does not want to live its whole life in a tiny metal and concrete cage to produce milk for human beings to then be slaughtered and cut up and consumers meat so that's one sense and that's not you know obviously I'm not using this to stub him but in terms of veganism as a social movement you know our opposition to the dairy industry doesn't get into these these fine points the distinction the second sense in which it's a relevant I think is that he's making the error of continuing to think of animals as pets as ineluctably as intrinsically inevitably as playing the role of being the you know court jester for human beings as existing for our entertainment and so on when you start with this paradigm even though he's examining it even though he's questioning here you're thinking of pets in the role of your houseguest you're thinking what should I do to make my guests comfortable right which is natural I completely understand why you think of animals that way given that for many people in the modern world living in a city the main role you see animals in is as our houseguest is as ain't you know living in your house but not cooking for themselves not paying the rent not contributing you know in terms of production which they did of course in medieval and you know pre-modern societies so you see yourself as the role of the good host and you're questioning only the morality of how a good host should treat his or her house guest my perspective instead is to look at the wilderness as a foreign country it isn't truly but to look at the willna wilderness as almost a foreign country as something that has its own borders sin that has its own integrity Sun that exists separately from you know our own sense of hospitality of making people comfortable a view I'm not concerned with the animals comfort I'm not concerned with the animals desires I'm not concerned with the animals happiness I'm not concerned with what that animal would choose so I mean one of the most absurd examples but I should debated this with non vegan and I've seen a couple other vegans on YouTube talking about this I do not think it's the role of human beings to interfere when one bear and the forest tries to eat another bear bears do engage in aggressive cannibalism bears kill and eat other bears and it's beautiful brutal and horrifying and even if you watched a lot of nature documentaries you may have never seen that it's just a site of how bears really live that humans don't want to generally look at or face up to so you know if you actually believe the bears are part of our society and you see one bear trying to eat another do you call the police you know if you see bears as your pets as your house gets if you have two bears in a zoo it's immoral to put two bears together have them fight to the death and eat each other for human entertainment to have a gladiators ring for bear sure but I'm not talking about the zoo I'm not talking about you know that the dog that lives as your houseguest I'm talking about the integrity of those bears living on their own terms killing on their own terms and dying on their own terms in the wilderness and thus the wilderness the sling that stands apart from the morality of the good host as instead something where our role is to maintain that border the first and foremost human beings have to stop other human beings from cutting down the trees with the stop other human beings from hunting the Bears we have to maintain that preserve and then as I've said a million times I don't believe in nature red in tooth and Fang I do believe that ultimately we are talking about wildlife management that ultimately they're human beings who are concerned with is the population appears too high or too low or what have you so within that um you know in a sense you're right you could say am I just someone who values independence imagine someone who values dignity everything dignity is really the crew crucial cannot even independence what I value is dignity and my concept of dignity is probably not the same as your constituting I think there can be dignity in a wild animal starving to death instead of you know being castrated domesticated broken and eating every meal out of the palm of a human hand I think there's dignity in a dog or a wild boar living in the forest on its own terms and that we are depriving the animal of that dignity when we reduce it to being a decoration on our carpet you've heard me say these things before so yes my concept of dignity is ultimately a human created concept it's sung that reflects my character and it's true i'm projecting it but i would say that i'm projecting it mostly in how i construe this argument in trying to convince you that's the main function of my psychology here is in how I'm expressing myself when talking other vegans it is not really part of how I look at animals feel about animals understand how I would treat a domesticated dog in my own house if I was in that situation or what have you um so me you're right it's an interesting point I also think the point is very limited validity for the two reasons I've already stated this kind of wanting to look into the mind of an animal and understand from that animals perspective what it would enjoy that's only relevant if you're starting from assuming the role of human beings as being the being the good host taking care of a house guess what would my guests prefer and it's not relevant when you realize our role is not to know that I don't want to hook up dogs to an MRI scanner and figure out what makes them happier and I've literally had vegan suggests to me that that's going to be the future for veganism is understanding animal desires that we know the point she is exactly to recognize you know not to impose my human nature on to them but to recognize the dog and dog nature Pig and pig nature bear and bear nature are things we preserve things we should value things we should care about but the main way we have to value them is exactly by allowing those animals to seek out their own livelihood in the wild and they may find it and they may fail to find it they may starve to death and of course they wouldn't prefer to starve to death but we're making a judgment based on the integrity of the wilderness itself not based in the happiness of any particular bear and as soon as you cross the line go the other way which I think we do I think we will do inevitably I think you'll find in the wilderness a bear that has one broken leg and you have to make the decision do we leave this bear to now die in the wild or do we amputate the leg take it to a zoo or take it to a circus and give it a second life where it's just a plaything for human beings take you to the circus castrate it cut off its leg give it a million dollars with a veterinary care and then what you're going to try to make that money back I guess but a spectacle out of this three-legged bear I understand and sometimes people are sincerely compassionate when they see that they say this is a bear that could live another ten years or something if we intervene I completely understand that I think there are vegans who have big hearts and they want to do exactly that there are vegans who would get up out of their seat right now they're so moved by thinking about a three-legged bear and they would want to adopt that bear or keep it in its bat in their backyard or what have you but it's trouble and bears are not vegan if you take that bear into your care now you're into killing cows to feed your bear now you're into speciesism and now you're actually into what I see as a terrible downward spiral of domestication of animals because as soon as you deprive that bear of its dignity as soon as you deprive that bear of the possibility of living on its own terms and of dying on its own terms you're taking it into human society you're making it into a play thing instead of letting it live and die as as an animal