Do you remember your first dog or cat? Perhaps even your first boa constrictor? Whatever your preference, pets can play a huge role in our lives, even becoming full-fledged family members. But is domestication really in an animal’s best interest? Does pet ownership create a loving bond between human and animal, or does it only serve our own interests?
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I am making the human choice gradually
Snake Kills to Survive, Human Kills For Pleasure
The only thing that should be required for animals to be a part of the moral community for consideration is sentience.
What did u think of the analogy I made of being faced with a decision to choose which animal gets to live: the snake, or the mouse? Why choose one sentient being over the other? Why is one more valuable or deserving than the other? In the answer lies the discrimination. The snake is more "beautiful", I "like" snakes more, the snakes are my " pets ", but the mice are not, snakes are "iconic", snakes are "cool" animals, snakes are "rare" and deserve protection/to live, mice are "common" and "overpopulated", mice are small and stupid, and in your words; mice are "items". All of these descriptions and labels are irrelevant to morality and what is important in choosing to grant life or death. The only thing that is important to making a moral decision about someone's life is sentience and the ability to suffer. Both the snake and the mouse possess these. Neither species has any more right to life than the other.
When a wild snake kills food to eat, he does it for the purpose of survival, he does it naturally and it is his choice. When a human keeps a snake for the pleasure of keeping a pet, and then kills small animals for the snake to eat, the killing is no longer natural and is no longer the decision of the snake. The killing is done by the human for the pleasure, (not the survival) of the purpose of keeping a pet. The killing changes from being something that was essential (as survival in the wild) to something that is unnecessary and trivial (as owning a pet).
- Desert Girl
June 23, 2009 7:43AM
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