African parks need to give all their animals Western names so this outrage exists every time an extant species is poached to extinction.
Hey, it works.
I think we can only have so much empathy as a species. It's easier to identify with something unique and something cute. FWIW, I don't think there's an inherent immorality to eating meat, though I don't think there's really any good philosophical argument in favour of it, either. So I don't. I sometimes make a yearly exception to the rule (usually for the_axel's pig roast, where the animal is free range and raised in a sustainable way, but those exceptions are getting rarer and rarer the more I think about it.
But I think there's a moral difference in eating, say, an oyster, which has no higher brain functions and is environmentally sustainable to raise, and sport-hunting a sentient animal from a species of which there's a very finite number. You can probably never eat as many oysters as it would take to make an impact on the biosphere, whereas a handful of people—probably even one person—are capable of actually causing the extinction of all the rhinos in the world.
Regular livestock are somewhere along that continuum. Chickens will never be extinct, but factory farming is devastating and world-altering. That's the main reason, not animal cruelty, that I don't touch the stuff.
I feel guilty about almond milk, though, given the drought. You can't avoid participating in all horrors, but you can avoid the worst easily enough.
no subject
Hey, it works.
I think we can only have so much empathy as a species. It's easier to identify with something unique and something cute. FWIW, I don't think there's an inherent immorality to eating meat, though I don't think there's really any good philosophical argument in favour of it, either. So I don't. I sometimes make a yearly exception to the rule (usually for
But I think there's a moral difference in eating, say, an oyster, which has no higher brain functions and is environmentally sustainable to raise, and sport-hunting a sentient animal from a species of which there's a very finite number. You can probably never eat as many oysters as it would take to make an impact on the biosphere, whereas a handful of people—probably even one person—are capable of actually causing the extinction of all the rhinos in the world.
Regular livestock are somewhere along that continuum. Chickens will never be extinct, but factory farming is devastating and world-altering. That's the main reason, not animal cruelty, that I don't touch the stuff.
I feel guilty about almond milk, though, given the drought. You can't avoid participating in all horrors, but you can avoid the worst easily enough.