Philosophical Vegan Forum

Priest_of_Seitan wrote: ↑Mon Apr 01, 2019 8:52 pm To Jebus:
1. I disagree on cat should wear bells. To support my disagreement I'd like to raise three points: 1a) I did saw a successful hunter cat with a bell. On the other hand 1b) I know a cat got hooked and suffocated by the collar in the wild. Thirdly, 1c) I don't think animals should wear anything at all, because that is a form of denying their natural integrity and a symbol of ownership over them. Therefore I think having a cat collar is unjustified, harmful and ineffective - and I think each one of these alone is sufficient to raise at least concerns against collar, but this three together seem to me pretty convincing.

Would you agree, that in that case, cats should always be kept indoors?

The part about natural integrity and symbol of ownership reads very deontological. Cats, when outdoors, cause a great deal of suffering. It would therefore be very unethical to let them out of the house when one has the option of keeping them inside.

to teo 123:

Your example is not valid, we are not preys, but here I go.

I guess the only reasonable animal killing is when there is an unavoidable self-defence. I think there is a case of mental self-defence too, but that is not important now let's focus on the physical one.

When I meet with an animal which attack me or my body, I meet on the battlefield of life, in the arena of survival. So I do reserve the right to use all my evolutionary and civilization given advances. And if mosquitoes, ticks, flees, tapeworms, rabid dogs and rattle snakes are reading this, this is a threat. If you want to harm me, because this is the way for your living, I will defend myself and my loved ones an I will do harm you.

So, if a caveman me meets with the sabre tooth, I will defend myself. I will not ask for fluorescent warning lights for the tiger, or for rubber chickens taped on the paws of the bear, but I'll defend myself, with hiding, deceiving or attacking. This is the law of the Nature. Physical conflicts are highly resource intensive. Whenever it is possible they try to avoid it. But when it is has to happen then that is a fight for life.

So, I do expecting the prey to defend with all its tool, against my cats -as they learnt to respect bees, wasps and hornets after all: on the hard way...

...But eventually I have to ask for the same: you have to switch to the position on the carnivore. They do it for their loved ones, or to train to be fit to feed heir loved ones.

red:

So about the TNR scene in Austria
Larger cities has NGO operations to subsidize neutering, and you can claim that is not your cat, so the vets are doing for free in a periodical time limits. (Like 10/months).

Certain smaller municipalities, like villages do a voucher system: you can apply for it at the mayor's office, and when you catch the cat you can take to the vet, you pay with the voucher for neutering, and the vet got paid by the voucher from the mayor's office.

Jebus:

there is a lot of suffering by carnivores anyway in the nature. With feeding them actually I just quench their blood thirst but I nurture their territorial claims, they are keeping other cats away from the birds in the surrounding but they too well fed to hunt for them - meanwhile they happy to take care of the mice. A cat belongs to outside.

Priest_of_Seitan wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2019 2:47 pm Jebus:

there is a lot of suffering by carnivores anyway in the nature. With feeding them actually I just quench their blood thirst but I nurture their territorial claims, they are keeping other cats away from the birds in the surrounding but they too well fed to hunt for them - meanwhile they happy to take care of the mice. A cat belongs to outside.

Sorry, most of the above was a bit incomprehensible.

Do you think you are making the world a better place when you let your cat roam outside?

teo123 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2019 12:12 am Let's think of it this way: would your cat take care of you if you switched places? No, cats that happen to be big enough (lions...) kill and eat humans. So, why should you bother to take care of that selfish being?

To quote my Physics teacher Mr. Chong;
"That is the dumbest shit I have ever heard."

Jebus wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2019 2:55 pm Do you think you are making the world a better place when you let your cat roam outside?

I think he's saying:

1. If not for his cat, it would be another cat
2. That he doesn't think he has the right to stop a cat from killing because he's not the one being killed.

Unless there are a lot of starving cats (in excess of prey availability) point one is empirically untrue.
And if there were such a deficit you'd have an ecological catastrophe.

As to point two:
@Priest_of_Seitan Would you say it's immoral for me to defend a child against a bear attack, since I'm not the one the bear is attacking?
Is it really wrong to protect others from harm? What if we can do it without violence, like... by keeping the bear inside in a comfortable environment and taking him or her for supervised walks?

to Brimstone:
For the 2nd. No, not because I am not killed. Sorry for my English.
Rather because a prey-predator relationships is in the code of nature. It is existing. I do not necessary like it, but it is in. A cat kills- partially that's why we domesticated them. A lot of other animals kills. A prey has to try to survive, the least fit will be hunted down, this is how natural selection works. They do not kills all the birds. They certainly not kills all the mice.

If I am hunted, I defend myself. That is what a prey should do.

For your counterargument: it is not immoral to defend somebody. There is the "havária" (~emergency situation) example.
In case of a disaster we value the others in the similarity to ourself. If there is an apartment fire, first you try to save yourself, after your family, after acquaintances, other people, animals.

In animals, we evaluate the life higher which are closer to us. So respectively primates, companion-, domesticated-, wild-mammals, vertebrates, the rest.

The self-defence can be transferred by empathy. I would defend a companion animal against a wild one, or a mammal from a snake, I would defend any human against any animal, and so on.

Jebus:
I am not make it better place, but I do not think I make it worse either.

Priest_of_Seitan wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 10:32 am Rather because a prey-predator relationships is in the code of nature. It is existing. I do not necessary like it, but it is in.

Is that not an appeal to nature fallacy?

You can make an argument for the utility if you need a mouser for something (like farming), but otherwise, why do you need your cat to kill? Why not play with toys instead?

Priest_of_Seitan wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 10:32 am
In animals, we evaluate the life higher which are closer to us. So respectively primates, companion-, domesticated-, wild-mammals, vertebrates, the rest.

The mice cats kill are more closely related to us than the cats. So why, then, on this basis would we favor the cat?

Priest_of_Seitan wrote: ↑Wed Apr 03, 2019 10:32 amThe self-defence can be transferred by empathy. I would defend a companion animal against a wild one, or a mammal from a snake, I would defend any human against any animal, and so on.

This is explanation, it explains the why of your preferences, but explanation is not justification.
Is the justification that it's OK to defend whatever you're attached to?