Philosophical Vegan Forum

Just curious about your thoughts on PETA.

They kill animals. nuff said.

Jebus wrote:They kill animals. nuff said.

Really? How, why?

By the way, preet, consider making an introduction post!

miniboes, thanks for the suggestion! Will do so tomorrow, I am leaving right now.
I believe Jebus is referring to this http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-j- ... 79220.html . My stance on this issue is that PETA prioritizes, preventing suffering over life, which is good, according to me. Also No-Kill shelters refuse entry to animals(even adoptable one's) after they are full, or lack the resources. PETA run shelters don't do this, they accept all animals and make no guarantee that they will be adopted. The reasoning being that people might just decide to abandon the animals, which might result in worse consequences than humane euthanasia. There is a big difference between being 'adoptable' and being adopted.

That sounds dubious. I will keep out of but an eye on this discussion (is that grammatically correct?) as I do not know much about PETA.

In Mauritius we have two organizations trying to solve the problem of stray pets and they both have very limited resources. One is PAWS who have the policy of never killing an animal. If their shelters are full, they simply do not accept another animal. The other one is MSPCA who takes in every animal that is brought to them, only to kill them after three days unless the unlikely event of adoption were to take place. I believe PETA is very much like MSPCA.

im not a fan of PETA. They employ sensationalism and sexism. I also do not agree with their welfarist stance and need to appease their non-vegetarian donor base

TheVeganAtheist wrote:im not a fan of PETA. They employ sensationalism and sexism. I also do not agree with their welfarist stance and need to appease their non-vegetarian donor base

I feel their tactics have been greatly instrumental in bringing awareness about these issues to a great majority of people who are presently involved with the movement. The majority of people in this world cannot be swayed by rational arguments alone, they need something dramatic, to change. I would agree about the "welfarist stance" issue, although still the longterm goal of PETA is to end all animal use.

I agree with preet.

Jebus, yes they euthanize animals, but they do it because they believe it is in their best interest to prevent suffering when nobody wants them.
Unfortunately, the financial resources just do not exist to take care of all of these animals, and some are not adoptable.

While personally I support a spay/neuter, vaccinate, tag and release program for these animals, these measures themselves are also prohibitively expensive and in many areas may be illegal.

Don't judge organizations like these until you've walked a mile in their shoes, so to speak. There are many complications that you just aren't aware of (many that even I'm not aware of).

Even if I may think I have better ideas, we're all ignorant on the nitty gritty details, and I won't stand in judgement of people who I believe are acting with the best intentions when they know more about the subject than I do.

TheVeganAtheist wrote:im not a fan of PETA. They employ sensationalism and sexism.

preet wrote: I feel their tactics have been greatly instrumental in bringing awareness about these issues to a great majority of people who are presently involved with the movement. The majority of people in this world cannot be swayed by rational arguments alone, they need something dramatic, to change.

This, absolutely. PETA has a limited budget, and they really understand the art of getting free publicity, even if we may not always agree with everything they say, they are a large organization with many members and many views. The important point is that they're getting the message out there, and a lot of people are hearing it.

TheVeganAtheist wrote:I also do not agree with their welfarist stance and need to appease their non-vegetarian donor base

preet wrote:I would agree about the "welfarist stance" issue, although still the longterm goal of PETA is to end all animal use.

Well, animal welfare is how you do that. You can't expect to make progress going too directly against the tide of political will.

Radical animal liberation only holds things back by making welfare more complicated, and creating a roadblock (even stirring up enough discontent to prompt legislation against us).

Is it right? Maybe. But pushing for idealism without any realism doesn't help the animals.

PETA is and has been very practical in using this more diplomatic approach. It will take time, but I have confidence that they know what they're doing.

I think that animal welfare opponents have a fear of animal circumstances getting a bit too good and therefore run out of arguments to oppose the consumption of meat and other animal products. And if that happens, there is a fear that the end goal of liberation never will be realized. Besides, vegetarians could go back to eating meat if the circumstances are better. I think this is the underlying motivation of the abolitionist camp.

The problem with this view however is that there is enormous trust in the world all going vegan. And if we are realistic about this, that's just not going to happen—at least not on a timescale of years / decades. If people (generally speaking) aren't engaged in this subject to know what it's really about, they are continuing to consume animals whatever the circumstances are. Reforming the industry is the best solution to at least reduce the harm that animals at this moment in time have to endure. I don't think you're being realistic if you're opposing this.

On the sensationalism and sexism argument: I'm not against sensationalism in general if it works well and is able to get peoples attention. If you're using sexism to promote another form of discrimination though, I think you're doing something wrong. But I also have to say that I don't know the details of what PETA has supposedly done, so I don't want to hurry with conclusions.