really don't know what an amoral meaning of "support" would be in this context.
I
believe in an objective universal morality that (if pushed) could be
condensed to single words like "liberty" or "consent" (they are avatars
of the same concept). So I don't support non-consent, ever. The only
time I ever encourage ignoring someone's consent is to prevent them from
ignoring consent themselves. i.e. punishment/justice.
Good to know. So you think you can substantiate that the animals you
have sex with consent and understand exactly what you are doing to them
when you have sex with them?
I didn't say I have sex with non-humans, let us say hypothetically that I have in some jurisdiction where it would be legal to do so. I could in that case know that I had the animal's consent by applying an inductive argument to their behavior (including vocalizations) in the context of my knowledge of their personality and history. That description technically describes the assessment of consent from humans as well, it is never known with 100% certainty; one simply must eliminate the absurd in order to live.
Understanding exactly what I am doing to them (or in my case what they are doing to me) is a different matter entirely. We both know that bit is going in that hole. We both know that the other endorses this procedure. The animal may understand fluid is being transferred. The animal definitely doesn't understand that the fluid contains tiny machines called cells. There is no doubt something I don't understand about it as well, I can't tell you what that is but if I had lived 200 years ago I would not know about the cells.
I don't want to pull a Cathy Newman and do the whole "so your saying"
thing, but am I misunderstanding you by assuming you are breaking this
down argumentatively by saying not all bestiality is rape because, but
in cases where you feel an animal has not consented, you feel it is not
okay?
If Cathy Newman was doing it honestly there wouldn't be a problem.
I believe not all bestiality is rape, but some bestiality is rape. It is rape when it is not consensual. I find that unacceptable, however regardless of whether I found it acceptable or not it would be rape given the definition of rape I gave.
A legal definition of rape might not hold non-consenting bestiality to be rape because animals aren't persons under the law. That is why I am very careful about definitions, words serve a purpose and when a word has moral connotations like "rape" its definition must be carefully tailored to reflect the morally relevant concept, in this case consent regardless of some legal notion of personhood.
Just because worse things are "legally" allowed to be done to animals, I
feel like that isn't a good argument for partaking in something
especially if you feel it is wrong.
That is essentially correct and I am total agreement. Even a perfect liberal set of laws allows plenty of room for vice. However in this case this isn't something "worse" it's something considerably better than average.
But in my own words with eating a cheeseburger that was the result of an
animal being tortured in a factory, I can justify that by being so far
removed from the torture itself that I can enjoy the product. A vegan
could argue I am part of the problem because corporations will continue
torturing animals as long as I purchase the product and continuously
provide them the money to do so, they will continue to murder animals in
the fastest most profitable way regardless of the harm done to the
animals. I feel that even if I rioted and advocated with the vegans,
there would never be enough support to make people care, especially over
populated countries, or starving countries. There simply will always be
a market for this, and whether I do or do not stop eating
cheeseburgers, nothing will change or come of it, so why not eat the
burger while admitting I think they way they are produced is horrible
and wish it was changed? The act of eating a cheeseburger isn't wrong to
me if the killing of the animal is done humanely, but considering I
have no control over that process, I think it's okay to do it.
I agree that it is unlikely that beef or pork eating will end anytime soon. It is far more likely that that meat will become lab-grown before people give it up. I would caution against believing everything vegan activists say. I have been to many local farms and there is very little in the way of torture (especially for dairy). I know there are mega-corp farms where the vegans get their shock-footage but I would be wary of their statistical math.
There is no nice way to kill, and I don't eat beef or pork (or any other mammal), but I do still eat chicken and turkey. Not sure about that, but I have zero reservations about eggs, milk, fish, and arthropods.
In reference to over-populated or starving countries, cattle farming is a terrible idea if you're actually in a calorie deficient. Just feed the people corn instead of feeding the bovids and then the people. I say that like it is novel advice but nobody needs to be told, poor people do eat less meat because meat is hard to produce compared to grain and tubers.
If you do believe there is an intractable moral problem in the production of a product then I would agree with the vegans that you are part of the problem if you consume it. In your case however the problem could equally be said to be a lack of transparency in allowing you to choose to buy "humane" beef.
In the case of bestiality though, that is something we have control
over, and just because it's mostly legal, doesn't mean your
participation doesn't directly harm the animal.
It's not mostly legal in most places in the west. The legality has no bearing on the actual reality of harm or non-harm. I know there is no harm by observation and inference in the context of all my knowledge. That's the only way to know anything.
This whole debate is a matter of ideas and philosophy at its core, and I
want to understand from you without playing the argumentative games
that miss the point. I want to understand what your morals are telling
you and how you aren't contradicting them.
Without conceding that requiring common definitions is "playing the argumentative games that miss the point" I'll try to answer in brief.
My values are liberty, knowledge/truth/reason, life, prosperity, beauty, and pleasure more or less in that order.
I don't always pursue my values to the best of my ability, if I did that would mean I was perfectly virtuous and nobody is perfect.
There are many temptations and apparent conflicts between values that come up in my life and always come up in people's lives.
If I were to make a list of disappointing or frustrating elements where the correct course of action isn't obvious bestiality would not make the top 50. Why? It's actually very simple and straightforward concept. Above polytheist was talking about BSDM and safewords. That's a human making things as complicated as possible. A dog doesn't make things complicated they make things simple. They want food, they want to explore, they want to play, and they want what feels good to them.
It's not rocket science and there is not that much room for error. Communicating future intention is hard. Communicating current opinion [good or bad] is very easy. Anyone who has interacted with domestic animals can attest to this.
With the basest of good sense in selecting activities and times sex can be more than something they tolerate it can be something they look forward to, beg for. Not always, every one of them forms their own ideas (which is the reason their consent can be said to exist). Some won't even let the first time happen. Some won't let the second time happen. Some will try to make it happen every day.
There have been experiments which attempt to evaluate relative motivations in animals by forcing them to choose between doors after they have learned only one will open.
Through such experiments they have established that some cats or dogs or horses will actually choose playing a simple game with a human over food. Many cats and some dogs are mortal enemies of bathtime and they will let you know it. I have no doubt that if an experiment was setup in which they were to choose (and it happened enough times that they understood what they are choosing) between a treat, playing with a human, and mating with a human a significant number would choose mating.
There is no tradeoff, there is no "greater good" or "lesser evil" it's just good. There is no contradiction on the horizon so if you thinking of one you're going to have to say it.
