“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
M. Ghandi (Hindu)
“All living beings desire happiness, and have revulsion from pain and suffering. They are fond of life, they love to live, long to live, and they feel repulsed at the idea of hurt and injury to or destruction of their life. Hence no living being should be hurt, injured, or killed.”
Lord Mahāvīra (Jain)
Would you kill and eat your father? Your sister? Your child? Cousin? Someone you did not know? Let’s go further away; a chimpanzee, gorilla? Why do you feel it is OK to kill and eat a chicken? A fish? A clam? Breathe in a bacterium? Where do you draw the line?
Do you let a book, purportedly transcribed from a god thousands of years ago, dictate your ‘decision’?
“… Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing … “ (Genesis).
Does that make it OK if you follow the proscribed rules? Is it perception of pain? Because all the above have remarkably similar nervous systems that perceive pain (OK, technically not the bacterium – but they do have sensory systems that steer them away from bad). Is it sentience? What does that mean? If you have ever killed some being that saw you preparing, you know they felt fear.
How about killing to defend yourself? Not eating, just killing. Working down the hierarchy above, when is it OK to do that without moral qualms? To protect your children, your neighbor, your wealth? Political reasons? How about for fun? Hunting, but not for food – for ‘sport’. What about for profit? Is being a mercenary OK? Do you have a gun and are ready to use it? When?
You must have thought about this at one point or another. Do you each time you sit down to dinner? Weekly, in some house of worship? When you see a violent movie? Once a year, on the ‘Day of Atonement’? Will you on your own deathbed?
What about our moral guides? Our teachers? Can you name a moral structure, theology, religion, that has NOT gone to war? Started one? We all point to Islam as a violent and warlike religion. Certainly, now that is easy. But, historically, EVERY major religion (I have not read enough of Jainism to say this for them) has espoused peace, kindness, love – and ALL have started wars. All invoked their ‘God’ to justify and sanctify death. Shall I list them all? We will be here all day. Should we get guidance from the representatives of those theologies?
From the earliest religious teaching we are told killing is wrong, but we do it. We are taught to treat all ‘God’s’ creations with respect and humility. We have outlawed slavery, given women and people of different colors the right to vote and own property. Have disarmament and peace treaties. Have laws for equality based on sex, age, and religious beliefs. We move ever so slowly forward even though we have supposedly embraced the religious mandates of compassion and respect long ago.
We even have, in some countries, adopted rules and practices that are more compassionate, moral, for NON-humans. Some, limpid ones. In the US our first related law was in 1641; Massachusetts prohibited cruelty against domesticated non-human animals. In England it wasn’t till 1822. We started societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals in New York in 1866 (8 years before societies to protect children from cruelty). We have a few federal laws (1873 28hour transportation law, 1958 Humane Slaughter Act, 1966 Animal Welfare Act), that only apply to certain species (not birds) and only if commercially raised and crossing state lines. For example, you have to stun a cow before killing it, but not chickens or turkeys. We found it necessary to pass the 2019 Crush Act; yes, people were making money publishing online videos of torturing and killing animals. All states have felony laws against animal cruelty. Usually, for domesticated, not wild non-human animals.Yet we still buy them, put them in cages, make them work till they die, or are killed and eaten. Or, as above, much worse.
It is not a trivial thought exercise. In 2015 between 37-46 MILLION turkeys were killed in the US alone. That’s a lot of leftovers. Admittedly biased, the Animalclock.org site says about 23 million land animals are killed EACH DAY in the US alone.
That is my point, a question: Should you think about drawing your line differently? Not for all Society, that is too ambitious, just for you.
Read: ‘You Shall Know Them’ by Vercors