When does killing an animal constitute murder?

Slovenija has a real sick case right now.A guy was killed by his dogs (bullmastifs), further in to the investigation it was found out that the dogs where raped, and a sex toy was found with the dogs DNA on them the investigation is still ongoing tough it looks like the guy was raping his dogs and the dogs decided they are not going to take it anymore.

Hi Meldinoor, are you a vegetarian? Just curious to know about the reason for such a provocative title. It is definitely a good title as I've only been able to suppress the urge to respond for many days. Your last sentence, the ABE comment, takes away most of the original thrust of the title, or at least the image I have from it. Are you fighting for or against vegetarianism here?

In a thread about personal morality can you explain to me how the (persistent) answer "If I were part of a culture where activity X was socially acceptable I would not consider activity X to be immoral" has any relevance? As obviously true as it is does it not apply to any moral question? I am asking how the luxury of living in a civilised society where your views on rape are shared by society are fundamentally different in principle to the "luxury" of being able to choose what you will or won't eat on moral grounds which you have described as "bullshit".What makes one moral stance "bullshit" and another not? Be specific. Now I ask you if you have a moral problem with the infamous Nazi experiments on humans?

Stop evading the question. Would you breed and use humans for genetic experiments where mice or fruit fly will suffice?Given your position so far in this thread there is no reason for you to consider such experiments conducted on bred-for purpose-humans as any more immoral than those conducted on fruit fly.I, like many other humans, would consider the breeding of humans for experimental purposes akin to those served by mice and fruit fly to be morally unacceptable and to be avoided in all but the most nightmarish of sci-fi scenarios. So then why not conduct our genetic experiments on humans bred for the purpose rather than fruit fly?Why not? Be specific.

Since that is my "given" position, why do you keep asking what my position is? There are practical considerations, not necessarily moral ones. "Breeding" is just a matter of controlling mating opportunities. With humans, it's more practical to do that after the fact - i.e. by selecting those subjects who did breed with certain others.Since it isn't practical to walk from New York to Paris, I don't need to think much about the moral implications of the trip.

---

"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

Yes. I think the mother should be able to abort up to 21 years.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

Because I don't believe that you really think that genetic experiments of the sort carried out on bred-for-purpose fruit fly and mice are morally no different to the same experiments carried out on humans.If you genuinely see no difference between conducting such experiments on humans as you do fruit fly or mice then just unequivocally say so.

Ah, yes, Felix Mengele. Some might say, "just now", we've reached the Godwin event in the thread. But, hold on, to linger here a bit longer...of course these experiments were perhaps the most reprehensible actions ever taken by humans. Ever. Although Emperor Nero has some lengthly, and maybe equal record, of *matching* Felix in foul Reprehensibility, carving up the bodies of boys alive to satisfy his depravities and so on.Straggler - you are trying to draw an absolute line and I commend you for the effort.You are looking for a backbone of civilization that should cut across all humanity.I look for that too.Suppose someday way up ahead the civilization we live in decides that killing animals for food is wrong (a sort of vegan view point).What about harvesting beef from cows. Take some, let the cow grow it back....YOW! does that hit us with negatives. But wait - the cow lives on. Yes, only to be harvested again, like a corn field. Can we make it more like an apple tree? Egods, even amongst vegetables there are connotations. So now there may be problems morally with killing certain vegetable life? Play Mozart to your house plants?We have seen "meat" grown in laboratories - like eating cardboard - not at all like chicken, I've heard - is this the way of the future?Anybody here seen "Silent Running" with Bruce Dern as the hero? He grows real tomatoes on the space-born solariums preserving the last remnants of the earth's garden species. His co-astronauts are just up for a temporary tour and cannot grok his viewpoint. Joan Baez does the music. R2D2 was inspired by Huey, Dewey & Luis.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

I think I have a problem with it. Maybe H.G.Well's depiction of the Morlocks. Maybe Soylent Green. I dunno. Maybe just a shiver up my spine. I cant go there, Oni. Call me irrational.

---

- xongsmith, 5.7d

My whole point in this thread is that an unequivocal position is inappropriate.

---

"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

For those who haven't seen it, Bruce Dern kills his human colleagues to save the trees.I liked it much better than 2001: A Space Odyssey.Edited by ringo, : Forgeot to include quote.

---

"I'm Rory Bellows, I tell you! And I got a lot of corroborating evidence... over here... by the throttle!"

Hi, Straggler. When I say something like, "It seems okay to me, but I haven't really thought about it except to note that I am accustomed to it being this way," I don't think this counts as taking a moral stance. I feel like "taking a moral stance" refers to something more overt than this.----- Surely, if you're not disputing that my moral stance changes with each moral issue, than you will acknowledge that moral issues not related to murder should be excluded from this conversation, given that their relevance to the topic is dubious.So, there is no reason to continue discussing the breeding of things for research purposes, right?----- Can "all other things" actually be equal, Straggler?The only reasons I've given you for special pleading humans are fear for my own life or the lives of loved ones, and pressures from the society I rely on for my subsistence and livelihood.In these ways, animals are fundamentally incapable of being equal with humans: their distresses do not get translated by my human brain into potential distresses that could just as easily befall me or to humans I care about; I do not rely much on good social standing with animals for subsistence or livelihood; and I'm not even capable of perceiving any social pressures that they may be attempting to exert on my decisions, anyway.If all of these differentiating factors were absent, then I would have absolutely no problems giving the sociopath an arbitrary answer as to which of the human-animal pair should die. But, since these factors cannot be made equal, then my special pleading of humans appears to be based on little more than selfishness and cowardice.I special plead humans because I don't want to risk other humans not special pleading me in a similar situation. But, with animals, my assignments of "moral value" are a little more honest: they're not always based on what assurances or services I get out of the arrangement.If this is a moral stance in your opinion, then, yes, I generally assign more "moral value" to humans than to animals.

---

-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Really? lol. But you don't think twice about a cow going through the same thing? Cow hater!- Oni

Hate the din but love the dinner?

No. I have persistently made it very clear I am not seeking absolute moral lines of any sort.What I am trying to do is understand the personal morality of the other participants in this thread.Oni would apparently have given the moral thumbs up if Nazis had been farming people for sausage meat. I wondered what his personal moral take was with regard to Nazi experiments on people.