So if animals kill each other for food...?

Question

why is it wrong for humans to kill animals for food? What's the difference? We're not treating animals any worse than they treat each other. What's the answer?

Answer 1

Well what bothers me is how people treat the animals in the factory and how they kill it.  Animals in a factory are treated very cruelly and are put in small places where they could hardly move, even when pregnant!  When referring to the wild, the animals live freely and enjoyed their lives while they could, but factory animals are miserable their whole life!  That's the difference that I see. SEE BELOW

Answer 2

Because we have the ability and brain power to find alternate foods that don't require slaughter. Also, we are treating them worse than they treat each other. In factory farms the animals are kept in cramped, unhealthy conditions for their whole lives and killed slowly and painfully. Other animals don't do that. Humans are capable of eating other foods than meat. I'm not saying everyone should be vegetarian or anything, I'm just saying that your reasoning is flawed.

Answer 3

there is nothing wrong with it.  what bothers me is killing them for stupid things like turkey bowling, or trophy hunting.  an animal can be given a healthy and happpy domestic life, be killed in a humane way and every part used and i have no problem.

Answer 4

yes, we are treating animals worse than they treat each other.   Tigers don't cage up their prey, not let them see the light, not let it touch the ground,  pump it full of hormones and chemicals, chop off various body parts, forcible impregnate it, and then kill it for food.   It is definitely not the same.

Answer 5

You're not serious when you suggest that we don't treat animals any worse than others, are you?  Come on!  A lioness will go out to hunt, see her prey, take him down, and drag him back to the pride.  The animal she killed had a decent life before he became dinner.  Humans, on the other hand, breed, cage, mutilate (sans anesthetic), feed hormones, antibiotics, and steroids, truck long distances, and slaughter in a brutal slaughterhouse.

I might also add that lions (and their smaller kitty counterparts) need meat to survive while humans do not.

Answer 6

Some animals are obligate carnivores, meaning they eat meat or they die.  We can thrive without it.

Humans have a thing known as morals, which means we have the ability and the responsibility to weigh the consequence of our actions.

We DO treat animals worse than they treat each other.  We breed, confine, force feed, artificially inseminate, drug, transport and slaughter animals that suffer every day of their short, brutal lives.  At least an antelope killed by a lion enjoyed an antelope's life before it was taken down.

Answer 7

That they do it, because its the only thing they eat. && its by nature. Us as humans have options. Such as veggies.  

Answer 8

Because animals don't use torturous factory farming techniques. You are flat out wrong if you think we don't treat animals any worse than they treat each other. Last time I checked, lions don't use rifles or battery cages.

Answer 9

We do not NEED to eat animals. In fact, meat is very high in fat an cholesterol and our bodies cannot digest it like carnivores can. We have a broad spectrum of options as far as food goes since all sorts of food imported from different places are easily avaliable to us at supermarkets and stores.

We can thrive on a vegetarian diet without harming animals.

Animals do not have as many options as we do. They eat other animals because they have to. Carnivores especially have to eat other animals to survive.

And yes, we DO treat animals worse than they treat each other. We stuff them in cages and mutilate their bodies (debeaking, castration...etc) and seperate them from their mothers.

In addition, it's not just that it's wrong to kill animals when we don't necessarily need to. People do it for health reasons too.  

Answer 10

Animals often rape and kill members of their own species. Therefore, it should be acceptable for humans to do the same to their own species. See the flaw in your logic? Animals do not have any moral standards. There are things that animals do that no sane person would ever do. What other morals do you base off of animals' behavior? I would guess none. If you haven't heard of factory farming, you should research it. I think you will find that humans do indeed treat animals worse than they treat each other. Most animals raised for food spend their lives on factory farms, so it's not an "rare case" or anything like that. Even if the animals were raised humanely (sometimes they are, on family farms), the idea is that it's wrong to exploit an animal just for human pleasure. In order to respect all life, we have to think of animals as living creatures, not products for human consumption. We are not above nature, we are part of it. Just like we don't exploit people based on race or gender (we used to, until we became more moral), the idea is that we shouldn't exploit animals just because they belong to a different species. Sentience is the ultimate factor in determining who deserves basic rights. Why should any creature be forced to suffer unnecessarily? Now some animals need to eat meat to survive, so of course they're going to eat other animals. We don't need meat to survive. In fact, people who don't eat meat (or other animal products) tend to be healthier (not all the time, but most of the time). We can definitely be perfectly healthy without meat. There's no reason to continue taking innocent lives from creatures with feelings similar to ours, just because we like the way a certain food tastes.

Answer 11

Because humans don't have to live by instinct and they can make their own choices. That is, unless they are living under some kind of oppressive conditions.

I always felt bad about killing animals for food. When I found out it wasn't really necessary for proper nutrition, I became a vegetarian. If I went on eating meat I would have always had an uncomfortable feeling in the back of my mind. Why should I live that with that kind of ambiguity if I don't have to?

Answer 12

if animals did not kill others to survive it would alter the food chain and you would have animals either killing people or dying of starvation . and as far as humans killing animals this is the same thing if the whole world depended on just fruits and vegetables their would be wide spread famine worst then their is now