Why are vegans concerned about eating animals that have no feelings? ?

Question

Fish dont have family instincts, chicken dont have family instincts, why not eat only dumb creatures. I can see why we don't eat dogs and cats and such. Why eat a cow, they provide us with milk and cheese and butter. If it can be an intelligent pet, then don't eat it.

Answer 1

Chicken can form and maintain a social hierarchy in flocks of up to 100 birds.  Where do you think the term "pecking order" came from?  That's intelligence in my book.

Fish have central nervous systems and are capable of experiencing pain.  Commercial fishing methods are raping our oceans and oceanic ecosystems threaten to collapse in this century if we keep up these practices.  Millions of fish and millions upon million of other creatures that weren't even the target of drift netting, are left to suffocate.  There is no humane death for sea creatures.

Vegans believe that animals have the capacity for suffering and, as such, we don't kill or exploit them for food.  Period.  We don't take milk, cheese and butter from cows because commercial dairy operations inflict extreme suffering on the dairy cows and directly support the veal industry.

If you wan't to draw your line at not eating cute, fluffy little pets, so be it.  But vegans have real reasons why we don't make animals suffer to feed us.

Answer 2

There's no proof that animals have no feelings. It's absurd to say that they don't have the family instinct. Animals recognize their own young and try to protect them. Some animals that live in herds will rally together to help raise everyone's children. There have been cases of animals taking in babies from other species and raising them when the baby's mother rejects him or otherwise cannot care for him.

Nearly all animals can be trained. Fish can be trained. Cows and pigs can, quite obviously. They aren't "stupid" just because most people in America don't bother to try and train them. That being said, some people eat dogs and cats. Some people eat rats. Some people eat guinea pigs. Some people eat bugs. Your personal idea of what animals are okay to eat isn't universal.

Therein lies the problem with your argument. How do we decide which animals are intelligent/pets and which are not? Do we use the Korean definition? What about the French definition? Both of those would allow for the eating of animals that you probably consider pets.

Also, since when does intelligence or emotional capacity define whether or not something has a right to not be eaten? Newborn babies are less intelligent and emotionally capable than plenty of animals out there, but nobody would argue that it's okay to eat them. The same goes for people who have suffered severe brain damage. It doesn't make sense and is a bad argument.

Lastly, whether or not something is intelligent or emotionally involved has little to no bearing on whether or not it is capable of pain and suffering. A large majority of vegetarians and vegans do not want to promote animal suffering through the animal agriculture industry. Something can be dumb as a brick and still react to pain. Another important motivation for reducing or eliminating the amount of animal products one eats is to promote environmental well-being. Whether animals are smart or not has absolutely no effect on the environmental impact caused by farming them and transportation associated with it.

So, basically, to answer your question:

1- Many vegans would dispute the basis of your argument: that animals have no feelings and are unintelligent.

2- Even if they didn't, many vegans wouldn't really care, because not all suffering is emotional.

3- Not all vegans are vegan simply out of concern for animals. Meat farming has negative effects beyond causing suffering

4- Not everyone shares your sense of speciesism (that some animals are for eating and others aren't).

Answer 3

...okay maybe no "family instincts" whatever that means but they do have feelings. just because you think an animal doesn't want to have a family doesn't mean it doesnt feel pain of being slaughtered or tortured with harsh conditions that lay chickens and dairy cows go through.

Animals are animals they aren't here just for us as pets. Also pigs form a strong bond with other animals and humans.They are probably more smarter than most domesticated animals.. but you are saying we should eat them? So where are you gettign your 'facts' from?

Answer 4

Cruelty comes in many forms.

chickens are often are fed drugs to fatten them faster and to keep them alive in conditions that would otherwise kill them, and they are genetically altered to grow faster or to produce much more milk or eggs than they would naturally. Many animals become crippled under their own weight and die within inches of water and food.

I have also seen a chicken on our farm frantically search for missing chicks, call to them and even miss her eggs when taken. To say they have no family instinct is incorrect. All living creatures have feelings.Just because you cant feel them does not mean they are non -existant They often cry out when in pain, show distress and fear. I suggest you go to one of the slaughter houses and find out for your self. You will not eat meat again.

Also healthy vegetarian diets support a lifetime of good health and provide protection against numerous diseases, including our country’s three biggest killers: heart disease, cancer, and strokes. The American Dietetic Association states that vegetarians have “lower rates of death from ischemic heart disease; … lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, and lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer” and that vegetarians are less likely than meat-eaters to be obese. Well-planned vegetarian diets provide us with all the nutrients that we need, minus all the saturated fat, cholesterol, and contaminants found in animal flesh, eggs, and dairy products.

Answer 5

It isn't about that for me. It is the respect of a life that has just as much worth as anything else in this world. If they have nerves, they feel pain, and believe me, they do feel pain and fear.

Although vegetables also have a life, I choose to eat them as the lesser of two "evils" so to speak if looked at to that degree.  I am what I am, and I must consume something to live, so the veggies and beans get to support my energy needs, lol! Lucky for the animals, though, isnt it?

For me it is a matter of spirituality and personal choice more than anything else. I simply don't eat anything that has a face.

Answer 6

Animals can feel pain like us, so it is wrong to eat them.

Answer 7

You need to have a look at your definition of "feelings". Family instincts dont equal "feelings". Others may define feelings as the ability to experience psychological & physiological reponses such as fear and pain. In that regard, a fish or chicken feels no less pain than a dog or cow would.  

Answer 8

they still feel.  

Answer 9

No animal wants to be tortured and killed.

Answer 10

Because you are wrong...Do some research.  If chickens don't have family instincts, why do they sit on their nests and feed their chicks?  Fish have family instincts...they live in schools, mate, and research says they have a longer memory than was thought in the past.

Cows are smart and they love their babies.

No animal was ever put on this Earth just for our selfish use.  They were put here to live their own lives.

Go to www.meat.org to better understand why a person would be vegan.  

If intelligence is a factor in who or what we eat, you had better hide!!!  

Answer 11

Because they have the right to live. Maybe not all animals have family instincts but so what they still can feel pain and they don't deserve to tortured like that. Why eat animals when you can live a happy and healthy live without eating animals?

Answer 12

just because they aren't the smartest animals doesn't mean they can't feel pain and that they don't get scared =^..^=

Answer 13

Why should it make it any difference to you if some people have beliefs different than yours?

Get over it.  

Answer 14

You don't know what you're talking about.  White people used these exact same justifications to enslave Africans.

What does intelligence have to do with suffering?  I've met some really stupid people and I don't think they should be killed (not most of them, anyway).

Answer 15

Because some people mistake humans and other animals as the exact same thing...

Answer 16

Agreed with Scocasso. So, would you eat a dumb human? I mean, there are plenty out there. Its no fault of their own that they were born that way. And family instincts? I'm guessing you've never observed anything on a farm before. Hope you don't eat pigs either, because they are far more intelligent than dogs.

I'm not refusing to eat animals because some are "cuter" than others or "smarter" than others. I refuse to eat them because I'd rather not put an end to a living being's existence because I'm hungry or want a purse. It is no longer necessary for people in countries like ours to eat flesh. It is disgusting in my eyes that people still do.

Answer 17

actually, you're wrong. fish, chicken and other animals do have feelings. trust me, i wrote a 20 page research paper on slaughterhouse cruelty! many people think fish especially can't feel pain, but they very much have the ability to, as much as any cow or pig or dog does. And that's why we shouldn't eat any sort of animal :)

Answer 18

Classifying feelings and intelligence in such a way can be a difficult, and possibly dangerous practice. Similar arguments have been made to justify that people and children with learning disabilities may not have any right to life.

Any reasonable society should know that we value people to the extent that they are sentient and capable of interaction with other people. Fish and chickens and the like may not be as "cuddly" or communicate in the same way as other animals can. But they appear to be sentient to at least some degree, and are capable of learning and forming attachments to others of their kind, and sometimes to humans as well.

Saying they have no feelings and have no right to live seems to come from a place where you are profiting from eating or exploiting them, rather than giving them a chance to live and let live, and contribute in their own way to the world. Worth thinking about I think.

Answer 19

Using your same arguement, when my aunt had a son with hydrocephaly so bad that he had literally only a shred of brains in his head, and nothing but cerebrospinal fluid filling his skull, we should have all just eaten him, right? There's no such thing as decency, a sense of morality or ethics, or any boundaries, right? Human beings should just be as primitive as possible... what's next, advocacy for rape and murder, as long as it's to people and animals that are stupider? Considering I'm a med student, I should be chowing down on 90% of the population... hey, when can you come over for dinner, son?

On top of it all, I'd just let you know that animals like pigs and cows have demonstrated intelligence that measured beyond cats or dogs... pigs are as sensitive, creative and thoughtful as three year old human children, they can be taught to play Super Nintendo games, obey a dozen times over the commands a dog can and are extremely family oriented.

I grew up on a farm in Eastern Europe, I spent the first few years of my life surrounded by calves and pigs and chickens, my father's entire family line has been nothing but farmers and dairy owners for generations.

Also, animals (even fish) by definition have complex nervous systems. When it comes to how their brains perceive pain, a fish will feel pain just as intensely as a dog, as a little boy, as a rat, as a cow, as a donkey, as an old man. Pain is one of the most basic feelings, as is fear. Most factory farmed animals are raised in conditions where they feel nothing BUT pain and fear, and their bodies experience it just like ours do - the panic, the taxed endocrine system, the fluttering heart, the guttural screams and cries when they're injured.

I don't think you have ever spent any time with farm animals. Nor do you seem to know a thing about measurable intelligence or even what ethics and morals are, and why human beings are unique. Human beings draw the line and strive to behave in a way above their primitive natures... we don't rape, kill and we can CHOOSE not to eat sentient, feeling creatures because we CAN choose to. We are complex enough to take the higher ground.

Answer 20

Do you hear yourself right now or do you like sounding stupid?

Answer 21

Vegans are awesome. And at least they actually care. Do you know how much pain and suffering that animals have to go through? A lot of it. How would you like it if you were being tortured? And most of them don't even have a long time to live. So if I were you, I'd get my facts straight before making judgments like that.