Why is it ok for animals to kill and eat other animals, but not humans?

Question

I'm especially interested in the response of vegetarians and vegans.

Answer 1

As a vegan I really don't see a problem with people eating people. Cow, sheep, chicken, baby...they're all dead animals and thus are all the same in my book.

Answer 2

I'm not a vegetarian, but you have posed a very interesting, thought-provoking question.  Kudos to you!  You get a star!

*Edit - I think some people misunderstood your question, or were being "cute" by answering that humans don't eat other humans.  I'm quite sure you meant why can't humans kill animals for food...right?

Answer 3

Animals live in a different environment then us. They do not torture their food by keeping it in a slaughter house and then killing it unmercifilly before eating it. Humans do.

I am a vegetarian and if we were kinder about killing our animals (such as not keeping them in a small cage their whole lives) and gave them a quick death (instead of the long drug out one they go through in the slaughter houses) I'd consider eating meat.

We also have the advantage because we are more advanced. The animals we kill never have a chance. There is no "survival of the fittest".

If humans put down their guns and ran around outside to kill our prey with just ourselves then that would be a different story.

Answer 4

Because we care about our fellow man, in the interest that they may offer us intelligent insight into our own lives, something that no animal will give you. Because we can relate on a high conscious level, understand the complex thoughts of one another and so therefor we may see an animal and man as equal strangers but you can always relate to another human more than an animal.

Answer 5

Because how many people do you know who actually go out and hunt for their own food? If more people who eat meat actually had to hunt down and kill they animal themselves, I bet the amount of meat consumed these days would radically drop.

Other animals (the carnivorous ones) have to hunt their prey. They don't go to the supermarket and buy their meat all prepackaged in a nice little Styrofoam and plastic container. Foxes don't factory farm rabbits to eat. Snakes don't factory farm mice to eat.

Don't you think humans have evolved beyond the need to kill other living creatures for food? We as a species are smart enough to be able to get our nutrients from plants, it isn't necessary to kill defenseless animals for you to have enough protien in your diet. So why do it?

Answer 6

Animals are unable to make ethical choices-humans beings can. Animals eat what is available for them-we can pick and choose. We are also capable of doing research which shows that a plant based diet is healthier : )

Answer 7

It's environmentally unconscionable to eat meat.

- http://www.goveg.com/environment.asp

Not to mention the pain and suffering of the animals.

Because we humans have evolved beyond the need to consume flesh, we should do our parts to be compassionate stewards of the earth.

Answer 8

because we are the most complex species of animals to ever exist....we have the ability to reason....and no said it is wrong for animals to kill humans....it happens....its just ashame when it does because we feel a lose more than an animal does....sure animals grieve over lose, but would an antelope whose baby was just eaten by a tiger mourn as much if a mother's newborn baby was eaten by a tiger??? i dont think so

Answer 9

not only is it OK to kill animals it is 100 percent legal to do it as long as a person follows the rules and regulations set forth by the state they reside in

Answer 10

it IS okay. it's not even disrespectful for a human to kill another animal.

i prime example is the whitetail deer in the midwestern united states. studies show that an increase in deer population (which would surely occur if hunting were to be illegalized) would not significantly decrease deer casualties, but instead would substantially increase the amount of deer v. car accidents, therefore increasing deer deaths as well as human deaths.

Answer 11

Easy. Take your average animal. What is it, a cat, a dog, something else carnivorous? The difference is that they don't have a choice because they don't have the teeth or the digestive system to go vegetarian. There is also the fact that the ecosystem would fall apart if spiders stopped eating flies and cats stopped catching mice, etc.

Answer 12

The main problem is the manner in which animals are "produced". They are raised in horrendous conditions in factory farms. They are confined, restricted, tortured and mutilated, many never see the light of day, they are never allowed to exhibit their normal behaviours and their young are cruelly torn away from their mothers soon after birth. Chickens are tortured in confined wire cages with up to 12 other hens. They are stacked on top of each other, covered in one another’s excrement, and they suffer from breathing difficulties due to the ammonia from their waste in the sheds. Cows are fed hormones, antibiotics, and unnatural diets, and are induced into constant impregnation to produce high levels of milk. All these techniques including debeaking, castration, docking, mulesing, teeth clipping are all practiced in the name of profit and commercial competition.

Animals in the wild hunt their prey. Their prey generally live their lives free of confinement and torture. Unlike the factory farmed animals of today.

Animals also act on instinct, humans often pride themselves on apparently being more advanced than other creatures. We like to distinguish ourselves from other animals or beasts because we simply do not act upon instinct. If we continue to insist that we are so much more advanced and we are not lead by instinct, then considering the horrific conditions under which animals are reared then logic should lead us to the conclusion that there is infact a significant difference between animals hunting for food and humans mass producing over excessive amounts of factory farmed and tortured animals.

And there are plenty of readily available humane alternatives to meat. If people insist on eating meat, it should be from free range, and small scale farms not giant agri-business which destroys the environment and treats animals like commodities.

Answer 13

although i'm not a vegetarian i bet one of the responses will be or should be because it's not o.k. for wild animals to eat humans!

Answer 14

It is not ok , it is choices we make , to provoke pain and suffering or to have compassion and abstinence to any kind of living being with emotions and a nervous system

Answer 15

Most people who awnsered this are either high or what not. Anyway, the problem most vegans and vegetarians have with the consumption of animals and animal products is the inhumane conditions in which they are slaughtered and kept. Its not so much of the "oh its just wrong to eat meat" its the pain and suffering and plainly cruel conditions of slaughterhouses.

Answer 16

Because humans can think.  We don't NEED to kill animals to survive anymore.

We have the choice. That is the difference.

Answer 17

I completely agree with Vimesfan01! We have the capacity to think unlike them. We do not need it to survive like they do, we have many alternatives/substitutes for meat.

And for the people saying we do need meat because of the nutrients, can you tell me why it is that studies show people who dont eat meat live longer & healthier lives??

Answer 18

im not vegetarian but i assure u this is nonesense

human body needs amino acids that come from meat and those who tell u that u can compensate that from vegies r speakin nonsense coz those acids are like 22 types, some of them available in vegetables and others are only available in meat

Answer 19

im neither but

Scenario

imagine a tiger on top of you

now imagine a human on top of you

you can only s***w one of them, who do you kill?

Answer 20

It is almost hypocritical or paradoxical.. While most vegetarians/vegans are quite sensible and tolerant of other peoples beliefs, there are the fanatical minority who give everybody else a bad name. These are the ones who constantly argue that animals and humans have the same rights. (Frankly, I think they watch too much Disney cartoons such as "Finding Nemo" etc and have mixed up reality with fantasy) Yet they want to give humans the bigger responsibility of "caring" for other animals. The very same animals some of whom would not hesitate  to eat a human being if given a chance. or those who wold not lift a finger (or hoof or flipper etc) to help a human in distress. We are the higher being with higher morals but have the same rights and privileges as those we are supposed to dominanate.

But i think most of these are from the rich, privileged western societies where food is so plentiful. The same people who would lecture other people about food choices. Not realizing that for the rest of the world, the choice is not what to eat but if there is anything to eat at all. I dare any of these children to go into the real world. When faced with the possibility of dying of starvation,  meat may not seem too bad after all

Answer 21

There is a BIG difference between an animal going out and hunting for food and the way humans keep the animals in atrocious conditions. Here is an example, pigs are kept in gestation crates where they cannot move for months, their ears, tail and snouts are often cut off, and their teeth are ripped out with no pain killers while fully concious.  Also as babies their testicles are cut off without any pain killers. Then when they are slaughtered they are hung upside down, get their throats slit, and a lot of them are boiled alive.  Animals feel physical and emotional pain and what is happening to them just for peoples taste buds is unnatural, and wrong.

Animals do not torture, abuse, and force other animals to live in hellish conditions or keep the animals in tiny cages for their entire lives.  They go out, get their prey and eat.  Watch Meet Your Meat or another video like it and you may understand what is wrong with it.  There are over 50 BILLION land animals (just accounted for) killed every year just for meat.  That doesn't include horses, dogs and any other animal in the world used for food that we do NOT need anymore.

I am a vegetarian.

Answer 22

You see animals don't have cognitive reasoning. They do not know the difference between a stop sign on the street and a pocket knife being pointed at them. Therefore animals cannot understand the concept of vegetarianism the way we do. Animals eat to fulfill their needs, they don't get fat in the wild.

We're not in the wild. We eat meat because is tasty, we can get nutrients commonly found on meat from other sources. Animals don't. They don't know how to store food the way we do (in the refrigerator) and they kill because they need to get these proteins. Why is it ok? Why not?

Answer 23

I believe it has to do with genetics, if we human eat each other we get diseases or disorders.

However, when animals hunt each other they usually hunt in a different species, supplying a certain amount of needed nutrients. the only time animals eat in their own species is their young to weed out the week ones that aren't going to make or because of territory.

(there's a company that makes human flavor tofu if you are interested.)

Answer 24

Read your question:

Why is it ok for animals to kill and eat other animals, but not humans?

first, you said animals kill others, so thats alright, since we're animals and we do the exact same thing

animals do kill and eat us, mountain lions, sharks, snakes are just a few.

humans eating humans is probably what your asking, and that is called canniblasm, effective for ANY animal species, so have you seen any monkey's eating other monkey's ?

No, because in life, eating your own kind is not something that is done

Answer 25

It is ok for humans to kill animals, but just not excessively. Animals tend to only kill when they are hungry, or in danger. Humans, however, either kill large masses of animals, or do it for sport. That is not natural, and is why animals are becoming extinct.

Humans need to eat meat. You need protein. Even if there are other ways to get it, meat is the healthiest. So yes, kill animals for hunger, not for fun. That's what lions do. ;)

Answer 26

Hi.

I am a vegan

I get all the time that question when I explain to people why I've gone vegan.

You see, it is normal for animals to eat other animals. But that is normal because all the other animals do not have the brain, I.Q. and abilities that we do, do they?

But, we, humans, do. And as we are supposed to be smarter (which if you ask me there isn't a lamer animal on earth than humans) then we should take care of all the other animals that need our protection and not eat them, torture them and kill them.

We, as smarter as we are supposed to be we should not abuse our power and own creatures which have less power than we do.

Check out www.meat.org to see what you really have in your fridge...

Answer 27

Coming from a vegetarian:

Obviously I don't support people eating animals, so clearly I wouldn't support eating humans either.

For animals though, they don't have the intelligence to know that other animals have brains, lungs, eyes, nerves or anything.

Humans on the otherhand are well aware of this and still go right ahead and munch on the poor creatures. =(

If a dog were to kill and eat a human, surely the dog would be put down, because he was hungry. But no, humans can just go ahead and kill and eat an animal anytime they want.

Answer 28

I grew up eating the standard American diet... with a tropical twist that included mostly fresh fruits and sea foods. Meat and poultry were supplementary.

I later became a vegetarian because I read a book called "Food Pollution"... it was more for health than for ethical considerations. I was utterly amazed by the amount and source of food additives and the shameful manner of processing.

After returning to a more "balanced diet" my health bloomed and I realized that humans are truly omnivores. We are also predators... and intrinsically supplement with meat.

I believe in the food chain and the prey/predator relationship. It has nothing to do with sentience or intellect.

Vegans will talk up eating plant matter over "animals with awareness", but it has been proven through modern science (and ancient knowledge) that plants are also aware, can feel, and react... in essence "sentient". So that argument is outdated.

Cultures dictate taboos. Some allow the eating of cats and dogs, others ban cattle and pigs, some even traditionally tempt the fates with toxic cuisine.

When you have little choice, you would be amazed what you will eat. Slimy wood worms, grubs, scorpions, guinea pig, snake, horse, snails... these can be the foraged substance of survival, or gourmet delicacies.

Eat or be eaten... that is the most natural tenet of all. However, humans kill each other but don't normally ingest, as that is our taboo... for now. Humans also kill for "fun", which is an abomination... it is a sign of dysfunction in the Animal Kingdom.

Humans just control their world more than other animals, so they are higher on the food chain, but it wasn't always that way... and in primitive areas where they haven't already wiped out worthy adversaries, humans are still considered prey.

The Polar Bear has no problem tracking a human as food and declaring its dominance in the food chain. Coyotes are adapting to the crush of the city and raiding for pets and toddlers. Then there is the shark. What is really "right"?

I recognize survival of the fittest and would rather fall prey to a bear than to an ignorant "low life". It's all a matter of perspective.

ADDED: If vegetarians had to go out to forage their foods and work land for crops instead of running to the market and buying prepackaged variety, I bet alot would give up being vegetarian due to the time, labor, boredom and malnutrition they would have to invest and endure.

Also, since plants have been proven to have sentience (as unsophisticated as it may seem), are you really more "evolved" to rip up, hack up, and eat something alive like all the "lower order animals" do?

Answer 29

oK i am not a vegitarian. I am not anti vegitarian either. I support vegetarians tooth and nail if they have an educated reason for doing so. Not Alf and PETA propaganda bull.

So it's ok for animals to kill animals becouse they are food. End of story. Everything is food for something eles.  It happens in nature a thousand time a day. The only thing that makes us any differant is that we are contious beings. we can think and make decisions. That also means we can for opinions. and god knows everybody has one of those. BUt not a singal one of us would be here today if their ancesters didn't eat meat. And cruelly kill it too.  Eatting meat isn't killing  it's nature. No matter what way you look at it. Not eatting meat is a choice and that's ok.  Oh and dogs don't ever attack people for food, they attack out of aggression and fear.  Wolves are a differant story ,and we kill them couse we have to protect the species, ours. right or wrong. It's nature.  Animal rights have progressed allot over the last ten years or so.  and some animals have it better then me. Good what i would give to be paris hiltons dog. OHH to be rich.

Answer 30

Animals that kill other animals for food are carnivores; they need meat. They kill from instinct, because they need to to survive.

We are not carnivores, we are omnivores. We are able to survive healthily with or without meat; we have  a choice. Some people choose to avoid meat, and some to avoid all animal products, in order to minimise their personal contribution to animal suffering. Most people eat meat.

Just as humans no longer NEED to kill animals to use their skins as clothing, and no longer need to live in caves, so they no longer NEED to kill animals and eat meat to survive. It's a choice.

Whether you feel killing animals and eating meat is 'ok' is a matter for you.

Most meat-eaters, of course, don't actually 'kill' their meat; they buy it from a shop and often the animals the meat has come from have lived in inhumane and unnatural conditions before slaughter - that's another difference.

Answer 31

It's an interesting point, but how many humans do you know that would be able to slaughter their own cow, skin it, cut it to pieces, and eat it?

Also if you act on your instincts, your first instinct as a human, would probably be to pet a goat, and not chase it with a cleaver.  

A tiger would never think of petting an antelope, no matter how cute it would be.

We're not meant to eat animals.  We are able to eat them if we have to, for survival, but we're not really meant to eat flesh.