Pigs as organ donors

[Shaker]

BTW do you refuse to take all meds which have been tested on animals?

Pretty much, yes. I don't really 'do' medication (and have precious little time for the medical profession at that). It's just about impossible to take anything that hasn't been tested on animals - if humans ingest it, it's been tested on animals somewhere along the line however pointlessly. But as I say, I don't do medication. I'm in good health, I don't need to.

[Nearly Sane]

But you are just asserting your morality.

Why is mine wrong.

I care for people, and for animals, but I eat them as well, and have no problem with that.

So if I think it's OK to kill you and eat you, any objection from you  would be just you asserting your morality, and I should just ask you 'Why is mine wrong?'

[BeRational]

Should the medical complications around rejection ever be resolved, to the extent that using organs from pigs for transplant purposes becomes a routine and successful option, it would seem inconsistent that those who currently accept that pigs are killed so that they can ingest bits of them as food would then baulk at using bits of pigs in other ways.

Once you commit to seeing pigs/animals as food then surely the underlying principle here is that you view them as being a resource.

I do see them as a resource, but I do not include all animals in that. Animals that I consider as being more aware like elephants, apes, I would not want to use.

Things like chickens, fish, insects have no concept of being a resource, or much of a concept of anything, so I feel fine using them as I would eating vegetables.

[floo]

Pretty much, yes. I don't really 'do' medication (and have precious little time for the medical profession at that). It's just about impossible to take anything that hasn't been tested on animals - if humans ingest it, it's been tested on animals somewhere along the line however pointlessly. But as I say, I don't do medication. I'm in good health, I don't need to.

But if you needed medication to save your life, which had been tested on animals would you take it?

[BeRational]

So if I think it's OK to kill you and eat you, any objection from you  would be just you asserting your morality, and I should just ask you 'Why is mine wrong?'

Some people may think like that, and we lock them up.

Our species is 'special' to us.

I am speciesist, and I have no problem with that.

Would you eat insects?

[Shaker]

But you are just asserting your morality.

Why is mine wrong.

Because yours invites/entails gratuitous suffering, suffering that has no need to exist.

Nobody needs to eat animals to live happily and healthily, and the solution to organ shortages is already in our hands - we don't have to wonder about it, we have the answer already (that doesn't involve exploiting pigs as a resource). Therefore continuing to eat animals, and to pursue xenotransplantation when the alternatives to both exist already, is to perpetuate suffering.

I care for people, and for animals, but I eat them as well, and have no problem with that.

That's a novel definition of caring.

[Shaker]

But if you needed medication to save your life, which had been tested on animals would you take it?

No.

[floo]

No.

Fair enough.

[Nearly Sane]

I do see them as a resource, but I do not include all animals in that. Animals that I consider as being more aware like elephants, apes, I would not want to use.

Things like chickens, fish, insects have no concept of being a resource, or much of a concept of anything, so I feel fine using them as I would eating vegetables.

But what about pigs?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10angier.html

[BeRational]

Because yours invites/entails gratuitous suffering, suffering that has no need to exist.

Nobody needs to eat animals to live happily and healthily, and the solution to organ shortages is already in our hands - we don't have to wonder about it, we have the answer already (that doesn't involve exploiting pigs as a resource). Therefore continuing to eat animals, and to pursue xenotransplantation when the alternatives to both exist already, is to perpetuate suffering.
That's a novel definition of caring.

WRONG, I do not advocate suffering to the animals.

Animals that we eat have no concept of death and have no plans for the future.

You are anthropomorphising feelings thoughts and feelings they do not have to come to this frankly bizarre notion that they are equal to us.

They are not, they are food.

[Shaker]

I do see them as a resource, but I do not include all animals in that. Animals that I consider as being more aware like elephants, apes, I would not want to use.

Things like chickens, fish, insects have no concept of being a resource, or much of a concept of anything, so I feel fine using them as I would eating vegetables.

This obscures the difference between a moral agent and a moral patient. Chickens, fish and insects are not moral agents (neither are elephants for that matter - apes are a doubtful case in need if further evidence) but they are moral patients - as are, say, severely brain damaged babies.

http://tinyurl.com/yapgvmz5

[BeRational]

But what about pigs?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/science/10angier.html

Perhaps pigs should be included as being more aware and not eaten.

Perhaps.

[Nearly Sane]

Some people may think like that, and we lock them up.

Our species is 'special' to us.

I am speciesist, and I have no problem with that.

Would you eat insects?

And I'm a cannibal and I have no problem with that.

I am special to me. By the way using the ad populum here as you do twice doesn't help.

You and insects are much the same to me, so happy to eat either you or insects but I prefer the taste of long pig.

[Shaker]

WRONG, I do not advocate suffering to the animals.

Yes, you do. In practical terms, you do, by being complicit in the system that breeds and kills them as food items.

Animals that we eat have no concept of death and have no plans for the future.

You are anthropomorphising feelings thoughts and feelings they do not have to come to this frankly bizarre notion that they are equal to us.

Is this what you know, or what you tell yourself because it suits you?

They are not, they are food.

Not to me they're not. They have no need to be.

[floo]

Shaker, I take it you don't approve of killing vermin or swatting flies?

[BeRational]

This obscures the difference between a moral agent and a moral patient. Chickens, fish and insects are not moral agents (neither are elephants for that matter - apes are a doubtful case in need if further evidence) but they are moral patients - as are, say, severely brain damaged babies.

Damaged babies are my species and I grant them all the rights I would to any human.

Animals are not, they are food and a resource to my species (some I would exclude).

Would you eat insects?

Would you eat plants.

You HAVE to eat something that was once alive to live.

What if i say the vegetables do not want to be eaten?

[Shaker]

Shaker, I take it you don't approve of killing vermin or swatting flies?

Absolutely correct.

[BeRational]

Yes, you do.
Is this what you know, or what you tell yourself because it suits you?
Not to me they're not. They have no need to be.

And it's fine that to you that they are not. I am not suggesting that you should.

I am saying that you are not demonstrating the case they I am wrong.

Just that we disagree.

[BeRational]

Absolutely correct.

I do clay pigeon shooting, and have been invited to shoot live birds.

I refused and would never want to shoot living things for fun ( I let most of the clays go free as well, but that's another thing)

[Shaker]

Damaged babies are my species and I grant them all the rights I would to any human.

Animals are not, they are food and a resource to my species (some I would exclude).

Speciesism, in other words, which is in itself wholly arbitrary, and arbitrary even within that arbitrariness since you eat some non-humans but exclude some other kinds.

Would you eat insects?

No.

Would you eat plants.

I already do.

You HAVE to eat something that was once alive to live.

What if i say the vegetables do not want to be eaten?

I would say: you are required to demonstrate that vegetables possess the property of sentience, and I would wave you off wishing you the very best of luck in your endeavours.

[Shaker]

And it's fine that to you that they are not. I am not suggesting that you should.

I am saying that you are not demonstrating the case they I am wrong.

Just that we disagree.

You can't demonstrate that suffering is wrong to someone who doesn't care that suffering is wrong.

[Sebastian Toe]

After a heart attack you don't just wake up in hospital with a freshly transplanted organ inside you.

For a thought experiment it shows a singular lack of anything resembling thought.

That's why it is called an experiment. It might not work first, second or 1000th time.
So lets pretend that we have visited every room in hotel pedant and finally experimented our way to a scenario where you wake up in hospital with a purely unintended, unsolicited and unfortunate bit of a pig transplanted into your body........

[BeRational]

You can't demonstrate that suffering is wrong to someone who doesn't care that suffering is wrong.

What suffering?

I do not want the animals to suffer.

[Shaker]

What suffering?

The suffering of sentient creatures (ostensibly somewhat tautologous, since sentience entails the capacity to suffer) in their billions the world over.

I do not want the animals to suffer.

As you've said, but by your actions you are complicit in it.

[BeRational]

The suffering of sentient creatures (ostensibly somewhat tautologous, since sentience entails the capacity to suffer) in their billions the world over.
As you've said, but by your actions you are complicit in it.

You are giving animals the capacity to have feelings and concerns they do not have.

The cow does not worry that it is on a farm and might one day be killed for food.

It does not think at all, apart from eating grass.

They are animals, that are not humans. They are food.
Given that, and the fact they CAN feel pain, I would like them to be converted to food, painlessly.