Would it be okay if it was with a grotesque human-animal chimera capable of superintelligence asking for a friend

Everybody’s gotta eat, but not everyone’s gotta fuck a dog

A sufficient majority of people want to eat animals, but not a sufficient majority of people want to fuck them. Morality is indeed completely subjective and defined only by culture

Extremist vegan or zoophilia apologist? We may never know.

This is the same type of arguments pedophiles make when they compare their mental illness to being gay.

People have already explained very articulately that killing an animal for food is different from fucking it for pleasure and dominance. Because let’s be real, that is the only reason why anyone would ever rape an animal.

We can definitely have a discussion on the amount of meat consumption and how it needs to be cut down significantly for both the sake of the environment and for the same of animal welfare and human health, but my experience is that everytime this type of argument is brought up, it tends to be a thinly veiled attempt at normalizing zoophilia.

I hope you don’t have any pets, OP.

Most people don’t use critical reasoning to make their decisions, hence why most people live their lives in a state of constant contradictions.

My old philosophy professor once told us that the most effective way to expose somebody’s lack of critical reasoning about an issue is to just respond with, “who says?”

Basically the Socratic method, ask them to justify the statements they make, and see how they respond. The vast majority of the time, you’ll quickly find out that they don’t have any good reasons to support their statements. They haven’t given them much thought at all, nor much thought to differing views/positions. They live their lives in ways that feel generally “correct” or pleasurable to them, and that’s it.

Why do they think it’s alright to eat factory farmed meat? Because they like the taste, the thought of billions of animals living short, miserable lives, then being slaughtered and processed for us to consume doesn’t horrify or disgust them, so they keep doing it.

Most people when challenged on it will put up some vague attempt to support their actions, “Other animals do it to each other, so why not us?” “Animals don’t have sophisticated minds, so it doesn’t actually cause them real suffering.” “Humans need animal protein to be healthy.” etc. All terribly weak arguments that are easily refuted. But most people don’t care, because most societies normalize meat consumption and factory farming. They grew up eating meat with other people eating meat all around them, and they never gave it any thought.

Hence why most pet owners who eat meat would be absolutely horrified and disgusted if their dog or cat had a litter and somebody bought all of the puppies/kittens, only to torture, slaughter, and eat them. A completely inconsistent reaction given the fact that the pet owner happily eats other animals that are treated in the same way. But again, they didn’t reason themselves into their viewpoint, so they don’t worry about being consistent.

This is further confirmed by anecdotes from vegetarians/vegans, who will tell you about all the awkward, unprompted reactions from meat-eaters when they find out they don’t eat meat. Many people get very defensive, often making snide or accusatory remarks about vegetarianism/veganism. They don’t like the idea that eating factory meat is morally wrong, because they like the taste and don’t want to make to effort to change their lifestyle to confirm with that moral principle. So they mock, tease, or try to “expose” inconsistencies in the vegetarian/vegan’s own worldview as a defense mechanism.

If they can make the vegetarian/vegan look foolish, then that feels like a win psychologically to them, which provides mental and emotional comfort and allows them to slip back into their lifestyle without needing to confront their own moral failings.

I’m sure you would hear more than a few say something along the lines of 1) ending their life can be done relatively humanely. And it serves a fundamental purpose, for sustenance. While meat for sustenance is not actually necessary, it is considered a basic staple of our diets and generally acceptable. 2) Having sex with animals, though, harms them in a way and leaves them to live with that harm. It can traumatize the animal. It is inherently inhumane. And it serves no purpose but to satisfy a carnal desire, a morbid curiosity, or a sadistic appetite.

I’m not saying that it is an altogether consistent or sound argument. It is something some can rationalize though. But, frankly, I would call either explanation at least a little bit bullshit.

The answer to either their desire for meat or their revulsion to animal molestation is that their instincts give them those feelings. It is evolution. Animal meats and fats are a calorie dense and nutritionally valuable food source that our ancestors have eaten since before humans existed, and we’re mostly wired to enjoy the taste and crave it. A revulsion for sex outside of species helps make sure that we continue to make babies. It’s as simple as that.

Some very few people don’t have one, the other or both of these instincts, but the vast majority do. Most of those people will happily rationalize the feeling that isn’t based in rationality, like above. Some will examine those feelings and rationalize themselves into changing/recontextualizing their feelings or choosing to not act upon them in light of their viewpoint or some virtue they’ve applied to the question. But most just do what feels right and is normalized and don’t ever really truly question it.

And even if you are one of those people who has rationalized themselves into a rationally/morally superior position regarding meat eating, or maybe you never even had an instinctual desire for it, you almost certainly have other habits, values, opinions, etc. that go against every rationality too that just come with human nature.

We’re people. We’re animals. We have intelligence. We have primal drives. Nobody is morally perfect. Nobody can even agree on what moral perfection is. Morality is both subjective on the whole, and objective for each and every one of us. We just gotta get along.

My theory on ethics is that it’s survival tools for hunter gatherer societies.

Eat meat, be strong. Good.

Fuck animal? Animal might bite, give you disease, and you are not making baby. Bad.

This is exactly why many indigenous cultures put an emphasis on thanking the animal for their meat.

There is no logical consistency except what allows the continued survival and flourishing of life and the human race.

Having sex with animals could get you sick and cause all sorts of problems. Eating animals on the other hand can extend your life beyond a few days and perhaps even into years after you can no longer drink your mother’s milk and has very few downsides, especially with the invention of cooking. Sure, we don’t need the source of sustenance that is meat today when we have several times more food than is necessary to feed the whole globe and then throw a lot of it away, but this wasn’t true for the vast majority of our history. People only a few hundred years ago had to scrape for every protein they could find.

There’s no special moral reason because we didn’t decide. It’s just an instinct, though one that we can examine and ignore if we want.

Really enjoyed this thread.

Both groups can emphatically agree on something - that they love the taste of animal meat.

If you need for survival to hunt and eat an animal you are just part of the ecosystem, a predator.
Do you need to have sex with another species? In the wild it happens and even rape is natural, but the question could be “would you like to live in a human society like that?”.

That said, animal farming is unethical and completely unnecessary nowadays. Most people would agree that killing an animal just for pleasure would be ethically wrong, but then we as a society rape to breed, grow in terrible conditions and kill in nightmarish ways farm animals just because “meat is good”.

Those same people do not actually kill animals. They eat meat, there is a disconnect here. I would wager if everyone had to kill and process the meat they eat that consumption would go down considerably.

I guess because animals (eg tigers) eat other animals (e.g deer) and have evolved exactly towards that purpose. That’s how their species survives.

It’s not often that I see a tiger performing sexual assault on a deer. That’s not required for the tiger’s survival.

Now whether humans are “naturally” meat eaters and therefore we should feel “better” about eating animals I don’t know. Nutritionally I think the evidence probably leans towards being omnivore, similar to many other apes and monkeys.

“It’s called ‘inter-species erotica’, Fuck-o.”