Comment by kobayashi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kobayashi | Hacker News Reader

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That is simply inaccurate and Kosher killing has always had humanity in animal killing front and centre, even far before the concept of treating animals humanely became widespread in human societies. The notion that an animal should be electrically shocked so that it is “stunned” before being killed is a matter for debate and is not definitely more or less humane.

There is often room for improvements, including reducing pre-slaughter stress, but when done right kosher slaughter is among the most humane forms of killing an animal. For example, with a skilled _shochet_ a cow can collapse within 10 seconds and not react at all to the cut itself. The requirements for even the sharpness of the knife are paramount, such that the animal feel no/a minimum of pain. Contrast this with the overwhelming majority of slaughterhouses, both today and over human history, and I hope you’ll see that kosher animal killing is far different from what you described above.

Let me try to steelman it for you: unless we assume God exists in the particular way a given religion says, religion dogma makes a debate around ethical animal slaughtering too inflexible. It is highly unlikely that either kosher or halal rites maximize ethical treatment beyond any chance of improvement (unless you assume divine guidance, obviously), and neither religion is very open to revisit dogma at the pace that ethical understanding of how animals ought to be treated, outside of a religious framework, evolves. Thus, we can consider religious views here as roadblocks.

Any individual view on the religious merits of kosher slaughter isn’t necessary in determining its humaneness. The facts stand on their own. There is of course a separate discussion to be had on the value of ritual slaughter to an individual or group’s religious expression, but I think that needn’t be considered in order to determine that animal killing according to kosher laws is not an inhumane method of killing an animal, and it’s rules of slaughter were among the first and most enduring form of an animal welfare.

Also tangential to this entire conversation is the merit/morality of animal consumption whatsoever, and whether it can be morally defended in the modern context, but I think that’s also best left for another day.

Ok, but the fact that kosher rights were “first to the party” does not inform us about whether they are the optimum solution; at most, to the fact that their position, given that we have globally approached it over the years, might be partially good.

And, as you touch upon, religious rites do not (solely) search for the solution that is most humane for the animal; they also take into consideration the religious value of the experience for third parties. But that means that, all else being equal, secular slaughtering processes, as they do not seek ritual values, should be more free to converge to the most humane solution.

"I want to kill you, but I want to do it nicely." - Humans to cows.

Pithy, but most people would agree torture prior to death is morally wrong.

Most people would agree (in principle, not in observed behavior) that torture and murder are both wrong, as is torture before the few minutes before death.

Please try to read posts charitatively, it adds up to better conversations. We all have limited time.

The point was that most people see torture plus murder worse than a quick murder, and that should be clearly analogous to your ironic cite, that I read as pointing out the supposed hypocrisy of making a slauthering “ethical”. Different ways to kill, be it human or animal, even if we agree they are unethical, are not unethical in the same degree.

Secular processes have pressures too, such as the pressure to optimize costs, or maximize safety to humans.

The optimum solution might very well cost a billion dollars. A search for optimum while criticizing everything else seems like it's letting the perfect get in the way of the good.

> secular slaughtering processes, as they do not seek ritual values, should be more free to converge to the most humane solution.

Ok, but is there any reason it would converge to a humane solution at all? How strong is the market pressure in that direction? Jewish people are willing to pay a price premium to get a specific type of slaughter. Are secular people willing to pay a similarly-large price premium to get humane slaughter?

That’s a good point. I would be more inclined to argue that people, individually, would not pay the premium of ethical slaughter. But on the other hand there is a growing tendency to consider the impact of eating animals, to the point that McDonalds is adding vegetable burgers to their menus (as shared here yesterday).

> Thus, we can consider religious views here as roadblocks.

I agree, but politically shortcutting through religious blocs tends to be impossible. If it wasn't we would have been rid of those roadblocks when we killed god. 240 years later, those roadblocks are still in place, what tools of reason can we use to circumvent them as well as possible?

> That is simply inaccurate and Kosher killing has always had humanity in animal killing front and centre

This is absolute nonsense.

> even far before the concept of treating animals humanely became widespread in human societies.

There you go. The idea of "humanity" of animals doesn't exist in christianity, judaism or islam. It's really a modern concept that animals should even be treated humanely at all.

> There is often room for improvements, including reducing pre-slaughter stress, but when done right kosher slaughter is among the most humane forms of killing an animal.

A shot to the skull is. It is instantaneous. Not 10 seconds of gasping for blood as the cow bleeds out.

If you've ever read the bible, there is nothing there about the ethical treatment of animals. The concept simply didn't exist back then. Kosher is simply about what a group of people thought was "icky" animals/food and draining blood out of the animal.

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