Comment by sweenycod | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sweenycod | Hacker News Reader

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This is an interesting place to bring up the ethics of Thanksgiving given the demographic. However, given my primary avocation is philosophy, I'm interested in how you arrived at the ethical ideology that turkeys are indeed sentient and that they deserve a life devoid of human consumption. I am not a moral relativist and I prefer justified beliefs so I'll give you some context that you missed in your original comment.

My wife and I purchase local, farm-raised, organic (free of hormones), free-range poultry and we eat turkey _once per year_. It could be argued that our abstinence of industrial turkey consumption is the ethical way to justify the one I eat on Thanksgiving.

The standard treatment of animals is _arguably_ immoral in a lot of cases (certainly not all), but it depends on your view of animal consciousness, the role they play in the advancement of human life, and whether or not we have a moral and ethical duty to protect them. I'm not opposed to having ethical debates, but this seems hardly the place for it if you're interested in _authentic_ and _educated_ dialogue. Your appeal to emotion using (incorrect) words like "genocide" and "needless slaughter" suggest a strong ideology and lack of objectivity, which suggests a disinterest in philosophical pursuit of knowledge.

Genocide implies the targeted extinction of a human demographic. Thanksgiving turkeys are raised _to be food_ from the beginning. I don't believe large amounts of people are hunting around for wild turkeys a few days before Thanksgiving. Also, given their role in the US economy, I think that extermination would be bad for capitalism. Bioethics considers the immorality of raising animals for food, but I have not heard of it referred to as genocide by any reputable author. One could argue that since carnivores are not unique to humans it is "natural" and therefore not unethical. Remember, just because you consider something "icky" [doesn't make it immoral](https://www.philosophyetc.net/2004/09/moral-emotions-yuk-fac...). The opposite argument here is that humans are aware of their actions and therefore held to a higher standard. There is nothing objective about this claim since we have no access to the [qualia](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qualia/) and consciousness of animals.

Let's suppose that in a country far, far away, there is a holiday called Givingthanks where instead of turkeys, dogs are eaten. Your alter ego in that country could then write the exact same comment than you did, replacing 'turkey' with 'dog'. We would read things like: 'It could be argued that our abstinence of industrial dog consumption is the ethical way to justify the one I eat on Givingthanks' or 'Givingthanks dogs are raised _to be food_ from the beginning'. You don't see anything problematic with that?

Cows are basically giant dogs and we eat them every day. What’s the difference? Are they treated humanely while they are alive?

Well, precisely, to me there's no ethical difference between a turkey and a dog (and a cow), that was my point.

Dogs are a common pet and turkeys are not. Sure, objectively they are animals with edible meat. One is raised with the intention of being eaten and one is not. In the hypothetical far away country (from a few parent comments up), if it was common to eat dogs instead of turkey and dogs were not raised, and treated as "man's best friend" then it would make a lot more sense for them to be consumed.

Not only that, many dogs are raised as hunting dogs specifically to help us kill other animals and survive.

The argument was directly related to the original claim of "genocide" and had nothing to do with the consumption of animals in general. I was saying that by consuming one turkey per year I am hardly contributing to the extinction of an animal.

Dogs are consumed in other countries such as Nigeria and the practice is only taboo in primarily western cultures. This has historical and cultural implications. Like I said, just because you consider something "icky" doesn't make it immoral (see https://www.philosophyetc.net/2004/09/moral-emotions-yuk-fac...).

If you are truly interested in philosophical conversations I would avoid phrases like "you don't see what's wrong with this?", because appealing to the stone (argumentum ad lapidem) is not an actual argument. It's a shell for lack of reasoning and evidence (also known as a logical fallacy). If you see some breakdown of logic then please, point it out using reasoning. You may think it is immoral to consume dogs. Other countries do not. There is no "obviously immoral" conclusion to what you said. Or perhaps I missed it.

Fair enough, my question was hinting at the fact that most people don't seem to be morally consistent between turkeys and (for example) dogs.

As for the breakdown in logic, you said this in your first comment:

'Your appeal to emotion using (incorrect) words like "genocide" and "needless slaughter" suggest a strong ideology and lack of objectivity [...]'.

Unless I'm reading that wrongly, you're saying that "needless slaughter" is 'incorrect', and I'm curious to know why that is, as to me this is a completely correct statement.

You misunderstand me. I am using genocide to mean racial killing, its latin roots. I do not think that mass killings of Turkeys for Thanksgiving leads to extinction, that is obviously a foolish notion.

My argument is that it is against the spirit of thankfulness to buy factory-farmed Turkey for Thanksgiving. You clearly do not do that, you buy humanely raised turkey and do not represent the demographic HN or this country (unfortunately.)

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