Dual standards in animal welfare

Post by **spot** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 12:20 pm

A man in California has been jailed for 16 years after admitting he stole and tortured cats, killing 18 of them.

The name of each cat killed by Robert Farmer, 26, was read out to him by the judge in Santa Clara Superior Court.

Cat killer jailed for 16 years in San Jose, California - BBC News

What on earth is this 16 year sentence for? The theft of 18 cats, replacement value as new perhaps $5,000?

This is in a country where the commercial slaughter of steers, heifers and cows exceeds 25 million every year, all of which are killed without anyone getting prosecuted. What possible value do Americans place on non-primate mammalian life given that single fact.

16 years is an absolute disgrace to the nation, the sentence shouldn't have gone beyond community service and a permanent ban on owning lifeforms.

Bruv · Post by **Bruv** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 1:51 pm

Did you miss the word Tortured ?

Post by **spot** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 2:27 pm

No, I didn't miss it. You're suggesting these 25 million cattle a year are all unaware of what's happening in the abattoir?

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Sat Jul 15, 2017 4:05 pm

I think you are not differentiating sufficiently between killing done for a good social purpose - feeding people - where standards are at least supposed to be enforced and can be improved (no doubt) and the killing of cats for the purpose of causing pain only. I think it does make a difference.

Add the hint of sexual gratification and he sounds very dangerous to me. We can argue about whether we should be locking up people considered dangers to the public before they actually harm someone, as well.

Post by **spot** » Sun Jul 16, 2017 1:10 am

Clodhopper;1510915 wrote: Add the hint of sexual gratification and he sounds very dangerous to me.

I note there was insufficient evidence to charge or convict him on that insinuation, I see no reason why it should be raised as a canard at this stage. Had it been an allegation worthy of consideration by the court then evidence would have been tested during the proceedings. That didn't happen. I'd call it mud-slinging.

You offer feeding people as an example of killing done for a good social purpose but you do so with no reference to morality, merely utility. Killing enemy combatants during war is a matter of utility but that doesn't make it moral. Exterminating civilians for the purpose of lebensraum is a matter of utility but that doesn't make it moral. Similarly, reducing wild species in order to appropriate the land or sea they live on is utilitarian but immoral.

Humankind recently started to reverse its assault on the ozone layer, to put the planet back into a clean state. It's starting to do the same on greenhouse emissions. I think the principle can be taken further. I think we should aim to have a negligible impact on the planet as a whole. That means giving the surface back to every other species in a sustainable state and it means not polluting or harming any other species. It's not a matter of extending rights, it's a matter of custodial responsibility. Beyond just allowing them to remain alive as other species it means not domesticating them and not using them as a resource.

How far should this protection be extended? Just primates? All mammals? Even to that limited range there would be outcriers wanting to eliminate rats. There are two problems with rats, we've fed them and we've spread them. By all means exterminate them from habitats they never occupied before we took them there, that's cleaning up a mess. By all means stop throwing millions of tons of waste food annually into their environment and making their numbers explode. Those issues aren't the fault of the rats, they're our mistakes. The rat as a species has as much moral right to its natural environment as we do. As far as I'm concerned the same goes for anything that employs naturally-evolved DNA and reproduces.

The law recognizes a category of "crimes against humanity" and treats it as an intolerable affront. I'd like it to recognize an even more heinous crime, "crime against life", and condemn it to at least the same extent. If it needs a scale then species extinction tops the list, species domestication might come next and the wholesale slaughter of mammals, reptiles, birds or fish for food one step down again. Herds of cows are an abomination. Torturing eighteen domesticated cats to death is absolutely insignificant by contrast with any of this.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Sun Jul 16, 2017 3:27 am

I think when you look at a case such as this it's not just a legal but a clinical matter and the hint of sexual gratification is relevant there from a diagnostic point of view. From a legal point of view the charge is torture - any sexual element is merely incidental.

I think my concern here is that there isn't any psychological input, at least not mentioned in the report, when he looks to me to be at high risk of becoming a very nasty serial killer of people if no intervention takes place. Next stop liver and chianti.

I'm not sure how certain it is that someone who starts on cats will graduate to humans. Hmm. I'll see what I can find.

edit: A quick look suggests that this sort of behaviour is quite strongly associated with serial sexual and homicidal offenders. The rough figure seems to be between a third and a half of those offenders had animal torture and sexual abuse of animals in their background. But the samples are all small, the range of offenders included not always the same...the figures can be no more than indicative at best.

Bruv · Post by **Bruv** » Sun Jul 16, 2017 4:49 am

spot;1510920 wrote: I note there was insufficient evidence to charge or convict him on that insinuation, I see no reason why it should be raised as a canard at this stage. Had it been an allegation worthy of consideration by the court then evidence would have been tested during the proceedings. That didn't happen. I'd call it mud-slinging.

You offer feeding people as an example of killing done for a good social purpose but you do so with no reference to morality, merely utility. Killing enemy combatants during war is a matter of utility but that doesn't make it moral. Exterminating civilians for the purpose of lebensraum is a matter of utility but that doesn't make it moral. Similarly, reducing wild species in order to appropriate the land or sea they live on is utilitarian but immoral.

Humankind recently started to reverse its assault on the ozone layer, to put the planet back into a clean state. It's starting to do the same on greenhouse emissions. I think the principle can be taken further. I think we should aim to have a negligible impact on the planet as a whole. That means giving the surface back to every other species in a sustainable state and it means not polluting or harming any other species. It's not a matter of extending rights, it's a matter of custodial responsibility. Beyond just allowing them to remain alive as other species it means not domesticating them and not using them as a resource.

How far should this protection be extended? Just primates? All mammals? Even to that limited range there would be outcriers wanting to eliminate rats. There are two problems with rats, we've fed them and we've spread them. By all means exterminate them from habitats they never occupied before we took them there, that's cleaning up a mess. By all means stop throwing millions of tons of waste food annually into their environment and making their numbers explode. Those issues aren't the fault of the rats, they're our mistakes. The rat as a species has as much moral right to its natural environment as we do. As far as I'm concerned the same goes for anything that employs naturally-evolved DNA and reproduces.

The law recognizes a category of "crimes against humanity" and treats it as an intolerable affront. I'd like it to recognize an even more heinous crime, "crime against life", and condemn it to at least the same extent. If it needs a scale then species extinction tops the list, species domestication might come next and the wholesale slaughter of mammals, reptiles, birds or fish for food one step down again. Herds of cows are an abomination. Torturing eighteen domesticated cats to death is absolutely insignificant by contrast with any of this.

I think you assume mankind has risen to your level of moral exactitude. It hasn't .......not yet......I doubt it ever will.

The Bushman of Africa are far more pragmatic.

There is a type of arrogance where you apportion mankind custodial responsibility of the earth, most people don't have custodial responsibility of their own lives for heavens sake.

How some nutter torturing cats to death sent your mind on this tangent no one can know.........................why not the UK acid attacks or throwing gays off buildings ?

Post by **spot** » Sun Jul 16, 2017 5:11 am

Clodhopper;1510921 wrote: this sort of behaviour is quite strongly associated with serial sexual and homicidal offenders. The rough figure seems to be between a third and a half of those offenders had animal torture and sexual abuse of animals in their background..The lack of association there is distressing. It's not what proportion of serial sexual and homicidal offenders have animal torture and sexual abuse of animals in their background, it's what proportion of people with animal torture and sexual abuse of animals in their background become serial sexual and homicidal offenders. I'd suggest the second, relevant, ratio is smaller by several orders of magnitude, and this lower ratio is the association you're trying to make. It would be hard to make chiefly because very few people with animal torture and sexual abuse of animals in their background are counted, detected or known about. I'd be surprised if fewer than a million adult males in the UK had such an event in their past, while the number of serial sexual and homicidal offenders must be fewer than one in a hundred of those - in other words at least 99% failed to make the progression you've suggested.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Sun Jul 16, 2017 5:18 am

You offer feeding people as an example of killing done for a good social purpose but you do so with no reference to morality, merely utility. Killing enemy combatants during war is a matter of utility but that doesn't make it moral. Exterminating civilians for the purpose of lebensraum is a matter of utility but that doesn't make it moral. Similarly, reducing wild species in order to appropriate the land or sea they live on is utilitarian but immoral.

Humankind recently started to reverse its assault on the ozone layer, to put the planet back into a clean state. It's starting to do the same on greenhouse emissions. I think the principle can be taken further. I think we should aim to have a negligible impact on the planet as a whole. That means giving the surface back to every other species in a sustainable state and it means not polluting or harming any other species. It's not a matter of extending rights, it's a matter of custodial responsibility. Beyond just allowing them to remain alive as other species it means not domesticating them and not using them as a resource.

How far should this protection be extended? Just primates? All mammals? Even to that limited range there would be outcriers wanting to eliminate rats. There are two problems with rats, we've fed them and we've spread them. By all means exterminate them from habitats they never occupied before we took them there, that's cleaning up a mess. By all means stop throwing millions of tons of waste food annually into their environment and making their numbers explode. Those issues aren't the fault of the rats, they're our mistakes. The rat as a species has as much moral right to its natural environment as we do. As far as I'm concerned the same goes for anything that employs naturally-evolved DNA and reproduces.

The law recognizes a category of "crimes against humanity" and treats it as an intolerable affront. I'd like it to recognize an even more heinous crime, "crime against life", and condemn it to at least the same extent. If it needs a scale then species extinction tops the list, species domestication might come next and the wholesale slaughter of mammals, reptiles, birds or fish for food one step down again. Herds of cows are an abomination. Torturing eighteen domesticated cats to death is absolutely insignificant by contrast with any of this.

Added since I replied to the first para above.

Oh, ok, you can argue that all our interference with the natural world is wrong and should be reversed. It's a position, I'll grant you.

I was focussed on this case and rather concerned that there's no sign a very dangerous person is being recognised as what he is.

I don't regard farming or hunting for food as naturally immoral, though they can be done immorally. Your argument seems to me to be a reduction to the absurd, useful as a way of pointing out that perhaps we don't need to farm animals, but of little value beyond that because we live in a real world where we can't just click our fingers, wipe out domesticated cattle and replace with soy or something. Making ordinary life throughout history and prehistory criminally immoral doesn't help any issue.

The big issue behind all this is birth control.

Wandrin · Post by **Wandrin** » Sun Jul 16, 2017 12:31 pm

spot;1510911 wrote: A man in California has been jailed for 16 years after admitting he stole and tortured cats, killing 18 of them.

16 years is an absolute disgrace to the nation, the sentence shouldn't have gone beyond community service and a permanent ban on owning lifeforms.

This case is a relatively local one, so there has been a lot of coverage and public emotion.

The guy stole 21 cats from people. That's 21 cases of theft. He also tortured and killed them in violation of local and state laws regarding treatment of animals. So, we're talking about 42-63 crimes. The evaluation by the court ordered psychiatrist didn't help his case.

he had a â€œprofound lack of empathy and remorseâ€ for his crimes and â€œsignificant angerâ€ toward his family. The doctor also considered him a possible danger to the community, with a prognosis for recovery that was â€œpoor, with potential escalation to higher life forms in the future.â€

link to local article :http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/07/14/s ... g-21-cats/

Post by **spot** » Mon Jul 17, 2017 10:01 am

I wonder what's meant by "higher life forms" when speaking of the cat family. The words do not compute. They fail to convey anything to my mind other than anthropomorphic bias.

magentaflame · Post by **magentaflame** » Mon Jul 17, 2017 2:14 pm

:yh_eyerolanother words 'humans'

Post by **spot** » Mon Jul 17, 2017 2:57 pm

magentaflame;1510975 wrote: :yh_eyerolanother words 'humans'
Keep going, that's not informative enough.

In what respect is a human a higher life form than a member of the cat family?

The reason I mentioned "anthropomorphic bias" is that it means preferring humans because you're a human. I'm asking whether you have a reason for it other than some tribal loyalty.

Higher how? A list would do.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:22 am

spot;1510976 wrote: Keep going, that's not informative enough.

In what respect is a human a higher life form than a member of the cat family?

The reason I mentioned "anthropomorphic bias" is that it means preferring humans because you're a human. I'm asking whether you have a reason for it other than some tribal loyalty.

Higher how? A list would do.

Ability to solve quadratic equations?

Fly to the Moon?

Paint the Mona Lisa?

Destroy the planet?

Higher is a relative and subjective term. In the ways I list we are a higher life form. In other ways cats are superior: Cats kill and eat far more efficiently than we do. They would probably survive better in eg a post-apocalyptic winter than we would. In terms of rights they have only the rights we give them, legally speaking - and we are speaking legally in this case.

Morally, one can certainly argue that animal life should be valued more highly. But how highly and where if anywhere is the line? Should we wipe out diseases because a disease is after all, life. Mosquitoes? Bugs on your plants? Rats or mice in the house?

There is certainly something obscene about make up tests done on animals...

I suppose, in a way, thank heavens there's a line at all.

edit: And I am glad to see that there was a psychiatric report which had a big influence on the sentence (thanks Wandrin).

Post by **spot** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 4:49 am

Solving quadratic equations, flying to the Moon, painting the Mona Lisa and destroying the planet are abilities we humans value because they're things we humans are skilled at. We don't value breathing particularly because any old vertebrate can breathe, it's nothing clever. That's what I meant about anthropomorphic bias. The cat - and I explicitly exclude the domesticated cat - is an astonishing creature with abilities far greater than our own in many spheres. Contrast any average wild cat with the world's best acrobat or parcouriste, there's no doubt which excels. I could name another ten attributes where a cat is equally going to win.

The capabilities of life, and in particular multi-cellular life, are astonishing. The evolutionary development which led to the first multi-cellular lifeform far outstrips what's happened since that moment, we're all variations on that one model. If you share a significant proportion of your genetic inheritance with a banana - I've seen 30% bandied about - then to my mind a banana deserves considerable respect. The very fact that we humans have wrought such appalling havoc on nature in the last hundred thousand years is the reason I believe we should step back and make complete amends our prime directive before we do anything to further our own interests. That starts with a fifty year plan to have most of humanity's nutritional requirements met synthetically, to ban farming and to exterminate every domesticated breed of plant and animal from the planet. That is a reasonable middle-of-the-road proposal, I'm deliberately avoiding extreme alternatives.

As for diseases, I dislike the virus but I have so little understanding of its function in ecology that I would be loath to remove it from the environment. Festina lente, one small step at a time, blatant offenders like smallpox and polio and dengue and malaria are fair game. Genociding mosquitoes is way off the playing field, they're equally victims of the malaria cycle.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 9:37 am

Over the years I've returned to youtube to watch the following video as a reminder of who we are and where we come from. The video might seem simplistic, but its message is worth consideration.

I find it difficult to see how humans who have grown up on farms or ranches or are pet owners fail to empathize with the plight of other animal species. Even our best intentions, as well as the consequences of our rules and laws, are abusive toward other species. Also, it becomes transparent that any person who claims to be opposed to slavery makes the claim only in a rhetorical sense because they fail to recognize the behavior when it stares them in the eye and is a daily way of life for them. That all says a lot about us culturally and cognitively. And if how we currently treat these other animals is reflective of us as a "higher life form" (whatever that means) or "more evolved" (a ridiculous notion in and of itself) then our species deserves extermination based on moral grounds.

All that said, I find myself faced with one of a number of conundrums. That is that the evolution of my physical self has been reliant on and the result of the consumption of these other species. It's said that the brain is the result of meat consumption and I know that the method by which my body maintains its health is highly dependant on animal protein. So, what's a person to do?

Post by **spot** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 10:16 am

Ahso!;1511009 wrote: Over the years I've returned to youtube to watch the following video as a reminder of who we are and where we come from.No no no! How can someone go to all that trouble and not know we're APES!!! We're not monkeys, we never were monkeys, go back down the evolutionary trail as far as you like and you'll find no monkey. Monkeys are on a side-branch, monkeys are not now and never have been primates, you are a PRIMATE. Primate lineage has no monkey in it. It goes back to an extinct precursor mammal that wasn't a monkey. Monkeys developed after their line from the same non-monkey precursor went up a different side-branch to the one which created apes.

I'll offer a mocumentary discussing the current use of livestock and the rise of the vegan movement.

Here's the mocumentary - Carnage

and this is Simon Amstell discussing his film with Mark Kermode, it's interesting - If we keep eating animals it's going to get awkward.

It's told from the perspective of 2067 and I take the underlying discussion entirely seriously.

magentaflame · Post by **magentaflame** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 2:04 pm

....HEAVY SIGH.....

we're the higher life forms, becuase we make the rules. The welfare or abuse of animals is in our hands or on our heads becuase WE make the rules. Its as simple as that.

Now in saying that .....one of my cats looked at me as i sighed. I offered the phone to her to respond to this thread but she just meowed..... so im going to assume and make the executive decision (because im the higher life form ) to respond to this thread.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 2:28 pm

An ability to communicate human to human does not make us a higher life form, it makes us human. Though, I could agree that empathizing might make us more compassionate humans. As was pointed out earlier, the rules humans live by are for the benefit of human existence. They are not for the benefit of other species.

magentaflame · Post by **magentaflame** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 2:32 pm

Exactly! Hence the higher life form.

Ahso! · Post by **Ahso!** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 2:44 pm

I wouldn't say psychopathy is a trait of a higher life form.

Post by **spot** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 3:11 pm

magentaflame;1511025 wrote: we're the higher life forms, becuase we make the rules. The welfare or abuse of animals is in our hands or on our heads becuase WE make the rules. Its as simple as that.

You'd better hope that if we ever meet interstellar travelers they have a higher moral sense than the median human can muster, if that's how things work.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Tue Jul 18, 2017 4:56 pm

spot;1510925 wrote: The lack of association there is distressing. It's not what proportion of serial sexual and homicidal offenders have animal torture and sexual abuse of animals in their background, it's what proportion of people with animal torture and sexual abuse of animals in their background become serial sexual and homicidal offenders. I'd suggest the second, relevant, ratio is smaller by several orders of magnitude, and this lower ratio is the association you're trying to make. It would be hard to make chiefly because very few people with animal torture and sexual abuse of animals in their background are counted, detected or known about. I'd be surprised if fewer than a million adult males in the UK had such an event in their past, while the number of serial sexual and homicidal offenders must be fewer than one in a hundred of those - in other words at least 99% failed to make the progression you've suggested.

Depends what you define as torture. If we are just including torture of the sort in the case described I would guess it is not that common. If you include all farmworkers, hunters and fishermen it will be a lot more common. Perhaps the difference is that with farmworkers and co. pain caused is incidental to the process; in the case discussed above, pain is the point of the process. I think it is a significant difference and you are at risk of trivialising the seriousness of a case like this by equating the two.

We are at an interesting point in history in that we can even discuss your idea of entirely synthetic food sources as a practical possibility!

Post by **spot** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:13 am

It would not have crossed my mind to include all farmworkers, hunters and fishermen. My million was an estimate of those adults in the country who deliberately inflict intolerable cruelty on any lifeform - let's say over an ounce just to exclude small wiggly things - other than on their children or neighbours. I'm talking deliberate abuse aimed to harm or hurt dogs cats hamsters ornamental fish budgies and horses. If I were to add bloody rod-and-line weekend sportsmen who think hauling a fish out of a reservoir is a neat trick it would be a bigger total.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 3:32 am

Umf.

We'd have to start deciding what constituted serious and abnormal abuse in contrast with a child learning about the world. I can recall shutting a kitten in a box as part of a game I was playing when very small. I don't recall any desire or intent to distress or hurt the poor thing, but my Mum had to rescue it (I was too small to understand it had an independent existence of its own - it was a toy to me). I don't think of that in the same way I do someone adult or close to it torturing an animal to death. Perhaps a few might do it once without turning into a serial killer of people but when it's 21 known cases that's a different thing altogether, it seems to me.

I don't know where precisely we draw the line between normal learning about the world and what is you and what is not you, and the conscious enjoyment of another living being's suffering, felt intensely enough to repeat and repeat and repeat and then move on to people, perhaps because they can express their suffering in more ways.

It's a horrible truth that public executions were mass entertainment, but people lived in a much more violent society where death was a frequent visitor. Now we are taught not to hurt, to minimise suffering yet some people cannot learn that lesson, their empathy is non-existent, stunted or warped compared to the theoretical norm.

Hmm. Pause here for a bit more thought.

Post by **spot** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 3:43 am

I tried to exclude children by referring to adults. My million was an estimate of those people in the UK who have as adults deliberately inflicted intolerable cruelty on animals outside of any work setting. I think it's a reasoned estimate and the lowest figure I found credible. If I expressed the idea carelessly then I'll try harder.

Repeatedly thrashing a dog to establish and retain dominance in the style of Bill Sykes might account for half of what I'm talking about, I couldn't say. There are some despicable people in this country. Would that constitute serious and abnormal abuse? Is it prevalent?

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 5:49 am

Yeah, you did exclude children (I was a bit fixated on the developmental side).

If we are talking about thrashing a dog then at least on the surface there is a purpose to the pain other than the pain itself. I'm thinking that is probably the core difference - the dangerous cases are the ones where the purpose is the pain for itself or for sexual gratification. The same would theoretically be true in eg organised dog fighting (which crops up from time to time). I'm not defending it but I'm not sure pain is the main purpose - winning is the purpose. chuckle. Perhaps Rugby could be seen as a moral version of that principle in sport, in some ways: winning by giving and taking more pain than the opposition. Boxing too?

So if we are looking only at cases where the purpose is pain, how many people do that on a regular basis? I have honestly no idea...

Post by **spot** » Wed Jul 19, 2017 6:04 am

I don't think these vile thrashers of dogs would thrash dogs unless they enjoyed thrashing them, regardless of their claimed justification of training the brutes to attack on command or whatever they have in mind. The claimed purpose does not excuse the enjoyment.

The tip of the iceberg is the court reports where some submissive woman goes to jail after a six month old gets its head eaten.

Clodhopper · Post by **Clodhopper** » Thu Jul 20, 2017 2:13 am

Oh, agreed, it most certainly doesn't.

But perhaps the key point is that (in their minds) they are delivering a deserved punishment. They have not taken the step of admitting to themselves that they are doing it for pleasure or at least not mainly for pleasure. I would actually suspect that many of them have convinced themselves that any pleasure they feel is a moral one derived from administering justice, which may be the thing that stops many from taking the extra step to doing it to people. Such is the human tendency to justify itself!

I'd also say that cases of animal cruelty by neglect do not fit this sort of case either: There must be an active infliction of extreme suffering as well as pleasure in it.

...god how revolting.

You know, I really think I've had about as much as I can take of discussing this, at least in one go. It's a perfectly valid, even interesting area of discussion but I need a counter dose of fluffiness...

Post by **spot** » Thu Jul 20, 2017 3:14 am

Clodhopper;1511052 wrote: It's a perfectly valid, even interesting area of discussion but I need a counter dose of fluffiness...What puzzles me is you haven't considered that Robert Farmer, 26, thought the cats were innately evil and deserved punishment. He needn't have enjoyed it any more than your proposed dog thrasher.

But yes, by all means let's proceed to other topics, this is well into unpleasantness.

I do recommend Simon Amstell's mocumentary I linked to though, it's top notch.