It's OK to kill and eat animals - but don't get caught slapping one.

By Denis @ 2024-07-24T21:46 (+89)

Very short post. This is not my area of expertise at all. But it seems like an opportunity.

The Olympics start this week. In the UK, the biggest Olympic story is not about any runner or swimmer or gymnast. It is about animal rights. But, as with most animal-rights stories which make the front-pages (bull-fighting, hunting), it misses the real problem, factory-farming.  

The story: Apparently a famous Olympian equestrian has been forced to withdraw from the Olympics after footage emerged of her whipping a horse during training, 4 years ago. Cue the standard apologies, the "error of judgment" comment, the universal condemnation - and of course the video is shared with a warning that people might find this shocking. 

I think it would be wonderful if someone with the right moral stature (which is not me, I'm not even a vegan ...) were to highlight the absurdity of so much moral outrage for an otherwise well-treated, well-fed horse who gets whipped on the leg one time, but no reaction to the billions of factory-farmed animals who suffer in cages for their entire lives before we kill them and eat them. Maybe it would make people think again about factory-farming, or at least ask themselves if their views on animals were consistent. 

I was reminded of the Tolstoy description of a lady who "faints when she sees a calf being killed, she is so kind hearted that she can’t look at the blood, but enjoys serving the calf up with sauce.” 

My point with this post is just that if someone is in a position to express a public opinion on this, or write a letter to the editor, it might be an opportune moment given the size of the story right now. 



Charlotte Dujardin out of Olympics: The video, the reaction and what happens now explained | Olympics News | Sky Sports

 

ElliotTep @ 2024-07-25T00:47 (+51)

I can't recall the paper, but I remember reading a paper in moral psychology that argues that on a psychological level, we think of morality in terms of 'is this person moral', not 'is this act moral'. We are trying to figure out if the person in front of us is trustworthy, loyal, kind, etc.

In the study, participants do say that a human experiencing harm is worse than an animal experiencing harm, but view a person who hits a cat as more immoral than a person who hits their spouse. I think what people are implicitly recoiling at is that the person who hits a cat is more likely to be a psychopath. 

I think this maps pretty well onto the example here, and the outrage of people's reactions. And to clarify, I think this explanation captures WHY people react the way they do in the descriptive sense. I don't think that's how people ought to react. 

David_Moss @ 2024-07-25T18:56 (+13)

Perhaps Uhlman et al (2015) or Landy & Uhlmann (2018)?

From the latter:

Evidence for this assertion comes from studies involving two jilted lovers (Tannenbaum et al., 2011, Studies 1a and 1b).  Participants were presented with information about two men who had learned that their girlfriends were cheating on them.  Both men flew into a rage, and one beat up his unfaithful girlfriend, while the other beat up her cat.  Participants judged the former action as more immoral, but judged the catbeater as having worse character (specifically, as being more lacking in empathy) than the girlfriend-beater.  This is an example of an act-person dissociation. 

ElliotTep @ 2024-07-26T11:08 (+4)

I think it was the first one. Well done for finding it!

Denis @ 2024-07-25T05:49 (+4)

That's really interesting, and makes a lot of sense. Thanks for sharing! 

quila @ 2024-07-29T13:24 (+1)

on a psychological level, we think of morality in terms of 'is this person moral', not 'is this act moral'. We are trying to figure out if the person in front of us is trustworthy, loyal, kind, etc.

I think this, as written, is not explanatory, because one could regard another to be of immoral character on the basis that they perform immoral acts. I'm not sure what else 'moral character' could mean, other than "their inner character would endorse acting in {moral or immoral way}".

I think it would be correct to say that average humans act on various non-moral judgements in ways we think should be reserved for moral judgements.

In the study, participants [...] view a person who hits a cat as more immoral than a person who hits their spouse

Hmm, I might share this view (I'm unsure which evidences the more bad character), but I don't think it comes from something irrational. It's more like: inferring underlying principles they might have in some deep, unconscious level. E.g., someone who hits a cat might have a deep attitude of finding it okay to hurt the weak. But someone hitting a spouse is also evidence of different bad 'deep attitudes'. This way of thinking about the question is compatible with my consequentialism, because how those individuals act is a result of these 'deep attitudes'.

ElliotTep @ 2024-07-30T02:13 (+1)

Hi Quila,

If I understand you correctly I think we broadly agree that people tend to use how someone acts to judge moral character. I think though this point is underappreciated in EA, as evidenced by the existence of this forum post. The question is 'why do people get so much more upset about hitting one horse than the horrors of factory farming', when clearly in terms of the badness of an act, factory farming is much worse. The point is that when people view a moral/immoral act, psychologically they are evaluating the moral character of the person, not the act in and of itself.

quila @ 2024-07-30T14:56 (+1)

My point was that purchasing animal products usually suggests a bad 'moral character' trait: the willingness to cause immense individual harm when this is normative/convenient.

I'm saying that average people's judgements of others' characters are not best described as 'moral' per se, because if they were, they would judge each other harshly for consuming animals.

ElliotTep @ 2024-07-30T23:10 (+1)

So this involves a bit of potentially tenuous evolutionary psychology, but I think part of what is going on here is that people are judging moral character based on what would have made sense to judge people on 10,000 years ago which is, is this person loyal to their friends (ie me), empathetic, helps the person in front of them without question, etc. 

I think it's important to distinguish between morality (what is right and wrong) from moral psychology (how do people think about what is right and wrong). On this account, buying animal products tells you that a person is a normal member of society, and hitting an animal tells you someone is cruel, not to be trusted, potentially psychopathic, etc.   

quila @ 2024-07-31T01:55 (+1)

Okay, sounds like we indeed agree on the object-level. I guess it's just not intuitive to me to refer to things like 'will this person be loyal to me' as 'moral character'

jordanve @ 2024-07-25T05:52 (+23)

Francione did this in his 2007 article "We're all Michael Vick". He calls it moral schizophrenia. Singer calls it secondary speciesism: prioritising some non-human animals over others. I don't know if anyone has made a habit of it, I think it's a good idea. I'd be interested to see someone try to measure the effects this kind of argument has on the audience.

Denis @ 2024-07-25T12:38 (+4)

Wow, great example. Thanks for sharing this. Everytime I see this happening, it frustrates me, but I don't actually have a clear idea of how to talk about it. 

MichaelDickens @ 2024-07-24T23:15 (+13)

I agree that this is kind of absurd but I expect that public concern for small-scale animal suffering weakly increases potential future concern for large-scale animal suffering, rather than funging against it. I think it weakly helps by propagating the meme of "animal suffering is a problem worth taking seriously".

I wouldn't promote concern for Olympic horses as an effective cause area, but I wouldn't fight against it, either.

Denis @ 2024-07-25T05:49 (+3)

Absolutely. Definitely this is still better than a world where people say "it's OK to whip a horse!"

Pat Myron @ 2024-07-25T14:04 (+9)

Most people view farm animals as serving a purpose, whereas animal cruelty is criticized more when more unnecessary. That's why moral progress is made in fashion, poaching, and animal-fighting sports and why veganism should focus more on food waste and traditions like egg tosses and egg decorating: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22890292/food-waste-meat-dairy-eggs-milk-animal-welfare Omnivores can respect farm animal sacrifices more, which is a useful mindset shift

Grasshopper @ 2024-07-27T04:41 (+3)

I think it would be wonderful if someone with the right moral stature (which is not me, I'm not even a vegan ...)

I'm not sure what (else) you mean by having the right moral stature, but I think in general people shouldn't need to meet some moral bar to talk about doing the right thing - one need not be vegan to promote eating less meat, need not be giving X% to advocate donation, etc.

Denis @ 2024-08-05T22:25 (+1)

On this subject, it was nice to see Nick Kristof in the New York Times write on a related theme, comparing how we treat and respect dogs and pigs.

Opinion | Dogs Are the Best! But They Highlight Our Hypocrisy. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Demallyet @ 2024-07-28T19:21 (+1)

That's a very accurate observation. I recently saw a clip, maybe from some movie or show. There was a guy who brought a pig to a party, saying "Meet Jack (for example, I don't remember), we're going to eat him, I'm going to slaughter him now". What outraged the guests was that there would be children watching, so his behavior was deemed inappropriate. But overall, no one would have minded eating the pig if it was done discreetly. I'm not a vegan either, but it's kind of hypocritical.

hmijail @ 2024-08-02T02:44 (+1)

Reminds me of the part in Douglas Adams' "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe" where a cow-like being is eager to be eaten, describes how she had been overfeeding to fatten herself, and suggests to the Earthlings dishes made of parts of its body. They end up horrified and ordering a salad instead.

I don't expect that Adams wrote it to defend veganism, but he was good at laughing at this kind of absurdity / hypocrisy.