More on Michael Vick
The New York Times blog The Conversation has a thought provoking piece by Gail Collins and Ross Douthat about our attitudes towards Michael Vick. Collins mentions that while Michael Vick’s actions were certainly deplorable, we are less concerned over cruelty towards other types of animals.
However, all animals feel pain. But we seem willing to overlook grisly deaths and extreme suffering when the being in question isn’t particularly adorable. If we agree that it’s immoral — and illegal — for a dog to be made to suffer unnecessarily, shouldn’t that rule be applied across the board?
Douthat agrees we should limit the mistreatment of other species but argues that:
I don’t have any difficulty seeing why people are more outraged by cruelty toward dogs than by cruelty toward pigs. Yes, the two species may be equally intelligent, but we have a different relationship with dogs than we do with pigs, which matters in making moral judgments.
I would be curious to know what our readers have to say? Is it hypocritical for Vick’s critics not to show the same outrage over factory farming? What matters most when making moral judgments about the treatment of animals; the intelligence and ability of a species to feel pleasure and pain, or our relationship to the species in question?
–Luke
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- Law & animal rights
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- God, science and morality walk into a bar . . .
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