“Torture” means actions taken for the purpose of inflicting extreme suffering. Suffering is not the purpose of factory farming, it is collateral damage. This is why “torture” is the wrong word.
Whats your dictionary? Google says:
“the action or practice of inflicting severe pain or suffering on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something.” which feels closer to the word’s meaning (as I use it)
This definition technically also doesn’t apply. It fails at least the “someone” part as animals are not someones.
However, and more importantly, both this objection and yours aren’t really relevant to the broader discussion as the people who “avoid thinking about whether categories like ‘torture’ apply” would only care about the “extreme suffering” part and not the “purposeful” or “human” parts (imo).
In this respect this is an inverse non-central fallacy. In a non-central fallacy you use a word for somthing to evoke an associated emotional response which in the first place got associated to the word for an aspect not present in the specific case you want to use it for. Here you are objecting to the usage of a word even though the emotional response bearing aspect of the word is present and the word’s definition does not apply only because of a part not central to the associated emotional response.
Excellent point. I totally agree. I will cease using the word torture in this context in the future, because I think it gives people another way to think about something other than the thrust of the argument.
“Torture” means actions taken for the purpose of inflicting extreme suffering. Suffering is not the purpose of factory farming, it is collateral damage. This is why “torture” is the wrong word.
Whats your dictionary? Google says: “the action or practice of inflicting severe pain or suffering on someone as a punishment or in order to force them to do or say something.” which feels closer to the word’s meaning (as I use it) This definition technically also doesn’t apply. It fails at least the “someone” part as animals are not someones.
However, and more importantly, both this objection and yours aren’t really relevant to the broader discussion as the people who “avoid thinking about whether categories like ‘torture’ apply” would only care about the “extreme suffering” part and not the “purposeful” or “human” parts (imo).
In this respect this is an inverse non-central fallacy. In a non-central fallacy you use a word for somthing to evoke an associated emotional response which in the first place got associated to the word for an aspect not present in the specific case you want to use it for. Here you are objecting to the usage of a word even though the emotional response bearing aspect of the word is present and the word’s definition does not apply only because of a part not central to the associated emotional response.
Excellent point. I totally agree. I will cease using the word torture in this context in the future, because I think it gives people another way to think about something other than the thrust of the argument.