I think most people know that nearly all food animals are kept in really unpleasant conditions, and that those conditions don’t remotely resemble what you see in books for young children or whatever. I suspect most people understand that conditions got worse when “factory farming” was introduced, but that life for most animals on farms was never all that great.
I think that they avoid thinking too much, and for preference learning too much, about the details… because they’re in some sense aware that the details are things they’d rather not know. And I think they avoid thinking about whether categories like “torture” apply… because they’re afraid that they might have to admit that they do. If those matters are forcibly brought to their attention, they remove them from their attention reasonably quickly.
So, yes, I assume many people have less extreme beliefs, but that’s in large part because they shy violently away from even forming a complete set of beliefs, because they have a sense of what those beliefs would turn out to be.
The people who actually run the system also eat meat, and know EXACTLY what physically happens, and their beliefs about what physically happens are probably pretty close to your own… but they would still probably be very angry at your use of the word “torture”.
“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.
I think most people know that nearly all food animals are kept in really unpleasant conditions, and that those conditions don’t remotely resemble what you see in books for young children or whatever. I suspect most people understand that conditions got worse when “factory farming” was introduced, but that life for most animals on farms was never all that great.
I think that they avoid thinking too much, and for preference learning too much, about the details… because they’re in some sense aware that the details are things they’d rather not know. And I think they avoid thinking about whether categories like “torture” apply… because they’re afraid that they might have to admit that they do. If those matters are forcibly brought to their attention, they remove them from their attention reasonably quickly.
So, yes, I assume many people have less extreme beliefs, but that’s in large part because they shy violently away from even forming a complete set of beliefs, because they have a sense of what those beliefs would turn out to be.
The people who actually run the system also eat meat, and know EXACTLY what physically happens, and their beliefs about what physically happens are probably pretty close to your own… but they would still probably be very angry at your use of the word “torture”.
“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.