[FlamingLonghorn]

Originally Posted by jammies

There is no such thing as "animal rights", which is why the whole PETA world-view is misguided. You cannot have "rights" without consequent duties, and animals do not understand the concept of duty and thus cannot enter into a social contract that includes rights.

Whose philosophy of rights to you adhere to? Or are you just creating your own? There is nothing wrong with that but don't state it as fact when it is very subjective. I would like to point out that mentally handicap people would have no rights under your definition.

There IS, however, such a thing as human responsibility, which dictates that we should not cause unnecessary suffering in animals. This is why banning animal testing for cosmetics is ethical, but banning animal testing for vaccines is not, or why ending the cruelty of foie gras production makes sense, but outlawing hamburger does not.

This paragraph is a contradiction. The death of an animal for hamburger is unnecessary. Also, what basis is it ok to kill an animal for vaccine testing? Are you adhering to the belief that those animals lives are less valuable than human and if so why?

Humans are animals too, and thus we should feel no more guilty for eating meat than does a fox, and the only place ethics has in the question is to ensure that the meat animal does not suffer unduly. All life is built on death and pain, and the idea that humans can legislate this away and Disneyfy the natural world is absurd; the best we can do is minimize the pain we inevitably cause.

So you don't support the meat industry than? Because animals killed by the meat industry DO suffer unduly.

With milk cows, they exist as almost completely human fabrications from hundreds of generations of breeding so that they bear no resemblance to their wild ancestors, and they would not survive without human intervention. We live in symbiosis with these cows where we trade them security from predators and the opportunity to pass on their genes for their milk and meat, and this is no more unethical than any other symbiotic relationship between animals.

We don't offer those cows any security. They are mistreated and live in their own squalor. Secondly, are you saying the species would not survive? That is incorrect. Even if I concede that they have evolved to such a state, I wouldn't concede that because we caused their evolution we should be able to decide whether they live or die. Under this definition if I have a child with a woman than we should be able to do whatever we please with it?