Wild animals kill each other
So it's fine that we kill animals too
The idea that we should look to wild animals as a source of morality is certainly an unusual one, yet it pops up regularly as a justification for what we do to the billions of animals we hurt and kill each year.
Unlike lions and tigers, we have no biological need to kill others to survive with a plant-based diet being the optimal choice for both health and longevity. We should therefore be asking ourselves why we deliberately choose to cause so much harm when we can live happily and healthily without doing so.
It's also telling that those using the 'wild animals' argument choose not to mimic the behaviour of animals in any other aspect of their lives, cherry picking instead the one behaviour they need to try and justify. If someone tried to rationalize their right not to wear clothes, to kill babies, or to sniff the anuses of strangers because wild animals do it they'd be thought to have serious mental problems because we don't (and shouldn't) look to the likes of bears, tigers and sharks for moral or behavioural guidance.
Unlike us, wild animals are forced to kill for survival and whilst it certainly doesn't make me happy to live in a world where some animals must routinely be killed by others, it's both an essential part of their survival and an unavoidable part of their physiology. Wild predatory animals have no option but to kill others in order to avoid death themselves. We have the clear and simple choice not to though, an option we turn our backs on for reasons as trivial as taste, habit or convenience.
The good news if you do favor this argument though is that the majority of earth's animals are actually herbivores, so if you really do want to get moral and behavioural guidance from animals you can do so on a plant-based diet. There are no wild animals who consume the milk of another species though (or drink milk into adulthood) so following the 'wild animals' logic at least means ditching dairy.
A few more things to ponder below, the video is especially worth a look.
Unlike lions and tigers, we have no biological need to kill others to survive with a plant-based diet being the optimal choice for both health and longevity. We should therefore be asking ourselves why we deliberately choose to cause so much harm when we can live happily and healthily without doing so.
It's also telling that those using the 'wild animals' argument choose not to mimic the behaviour of animals in any other aspect of their lives, cherry picking instead the one behaviour they need to try and justify. If someone tried to rationalize their right not to wear clothes, to kill babies, or to sniff the anuses of strangers because wild animals do it they'd be thought to have serious mental problems because we don't (and shouldn't) look to the likes of bears, tigers and sharks for moral or behavioural guidance.
Unlike us, wild animals are forced to kill for survival and whilst it certainly doesn't make me happy to live in a world where some animals must routinely be killed by others, it's both an essential part of their survival and an unavoidable part of their physiology. Wild predatory animals have no option but to kill others in order to avoid death themselves. We have the clear and simple choice not to though, an option we turn our backs on for reasons as trivial as taste, habit or convenience.
The good news if you do favor this argument though is that the majority of earth's animals are actually herbivores, so if you really do want to get moral and behavioural guidance from animals you can do so on a plant-based diet. There are no wild animals who consume the milk of another species though (or drink milk into adulthood) so following the 'wild animals' logic at least means ditching dairy.
A few more things to ponder below, the video is especially worth a look.
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Skool of Vegan |
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Gary Yourofsky |
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Vegan Sidekick |
"I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled
it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man"
Mahatma Gandhi
it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man"
Mahatma Gandhi
