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Despite the fact that I keep asking, you continue to fail to offer a morally relevant distinction between the two. The factor of widespread societal approval of the former is not an especially relevant one; if it was a traditional cultural practice to mutilate cats for sport, and that was adopted and practiced on a wide scale, that would not affect its ethical status.
And yes, widespread social approval is what is relevant here. Norms of the society that this kid was raised in indicate a distinct difference between a pet and livestock for food consumption. That has everything to do with the issue here. His detachment from those norms suggests a severe lack of empathy with his fellow man, even if it doesn't have an ethical bearing on whether the cat was worthy of his empathy or not.
And before you start caterwauling about a fallacy you seem to be very confused about, let me remind you from Logic 101 that the exceptions to the argumentum ad populum fallacies are those points of discussion which innately rely on numbers or acceptance by popularity. For example, democracy, free markets, and social conventions.
By completely different I meant the discussion are too different to try and morph them together.
A discussion about some nut who offs neighborhood pets is not easily blended with the ethics or lack thereof in regards to factory farms.
And as I said, this has no bearing whatsoever on the morally relevant portion of the comparison, that being the nature of the animals' suffering.
As an aside, free markets don't exist, and democracy is rather diluted.
As to the substantive portion, you yourself seem rather confused about the nature of "social conventions" subject to logically fallacious popular acceptance. So I'll merely ask this: If cat mutilation were an accepted societal practice, would that provide moral justification for the act?
Your claim is merely a fallacious one; you defend the morality of a certain societal practice merely because of its status as one, while you simultaneously condemn a random act of mutilation because it involved an individual dissenting from the norm. That is pure majoritarian fallacy.
Again, why? What morally relevant distinction between the two exists?
The psychological state of the respective killers has already been ruled out, unless you have another argument or a rebuttal to advance.
Irrelevant to this discussion entirely. The issue at hand is the emotional disturbance of this kid.
Irrelevant.
It isn't. And that isn't even the relevant issue within this thread. The fact is, social norms for our culture indicate a distinct difference between livestock for food consumption and family pets. This kid had such a detachment from social norms that he exhibited depraved deviation which warrants examination. Any pursuit of the moral relativism of a cat's life value (or whatever nonsense you are attempting to inject into this discussion) is for another thread entirely.
No, it falls under the exception rule to argumentum ad populum. You are attempting some asinine reversal of that fallacy and you are only going to manage to confuse yourself because neither I, nor any other rational person, are going to buy into it.
Social norms dictate that a pet is treated differently than a side of beef. Again, because social norms innately rely on popularity or numbers, the argumentum ad populum fallacy is excepted. But we aren't discussing whether a cat is worth more than a cow. We are discussing the deviant behavior of a disturbed young boy.
I am not rebutting your irrelevant derailment of the conversation. :shrug:
Not the portion that we've been focusing on thus far. Emotional states are irrelevant to the morality of most actions since they're effectively entirely detached from the consequences of most actions. One might be more skeptical of the emotional state of the hunter who kills for sport than the factory farm worker who kills animals less humanely for food, but the former inflicts less suffering on an animal than the latter does, despite the possibly more questionable emotional state of the former.
I didn't claim otherwise. :2wave:
You again continue to dodge the very simple question that I've asked. Don't be shy; it only requires a "Yes" or "No" answer. The reason for this is that you are personally aware that violent cat mutilation would be immoral even if it was a widely accepted societal practice.
Considering your blatant rejection of empirical research in favor of crude preconceived ideological dogma, you're far from being a rational person. :2wave:
But aside from that, you remain wrong because actions are not morally justifiable on the grounds that they're generally prevalent societal behaviors. Would you be willing to extend your sphere of protection to slavery in areas where it was a heavily adopted societal fixture? Your claims quickly crumble into dust when their inconsistency is revealed, which is why you've been unwilling to examine the nature of their inconsistency.
You again return to the same fallacious claim despite its identification as such. Until you stop dodging and derailing and respond to the aforementioned query in a straightforward and frank manner, both this and your awareness of the fallacious nature of such shall be wholly apparent.
You are not rebutting my response to the comment you made about emotional states because you're again aware of the inaccuracy of your claim, presumably.
Uh...still not the topic. If you want to discuss the issue of this boy mutilating his neighborhood pets, that's fine. I am not going to derail the thread with some indulgence of the question of moral relativity of killing your neighbor's pet as opposed to killing a cow for food.
And I have never rejected empirical evidence. I rejected another of your attempts to derail another thread with your pseudo intellectual posturing and what amounts to off topic bull****.
There's no derailment involved. There's a juxtaposition inserted in order to formulate a consistent ethical position.
Wrong. You dismissed empirical research presented as "opinion" and suggested that it was fraudulent in nature. When I challenged you to prove these assertions, you were unable to. :2wave:
You confuse unable with unwilling to indulge the derailment. I wasn't interested in it then and I'm not interested in it now no matter how much you tug my pant leg to try to get my attention. :shrug:
"Tug your pant leg"? I do believe the voters of our state sent us a message about the Craig-esque, but a lack of interest would manifest itself through a lack of a response from this point forward. Unfortunately, you have an obsessive need to have the last word so as to conceal the reality of your inconsistency. :2wave:
Agna, with all due respect, I lost interest in discussing this with you when you came off with an undeserved air of intellectual superiority coupled with a judgment based off of a single interaction we had where I expressed no interest in indulging an argument far removed from the discussion at hand. Your accusation that empirical evidence means nothing to me pretty much cinched my opinion that your magnanimous view of your own intellectual prowess leaves little room for honest discussion and would result in me half-heartedly having a conversation with you bouncing around from topic to topic and me not having grown at all from the experience.
In short, I think your most satisfying experiences are those where you inflate your own ego further and everyone just lets you do it. I am not the guy to give you that experience.
You're simply proving my point now. :roll:
Yes, agna. I am sure in your mind I am.
see more yapping from you,
I questioned the consistency of strong emotional objection to the violent slaughter of domesticated pets while not possessing a similar objection to the violent slaughter of various animals with a greater awareness of their existence and surroundings and a greater capacity to suffer than such pets.
How much will he get?
I hope as much as possible, what he did is not forgiveable.
Just think about the families...
What about a castration?
Yes, agna. Absolutely. Whatever you've convinced yourself of, run with it. No one is stopping you.
Animals are property. As soon as he killed someones cat he damaged their property. He infringed on their rights. Killing animals to eat is OK because it is the property of the corporation or farmer etc.
I don't see any inconsistency legally. Maybe emotionally.
Still no on-topic reply from you?
Sure agna...whatever you want to believe. Please, knock yourself out.
I wonder how high our count's getting now? .
I dunno, why don't you go back through and count it. By all means, give yourself something else to feel satisfied about.
I certainly don't have time for that.
Then don't. I really don't care what you do Agna. Report me but do bear in mind that you have been just as complicit in responding with your accusations and other assorted teenage angsty bull****.
So have at it, sport. Just do me a favor and let me know how it works out for you, mkay?
Perhaps the responder will view it as such.
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