Euphemisms For Animals

[Remiel]

I have to make this a quick question for now, unfortunately:

Do you think it is morally reprehensible to use euphemisms to refer to the killing or harming of animals?

Don't get me wrong, I believe in animal rights, but I also believe (somewhat) in animal rights, like killing for food. I'm not out to incite hatred against hunting or anything like that with this. I just think it is digusting to refer to animals as objects, or to use euphemisms like " destroy " instead of killed or euthanized.

[Chuck U. Farlie]

Am I the only one thinking 'Who cares?"???

I like to talk about my own death (hopefully a long way off) as 'kicking the bucket', is that a disgusting way of putting it?

[rover1]

Euthanised?

[Renegade]

Do you think it is morally reprehensible to use euphemisms to refer to the killing or harming of animals?

No, there is nothing morally reprehensible about it. We use euphemisms all the time as our way of dealing with an event which we would rather avoid facing head on. We do so not just for animals, but for our own deaths as well. ("passed-away", "passed on", "departed", "gone to a better place"...etc)

[Remiel]

Perhaps I should of distinguised between positive and negative euphemisms in the original post.

I think using " destruction " and " destroyed " is in the same vein as " collateral damage " . You can go on and on about how it is worse to use negative euphemisms to refer to the killing of people, and you can even be right, but I think they are cut from the same cloth, the desire to treat living creatures as disposable objects rather than creatures of inherent value.

Euthanized is certainly a euphemism, but it also implies a living creature at least.

This kind of goes back to my theory that treatment and discussion of animals is useful as a kind of test for how people can be expected to treat other people, beyond the already proven correlation between torture of animals as a child and criminal behaviour as an adult.

[ScottSA]

This kind of goes back to my theory that treatment and discussion of animals is useful as a kind of test for how people can be expected to treat other people, beyond the already proven correlation between torture of animals as a child and criminal behaviour as an adult.

First, I don't believe there is any kind of "proven correlation" between criminals and a past of torturing animals. Even if one could show that 100% of criminals tortured animals, it would be impossible to show that 100% of animal torturers became criminals.

Second, I'm not sure your hypothesis has merit simply because most people eat meat "harvested" or "slaughtered" from farm animals, and actions really speak louder than the words they use to describe the actions. And that leads to the unreasonable conclusion that vegetarians treat humans better than omnivores do. Unless you're suggesting that people who use brutal words to describe things are somehow more humanitarian than those who use euphemism, in which case I'm far more a humanitarian than most; a conclusion that may not be universally acclaimed hereabouts.

[Remiel]

Like I said, I believe that humans still possess some animal rights. If it is OK for an animal to eat an animal, why not a human to eat an animal, since a human is an animal? Perhaps that logic though could lead to a lot of other twisted conclusions, so mayhap I should leave it alone.

I could live with having to pay more for meat, so that the animals were treated more humanely, but there is probably not a lot of chance of me deciding to go vegetarian by myself. I just don't feel quite right about cases like when they say " The Humane Society was full, so they were forced to destroy five hundred animals. " It's not the necessity of putting them down I question, its why they choose to use a word that denotes an object instead of a creature.

Of course its not a big issue, and most people could probably care less, but if you completely ignore all of the little issues, sometimes they can morph collectively into a big problem, and so I asked because it was on my mind.

[M.Dancer]

I'm a vegetarian by proxy, in so much as I only eat vegetable matter or anaimals that consume vegetable matter. I don't give a flying wallenda haow you call their demise as long as they were slaughtered humanely and butchered skillfully.

[Remiel]

Hmmm... What is the point of only treating an animal humanely in the last moments of its life, M.Dancer, if you treat it inhumanely for the rest of the duration of it?

[M.Dancer]

Hmmm... What is the point of only treating an animal humanely in the last moments of its life, M.Dancer, if you treat it inhumanely for the rest of the duration of it?

Hmm....I don't know I think you might want to pose that question to whomever suggested not treating animals humanely during their life....but to slaughter the animal humanely is a given if you like tender meat as undue stress releases hormones into the muscles and can toughen the meat.

[Remiel]

OK, now that I see what you are referring to. I had thought you were implying what I responded to in my previous post.