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A mighty hunter (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

My parents never want to get rid of cats, so if any of them were not able to "properly behave" indoors they would be put out as a barn cat. Was it wrong to do that? To them, they're still caringv and care for the cat, they just didn't like its behavior. This also was in a small town where going to the pound likely meant kill shelter.

They aren't bad people for it. They're just ignorant (not an insult, it just means they don't know something) of the harm cats do. Their intent is good, but you can still do bad things with good intentions.

It would be better that they go to a kill shelter. I know that sounds callous, but why is it worse that the cats are put down rather than letting them kill a bunch of other animals? There's death both ways. They just ignore all the death the cats cause.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Devil's advocate: humans cause an excess of death beyond that of cats: is it better to put humans down to prevent them from causing mass death?

I'm not disagreeing that they cause harm, but its a philosophical argument of utilitarianism that deaths of a subset would be better no matter what, right? It's a nuance that can't necessarily be put to black and white contexts. That's all I wanted to put forward, but I may have messed up my argument trying to distill to a sentence or two.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Devil's advocate: humans cause an excess of death beyond that of cats: is it better to put humans down to prevent them from causing mass death?

Maybe, though at least humans can make an effort to minimize their harm, and some can actually do good. Cats can't really do this.

I'm not disagreeing that they cause harm, but its a philosophical argument of utilitarianism that deaths of a subset would be better no matter what, right? It's a nuance that can't necessarily be put to black and white contexts. That's all I wanted to put forward, but I may have messed up my argument trying to distill to a sentence or two.

Sure, but again things are dying either way. More things are dying with the cats living outdoors. What makes a cat more valuable than a bird, or tens of bird, or hundreds of birds (or mice, or whatever else)?

The only moral framework that I could think would justify this is hedonism, if the cats bring them happiness and that's all that matters.