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The logical fallacies of animal abusers

We atheists avoid logical fallacies. When it comes to selfish interests, we still behave illogically. I would like to present illogical arguments that (wrongly) justify cruelty to animals:

Anthropocentrism: Humans have the sole right to life (sounds like the Bible, doesn't it?).
Appeal to nature: Animals eat animals. It is a 'law' of nature. Just like men dominating over women was a 'law' of nature.
Appeal to tradition: I will kill animals because everyone has been killing animals for centuries. Just like slavery was a tradition. Also domination over women was a 'tradition'.
Appeal to emotion: We kill animals only because we don't want them to lead a bad life in the wild :( Wow! This is like saying we enslaved blacks because we could not see them suffer in Africa.
Reductio ad absurdum: Why don't vegetarians also stop killing the bacteria in water?
Appeal to horrorrrrr: Vegetarians are killing your children using deficient diets. LOL.
False dichotomy: Either we kill animals, or we die. What side do you want?!
'All or none' argument: I cannot save all animals, so I will save none.

Perhaps the only logical argument in favor of eating meat might be about nutrition. However it has been proven that vegetarian diets can be at least as nourishing as non-vegetarian diets (if not more).

As scientific thinkers, let us at least avoid the above logical fallacies. Thanks.

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Comment by Glen Rosenberg on November 6, 2011 at 3:46pm: This is a significant topic.

It does relate to religion. The idea of special creation and the silly dichotomy which posits a separate station for humans and their unrelated counterparts contributes mightily to the unexamined abuse of animals.

If humans ever emerge from the fog it is one of the issues we must tackle. Probably the eat em up & use em for our benefit is essentially going to boil down to might makes right. On the other side is the realization that centered ethics boils down to elimination or reduction of suffering for sentient beings.

Comment by Tenken on November 5, 2011 at 11:02pm: The argument can't purely be logical. There have to be assumptions, like "unnecessary harm or death of non-human animals should be avoided." You're probably seeing a lot of these logical fallacies because people are not giving you their reasons. They might not even have reasons. They're just trying to defend their threatened lifestyle.

I have in the last year become less and less worried about non-human animals. Coming to realize the reality of life, that death and suffering are constant and massive, I am more able to detach from individuals, especially when death is imminent. Personally, I won't unnecessarily harm or kill any animal that I believe can emotionally react to pain, because I have empathized with them and now am more aware of their suffering. But I am less and less likely to seek out this type of abuse and stop it or make it a focus of mine, because I also realize that the reality of life applies to humans as well. Until I see the end of unnecessary harm and death of my own species, I only see reasons not to occupy myself with the well-being of other animals...

I will say that prolonged torture is strictly a human product (as far as I know), because only we are in the situation to sustain animals while we torture them. In nature, a tortured animal is just going to die, because it doesn't have a self-replenishing food supply in a secure, isolated environment. I will also say that I am definitely willing to make the argument against pet ownership and companionship.

Comment by ShashankA on November 5, 2011 at 6:58pm: @John D Yes, both the personal limits and objectives of ethics are subjective. For atheists, ethics are no way religious, but philosophical, yes they are.

I am not exactly promoting compassion or charity here. I am urging that in general we should not impose more discrimination in rights than necessary. This of course applies to all human and non-human animals. Women may not be able to lift heavy physical loads, but they can still be good decision makers. When women did not have the right to vote, we were discriminating against them far beyond necessity. Likewise, I can see why we don't grant non-human animals any voting rights, but I fail to understand how their lives suddenly become so cheap that we can use them as we wish.

The question of charity is much more complex. If we don't do charity we are still good. We are not abetting suffering even if we are not solving it. Whether solving others' problems is of ethical value or not is a deeper question worth investigating.

Comment by ShashankA on November 5, 2011 at 5:29pm: @Sentient Biped: The word 'Sentient' in your name says it all! You could have posted a blank comment and I would have almost still understood what you meant :)

Comment by ShashankA on November 5, 2011 at 5:24pm: @John D, while I appreciate that you are not justifying meat-eating with a logical fallacy, I would urge you to be sympathetic to all sentient beings, both human and non-human. If you did that, honestly, you would discover that you would enjoy the friendship and innocence of every animal far more than eating its meat. The least you can do is speak out against outright cruel practices like bull-fighting and sport-hunting. If you think all non-human animals are ours to use as we wish, it is called anthropocentrism (the 1st point), and I have nothing more to say.

Comment by Sentient Biped on November 4, 2011 at 8:28am: Your discussion makes sense to me. I think the main issue is that people like eating meat, our society is so infused with meat that it's very, very inconvenient to be vegetarian, and nonvegetarian people do not empathize with other animals. The other arguments distract from these. These are not arguments from logic or ethics, but from practicality. I've been vegetarian for more than 30 years and would not live any other way. Unfortunately, the lines are drawn on this topic, so I don't think I'll say more.