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Andreas Kohlhepp-Loriaux's avatar

Every species is inherently specieistic. If one species is able to exploit another one, it will always do so without restraint or limit.

Humans are the only species who could potentially refrain from exploiting another species because of their capability of rational thinking. So, the commonly used argument that factory farming is „against nature“ is simply wrong. The exact opposite is true: limitless exploitation is the true nature of nature.

The only valid argument against factory farming or any kind of cruelty against animals is human moral. To call something „cruel“ is already a human-specific value judgment. Non-human animals cannot be cruel, just because of the fact that they do not have a set of values, which would be a prerequisite to apply a term like „cruel“. Only with the evolution of human civilization, a set of values arose that put humans in the position to judge their actions on a certain subset of values, called morality, that defines these actions as good or bad, kind or cruel, right or wrong.

Of course, it would be a good thing if humanity would act with respect to its morality and rationality, but the problem with that is, that only individuals have morality and the ability to think rational, humanity in its entirety does not.

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Maria Comninou's avatar

EVOLUTION

(a poem inspired by the book "Your Inner Fish" by Neil Shubin)

My child, my child

You're my flesh and my blood

Yet you look nothing like me.

Your eyes are big like a bullfrog's

Your jaw is more like a gill

Your arms have the bones of a shark fin

Your body is like the trunk

of the sea anemone.

My child, my child

Why are you not like your father and me?

Oh mother, stop fussing

I am perfectly human

Why can't you see?

Just like you and my father

I evolved long ago from a lamprey

that walked right out of the sea!

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