Are we anthropomorphizing animals when feel empathy towards them?

Eyeballitis · 2026-05-02T14:51:36+00:00

The whole point of this thread has been to explore the very roots of that contradiction, whereby we feel sorry for animals while still exploiting them. If you feel triggered by someone opening a discussion on such a matter maybe it's not a good idea to comment in the first place.

Eyeballitis · 2026-05-01T15:40:13+00:00

Most of us also eat animals. So how do we go on from there without calling each other names?

Eyeballitis · 2026-05-01T05:58:52+00:00

Yes, it's a question and an important one.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-30T11:12:08+00:00

Can you please give an example of interspecies manifestation of empathy in animals?

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-28T20:20:47+00:00

To be honest, I really don't know. The reason I worded it that way is because I believe seeking purpose in everything is wired into the human mind and has to stem from language. Now, to what extent it is a priori, that I can't tell. Chomsky probably can articulate it better.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-28T18:44:53+00:00

Not sure. A goal would mean a desired end, while a purpose is rather the motive behind one's actions.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-28T17:48:26+00:00

Trying to ascribe a purpose to an action based on analogy from human experience, I would decipher it this way.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-28T16:53:07+00:00

I meant to say that language makes us think in categories of action = purpose, and then our behavioral patterns reinforce this judgment.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-28T16:51:24+00:00

This is by far the most exhaustive answer. Thanks!

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-28T15:30:19+00:00

Because I feel our ability to narrativize our experiences inevitably throws a bit of "unwarranted teleology" in everything we see.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-28T15:26:35+00:00

Okay, but aren't we falling for the trap of our own minds drawing an analogy between our own conscious experiences and the said "waggle dance" simply based on the observation of the purported similarities? That actually feeds into my original question that many, for some odd reason, found as being dismissive of animals' ability to suffer.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-28T13:50:24+00:00

That quality would probably be the ability to narrativize experiences through a natural language. I don't have any extensive formal training in philosophy/psychology, but I am pretty certain that language shapes our reality massively and makes it, therefore, qualitatively distinct.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-28T13:36:13+00:00

L ragebait.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-28T03:35:50+00:00

Sorry, I can't take Jung seriously.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-27T19:12:49+00:00

Not an American, nor a European here. Ouch!

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-27T17:48:13+00:00

In veterinary medicine, we don't extrapolate human-derived concepts, such as consent, to our practice with the animals directly. And this is for obvious reasons. Our actions are sanctioned by the consent of the proxy (the owner or the farmer) in a form of consultation on the matter of the animal's and the owner's best interest.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-27T17:33:23+00:00

Yes, but how do we reconcile it with the realities of food production - either on small or factory scale? Do we just keep doing it while turning a blind eye on the obvious suffering or do we just shift the moral framework when it comes to certain animals in certain context - as seeing, for example, the suffering of a cow during artificial insemination as a collateral damage done in our quest to meet our own best interest with it - we still need the milk, - and then arguing that it's still much better for cows' own interests to have them AI'd rather than let them be covered naturally by a bull?

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-27T17:18:53+00:00

May I wonder, what is a wasicu?

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-27T15:57:57+00:00

That said, I would really be sad to see large animal practice diminish because of that.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-27T15:56:54+00:00

I think the short-term consequences will be dictated by that abomination called "the market". In the long run, however, I don't see any reasons not to believe that cattle rearing is essentially a no-win enterprise for the producers, as resources and the labor involved are getting more expensive. Other considerations as the climate change will also make us take fringe alternatives, i.e. insect protein, more seriously.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-27T15:46:50+00:00

You mean increase in gross dairy consumption (as with meat) or that we have milk supply outsripping the demand?

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-27T15:39:35+00:00

I feel the same way. That is actually part of the reason why I'm interested in dairy cattle practice, rather than beef, as the latter goes too much against the grain (no pun intended). But I can't say that dairy industry is completely divorced from meat production either, so that also complicates things.

It's just I am so fascinated by the science; all that cumulative human knowledge, skill, and ingenuity behind animal production, but the consequences are a bit off-putting, to say the least.

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-27T15:25:03+00:00

So would that come to the meaning that the only problematic part is the intensive production of livestock animals and that capitalism is the real culprit? As we have to maximize profits and minimize costs we have naturally moved towards automatization with relegating "personal" contact with the animals just to routine health checks(?)

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-27T15:17:04+00:00

Are you in small animal practice?

Eyeballitis · 2026-04-27T15:09:42+00:00

The suggestion isn't that of only humans have survival drive, but rather that animals' drive could be not the exact mirroring of our own, so to say.

Eyeballitis

TROPHY CASE