An animal's value. Ethics perspective.

[gonehuntin']

I am not religious, in that I don't belong to any particular church or denomination. However, I am a believer and believe in Christianity. In my mind faith is a different thing than religion and without faith, I would have or be nothing and may as well be a rock. I do like to here what others believe though.

Charlie

I think we're much alike Charlie and share many of the same views. When people ask me what religion I am, and I am a very religious person, I tell them I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of The Great Outdoors and it's a rare Sunday that I've ever missed a service.

[birddogger]

I am not religious, in that I don't belong to any particular church or denomination. However, I am a believer and believe in Christianity. In my mind faith is a different thing than religion and without faith, I would have or be nothing and may as well be a rock. I do like to here what others believe though.

Charlie

I think we're much alike Charlie and share many of the same views. When people ask me what religion I am, and I am a very religious person, I tell them I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of The Great Outdoors and it's a rare Sunday that I've ever missed a service.

I like that!

Charlie

[RayGubernat]

Ray, you had me at situational ethics

Let say, theoretically, you live in a situation where your dogs won't ever harm anyone close to you, but one did bite a stranger, do you put that dog down?

That very much depends on just exactly what that "stranger" was doing to get bit.

If the sorry SOB was trying to break into my home, or accosting a member of my family I'd not only NOT put the dog down, I'd buy it a nice thick steak...after I finished the job the dog started.

Situational ethics means...it all depends. At least it does to me.

I used to be a lot more certain about a lot of things. Little by little...I ain't so sure anymore. About the only thing I AM dead sure of...is that life is a terminal illness. None of us get out of it alive. So, to me it ain't about the destination, since we all are going to the same place. It is about how we choose to get there. All about the journey.

I gotta go. Its late and I wanna get up early tomorrow and go kill something.

RayG

[Wenaha]

I think we're much alike Charlie and share many of the same views. When people ask me what religion I am, and I am a very religious person, I tell them I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of The Great Outdoors and it's a rare Sunday that I've ever missed a service.

I generally tell people that I am a 'Seventh Day Absentist'.

[ezzy333]

To get this back to what the title says about the value has nothing to do with religion. You can make a case for religion influencing your ethics but that may even be hard in the scope of how we treat an animal. So I think we have taken this about as far off course as it will go so unless we have something directly about value and ethics we need to let this die. I do appreciate the way it has been discussed and commend all of you for that.

Ezzy

[Wildweeds]

....................An animals value is when you get an exceptional one ...........it's priceless,and one that is well .........quite frankly the individual that was at the back of the line for the doling out of ,brains and desire...............DOOOOOOHhhhhhhh.You hear the word "Placed" when you hear that you know...........they didn't make the cut and were sent to a forever home where " gone or going hunting" is never spoken.

[DogNewbie]

When it comes to an animals value, I think every organism plays an important role in its habitat. Some organisms play a more important role than others, but everything is contributing to the sustainability of the ecosystem. You take an ecosystem like Bristol Bay, Alaska, and and remove one of the key organisms, like the salmon, and that entire ecosystem will be hurt. Every carnivore, land and water dwelling, in the area depends on those fish showing up every year. When the salmon spawn and die, all their nutrients is washed back towards the ocean and the plant life benefits as well. I would say the salmon in Bristol Bay have high value to that ecosystem. But then rises the question of whether or not those same salmon have an equal or less value in the pacific ocean ecosystem? That ecosystem doesn't depend as heavily on the salmon as the Bristol Bay area, but does that mean their high value in one area doesn't need to be considered in another? I would argue that if an organism migrates across multiple ecosystems, its value should be considered equally across each system and at it's highest value. So a salmon that has high value in Bristol Bay would also have high value in the Pacific Ocean, even though the Pacific ecosystem would not be as damaged if the salmon were to be removed.

[ezzy333]

When it comes to an animals value, I think every organism plays an important role in its habitat. Some organisms play a more important role than others, but everything is contributing to the sustainability of the ecosystem. You take an ecosystem like Bristol Bay, Alaska, and and remove one of the key organisms, like the salmon, and that entire ecosystem will be hurt. Every carnivore, land and water dwelling, in the area depends on those fish showing up every year. When the salmon spawn and die, all their nutrients is washed back towards the ocean and the plant life benefits as well. I would say the salmon in Bristol Bay have high value to that ecosystem. But then rises the question of whether or not those same salmon have an equal or less value in the pacific ocean ecosystem? That ecosystem doesn't depend as heavily on the salmon as the Bristol Bay area, but does that mean their high value in one area doesn't need to be considered in another? I would argue that if an organism migrates across multiple ecosystems, its value should be considered equally across each system and at it's highest value. So a salmon that has high value in Bristol Bay would also have high value in the Pacific Ocean, even though the Pacific ecosystem would not be as damaged if the salmon were to be removed.

Interesting but you are forgetting that you only discussed the value to the ecosystem. Which brings up my point that value has to be judged against something, in this case the ecosystem. But what is the value of that salmon to you personally or to the native tribes that live in the deep forest of Brazil? That is exactly why you cannot judge value as a stand alone item but it has to be connected to something else. My dogs are of value to me but not near as much to you. When we decide to sell something and put a price on it we are searching for someone that values it more than you do. That is what we call free trade and there is not a thing in the world that has the same value to everyone. So we can discuss this forever and we will know no more than we do today. It is a subject that has no answer that pertains to a group, but rather just to the individual.

Ezzy

[DogNewbie]

When it comes to an animals value, I think every organism plays an important role in its habitat. Some organisms play a more important role than others, but everything is contributing to the sustainability of the ecosystem. You take an ecosystem like Bristol Bay, Alaska, and and remove one of the key organisms, like the salmon, and that entire ecosystem will be hurt. Every carnivore, land and water dwelling, in the area depends on those fish showing up every year. When the salmon spawn and die, all their nutrients is washed back towards the ocean and the plant life benefits as well. I would say the salmon in Bristol Bay have high value to that ecosystem. But then rises the question of whether or not those same salmon have an equal or less value in the pacific ocean ecosystem? That ecosystem doesn't depend as heavily on the salmon as the Bristol Bay area, but does that mean their high value in one area doesn't need to be considered in another? I would argue that if an organism migrates across multiple ecosystems, its value should be considered equally across each system and at it's highest value. So a salmon that has high value in Bristol Bay would also have high value in the Pacific Ocean, even though the Pacific ecosystem would not be as damaged if the salmon were to be removed.

Interesting but you are forgetting that you only discussed the value to the ecosystem. Which brings up my point that value has to be judged against something, in this case the ecosystem. But what is the value of that salmon to you personally or to the native tribes that live in the deep forest of Brazil? That is exactly why you cannot judge value as a stand alone item but it has to be connected to something else. My dogs are of value to me but not near as much to you. When we decide to sell something and put a price on it we are searching for someone that values it more than you do. That is what we call free trade and there is not a thing in the world that has the same value to everyone. So we can discuss this forever and we will know no more than we do today. It is a subject that has no answer that pertains to a group, but rather just to the individual.

Ezzy

I agree with what you are saying. My dog, Briar, has extremely high value to me but I would say that domestic dogs have very little value in their ecosystems. But I disagree that we can't look at this as a group. In fact I would argue that we HAVE to look at this as a group and not as individuals. To go off my previous salmon example, let's say that commercial Japanese fishing fleets are depleting the salmon populations off the coast of Alaska. They are in international waters and legally allowed to be there. In their eyes, they are doing little damage because they are depleting an animal that has little value in their specific ecosystem and they are making a good living doing it, yet their actions are greatly harming the Bristol Bay ecosystem and effecting many people because of it. IMO, ethically, you can't always be viewing the world as an individual because your actions just might be affecting someone else negatively. Yes, there is no answer that can make everyone happy, but I think there are answers that can at least keep us from completely destroying the things that others value and need simply for the advancement of the individual.

[tommyboy72]

If you folks want ethics...How about situational ethics?

My dogs are far, far, FAR more valuable to me than the vast majority of humanity simply because they are MY dogs.

If one of my dogs gets injured or killed ...that affects me in a very personal way.

There are literally millions of human beings existing in wretched conditions, millions that are starving to death or dying of easily preventable diseases at this very moment. I do nothing whatsoever about that and most of the time don't even give it a passing thought. Why?? Because the plight of these millions is essentially irrelevant to my situation.

Therefore, in my situation, MY dogs have much more value...to ME... than most of the rest of humanity.

RayG

Fantastic post Ray. I knew there was a reason I liked you. My dogs are not more important to me than my own family but they are more important to me than any of you people out there. If I don't know you then I really don't care about you. I knew there were like minded people out there who agreed with me. My wife thinks I am a heartless "bleep" when I explain this methodology to her. The Cheyenne Dog Men revered that dog as brave and honorable but they also boiled and ate them as did many Native American cultures like the Sioux, Blackfoot, Apache, Comanche, etc. The Apache and many of the plains tribes revered the horse above all animals but they would ride them into the ground and eat them in necessary. They were tools for them to make everyday life easier. Dogs are an integral part of my family but are also a tool for hunting. If I did not hunt I would not own dogs, there is too much expense associated with them. In turn I would not hunt if I did not have dogs. So it comes full circle.