speaking of being on an deserted island....
Posted by rachandra on Jan 14, 2007 · Member since Nov 2006 · 159 posts
ethics question here.
if you were on a deserted island WITHOUT your three favourite foods, would you kill and eat an animal or fish? how desperate would you have to be to go there... would you make rules for yourself?
If there are animals there, they must be eating something. . .I'd have what they're having.
I think after the first time of getting stuck on a deserted island, when I got back to civilization, I'd study boat building. I'd learn to build a boat out of anything.....even water and sand...then I'd never be stuck again! ;)
. . .or just stay out of the ocean.
water and sand? ::)
I'd take a bite out of everything that looked edible. :) Course, I'd probably do that whether or not I remembered my favorite three foods, for variety's sake. I probably would fish if I were there long enough, but I don't know that I've got it in me to hunt mammals or birds... why it makes a difference to me, I don't know. But we all know I'm very lenient about my diet.
This reminded me of the same Simpsons episode, how funny! Also of Survivorman...
This is soooooo on topic! :D ;D
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070115/ap_on_re_us/camper_rescued_11
That's amazing! It goes to show what a positive outlook will do.
I don't think I could get myself to kill an animal even for survival purposes. Even if I could I doubt I could get it down.... Anyway, I'm one of those people that is always grossly overprepared for events so I'd probably be fine anyway. :D
I'm one of those people that get's so upset over animal treatment I scream and yell and cry. I go so far as to rescue worms off of a rainy path. That being said, I would never eat an animal, even if I was dying or something.
that's funny Ashley, i will stop and rescue worms off the paths whenever i'm out jogging, too (can really cut into a good rate, but i have to do it ::)) and will catch spiders and bugs at home or the station and set them free (except i might have to draw the line with the poisonous brown recluse :-\- too risky to let back in) i know the guys at work think i'm a freak, but i don't care. ;)
i'm a huge contradiction, though. before going vegan i probably would have thought i HAD to eat the animal to survive, although i would never have enjoyed even the thought of killing it. now that i know better i would rather slowly wither away eating any twig i could find. because of going vegan, i have such a huge respect for life- any and all life. (i know, i said i'd most likely kill the poisonous spider, but i warned you i'm a huge contradiction!) i feel like i have a deeper understanding and appreciation for life than i ever have before, and i have always been a pretty kind and empathetic person. veganism has brought me an inner peace and a religion for me- an appreciation for all life.
well you said you wanted ethics... ::)
until i read some study about fish showing emotions or having feelings, i might --only if i knew i would die otherwise and there was nothing else at all to eat-- eat fish until i had a better alternative. they are living creatures, too, but i'm going off of whether or not you can make a pet of something (ie: they show some type of emotion or feelings which most every mammal or bird, possibly even reptile, does) for this question
Firefightress, that's deep. :)
You're right about the pet thing, too: my grandma had a pet goldfish that would come to the top of its tank and wait for her to pet it, and would arch into the petting. Weirdest thing I ever saw. It would come to the waterline and "kiss" her, too... definitely a pet, definitely attached to her.
I used to think that about fish when I first became vegetarian
But I started to think deeper. If you put your hand into a fish tank, they will all scatter. They have fear and I'm sure they do feel pain. I think the old wives tale about a fish getting a hook through it's mouth and coming out through its eye...and feeling no pain!..... is just that, an old wives tale! I notice that all living things have that will to survive. When threatened, they will go into a fight or flight mode. I grew up in Long Island on the water. We always had a boat, and I did do a lot of fishing. I actually have nightmares about what we used to do to tuna when we caught them (all the way out in the Atlantic off of Montauk Point). Just because they don't scream, it doesn't mean they don't feel pain. They want more then anything to live....like all of us creatures.
As far as bugs, I have an ongoing crazy habit of once a fly gets in my house I'll leave a few doors and windows open for it to go out (sometimes looking like an idiot trying to direct it outside). I wonder how many hours of my life I've wasted away trying to direct flies back outside. If I don't get them outside some of my dogs will actually become obsessed with them and hunt them, kill them, and eat them. Like I don't feed them enough already?!
wow, Ducky, that is so cool about your grandmother and her fish!!! i'd never heard of such a thing. very awesome! :)
Dave, i agree with you. i have no doubt that fish feel pain and that we just haven't recognized how they communicate. actually i relate it to how some people (people with old-fashioned mentality) think that horses do not have emotions or feelings and are only pieces of machinery or tools simply to be used without regard to both their physical and emotional needs. anyone who spends some time watching horses closely can see that they are very expressive in what they're feeling and have a wide range of emotions: happiness, sadness, fear, anger, annoyance, terror, joy, compassion, laziness, pain of course, infinite curiosity, and they will even clown around and tease each other. they show their thoughts and feelings with minute movements like the flick or twist of an ear, the swish of a tail, cocking of a foot, wrinkle of a nostril, chewing motion of the mouth (when there's no food in it), tensing of the neck, nuzzling, or raise of the head. when those first signals are ignored is when they resort to bigger signals like bucking, kicking, rearing, bolting, biting (that fight or flight you mentioned). it's us humans who have been too stupid and arrogant to see them communicating all along, assuming they were just dumb animals when really we are the ones with the bigger brains too dumb to recognize their way of communicating. i have no doubt that's how it is with all animals, including fish. we simply haven't discovered all their ways of communicating amongst themselves and, therefore, to us.
i would like to think i wouldn't resort to eating a fish even if stranded on an island, but it's easy for me to say having never been starving either. ;) i do like 7's answer of eating whatever the animals were eating. 'course that brings up what if there wasn't enough for you and the animals too, then? it could go on and on! we'd just have to be smarter and figure out how to get off the island! ;)