A month after a pig heart transplant, man works to regain strength with no rejection so far::It’s been a month since a Maryland man became the second person to receive a transplanted heart from a pig — and hospital video released Friday shows he’s working hard to recover.
As much as I love animals (more than most people I meet), as a species we must value human life over animal life to some extent. Suffering for corporate exploitation? No, that’s cruel and evil. Minimal suffering in an organism to save a human life? I wish there was a way to keep it from being sentient (so no suffering is felt), but I believe it’s a fair trade for a human life. But yes, we must always strive to minimize the suffering we cause.
Are you vegan?
Edit: ahh the sweet sweet cognitive dissonance lol
I’m not vegan, though I do recognize the issues. I have reduced my meat intake, but I’m not at zero. I’m perfectly aware I’m a hypocrite, but it doesn’t make the claim above (which I agree with but did not author) any less accurate.
So what is true of the pig that if it was also true of the human would make it morally okay to kill the human for their organs?
this is the"name the trait" line of argument and it suffers from the line-drawing fallacy.
So you can’t answer the question, got it.
there are many stops on the spectrum from pig to human, and an inability to draw a specific distinguishing line doesn’t change the fact that there is a big difference between humans and pigs.
And whats that?
there’s a whole spectrum full of differences. I don’t think I can explain the to someone who is ideologically opposed to learning.
It’s mostly about how cruely we treat food animals normally that I have an issue with. Hunting, for example, I view as a morally acceptable method to get meat. It’s natural and the animal is living a life as a natural animal should. If the pig isn’t raised cruely, I think raising them to help a person live a life is a moral good. That person took a lot of resources to get where they are, and they have the potential to do a lot of good. The pig did not take nearly as many resources to raise and does not have much, if any, capacity to do good besides by dying. Whether they should exist at all is the real question, and I’d say probably yes, again if it isn’t cruel.
Is your answer to my previous question “Potential to do good”?
If a human person was sufficiently mentally disabled to have as much or less potential to do good as the pig, would it then be morally ok to kill that person and harvest their organs?
don’t compare the mentally disabled to animals
humans are animals
comparisons don’t have to go along the value axis. Saying “mentally disabled people own more clothes than non-human animals” would be an example.
Go virtue signal somewhere else pls.
IRONY
you’re not wrong Walter, you’re just an asshole
Yeah, probably, or at least similarly equally moral. For example if they’re born without a brain, which does happen, they don’t meet the definition most people use for personhood. I don’t see what the difference would be other than they have human DNA and look similar to us, but why should that matter?
The hypothetical wasn’t about someone without a brain, just someone with as much or less potential to do good as a pig. They could still lead a happy life, having fun, enjoy being alive, etc. Is it morally ok to kill them and harvest their organs?
Potentially, sure. Somewhere along the line of literally no brain and a fully developed average person there’s a point where you will decide it’s too far. That point is going to be different for everyone.
Do you think a fully developed capable person capable of doing good and helping people is as valuable as every human along that line? Is there no point for you where you think sacrificing one person who can’t do as much to save a doctor who will go on to save thousands?
I definitely don’t value humans enough to use an animal as an incubator for a heart. It’s cruel and extremely unethical. Nothing will ever convince me otherwise that animals don’t also deserve life just the same as humans.
That’s good for your beliefs, but a useless argument for anyone who eats meat. Raising and slaughtering a pig to provide a human a heart is even more useful than raising one for its meat, and chances are that the one raised for its heart was taken much better care of before being killed.
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This only really tracks if you’re vegan, which you may be. But if we slaughter a million pigs for meat is that really any different? We already incubate them for bacon, are you really so against this that you’d let a family member die than slaughter a pig for its heart?
He’s not that against it. He’s just posturing online. Very few people, maybe 0.1%, would choose a pig’s life over their grandmother’s. (No I don’t care if your grandma was a dick. Pick another beloved family member or friend.)
Even as a vegan, it’s pretty up in the air imo. It’s well established that if your life saving medication contains animal products, you take the medication. This is more complicated for sure, but an argument can probably be made. I’m not sure what I feel about it.