The notion of deriving pleasure from violence toward animals is repulsive to us; so how can we justify harming animals for the taste of their flesh? How can it be wrong to harm for pleasure in one instance, and not the other? The same reasons that compel us to oppose dog fighting compel us to abstain from killing animals we don’t need to eat: namely, that it is wrong to harm animals for pleasure, and it is wrong to kill animals for pleasure. To harm animals for pleasure is also, ultimately, to harm ourselves. Constantly acting in opposition to our own core values deforms our hearts — and it diminishes our integrity, and hinders our emotional and moral growth. Day after day, and year after year, our lives can be seen as the culmination of thousands of instances in which, equally assured of nourishment and pleasure, we had the opportunity to choose kindness and mercy, or to choose violence and selfishness. What can it mean for caring people to regularly reject compassionate choices that cost them next to nothing, and to instead embrace unnecessary violence that costs its victims, literally, everything? To do so is to destroy kindness in our hearts. It’s a simple equation. Every time we put food in our mouths, we reinforce a value. When we choose, over and over, to activate apathy and selfishness in ourselves, we become different people than the people we would have become had we chosen instead to cultivate compassion and mercy.” ―Ashley Capps (s)
Posted on: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 21:16:42 +0000
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