Red Herrings, Dogs

I'm going to try to say this with brevity.

Regarding the Michael Vick thing. I saw some guy on FOX news the other night saying that he thought hunting was even worse than what Vick et al allegedly did to the dogs, and that therefore we should not get so excited about dog fighting in general, and we should lay off Vick specifically.

Two things: Numero Uno: Ethical evolution has to start somewhere. If we continually assert that one action is "not as bad as" or even "just like" some other action, we get no where in our development as human beings. What we should do is look closely at the action we're disturbed by, ask ourselves if it is related to another action, find the points of relationship that are relevant, look closely at those, and from that investigation consider plans of remedy. To suppress our revulsion or whatever for the initial action seems to me some species of denial, and unhealthy. Shading this FOX guy's reasoning, of course, is the logical fallacy it develops from, the old red herring that two wrongs make a right, and it amazes me that there are still people using this argument.

Numero Dos: To address the hunting issue briefly, I would only say that in my view there is humane hunting and inhumane hunting, just as there is humane animal farming and inhumane animal farming. I mean really, there is a quick death with respect for the animal, and then there is torture. Torture is always inhumane. Yes, perhaps never killing any creature is more humane, period, but the truth is we're not there yet, and it may be anyway that some of us have the physiological need to eat animals, 'cause, hey, that's how we evolved. But, is it possible that our collective ethical understanding might be at the point at which we're getting tired of torturing animals for our own convenience and entertainment? Maybe! More people are buying humanely raised and killed meat. And maybe this huge reaction to Vick's torture for entertainment of dogs is part of that consciousness raising.

And no, I can't see that this is happening because Vick is black. That argument just seems silly to me. As silly as the same argument was when it got tooted all loudly in the O.J. trial days. I, personally, am really tired of seeing awful people treated like heroes, and football seems to be a really active sphere for that sort of thing. Personally I hope Vick never plays ball again.