[Avodah] torture in halacha???

[hankman]

> On 15/05/2012 4:40 PM, hankman wrote:
>> think you need to define “for no purpose,” wrt tzaar baalei chayim
>
> RZS reponded:
> It is permitted to pluck a feather from a living bird in order to make
> a pen. This is something that no decent human being would actually do,
> but it is not forbidden under the rubric of tzaar baalei chayim, because
> the intent is not the bird's suffering but to obtain the feather, and
> the bird's suffering is merely "psik reisha". (For that matter,
>
> CM responds:
> This didn't respond to the question. I didn't ask for an example of 
> purposeful - I asked how you define (or at least a couple of examples of) 
> non-purposeful.

RZS responded:

How is it not obvious?  The issur is where the animal's pain is the
purpose, and not where it's just the unintended effect.  For Shabbos
psik reisha negates davar she'eino miskaven; for TzBCh it doesn't.

CM responds:
Not obvious to me. If the purpose is fulfilling my satisfaction, need or 
desire (which must be why I am doing this) then why is that not purposeful - 
and that will always be the case? That was the point of that list of cases 
in the previous post. what is the difference between my DESIRE for food, 
money, joy in a horn trophy on my wall,  warped psychological joy or need to 
see pain. The purpose will always be my satisfaction from the pain not the 
pain itself.

Kol tuv
Chaim Manaster