[Avodah] Cruelty to animals

[Micha Berger]

On Tue, Jul 15, 2025 at 02:26:32PM -0400, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
> When Torah is accused of cruelty to animals, I often see people respond
> that shechita is totally painless to the animal. They say that the knife is
> so sharp as to be no worse than a paper cut, and that the loss of blood is
> so fast that unconsciousness follows immediately.

I don't think the Torah cares about the pain of animals. (Except for
perhaps apes or some apes, below.)

It cares about not havnig human beings who themselves don't care about
the pain of animals. And only because such people dull their sensitivity
to causing pain to humans.

I even have a theory why:

People can think about our thoughts. This is a critical feature of free
will, so that our decision making process includes the "input" of how
that process is going so far. And that we can see where in that process
things went wrong, or night, for next time.

"Meta-cognizance", thinking about our own thinking.

Animals don't have free will, so there is no reason to assume they are
metacognizant.

IOW, I reject Behaviorism, as made famous by HS teachers teaching about
BF Skinner's experiments, but only WRT humans. In animals, yes, there
is just input, thought, output, with no mental state about mental states.

Non-Torah detour:

    And in humans, metacognizance requires a properly functioning
    prefrontal cortex [PFC], which only humans have. Research now
    is where in the PFC. From the abstract of "The neural basis of
    metacognitive ability"
    <https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3318765>, for exmple:

    > ... Convergent evidence indicates that the function of the
    > rostral and dorsal aspect of the lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC)
    > is important for the accuracy of retrospective judgements of
    > performance. In contrast, prospective judgements of performance
    > may depend upon medial PFC. ...

    Of the aninals, only apes, chimps and the chimpy bodies HQBH plunked
    us into have a PFC. And there is no comparison in size or complexity
    between ours and that of chimps or apes. Way beyond the difference
    in size of the rest of the brain.

So, while an animal can experience and respond to pain, an animal cannot
experience experiencing pain. Don't ask me what that's like, I never
experienced it either. An animal cannot form the thought "I am in pain",
not because it is too complicated, but because it doesn't have the kind
of consciousness.

So, to coin terminology that may be useful in responding to and refuting
my thesis: There is "pain" without "suffering". It's just a negative
stimulus that for the sake of survival causes an avoidance response. But
those are my own definitions of "pain" and "suffering".

Returning back to Tzaar Baalei Chaim:

So the Torah isn't worried about animal pain, because one isn't causing
suffering. But...

The thing is, we can't experience each others' thoughts. We really only
know other people have mental lives is that they respond in ways we
would often enough, are made like us, so we assume they think the way
we experience our own thinking first-hand.

So we don't experience another person's suffering. We only experience
watching them in pain, and assume they suffer. If we make ourselves
capable of seeing pain and not caring, it will inevitably hurt our
empathy when it comes to humans.

So, tzaar baalei chaim is a problem "only" because the kid who pulls the
wings off flies or throws rocks at birds is far far more likely to hurt
a person some day.

Which is why is doesn't take that much utility to people to justify
causing animals pain.

The seir hamishtaleiach is certainly a more significant positive than
one person getting one shoe. A whole nation's kaparah will shod and feed
a lot of people.

But "even" pidyon peter chamor.. Not that I can understand how the way
the chamor is killed matters, but that's true of a lot of dinim (such
as chuqim in general).

But there is a purpose. The person causing the goat or donkey pain isn't
doing so for the pain itself, or simply lack of caring whether or not
pain is caused.

To get back all the way to RAM's point: I do not think this is an example
of conflicting values where another mitzvah overrides tzaar baalei
chaim. It isn't under the issur to begin with -- huterah, not dechuyah --
because the animal's pain is purposeful.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Man is capable of changing the world for the
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   better if possible, and of changing himself for
Author: Widen Your Tent      the better if necessary.
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF          - Victor Frankl, Man's search for Meaning