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HUMANE MYTH
GLOSSARY:
Suffering



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 HUMANE MYTH GLOSSARY
Abolition
Animal advocacy
Animal husbandry
Animal protection
Animal rights
Animal welfare
Animal welfare industrial complex
Animal-using industries
Co-option
Commodification
Conflict of Interest
Conscience
Conscientious objection
Critical thinking
Cruelty-free
Disillusionment
Doctrine of necessary evil
Happy Meat
Hogwashing
Humane myth
Humane slaughter
Neocarnism
Non-participation and Non-cooperation
Non-violent social change
Open Rescue
Path of Conscience
Plant-based diet
Privilege of domination
Speciesism
Suffering
Sustainable
Utilitarianism
Values-based activism
Vegan
 






Suffering

The mental experience associated with physical and emotional pain, hunger, thirst, excess temperature, illness, isolation, crowding, mutilation, and so on.

Common Misuse: Some animal advocates influenced by utilitarianism justify their chosen strategy for helping animals on the basis that it will "reduce suffering" more than other approaches. The problem is that this usage implies that suffering, a mental experience, can be quantified or measured. It would be no more sensible to argue for one law over another because the favored law will "increase love" more than the other.

Because concepts such as suffering or love are subjective, the use of them in ways that appear to be objective or scientific can serve the purpose of rationalizing nearly anything. This error can become extreme when speaking of "reducing the suffering of billions of animals," which, though a noble aspiration, does not refer to anything that can actually be measured or verified. Does being confined for years in a small wire cage hold "more suffering" than being crowded together with thousands of others in a dark, filthy shed? Is one form of abject misery "better" than another form of abject misery? No one knows. Other animals are individuals, just like humans. They each suffer in their own way, based on their individual personalities, life histories, and physiology.