Me too. I like skunks. And really you have to go past their warning before they spray. And it won’t kill you. It’s just unpleasant. Imagine if that was the only kind of weapon people used when they felt threatened. Much nicer world.
Alternative solutions… and all that. Have you looked into any?
Sure… nature looks after it’s own/it’s-self, but when it’s closer to (humanity’s) home, the infringement on such acute ecosystems/abodes is greatly magnified.
What are the other outcomes for these skunks? Starvation? A slow, painful death from disease? A vicious battle to the death with a predator?
When I think about and compare the suffering of these skunks to the suffering that has been experienced worldwide throughout human history, by animal and man alike, I can’t say it puts me in a place where I would lose sleep over it.
I started out with the position that sickness and death are unnatural.
This is a JW argument. Based on how nobody or very few like the idea of suffering, sickness and death.
It is foreign to their psyche, their sense of what should naturally be.
Death is so common in the earth’s ecosystem that it is an integrated part of it.
So this is an argument against a benevolent sane godhead.
But that isn’t the point.
A benevolent sane human is also important.
Do you think his reaction and outlook to it is relevant here?
Is he laughing maniacally before shooting these skunks, or saying a small prayer of regret with a solemn face sagging under the weight of having to extinguish another consciousness?
Haha, I get it! They are adorable, and my gut reaction is the same as yours. I personally don’t find it ethical to extinguish sentient creatures out of pleasure or sport, only necessity.
Of course, the line I draw for that is completely arbitrary, but that’s another story.
I recently learned that skunks wont worry if you leave the house.
Dogs miss their master, but skunks are independent.
They seem to be emotionally strong,
but they will still get screwy if abused.
I hope that the skunks do well in the future.
I do believe skunks share with us the same two part brain, and one of them associating odor with defensiveness proves they are not essentially aggressive.
You do realize of course that the reason you feel as you do about skunks is based largely on the particular accumulation of personal experiences in your life that predisposed you to feel this. And that had those experiences been different you might well have, instead, come to feel a loathing for them. And that in a No God world there does not appear to be a way for, among others, philosophers to determine how one ought to feel about skunks. Objectively for example.
I am of the opinion that some treat creatures other than human with the same irrevarance as they do, for some express the opinion that they are, after all God’s creations as well.
This type of argument can come closer to truth, when considering the possibility, that man with his progressive tools of adaptation to the brave new world, or New World Order, may pre-decease the cock roach , in his attempt to form a new nuclear family.
This may be fitting here, as we must be a part…
( of Nature)
And this:
“Since nature created mankind, perhaps nature is more cruel than mankind.
But sometimes nature creates something beautiful or peaceful.
It basically contradicts itself.”
I’d be tempted to fry all of that food to make it digest easier and taste better.
But maybe the raw foods people are right.
Anyways, here is a lady feeding her skunk.