Can leather be ethical? - Page 6

A while ago I was thinking about getting a leather jacket made from Aero and upon receiving a leather sample called 'seal' I sent them an email regarding treatment of animals. This was there reply

"The leathers come from Cows, Horses and sheep..

The cows and sheep are used for food products and the skins are a by-product
of that...

The horse skins we use are from horses that die of natural causes only..

We don't use skins of animals that have solely been used for leather
manufacturing..

We don't use ANY endangered species and wouldn't make anything for anyone
even if they approached us with this..

Seal is just a colour, the leather is dyed.."

I dislike leathers from animals killed purely for their hide and when we wear them we create an environment for demand so I try my best to have nothing to do with them (although i suppose one could also argue how well you wear the leather, I think most exotic leathers are a bit of a turn off personally.)

I think recycled or vintage leather products are definately okay. Alot of fair trade stores also sell "No Kill" leather products like these.

Leather has smaller carbon footprint than wool, cotton and all the synthetics, plus by putting the bugger to death you reduce methane emissions! Kill a cow (or sheep) for the UNFCCC!

The thing that bothers me the most about all of this (aside from the fact that such posts are a little like waving a red hanky at an enraged bull) is the indifferent, almost willful, disconnect. Some are all too ready to wear used shoes or leather harvested from animals that died of "natural causes" (nevermind that the most natural death that can be experienced by any creature is the stopping of the heart--regardless of the proximate cause of that stoppage) without a recognition that such shoes don't fluoresce or mark their provenance to the casual observer in any way. Thus they create demand as surely as a new shoe or leather harvested solely for the hide. But somehow it's "more better." Or the disconnect about fur and leather...fur is leather. It's simply leather with the hair left on. An animal has died. In all likelihood there was actually no more pain, fear or suffering in its demise that there was for the meat animal. Bottom line is that both animals were killed to harvest resources that humans need, can use and whose characteristics cannot be duplicated or even emulated without raising serious questions about the costs to the environment. And yet somehow those costs are dismissed or considered acceptable ...all in the service of keeping our hands "clean"--both actually and metaphorically. Or the disconnect about which animals are OK to kill. I suspect some people have this hierarchy of disdain for life--it's way OK to kill an insect or a spider. Or a snake or an alligator. But not a seal or a horse or even...if only to reduce squalor and or disease...a "wee timorous beastie" (so cute...and destructive) such as a field mouse cum house mouse. A rat with its "scaly tail" (shudder) doesn't receive near as much love as its smaller cousin. The more an animal seems alien to us--the cockroach, for instance--the less our sympathies are invoked. The "cuddlier," the younger, the bigger the eyes, the softer and furry-er, the more we tear up at the thought of killing it. Or the disconnect about how much or what part of the animal is used. Do we eat or skin the mouse? Is it ethical to kill the mouse just to get it out of our sight/ houses? There is an apparent hypocrisy...or at least a critical contradiction in the logic such people employ and live by. And I suspect it is in such contradictions that whatever "ethical" dilemmas are at issue, arise. The "ethics" become troublesome when you can't resolve the environmental trade-off satisfactorily and you have to close your mind to the real issues. They become troublesome when you know at some gut level that to denigrate one life form is to denigrate all. Troublesome when it begins to seep into the conscious that there is no distinction between "used" leather and new leather. No distinction between the alligator and the seal in terms of "right to life" or what they perceive their lives are worth. And that to continue on requires more and more excuses and the bolstering of ideas that simply will not stand the light of reason.

Ultimately, no! I am feasting on a rather nice game pie as I type this, however.

While I disagree, or at least find a lot of what you say about this topic nonsensical, I'll focus on this... How is it unethical to eat meat or use leather from an animal that one hasn't killed unethical?

Reading 101: What I said was that it was unethical to eat meat or use leather if you have "never participated in the killing and butchering of an animal." The difference between what I said and what you read is significant and critical. If you have never killed and yet eat meat or use leather, all you are doing is shifting the ethical onus to someone else...along with the blood, dirt and noisome odours. The price a responsible individual pays for his meat or leather is to be more than a passive witness to the sacrifice that the animal has made. Washing your hands of distasteful chores, distasteful realities or shifting the burden to someone else, is never ethical. In the end, if you don't get the difference or cannot read well enough to comprehend ...and accurately speak to...what I've said, I am not surprised that you would find it nonsensical.

Just a few thoughts from reading people's posts - Factory farms are pretty damn cruel to animals. I don't know exactly what the regulations are in the US for livestock living standards, but I understand that they are lower than in the UK and factory farms are more common. Farms that stick to only the lowest legal standards in the UK are fairly unpleasant. DWFII is correct though in asserting that slaughterhouses generally go a long way to avoid stressing the animals or prolonging their death as it ruins the meat. It is perfectly possible to live a healthy, and active, lifestyle without eating meat and without a lot of supplements. For much of our history meat was only eaten occasionally by most people, or as a flavouring/part of a larger dish. However it is a bit more work finding the right food and eating a balanced diet and it probably requires quite a shift away from a typical modern diet. I wouldn't do it. Just because we have evolved eating meat and animals 'naturally' kill each other doesn't mean it is right for us to kill animals. Just because we don't need to kill animals for meat or hide any more doesn't make it wrong. Also I think it is silly to say it is unethical to eat meat or wear animal products if you haven't been involved in killing animals. Although I do think to be ethically consistent people who do those things should be prepared, at least hypothetically, to kill animals. For what it is worth I grew up in the country and I have killed animals both with guns and up close, both wild ones and domestic.

You know I think people should be able to make their own choices about meat and leather. I would prefer that those choices, and the logic behind them, were internally consistent...especially before they start "preaching the gospel." But I think that the fact that we have a choice at all is a good sign for our civilization. If you don't want to eat meat...don't eat meat. But don't kid yourself that leather...any kind of leather...is somehow exempt or a different product. If you want to eat meat...eat it and enjoy. But do it with the certain knowledge that a life has been ended so that you can. And the only way to fully grasp the implications and fully understand what eating meat and wearing leather entails is to participate in the process, at least once in your life. As for whether it is unethical or not to eat meat or wear leather without having killed for your supper, how ethical is it to willfully go through life not even knowing or caring to find out where meat comes from? There was a scientific study done sometime ago that asserted that a large percentage of people who live in urban environments have no knowledge whatsoever of the provenance of the meat they are eating...except that it comes in a little white styrofoam tray and is covered with clear plastic. Again, in my opinion, it is unethical to blithely partake of the by-products of an animal's life and/or death and the sacrifice that it made...without having been there. If that seems silly to some, so be it. Regardless of your stance on this issue, it is a result of the cycle of life. To ignore it or to do everything in your power to skim the gravy and never pay the tab is as far from harmony, or ethics, as I can imagine.

^ I think it is desirable that people who use animal products see where it has come from, not going to disagree with you there. I would like teenagers to have to visit farms and slaughterhouses at school. The big problem with farming today is the distance between the consumer and the original source of their food. This means both farming and the food preparation that comes after have become too industrialised and things are done in making our food many would find shocking, but due to that distance people remain ignorant. However I think the problems most people today would have with actually killing an animal would have far more to do with squeamishness than any reasoned ethical position which is why I said beyond being hypothetically prepared to kill animals it is not an ethical problem. Squeamishness and disgust are not ethical values, just a response to something people are not used to. I do understand where you are coming from on this though.

^ Sure and I agree...up to a point. I'll tell you a story that informed my thinking some 40 years ago... I lived on a small piece of property when my wife and I were first married. We raised chickens and geese and hogs and goats and rabbits--small "homestead" as it was called back then. We "husbanded" them, we slaughtered and butchered them. Next place over lived a young man and his wife and children. They were what was known back then as "hippies." And held views not too dissimilar to what we hear in this discussion. One day the husband accidentally backed over one of his childrens kittens, crushing the lower spine and hind quarters. His children were crying, my children were crying, the kitten was crying...piteously. It was clearly in pain. But the neighbor could not bring himself to put the little thing out of its misery. Not only was he too "squeamish," he couldn't dirty his hands. So he came next door to ask me to do it. It was a sad task. I am sensible and sympathetic to the suffering of other creatures and I love little kittens as much as the next person. It was one time in my life when I came closest to going ballistic on another person and smashing their face in. If you're too squeamish to kill you should be too squeamish to eat. Because in the end it is the same thing. Placing the responsibility for killing another living creature on someone else is not ethical. It is, in fact, the antithesis of ethics. "Do your own dirty work" is the essence of ethical behaviour.

Very good point...

I don't judge people even if I hate seeing animals being killed...

I'm not a hypocrit and I love eating meat ,lobster ,wearing leather shoes and so on...

The fact I'm asking somebody else to do it for me is taking away my right to deliver a moral judgement on this particular subject...

I'm not keen on war but I have been a year in the military and I know why I hate it..

Counterexample: a psychopathical serial killer (e.g. Buffalo Bill) who hunts, kills and then eats his victims is ETHICAL, because he participates in the hunting process, and thus retains the ethical portion.

In a developed world, everyone shifts responsibilities onto someone else because it is not efficient to do everything alone. THe reason for the industrial revolution and people were crammed into specialized factories is becuase of economy of scale and centralizing skills. Barely anyone would be able to kill, tan and then process leather. This now constitutes to job and income for at least 3 people in different industries (hunting, tanning and leathermaking).

:101 Stick your snark right up your ass. I understand completely what you're saying and the difference between what I said and what you said is almost nil. Basically, if a person has never participated in the killing of (what you said) - or killed (what I said) an animal yet they wear leather or eat meat they're being unethical? Lol! You have quite an imagination. Good luck applying this philosophy to the killing of animals or anything else for that matter.

I don't think that you even have to say the bolded. Even when man / our ancestors hunted animals (if they did), not everyone "participated" in the process.

While I disagree with our society's objectification, ignorance of, and mistreatment of animals , DDTFU's whole idea is silly and preposterous and misses any point completely.