Random musings : Historian and cruelty to animals

I was on the train going back home from woodlands when I was thinking about one of acknowledged mysteries of the universe, "How do you earn a living with a philosophy degree?", when I thought about a similar mystery, "How do you earn a living with a history degree?" and while we are at it and I was just plain curious, "How about geography degree?"

I asked Erick about it the next day and after thinking hard for some time and exempting the teaching profesion, we could only come up with "working in a museum" for historian while geographers(?) have it easier since they can still work as site surveyors or things like that. And incredibly during this brainstorming period, I found a job for the philosophers out there. Ethics committee.

A week or two ago, I was talking to Gerald (my Malaysian friend) after OS lecture and we ended up talking about cruelty to animals. He said that as long as there're tangible benefits to human, killing animals is allowed because he said that the Bible does not forbid it. So I asked him whether the Bible forbid subjecting animal to laboratory testings (in a way torturing them) and he said no (Erick later sort of confirmed this), again as long as there are benefits for humans. He compared it with eating meat. What's the difference between killing animals for food and for experiments?

So what is really the basic principle for organizations like PETA? In the Bible (I take the Bible as a point of reference because I was talking to a devout Christian at that moment), man is given dominance over plants and animals, so does that mean we can do whatever we want to them? It seems that is the case and yet I don't feel that it's quite right. With great power comes great responsibility (the only thing I learn from reading Spiderman). So we do need to take care of them and use them responsibly. But still, the line between responsible and abusive behaviour is a very blur one and tends to shift from time to time. So how big is our circle of power extends towards the realm of animals and plants? Is killing them for food okay but torturing them is not? Or both those things are okay? Or perhaps there're another set of rules concerning our actions towards them? It seems that there is no clear answer to this, no universally accepted guidelines. Perhaps Protagoras was correct, man is the measure of all things.