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In some weird third world country, probably asia, a guy walked in on a rat eating his pet turtle. Probably after having chewed bits out of it in little mouthfuls while it was alive, as rats tend to do when they eat non-combattive animals like chickens or injured cows. The man took revenge by tying it to a cross with metal wires, leaving it outside in a public square where people would "shame" and scare the shit out of it, then he doused the still-living rat in something and burned it alive. Was he justified in doing this? Also somewhere in third world asia, multiple men have tied up rats to either burn them or flog them with sticks for eating only their rice. Was that justified? Post your thoughts and opinions here.

 

And just for fun, mix and match these possibilities here to see how your opinion changes:

 

The animal you have the opportunity to brutally punish for eating something you didn't want it to eat:

An insect

A spider

A gerbil

A rat

A fox (I can hear your ghost, James.)

A cat

A dog

A parrot

A monkey

A bear

A mountain lion

A tiger

A capybara

A child

An adult human

 

The thing you caught it eating:

Your food (your general food supply)

Your favorite food

Your computer

Your turtle

Your dog

Your cat

Your parrot

Your capybara

A monkey who was your friend

Your child

Your wife/husband

 

These are just some starters to get you thinking, feel free to add others if it makes you feel differently about the issue at hand.

Well now I only have a single scenario stuck in my head, and that's walking in on a capybara eating another capybara. It's truly conflicting, because obviously there can be no greater crime than eating a capybara, and the culprit must of course be subject to the greatest punishment possible... But that would involve tying up and burning alive a capybara... Which is also a capybara... You see my predicament.

Yeah, I don't know what I would even do in that situation. It's such a head-scratcher. The sort of thing to be pondered and debated by the scholars forevermore.

I'm gonna say no, rats aren't intelligent enough to kill their prey humanely, so the idea of punishing a rat for following its uncontrollable biological impulses is not reasonable.  Not only are you punishing the rat for something that isn't really its fault, but it's not as if you're making an example of it to the other rats either.  This isn't going to change any future rat behavior.

Also, there's always the off chance that by tying a rat to a cross and killing it you'll make it some kind of rat Jesus martyr figure and nobody wants that.

I would not attempt to tie a spider to a cross, as that just seems like it would be confusing. But if I walk in on one big enough to eat anything on the second list (including my favorite food, which is not a grasshopper) I'm exiting the building immediately and dousing the whole place with gasoline for the purposes of burning the spider alive and purifying everything it touched.

And I can't answer the original question. don't really consider third worlders as being capable of moral agency, and it seems ridiculous to hold them to the same standards as I would for a human.

If I caught anything eating a britbonger, I'd give it a medal

Justified.

The rat -- being an omnivore -- could have chosen to eat garbage or rice.  But it went out of its way to kill the living flesh in someone's own home, risking life and limb for a meal that was probably more difficult to get to than other foods.

So it makes sense for the man -- Asian or not -- to out of his way to set an example for all other rats; if any rat smells or looked like they ate another living animal, they risk suffering the same punishment.

Doing the same to a human is also justifiable, unless it's something as simple as "food" or favorite food (assuming you don't live in poverty), since foods for humans is easily replaceable.  In all other circumstances, the person that eats electronics is probably going to have silicon shards blending their insides, or they are eating a beloved companion.  Justifiable deaths, I say!

An aside: Why in the world would a capybara eat any animals or electronics?

Rats are actually very smart, so by punishing the rat and setting it as an example, that will seriously most likely prevent other rats from following it's footsteps. 

Avenging a beloved turtle is one thing, but when it comes to the ones eating rice, individually crucifying rodents is such a VERY inefficient means of pest control. They should just sacrifice some goats or something to protect their crops from the rats.

I don't consider it moral, both because the rat does not have moral agency and is incapable of understanding why it is being punished, and because the punishment is way out of proportion for the crime. If you're gonna give a rat the death penalty for a "crime", just smash it or something. Really, no justification is needed to kill rats, but animal abuse is a different (heh) animal.