Animal Euthanasia and Annihilationism

If my dog would've lived another minute or two, I would have euthanized him.  "Big Dread" (or The Clean Cut Artist Formerly Known as Big Dread) points out that there is a seeming conflict between thinking one can euthanize one's dog out of love and an argument I gave against annihilationism here.

Whereas I see no formal contradiction, Big Dread aptly points out a tension.  If euthanizing one's dog who is suffering can be a loving action, then why think that God's annihilating someone cannot also be an act of love? 

Here is, then, an argument that annihilation can be a loving action:

1. Killing a dog is bringing about the dog's nonexistence.
2. Bringing about something's nonexistence is relevantly similar to annihilation such that there's no moral difference.
3. Loving is a moral action.
4. Killing a dog can be a loving action.
5. Thus, annihilating can be a loving action.

I accept 1.  A dog cannot survive death except by resurrection.  If a dog is resurrected it will have a "gappy" existence.  I also accept 2 and 3.  4 is the questionable premise.

Can I love my dog by killing my dog?


In the heat of the moment, it can certainly FEEL like it.  It feels like a loving action.  But feeling love towards someone or something is consistent with performing an action from that feeling which is not itself a loving action.  One can feel that one is loving someone by doing a certain action but one could be mistaken that the action is actually good for the person and one could instead  cause great harm to the person.  And I maintain that a necessary condition of a loving action towards another is that it be good for that person (or thing).

Or--hedging my bets--perhaps the proper way to think about it is as follows: An action which is performed out of love but which is not (overall) good for someone or something is an action which is an imperfect (or defective) act of love.

So is killing your dog, good for your dog?  At best, it is an imperfect act of love, since the result is not good for the dog (for the same reasons given in the link above).  Perhaps, though, we might think that it is neither better nor worse for humans to euthanize dogs (which would help explain the moral dilemma one feels--or should feel--in such a situation).  Moreover, it seems that it is not unjust to euthanize a dog.  Perhaps there is a true human dilemma in such cases and to euthanize or to suffer with until the end are both morally equivalent.

But God is perfect.  And God does not act imperfectly.